Digital Social Hour - Elizabeth Pipko On Working with Trump, Free Speech & Dealing with Haters | DSH #226

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, Elizabeth Pipko talks about dealing with the hate she gets on social media, what it was like being a model and how she got involved in politics. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you think it's good that the younger generations are caring less and less about politics? I'd say they care less about like politics in general, maybe more about specific issues. What ended up happening with that Kanye thing? Because he kind of disappeared, right? I hope he's over it. I don't know. He said a lot of really terrible things. At the same time, I think everyone's kind of just waiting for that apology. Welcome back to the show, guys. Digital Social Hour. I'm your host as always, Sean Kelly. Got with me a great guest for you guys today, Elizabeth Pipko. How's it going? Good. Good. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Could you give people watching a quick bio on you?

Oh, God. Yeah, I've worked in, let's say, fashion, politics, media, a bunch of other things. Wrote a few books. I'm not exactly sure what I'm known for. Unfortunately, it's like a very broad mix. People don't often get it, but it's also good because I'm actually known for more than just one viral moment, which means a lot nowadays. So yeah. I saw you were also a model too, right? Yes, that too.

I said fashion, so that kind of counts, right? Yeah. What was that like? I mean, that's a total different thing than what you're doing now. I'm still modeling, actually. Yeah, it's obviously different now than when i started at 17 but it's a lot i i like to joke that the best way to prepare for politics was a modeling career so that's like the worst thing you could possibly see like you think you've seen it all and you go into politics so i'd say that was a solid preparation. But I've done a little bit of everything

in all the scariest industries you can imagine. Nice. So what made you want to get into politics? Because that's a scary, scary world. Yeah. I always say that same phrase. I'm sure you've heard it. Man makes plans.

God laughs. Don't really know how it happened. Like truly an accident. And it also happened at the craziest time in American history, at least in the last 20, 30 years. truly an accident and it also happened at like the craziest time in american history that you know at least in the last 20 30 years um i ended up 21 in the middle of one of the craziest elections we've ever seen right um did not expect it probably learned i'd say a lot more in two three years than

i probably could have learned in 10 20 years in a different industry or different job so that was really special but wow it was absolutely crazy um i kind of dipped my toe in the water then i took a step back then i went back now i think i'm back out but i feel like politics is the kind of thing that once you've tasted it you kind of can't get out yeah so i'm going to come back in at some point i'm taking my time but i'm doing things here and there but it's truly truly crazy like nothing prepares you for that world yeah i feel like once you go down that rabbit hole, it's tough. Yeah. You can't get out. I try to not jump in at all, but now I kind of-

I envy you. Well, now I kind of have to with the podcast. And it's because it's the only thing anyone ever wants to talk about. Yeah. And it gets a lot of views. I don't know why. That's for sure. People love debating politics no matter what the post is. Or the topic being Donald Trump. Yeah.

It's just that. They find a way to tie it in. Speaking of Trump, what was it like kind of working with him and what did you learn from him geez um i'd say the biggest thing i learned is that nothing is as it seems because the people that like i love and trust and people i really really respect would have a very different opinion of the man that i knew or know in person. So I'd say just knowing how scary reality can be compared to people's opinions, perceptions, based on what they read or see or hear from others. Never believe anything unless you've seen it

or heard it with your own eyes was a very solid lesson to learn. Not just from him, but from being around him. But I mean, from him, just probably never to give up. I think that's kind of what he's known for. And I think whether you love him or hate him, you can probably learn a lot from that yeah yeah because you were probably hearing all sorts of stuff about him and you kind of had to just soak it in and think if this is

true or not and it's kind of weird to this day like i'll tell people i don't blame you for hating him because if i was on the outside reading everything i was reading seeing what i was seeing like i might hate him too like i get. The things that are said about him are so polar opposite sometimes from like what you actually experience. It's hard to imagine like these two alternate universes happening at once. But truly I understand because people have made it so easy to despise him and to make like that your entire personality that I understand where people are coming from.

Yeah, everyone I know that has actually dealt with him in person speaks very highly of him. Yeah, it's kind of hard. he has that like x factor political thing i think barack obama has you can say like a bernie sanders has it he's just kind of like the light of every room and you like gravitate towards him he can go on arena like nobody else and i feel like that's that's something really special again whether you love him or hate him like he has like an aura about him absolutely so being a woman in politics, what was that like? Did you have any interesting encounters? I don't even know how to say it.

Yes. I like interesting encounter. That's how I'm going to start talking about it. I've had some really good and really, really bad experiences. Again, like I said, the modeling world prepared me for that. Yeah. Shout out to today's sponsor rocket money guys you ever feel like money's just flying out of your account well this app might be able to help you because there's something called subscriptions that are eating out your bank account every single month and there's apps you don't know about delivery apps streaming services you name it you're probably getting charged a monthly fee by a lot of companies and you don't even know you can see all your subscriptions in one place on the rocket money app and you can cancel all

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And I found a ton of stuff that I don't even use, honestly. I had an Xbox Game Pass that was being charged monthly. I don't even play games. That one was years old. And they also lowered some of my bills. My phone bill and my Wi-Fi bill were pretty high.

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similarities. I can't say I ever walked into a room and felt like I wasn't being judged right off the bat, even before opening my mouth. I don't know if that's solely politics. That probably happens to me in every single room. But politics, it's kind of like the old boys club. It's very hard, especially as a woman in your 20s. And I almost don't blame them.

I mean, when I got into politics, somehow, again, don't know how it happened. I didn't even have a college degree. I was 21. So I think you can imagine the judgment there. But no, I'd say there's really not an advantage to being a woman in any big industry unless you really, really are confident in yourself and know how to navigate everything that's going to be thrown your way because it's going to be a lot. Interesting. Do you think it's good that the younger generations are caring less and less about

politics? Do you think they're caring less? I feel like they're not voting as much, right? I think they are. I'd say they care less about politics in general, maybe more about specific issues. Both sides really, really rally around getting young people to the polls. I think they rely on them. And I think they know that young people now with social media also, you can't really escape issues. It's always thrown at you, telling you you're right or wrong about an issue. You see celebrities left and right have to say they're for or against a certain politician. So I think it's always thrown at young people. I don't think that's a good thing at all. I love the fact that looking back when I was 12, 13 years old, I definitely could not name

a single cabinet member. For example, nowadays, young people know everything. They almost have to pick Republican or Democrat before they graduate high school, which is crazy. So I'd say it's good that young people care about issues. It's good to get involved. It's good because tech is expanding. Everything is growing, and young people are at the forefront of that. So we need young people.

At the same time, I wish people would kind of calm down because politics is not everything and you're going to evolve so many times in your life that making a decision and like aligning with a political party, even at 25, 30 years old is a little silly. No, for real. Like it ruined a lot of family dynamics, especially with the Trump stuff.

Like I saw it, it was crazy. Yeah, it's happened to me and my friends. I mean, it's everywhere and it's like, it doesn't stop. Like, I feel like I thought kind of opened people's eyes to the fact that we literally have one life. People around us could die at any moment. And instead, I think people got more polarized than ever. Yeah, because everyone was inside

just getting brainwashed by the media. So I guess it worked for them. What do you think of like the duopoly system, like in general? Like, do you think it's outdated? Republicans, Democrats, do you like the system still? I don't know if anyone likes it. I think there's an argument to be made for the fact that America's super young.

Our political system is probably better than a lot of countries out there. At the same time, I don't think having a two-party system, like I said, is the healthiest thing for young people. I think if you lined up 10 people outside right now and showed them 10 bullet points for each party's platform, no one's going to agree with all 10 and they shouldn't. So I think that part is wrong. At the same time, we've done a very good job at encouraging people, I think, to go against the two party system and both parties don't like it, but it happens a lot now more and more. I think that's really good. I think there's a Mark Twain quote,

because we have the best government money could buy. I think that's the best way to put it. It's a little cynical, but truly that's where we're at, I think. Right now, it's going to get better. That's what the United States is about. We're always evolving. I do think young people are pushing very, very hard. But it's a sad system if you let it turn you into what it wants to. Otherwise, you can embrace it, vote the way you want,

and change up every single time, because that's what we're supposed to do. Yeah. So if Trump runs again, are you going to help him out? Well, he is running. Oh, he is? Yeah. We'll see if he needs me. Okay.

Yeah. What was that like being like, you were a campaign manager, right? Definitely not. Jesus. Can you imagine? No. I mean, usually campaign managers are like 40-year veterans. Yeah.

No. But I was one of like under 100 staffers, I'd say, in Trump Tower on the campaign. Nice. Yeah. And one of the youngest for sure. And under 100 staffers, I'd say, in Trump Tower on the campaign. Yeah. And one of the youngest for sure. And it was super stressful, I'd imagine. It was a lot. Yeah. I was also hiding it from people at the same time.

So I was like a working model at the same time and not letting anyone know what I was doing. Okay. I was waking up at like 4 a.m. just trying to get enough time in the day to like get my classes done because I was in school and do my modeling. I was figure skater at the time. That another story i was at the campaign like it was all day every day and obviously getting spit on literally figuratively and emotionally at the same time was not easy but yeah it was it was a lot damn you were wearing a lot of hats and you went to ivy league right

i did yeah twice jeez you're doing that which is already a full-time thing in itself and three other jobs. Yeah, but I saw like the school thing. It's interesting. I saw, you've posted a few times, but again, like this morning, I think, about homeschooling and like what it means to go a different route. I definitely went like polar opposite

the traditional route. So though it sounds like I like went to like middle school, high school, Ivy League, that's not at all how it happened. And it's, I've been to like a private orthodox Jewish school. I attended the professional children's school in New York which is for like working models athletes young actors um I went to homeschooling I went to virtual schooling which is like homeschooling but your parents are not in charge I've done college in person done college online same with the master's like a little bit of everything so I think yeah I wouldn't just say

like I went to Ivy League schools. It's more just like they were a teeny tiny part of the path. So you got a unique perspective on education. Which sort of schooling methods were your favorite? I mean, I loved being, I don't want to say homeschooled. I'd say virtual schooled. It's like homeschooling, but your parents are not involved. You know, you have an entire school system.

Everything is, you know, virtual. My parents made sure I submitted my assignments because my teachers would call them if I didn't but that was kind of it um I'd say I only liked it as much as I did because I had truly the greatest parents in the world who instead of kind of backing off because I had someone else handling it actually became more hands-on and we're like hey people are going to judge you forever because you didn't go the traditional route you have to prove to them why you did that right so for them it was like you're going to take only ap courses you're going to do if i got a b like they didn't speak to me which only happened one time and my mom made me redo the class dang yeah my dad was like you're going to learn mandarin because that's offered in most schools it's like very generic french spanish

they were very intent on making sure i took advantage of every opportunity and obviously it worked out so i'd say never ever ever go the traditional route just because it's comfortable. But still work your butt off to prove why you're doing what you're doing. I love that. So you speak Mandarin? I can understand plenty. You don't want to hear me speak. But I also speak Russian and Hebrew.

So it's a good mix. What about Spanish? I don't speak Spanish. Okay. I'm learning Spanish right now. How is that? It's good. I should be fluent by the end of the year.

Okay, good. Dual lingo and then watching videos. Yeah, maybe I'll start and I'll beat you there. Nah, I got a head start on you. Okay. So you started a movement called Let People Forget? Yeah, I mean, it's a platform, I guess. Hopefully a movement too.

I dealt with anti-Semitism on my own in in general like after getting like a bit of a platform that was thrown my way immediately but i also worked in that space i ran a pack focused on support for israel and fighting anti-semitism i've done a lot on that front and on like the holocaust education front and when kanye west kind of went viral for everything he said last year um i think we all kind of fell apart internally, like me being such a giant Kanye West fan. But it was less Kanye and more, I was like very, very lucky growing up in New York City.

So I didn't understand what it was like in other parts of the country. I didn't know that there were people who didn't really have the same opportunities I did to like learn everything that they could and have like the biggest amount of diversity of thought and people and race, religion, everything around you. It's very different in other places. And I remember during the Kanye situation, I was in Florida, met some girls at a gym who I knew who were like 16,

17 years old, who asked me very basic questions about the Holocaust because they didn't know what was going on. So I was like, okay, something has to be done. Less People Forget is basically a digital Holocaust museum. You've seen them before. A lot of people run them and they do amazing work. But in my head, I wanted to take it a step further. So when you go on the platform, you can also follow the very basic steps, I think,

to preserve the materials on there. So God forbid in the future we face any kind of censorship. You just want to fight someone who happens to have the same views that Kanye had, for example, or anything else else happens we have these opportunities to save the materials forever so the history never ever dies you know does the story and hopefully young people can kind of use the platform use the opportunity to show their friends um everything that they know about the holocaust so we don't have a lack of knowledge like we've seen lately nice what ended up happening with that kanye thing because kind of disappeared right i hope he's over

it i don't know um he said a lot of really terrible things uh at the same time i think everyone's kind of just waiting for that apology so hopefully it's coming that's crazy so you are a huge fan so you got rid of all your yeezys all your music i only had one pair of yeezy boots they're still in my closet um i don closet. The music is like an interesting conversation. People always ask me, what should we do? I mean, it's not my business. I also like to separate the talent from the individual. I mean, we still listen to R. Kelly still plays sometimes.

People listen to Michael Jackson and fight that fight. I mean, I can't deny talent and people love Kanye and his music's always going to inspire for different reasons. Doesn't mean that I can't think his statements are repulsive at the same time. Oh, man, the R. Kelly stuff, though. I get so much for this, but I still listen to R. Kelly. I know, the music is so catchy. It's phenomenal.

I know. I just can't stop thinking about it whenever it pops up, though. Yeah, I've done a good job. I don't know. I can separate the two. Maybe that's something's wrong with me, but I just can't stop. You're just good at separating, I guess. Right?

That's what it is. You must be good at forgiving people. No.'re not so you hold grudges yes i do till death what about separating like personal and business and stuff like that i mean if there's a reason someone did it and i need them for business and they're not someone that actually hurt me because you know we're close then they can do whatever they want to me but if someone like if i've given someone any part of me and they've given me the opposite in return, we are done for life. So Trump taught you that? Yeah, he's very big on that.

Yeah, he does that stuff for years. Yeah, yeah. I saw you went on Valuetainment. I did, yeah. Yeah, what was that like? That's a huge podcast. It was interesting. I think we were talking about this before

like you can't really avoid politics so seeing someone like patrick bett david who built this giant empire focused that heavily on politics was interesting to me i didn't know like how political the show his specific show had gotten so i thought that was interesting like people really have to kind of choose either shy away from it and keep your audience that way or lean heavily into it and hope to gain a bigger audience that way so i thought it was interesting that he you know hedges bets in the other direction and i mean he goes hardcore he has people on both sides of the aisle on which is great um he's i think leans leans right at this point that's me being nice yeah i mean i don't blame anyone like everyone has their own opinion and i think the more people are not afraid to

share it no matter what side you're on it hopefully inspires people who are kind of scared right now too yeah yeah i'm trying to find that balance right now i mean i just had on mary and williamson cool and then rfk is going to be coming on okay but i like to have both sides on yeah and you should yeah and i don't understand people that don't support yeah most people don't it's it's very strange i think it is because you want to hear both sides. You don't want to just form an opinion off one conversation. Right.

I mean, I want to hear both sides. For sure. It's like people, maybe that's where the homeschooling comes in. You kind of have to be taught to think and understand that there is more perspectives out there than just what your teacher in that course taught you.

Yeah. Maybe that's the non-traditional schooling route kind of coming back in for me. Yeah. Hopefully. Is it true people message you some nasty stuff? Oh yeah. I saw on one podcast,

you said people send you swastikas? They have, yeah. That's crazy. The Holocaust denial is worse than the swastikas. Like I can handle deleting a message with a swastika, but for some reason, like my brain forces me to read nasty messages. Like I can't help myself sometimes.

And when people explain to me why they know for a fact the Holocaust didn't happen, those are the worst ones. I can handle the swastikas, although I wish they weren't happening. But yeah, the anti-Semitic ones are really bad. Obviously we all get you're ugly, you're short, you're tall, fat, thin, but the anti-Semitism was genuinely shocking to me. How can people believe that? You think they're just trolling? Like there's no way they actually believe it. I mean, I hope they're trolling, but no, I know a lot of people that, I mean, they put effort into proving the Holocaust didn't happen. I just can't see that. There's so much evidence. Yeah. Which is why I appreciate you. But yeah, there, there's some folks out there

that actually, I mean, they get airtime, like people, I think nowadays, whatever it takes to go viral, people kind of allow on their platforms, which is kind of disturbing. But yeah, people say a lot of crazy things. Wow. Yeah. Man. So what are you working on now? Because you said you're out of the political space, right, for now? Yeah.

I mean, it's a little bit of everything. I think I'm out of the space in terms of actually endorsing a candidate working for his or her campaign. But I mean, I do radio and TV, and I'm talking about it all the time. Like you said, we literally can't escape that topic. So you got your own show? I do not have my own show. I'm going about it all the time. Like you said, we literally can't escape that topic. So you got your own show? I do not have my own show. I'm going on everyone else's shows. I don't really want my own.

I don't know why. I don't want to hear myself talk all day. I think that's what it is. See, I used to feel that way, but I noticed everyone doesn't like to hear themselves talk. Really? So it's like a weird thing. Okay, maybe you have better people in your life because people I know really, really, really love to hear themselves talk. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh oh everyone i talk to says they hate it even all my guests you

need to introduce me to the people that you know yeah i've never met someone that loves their voice kind of thing i think it's more like loves their opinion and loves you know hearing themselves out loud yeah no something about hearing myself talk though is like i get like yeah it's hard to get used to yeah but no i think you'd crush it you got to consider where are you based uh between florida and new york yeah miami or new york would be great markets yeah no there's a lot of opportunity i think it's just i'm trying to see what direction the world is going in and i think no one can figure it out i just finished school like i just finished graduate school early this summer what did you major in uh ngo non-profit

leadership damn yeah so i was very very focused on that i wanted to finish my master's in under a year so i just spent like 10 hours a day studying so kind of escaping that back to reality trying to like figure out what to do like there's so many opportunities out there but you don't want to do the wrong ones yeah so testing the waters nice you're like one of my few guests that have graduated college and let alone get a master's i think you might be the only one. Is that good or bad? No, it's interesting.

Okay, good. Yeah, because most people drop out. Well, I'm friends with a lot of entrepreneurs. Yeah, they do. A lot of them end up dropping out. Yeah. But what do you want to do with your degree, like the nonprofit stuff? I mean, I had my own nonprofit.

I've done volunteer work literally forever. I mean, everyone has big dreams and people laugh when I say it. My dream is literally to end homelessness in my lifetime. I don't know how that's going to happen, but it's always been my dream to run like a really big, you know, nonprofit fighting homelessness. I think in general, I've enjoyed the not like the actual volunteer side more, like being behind the scenes on like the fundraising front.

Like those things are so horrible compared to actually like handing out meals or care packages or Christmas gifts or so many things. So I'm going to have to find like the balance between actually running a nonprofit and doing the work on the ground, which is the more special part. But I've always been involved with nonprofits since I was like 17. So I just knew that that was where I was going to like head in the future. It's just trying to find like a solid balance. The homelessness stuff is interesting to me because I always see this stuff on social media where it's like if the richest people in the world

gave everyone like 20K or whatever, it wouldn't even affect them. I mean, every time I spend money on anything, I'm like, why am I doing this when I could just... But if you think about like political campaigns, people always say like the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars going into campaigns for so many candidates that end up dropping out.

Like if Ron DeSantis decided that he didn't want to run and all the money spent on Ron DeSantis is thinking ship of a campaign went to fighting homelessness in florida i think he'd help a lot of people so things like that kind of wait so they're actually spending a hundred million dollars i think they're spending a lot more than that yeah holy crap i didn't even know oh so all the donations right so right so there's obviously small dollars which could be five ten twenty dollars from actual just americans that want to help and then there's the big donors that come in and then there's your campaign raises money and then your pack raises money and there's outside groups it's hundreds of millions minimum crap yeah i did not know that even bernie sanders was spending

that much i would think so yeah you have to yeah he might have been getting it more from small dollars. Like I think a lot of people like Bernie, much like Trump, much like Barack Obama, they truly have the support of the American people. And there's candidates like Ron DeSantis who have the support of kind of like a few very, very high profile, very wealthy, large, you know, large dollar donors. And that's that's very different. Yeah, I know you're outside the space now, but who do you see winning the next election? I don't want to predict.

It's always so embarrassing. I don't know why people do it. You think it's embarrassing? The amount of people that will just risk it all and sit on TV and say, this is what's about to happen, I think is crazy. How they didn't learn in 2016. I watched the entire world predict

Hillary Clinton was about to be president. How they didn't learn from that, not to bring him up again, but people told me two months ago Ron DeSantis was the next president of the United States. Right now there's probably nothing more embarrassing than working for his sinking ship of a campaign. Oh really? I haven't been keeping up with it. Good, don't bother. But that's the problem. So I feel like I'm going to say nothing,

so I don't have an embarrassing clip go viral when whatever happens happens. but i will say it looks like it will be donald trump versus joe biden and whether you love donald trump or hate him you really really really cannot underestimate him like what he did to the machine behind hillary clinton what he did just to the republican party alone that still can't figure out how to deal with him yeah that is not a small feat so i would i would never underestimate him indictments or not yeah they're trying to lock him up yes they are isn't he locked up right now actually no oh he's not he's never been actually locked up like he goes in for an arraignment and he gets out like two hours later what are they trying to get him for right now i saw like a week ago or something so there's four the next four there's three right

now he's gonna be another one probably the next few weeks in Georgia. Holy crap. I hope. I think I'm right, and that's the last one. So why is there that many at the same time? That's how much it takes to stop a candidate that popular. I don't know. It's a lot. Damn. Yeah.

Well, I guess, what do you want to end off with? Anything you're trying to promote? Not really. Just being a decent person, I think. Not enough people try to promote that. Yeah, be a good person, guys. Yeah, it's not that hard. It's not that hard.

It's really not hard. Yeah, just be around good people and usually that helps. Yeah, true. Or it's almost less important to be around good people and more important to get rid of bad people. Yeah.

Where can people find you? You can find me at Elizabeth Pipko on, I want to say, Instagram, Twitter, and any other platforms I'm forgetting. All right. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

I'll see you next time.