The John Phillips Show on 790 KABC is unlike many other Los Angeles news/talk radio shows.
On stations like KFI-AM 640, the talk isn’t always as inherently political as you might expect from a news/talk station. But the show from Phillips on the Cumulus Media Los Angeles station is — like most shows in the format — largely focused on the political happenings of the country and the area. That’s not a knock on the show, simply an observation.
Another observation is that many conservative news/talk radio shows don’t typically delve into hard-news interviews. They’re largely rather friendly conversations, rather than discussions hell-bent on getting hard and firm answers from those in the highest reaches of our government. Again, not a knock, but an important distinction.
Those “friendly” interviews often include the host having a self-serving interest in the guest backing up their stated opinion or why the conservative side of the political aisle is right and the “bad guys” — i.e. Democrats — are wrong.
But how do you handle an interview of someone who is potentially most known for making racially charged comments? That’s the case for Ryan Girdusky, who last year famously told former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” during a panel discussion on CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip. That comment alluded to Hasan being a terrorist, days after the Israeli army utilized the batteries of beepers utilized by terrorists to create explosions that harmed, maimed, and killed dozens of members of the Hezbollah terrorist organization.
The comments from Girdusky went mega-viral, if that’s a thing, with virtually everyone in the news media space having comments one way or the other on the situation.
Girdusky has a new book ready to debut, and he appeared on The John Phillips Show on 790 KABC on Friday afternoon to promote it.
The interview began by Girdusky clicking the mute button by mistake, leading to an awkward exchange between the author and radio host. Not Phillips’ fault by any stretch of the imagination. There’s a bit of a baseline thought process that the person you’re interviewing understands how a cell phone works. At any event, not a great start.
Phillips turned it into a humorous moment, though, stating that the only time you should put your phone on mute is when you’re ordering in the drive-thru or going through TSA security at the airport.
The first question asked of Ryan Girdusky was about the tense meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump, and Vice President JD Vance. John Phillips asked about what the purpose of Zelenskyy’s trip to the White House entailed.
Essentially.
What he really said though, was: “Well, let’s get to that tense meeting at the White House today between Ukrainian President Zelensky and President Trump and Vice President Vance. It was impossible to take your eyes off the television as they started yelling at each other and really going at it. If you’re Zelenskyy, what is the purpose of flying to the White House, having that meeting and having those images go out? Because the one thing that you have going for you — if you’re Zelenskyy — and you’re trying to get the globe to get behind you — is sympathy.
“And if you look like a sympathetic figure, then you’re more likely to get more of what you want, even if you don’t necessarily win the argument of the day. But if he thought that this advanced the sympathy for him in Ukraine, either here or abroad, I think he’s got another thing coming.”
That’s a lot to digest for the guest and the audience. There’s a set-up, a question, and then some extended analysis and remarks. But in a situation like this, you’re looking for the guest to be the expert, to be the analyst, to give their remarks.
Think of it like being a quarterback in a football game. If the play is supposed to be a hand-off, your job, ultimately, is to hand the ball off to the running back and let them be the star for that play. Sounds simple, right? Well, you have to make sure you get the ball from the center, get the ball to the running back, and get out of the way for the play to be successful.
And in this instance, it felt like Phillips might have gotten in his own way, slightly. Because the options for the guest is to either agree wholeheartedly — which is basically what happened — or to disagree completely, create conflict, and create listener interest. Now, that’s a good strategy to pique your audience’s interest. But, again, this is likely a “friendly” interview, so the hopes of creating conflict aren’t super high.
Phillips followed up by asking about what to expect from Zelenksyy’s planned interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier. After a long answer, the 790 KABC brought up a great follow-up off of Girdusky’s answer about Europe being unable to fight for itself. It showed that he was actively listening, and was focused on the answers from his guest instead of simply barrelling through a list of pre-planned questions.
But, again, there were several remarks — with the expectation that the guest would respond to the statements — rather than a firm question.
“Go back to the point you just made about Europe not being willing to fight for itself,” Phillips began. “Because the subtext of everything going on right now is not even necessarily Ukraine, although they say it’s about Ukraine. But if Putin takes Ukraine — let’s just say that he’s successful — then next on the list will be Poland, the Baltics, and Finland.
“And I think the assumption is, even for people who are politically not aligned with people like you and me, there’s zero chance any of those countries are going to defend themselves. It’s going to be up to NATO, it’s going to be up to the United States. We’re going to be dragged into some massive international conflict because they just simply don’t have the desire to put up any kind of self-defense.”
Where’s the question? There isn’t one. There’s an expectation that the guest will just respond to what you said.
As I’ve noted in this feature before, there’s a difference between a hard news interview and a talk show interview. As more of a friendly discussion, rather than an opportunity to hold elected officials and policymakers to account, these aren’t bad mistakes to make.
The flip side of that coin, however, is that developing bad interviewing habits can be a detriment when you do get the opportunity to ask hard, firm questions of local, city, state, and national leaders with the expectation that listeners will benefit from the conversation.
I’d be interested to hear what an interview with John Phillips would sound like when the guest was more of an adversary rather than someone on the same side of the political aisle.
The final two observations I had of the conversation were that I appreciated that the 790 KABC host waited until the final moments of the interview to let Ryan Girdusky pitch his book. From a listener’s perspective, I don’t necessarily care that an author is on the show to pitch their book. It’s part of the process of having an author on the show. But listeners are selfish. What do I get out of listening to this interview? So, John Phillips did a good job of making sure the listener was served before his guest/the author.
Finally, and this is just my view, but bringing up the ultra-viral moment from Girdusky on the CNN show late last year would have likely created headlines. And John Phillips never asked that. Whether anyone thinks it’s a missed opportunity as I did is up for debate. But there are few badges conservatives like to wear today as much as “I was canceled by mainstream media” — CNN pledged it would never welcome Girdusky to it’s airwaves again — which would have endeared the author to many in the audience if the situation were brought up.
Ultimately, the conversation lasted for more than 20 minutes. That’s a lot to get through from a listener’s perspective in 2025. Girdusky gave sometimes long-winded, complex answers. I can’t fault Phillips for that. But there does need to be a sort of mental clock for news/talk radio hosts to have to be able to tell when listeners might become disinterested in a subject or a guest. And it might have been slightly earlier, at least in my opinion, than the 20 minute mark of the conversation.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
The setup of your article is entirely inaccurate – Ryan Girdusky was in fact interviewed on the show days after being thrown off CNN. The referenced interview in your article took place WEEKS later.
I have been listening to the John Phillips Show since the launch of it’s current iteration 5 or 6 years ago. The show features sometimes 2 or 3 daily 20-25 minute interviews with a mix of current events news stories and topics, often with a comedic tone, in between. I’ve always found it refreshing that he trusts his audience enough to still have an attention span.