Is the most incisive interviewer of Trump 2.0 a dirtbag podcaster?

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“Don’t do TV”

Prior to his pivot to a YouTube talk show, Adam Friedland’s most memorable media moment might have been soiling a pair of linen pants.

Friedland was the foil on the long-running dirtbag hangout podcast “C*m Town,” balancing the often over-the-line bits of co-host Nick Mullen and the boisterous. ominpresent laughter of crowd work comic-turned-moviestar Stavros Halkias. Shortly before the trio pressed record on a 2021 episode, Friedland lost control of his bowels, ruining his white pants and the chair he was sitting on. The episode begins in media res, with Mullen shouting across his apartment at Friedland about the proper way to use the shower. He returns, dejected and wrapped in a towel, sounding ill as he lands the segment’s inadvertent punchline.

“I kinda wanna cry,” he said. “I just got the white pants.”

That same man recently sat down with New York Congressman Ritchie Torres for a contentious and incisive hour-long interview. It’s one episode in two seasons of big gets. Sarah Jessica Parker, Rep. Ro Khanna, Blake Griffin and Anthony Weiner have all stopped by Friedland’s set, made to look like a recreation of “The Dick Cavett Show,” to let the host stumble, ramble, needle and interrupt. His unpolished delivery and lack of tolerance for canned answers have quickly made the series a must-watch.

Speaking to Torres on this week’s episode, Friedland was brutally honest about the pain the situation in Gaza causes him as a Jewish man. Hoping to crack Torres’ polished answers around Israel and speak candidly, Friedland frequently seemed sick to his stomach over the ongoing U.S. support of the war.

When Torres attempted to divert Friedland by speaking about antisemitism in cities and on college campuses, Friedland grew emotional.

“I hate when comedians… speak from a position of authority about crap that they don’t know about. This is one topic I feel like I can speak on,” he said. “As a Jew right now, we are receiving a lot more hate because of what the people with the flag that has a Jewish star on it are doing to other people.”

Friedland made it clear that he wanted to speak directly with someone in power, addressing his concerns about a situation that seems hopeless and invulnerable to popular sentiment.

“The world is seeing something that looks terrible, and it’s being done in my name, and I don’t know what to do,” Friedland said.

When Torres got a dig in at Friedland’s emotional response, the host told his guest he was “being a d*ck.” When Torres started to share obviously rehearsed statistics, Friedland asked that he not “do TV.”

“You gotta be like a human being about this,” he said. “Do you feel in your heart that what you’re saying is right?”

It’s a refreshingly frank moment from a show that never needs to worry about access. The show ends with a clip shot after the interview, with Friedland and Torres standing and arguing about the way the interview went.

“I think you had an agenda,” Torres said. “Clearly, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

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