Offline with Jon Favreau - Obama's Offline Speech, Zuck Fears Trump, and the Crank Political Divide

Episode Date: September 1, 2024

Max and Jon sit down to break down a very online DNC, diving into Obama’s anti-social media convention speech, the MyPillow guy’s embarrassing troll attempts, and a Taylor Swift & Beyonce rumor that spun out of control. Plus: Mark Zuckerberg’s fear driven turn towards Trump and the new political divide: cranks vs. everyone else. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

So did you hear from Jesse Waters' mom after the fact? No, but I did end by saying, tell your mom I saw it. It's a fun line. It's very Boston. Very Boston. Yeah, you put me on set of Fox for 10 minutes, suddenly the Boston comes out. Well, Mrs. Waters, if you're listening. Please come on to the pod.

Please come on to the pod. We would love to have you. Welcome to Offline. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Max Fisher. Max, have you by chance been hankering to watch an impromptu debate between the MyPillow CEO and a child? Why do you think I showed up today? The promise of this clip is why I'm here. You have come to the right place. We will get to that extremely online moment in a bit. But before we do, you and I have lots of news to cover. So no guest today, just us. Just us, just Gavin. Just Gavin. We're going to talk about Mark Zuckerberg's new effort to suck up to Republicans, keep meta out of the election, and maybe keep himself out of jail if Trump wins.

Find out. Good luck to you, Mark. going to touch on why Trump's latest endorsements from RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard may suggest a larger political realignment of anti-establishment internet cranks versus center-left and center-right institutionalists. But first, we have survived a very sleep-deprived but successful Democratic convention. And it's been a week since Kamala Harris accepted the nomination in Chicago, but wanted to spend some time talking today about some of the very offline-worthy moments at the DNC. It was a very online DNC, which is to say very offline. Yes. And I will say I was there all week. I was somewhat offline at the DNC.

Really? Your screen time numbers were down. That's great. My screen time numbers plummeted because I had no time to check my phone. So the secret to your screen time is just to keep you so locked into a fence. The secret to keep your screen time numbers down, just keep you on Fox News. That's the one time apparently you won't be looking on your phone. Austin told me that's actually why they put you on Jesse Waters. Just to keep me offline. Just to get those numbers down.

You had six minutes, you're not on your phone. Honestly, it worked. I think it was like one hour a day. Was it really? A while. How'd you feel? I mean, I felt tired. phone. Honestly, it worked. I think it was like one hour a day. Was it really? A while. How'd you feel? I mean, I felt tired. Sure.

Okay, fair. I felt tired and uninformed. No, I'm just kidding. So anyway, we got to start. So I missed this whole clip that we're about to play. This is an Austin favorite. He basically ordered us to do this. It's a clip of MyPelo CEO, Mike Lindell,

who apparently shaved his mustache in an unsuccessful effort to disguise himself at the DNC. It fooled me. I had no idea who it was. I said, who's this normal-looking, completely sane person? Nope, it was Mike Lindell.

And he was trying to debate a 12-year-old influencer. Take it away, Austin. You want to know more in your state? They just found 250... We haven't provided found 250, 257,000 votes. This happened last week. A judge ruled in Georgia that are missing from the 2020 election. This just came out.

You're behind. You should. So your source is trust me, bro. That's your source. No, the source. It's in your papers in Georgia. You need to read your news. You haven't given me any last name.

You need to read your news. Wow. The kid owned his ass. People are ready for it. So Lindell's fight with a child was just one of many moments where right-wing content creators and grifters infiltrated the DNC and attempted to instigate some sort of fight with the event's attendees. Matt Walsh put on a wig and a new pair of glasses

to promote his new documentary titled Am I Racist? Cool. Asked and answered. Charlie Cook was also looking for trouble, but the best he could do was a verbal spat with the president of the Young Democrats of Georgia, who I think comported himself well. So none of us who were at the RNC in Milwaukee, and by us, I mean both your friendly neighborhood

Pod Save America hosts and progressive content creators at large, none of us felt compelled to don disguises and infiltrate the RNC. Do you think a potentially viral moment has value for all these right-wing goobers? And also, I mean, this isn't very offline, but like, what are your thoughts on the disguises? I mean, first of all, I think that it's a little messed up for you to blame Mike Lindell for the fact that you guys did not think to do this first. Like, look, innovators get credit. Although, what would the disguises even be? Like, what are we thinking?

Like a little rouge to look extremely beet red? I mean, we didn't want to be recognized because we were a little frightened by all the folks at the RNC. And so, we never went into the convention we were like standing right outside the convention and reporters were walking in and a couple reporters were like oh hey pod save america we're like don't tell them don't tell yeah there was one group of people we were walking with and we asked them like who are you most nervous about replacing joe biden okay this is right before the joe biden thing and they said they the Joe Biden thing. And they said Joe Biden. And they were from Pennsylvania, so they said Josh Shapiro,

blah, blah, blah. And we hadn't said who we were at the time because we wanted a real conversation. And Levitt's like, we're on the other team, by the way.

Because he was like, I don't want to just leave them thinking that we're not who we are, right? And I was like, well, we don't want to have to lie to people,

but we can at least get them to talk to us by not starting with that. Yeah. But yeah, so that's just to contrast what these fucking losers did. I mean, I think that your question is like, what do they actually get out of this speaks to the perverse incentives here. That it's obviously if you are a right-wing content creator, it's good for you to go get your viral moments, selectively edit it to make the 12-year-old look like, yeah, you owned his ass. Okay, great.

Congratulations. So you get some more views on your platform. But that's not actually good for the Republican Party. And that's like, normally that would be fine, except that these people who you mentioned, these are big figures in the party, right? Like Charlie Kirk spoke at the RNC. Mike Lindell ran to be the Republican National Committee chair.

And so these people are just like- Like a co-conspirator. That's right. That's right. And so I think that this is another indicator of how much the party, the Republican Party has been captured by its own online fringes, that these people who are like visible faces of it are going and doing something that makes them look like weird, like inward looking internet crazy people, which they are. And it's just like, we should talk about like, I think the show is going to kind of broadly be about like, what does it mean for a political party to be too online? Or like, what is the appropriate amount of online for a political party to be in today's like internet social media era?

And I think that this was an asset for the Republican party in 2016, because it helped them ride this wave of grassroots far far-right, totally terrifying enthusiasm. And now it's become a big liability because they are in hock to these people who were just out for a viral moment. And those people are firmly ensconced in their own bubble and have completely believed the caricatures of us that they have created. Right. Which is why when you look at some of these videos, they're all so surprised. You know? That's true.

You do always get that. Charlie Kirk was sort of surprised by the kid who was the president of the Young Democrats of Georgia. And like, he didn't have anything else to say. So he was just like, hey, what is a woman?

What is a woman? I saw that. I saw that. And the kid's like, you know, come on. And he's like, do you know what a woman? You should meet one or something. I'm married to one. And the kid's like you know come on and he's like do you know what a woman you should meet one

or something I'm married to one and the kid's like yeah I'm married to one too yeah I thought the responses to that were great and yes it did speak to the fact that they don't have

an actual line for speaking to actual Democrats because they don't know what one is and also it's just like these videos are speaking to the most like inner inner inner base

of the online far right it's not like you're not winning any votes by speaking to those people because inner, inner, inner base of the online far right. It's not like you're not winning any votes by speaking to those people because they were already going to vote Republican or they weren't going to vote because they think that the polls are rigged. But that's a huge difference too, is that they are not the strategy here. There is no political strategy. It's just what's in it for them. Right. And we have talked before about how sometimes on the far left on our side, there's like, there could be more strategy involved. But like, let's be clear, most of the Republican Party

is currently operating with no strategy to earn the votes of most Americans. No, but a great strategy to sell Trump's latest NFTs. Or what was it? His baseball cards or something? There's something he's hawking. But they're there for the viral moments and to own the lips. I guess the only strategy is owning the lips. Like if you can make

a liberal seem angry or upset or offended or, you know, cry harder lib kind of thing, like this is what makes them happy. This is like a victory for them. And this year's RNC and DNC, I thought, were a really telling contrast between what it looks like to have a strong party versus a weak party. And like, that doesn't mean that like you have to agree with or like every decision that the Democrats made at the DNC, but it was very clear that the operating like guiding agenda and strategy for the DNC going into it was acting as like strong party institutions for what do we think is the best interest of the party going into the election. And it's very clear looking

at the RNC that it's just like a bunch of people just kind of like grabbing stuff to like what's going to be a good moment for Hulk Hogan. It's like people have like disparate agendas. Everybody fucking hates JD Vance, the vice presidential candidate. And it's like completely fractious. It's like kind of a personality cult for the personal enrichment of Trump, although he's not showing up. So it's just totally rudderless now. And when you see these like major figures in the party going out and recording these videos that are going to alienate a lot of people, I think it really speaks to that. And it also speaks to like they can't get a moment because the like overwhelming message from the Democrats and the DNC, which again is a very like strong

party, like top-down decision is like broad, inoffensive, acceptable to everyone. Let's be joyful. Let's like have a positive uplifting message. And that's very hard to do a like reverse polarization far right video about. Aren't you so outraged that Kamala is joyful? Well, you mentioned my appearance on Jesse Waters' program. So what happened there is we were in our little studio space and got a knock on the door and two of Jesse Waters' producers said, hey, we all know about the pod

and Jesse would love for you to come on the show. His mom likes the show. And it was me and Pfeiffer. She's a big lib, right? Yeah, she's likes the show. And it was me and Pfeiffer. She's a big lib, right? Yeah, she's a big lib. So it was me and Pfeiffer. And Dan immediately just left the conversation to go to the bathroom. And so it's just me.

And I mean, they're like, could you come on in 30 minutes? And I was like, I don't, this is not a no, but I'm just going to think about it. So here's Austin's email. That's perfect. Just have the deflection. That's why we have it. Then I was like talking to Austin and Madeline and all of our stuff there. And I was like, should I, I kind of think I should do this. But my view of why it was valuable to do was not to like, like Dan was like, you should, you should think about like what you want to

accomplish here, you know? Right. And I was like, that's a good point. And I think what I want to accomplish is, you know, sort of what Pete Buttigieg says when he goes on Fox, right? Which is like, there are people watching Fox who are not necessarily like, they're not all Trump fans or Trump hardcore Trump fans. Sure, they have it on. Right. And like, wouldn't it be nice to expose those people to an argument based in fact that can rebut some of the bullshit that you hear on Fox News. Right. And to your point, to show what the actual Democrats look like

is different than the three-eyed boogie men you've heard about on the network. Absolutely. And I didn't really have much time to think beyond that, but my last thought as I was thrown onto that studio was like, they want to have a Democrat on who gets angry.

I'm sure. I'm sure that's what they want. And who seems offended. Right. And who is like, waving around, yelling, and getting into the mud with them.

Right. And I was like, I'm not going to give them that. And I'm just going to like, laugh and smile through it. And just deflect. And just like, talk about the facts as I know them.

What was their line that they said to try to, or did they have a line to try to like, get you? He had this intro it and just like talk about the facts as i know what was their what was their line that they said to try to or did they have a whole thing the whole his whole he had this intro that was just like you know come with joe they they did a coup on joe biden what the obamas did and now come was flying the plane but she's gonna crash it blah blah and then he was like what do you think of my intro you're a speechwriter and i was like i don't know it's hard to follow. What are you doing? So he did seem slightly annoyed by the end because I wouldn't.

You weren't getting into it. Yeah, that is their whole right. It was when they and you I feel like for years, their strategy was like get Democrats and like left leaning journalists on to fight with them. And you could see them just like because people would see this game and stop going on. So they were just going for like random bloggers because they couldn't get anyone else to come on. When I published my book, the publicist for the publishing company really wanted me to do exactly the thing that you wisely chose not to do. They really wanted me. They were like, can you go on to Fox News and really get into a big fight with them and like really own them? And we really think that'll help sell the book. Because Reza Aslan, I don't remember this. He had done this. Who did?

Reza Aslan is an author. He'd wrote a book about the history of Islam. It was a great book. I didn't know he did that though. It was like 10 years ago. It was like the height of the Islamophobia stuff around like 2014, 2015. And there was some daytime host that asked us some leading question about like, don't you think Muslims are bad or something horrible? And he just like had this great rant and they didn't have an answer for it. And my publicist was like, you should do that. And I was like, I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't think that sounds fun or like a good use of time because it's, that's what they want. They want you to play that game. They want, they want like, you know, Max Fisher destroyed by Tucker Carlson.

Right. Right. Because they control the studio. They control the environment. They control the edit. So did you hear from Jesse Waters' mom after the fact? No, but I did end by saying, tell your mom I saw it. It's a fun line.

It's very Boston. Very Boston. Yeah. You put me on set of Fox for 10 minutes. Suddenly the Boston comes out. Well, Mrs. Waters, if you're listening. Please come on to the pod. Please come on to the pod. We would love to have Boston. Yeah, you put me on set of Fox for 10 minutes. Suddenly the Boston comes out. Well, Mrs. Waters, if you're listening. Please come on to the pod. Please come on to the pod.

We would love to have you. Yeah. In brighter DNC news, this up and comer named Barack Obama took the stage on Tuesday night. I heard about this. And he delivered a speech that at times sounded like he was sitting right here in this studio recording an offline episode. Let's play a clip. We live in a time of such confusion and rancor with a culture that puts a premium on things that don't last. Money, fame, status, likes. We chase the approval of strangers on our phones. We build all manner of walls and fences around ourselves,

and then we wonder why we feel so alone. We don't trust each other as much because we don't take the time to know each other. And in that space between us, politicians and algorithms teach us to caricature each other and troll each other and fear each other.

I mean, he's right. He's fucking right. And he should say it. What was your reaction when you first heard that? So I was watching- I did not tell you guys in advance. I helped with the speech. It was quite a surprise. I knew it was coming. It was final draft. I was like, okay, here it is. It's happening. It was a fun- So I was sitting at home watching it with Julia and I had to slap myself because I was like, wait, am I in a recording right now?

Is it Friday morning and I'm in a recording and like blacked out somehow and like I'm hallucinating. I was like, clearly this is just Favreau sitting across from me saying this because it really did sound like an episode of our show. Yeah, you know, it did. So how hard did you have to work to get him to say the word algorithm? He included the word algorithm. Come on.

I did not write the word algorithm at all. I swear to God. No, but we, he and I had a conversation about the speech, like, right around the time that Biden dropped out. Because he was thinking about it that far in advance. Yeah. And the conversation we had included, you know, a part where we were talking about the appeal of authoritarianism

and the appeal of Trump and like why it has lasted and what we're doing. And we started having this longer conversation about social media and not knowing each other. And it's interesting because it's, his point is much broader than the disinformation and content moderation stuff that we talk about on here too. It's much more of the sort of the loneliness, social alienation topics that we've covered with, you know, Vivek Murthy and a whole bunch of other people on here. And he's very taken with that.

And just listening to that when he said money, fame, status, there's likes at the end. But money, fame, and status, he has been talking about that, like chasing the wrong things and what we value for years. I remember writing commencement speeches for him where he would go on that riff. So it's very

interesting that he has updated that view for the social media era. Not really updated, but at least realized and very much believes that social issue, on the influence of social media and the malign influence of social media, like way ahead of everybody, including ahead of me. Like he was talking about it in the immediate days after Trump won the election in 2016. He gave a big speech, not specifically about it, but he gave a speech in Chicago in January 2017, where he talked a lot about it. And the reaction at the time was like, oh, this is kind of blaming social media because the Democrats lost and how could a social media algorithm

actually have that much of an impact? And so he was like really going out on a limb to make this case. And then of course the rest of us caught up to it. And the rest of us like very much have come around to this point of view. So it was interesting to hear both, to both to be reminded that this is something

that he has cared about for a long time and to hear both to be reminded that this is something that he has cared about for a long time and to hear him kind of like circle back on it eight years later and to hear the degree to which he's updated these views. Like clearly he is continuing to follow this issue. Like this is a guy who has thoughts on smartphone bans in elementary schools. Oh, for sure. And, you know, a lot of reporting sort of uses the facile frame that's like, oh, he, the internet guy who, you know, used Facebook to help win an election suddenly doesn't like the internet. Sure. And Obama has addressed that. I think we've talked about that before.

But when we interviewed him in Chicago and he said, look, the whole deal with Facebook was we would connect people during the 08 Obama campaign so that they could meet up in real life offline. Right, right. And it was an organizing tool, but organizing has to happen in person. And I think the reason he's so concerned about this is because of his background as a community organizer. Oh, I see. Is that he genuinely believes that-

Social media is interrupting that process. Yeah, that collective action is important in the way that we have, the way that collective action happens is if we get to know each other. And the only way we get to know each other is if we're in person and we go back and forth. And that's how disagreements are solved too. And everything that we're seeing now is just making all of that much harder. Right.

I mean, we've talked a lot about how social media platforms have displaced what used to be the way that we would gather, you know, at church, your local community, going down to the bar or whatever. Then now you go online instead. And that's an experience that's manipulated. And it's not real. And it's mediated through these algorithms that are lying to you about what's actually happening in your community to make you more outraged, make you more insular, make your opinion more extreme. And I think it's good that he reminded people of that. Like, you know, I did appreciate that he turned into the camera and directly addressed this podcast and the listeners of this podcast. I thought that that was very kind of him to give us a shout out. He should have done ad read too, to be honest. Yeah. I should

have talked about the shoes or something. Yeah. Z-biotics if you're going out tonight. No, I think the question I always have is like, can he move the needle on this stuff? Because he's given speeches on this before. It's a little fuzzier than specific policies could fix. Sure. Right. Which is, you know, a theme of this podcast. But so it's good that he does it in a speech that more people are going to see than most of his other speeches. I don't really know what he does from there except just continue to raise awareness. I mean, I think it's useful for two reasons. I think it's useful, number one, because like it is true that most of us have caught up with this point of view now. And most of us agree that social media is a malign and

nefarious influence in our society, even as we continue to use it, because what kind of alternatives do we have? But I do think that kind of public awareness around the dangers of social media kind of crested with January 6th and with 2021. And it's like, as time moves on, it's like harder to reconnect with that. And it's just so pervasive that it's very easy to lose touch with the fact that we have giant companies that every single day manipulate billions of people, billions of people to be more polarized, to be more extreme, to believe misinformation or angrier, right. That it's spreading health misinformation as we speak in this very moment. It's just because it's everywhere. It's so easy to forget about it. It's so easy to forget about what a big problem it is. And having someone who is a like publicly trusted figure remind you like, Hey, this is still a live issue, I think is useful. And it's also like the political science

nerd in me thinks that the intra-elite signaling really matters, where there's the actual policy making around this issue, because unfortunately, it's almost certainly not going to go through Congress, is going to be decided by like 200 people at the FTC and the SEC. But all of them watch that speech. All of them but all of them watched that speech. All of them know the entire party watched that speech and cheered for it. So that's very helpful for creating kind of party consensus that like this is still a really big issue.

It's the stakes are really high and we have to do something about it. And we'd have to fact check this, but it may have been the only speech at the Democratic Convention that mentioned the word algorithm. I feel pretty confident. From the former president of the United States.

Without running a search, I feel pretty confident it was the only one mentioning algorithms. All right. One last bit from the word algorithm. I feel pretty confident. From the former president of the United States. Without running a search, I feel pretty confident. It was the only one mentioning algorithms. All right. One last bit from the DNC. On Thursday, there was a vicious viral disinformation campaign that targeted those of us who are fans of Taylor Swift and or Beyonce. Arguably the world's two biggest pop stars. Early in the day, rumors began to circulate online from an anonymous resistance Twitter account that for some reason, more than half a million people follow.

Uh, they tweeted the DNC viewers should expect a surprise guest quote bigger than Oprah. Then other resistance accounts said that Beyonce had been spotted in Chicago and even at the United center. And then all hell broke loose when TMZ published an article claiming that Beyonce would perform. Of course, none of this came to pass. So if you all want a full-blown investigation of this incident, I did one this week. Really? On our subscriber-only show, Terminally Online.

Okay. Yes, I did. It's an oral history of what happened. How much tape did we dedicate to this? I did it. I mean, look, I think I got a five. Okay. I was terminally online.

Nice, I love that. Which is good for that show, less good for this show. What would you say your average is on terminally online? It's up to four or five. Okay, okay. Usually four and a half. Yeah, that sounds right. But here on Offline, let's talk about why so many Democrats, journalists, even convention staffers fell for this one.

I mean, it's the unholy trifecta of the social media, decentralized TMZ and resistance accounts. You should trust none of those three. Those should be at the bottom of your list of sources that you trust ever. What was the angry staffer account? Angry staffer account. Honestly,

fuck that account. Like it just don't. Proports to be like a former white house staffer in the Trump years that was always telling us like, it's Trump's throwing spaghetti at the wall. He staffer account. Honestly, fuck that account. It just don't. It purports to be like a former White House staffer in the Trump years that was always telling us like, Trump's throwing spaghetti at the wall. He's so mad. And it was always like, he's just about to, his downfall is coming. It's imminent. The forces are, it's real. It's blue and on.

But yet like, 600,000 followers. These accounts persist. It's because it's reassuring because people like to, okay, so my actual take on this. Like on the one hand, it's like classic misinformation where there's like a curdle of truth where delegates really had been told. My understandings really had been told like there's going to be a surprise musical guest. That's at least what I heard. I have a family member who's a North Carolina delegate.

And like that's what she said. Yeah. Oh, I guess Pink. I think it was. I guess Pink was not announced until that day. Something like that. But when the rumors were flying, we already knew that Pink and the Chicks were performing. Oh, really?

Yeah. Okay. Well, anyway, I think there's a deeper thing going on here, which is that I think that this is kind of part of the continuing high that we have all felt on the left from like Biden dropping out, Kamala coming in, Tim Walz gets picked as the VP. He's the like online favorite by a wide margin. Like it really kind of felt like Santa Claus is coming every day and we're going to like- Yada, yada, yada, election day win. Absolutely. History has ended. 50 states. Trump goes away. Trump goes away. To the hay. And I'll go back to brunch.

Right. Absolutely. I'm going back to brunch. And it really did feel like we could, like whatever we wanted, we were going to get. It was all going to come true. Like, we could manifest. And I do think that there was a inevitable crashing back down to earth that was going to happen. And I think the, like, the goofy part of it is the Beyonce thing where we, like, we thought we could just manifest Beyonce being there by, like, tweeting about it a lot. And it turns out that's not the case. But I think there was also, like. We thought we could just manifest Beyonce being there by like tweeting about it a lot. And it turns out that's not the case. But I think there was also like.

It's like we manifested Kamala Harris being the nominee that way. I mean, that did kind of happen. We manifested her running mate too. That did. And all of which is, I think there's some truth to it. But there was going to be an inevitable. And I think we saw this a little bit with the like uncommitted stuff. Are they going to get a speaking slot? And like we don't have to get into the substance of that,

but it was just a moment of like waking back up to the reality of politics where like, you're not going to like every decision that happens. Not everything is going to go your way. Not everything is going to go the way the online left or like not every musical guest is going to be Beyonce. And there was this kind of like, I think it was inevitable that we were going to have

to come back down to the reality of this. Well, and on that point, like from a campaign perspective, it actually would have been a bad political decision to have, I think, Beyonce or Taylor Swift perform. If you were going to have Beyonce or Taylor Swift, you don't do it at the convention where everyone's watching already, particularly the convention on a Thursday night where your nominee has a really important speech to give because people need to understand who she is and what she stands for and what she's going to do. And if you knew that Taylor or Beyonce

was going to endorse at some point, save it because we have the debate coming up and then we have like two months to election day. So I don't know. How about Taylor showing up in Pennsylvania for a home state in October. A giant concert in Altoona. Yeah, or Beyonce's, you know,

like there's just, there's so many other ways to do that. Yeah, that's true. So that is the reality of politics. I also think Gizmodo did a piece on this and their subhead was the hardest disinformation to guard against is the disinformation you want to believe,

which I think is very much the case here. There's always, there's a kernel of truth, which was the thing, you know, the delegates had heard the rumor, the White House political director tweeted a B, which turned out to be a mistake. I don't know if I believe that. I think maybe she thought it was Beyonce and thought it would be

fun to pile onto that. Yeah, I think it was less like, what I believe about that, and I haven't asked Emmy Ruiz about this, but like, I don't think it was like her confirming, it was her being like, I'm putting it out there. She's manifesting it too. It's because we all thought we could do that. But yes, I think you're right that a big part of it too is motivated reasoning, is you want to believe that thing that's true, which is a very powerful

force. Like our brains are only so good at differentiating truths that we don't like from fuzzier truths that we do like. And like, we're always really drawn to want to believe that of course it's going to be Beyonce. I believed it. And you know who really loves motivated reasoning? Beyonce. These clout chasing resistance accounts. Right. Well, that's what they thrive on.

And it's something to be aware of as like, you know, just because the account gives you information you want to hear and is on your side in politics, right? Right. No, especially some of them that are like that hide behind their anonymity, right? Right. No, especially some of them that are like, that hide behind their anonymity, right? Like, they are extremely thirsty for RTs and engagements and follows. A lot of them pretend to be news.

A lot of these had like, you know, the breaking in all caps, little alarm emojis. Yeah, if you see breaking in all caps and there's not a URL at the end to a news organization, that's misinformation

and you shouldn't retweet it. And it's also like anyone has a fucking blue check now, you know, thanks to Elon. So it's just, it's harder, but you should be most suspicious, not when an account that you would not be prone to believe tweets out something, but an account that you are prone to believe.

Yes, that's right. That's when you really want to check your sources. Well, and the thing is, it's like the thing that I would really urge people to take away from this is it's easy to remember this when it's just a straight factual claim you see on Twitter. It's like angry staffer says Beyonce will perform like that's either true or not true. And you're going to find out in a few hours when it is really hard, but really important to remember this is when it is someone making a claim that is more a matter of interpretation that is a matter of like you know what do we actually think of the

things that kamala has said so far about gaza whatever like and the that is where it is so much easier for misinformation in the form of like omission or context right Right. Misleading portrayals. Yeah. That that is, and everybody falls for it because your brain is really drawn to it. But it just like, take a beat, especially if you see something

that provokes a really strong emotional reaction in you, whether it's outrage or whether it's, I'm so excited that Taylor Swift is performing at the DNC.

That's when you need to like really check is like, is this information solid? Is it complete? Is my brain playing a trick on me? Yeah, no, that's great advice. All right, we're going to take a quick break.

But before we do, we are very excited to share that the trailer for the new limited series, Empire City, the untold origin story of the NYPD is here. From Wondery, Crooked Media, and Push Black, Empire City is a captivating eight-part series that uncovers the hidden history of one of the largest police forces in the world, the NYPD. Hosted by Peabody Award winner Chenjerai Kumunika, the show is an immersive window

into pivotal moments in New York's past that form the foundation for today's policing, from its origins rooted in slavery to rival police gangs battling across the city to the everyday people who resisted every step of the way. As our society debates where policing is going, Empire City will tell you where the police came from. Follow Empire City and official Tribeca selection wherever you get your podcasts and listen everywhere on September 9th. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts to listen ad-free. It's great. It's really good. I really love it. It's fantastic. We've been working on this project for a couple of years now

and so excited to see it out in the world. Changerize, fantastic. It's a great show. It's great history too. It's just a fun yarn. Yeah. Also, you may have heard Vote Save America has set a big goal to reach 75,000 volunteer signups by National Voter Registration Day on September 17th. They're making progress but still need about 25,000 volunteers to hit their goal. And they can't get there without you. Vote Save America is a one-stop shop for the most high-impact ways to make a difference right now to ensure progressive wins across the country in November. They support candidates in critical state races who know their communities inside and out and who champion the Harris-Walls ticket.

So you can feel good knowing your volunteer hours help Democrats up and down the ballot. And if you've never volunteered before, don't stress. Vote Save America will walk you through it on weekly welcome calls and their office hours so you can volunteer with confidence. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024 to sign up today. This message has been paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. So, a few weeks ago, we talked about how zuckerberg praised donald trump as a quote badass for raising his fist after he was shot um thought that was a little odd even for mark yeah it makes more sense now yeah who for some reason has also taken to dressing like a white rapper lately

very weird he's got a weird look these days. I have some feedback for Mark Zuckerberg, but I say if you want to do a visual relaunch, I say go for it. I think it's cool to reset your style. It wouldn't be my choice personally. Very odd. He looks very... Anyway, this week, Zuck took his MAGA-curious musings a step further when he sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan about the Biden administration's requests that Meta not promote COVID misinformation during the pandemic. Zuckerberg wrote, quote, I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction, and we're ready to push back if something like this happens again.

On a completely related note, Politico reports this week that in Trump's new coffee table book, worryingly titled Save America, he accuses Zuckerberg of plotting against him in 2020 and says that if he does it again, he'll, quote, spend the rest of his life in prison. Yeah, it's pretty. It's in a photo caption, apparently, which is deeply unhinged. Yes, there's like just a picture of him with Zuckerberg. And it's got this guy's going to prison. Yes, it's just a truly wild thing to put in your picture book.

Max, let's start with Zuck's claim that the government wrongly pressured Meta in 2021. What do you think? So I went back and looked at my notes from 2020 because I was like actively reporting on what was going on in social media at that time, like this whole chapter in the book about it. And it will shock you to hear that Mark Zuckerberg is lying. In fact, what happened in the very early days of the pandemic is that meta generally and Zuckerberg specifically made a really big show of soliciting government involvement. They solicited involvement from the UN. They really sought this out.

They said, we want to work with you. We want your help because we don't have the resources to flag everything. It's like, we'll make the final decision. But like anything that you can give us information about things that you think are bad or harmful, we like really want to work with you. We're going to give you data. This was part of their like, we're good now. We're one of the good ones now. And this narrative that he is spinning now of like we were being pressured by the

government is just it is wholly baseless. It is wholly an invention that clearly has just a naked political incentive of I think he's got two goals here. One is obviously just appeasing Trump or signaling to Trump like I'm going to come back on your side like I was during your first term and do all the things that you want me to do in terms of tilting the platform in your direction. And I think the second thing here is that it's hard to get inside his head and know how deliberate this is or not, but a upside or an effect of this is going to be playing into this emerging right-wing judicial school of thought on social media regulation that we've talked about before. Like, John, do you remember like a year

ago, the Fifth Circuit Court, that injunction that they, right. So this is a like truly unhinged MAGA circuit court judge in Louisiana issued this injunction, which was full of right-wing conspiracy theories, like a really unhinged document that barred the Biden administration from even contacting social media companies to be like, hey, by the way, we saw a post that's medical misinformation. They can't even send them an email, according to this injunction. And the Supreme Court did overrule that, but it was six to three. So it's a little closer than you want. There were three people who said on the Supreme Court that the government should not be allowed to place a phone call to a social media company.

Was it, it was Thomas Alito and probably Gorsuch, right? I don't remember, but I'm sure you're right. I just remember, because I have a quote here from that. Amy Coney Barrett, in the majority opinion, said, she basically like took the Fifth Circuit apart and the federal judge and was like, there's a bunch of misinformation in your ruling. And she says, the record says nothing about censorship requests.

Right. There's no censorship. And that's from a conservative Supreme Court justice. But Zuckerberg is now acting like, oh, there was so much pressure to censor. I know the actual thing that happened here was, again, solicited by Meta was just people in the government saying, hey, we are helping you by flagging these posts that we think are misinformation or flagging trends that we're seeing. There was never any like, quote unquote, censor anything, pressure from the government.

This is a thing that they invented. But I think they see an opportunity here to like feed into this school of thought where like, oh, well, Mark Zuckerberg says they're being pressured to be censored where they can just move the goalposts on social media regulation back 10 years to like, well, is the government even allowed

to contact a social media company? I have, yeah, I have two other interpretations of what Zuckerberg's up to here, which are in line with yours. But one, he just wants meta out of politics. I think that's true. Right? And when I say out of politics,

like obviously he has political ideas of meta and it affects politics. I think that's true. Right? And when I say out of politics, like, obviously, he has political ideas, and it affects politics. Right. But officially, I think whether it's content moderation, whether it's anything else, I think they're like,

this whole thing is messy. It's only gotten us in trouble. We're out. And I even think on COVID and on medical misinformation, they thought, okay, well, this isn't politics. Right. Shouldn't have been, right?

Like, vaccines are safe. Don't drink bleach, right? Like, these are simple. They shouldn't be politicized. So we will get into this to be helpful, which is why they did. And then now looking back, he's like, oh, yeah, that was political too. So I've got to get out of that. And they had taken heat years earlier for promoting anti-vaccine misinformation.

And that had been like the one big stand that he had been willing to take because like he and his wife were involved in, like they fund the local hospital in San Francisco. So the one stand they were comfortable taking is like, we're not going to do anti-vaccine misinformation, which I think was why they went into 2020 saying like, we're going to try to make an effort. But you're right, the moment it became politicized, they were like, oh, actually we don't want to be involved in this. And he also, Zuckerberg also said too, that, you know, back in 2020, the foundation, his foundation made donations to voting access efforts. Very like nonpartisan, whatever. It has become this conspiracy on the right because, you know, the voting access efforts

happen to be in like more urban areas. Right. And so, of course, because that's where people have not had access. So that became like Zuckerbox and suddenly a whole lockbox. The lockbox is right. Like basically Trump has said that he like rigged the election. Right. And Zuckerberg says, like, we're going to not do that anymore.

We're just going to be neutral. He's like, my goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or the other, or to even appear to be playing a role, the billionaire said. So I don't plan on making a similar contribution this cycle. That was from Politico. But his definition of neutral is whatever the Republicans and the Democrats, it's going to get them to not yell at him for being biased. So it's a very easy, move the goalpost, work the ref situation. And I think, and you made this point, should Trump win again? I don't know if he's actually worried about being thrown in jail or not, but if should Trump win again and there's a Republican Congress, I do think there's a concern now from some of these

tech companies and social media companies that actually maybe Republicans could come after them too. Sure. Not just on some of these free speech censorship issues, but on like breaking up meta or, you know, as the Republican party takes a little bit more of a, or pretends to take more of a populist turn and they've always been suspicious of Silicon Valley and tech billionaires anyway, you know, if you're not on the right side of their politics, if you're not like Elon Musk, then I think he wants to hedge his bets that way. Well, this is exactly what happened during the Trump administration, right? As you remember the like hashtag stop the bias stuff

that I don't even remember what triggered it. Oh, I do remember there was a news widget on the Facebook homepage. It's so stupid. And there were like, it came out that there were like a couple of people at meta who ran this new widget that just had news headlines. And they said, let's remove outright misinformation from it. And like, there was a Breitbart link that was just like false. And they said, so let's not have that in there. And this got spun as they're censoring

right-wing views at Facebook because they're doing thought police and they want to steer our politics, which led into this completely bogus stop the bias campaign that was pushed by like Don Jr. And then Trump picked it up and it became- So much stupid over the last several years. It's a lot of stupid, but they put the threat of like the entire regulatory state behind it. And like Trump, who was president, was like, we're going to break up Meta. We're going to do all this stuff to them if they don't stop the bias. So like Meta really leaned into

more than any other social media company. I wrote down some of the stuff they did. They shut down that news widget when Senator John Thune complained. They hosted dinners with right-wing media figures like Tucker Carlson and Trump campaign officials to reassure them, we're on your side. They hired

prominent right-wing lobbyists to be the GOP's men in the room on big content and algorithm decisions, which we know from subsequent leaks, were steered explicitly, explicitly to help Trump. Not like the result happened to help Trump, but they said, we have to make these big content algorithm decisions because they would be helpful for Trump. They hired former Senator John Kyle to write up an internal report that was deliberately designed to confirm every right-wing conspiracy theory about anti-conservative bias. And this all came with an implicit promise that they made good on to allow far-right lies and misinformation on the platform to allow election denialism. They wrote the rules specifically around this to allow health disinformation and to tilt the entire platform

towards Trump just in order to appease him to avoid a regulatory threat, which they have done in a number of countries around the world. This is not just a thing they've done in the US, and they will absolutely do it again. Well, and one consequence of Zuckerberg's letter already is Trump posted on Truth Social. Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to suppress Hunter Biden laptop story and much more. In other words, the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

Now, there is a problem with that in that Zuckerberg did not admit that the White House pushed to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. He did say that they demoted the Hunter Biden laptop story in October did say that they demoted the Hunter Biden laptop story in October of 2020. And you know who was president in October of 2020? Donald Trump. I remember that, yes. So no, the Biden White House did not pressure

them to do the Hunter laptop story. I mean, there is like, the Hunter Biden laptop episode is like an interesting one. And I think that like there is a case to be made that maybe did Twitter specifically go like a little far in downranking that story, but it was clearly intended as a like make good on spending years of like going way out of their way to let the platform promote like a lot of lies and misinformation. Again, the problem is demoting and promoting. That's right. Right. You just allow that. That has nothing to do with free speech. Right. Right. He's just allowed that. That has nothing to do with free speech. Right. Yeah.

All right. Finally, earlier this week, former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and one-time Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard cemented their support for Donald Trump by accepting senior positions on his hypothetical transition team should he win in November. They're actually honorary co-chairs. Wow, so exciting for them. The move marks a significant pivot in both the political careers of RFK Jr., a one-time environmental lawyer who was a registered Democrat until late last year, and of Gabbard, who represented Hawaii's second district as a Democrat for eight years. So this gets even weirder and potentially more alarming because since RFK Jr. dropped out,

other anti-establishment cranks like your Jill Steins, your Cornel Wests have been tweeting supportively about his challenge to the political establishment. It does seem like all of these politicians, what they have in common is they've gone down internet rabbit holes and they're now joining or at least not opposing a campaign that's trying to win over America's trolls, shit posters, conspiracy theorists, has most of them. Trump posted a picture today on Truth Social that is like an Avengers picture and it's Trump J.D. Vance RFK Jr. Gabbard

Elon Vivek Ramaswamy he always throws me this is a picture of prominent Americans who have fallen down

internet rabbit holes and had their brains broken by the internet all of them and have like no constituency like Ramaswamy is like who likes that guy you know i do we talked about this a little bit on positive america this week it is they are going after the low information voter who is or maybe not i shouldn't say low information but just doesn't follow politics that closely

is not getting all other news from political news sources, but is getting information about politics from random podcasts that aren't political podcasts or content creators or, you know, your Joe Rogans, your Theo Vons. They're disproportionately younger male. They're white males, black males, Latino males, right? So it's just, these are the people they're going after. And this crew of people is sort of very in line with that world.

Yes. But it is striking to see all those faces together and realize that, oh, this is the new coalition that has been created around ultra online politics, which are, as we have talked about many times, like everything we know about social media manipulation, algorithmic incentives, they all point towards anti-system, anti-establishment politics. Conspiracism, outrage, social distrust, doomerism, the sky is falling, no one is coming to help you, us versus them. All of those are things that add up to a politics that is like tear down the institutions. You can't trust anybody. Tear down the establishment. They're all out to get you. There's a great conspiracy against us. And it's like, I do think it is a striking moment that RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard both took like very different paths to that, but both took very online paths to like that kind of politics.

And like Cornel West kind of like playing footsie with that kind of politics. I think that tells you that when you are playing with anti-system, anti-establishment politics, especially in communities that are extremely online, that is where it tends to lead you. And there's like a lot of reasons those politics are rising. We talked about it. Of course, it's not just social media. Like there was a big spike in it after the financial crisis. And there's like- There is massive inequality, right? Like all of these- Right. You right? All of these larger trends are real. Yes. And you see wage stagnation that tends to correlate with it. And wages are up in the US, which is maybe part of why you see this declining a little bit. Institutions have made huge mistakes and it sometimes failed all across the world.

Right. It happens everywhere. Right. Yes. And those aren't politics that are necessarily far right, but in the politics of the United States today, the movement that expresses those politics is Donald Trump. Paranoid style of an American politics. That's right, yes. And it's been around forever, but I do think the internet has supercharged it for all the reasons we've talked about here.

And brings it all together. I think that's also the networking effect of the internet. If you're like a Tulsi Gabbard person, if you're a Colonel Wells person or RFK person, the internet is going to funnel you all to the same place. So it feels very natural to arrive at the Trump coalition. And the term horseshoe theory has been used to describe people who've gone from like Bernie bro and hardcore leftist to MAGA. Right. But like, I don't know if it's as useful because these people haven't gone from believing in like a generous welfare state

to believing in unregulated free markets. Right. Nor have they gone from believing that climate change is real to believing that it's a hoax. Like that's not it. It's what they have in common is their healthy skepticism

of government institutions has sort of curdled into cynicism, distrust, and outright disbelief. And decided to destroy those institutions. And destroy those institutions. And smash them and tear them down. And so they're more prone to conspiracies. Right. And they think that the world is out to get them, which is the paranoid part, right? And this is when you think of like the RFK Jr. conspiracies,

they fit into this category. Tulsi Gabbard saying that like, deciding to like stand up for Bashar al-Assad and saying, you know, he didn't actually use chemical weapons on his own people. Like, what is that position? And all the stuff she says seems to be like Russian propaganda. Yes, right.

Jill Stein as well. Jill Stein too. Right. It starts with a like, it starts with a kernel of truth where it's like I have some doubts about the benevolence of American foreign policy in the Middle East like okay fair enough fair enough

but then it gets to a like well America says that Bashar al-Assad is bad and if I'm like at the extreme end of distrust I hate institutions I don't believe anybody in politics that must mean Bashar al-Assad is good and then you see RFK doing the I hate institutions. I don't believe anybody in politics. That must mean Bashar al-Assad is good. And then you see RFK doing the same thing with like, I don't feel good about the pandemic. The government made some mistakes early on. Therefore, the CDC is bad and vaccines are bad. Or like, you know, profit motive drives corporations to do things that hurt people.

Sure. And also now they're putting autism in your vaccine. Right. Right. And I do think that like, I think your point about it's not a horseshoe thing is a good one. And it's a good one. It's not left, right. It's up, down. That's right. Yeah. And it's like, I don't want to steal your coinage here because it is a really good one.

But I do think that there is a new dividing line that has like been there for a little bit over the last 10 years and is getting much starker in our politics. Yeah. And it's very, it's bad. It's very bad for everyone. It's very bad for everyone. Because I do think that we, we, like whether you're a mainstream Democrat or liberal or you're like center, center right, right? Like we are forced to become the defenders of institutions at a time when anti-institutional sentiment is strong. Even if most of that anti-institutional sentiment is healthy, even if most of that anti-institutional sentiment is healthy and not what we're seeing from Trump and his gang of goons. But when forced to choose

between the people who are going to tear it down and the people who are saying, no, no, everything's fine, everything's wonderful. And we think everything's wonderful because look at us, we're educated and well off. So there is a challenge there that if that chasm grows then the the you know the trolls and the cranks right like just build a bigger movement of people who might not believe all of their conspiracies but are just pissed right well especially if you're going on to tiktok if you go if you're reading about or learning about something that's happening in politics in the world through TikTok, you're not getting like, well, the government made some good decisions and some bad decisions.

And like, maybe they made some mistakes. Maybe they did some things that I really think are malevolent or bad, but like you see the kind of complete picture and you see how to like move the needle or you see maybe like, here's a way that we can try to pressure things to move in a direction that I would like more. Like here's a politician who's like halfway to where I would like them to be. So maybe we support them and we get a little bit closer. What TikTok will tell you is that they're all corrupt. They're all bad. The only person you can listen to is the TikTok influencer or happens to be on your phone at that moment. And we just have to tear it all down and you should hate, interest, trust everybody, which tells you to disengage. And I think these anti-system politics, again, were like,

like being super online, were helpful for Trump in 2016 because he was the outsider's outsider and he was going up against Hillary Clinton, who was the insider's insider. And there was no one at that point, or I should say that the case for institutions was not being felt persuasively by people at that point for whatever set of reasons. And so people were very drawn to Donald Trump as the like, I'm going to smash the things you distrust, regardless of whether or not they bought into every aspect of the like hardcore white nationalism. Correct. And I think that that is not working as well for him now. And you see this like the Avengers coalition he's putting together. These are people who are all unpopular. Yeah. like it's very fractious when you try to have an anti-system coalition. There's a Pew poll of RFK supporters that said that 79% of them disapprove of Donald Trump. So like, congratulations on getting his endorsement. I don't know how helpful that's going to be for you. So trying to cobble something together, especially when you're a former president is like not helpful. And we should also talk about like, there are elements of this in the democratic coalition

too. Do we want to talk about the AOC? Yeah, I was just going to ask you to bring up the AOC thing. So this popped Thursday night in response to a question that she was doing. I think it was an Instagram live. Was it a live? Yeah. Or just a Q&A on Instagram. Okay, a Q&A on Instagram.

She got a question from someone. Why do leftists attack you despite multiple Palestinian rights groups saying you are one of Congress's best? And this also came after she just got confronted again at a restaurant by an activist who was shouting at her to say, why won't you say genocide? Which she has said, which is kind of tells you a lot. And her response was to acknowledge legitimacy of criticizing her and saying, look, I'm in the government, so it's fair to hold me account. And it's like, it's all the things you expect her to say. But it took, I feel, a stronger position that she has in the past on this. Quote, there's a lot of disinformation going around. A lot of people are getting news from random

viral social media posts. Disinformation hurts movements from the inside, discredits them from the outside. It's important to check it's everywhere. It's easier to be pissed off on the internet than actually build community and power around a just cause. So I feel like this is the kind of long-awaited confrontation, honestly. I also think she just like summed up all the different threads of our, she just pulled together all the different threads of our episode here. Right, that's what I'm telling you. AOC coming offline.

I saw that. I tweeted about it because I was like, I think this is the best lesson about politics and about organizing. That you have to be effective. And to be effective, you have to persuade people. And to persuade people, you have to show them empathy and grace and not just be mad on the internet. Which Barack Obama, going back to that speech, that's what he was saying in that speech. And Barack Obama's politics, very different than aoc's politics but the common thread there is people who understand what politics and change and organizing

actually requires of you and what the internet tells us it requires of you which is just like yelling dunking owning libs being right and having that be enough getting the retweets getting the engagement spreading the rumors about you know beyon, Beyonce and Taylor so you can get more followers, right? Like this is. Right. I mean, that's why you, that's why you go yell at AOC, who is the person who most agrees with you instead of yelling at one of the Democrats who most disagrees with you or God forbid, one of the Republicans who wants to take things even further is because that's

how you show that you're the most righteous, you're the most moral, you're one of the good ones. And if you have to lie in the process and say she never said genocide or misrepresent her position, then, you know, whatever. It's all for the likes.

It's all in the game. Right. And if you're the one who took down AOC in some viral moment, then like maybe it can make you sleep better at night because you feel like, I'm on my moral high horse now. I got it.

I do think that this is a illustration of the fact that social media-driven anti-system politics, they're not good for any political party. They're hard, but they sit especially uncomfortably within the Democratic Party and the Democratic Coalition right now. And it's very hard to make that shit. And I think- Because we are a party of like trying to make institutions work and trying to prove to voters that a government of the people can actually deliver and it can function well and it is better than the alternative, which is rule by force. Right, right, right. Yes. I mean, right. It's both the authoritarianism of the Republican Party and also Republicans, they don't like to pass legislation.

They want to roll things back. They want institutions to not work. They want to shrink the federal government. Democratic Party wants to actually try to do things, which is why you need more consensus, the idea that government doing things can be good. And I think this like the like anti-system social media politics have been like we've very much been feeling them within the Democratic Party over the last year. Now there were some good reasons to be, I think, a little bit upset with where things were going, for sure.

And I think that there's like a feeling right now in this moment that that has been kind of on pause, that like we're all on the same team right now because we're all coconut pilled and we're all coming together. And I think that this is a reminder that like, that pause is temporary. And this is going to come back. It's all still there.

Right. It's still there. And I think that like something tricky for the Harris-Walls campaign is going to be figuring out how to continue to ride that social media energy, which they've been doing so well, but not getting captured by it. Yes. And to like figure out. It's basically my biggest fear around the election. Right. Right. Like and you wonder if the polls capture it, too. Right. Which is like there is this there are these very disengaged, disaffected Americans who are vulnerable to this kind of appeal. Right. And misinformation of it. You know, if you asked me to bet, I would say there's not enough of them or maybe they won't vote. And so it's going to be OK. They've already accounted for they've been Trump voters for a while.

Like, that's what I think. But if we were to wake up surprised, you know, I would say that that's probably what's causing it. Right. Because it doesn't the worst effect of it is not someone believes that AOC has a slightly less good position on Gaza than she actually has. The worst outcome here is that people are made to feel more cynical than they should be about politics and made to feel that it doesn't matter and all the parties are bad. And even the people in the Democratic Party who are young and exciting and progressive, they're fake progressives and we shouldn't support them. And so I'm not even, I'm not going to go out, I'm not going to vote. I'm not going to volunteer.

And that is dangerous. Yeah, which will also be, by the way, I think Trump's strategy at this debate and for the rest of the campaign. Right? He just wants people to believe like, oh, you like her?

She's full of shit. She's full of shit just like me, but I own it. Right. That's his message. The strategy has always been to get people to not vote, make it hard to vote.

That's why he doesn't want the Zuckerberg lockboxes, which I still don't know what that is. I don't know what the lockbox is. Maybe he'll send us one. I would love a lockbox. Be wary of anti-system politics, and that's why you got to go out

and volunteer in this election. Remember that there was a reason that you were really excited. If you start to feel that waning, it's good to don't have blinders on, like, accountability is great, be involved in, like, pushing the party too. But, like, remember there was a reason that that felt really, really good and exciting

because it is. Great note to end on. All right, Max. Well, I'll talk to you next week. Everyone have a great weekend. Have a great weekend. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher.

Emma Illick-Frank is our associate producer. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Charlotte Landis is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglin. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel Landis is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglin. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz,

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as videos every week. Thank you.