Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the
Liberty and Leadership Podcast,
a conversation with TFAS alumni,faculty and friends who are
making an impact.
Today I'm your host, roger Ream.
Today, I'm delighted to bejoined by Kyle Mann, the
editor-in-chief of the BabylonBee.
Kyle is a comedian, satirist,writer and podcast host who
(00:25):
fearlessly blends humor into hishot takes.
At the Babylon Bee, which is asatirical news site, he writes
and publishes articles on topicsthat include politics, current
events, censorship and wokenessin comedy and Wokeness in Comedy
(00:47):
.
Kyle has authored orco-authored numerous books,
including his latest title, thePostmodern Pilgrim's Progress,
an Allegorical Tale.
In addition to being anaccomplished comedian and writer
, kyle is a sought-after publicspeaker and he recently joined
us at our annual conference inNaples, florida.
Kyle, welcome to the Libertyand Leadership podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, thanks for
having me on.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
For those who aren't
as familiar with the Babylon Bee
, could you first talk a littlebit about the origin story of
the enterprise?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, the Babylon Bee
was launched in March of 2016,.
So right in the smack middle ofthe primaries that ended up
being won by Trump and Hillaryand it was a tumultuous time in
politics, especially forconservatives and Christians who
didn't know.
You know what was going on,with Trump all of a sudden
gaining all this ground in theprimaries Christian webcomic for
(01:46):
some years.
And it gained ground.
You know it was fairly popularin like the hardcore reformed
Christian circles and you knowhe saw through the years Onion
headlines and recognized theincisive power of satire to
communicate a point.
You know, so you can read theselike short headlines that are
70 characters long or 80characters long and sometimes
they have more impact and cancommunicate a point so much more
(02:07):
succinctly than you know reallylong blog pieces or debates or
these longer forms which youknow obviously are important.
But humor has a very uniquepower to get to the point
quickly and make it in a waythat's whimsical and
approachable and funny and wittyand all these things.
So he always kind of wantedsomething like that that was
written from a more conservativeor middle of the road
perspective, because a lot ofthe comedy had gone you know
(02:31):
more leftist, and so that ideabounced around in his head for
years and finally, march 2016,he launched it and I jumped on
board on day one as head writerand eventually took over as
editor in chief and a part ownerof the site.
So it's been a real whirlwindand it's grown just kind of
virally and organically throughall these.
You know, nine years of ourexistence now.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I've heard you talk
at our Naples conference a
little bit about how you gotconnected, but what was your
wife's reaction when you toldher?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Well, I had a
full-time job in the
construction sales industry.
I had a nice salaried job whereI was going in the office 12
hours a day or whatever andworking with construction guys
and trying to get constructionprojects through.
And you know it was intensive.
Anybody who's been in sales orthe construction industry you
know how intensive it can be.
But personally, you know Ialways had comedy just as an
outlet, as a lot of people dolike, using your sense of humor
(03:19):
in the middle of the trenches tokind of cope in some ways and
get you through the day.
And I think we had just boughtour first house.
I was in the heat of it withthis intense sales job.
I'd been there for 12 years andmy wife we had just moved into
our new house and I came homefrom work and I was all beat and
I was like there's this newwebsite called the Bambalong Bee
and I wonder if I could do thatfor my career.
(03:40):
And she's kind of like you knowwhat, if you could do it like I
support you, but I'm sure youknow in her head she's doing the
numbers like you write jokes onthe internet, that's gonna make
money, like that's actuallygonna make money, are you sure?
You know, I think it was abouttwo years later because I was
basically part time.
You know, I was just writingfor the site part time for a
couple years or two years laterwe took the leap and went full
(04:01):
time with it and took over andall that stuff.
And you know, it was a realleap of faith from a financial
perspective, like you're reallyrolling the dice, going from
like a stable, salaried careerwith all the benefits to like
I'm going off on my own andwe're going to like jumpstart
this business.
But she's been great andsupportive and it's paid off,
you know.
So obviously guys can't do thatkind of thing without support
from their family and from agreat wife like mine.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Let me go right into
asking the question that I most
want to ask, and that is how doyou come up with such
outstanding material every day,throughout the day?
Or does it write itself, giventhe crazy times we live in?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah well, I mean,
you'd think so, right, you'd
think it would write itself.
It's work.
I'm sure it's work.
It's work.
And it's hard to the degree thattrying to write something
that's more absurd than reallife is difficult.
You know it's a blessing and acurse.
You have a target, richenvironment, for sure.
You know there's alwayssomething to tell a joke about.
But you're just like competingwith the rapid pace at which our
(04:53):
society gets more and moreabsurd each and every day.
So jokes that we write lastweek come true this week, you
know, and you're just barelystaying ahead of reality.
So we're awaiting the satire.
Reality, singularity, where itall merges.
It's an interesting creativeprocess.
I'm sure it's unique to the waythat our headlines are
formulated.
It's almost equal parts, like abolt of lightning from on high
(05:16):
that gives you a funny idea.
And honing the craft andlearning what works and what
doesn't, and collaborating withothers.
You know we have a great andvery funny group of writers who
love to bounce off each other.
You know we'll do in-personmeetings at our Southern
California office where we jokearound, and then we have a lot
of writers that are scatteredall over the country that are
pitching headlines in our groupchat so you just have a constant
(05:39):
flood from that.
Like, a lot of times someonewill pitch a joke and it's like
is there a nugget of somethingthere that we can then, you know
, craft and chisel down intolike the core essence of the
great joke, you know?
So those are probably myfavorite are the really
collaborative jokes, wheresomeone has a core idea and
someone else comes along andpunches it up.
It's such a fun thing.
I always try to remind myselfif I'm ever stressed out or you
(06:00):
know.
I just try to remind myself howgood I have at being able to do
this kind of thing for a living.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And you take
submissions from the public.
Sometimes, I think and youcredit people and you show,
occasionally at least, how youhave edited the submissions.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, on occasion
we'll get somebody like
completely random, you know,from the outside, that will
submit a headline that might getpublished.
But most commonly, if we'republishing something from the
outside, we have payingsubscribers who fund the site
basically voluntarily, for, youknow, five bucks a month, 10
bucks a month, whatever it is,and one of the benefits of that
is that they get to pitchheadlines to the writers, you
(06:37):
know.
So it's a little bit like payus and you can do work for us,
but at the same time it's funfor them.
Like there's a whole communityof these subscribers who just
love all day long joking, or,you know, they've almost formed
their own writer's room and sowe'll publish those and we'll
show how we take that joke.
And you know, like if you'renot a professional comedy writer
, you might have strong coreideas but not really know how to
(06:58):
like really get it down to thatsuccinct headline style voice,
and so our writers will thentake it and massage it and mold
it and get into something that'spublishable.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
You mentioned a few
minutes ago that it's a target
rich environment.
At the Fund for AmericanStudies we do a lot of economic
education, trying to teach highschool and college students the
economic way of thinking, and Iwas saying to someone yesterday
that with the tariffs that havebeen imposed, it's a target rich
environment for teachingeconomics, and they responded
that well, that's what GeneralCuster said when he looked out
(07:28):
at Little Bighorn it's atarget-rich environment right
before he got massacred.
And speaking of gettingmassacred, the Babylon Bee has
been censored.
It's been fact-checked.
You've had to go through a lotover the years.
Let's talk first about thecensorship you faced.
Could you speak to that andinteractions that you had with
Elon Musk?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
We have faced
censorship challenges since the
beginning.
I mean, like, right away, youknow, I mentioned that I had
left my sales job in order to dothe satire thing and right in
the middle of that transition wegot a message from Facebook
saying that we are under threatof being deplatformed and
demonetized due to sharing fakenews on Facebook.
And the specific post thatoffended was like CNN purchases
(08:11):
industrial sized washing machineto spin the news.
That was the joke.
That went too far and so, likeyou can kind of see the
absurdity there of you know notthat there aren't concerns about
people that can't distinguishsatire from reality or like that
.
There are legitimately fakenews sites out there trying to
trick people or whatever.
But we were getting lumped inwith those kinds of fake news
(08:32):
sites when it was very clearlyhumor and satire and we've had
dozens and dozens of our jokesfact checked.
So our first real run in waswith the fact checkers and that
kind of spiraled because thefact checkers work with the
social media sites and that'sall propped up by mainstream
media and it's funded by thegovernment sometimes you know,
(08:52):
and so this and this all kind ofcame out years later that there
was this big cabal of thesepeople that were working
together to silence free speechon the internet, and when we
were one of the targets, themost famous example, as you
alluded to, was X suspending us,locking us out of our account
for a joke about Rachel Levine,and we decided not to back down
and that we wouldn't self-censor.
You know, we're going to goahead and leave our post up and
(09:14):
it's a joke and I don't think asociety that silences people for
I want to say opinions, butit's not even opinion like humor
, it's humor, it's absolutely.
It's like it's 100% humor andit was alluding to like
biological reality, likebiological truth and facts.
You know was the point that thejoke was making.
It's not like we said someinsane, crazy opinion which I
(09:35):
still don't think should becensored.
But you know it was like veryclearly, you know where you're
in a society where you can'tabide humor anymore.
That's a scary place to be whenthe government silencing the
comedians, you know.
So we decided not to back downand Elon Musk ended up
contacting us, talking to us andthen buying Twitter.
When he went into Twitterheadquarters that November, the
first instructive he had wasfree the Babylon Bee, you know.
(09:59):
So it's like wow.
And you look at the 2024election and it's like would
Trump have won if Twitter wasn'ta place for free speech?
If the liberals had controlledevery social media site?
Maybe not, you know.
So it's kind of humbling andhonoring.
You know, it's a little bit ofan honor to maybe have played a
little bit of part in them.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I wondered if you've
ever been fact-checked and found
your humor to be judged as true.
Sometimes, sometimes a fewmonths later, it becomes true.
Something you're joking abouttoday turns out to be true
tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
There's definitely
jokes that they fact check and
they say, oh, false.
And then I'm kind of thinkingabout, I'm like, well, it's kind
of false.
But you know we did one thatwas like Trump says I have done
more for Christianity than Jesus, and you know they found it
false.
He never said that but then,like I don't know, a year later
he kind of like got pretty closeto saying that.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And so.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
I always thought
about contacting Snopes and
asking him to go back and revisethe rating.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You mentioned the
origins being Christian or
faith-based and some of yourhumor is definitely in that
territory.
Have you ever been criticizedby Christian groups for
offending them or any of yourhumor offending them?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, it comes in a
few different stripes.
Any criticism from Christiangroups, like our core audience
is still that Christian audienceand that's where we started and
we still publish, you know,church jokes and religious humor
jokes every day because youknow that's kind of our passion
to some degree.
We stumbled into the politics,we were more right in just the
little niche jokes for theChristian audience at first.
(11:26):
But the criticism fromChristian groups comes from like
one of three different places.
You either have kind of thestereotype of the old church
lady who's you know you can'tlaugh about these.
Things like these aren't thingsto joke about and I always
listen to the old church lady somaybe sometimes we do go too
far.
They're wiser than I am usually.
And then the other it's peoplethat have a very specific pet
(11:48):
topic or pet issue in theologyor, like you know, you make fun
of their denomination.
You make fun of the Baptistsand they're a hardcore Baptist
and they get offended, eventhough some of our writers are
Baptists, hardcore Catholic.
You make a Catholic joke, theyget offended, they get offended.
So it's like that's the otherthing.
And then and then you have thevery early on the progressive
movement within Christianitykind of realized oh, these guys
(12:08):
aren't on our team, and so theyvery quickly turned on us.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
You have branched out
into film and other projects
now.
I think your first film wasJanuary 6th, the most deadliest
day.
Could you talk a little bitabout the branching out that
you're doing?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
deadliest day.
Could you talk a little bitabout the branching out that
you're doing?
Yeah, that's you know, for along time I mean ever since Adam
and I launched the site in 2016, we've been having talks with
studios and individuals andpeople in Hollywood who you know
see the potential for Babylon Bto do film and shows and stuff
like that, and we've always heldour cards very close to our
chest and that we don't want toexpand into that too quickly.
(12:44):
We want to do the right thingand do the right project for us
and do it well, and so finally,last year we did make our first
movie January 6th the MostDeadliest Day and we made it
ourselves with our own fantasticvideo production crew.
We released it for subscriberson our platform, so it's people
that support the Babylon Beatgot to watch the movie for free
and then eventually, I think, weput it up on Twitter, on X, and
(13:06):
then we we also released theDVD for it.
But it was a blast, Like wekind of adapted this format,
influenced by mockumentaries anddocumentaries and then the Kunk
on Earth series that's onNetflix, and like the concept of
a satirical documentary was soperfect for us.
You know, it's a fun format.
You're communicating trueinformation but you're coming at
(13:27):
it from the other angle, fromthe satirical angle.
So I play a journalist who'sinvestigating and I'm talking to
real experts who are going tosay you know true things or say
their opinion, but I'm askingthem the stupidest questions
you've ever heard in your lifeand they're playing along.
Like you know.
They're being very serious.
So it's so much fun.
It was a blast to make and itwas a great stepping stone for
(13:50):
us, you know.
So we're working on now whatmaybe is our next documentary,
as well as more shows and movies.
And, like you know, I see aworld where, five to 10 years
from now, we're the like the oldnational lampoon of movies,
where we're putting them outevery year and you're always
looking forward to the nextBabylon Bee production.
We would love for that tohappen.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
A lot of your humor
is retweeted, often by
celebrities.
Have you noticed any?
Have any celebrities retweetedthat have caught your attention?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, you have caught
your attention.
Yeah, you know we interact withpeople all the time that share
our stuff and like, very, Ithink early on, we were seeing
like one of the early big boostsin our reach was when, like Ben
Shapiro started sharing ourstuff on a daily basis and so
that was like, oh okay, likethat's when we really started
picking up steam with thepolitical crowd, you know, and
then sometimes you make fun of acelebrity and then they'll
(14:35):
share it.
It's really funny whensomething like that happens and
then, just in the politicalcircles, it's pretty crazy to
see the reach.
Donald Trump just recentlyshared another Babylon Bee
article.
He shared one five or six yearsago when he was in office.
At the time, it wasn't clear ifhe knew it was satire, if he
knew that it was fake.
Do you remember what it was?
(14:55):
I think it was during theelection, right before the 2020
election, when everybody wasbanning that Hunter Biden laptop
story.
Yeah, yeah.
And we had a joke because Ithink Twitter went down or
something like Twitter serverswent down for a day.
We joked like Twitter shutsdown servers to make sure no one
shares the Hunter Biden laptopstory or something like that,
and then he shared it like crazythis is crazy, yeah, and he did
(15:17):
one.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It like crazy, this
is crazy, you know.
Yeah, and he did one recentlyas well.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
He shared the genius.
Trump leaks war plans to theAtlantic, so no one will ever
see them.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
That's a good one.
I missed that one.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, so he shared
that and we were so funny.
It's just constantentertainment.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
You had a great one
just a week and a half ago, I
think it was, that a judge wasordering Trump to return the
astronauts to the space station,which I thought you know was a
great satire on what we'reseeing in the courts these days.
But are you able, just kind ofoff the top of your head, to
share some of your favoriteposts that you guys have done?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
You know, as a writer
you're always excited about the
next one, like you're alwaysexcited about the one you're
working on next.
Like you know, it's like kindof a what have you done for me
lately?
Thing.
You know, like you write one,you get about something but
doesn't know how to express itand then you kind of throw the
hand grenade in the middle andthen you're, you know, people
start sharing it.
It helps people feel lessanxiety about the topic, have a
little more hope for the future,laugh at things a little bit,
(16:32):
take themselves a little bitless seriously.
And then two like we're makinga good point but people hadn't
figured out how to like sharethat point or express that point
themselves.
It makes them feel like they'renot alone.
It gives them something toshare and talk about on a
discussion.
Point One we repost every year.
That always does well.
On April Fool's Day, we alwaysshare.
The CNN publishes a real newsstory for April Fool's Day and
(16:55):
that always is classic.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, you know, a few
years ago, I guess Jerry
Seinfeld comes to mind saying hedoes not going to go perform on
college campuses anymorebecause people can't take his
humor.
People get offended too easilyand they get censored and I
applaud you for what you'redoing because I do think in some
sense comedy's been underthreat for offending and we had
(17:18):
such a push for politicalcorrectness that it takes
courage, I think, for peoplelike the Babylon Bee and for
other comedians to be willing toput themselves out there with
humor, because you never knowwhat will offend.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
No, you're absolutely
right, and that's like you do
end up in this place in societywhere you know, cancel culture
was a big thing.
I think it's going away alittle bit.
Political correctness was a bigthing.
I think it's going away alittle bit.
Political correctness was a bigconversation for a long time.
I think it's going away alittle bit.
But yeah, you had people likethe comedians were the last ones
, like they're the ones standingup and saying, hey, comedy is
comedy, like it's good.
It's good for the nation to beable to laugh and it's an
(17:50):
important avenue for free speech.
It's super important to protectcomedy.
So I'm glad that comedians onboth sides of the aisle were
able to kind of come togetherand push against that cancel
culture stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
I think we're at a
moment where the established
media is kind of rethinkingtheir role.
There have been a lot ofchanges.
The White House has opened upthe press corps.
We had the same Naplesconference you were at.
Ari Fleischer was there who wasPresident Bush's press
secretary, and he said when hewas in the White House in 2001,
2002, he had someone on hisstaff look at the voter
(18:21):
registrations of the White Housepress corps and at the time it
was 12 to 1 Democrat versusRepublican.
So he was encouraged with whatTrump is doing to allow
podcasters and other media, newmedia, into the press corps to
ask questions.
Has the Babylon Bee beeninvited in yet to cover the
White House press briefing?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
You know we did apply
.
We applied for presscredentials.
I don't know what has come ofit, but we did apply.
Imagine like how much fun thatwould be to have like a
satirical news site at the WhiteHouse, why not?
You know, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
We really appreciate
what you're doing, appreciate
that you came to Naples.
It was wonderful to have youthere.
You had our donors and alumnirolling in the aisles, I think
with all the examples you shared, I know some who've told me
they've subsequently subscribedto the Bee, who hadn't been
subscribers before.
And what do you see in thefuture?
Beside your filmmaking, do youhave other plans you can share
(19:14):
with us today?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
You know it's always
trying to find that next thing
like that, next like what'scoming up in the wave of the
comedic space and trying to findgaps.
You know it's like any businessto Sundegger, where you're
trying to find those marketneeds that nobody's addressing,
and I think there's still somany of them in the creative
space for freedom-minded people,libertarians, conservatives,
christians.
You know there's a lot of holesthere that aren't being filled.
(19:36):
So that's kind of what we'relooking at.
You know, when it comes to theshows, shows and films is like
what would be the next logicalstep for us to expand there and
then seeing, like where peopleare consuming comedy now and how
that's changing.
You know we put out a lot ofcomedy sketches on YouTube and
they're fun and a lot of themhave done really, really well.
At the same time, you look atthe landscape.
It's like kids are watchingseven second videos on TikTok.
(19:57):
You know that's the attentionspan.
You know you obviously want topush against that and you want
to say like hey, let's get ouryouth consuming longer form
content.
At the same time, you have togo to those places and figure
out like how is comedy changing?
And I've been actually reallyimpressed when you look at
TikTok comedians, the art formof taking a joke and turning it
into a five second video with noproduction cost is, I mean, it
(20:20):
is an art form, you know like.
It has its limitations and it'sprobably going to destroy the
minds of all our youth, but froma creative perspective it's
been really interesting to seethat whole new form.
You know so trying to figurethat stuff out as us old guys
try to figure out what a TikTokis.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Kyle, thanks for
being with us today on the
Liberty and Leadership podcast.
Thanks for all you're doing onbehalf of free speech for
preserving comedy in our culture.
We love the Babylon Bee andthank you so much for your time
today.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Well, thank you guys,
thank you guys for everything
you do as well.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Thank you for
listening to the Liberty and
Leadership Podcast.
If you have a comment orquestion, please drop us an
email at podcast at tfasorg, andbe sure to subscribe to the
show on your favorite podcastapp and leave a five-star review
.
Liberty and Leadership isproduced at Podville Media.
I'm your host, roger Ream, anduntil next time, show courage in
(21:14):
things, large and small.