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If you want to talk about electoral electoral injustice, come over and we'll smoke cigarettes and have ice cream and
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talk about all our bad boyfriends. [Music]
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Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser and I'm in
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Puerto Rico. So, Cara, um, one night I took home some girl who turned out to be
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a lady boy, which I know which I'd done before. Yeah. But this time, Cara,
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instead of [ __ ] the lady boy, Yeah. the lady boy [ __ ] me.
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And it was kind of magical. And And I got in my head what I really wanted was
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to be one of these Asian girls getting [ __ ] by me. No. No. And to feel that.
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No. Oh, that's my dramatic reading of the White Lotus. Oh my god. Did you see
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that scene? Oh my god. I didn't I I've heard of it though. I've read of it. Oh my god. That guy is good. Sam Rockwell.
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Yeah. Okay. I was a little worried there, but I'm allow I'm allowing it. I'm allowing it. He was He was the deputy in Three Billboards and
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something. He's a very good actor. Yeah. He's actually an outstanding actor. Anyways, I I don't want to spoil it.
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Yeah, you just did. But it is out. It is. It literally gotten a lot of attention. Yeah. I mean, let's be
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honest, season 3 is okay. I carry the season. I've heard that. It's true. I
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have to acknowledge that. But this monologue from Sam Rockwell is a close second. Anyway, uh I'm in Puerto Rico.
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It's lovely. You're still there. Are you enjoying it? I'm going back today. It's I'd rather not go back at all, but uh but it's lovely. It's a lovely place.
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Food amazing. Uh we got a great Airbnb. It was great. just a really nice I had
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three of the four kids and uh it's been lovely. Um anyway, we've got a lot to get to today including Elon's visit to
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the Pentagon. Tesla facing more facing more trouble uh with a massive cyber
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truck recall. I saw one Cybert truck here by the way, Scott in Puerto Rico. Just that's it. That's all I've seen is
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one. But there's not that many that were sold apparently as we turned as the massive Cybertruck recall has shown. Um
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where are you right now? Uh I'm in the UK. I'm in London. Had a really nice weekend. It was great. I had a nice
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weekend. Uh our friends Alanka and Nacho, our Argentinian friends are visiting. It's nice because our boys all
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are close friends and they just love to drink. As long as there's wine, they won't leave. And their accents get their
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accents get thicker and thicker and I don't know what they're saying, but he laughs so wonderfully. It makes me laugh. That's nice. That's nice. It's
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nice. And I took him for a roast at uh Lore the Land, which is this pub. This
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is like a Sunday roast. That kind of Sunday roast. Yeah. Owned by Guy Rich. It's a total British pub. So I had a
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nice weekend. And then I s on Friday night I took my youngest to see team England play um Albania and literally
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half of Albania came to see this game. I mean these fans are so out of control.
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It's a nation of two million people and I'm not exaggerating. It felt like half of them were at this game. Oh that's great. That's good. It's kind of fun.
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Nice weekend. We went to the rainforest. We went to the beach, the rainforest. Puerto Rico is a beautiful place. It
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really is. It really is. I've never been. It's lovely. It's sort of um you know, it's like most tropical areas, but
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it's um it's really lovely and the people are wonderful and um the food is
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strikingly good. Um there's a lot of beans and rice and stuff like that, but it's been delicious. I don't think of
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Puerto Rico as having great food, but that's just I know. Neither did I. And I actually am been very pleasantly
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surprised. I have I don't go to the Caribbean unless it's St. Barts. Uh, by the way, if you fly through Puerto Rico,
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because it's a US territory, you don't have to clear customs. Also, the only story I have about Puerto Rico is I know
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two Hudson managers that move there. Yeah. Because you can qualify for 2% taxation. It's a total tax avoidance
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move. Yes. The Bitcoin people did it except you have to stay there. You have to be there 183 days a year. And in both
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instances, they both move back. They decided they like Puerto Rico, but they don't like it that much. Oh, yeah. It's hard. I think it's hard to do those tax
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moves. like Monaco was another one, right? There's a couple of people. Florida obviously and it is the talk of
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the town here in London because of this thing called nondom where basically Kier Starmer and his government have decided
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no more tax u advantage or avoidance for people who've been here for longer than 5 years. I have two friends. One has
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moved to Milan and he's left his family here and he can only be here 90 nights.
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And then I have another who's moving um he thinks he's going to move to Madrid. Yet this Cara in the last year over
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10,000 millionaires have left the UK. Wow. Wow. Is that crazy? So they're
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doing it just to avoid taxes to avoid, you know, on some level. It's sort of like they should probably lower taxes.
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At the same time, the tax avoidance schemes are so insane. I remember we had some stories when in Puerto Rico when a
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lot of the Bitcoin guys came here and they were sort of wrecking the place and at the same time were buying up l buying
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up these expensive houses and they were conducting themselves badly and the whole thing was so icky like the ways
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the the the the girrations people make to do this kind of stuff. It's a it
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seems ridiculous on some level. I get the Monaco thing and I know people like different tennis stars have lived in
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Monaco to avoid taxes and this and that but and that's a that's sort of a it's
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designed for rich people I guess that town but um or that country it's so small uh but it seems so icky it's I
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don't know I guess I think it I think it I think it defines the term the difference between being right and being
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effective and that is in the '9s or 2000s I should say Tony Blair passed a
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series of private property laws and said, "I don't care how you made your money. If you bring it to London and you invest in businesses or buy a home here,
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no one can come for it and take it from you." And so London be kind of became the most popular place in in Europe and
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the Gulf to bring money. And quite frankly, it was really good for the UK economy because these are people who
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invest, they spend a lot of money, they spend they create a lot of like usage and VAT tax revenue. They endorse or
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they patronize the local businesses. And it's it's theoretically just makes sense in principle to say, okay, you should
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pay the same tax rates as people here because you're using our infrastructure. But the problem is it's not effective
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because rich people are very mobile. It's a tough one because while I understand that I understand the logic
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behind it, the reality is they're going to have less tax revenue for the NHS and for for social programs. I get it. I get
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it. I just the Bitcoin ones were so un unseammly here in in Puerto Rico. I
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remember the stories. I was always felt dirty writing, you know, writing because they they're just terrible people that
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were, you know, avoiding taxes and and then a lot of it was [ __ ] But some of Anyway, anyway, it's a lovely place.
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I recommend people going there. It is it is not a garbage island. It's beautiful and the people are lovely. Um and
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they're Americans, by the way. Um but people always go, "Oh, you're going to a foreign country?" I'm like, "No, Puerto
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Rico is American and they should have they should be the 51st state and they should get uh get representation uh as
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should the District of Columbia before we move into China and Greenland." Anyway, yeah, that's our that's that's
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easily our biggest issue right now. Yeah. Right. No, I'm just saying I'd like to have a I'd like to have my vote
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count, Scott. You get to have your vote count, but I don't. Your vote your vote does count. You're not Puerto Rican. What are you talking about? No, I'm a DC
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resident. We don't have We're taxation without representation. We have a We have a person in Congress. So does
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Puerto Rico, but we don't have They don't The votes don't count. Oh, yeah. I don't understand that. That's right.
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Yeah. I don't either. I don't either. I would like We're one of the biggest We have many many many much more of a
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population. Anyway, I shall not go on. Okay. If we're going to go down the street, California that has the population of 30 million, have two
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senators. Wyoming has two. I mean, there's Wyoming and Montana do well.
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Come over. If you want to talk about electoral electoral injustice, come over and we'll smoke cigarettes and have ice
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cream and talk about all our bad boyfriends. I understand, but still, I would like to have my vote count. Anyway, uh first, speaking of of
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politics, bipartisan senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durban plan to render a bill to sunset section 230, I guess.
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Okay. The bill would give section 230 an expiration date of January 1st, 2027, with a goal pressuring big tech to
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engage in negotiations for new regulations. President Trump has long been an advocate for repealing section
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230, although he hadn't been before. He's changed like a lot of these politicians. He's not alone in that. Uh
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Graham has introduced repeal bills multiple times. This one, you know, we'll see if it happens. Um it's it's
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it's really a a way to it's just not the way to go here. But there there seem to
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be no other ways to go. We'll see if there will be new regulation. There's also a danger the Trump administration
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takes control over online speech. Tet dirts take, which I think is the smartest. Democratic senators team up
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with MAGA to hand Trump a censorship machine. Um, it's really a problematic. It's it's like taking out your liver, I
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guess, or whatever you need. Organ would you need your heart um to fix a real problem um of of not of these companies
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not being uh subject to any kind of litigation or uh regulation. Uh so, it's
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a really difficult situation. and it would really affect their businesses in ways that are really quite profound. I
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don't know. What do you What do you feel? I would read Mike Maznik on the entire thing. That's how I would I would uh recommend.
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I think Senator Gradom is a really ineffective senator in addition to having absolutely no moral compass or
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ability for his constituents to discern who he has less consistency or ability
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to figure out where he is or what he stands for than um Secretary Rubio. And this is just this is just stupid because
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the reality is section 230 if you removed it totally would gut some of our best companies. These are great
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companies. All right. I I don't like them. You have issues with them. But without without some form of without
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some form of protection uh around their content, they go out of business the next day. So, and and in addition, this
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isn't serious because they're saying until January 2027 that so they're
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basically thinking this would prod them into negotiations. And what I really don't like about this is that we seem to
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value and understand the importance and there is some value to kind of shock and awe and shoving stuff through. So, they
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shock and awe around cancelelling all US aid. They shock and awe around rounding
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up innocents and deporting them to these hellscape prisons in El Salvador, but
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around going after those nice white people and shareholders. Let's be thoughtful and measured and give them
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till January 2027 to deploy their lobbyists and weaponize and buy off
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government. They gave $62 million in lobbying next year. This first off,
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somebody should have done shock and awe. Somebody like Senator Murphy or Senator Clolobashar should have gotten the
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support and they probably could have because this is a bipartisan issue and said all algorithmically elevated
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content is no longer protected by T30 because that's a decision they make to elevate content and they still would
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have had protection around stuff. they still would have had the whole free speech argument and the biggest argument
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here is around against it is around well you should have free speech fine if you want to say mRNA vaccines alter your DNA
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fine but you shouldn't elevate it beyond its organic reach because it enrages people so when you do that and also bots
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don't have in my opinion don't have rights to free speech so they could have come up with a thoughtfilled bill and
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gone shock and awe and just passed it instead they come up with something stupid and give a warning the same
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warning, the same due process that poor people aren't getting in our nation right now. The poor people abroad are
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absolutely not getting right now. But they've said, "Okay, let's put out something stupid that will never happen
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and give them the due process that they're not affording to people who aren't white, who aren't shareholders,
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who aren't corporations. This is total [ __ ] [ __ ] and a waste of time and attention." Yep. I would agree. And
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again, I would recommend there's a really good podcast that Mike Masnik has done. He's written a lot about this. Um
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I I years ago when they were doing this before when they tried to do this again um they uh I had him on and a bunch and
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Jeff Koff and and and others who know a lot about it to explain why this is the the the it's like there's an expression
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throwing a a hammer at a piano to make music. Like it's just doesn't make any sense. Um and and he this is what he
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writes. How did the once obscure internet law become the target of bipartisan crusade? the answer reveals much about our current moral panic over
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social media and dangerous appeal of quick fix solutions um and makes them default to fix this. What people don't
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realize is that section 230 isn't really the root of their concerns or removing or even reforming it won't fix the people on the internet. In fact, it will
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certainly make things worse. Um so I think it's really important to get yourself educated on this. This is not
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the solution. Again, you're right. They could have passed all of the different bills Senator Clolobachar and others had
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around privacy around all kinds of things around some liability um that
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they never they refused to do. They refused to do decent law and they they have to use this as a cudel. Like it's
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it's ridiculous. They should be able, if they can be bipartisan, they should be bipartisan enough to pass a series of
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laws that put that give these that that have teeth in them that have against these companies privacy algorithm,
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transparency, anti- new antitrust rules. Why not an executive order here? Yeah, exactly.
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Shock and a shock and a cross rounding up people shock and cutting off aid for
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malaria victims. But when it comes to corporations in Silicon Valley, we're stupid that'll take effect in a
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year in 2 years. Why not have a regulation on privacy around a bipartisan right now? They could do it
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right now. Uh and this is what they're going for. This is just they're so stupid. Executive order. No one under
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the age of 16 is allowed on social media. Boom. Done tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. This is really not the smart
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way to do it. Anyway, I urge you to learn about it because as it perhaps might have not been correct in the first
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place, it almost was impossible to create these companies without it at the same time. So anyway, uh difficult
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difficult times. Speaking of uh someone that Meta has made a bestseller, Sarah Win Williams released Careless People
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documenting her six years at the company earlier this month. She was there not quite a bit ago. I think 2018 is when
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she left. Meta has recently successfully stopped Win Williams from doing interviews based on a non-disparagement
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agreement signed at her termination. Win Williams has filed an emergency motion to overturn the ruling, citing lack of
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proper notice and whistleblower protection. She apparently wasn't present at the when they made the ruling at the time of the taping the book uh is
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number three on Amazon's best seller. I think it was this was the strategy of this publisher. Um they didn't inform
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the company before there was a very uh it was a lot of of quietness around the
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uh release. They didn't seem to fact check. The ones I checked, they did not the ones I people I checked with, but
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they did not call. Um, and uh, and they have um, you know, they they the company
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is very upset about the book and has been trying to stop it in and in the process has made it very popular. Um,
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she did a se a bunch of short interviews or there was one or two interviews before um, but then has not been able to
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do that. But it hasn't stopped it. I think I don't know. I I think it's a it's a problematic book. I have read it.
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Um we can discuss it, Scott, if you want because you haven't read it, but um there's a lot of important stuff in this
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book and at the same time a lot of stuff that is not what I say fact checked is
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what I would say. Um and and is questionable about her taking credit for certain things. I think some of the
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stuff, the personal stuff is uh should have been fact checked. Um, there's some
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stuff about Joel Kaplan, um, about uh, sexual harassment. There's some stuff
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about Charles Samberg wanting her to sleep in a bed on a plane, which I think I'm sorry, I don't believe I believe it
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happened. I just don't believe it the way Williams is telling it. Um, although
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only people there would know, I guess. Um, and there I think Facebook is reacting rather emotionally to this
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because of the personal stuff in it, but the stuff around China is really interesting. Um, it's really interesting
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that their preparations to go into China. Uh, but then they didn't. Uh, and I don't think she was there when they
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decided not to. So, she doesn't know why they didn't, but they didn't do it. Um, but some of the stuff is really
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interesting. It gives you an insight to this company who are indeed careless people. Um, but I'm not so sure this is
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the best narrator to tell it, although a lot of it is really important. Uh, and lots of people I trust have uh, mixed
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feelings on this book as I do. Well, I'll put forward I haven't read I've read a lot about it. I'll put
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forward a thesis and you validated or nullified because you're just going to forget more about this topic than I'm
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going to know and you know these people I don't. And that is this reminded me a little bit of sort of one of the issues
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or I think dangers of Joe Rogan and RFK Jr. I think my thesis is she's mixing
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truth with [ __ ] here. And that is I I don't know Cheryl Samberg. I know a
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lot about her just following her career, but her making advances on female
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employees or Joel Kaplan who I do not know, but I followed his career clo closely. Him engaging in a pattern of
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sexual harassment. Quite frankly, a lot of this just didn't ring true. And it
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felt like quite frankly I just read a lot of this I I love reading about
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whistleblowers and meta Francis Hen everything she said just felt true and
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she was measured and she was happy to say that's not true that's hyperbole whatever this quite frankly your
00:18:01
[ __ ] sensors just go on high alert when you read about this stuff it just for me didn't ring true what are your
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thoughts some of it some of the memos she has are really important to read like these are actual memos and things
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like that that of how they did things. I just think it's her take on she's always the hero in the story and I I I know a
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lot of people who work there who tried really hard to do the right thing and I think in some places where they had
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successes she takes a lot of the credit and I think that's one of the things certain people like Katie Harbath who I
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who I like very much um who've been big Facebook critics um find issues with
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this like the in the telling of the stories. Now, it's a memoir, so this is her telling of the story, and I just
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wrote my own memoir, so I understand how people might not agree with my take on situations either. Uh, but uh but this
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this has been met by a lot of people whom I trust saying this is not the way it happened. Uh that said, I think her
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vibe is absolutely correct. This sort of carelessness I think is absolutely true. I think uh you know, how they go about
00:19:05
doing things is true. Uh the China stuff is really interesting to understand. It
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gives you great insight into the company and that stuff is I think very much the vibe is correct. The sort of
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like I don't I also don't know why she waited so long if this was so critical.
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That's of course she's going to that's that's a Facebook argument and I don't think it's a wrong one. Um but I do
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think Facebook has reacted emotionally on on this stuff and has made it into a bestseller. So more people are reading
00:19:34
it because of the cuz cuz one of the things and I told this to uh someone from Meta. I'm like they're like it's
00:19:40
not trustworthy. I said neither are you. So it's not like it's not like we trust
00:19:45
Meta when they're actually telling the truth. And that's the problem is that they nobody has any trust for this
00:19:51
company. And so you assume the worst of them. And in my case I I I do think it does hurt for people who are critics of
00:19:58
them when things aren't buttoned up. Unfortunately, you have to be super buttoned up with these people. And one
00:20:04
of the I I was supposed to interview her, but there was way way too many holes. I didn't feel like slagging her and I didn't feel like defending
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Facebook. And um I just think she's got the vibe right. She's got the vibe right. That's for sure. I do. Didn't it
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feel very Didn't it feel very sensationalist to you? It did. It did. I I I hate to say that, but I really did.
00:20:23
And this the Samberg stuff as you know, I'm a little kinder to her than you are. Um, but I can see how that happened and
00:20:31
the way she told it isn't correct. I can see Cheryl's very I would say sisterly or motherly with her employees and all
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tech companies and Facebook included are far too familiar with their employees
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and especially in the early days it was like a frat sometimes sometimes it was like a family uh dysfunctional family
00:20:50
for sure not not Facebook wasn't as much of a frat as say Google was in many ways
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um and I think there was a familiarity in those companies that has long gone
00:21:00
now but initially was was present and I think all these companies were sort of
00:21:06
behaved in ways that HR would just blush at. And at one point um I there was a
00:21:12
meta it was Facebook at the time person in HR and they had just gotten there and I said what what's your job and she said
00:21:19
I'm I'm the vice president of keeping people from [ __ ] each other like and it was I laughed out loud but it was
00:21:26
it's not it was a very um and Facebook wasn't the worst of them which is interesting as I recall but um there was
00:21:33
just a familiarity so I could see her saying oh sleep in the bed you're pregnant sleep in the bed no do it like I could see her doing that in a very
00:21:39
sisterly, motherly way. I can't see her. It it
00:21:45
she as a sexual overure. She kind of does. And but I it's not quite there. It
00:21:50
also if you read it, it's sort of like it it's more invasive, I guess, than anything else. And it leaves the reader
00:21:56
to decide what the what the intent was. But let me just say, I could see being
00:22:02
overly sisterly, motherly. I could not This is just kind of ridiculous on some level. And so even leaving it open
00:22:08
really irritated me I think in a lot of ways. Although again I would read it because I think some of the memos and
00:22:14
the vibe is correct. I think she does nail these people is the kind of vibe they have which is whatever it takes.
00:22:21
And I think that is that but that is not a new fresh piece of information for any of us. though I don't know but to your
00:22:28
but your point which I thought was a powerful one is that when you're making accusations of someone being a sexual
00:22:34
harasser or a bigot or or you know being responsible for the coarsening of our
00:22:39
discourse and enraging the population. I I mean I I really don't think people
00:22:45
have any sense of just how much damage meta has done to the US and the world.
00:22:50
Agree pitting people against one another. I absolutely 100% believe that Cheryl Samberg likely saw research
00:22:57
saying, "Oh, one in 18 girls in the United Kingdom site Instagram as a reason for the depression and then her
00:23:02
trying to wallpaper over it." I absolutely believe that Cheryl Samberg saw research saying and approved saying
00:23:09
we have this great new system of selling cosmetics and beauty products by identifying girls when they're feeling
00:23:14
especially depressed and have especially low self-esteem at that moment and then targeting them with beauty ads. I I all
00:23:21
of that really rings true for me that Cheryl Samberg while weaponizing the important discussion around gender
00:23:27
balance in the workplace decided to continue to deploy a business model that
00:23:32
absolutely attacked the self self-esteem of girls resulting in a
00:23:38
dramatic increase in self harm. All of that rings 100% true to me. Mhm. That's why I some of this stuff some of this
00:23:45
stuff I just can't imagine Cheryl Samberg ever taking the risks or some of
00:23:51
this stuff it just didn't ring true. It felt it felt very gossipy, very sensationalist, meant to like feel more
00:23:57
sinister and just sell more books quite frankly. And the the I actually think
00:24:03
this book does harm because there's a lot of really credible people who have
00:24:08
reported on what is going on inside of Facebook. And I think this helps medicates and go we have critics that
00:24:14
are just full of [ __ ] Yeah. So I think what it does it diminishes the it
00:24:20
diminishes the credible calls and accusations and findings. This company
00:24:26
continues to levy tremendous damage. That's why I recommend reading it because the stuff around the memos is really interesting and I I found it I
00:24:33
found insight in it. That's absolutely sure. Anyway, we should move on. Um, uh, speaking of which, another person,
00:24:38
another piece of [ __ ] in this case, um, not Facebook, uh, but RFK Jr.'s, uh,
00:24:45
latest target is surprisingly one we can almost agree on. Cell phones in schools, sort of talking about the risk of cell
00:24:51
phone use for kids. On Fox and Friends, Kenny did mention depression and poor performance. But then, what did he do?
00:24:57
Let's listen. The cell phones also produce electric magnetic radiation.
00:25:03
Yeah. Which has been shown to damage to do neurological damage to kids when it's
00:25:08
around them all day and to uh and to cause cause cellular damage and even
00:25:14
cancer. So, and there he goes down the highway. Research so far has not found
00:25:20
an association between cell phone use and cancer nor DNA damage. Last year, the surgeon general, Vivicc Marty,
00:25:27
called on schools to ban phones in classrooms for the good reasons, which are depression and poor performance. Uh,
00:25:32
that he had to do this. Oh god, I want to just I can't slap someone. I mean,
00:25:38
uh, I would like to virtually slap him for doing this because it's an important issue. And as usual, he enters all kinds
00:25:45
of conspiracy theories into it without, uh, you know, I I I don't know what to say. Just once again, this is the exact
00:25:51
same thing. It's like he's making a good point and then down he goes down conspiracy highway with his nonsensical
00:25:58
[ __ ] Your thoughts? Uh when I was in junior high school, I
00:26:03
saw my first R-rated movie. Me and my best friend out of Markman. We would get bored after school and we would go into Westwood where they had all these
00:26:09
amazing movie theaters and still do. And we'd sneak into a movie theater. We'd find a way. We'd try and sneak in to the
00:26:14
back door, the front door, side door, and we get kicked out. Yeah. Side door, whatever it was. Wait till the movie was letting out the back door into the
00:26:21
alley. sneak in. Mhm. And we snuck in. We snuck in accidentally into The Exorcist. And for about the next 6
00:26:28
years, I had to like sit in a corner to put my socks on. I mean, I was so [ __ ] freaked out. That movie
00:26:36
traumatized me for years. It's a traumat. Mine was Halloween. Halloween was I was I was 14 and for about 2
00:26:42
weeks, my mom would wake up in the middle of the night and look over and I'd be sleeping next to her bed. I just could not sleep alone. And there's a
00:26:48
there's a scene in it where the I think it's the priest says, "The devil will mix in truth with lies to really confuse
00:26:56
you." And here's the tough part about RFK Jr. is that he I think he's actually
00:27:03
really good on some issues and really articulate. He's very forceful about the industrial food complex and how it's
00:27:09
optimized for profits and not for health and it's gone too far and kids health. I think he's really I think he's really
00:27:16
good on some issues. And then he goes on to say as the person who's supposed to be measured and citing research that
00:27:22
this [ __ ] causes can there's no like you said there's absolutely no no evidence of that whatsoever. He ruins it in a
00:27:28
similar way. A ton of credibility. Yeah. Anyways, I just I agree that's a lovely story about the exorcist. But again,
00:27:34
mine was Halloween. Mine was Halloween. I hate that movie. [ __ ] movie. I love Jamie Lee Crois, but I hate that movie.
00:27:40
The guy with the hockey mask. He won't stop coming back. No, no, that was a different one. The hockey mask. Oh, that's Halloween. the chainsaw. Yeah,
00:27:46
whatever. Wait, that's No, that's Friday the 13th. Yes, that's right. Yes. No, it's not. It's just It's just Lee
00:27:52
Curtis. She's great. She's a great person. She's a great person. Yes, I've interviewed her and have talked to her
00:27:59
in the instrument. She's a wonderful, lovely, jolly, fantastic person. Um, in any case, RFK, we really think kids
00:28:06
should not have phones in schools. You're now [ __ ] wrecking it for us. Like, stop wrecking things for us. This
00:28:12
is this is going to set it back, unfortunately. Same thing with uh I think careless people, but again, read
00:28:17
it nonetheless. Uh okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Elon Musk's visit to the
00:28:23
Pentagon. Scott, we're back. President Trump is denying a report that Elon Musk was set to be briefed on top secret war
00:28:29
plans for China during a visit to the Pentagon last week. According to Defense Secretary Pete Hegath, Elon's visit was
00:28:35
just an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies, and smarter production. Trump was later asked about Elon's possible involvement in Chinese
00:28:41
foreign policy during a presser. Let's listen to what he said. We don't want to have a potential war with China, but I
00:28:47
can tell you if we did, we're very well equipped to handle it. But I don't want to show that to anybody. But certainly, you wouldn't show it to a businessman
00:28:53
who is helping us so much. He's a great patriot. He's taken it's paying a big
00:28:58
price for helping us cut costs and he's doing a great job. He's finding tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse. But
00:29:05
I certainly wouldn't want, you know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible perhaps to that.
00:29:12
Well, at least Trump's telling the truth there, but I don't think they're telling the truth. Um, I think Elon has enormous
00:29:17
access to intel. I think both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, I think, reported this as well as the New York Times. I New York Times, I
00:29:24
think, broke it. Um, uh, I just think this is exactly what they were going to do. And then they, and I don't believe
00:29:30
Kee Huff, I don't believe Donald Trump, I don't believe Elon Musk. And so, in this case, I believed the reporters. And
00:29:36
they probably pulled it back the the the briefing he was going to get. Uh, I think he's got his fingers in all kinds
00:29:41
of stuff that has potential conflicts of interest. I don't even think they're potential. I think everything he's doing
00:29:47
right now has a massive conflict of interest. Um, any thoughts on this one? Because
00:29:52
there's also one, of course, uh, SpaceX is positioning itself to get billions of dollars in new federal contracts or
00:29:58
other support. According to a report again in the New York Times, NASA, the Pentagon, the FAA, and the Commerce Department are among the agencies with
00:30:04
ongoing and new deals with SpaceX. SpaceX will also get a boost from Trump's new space-based missile defense
00:30:10
project called the Golden Dome. Um, this is just uh ridiculous. Like he's just so
00:30:16
he's got so many business interests and so many conflicts, Scott. Well, I mean, if you think about the
00:30:23
very founding of our nation, one of the pillars that our constitution rests on is that people were trying to escape
00:30:29
religious persecution and they were visionary and said, "All right, we're we're going to try and set up a
00:30:34
separation between church and state." And that has now been breached. And you could argue that a lot of like the
00:30:40
political orthodoxy of the right is just white Christian nationalism. It's no longer even conservative ideals of small
00:30:45
government, strong defense. It's it's white Christian nationalism. So that that kind of wall has been breached. The
00:30:51
other thing that people don't talk about um enough is the separation between uh
00:30:57
business and state and that is they create an operating system for competition for full body contact violence and competition. They don't
00:31:03
pick winners and losers such that they we produce the best companies in the world that are more prosperous that hopefully pay taxes to pay for schools,
00:31:10
roads and in health benefits for veterans amongst other things. We've now
00:31:15
breached that. I mean, that thing has just been overrun. And essentially, the White House has decided, okay, the guy
00:31:21
who gave us the most money and probably put me in this chair. We're going to become the marketing department for
00:31:27
Tesla. We're going to do a used car lot bad infomercial, late night TV commercial on Tesla. In addition, Musk
00:31:35
comes out and says that the FAA is on the brink of near collapse. That causes panic. You don't need to make people who
00:31:42
don't like to fly even more nervous claiming that the Verizon system is outdated. Then he has to come back and
00:31:47
correct himself and go, "Oh, the current system is not from Verizon, but Verizon
00:31:52
was picked to implement the new system." I mean, this is just you're not supposed to have be the outsource marketing
00:31:59
department. Now, on a couple other levels here, there's a lot of stuff here. I think DOA's critical mistake or
00:32:06
one of their strategic errors if they had started instead of with US A instead of starting with SNAP or Veterans if
00:32:13
they'd started with the Pentagon I think that actually for them would have been tactically very smart. Yeah. Because I
00:32:20
do think that I do think there should be tighter integration between kind of that
00:32:25
Silicon Valley ethos of innovation and our military industrial complex. I do
00:32:31
think that some of the innovators in Silicon Valley um and the ability to build better
00:32:37
weapons, I I like that. I think that I think that's a good idea. And I think if
00:32:42
there's probably a lot of waste you could find, I won't call it fraud, but a lot of waste you could find. There are
00:32:49
ships being built that the Navy does not want, but because they bring billions of
00:32:54
dollars to certain congressional districts, they refuse to pull the plug. And you know the the commanders in the
00:33:00
navy, the admirals are saying we can't use these things. They're a liability. So if they'd started with the defense
00:33:08
department, it would have been better. And then this ju just to go tactically again, he's either stupid or using it as
00:33:13
a weapon of mass distraction with the fact that we're surrendering to Putin and and massively running up our
00:33:19
deficits. And that is the following. This notion of a golden dome. Okay. And they cite Israel. Israel has the Iron
00:33:26
Dome. But just a few facts. The Iron Dome is very expensive and it only
00:33:32
covers purposefully and logistically certain key population centers. The Iron Dome
00:33:39
doesn't can't cover all of Israel. And by the way, Israel is the size of New Jersey, right? They have ground defense
00:33:45
systems, missile systems in place. To do that for America is insane. Is feasibly
00:33:51
right now impossible. What was the Reagan one? He had one the defense
00:33:56
shield or the missile or the space shield, whatever it was or something like that. But do you remember they showed they released a video of an
00:34:03
invisible laser taking out a rocket on the launchpad? Do you remember this? Yes. It showed them disintegrating a
00:34:09
rocket on the launchpad. It ended up that that freaked out the Russians and
00:34:14
they immediately went to work on this and started investing a ton of money. And a lot of people say that incremental
00:34:19
investment in military and defense spending was too much for the Russian economy to to handle and actually led to
00:34:26
the fall of the Soviet. Reagan not only spent them into oblivion, he he gave
00:34:32
them the perception we were further. It ended up that that video was [ __ ] We had nothing of the sort, but it
00:34:39
freaked them out and got them spending so much money that it supposedly bankrupted them. I I I think that's
00:34:44
genius. So I think that's the kind of [ __ ] you want our security apparatus doing. Fooling the enemy into doing
00:34:50
stupid things. He did a lot of that. He did a lot of like noise making and that caused the Russians to over react. Go
00:34:56
here. Go here. Look over here. No spend here. He did that a lot. Anyone who understands defense systems or can just
00:35:02
do any sort of scientific investigation goes the idea of building a shield. I mean, maybe you put some of our
00:35:08
universities and think tanks and scientists to work conceptually on this, but don't the mother of all false
00:35:15
equivalences. It's like it's like it's not even comparing when you compare the Iron Dorm in Israel to this concept
00:35:21
they're talking about, the Golden Dome. It's not even apples to oranges. It's apples to aircraft carriers. You're
00:35:27
talking about two entirely different things. So, and I think let's get back to the grift of Elon Musk. I mean, I
00:35:33
think one of it's just literally he is he cannot be in meetings like this. He
00:35:39
should not be in meetings like this. He has already attacked people that are regulating him and cut their budgets so
00:35:46
that they don't regulate him. He's already been involved in all kinds of things that have to do with his businesses. Several of which are is
00:35:53
cratering all the videos this week about Tesla's like being pulled apart by glue. And we'll talk about that in a minute.
00:35:59
We'll talk about that in a minute. It literally get back to your business, sir, because really a lot of your businesses should not be advantaged in
00:36:06
this way. Maybe SpaceX is the best person for some of these things, but all of them. I doubt it. And I think one of
00:36:12
the things uh that that's happening here is he puts himself in in a in a place and one where he's
00:36:18
explicitly trying to to to to advantage himself. Uh he's taking a page out of
00:36:23
his 2024 playbook to influence Wisconsin state Supreme Court election. What's he doing in there? paying voters. His super
00:36:30
PAC announced it's offering $100 to re to register voters in Wisconsin who signed a petition opposing activist
00:36:36
judges and register themselves or identify themselves. Elon affiliated groups have now spent more than $13
00:36:42
million to get a GOP candidate Brad Shiml elected in the Wisconsin race for
00:36:48
a judges race. And the reason is they want to flip it from liberal to conservative. It's a 4-3 kind of
00:36:54
situation. Um he's very interested in Wisconsin. Why is that? Why do you think
00:36:59
that is? Cuz he's trying to save abortion. You I mean anti- he's trying to help anti-abortion forces. No, he's
00:37:05
interested because Tesla's involved in a lawsuit which will go to the Supreme Court challenging a state law that
00:37:11
prohibits car manufacturers from owning dealerships. He has a beef with
00:37:16
Wisconsin around his own personal businesses and he's put enormous amount of money to get this one guy who is a a
00:37:23
Trump acolyte into power. And that is that that is what's happening there. And so he's going to go around the country
00:37:29
and do this, not just abroad, not just in China, not just everywhere else where his self-interests take effect. He's
00:37:36
going to pump money into these things like these judgeships and these smaller things that will get him enormous
00:37:42
payback. And it's just it cannot be allowed to go on. It can't it absolutely cannot. And and I think the Democrats
00:37:49
are fighting. There's enormous amounts of money going into this. I think 56 bill million dollars. It's a crazy
00:37:54
amount of money um for a judgeship. It's just this guy has got his fingers in
00:37:59
every pie and it's always goes right back to his self-interest as far as I'm concerned. Well, he's allowed to do it
00:38:05
and there's a lot of pharmaceutical companies and you know big tech spent 60
00:38:11
or $70 million in lobbying. It all reverses back to the same place. One in terms of $13 million Democrats should be
00:38:17
able to match that even though they're not the wealthiest people in the world and they are. This all goes back to Citizens United. Unless we get money out
00:38:24
of politics like the majority of democratic nations do and say, "All right, they they they ring fence the
00:38:29
time of the election, the amount of political spending, you know, we're just not going he's allowed to do this." And
00:38:37
I know it and we position him as sinister and the shock and awe of a
00:38:42
third of a billion dollars and weaponizing his communication platform really quickly, quite frankly, was
00:38:48
brilliant. It was strategic and he got to put because our electoral system is all [ __ ] up per your previous comments
00:38:53
and because money can run unfettered. He was able to probably decide who was president. He did. But he gets to do
00:39:00
that just the way a couple of our very wealthy elected very wealthy donors
00:39:06
could probably do the same. The what we're upset about is they're better at it right now. And until we reverse
00:39:12
engineer to uh unless you get unless you do something to modify or overturn
00:39:17
Citizens United, this is only going to get worse. It is. You're upset. And both sides will complain about it. But the
00:39:22
reality is he's allowed to do this. We're allowed to do it back. We're upset. Quite frankly, they're just more
00:39:28
brazen about it. Well, I think the second step is now I want all the contracts. And I get that some donors
00:39:34
get contracts after they give giving, but not in this is like an unprecedented level of well, he shouldn't be able to
00:39:41
use us use congressional I would have thought the Republicans had more self-esteem than to just let this guy
00:39:47
kind of roll in and start making decisions on their behalf. I mean that that's a different level. But the idea
00:39:54
that he can win contracts by giving money to certain people, you know, welcome to America. That's how American
00:40:01
politics work. But it's everywhere. And I think at some point this may this may spur a lot of reform which will be
00:40:07
interesting because someone just went a little too far, I think, on these kind of things. Anyway, uh we'll see where
00:40:12
this goes. It's going to be on April 1st. He of course had Brad on X. And you saw that uh thing of X, the amount of
00:40:20
how how it's changed in terms of the that there's mostly it's a MAGA echo
00:40:25
chamber now. You saw the I don't read anything on X. I'm not on No, it's not on X. It was a it was a chart which
00:40:30
showed that 95% of the largest voices on there besides Elon's the number one cuz he facilitates it. But he is he like
00:40:37
pushes people towards his content and Kanye K whatever there it's 95% MAGA
00:40:42
it's crazy like right-wing stuff now not it was pretty mixed actually for a long time of of screaming people but now it's
00:40:50
95% um that anyway let's go on a quick break when we come back unfortunately it
00:40:55
was a lot of Elon this week uh more trouble for Tesla and Elon's daughter what a what a heroine uh speaks out
00:41:03
Scott we're back with more Tesla turmoil Tesla's recalling 46,000 Cybert trucks. They really haven't sold that many. They
00:41:09
were supposed to sell 250,000. That was an interesting number. Basically, all of them because of an exterior panel that could fall off while driving. Meanwhile,
00:41:15
Tesla owners are trading their cars at record levels amid Elon backlash, according to data from car shopping site
00:41:21
Edmonds. Trump is also now threatening to send people convicted of vandalizing Teslas to prisons in El Salvador, which
00:41:26
is [ __ ] but whatever. It's really obnoxious that he did so. Uh, can this
00:41:31
is really interesting. Elon addressed Tesla employees at an all hands meeting last week saying they were in still in good hands and hang on to your stock
00:41:38
even though the board is selling its stock. So maybe not hang on to your stock Tesla employees. Um you know
00:41:44
there's videos all over the internet. My son's cited them. They're all watching them of Tesla's [ __ ] up and people
00:41:51
pulling off things because of the glue on the front panel or something on the stuff like that. Um it's getting all
00:41:57
over the place. Um meanwhile um well let's talk about that. How do you look about this? Because now the videos are
00:42:03
going crazy. I mean, my again my sons just said, "Have you seen these?" And they have seen all of them, which is really interesting. Well, again, as a as
00:42:11
a general rule, just in terms of corporate governance, when boards address employees, including the CEO,
00:42:18
you're not supposed to make stock recommendations. No, you're not. You're just not. I mean, in the 90s,
00:42:25
uh, and this is one of I've been wealthy three times, which means I lost it all
00:42:30
twice. And one of the reasons I lost it all and ended up being worth negative $2
00:42:36
million uh, at a stage in my life where I was just starting to have kids was
00:42:43
when I was on the board of Red Envelope and I had a bunch of stock. The gestalt and the pressure from your investors
00:42:49
was, "Oh, you don't get to sell stock." I mean, when they sell stock, it's for diversification and business reasons, but as the founder or the chairman or
00:42:56
the CEO, you you're sending the wrong signal. I thought you were in this to win it. That was it. It's changed a lot
00:43:03
now. Now, entrepreneurs are allowed to do secondaries and get liquidity and VCs will let you do that because there's
00:43:09
more competition. There's more capital than there are entrepreneurs. Back then, whether it was Sequoia or uh the the
00:43:16
people backing my companies, you were not supposed to sell. they got to sell stock but not you. And just in general
00:43:24
also when you're on public boards um you know I remember when the New York Times went to three bucks a share saying
00:43:31
on the board there you know maybe we should as a board start to buy some shares and Bob Denham who was I think
00:43:36
the lawyer for Warren Buffett said we shouldn't pressure anyone including each other to buy stock. And you know what I
00:43:42
was wrong he was right. This is people's personal, you know, when the world's
00:43:48
wealthiest man is telling you what to do with your own financial security, it's really none of your [ __ ] business
00:43:53
boss. If if they have shares that they've vested because they've worked there, you I mean, Elon Musk does not
00:43:59
care about you. And if you you know, he that's not appropriate for a board
00:44:05
member to be telling employees to hold on to stock or buy stock for their own benefit. That's for his own benefit. He
00:44:10
wants his wealth to go back up. And also just on a just on a a valuation basis,
00:44:18
this company even with its draw down, it's still trading at I think at 120 or 130 times earnings and it's its
00:44:27
revenues. Tesla is about to be the auto company that is declining faster than
00:44:33
any automobile company in the world in terms of sales. And yet most of these companies trade at five to 20 times
00:44:39
earnings and it still trades at 130. So
00:44:45
I mean I would not get near the stock for a 10-ft pole much less tell
00:44:50
employees who are probably have a net worth of maybe 400,000 maybe including
00:44:56
their house when you're worth 400 billion or 300 now. You should not be telling them to hold on or buy stock.
00:45:02
That's totally inappropriate. Agreed. And I think you know the shares we'll see where these shares go. They have
00:45:07
stuck in the 240s sort of pretty much they've gone up actually in the last week. Recovered in the last they're
00:45:13
still down 24 25% in the last month. Still up for the year though. Still still up year to date. Yeah. But that's
00:45:19
my point. It's wild overvalued. Year to date they're down 34% a one year 12
00:45:25
months are up 44%. Yeah they are. So, we'll see there. There was a big run up right after the that they're sort of
00:45:31
dealing with and it's sort of it's probably going to stick down in the 200s, although some are predicting lower
00:45:36
and he'll do some nonsense. Give give some Grock stock to it, you know, or something like that that they did over
00:45:42
on Twitter where he he he larded it with Grock stock and has made the the
00:45:47
valuation of Twitter go up. Um, one of the things that got a lot besides these videos which are getting a lot of
00:45:53
attention of people taking apart the Teslas, especially the Cybert truck and also doing there was a Ford 150 versus a
00:46:00
Cybert truck face off that was very sad for Cybertruck which and very happy for
00:46:05
the Ford 150. Um, uh, there is there's this interview that uh, his estrange
00:46:11
daughter Vivian Wilson uh, did for Teen Vogue on the and had was on the cover.
00:46:16
Uh, Wil I love Teen Vogue by the way. I think it's a really great publication. Wilson, uh, who is a trans woman, called
00:46:23
her father cringe and a pathetic manchild. She said she had not had a relationship with him since 2020. This
00:46:29
apparently not a very good one before that. This apparently did not sit well with Elon, who dead named his daughter
00:46:34
on X again, calling out the woke mind virus yet again, saying he was going to kill it once again. He's also been
00:46:40
amplifying a conspiracy theory about trans people vandalizing Teslas. Like, he went on a rampage. Um, I thought this
00:46:47
interview was fantastic. It was very funny. It was It was a great It was like a 20-year-old um, a young person, just
00:46:54
pretty cool, a pretty cool young person who also had a lot of wisdom. At the same time, really did understand herself
00:47:00
in terms of not knowing everything. It was very self-aware and a really, I thought a very smart way. It reminded me
00:47:06
a lot of my own two older kids just they know what they don't know, but they also love to brag a little bit. And I thought
00:47:12
it was a wonderful interview and I thought the pictures were wonderful and um and that she gets under his skin so
00:47:19
much is really quite uh like delightful on so many levels and it's a it's a big risk for someone like this. Uh she lives
00:47:26
in Japan but uh she doesn't have financial links with him but he's still a very powerful person and obviously it
00:47:32
set him off quite a bit. Uh especially because she is everything she is a delight online and he is not. She is
00:47:39
funny online. He is not. And so she's everything. She's everything he's wanted to be online, which is cool, I guess.
00:47:46
Um, your thoughts? Look, I generally think you cut a pretty
00:47:52
wide birth in that people's kids and the relationship with their kids is sort of off limits. Mhm. U, but when you dead
00:47:58
name your kid on a podcast and say that that she is dead to you, um, you're
00:48:04
opening yourself up for scrutiny. And in my view, you know, when you talk about
00:48:10
masculinity, when you talk about what it is to be a man, it can distill down to three basic points. Your protector, your
00:48:16
provider, and you're a procreator. Okay? Ground zero for being
00:48:21
a provider as a man is you stand by your kids. Full stop. I mean, you see all
00:48:26
these parents in the courtroom when their kids have done horrible things. Yeah. and you understand and empathize
00:48:34
that they are going to side with their children, they're going to protect their
00:48:40
children. So, I had when I was at South by Southwest, I had lunch with a friend and he was talking about
00:48:46
how his um daughter said that um uh they
00:48:52
wanted to now identify as a man. And it was very traumatic for the parents, not
00:48:58
because they, you know, they're struggling with, all right, a person should be comfortable in their own skin.
00:49:04
They're trying to put aside, they're trying to say, okay, one of the wonderful things about being a human and
00:49:09
being in America is having the right to present you as you you are most comfortable. At the same time, they're
00:49:14
also worried that teenagers make bad decisions. And, you know, you could just
00:49:21
understand they're really like worried and upset about it. But the idea that this guy would ever be
00:49:27
critical of this kid, they were just you could just tell how
00:49:32
much just how much pain he was feeling because not because he didn't want to have a trans son, but because he wanted
00:49:40
his kid to make the right decision and was concerned about his kid. And that's the right. That's what I think it means
00:49:47
to be a mother or a father. You default to protection. And this guy does not
00:49:52
default to protection. and he is making his daughter's life harder. And that is exactly what it that
00:49:59
is exactly what it means to not be a man. I mean this is this guy is such a
00:50:04
terrible role model. He is saying to other men because of his incredible achievements they look up to him and
00:50:10
they are going to model him that if your child makes certain decisions you don't agree with you're going to publicly
00:50:16
shame them and make their lives harder. So this is I mean this is just so wrong
00:50:21
on so many dimensions. And he's just, again, I go back to the same thing. This guy's the worst [ __ ] thing to happen
00:50:27
to young men since since porn, since since old men deciding to protect their
00:50:34
own land decided to send young men off to war. I mean, there are very few worse influences right now on young men than
00:50:40
Elon Musk. Anyways, I would agree. I don't think it's working though. I have to tell you, my sons make constant and they used to really like him. I have to
00:50:47
say they did. But now they're like they they like trade back and forth all these videos on Teslas and stuff and they were
00:50:53
horrified by his response to the daughter. They thought the daughter was cool. Like the daughter's [ __ ] cool.
00:50:59
Like she really is. And again, what I really liked about it is she understood what she didn't know. And she says like
00:51:05
maybe that'll change. Maybe I'm wrong. Like she had more self-awareness at 20 years old in a very difficult position
00:51:12
than he has had his whole life. So let's just give kudos to her mom who who is
00:51:18
who who was quoted in the piece uh and I thought was a wonderful piece uh
00:51:23
essentially calling uh her daughter magical and really wonder it was a wonderful quote from the mother and
00:51:29
sounds like and I know Justine a little bit and uh is just really terrific and
00:51:35
good thank goodness for that. Um in any case um uh I met her at TED she seemed
00:51:41
lovely. She's lovely. She's really interesting, smart, and just obviously a great parent here in this situation,
00:51:48
this really incredibly difficult situation. I met my first wife at TED. I think that's the whitest thing I've ever
00:51:53
said. It is, actually. I'm translucent. I move on. We're going to move on. Okay. Anyway, Vivian, great job. Let's go to
00:51:59
Wimble. Great job, Vivian. We We think you're amazing and you think your father's an [ __ ] just like you do. Anyway, uh Scott, one more quick break.
00:52:07
We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and
00:52:12
fails. Would you like me to go first? No, you go first here. I think you got to give the Well, I I there's one small
00:52:18
win, which is this New York Times piece on Hooters becoming a refuge for young gay men. And it's this wonderful uh
00:52:23
piece uh where a lot of dads apparently brought gay sons to Hooters try to get
00:52:28
them. And the Hooters waitresses thankfully saved these gay people were like, "Don't worry about it." like there
00:52:33
was it's this wonderful thing and it's it was just go find it Hooters Gay Men and you will it's a delightful read and
00:52:40
thank God and Hooters is on the precipice of bankruptcy apparently but thank God for Hooters waitresses is all
00:52:47
I have to say in that regard. Um but I think you have to give it to the severance uh season finale. I watched it
00:52:53
here in Puerto Rico on Friday and Oh, you did Thursday? Yeah. Amazing. Um, I'm not gonna give away too much, but boy is
00:53:01
Ben Stiller one hell of a director and the writer. Did he direct this one? He hasn't directed all. He did. He did. I
00:53:07
believe he did. Yes. And it was he directed a lot of them this season. More than he was supposed to, he told me. Um,
00:53:12
but um he it is just wow was it a mind
00:53:18
[ __ ] in a way that was really good and it leaves open for a whole new season that is really great. I I I it was not
00:53:24
going the way you thought it was going to go. uh but it sort of did. So it had a very satisfying and you didn't feel at
00:53:31
a loss and at the same time it was it was a lot about uh innies and outies and
00:53:37
the relationship you have with yourself and it was real the struggles you have with yourself and it was there's so much
00:53:43
to unpack and Patricia every single person in it Milch the guy who plays Milch did this incredible uh there's a
00:53:51
marching band the there was a big fire and it just was the whole thing was every single there was there was a goat
00:53:57
lady. There's there's so much to it. Every single character had their moment and every single character took
00:54:03
advantage of their moment in a really profound and wonderful way and I couldn't recommend it more. Like I have
00:54:10
it was really funny too. It was really funny and also heartbreaking and etc. Uh and every character was wonderful. So
00:54:17
that I just have to say that was such a win and Hooters also Hooters. Um the
00:54:22
fail I think I think I'll stick with this RP. Can I comment on your wins? Sure. Yes, please go ahead. So, I'm I'm
00:54:28
you know, I'm an enormous fan of Ben Stiller and he gives Jewish guys hope that they can marry a hot interesting
00:54:34
woman. I've got to know his wife a little bit. She's very interesting. Also very good-looking. Not that that's important. Okay. She's an actor, too,
00:54:40
but she's also wonderful, but go ahead. Go ahead. What? Like interesting and hot wasn't enough. Anyway, so smart. Go
00:54:47
ahead. Um, just on the Hooters story, I read that. I thought it was really sweet. I'm actually know someone who was
00:54:53
a waiter at Hooters and was in a car accident and lost her leg and now she works at IHOP. Mhm.
00:55:04
Come on. You just waited for that. You don't want to talk about profoundity. I couldn't think about anything else when you were reading that win. Also, also I
00:55:11
wanted just as a joke. I went down and applied for a job at Hooters and they gave me a bra and they said, "Okay, fill this out." Oh my god. All right, we're
00:55:18
done. I And by the way, let me just tell you Hooters's wages is rock. So they just [ __ ] Well, I got I got more
00:55:23
stories here. One is true. And also the reason they're writing about it is because Hooters is is declared
00:55:28
bankruptcy. But I have an idea how to save the franchise. They should do home delivery of meals. They should they
00:55:34
could call it Booer Eats. Mhm. All right. Now the true part. Now the
00:55:40
true part of the story. Yeah. Okay. Somebody This is true. Somebody very close to me was a Hooters girl. You want
00:55:46
to take any guesses? No. worked at Hooters through college. Who? Uh, mother of my children. Oh, wow. Oh, she did?
00:55:53
Wow. And occasionally she still has the outfit and occasionally I'm sure she was lovely like all these people in this
00:55:59
piece just No, she wasn't lovely. She was [ __ ] hot. No, I mean lovely in terms of the way that she handled these.
00:56:04
Anyway, I'm sure she was sitting down gay kids and telling him it's okay. Well, they weren't. They would just silent him saying, "Don't worry, kid.
00:56:10
You're fine the way you are." That kind of It is a sweet story. I'll give it a sweet story. It is a sweet story. Uh uh.
00:56:16
All right, thank you for that. All right, so fail. Um I um I really fail is
00:56:23
that that that they really aren't finding as much uh for of this Doge thing. I think it's an absolute fail.
00:56:28
They are not finding as much fraud, waste, and abuse. Thank God. And especially social security like they're
00:56:34
they're just not finding it. Like uh there's a great story in the New York Times um uh that at the Wall Street
00:56:41
Journal and all of them they're talking about how they're just not finding it especially in ma claims of massive
00:56:46
problems. The lying the lying about reforming government is a critical is a critical thing in our age. We should
00:56:53
always be reforming government and making it better for people to get their their their stuff they they stuff you
00:57:00
pay for. I'm very cognizant like right now the fact that we're paying for innocent people to be sent to El
00:57:06
Salvador to this this lunatic who runs that country and I know he's like there but nonetheless seems like a lunatic um
00:57:14
is heinous. It's just heinous. So I just feel like it's always important to understand why you why how government
00:57:20
can work better. But this is this is making an argument that government does work well. And I think that's great. But
00:57:26
at the same time, just like stop it. Just you're again just like a lot of things you're we really care about
00:57:32
government reform. You're [ __ ] ruining it for government reform. That's my feeling. And I think we're going to have a problem with it with because this
00:57:39
will this will tarnish efforts like that to for years to come. Uh Scott, all yours. No Hooters jokes. If the if the
00:57:47
audit if this is an audit of the federal government, then the federal government comes out with a clean bill of health,
00:57:54
they they have struggled despite all of their lies, hyperola, and the fact that this is the largest business in the
00:58:00
world and the fact that it there is a lot of large s. There's a lot less waste and fraud than even Democrats I thought
00:58:06
might might be there. If this is like going into the doctor's office and they do a full body cavity search of
00:58:12
everything and they give you a colonoscopy and they take your blood, your urine, and it's like, okay, you're actually pretty good. So, I think if
00:58:19
anything, Doch has found that no, there's not nearly as much fraud and waste as people as people had feared.
00:58:25
Anyways, my uh uh my fail is the Yale University's
00:58:33
humanitarian research lab uh which has been tracking the missing children. Um,
00:58:39
Russia has allegedly been kidnapping children from Ukraine and then uh
00:58:45
bringing them back to Russia. And the humanitarian research lab from Yale
00:58:50
University had been tracking this. And the humanitarian research lab um which
00:58:55
by the way is still you can still make donations um uh says that more than
00:59:00
19,000 children have been deported to Russia and only about 1,236 have been returned. And according
00:59:08
to the lab's research, the children have often experienced abuse, inadequate food, and have been cut off from their
00:59:13
families as they are indoctrinated by Russia and often given military training. And a bipartisan group of
00:59:19
lawmakers said it has uh reason to believe that the data from the depository has been permanently deleted.
00:59:24
And what do you know? The Trump administration's cut up cut off all funding here. And this could have
00:59:29
devastating consequences. Like these kids have literally been disappeared. And it's the same sort of thing that's
00:59:36
going on right now where you have due process for tech companies, but a kid
00:59:42
more than due process and and uh a kid uh and Tim Miller did a
00:59:49
great job on this, by the way. Tim Miller for the Bull Work Podcast. I decided he's my future ex-husband. I'm in love with that guy. Speaking of
00:59:54
handsome, smart, too. Passionate. But he's brought attention to this kid, this kid, I think his name's Andre, who's
01:00:00
basically uh fled communist Venezuela and was rounded up and has
01:00:07
been sent to this hellscape prison in El Salvador. And Tim went on his Instagram.
01:00:13
I mean, the kid is clearly gay and clearly not a member of a deadly
01:00:18
Venezuelan gang. I mean, and it it goes to the same thing. All right, you're a
01:00:25
Japanese dentist. You've been a great American citizen, but we're under threat and we're going to start putting you in
01:00:31
interment camps. This is a form of that without due process. They are finding people and of course it's people who are
01:00:37
poor and don't have Tim fighting for them, which he can for every person. They're just going to maybe disappear
01:00:43
and never be heard from again. Mhm. But that along the lines of cutting funding from this fantastic organization of
01:00:49
people at Yale trying to track down kids who've basically been kidnapped, people don't Americans don't realize the price
01:00:56
we're going to pay from going from the good guys to the bad guys. Mhm. When you're big and strong and a good person,
01:01:03
people want to be your friend. People want to be your ally. People respect you. People want to help you. When
01:01:08
you're weak and small and when you're weak and kind, people might be nice to you and feel sorry for you, but it
01:01:13
doesn't have the same implication. When you're big and strong and mean, people
01:01:18
start plotting against you behind your back because you're seen as a threat. People start thinking, you know, I'm
01:01:25
going to ignore those funds being funneled to to terrorist cell groups in the US. I am going to I am not going to
01:01:33
be as kind. I'm not going to help or protect American tourists when I see them under threat. I'm not inclined to
01:01:40
do business with American companies. When you go from big and strong and
01:01:45
trying to do the right thing to big and strong and just mean, people start
01:01:52
plotting again. People are going to decide, you know what, I'm going to ignore that uranium enriched uranium shipment to Iran. I'm just going to
01:01:59
ignore it. I used to like those guys. I'd probably contact the US embassy and say, "Hey, FYI, confidentially, there's
01:02:05
something going on here." People have no concept, I believe, of just
01:02:11
how much damage over the medium and long-term are done when you go from the good guys to the bad guys. Agree. And
01:02:18
this is happening everywhere. And my loss is I think it's national security adviser Waltz was on Face the Nation and
01:02:24
refused to answer questions because the reality is he has no answers about why we're cutting funding to a database. And
01:02:31
they're not only cutting funding, they're trying to delete the data. So these these Ukrainian parents can't even
01:02:38
find their kids, right? So in just a matter of feels like of shock and awe
01:02:44
speed, we're going from being the good guys to the bad guys. and and regardless of your morals, your ethics, that's just
01:02:50
stupid. That's gonna we've be gotten so spoiled to people giving us the benefit of the doubt, to people being nice to us
01:02:56
abroad, to people wanting to work with American companies, to people informing our security apparatus when very bad
01:03:02
people are trying to do bad things to us. There is So, my fail is just an unnecessary transition from being the
01:03:09
good guys to the bad guys in um record time. Uh my win is I do love these town
01:03:17
halls uh that that a lot of Republicans where people are showing up in what I feel is a civil a civil manner
01:03:23
exercising their first amendment rights. Uh there's a lot of jeers and shouts, but they aren't being there aren't
01:03:28
expletives. There have been no reports of violence. I think they're powerful. I think I think the representatives hear
01:03:35
them. It's got to give it to Senator Sanders and Representative Okaziocortez for their fighting oligarchy tour,
01:03:40
drawing record crowds. Today we are here to say very loudly and clearly, no, we
01:03:51
will not accept an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires
01:03:58
run the government. [Applause]
01:04:04
It feels really good to have what I feel is like a coordinated effective
01:04:10
response. I agree. and it's powerful and it's very satisfying and they're doing a
01:04:15
great job and they're, you know, they're kind of touching on what I would argue are some of the the um the key points
01:04:23
here. I think they're doing a great job and the rallies are fun. They have sort of that quite frankly that early Trump
01:04:30
feel with a group of really impassioned people. So my win is Senator Sanders and Representative Okasio Cortez. Uh and
01:04:37
they're fighting oligarchy tour. Agreed. Of course, Trump is saying it's all fixed and he would know. Anyway, it's
01:04:43
not. It's really real. I have to say it's really fun to watch. I love to watch democracy like that. I like
01:04:49
screamy town halls. I love screamy city hall meetings, too. Anyway, uh it's a that's a great one. Uh we want and they
01:04:55
look fantastic and they sound and they sound fun. You're right. They sound fun, actually. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech,
01:05:02
or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 8551 pivot. And elsewhere in the Cara
01:05:09
and Scott universe this week on on with Cara Swisser, I talked to Alvo Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter, the two
01:05:14
Democratic commissioners Trump fired at the FDC last week for without cause. Uh they didn't even mention it. Let's
01:05:20
listen to it's it's an illegal act what he did. But let's listen to a clip. I fear that the next merger that comes
01:05:28
before the commission, it's not going to matter if it raises prices on consumers. It's not going to matter if it screws over workers. Not going to matter if it
01:05:34
screws over small businesses. The only thing that's going to matter is which billionaires have the president's ear on it and which way they can tuck it. It
01:05:40
was a great interview. It's really interesting. It's I'm sure they'll be they'll get their jobs back, but at the same time, the fact that he tried it is
01:05:46
is typical of Trump at this point. Okay. Uh that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe
01:05:53
to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.
01:05:59
Today's show was produced by Larara Neon, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie or Todd entered into this episode.
01:06:04
Julian Ard edited this video. Thanks also to Drew Gross, Miss Vero, and Dan Shoulan. Michelle Kerwis, Vox Media's
01:06:10
executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen in podcast. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine Vox
01:06:15
Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nmag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things
01:06:21
tech and business. Cara, have a great rest of your vacation.
