Emily Horne has the wildly impressive resume of a Keri Russell character: National Security Council Spokesperson and Senior Press Director (Biden Administration), State Dept. Spokesperson and Press Advisor (Obama Administration), aaaand Head of Global Policy Communications at Twitter (not X, never X), among many other cool as hell roles. She has since founded her own strategic comms firm and writes Spin Class on Substack, theoretically also finding time to eat, sleep, parent, and generously answer questions for us here about how the fuck we wade through the mess of information we wake up to–often in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat.

Thank you so much for being here. I can’t wait to talk about our (dying? resurrectable?) media ecosystem with you–and how we make sense of it all.

I’m so glad to be here! I’m a big Hot Tip fan.

Trump 2 is very different from Trump 1, which was deeply insane and horrible, but had some adults at the table to force a tiny side of vegetables with all the bullshit. But now it’s just deep fried Big Macs and Kash Patel-branded whiskey. How different does the quality of information we’re getting feel to you, as someone whose job it was to communicate with the press and the public?

It’s utterly overwhelming and so gross. The infamous Steve Bannon edict to “flood the zone” with shit has become standard operating procedure, and as a result so many people have given up trying to make sense of it and are tuning out—which, as someone who spends an unhealthy amount of time consuming news, I get. And it’s not just quality of information: the scale of what constitutes news or outrage has been completely upended. When everything is a scandal, nothing is a scandal.

To put it another way: Picture a bedroom where everything is tidy and clean, but the bed is unmade. Your eyes go straight to it, and all you can see is the unmade bed. But imagine a second bedroom where, yes, the bed is unmade, but there are also dirty clothes piled everywhere, old crusty dishes on the floor, water leaking from the ceiling, a dead bear cub’s corpse in the corner, and a bunch of screaming people being set on fire atop said unmade bed.

In both cases, the reporter’s job is to go in and cover what’s messy in that bedroom at that exact moment. They can’t say of the first room, “here’s all the stuff that isn’t on fire,” even if the bed is unmade. Yet that’s exactly the context that people need.

Yup. As VP Kamala Harris would say, these things “exist in the context of all in which [they] live.” So why is CNN calling them RFK’s “new initiatives to help Americans get off anti-depressants” and not just “man with toilet bowl cocaine habit expresses opinions about which he knows objectively nothing”?

Reporters run on scoops. Scoops can only exist when people keep secrets. And a lot of secrets, especially personal ones, are based in shame.

But when the people reporters cover simply refuse to experience shame, baldly lie to your face, and operate with total impunity, reporters need to change how they do their job. Repeat relevant facts and context, and don’t assume that audiences have all the necessary backstory as to why this is all deeply abnormal. It’s not possible to list every cocaine toilet or Epstein encounter, but if something is relevant to the story they’re reporting, it needs to be included.

For example: every single article that notes Jared Kushner’s role in Iran or Israel diplomacy should also be clear that he runs a $6 billion hedge fund paid for by the same Gulf monarchies with whom he’s supposedly negotiating. That’s not editorializing, that’s a relevant fact!

Jared openly operates as both hedge fund manager and unconfirmed diplomat. He has simply decided the rules don’t apply to him, and refuses to be shamed by it. And while there has been some good standalone reporting into his obvious conflicts of interest, most beat journalists now cover his role in Middle East peace negotiations as they would any other envoy, because the fact of his corruption is old news, and reporters report new news. The horse race reporting of most political beat journalism normalizes the abnormal.

And it’s abnormal as hell out there right now!!!

I recently did a story that forced me to read lots of recent Trump transcripts—press gaggles, briefings, remarks at Oval Office events, etc. It was such a powerful reminder of how regularly mainstream political press sanewashes his actual words by summarizing or clipping something out of context. You really do get a completely different picture of what’s actually happening by reading or watching the raw feed versus consuming the political press coverage.

We’re all fairly numb to the ways Trump communicates: the ugliness, the insults, the AI slop memes and middle-of-the-night Truth Social rampages. But it’s clearly getting worse as he ages/decompensates, and that’s a marked difference from Trump 1. Jonathan Lemire recently pointed out that because Trump is physically imposing, loud, and dominates every conversation, he gets covered as an aging president differently than Biden, whose voice and physical presence both diminished over the course of his presidency. There are other factors at play, but it’s a solid point.

It doesn’t help that legacy media is now dominated by Bari Weisses and tech CEOs who care less about editorial integrity and more about flattering our naked-ass emperor and sending Katy Perry to space in a penis-shaped rocket.

We’re in a Wild West moment. Legacy media is under massive threat from corporate consolidation, political interference, and declining audience trust and attention (these things are likely related). We also don’t talk enough about the collapse of local news, even though 50 million Americans live in news deserts with little to no access to local reporting. That’s a crisis.

But at the same time, we’re living amidst an explosion of content creators, influencers, and independent journalists breaking news, providing vital analysis, and connecting with audiences in ways legacy media can’t or won’t. There are a lot of risks, but I’m overall optimistic: Break down the silos and barriers to entry!

Institutional backing doesn’t necessarily produce higher-quality coverage. The recent revelations about Eric Swalwell are an interesting case study: when Arielle Fodor (aka Mrs. Frazzled) received tips about Swalwell’s predatory behavior, she worked closely with his victims and their legal teams, vetted and corralled their stories, and helped them find legal representation and prepare for the fallout. Only then did everyone go to legacy media outlets with the kind of reach that really makes a story break through.

Meanwhile, there are still a lot of legacy outlets with high standards, diligent reporters, and resources to do solid reporting and analysis. And it’s not always the obvious ones: When I was in government, some of the best producers and fact checkers with whom I worked were with comedy shows! Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is sneakily one of my favorite platforms for policy news: they care about getting the details factually accurate because they have to have a solid foundation on which to make jokes, and they do longform TV like practically no one else. Show me another American show that will do a 15-minute segment on the President of Turkmenistan!

Is part of the solution moving towards these independent journalists and content creators? Hungary recently ousted its authoritarian leader with the help of political influencers. You’ve talked about “begging [your] colleagues in national security and foreign affairs to take content creation seriously” and reaching people where they are. Which is, for better and worse, their phones.

Even as audiences are increasingly distrustful of institutions like political parties, that doesn’t take away the human desire to have trust in something. So, where does that trust go? People are finding that trust not just in their IRL communities, but in influencers who mirror and validate their audiences: yes, this is happening, I see it too, you’re not crazy.

Audiences trust influencers because they recommend products we like, or validate our frustrations as a parent, or remind us of someone we know. They sit in between aspirational and accessible. We see them in living rooms or walking down the street on our phones, hear them in our headphones while we clean the apartment. They’re not at podiums or sitting behind imposing cable TV desks. It’s a completely different relationship, and so the intimacy and trust levels are different.

But. Trying to convince the donor class that the future lies in something that they don’t understand and don’t personally value, despite all the evidence of its reach and power, has been…challenging.

Dems want to see ROI on absolutely everything by the next cycle. They are not comfortable with experimenting, losing their grip on the key messages, or ceding control of the brand to non-elites. They are more likely to purity test and find reasons to exclude nontraditional messengers and validators, where MAGA will associate with pretty much anyone, for any reason. They’ve been throwing money at influencers for a over decade.

Not to mention that mainstream journalists are now being called–and I’m barely paraphrasing here–stupid, annoying bitches by the president.

It’s shameful that the White House Correspondents Association hasn’t pushed back harder against the way this administration regularly insults and abuses individual reporters, and the press generally. In any other workplace, that kind of treatment would be immediate grounds for HR discipline. Nobody should have to put up with being called a traitor or a bitch while doing their job. And reporters should worry more about audiences seeing journalists all taking this abuse without pushback, which reads like permission for it to continue.

But when White House reporters refused to band together in support of the AP immediately after the “Gulf of America” nonsense, it was game over. They’re concerned that pushing back would further curtail their access. And it’s true that they would face more retaliation, potentially even being kicked out of the room. But that’s already happening, anyways!

Contrast that with the Pentagon press corps’ refusal to comply with restrictive policies that would have severely curtailed their reporting. That’s what backbone looks like. Defense reporters getting their press passes yanked hasn’t really impacted their ability to do their jobs. If anything, several of them have told me, it’s brought in new sources eager to share what’s really happening. And, hilariously, many of the reporters whose passes were revoked still regularly come back for briefings, because Hegseth wants a full house for the cameras and the new crop of right-wing influencers aren’t super-reliable about attending 8AM pressers.

Pushback works. Journalists can do it professionally, without making themselves the story. Bullies almost always back down when confronted, especially when it’s a collective pushback.

Now, onto Iran. You recently wrote that “from the Iranian perspective, the more Trump threatens but doesn’t follow through, the weaker he appears.” You’ve–correctly, in this publication’s opinion–read his nonstop bravado as an admission of failure. How should we interpret this current moment, wherein we’re both being told that we’re moments away from a resolution, but have also just restarted bombing them during a “ceasefire?”

As my colleague Ariane Tabatabai noted, U.S. media tends to overfocus on what Trump officials say is happening vs. what’s actually happening. Part of the reason is U.S. outlets have large teams covering the administration, the Pentagon, etc. but comparatively smaller reporting on the ground from the region, Iran itself, etc.

The key point to remember is that there’s no going back to a pre-March 2026 world, where the Strait of Hormuz was fully open. The best-case scenario is that the current war ends in something like refried JCPOA (Obama’s Iran deal), but with Iran having learned that it can control the global economy by de facto closing the Strait of Hormuz. He’ll say it’s the strongest deal that anyone has ever negotiated, ever. But that will all be spin. He knows if he’s filling the space with drama of deal or no deal, everyone will be waiting for that decision.

In addition to banning journalists from the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth is known for his penchant for rhyming and riddling his way through press briefings. Do you wish you’d used more slam poetry when you were at the NSC?

I’m an elder Millennial, so my thing is more dumb Friends memes. I’d caption this one: “The Chinese PLA breaching the Taiwan Strait median line.”

We are less than six months out from the midterms, but Democratic comms feel so unhelpful and out of touch. Is there anyone you think is doing a good job communicating with voters right now who–and I’m just spitballing here–Hakeem Jeffries could copy? He’s so bad at it.

Good comms follows the rules of good improv: You “yes, and” with your audience. But Dems so often premise their communications on “I have something to inform you about.” Which, no. Think about it: would you rather listen to someone who tells you you’re right, or someone who tells you “you’re wrong, and I’m here to tell you why?” Spencer Pratt, God help us, may well become the next mayor of Los Angeles because he is savvy about this and his Dem competition is… not.

The most successful communicators win trust with their audiences by validating where their audiences already are, and using that as a springboard to “and here’s what I’m gonna do about it.” Dems like James Talarico, AOC, Jon Ossoff, and Mamdani are all phenomenal at making their audiences feel seen and validating where they are. It also doesn’t hurt that these Dems are all young, optimistic, and conventionally attractive at a moment where decrepit, venal, and tacky is dominant.

Also, Ilana Glazer’s “Explain It To Me Like I’m High” housing policy video with Brad Lander was adorable and needs to become a regular series. Ilana, call me! I have so many policy nerds for you!

I’d love your analysis on some Trump talking ranting points. He regularly screams about immigrants from “insane asylums” entering the US with–obviously–nothing to back it up. In your professional opinion, what is the likelihood someone told him that these people are seeking asylum, he misunderstood what that meant, and no one corrected him?

That’s clearly what happened. No doubt in my mind. And now everyone is running around praising the Emperor’s new suit.

Do you think the ballroom is really about a ballroom, or about what he’s purportedly building underneath it? (A massive military bunker.)

I think it’s about the ballroom! Truly. Trump and Putin have lots in common, but one of them is that they often directly say what it is they want (a big ballroom, Ukraine, military parades, etc.) and well-intentioned, very smart people search for deeper meaning or purpose, because they need it to make sense on their own terms. If it means something else, then we didn’t elect a President of the United States who spends this much time on a freaking ballroom.

Alas, that’s exactly what we did.

How do we ever recover trust between the White House and the American public, and the White House and the rest of the world? Maybe we melt the gaudy gold in the Oval Office and use it for some kintsugi?

This is what keeps me up at 3AM (that and Googling “[X] perimenopause symptom”). Our kids’ kids will likely still be dealing with the fallout from Trump’s second term.

I’d personally like to see a new administration prioritize tackling the self-dealing and corruption that’s flowed like boxed wine at a sorority house during Trump 2. There have to be meaningful, swift consequences for people who have been openly flouting the law and self-dealing. I think this would actually be pretty popular across the political spectrum—show me the rural Ohio diner where everyone’s main issue is “the Trump sons should never get audited.”

We’ve got to get ourselves in order if we want to be trusted to lead again on the world stage. In retrospect, we didn’t do nearly enough of this when Biden came in and it was a mistake (to be fair, we were in the middle of a fucking pandemic and global economic collapse, so—)

On the comms side, I doubt the US will ever be able to meaningfully teach media literacy at scale in my lifetime. Our politics are too toxic for it and the technology is evolving too quickly. But greater transparency and public understanding of how algorithms work, how media works, and diverse sourcing can help us all be better media consumers, and build trust between media and its audiences.

Which gets harder when we live in a world where we’re regularly getting duped by videos of puppies choosing their own owners at a shelter. Not that that’s ever happened to me.

I’m not a default AI hater, but we gotta all be honest that AI is a massive driver of distrust with many audiences, and as the technology becomes ubiquitous that will likely intensify. There’s a lot of vectors to AI skepticism (jobs displacement, environmental impact) but for these purposes I’m most worried about the trust aspect—the violation humans feel when we learn we’ve been fooled is a powerful emotion. Done right, it can incite delight (“A surprise party! For me?!”) or visceral, furious disgust (“you used ChatGPT to write our wedding vows, DANIEL?”).

When in doubt: put down the screen, walk away, and talk with a real person, even if you disagree. No one has ever said on their deathbed “I should have fought in the comments more.”

What inspired you to start your newsletter, Spin Class?

I launched Spin Class to explore how media and comms actually function in our current hellscape: a relentless deluge of information that somehow keeps us trapped in our own information bubbles, which are curated by a messy mix of algorithmic agendas and powerful humans. I was also tired of operating only in Very Serious™️ DC spaces, where people are more likely to use Clausewitz than Real Housewives as a frame for understanding our world. Both are valid, but we’re living in a reality TV show presidency! Stupid times need stupid rubrics.

Some of my favorite Spin Class pieces are about how to spot a White House-planted story in the wild, how a right-wing slop factory tweet got laundered into the New York Times, and how Trump insiders are leaking against his Iran War. I love questions that get at how the sausage gets made: “why am I seeing this,” “why am I seeing this NOW,” “who wants me to see this,” and “what am I not seeing?”

I’m super bullish on audience appetites for going deep on how news gets made, and why our media is the way it is. When GRWM and unboxing videos are a legit genre of media and deep-dive podcasts on niche subjects pull huge numbers, it says to me that people want to literally unpack the world around them, and understand why they’re seeing what they’re seeing.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Spin Class

Politics, policy, and culture through a communications lens.

By Emily Horne

Previously on Hot Takes:

Among everything that is so impressive about the show (chemistry, cinematography, needle drops, butts, you name it), the very American Connor Storrie’s ability to fully disappear into the very Russian Ilya Rozanov is at the top of the list of things I wanted to know more about, and, duh, share with you here. So I reached out to Kate, and she was generous enough to give us le inside scoop on her job and what it was like on set.

First of all, welcome to Hot Tip! And thank you so much for chatting about your incredible work and helping to create such an immersive, authentic world on Heated Rivalry. Or should I say, spasibo.

Spasibo! Thank you! I’m so happy to be here. Everyone on Heated Rivalry, the cast and the crew, was incredibly present and gave their all. There was a real sense of care and intention behind the work—a shared desire to tell this story honestly, and I think that commitment is a big part of why the show feels so authentic.

You primarily work as a casting director, and there’s no better example of the art form that is casting than Heated Rivalry, which brought two completely unknown, super talented actors into Beatlemania territory basically overnight. In 2026, the Oscars will also finally include an Achievement in Casting category, for the first time ever (!) which feels incredibly overdue. What was your journey to this career path?

Casting was never something I planned. It really found me, and I’m so grateful it did. When I was in film school, I volunteered anywhere I could in the industry just to meet people, make connections, and open doors for myself after graduating. One of those gigs was operating a camera at an audition session for Bruno Rosato Casting. I went in for the day and completely fell in love with that world.

I asked Bruno for an internship because I just wanted to keep coming back. He didn’t offer it on the spot, but a few weeks later he called. That internship turned into a job, then a promotion to associate, then casting director. Today, Bruno Rosato and I are partners, and we co-own Rosato Yablunovsky Casting together.

Casting is such a foundational part of why people connect to characters and fall in love with a story, so seeing it recognized with its own Oscar category is incredibly encouraging. It feels like the industry is finally acknowledging that [this work] is creative, intuitive, and absolutely central to storytelling.

I also want to give huge credit to Lewis Kay Casting, who cast Heated Rivalry. Their work is exceptional.

We’re also living in an extremely bizarre and rapidly changing moment in this industry with technology, where you’ve got AI “actresses” popping up and AI tools being used to “enhance” non-English dialogue, i.e. in The Brutalist, for which Adrien Brody ultimately won an Oscar. In that movie, editors used a tool called Respeecher to adjust the actors’ Hungarian dialogue, making it “perfect…so that not even locals will spot any difference.” Where do you as both a casting director and dialect coach land on the debate over authenticity as a human vs. “perfection” in language?

I’m very firmly on the side of humanity. Accents carry history, emotion, insecurity, pride. When you sand all that down in pursuit of “perfection,” you lose something essential. I’m far more interested in truth than flawlessness. As both a casting director and dialect coach, I believe audiences connect to sincerity, even when it’s imperfect, because that’s how real people speak. Accents and languages tell stories, and stories need people.

That said, on a practical level, especially with accents, the circumstances aren’t always ideal. It depends on the time available, the performer’s ability to grasp language and accent, and the difficulty of the language itself. Hungarian, for example, is extremely complex. In cases like that, the craft of performance has to come first. Sometimes tools like this are used simply to make something believable rather than distracting.

I believe in ethical use of AI. If it’s supporting an artist and not disrespecting, erasing, or cheating anyone, then it becomes another tool available to help tell the story.

How did you end up working as a dialect coach on Heated Rivalry, and were you part of the casting process, knowing that someone with serious language skills would be required for this role?

I joined the show as the dialect coach fairly close to the start of principal photography, while the director and producers were still finalizing the Russian-speaking roles. When I first saw the volume of Russian text and realized how tight the timeline was, I did feel a bit nervous about how much would need to be accomplished in a very short amount of time, [but] after our first call, I felt confident that Connor would be able to meet the challenge and do justice to the Russian language, the accent, and the full embodiment of Ilya.

I was incredibly fortunate to work with Connor Storrie. He’s not only a very talented actor, but also an intelligent, thoughtful person with a real aptitude for languages. He approached the work with curiosity, discipline, and generosity. Working together was a genuinely rewarding experience.

On that note: Texas native Connor has said that he started working with you just one week (!!!) before shooting started, and then also learned Russian with you for four hours a day during the duration of the six-ish week shoot. Were you exclusively working on dialogue from the show, or like, proper Russian grammar, conjugation, tenses, etc.?

We worked on everything that helps a language and an accent feel authentic. That meant learning the [dialogue] word-by-word so he fully understood what he was saying and could connect it to the emotional life of the character. We focused on stress, intonation, expression, and even body language. We also touched on grammar, conjugation, and tenses, but always in direct relation to the script in front of us.

The goal was never perfection. It was about making the language feel natural enough that he didn’t have to think about it while performing, so the focus could stay on the scene and the relationship. And Connor handled that challenge with flying colors.

So it was like real school, smack in the middle of an already super tight shooting schedule.

It was accelerated and intense. For Connor, it was a crash course layered on top of an already demanding shoot, with other skills he was mastering at the same time, like ice skating and hockey. But he showed up every single day ready to work, and that level of commitment made all the difference.

I’m so glad you mentioned the physicality, because it’s so much more than just the language and voice that make Ilya so real. Everything from how Connor moves his face to how he stands in the room are just so Russian. Even the yearning feels Slavic.

Absolutely. Language never exists in isolation. Physicality, posture, and even how emotion shows up in the face are all closely tied to culture. With Ilya, a lot of that “Russianness” comes from restraint rather than excess. Emotion often lives just under the surface, in stillness, in the eyes, in what isn’t said or shown right away.

When learning a dialect, you’re also learning a culture and how people express themselves, not just how they sound. Intonation matters, but so does how the mouth and tongue move, which can subtly affect psychology and presence. You often see this with people who speak multiple languages, where their demeanor shifts between languages.

The physicality and expression you’re noticing are Connor’s creation. That comes from his skill as an actor, and from his comfort with the language, the intonation, and his exploration of the culture.

I love the idea that teaching a language isn’t only about the words.

People often assume accent work is just about copying sounds, but a big part of it is learning what not to do. Every language and accent has habits that immediately give someone away as a non-native speaker. A lot of my work is identifying and removing those patterns so the accent stays consistent and believable.

At the same time, the work has to adapt to the individual actor. Everyone processes language differently, so the approach has to be tailored to their strengths while still aiming for the same level of accuracy.

Given the time constraints and relatively low budget, I’d have to imagine the set was a super collaborative, well-oiled machine.

Totally. It was collaborative, efficient, and honestly kind of magical because everyone trusted each other. It was one of the nicest sets I’ve ever been on. People were kind, professional, and supportive, and they kept their sense of humor and really looked out for one another despite the long hours and inevitable challenges.

@stellabr8also imagine hearing this in ur first language bc 🫠🫠🫠 #heatedrivalry

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According to the New York Times, you also translated all the necessary dialogue into Russian. Were you constantly on set for real-time changes to the script, and are you aware of the impact said translations have had, literally globally, on where the bar has now been set in our love lives?

Yes, I was on set for all of the Russian scenes. Once we got to set, the script itself didn’t really change anymore, because anything involving language or accent needs preparation ahead of time. Actors have to practice the text and the dialect in advance.

Where changes did happen was during the prep and rehearsal phase. Sometimes we’d adjust wording to make a line easier for a non-Russian speaker to deliver naturally, while always preserving the original meaning and intention. The goal was to help the actor express the moment as truthfully as possible, in Russian, without the language getting in the way of the performance.

As for the impact, that really comes from the mastery of the writing. [Author] Rachel Reid’s original work, and [show creator] Jacob Tierney’s adaptation of it, created something deeply emotional and honest. That response, where viewers watch it and think, “This is what I want for my own love story,” comes directly from how beautifully the text was written and adapted.

When Ilya wins the cup in episode two, there’s a bit of Russian that doesn’t get translated in the subtitles. Am I correct in understanding he says, “for you, mama?”

Yes, you’re exactly right. It’s very intimate, and it’s meant for him and for the audience that’s paying close attention.

I don’t have any data to back this up, but I feel like interest in studying Russian must be surging right now. Are there any particularly useful tools, cultural, educational, or otherwise, you’d suggest for anyone wanting to start? I know a lot of non-native English speakers watch Friends, for example, to learn the language.

I always tell people to start with something they already love. Watch Russian films or series, listen to music, follow creators online. Language learning works best when it’s tied to curiosity and pleasure, not pressure. You don’t need perfection, just consistency and genuine interest.

The language proficiency is so impressive throughout, but no part more so than the four-page Russian monologue in episode five. How did you and Connor work together to prep for that, and when in the sequence of shooting did it happen?

Luckily, the monologue was shot later in production, which gave us some time to work toward it. It was definitely a point of pressure for both of us. It’s the most demanding Russian dialogue I’ve ever had an actor prepare.

With text like that, the goal isn’t a technically perfect accent. It’s about finding a balance where the accent supports the performance instead of overpowering it. As a dialect coach, my focus is always on clarity, intention, and emotional truth first. If the actor is fully present in what they’re saying, the language feels real, even if it isn’t flawless.

Connor approached it with a lot of sensitivity and focus, and the result was incredibly moving. Watching him perform that monologue on set genuinely made me emotional.

Per GQ, showrunner Jacob Tierney reportedly asked you how much of a certain monologue take he could use in the show, and you said “All of it. He humbles me.” What was the vibe on set watching that happen, and how rewarding has the feedback been, seeing all the work you put in together pay off?

The set was very quiet and focused. Everyone understood the importance of the scene and gave Connor the space he needed to do the work. Seeing how that moment ultimately resonated with audiences has been incredibly rewarding—it makes all the long hours of preparation feel worthwhile. I’m deeply grateful to the team, to Connor, and to the audience who noticed and cared about the details.

In addition to the spot-on Russian, Connor also spends the rest of the show speaking English with a Russian accent, and Shane even asks Ilya at one point “when did your English get so good?” Did y’all also work together on the evolution of his accent, given that the show takes place over nearly a decade?

Language evolves as people grow more comfortable and fluent. As time passes in the story, Ilya’s ease with English increases, and that naturally affects pronunciation, rhythm, and confidence. Connor was deeply engaged with that progression, which helped it feel organic rather than performative.

Very important: Do Russians really not blush?

Oh yes, they do :)

Obviously, this show is scratching an itch for everyone right now–and I say that particularly as an American whose society is rapidly crumbling around her and deeply welcomes the ability to dissociate from that for a beat. What is it about Shane and Ilya that you think people are connecting with so intensely?

I think people are responding to how deeply human Shane and Ilya are. They’re flawed, stubborn, tender, and loyal. Their relationship isn’t effortless. They work hard for it, and they actively choose it. In a moment where the world feels unstable, that kind of devotion is incredibly comforting.

Their story touches on sensitive themes around identity, love, and life, but without trying to teach or convince anyone. It simply exists. For me, it’s that sincerity and presence in the characters and their story that resonates so strongly with people.

This show is being distributed by HBOMax in the US and other streamers worldwide, but it is entirely a Crave production. Tell me a little bit about the Canadian television industry and why you think a show like this could only be made in Canada, by Canadian producers.

Canadian television gives creators real room to take risks. There’s less pressure to flatten stories for mass appeal, and more trust in nuance, character, and audience intelligence. Heated Rivalry could exist because Canadian producers are willing to bet on specificity, and that’s often what makes a story feel universal. There’s a genuine openness to creative risk here, and it allows stories like this to exist.

Finally, what’s next for you? Season two of Heated Rivalry? More dialect work on other projects? Something top secret you can exclusively reveal here? Or maybe just a well-earned vacation?

A little of everything, I hope. More dialect work, more casting, maybe more Heated Rivalry, who knows? And yes, eventually, a very good vacation.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Previously on Hot Tip:

Justine Doiron is a recipe developer, New York Times bestselling cookbook author, and the woman behind Justine Snacks on Instagram and TikTok, where her plant-forward, innovative, and approachable recipes have amassed her more than three million followers. And if all that wasn’t enough, she’s currently producing a YouTube show, writing her Substack , and, somehow, also making her own wedding cakes. Time traveler? Maybe. Beanfluencer? Definitely.

Food can be such a comfort during tough times, and we’ve certainly been going through it this last, I don’t know, decade? How much does the idea of comfort factor into your recipe development?

Oh god, great question, especially since comfort can be defined in so many different ways. I think about comfort both in the process of cooking, as well as the result. I want to provide people with a healthy habit (that might be a distraction, we need it!!) and a nearly meditative process. I want my recipes to be easy so you feel like you’re accomplishing something while also nourishing yourself. That’s the process of comfort. The end result is always more obvious—food is a natural comfort. There’s something deeply comforting about providing and being provided for.

What’s your go-to rainy day comfort meal?

If it’s full couch-mode, no effort day, it will always be the brown butter tahini noodles from my book. They are so rich it’s nearly appalling, but so insanely good.

In your (NYT bestselling!) book Justine Cooks, you called yourself a “breakfast romantic” – which, same, and thank you for providing me a much lovelier way to describe myself than “breakfast burrito inhaler.” What does your morning generally look like? How early are you getting up, how do you take your coffee, and of course, what are you making for brekky?

You either die a hero or you live long enough to pick up the same morning habits as your mother. I have reached that time. I have accepted it and I am proud.

I’m an early riser, which means I have water and coffee first thing, and it’s my tiny little morning meditation with myself. My coffee used to be black, but I now put 2 tablespoons of creamer per cup (Chobani sweet cream, no other flavor is good.) Then I keep the spoon on a spoon rest because I know I’m going to have one more round—which is exactly what my mother did when I was younger. So. I am her. It all happens so fast.

My breakfast typically happens in that lull time between coming home from the gym and my hair finally drying from the shower. It’s usually either oatmeal or avocado toast. I like breakfast to be mild since my palate can get overwhelmed with testing throughout the day.

How does cooking translate to creativity in other parts of your life?

One of my favorite quotes is: “What you do in here is what you do out there.” I heard it in a spin class—LOL—but I think it applies to my cooking and work so well. If I’m focused, intentional and creative with the recipes I’m putting out, then it feels like my brain is at a rolling boil, and that creativity drips into other parts of my life. Our brains are incredibly plastic so I like to stay in that rolling boil state, it keeps me energized.

Tell me about a restaurant you deeply connected to while traveling – the food, the ambience, the location, the people-watching. What made it so special?

These are always so hard!! I feel like food memories can be poignant for many reasons. The most recent that I rave about is La Tonnarella, a small fish restaurant located off the side of a rock beach near Praiano, Italy. Fish are hanging off the walls, the beach is nearly deserted, and the people watching? Phenomenal. Nothing like waiters delivering boxes of pasta to older Italian men on the beach. It was the perfect combination of feeling truly not a part of a place but also feeling welcome — a rare travel combination. Oh and the red squid pasta is excellent.

Forgive me for this one. You can only cook with one herb for a year; which one are you picking?

My first thought was rosemary but then I realized…I can make basil into anything delicious. So basil. Hate you for this, though.

In the most recent season of The White Lotus, Leslie Bibb’s character says she ‘tricked herself’ into liking beans. As someone who uses a lot of beans in her recipes, were they always a great love? Or did you trick yourself?

I was a baked bean fiend as a kid. I think it was my sweet tooth subconsciously realizing that sweet, salty and smoky could coexist, and I could call it dinner. Beans were such an easy meal staple when I became pescatarian, and I love cooking with them because people don’t balk at them the same way they do tofu. It’s very easy for me to pitch a bean, which is why you see many, many beans in my work.

Which Nancy Meyers kitchen—or any movie kitchen, really—would you like to claim as your own?

I’m so glad you said Nancy Meyers because the kitchen in It’s Complicated??? Are you kidding me!??? I dream of it.

You’ve got friends visiting you in Brooklyn for the weekend. What are the stops on the tour – food and otherwise – you wouldn’t dare miss?

I would not have said this a few weeks ago, but the Radio Bakery that just opened on Underhill is well worth its roses. We’re going there first. Then Agi’s Counter for lunch. Their tuna sandwich calls me on a deep and spiritual level. Sofreh for dinner so I can have a million cucumber margaritas and more saffron rice than I can handle. Or Hart’s for a clam toast and white negroni. Late night will be Sharlene’s while we keep our fingers crossed for a Greta Gerwig sighting (she went there once and I’ll never forget it.) But let’s say Greta is on location somewhere, then I’ll scoop my friend over to Frog in Bed Stuy. It’s near our new home and a new favorite of ours. This is a very abbreviated list. I need at least four days to fill out all my Brooklyn spots.

Any advice for people who want to cook more, but feel intimidated by the prospect? Is there a recipe of yours they should start with?

I’d say start with the gochujang beans in my cookbook. The exciting part about learning to cook is witnessing what can happen in a pan over medium heat with a bit of patience. How fat manipulates a vegetable, how everything sizzles and wears down before caramelizing. The best advice I can give is that this is something you learn from experience. You can’t research your way through it, you just have to start.

On the flip side, what are your favorite slightly more elevated ingredients for someone who is already a decent cook and looking to up their game?

Okay let’s get weird. Black garlic, dried lime, yuzu hot sauce. I wouldn’t call these elevated, just uncommon. But if you are a comfortable cook, you’ll know exactly how to mix these into sauces, dressing, and marinades. Truly delicious stuff.

Previously on Hot Tip:

Morgan Finkelstein was a Senior Spokesperson for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the US Department of the Treasury as part of the Biden Administration.

Big picture, first. You've worked in multiple White House administrations (Obama, Biden) and on many Democratic campaigns. What about this current moment feels different than other transitions from one party to another, including Trump's first term?

Hello Alex’s readers, thanks for having me. The 2024 election fucked around, and we are deep into finding out. Welcome to what we meant by “democracy is at stake.”

If you recall, Trump 1.0 was pretty bad, as was the Bush era and really, where all this started, the Reagan years. But what’s different now is that Republicans have fully just said, fuck it, we’re not going to follow laws anymore, and what are you going to do about it?

To put it another way, past administrations were using the US government to get away with as much bad stuff as they could. This administration has decided that the best way to achieve their goals — rich people getting richer and society run by white, Christian males — is to simply cease having a federal government at all.

How are they doing that? Another key difference today is that the Republican Congress has fully ceded its power to the executive branch. Remember when we all learned about co-equal branches of government? Well, one of the branches decided to just say “nah, I’m good” and bow out of the whole checks and balances thing.

Republicans in Congress have fully relinquished their authority to Trump. So even when Trump does stuff that is not within his power to do, stuff that actively screws Congress, they just roll over and say “thank you sir, may I have another!” And since Democrats are in the minority, they can’t do much about it besides try to slow it all down.

Okay, now on to Elon (derogatory.) At Treasury, Musk and his team have been granted access to the systems that handle Social Security, Medicare, federal government salaries, tax refunds, and much more, totaling $6 trillion dollars annually. Given that he is best known for building ugly trucks for insecure men and unsubtle Nazi salutes, what is he even doing there?

Trump and Musk are going to steal your money to make themselves and their friends richer. That’s it!

Ok, a little more detail.

So, basically, when the federal government spends money — on things like salaries, grants for research or preschools or infrastructure projects, social security checks for tens of millions of Americans, healthcare payments for grandma’s insulin, etc. — they do so through a very secure, protected payment system at the Treasury Department. I know it’s kind of wild to wrap your head around, but money the government spends has to come from somewhere, right? It comes from the Federal Reserve and is paid out by Treasury.

Importantly, Treasury doesn’t choose or analyze who gets paid by this system. That happens waaaay earlier in the process, and those decisions lie with whomever is actually the account holder. Spending the government’s money is covered by about a billion different laws, including a bunch to protect against waste, fraud, or abuse. By the time Treasury gets involved, it’s basically just to say oh look, the Department of Transportation wants a payment for a new bridge, here we go sending money from DOT’s account to the bridge company.

Which brings us to now, here in the Bad Place!

Elon Musk and his incel henchmen Tom Krause and 25-year-old Marko Elez1 have barged their way into this system and are just… doing whatever they want in there. They seem most interested in stopping payments to things they don’t like; a hypothetical use case could be stopping all Social Security payments to old people in Milwaukee until the mayor agrees to cooperate with an ICE raid or closes all abortion clinics. It’s not hard to think of terrible things from a bunch of MAGA Youth who are uninterested in following laws.

Now that there’s a ton of media attention on them, the DOGE dorks have started to make up dumb excuses for why they’re in the system; they seem to be going with “looking for fraud,” but that is a lie. They are lying! And they do not care if they get caught.

Yesterday, a court sort of told them to stop, but it’s a tenuous pause at best.

To your knowledge, is there any kind of precedent for an unelected and non-Senate-confirmed individual getting this level of access to sensitive information? Or even being let in the door without a visitor pass?

I cannot stress enough how highly protected this system is — or, I guess, was. No one has ever tried to do what this crew is doing. Not even Trump 1.0.

This system has the most sensitive information (sometimes even classified information) on literally every US taxpayer. I know we are all kind of numb to daily data breaches at like, Target, but this is even more serious than your credit card number. It’s bank accounts, it’s your tax history, medical conditions, not to mention top-secret contracts the government pays or salaries to like, undercover spies.

The information is so sensitive that only a handful of nonpolitical, technical employees in the whole government are even allowed to look at it, let alone touch it. Improperly accessing this data can be a literal felony.

I know you are all wondering and let me assure you: I was absolutely not one of the people allowed to access this system!

So no, there is no precedent for this.

Musk was granted access late on a Friday evening. Why?

There was a nonpolitical civil servant, a 35-year veteran of the Treasury Department, who was pushed out of his job last week for standing between Musk and this data. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent forced his staff to let Elon in.

That was likely illegal, but Musk’s team is banking on the fact that the court processes will take a long time, and their smash-and-grab will take a short time.

You worked specifically on financial crime and corruption for three years at Treasury. What are the things setting off alarm bells for you right now?

In anti-corruption work, there is a concept called “state capture,” where corrupt leaders use the powers of the state to benefit their own interests. This is a very bad thing, and if America saw this happening somewhere in the world, we would sure do something about it.

In Musk’s case, the phrase is quite literal: these thugs have captured the government’s treasure chest and will use it to enrich themselves and punish their business competitors, political opponents, and everyday Americans.

I've read a few pieces that refer to Musk's hostile takeover of various executive departments and federal agencies as a coup happening in plain sight. Would you agree with that appraisal?

Sure — all the scary words apply here. I cannot stress enough, this is the real deal.

It’s really important to ignore Musk when he claims that “unelected bureaucrats” are just salty he’s “shaking things up.” These people all worked for Trump in the “drain the swamp” era! They can handle shake-ups.

This is not a shake-up. It’s arson.

I've noticed you love trolling Trump appointees on LinkedIn and are really good at it. This one isn't a question, just a moment to appreciate your efforts.

Thank you. I think being a dick to people on LinkedIn is kind of unexpected, so it’s fun. Also, I don’t think the LinkedIn algorithm has been radicalized by bad tech bros (yet!) so you can still occasionally pierce information bubbles over there.

What should we be doing about this? How can we get Congress to act in this pivotal moment? Does calling and emailing really make a difference?

Yes! At this point, calling still makes a difference, as does going into offices physically if you’re near one, ideally with a group like Indivisible. Even — and maybe especially — if you have a Democratic Senator. Way too many Dems are approving Trump appointees while all this chaos is going on! We can’t stop it all, but we can slow it down.

Our queen AOC did a 92 minute IG live on ~everything~ that is a really good summary of what’s going on and concrete things to do about it. I recommend going through it all (you can treat it like a podcast, listen to it on the way to work or something) because she’s probably the greatest communicator in the country right now. On Reels here or on Youtube.

Members of Congress may act like they don’t feel the pressure, but they do. And they definitely notice when it’s not there.

I totally hear people who have gotten into a place of “well we called last time and we’re right back in the same place.” I’m sorry! I don’t want to be doing this again either. I am literally so tired. But don’t forget that last time, all of the grassroots momentum unseated more Republicans than anyone could have predicted. We even had a Democrat from Oklahoma?? So, unfortunately, we do in fact need to do this all again if we want to stave off the worst.

If nothing else gets through your cynicism, know this: every minute spent on the phone with one of us is a minute that some dipshit Republican staffer can’t spend doing something worse. Be. That. Petty.

Is there anything else you want us to know?

I think it’s important to remember these are not evil geniuses or supervillains. Don’t give them more power or credit than they deserve. Some of their tactics are modernized for the tech era, but the fundamentals are the same shit conservatives have been pulling for most of our country’s history.

Purging federal workers who fall afoul of their made-up “DEI?” That’s Woodrow Wilson’s 1913 re-segregation of the government, baby!

January 6 rioters getting away with it and the president trying to pretend it never happened? That’s the Tulsa Race Massacre! Or the Wilmington Coup, or the Colfax Massacre, or the Elaine, Arkansas massacre, or… you get the picture.

So, yes, awful stuff is happening right now and people will literally die. Things will be irreparably damaged. We will all lose a bunch of money. But the people we are up against are the same losers that rear their ugly heads throughout the American existence. Don’t let buzzwords like “the price of eggs” or “concerns about immigration” gaslight you into thinking any differently.

As AOC says, we outnumber them, we can slow them down, and we are absolutely on the right side of history.