On with Kara Swisher - Twitter Spaces On: WTF is Happening in the UK and the World

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

Today, we’re sharing a bonus episode of Kara’s Twitter Spaces conversation recorded on Monday night. In the first part of the conversation, Kara talks to Jonathan Freedland, a British journalist and columnist for The Guardian, about the fall of Liz Truss, the rise of Rishi Sunak and the role of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in U.K. politics.  In the second part of the episode, Kara and Freedland are joined by yet another Jonathan: Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. The trio discusses the rise of populism and hate speech today. They cover Kanye West’s antisemitic remarks on social media and discuss Freedland’s — aka British Jonathan’s — new book, “The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World.” Follow us on Twitter @karaswisher and @nayeema to tune in for future Spaces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, on listeners, Naeem Araza here. Another week, another Twitter Spaces bonus episode. This one was taped on Monday night and covers two topics with two guests. In the first part of the episode, Cara is joined by Guardian columnist Jonathan Friedland, identifiable by his beautiful English accent. They discuss the Great British Bake Off of 2022,

not the cooking show, but the politics, including the resignation of Liz Truss and the rise of Rishi Sunak, the UK's next prime minister. In the second half, Friedland and Cara are joined by Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. The trio discusses the rise of populism and hate speech world over and talks about Friedland's, a.k.a. British Jonathan's, new book, The Escape Artist,

The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World. They also speak about the anti-Semitic remarks made by the musician Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. Since this taping, Adidas, which has been reviewing its business dealings with Ye and his Yeezy brand, has cut ties with the artist.

We've left that conversation unedited, however, as Greenblatt discusses that suspending Ye may not be enough to redeem Adidas. Here's The Spaces with Cara and the two Jonathans. We'll start with Jonathan Friedland, the John One, you'll be known as John One, and the great British fiasco. I don't know what else to say. Welcome. It's been a big day in the UK. Explain to those who don't understand what's going on, what's going on. Well, that could be anybody here, actually, if we're going to explain to people who don't know what's going on, because it's been baffling and bewildering in equal measure now. Well, you could say for weeks, you could say for months, you could even say for six years. I think this all goes back really to the decision, the Brexit decision, which injected just huge political instability. But the most recent iteration of that was the very brief 44 day long prime ministership of one Liz Truss,

who only became prime minister the week the Queen died. So you'll remember how recently that was. She was there because Boris Johnson flamed out famously in the summer. She was elected over the summer and just torched her own administration with such speed, such velocity that nobody had really ever seen anything like that before, mainly by issuing an economic set of plans, a budget that just tanked British currency, sterling and sent interest rates skyrocketing the cost of borrowing for the government. Explain what the plan was. It was essentially to give a tax break for the wealthy, correct? Because she's a... Yeah, somebody described it as... It was trickle-down economics in the most neat form.

It was sort of undistilled, undiluted trickle-down economics. Someone described it as Reaganism without the dollar, which I think is a good way of putting it. It was the sort of thing, in a way, the United States could get away with because the world is desperate to lend money to the United States. But for a country like Britain to suddenly announce it was going to borrow money in order to give tax cuts to the very richest, literally the 1%, to abolish the top rate of tax, so the extra rate that was there for the highest earners, gone. There was a move to lift the cap on bonuses for bankers. I mean, it was almost like the sort of Mr. Burns style politics. It was how would you do a cartoon version of the least popular, reverse Robin Hood,

stealing from the poorest because it was they who were going to suffer, to give to the richest. It was almost a cartoon of plutocratic sort of ultra-conservative economics, but it tanked the economy. So it didn't become a moral problem, it became an economic problem. Right. And she also had given energy subsidies. There's a whole bunch of things in this mini budget, right? Is that what it's called, a mini budget? They called it a mini budget. There was really nothing mini about it. She was borrowing already, before anything had happened, 150 billion pounds, which is mini budget they called it a mini budget there was really nothing mini about it she was borrowing already before anything had happened 150 billion pounds which is right you know closing in on 200 billion dollars to pay or pay help people with their energy bills because the price of gas and

electricity had skyrocketed the markets were already pretty nervous about that but they thought okay she'll come up with a mini budget financial a fiscal plan that will tell the markets how she proposes to pay for it. And instead of doing that, she just said, you know, I'm in that hole. Guess what? I'm going to dig even deeper and get deeper into borrowing. And her theory was that this would lift innovation right in the face of a recession, correct? And energy prices and everything else and inflation. Explain what inflation is in britain right now because everybody's we have much lower inflation than in europe at this point yeah no we've got double digit inflation inflation is over 10 percent uh it means that when people are so food is very expensive you can actually see it in your

you know weekly online shop suddenly there's you know if it was a one in front it's now a two and the you know over a hundred dollars it will pounds it would be now 200 pounds that has leapt up uh gas prices obviously but the big cost for people is yes energy bills but then also just paying off their home loans their mortgages um and uh rent all of that is through the roof and so instead of um you know calming that down and suddenly trying to fight the rise surging inflation she just poured gasoline on it and made it the the fires of inflation rage even higher um and it was it was so swift it happened while the finance minister was making the statement. You could see the cost of borrowing rising, which would immediately be passed on to homeowners.

And it just got worse and worse. And instead of calming people, she and her finance minister said, there's going to be more. You know, we're going to do more of this. Because they were high on this very ideological, supercharged Reaganism, supercharged Thatcherism. That even people on the right just said, whoa, whoa, whoa. You you don't you know even thatcher and reagan didn't do this they waited right inflation was under control in the 80s uh and this there was none of that so it all right so so she fired the finance minister and hired another one jeremy hunt correct but that wasn't enough wasn't enough and she it wasn't enough right and so it enough. And she stepped down. It wasn't enough. Right.

It was partly because people could see that she had no sort of chops that's up to calm people. She wasn't a good speaker. She couldn't communicate. She looked frozen in the headlights. She did TV interviews where she seemed as if she was robotic or on some kind of medication. She seemed weirdly, oddly sedated. And people just thought this is not the markets, but also the voters didn't feel they could have any confidence in her at all. And so her own members of parliament in a parliamentary system, it's they who have to turn on her. They said they no longer have confidence. And within days she was gone. runoff, which was among, without going into tons of details, you have to get to a certain amount of MPs on your side saying you can run and then you become the prime minister, right? And there were three, Boris Johnson being one of them, but he dropped out and I'm blanking on the woman's name.

Penny Mordant. Mordant, right, right. Penny Mordant. Anyway, that's a great name. It's a quite Dickensian name, isn't it? It is, yes. And then she didn't get enough. She got maybe 25 or 26. And then Boris dropped in out of his vacation, beach vacation, correct? That's right. I mean, you know, the system was that members of parliament were going to have to choose who would be the new replacement leader and therefore automatically the prime minister under our system and there were three runners and riders that all the drama of course was about the comeback of Boris Johnson it just strikes me as interesting that you know

in a way that American politics hanging over is does Donald Trump come back over Israeli politics does Netanyahu come back over British British politics, does Boris Johnson come back? These three big populist charismatic figures. And so all eyes were on Boris Johnson. As you say, he's been on vacation more or less since he quit in July, even though he's meant to be working as a lawmaker. No, he'd been on vacation, but he jets back in, expecting really to be greeted with the sort of return of the hero.

And instead, it didn't really come. So he had to clear this hurdle of 100 members of parliament had to say, we would nominate him even before a contest could happen. And they were briefing over the weekend, classic Boris Johnson, yes, we've done 100, we've got 100. Yet what are their names? And it was classic, you know, you wouldn't know her, she goes to another school, you know, they couldn't name the names, and they couldn't clear that hurdle of 100. And so this morning, or 2pm today, the deadline was to reveal how many backers you had. Boris Johnson dropped out last night, because it was clear he didn't couldn't, he said he had, but no one believed it, he couldn't clear 100, Penny Mordaunt the same. And so because no one else who cleared the hurdle of 100 automatically without a vote. And by the way, that's quite controversial here.

Rishi Sunak has been made prime minister without the vote of a single member of parliament. All right. So now it's Rishi Sunak, who is number two to Liz Truss. He didn't beat her the last time, but now he was sort of the one in waiting, essentially, the lady in waiting, so to speak. That's right. Partly almost because he lost to her is why he was the front runner. Why do I say that? Because his whole campaign was to say, if you do what you're proposing to do, you're going to tank the whole economy. You've got to be crazy to do what you're saying. And people on her side was saying, he's such a killjoy. He's a spoil sport. He's ruining all our fun. He keeps saying all this

boring stuff about numbers and money and markets. Who wants to listen to him? And never before that I've ever seen in politics has an opponent been so swiftly vindicated. Everything he said would happen, happened. And it happened within days. He people who don't know, he's a banker, an investment banker, very finance geek, a centrist, correct? We would call him that in the party, or he's a Brexit year, but he's still. Yeah, I'm not so sure. I mean, compared to the lunatics who've been running things after, yes, he was centrist compared to her. But pro-Brebrexit and funnily enough she wasn't back in 2016 she flipped but he was ideologically pro-brexit he is a big free market reaganite thatcherite small state guy and so uh and so therefore quite ideological but what he is is he does live at least in the real

world and he does count and so he you know he knows how to count so he looks at those numbers he looks at what's happening to the currency and says even though ideologically i would love to cut everyone's taxes we can't right now because the economy can't take it so if that makes him a centrist i would call him more you know he lives he's he's in the reality-based community right that's the difference and he's quite wealthy he's married uh to the the his wife is the is the heir to the emphasis fortune in india correct that's exactly right and um and i know her father a little bit um and he is that a controversy at all he's got a almost a billion he's richer than the queen correct yes he is mean, it's hugely controversial. One of the reasons why when

he ran in the summer, even though everybody could see that he was way smarter and sharper than Liz Truss and lived in the real world as opposed to in la-la land, the reason why partly conservatives didn't go for him is because they thought we can never win an election in a climate of a cost of living crisis with the guy who's richer than the queen right and there are all these populist tropes about him he would wear these on the campaign trail prada sneakers that were yeah uh you know valued at some huge sum suits that were thousands of dollars he's got a house i'm in california right now he's got a house in California right now. He's got a house in Santa Monica, correct? Yeah, a house in Santa Monica.

He's got homes everywhere. Look, he's part of the absolute ultra, 0.0001%, let alone the 1%. He lives a life different from everyone else here. That was covered up for a while. During the COVID pandemic, he was very popular because he was the guy handing out what they called furlough money, meaning paying people to stay at home.

And he was very popular when he was dishy-rishy, a reference partly to him being handsome, but also to him dishing out the cash. So he was popular then. They liked that. But once people began to look closely at him and realized that he had a personal lifestyle and profile way out of tune with everyone else. Right, with the average British. So he's, as you say, he's dishy and young, much younger than most politicians. I think he's 42. That's right.

Is that correct? Yes. And he's part of a set that's different. He's also the first person of color to run the British government. Correct? This is huge. Yes, he is. He's the first non-white person.

He's the first person of color to be the prime minister of this country. That's huge. He practices another religion. I mean, he isn't, you know, I know that, you know, there have been politicians, black or Indian politicians, obviously in the United States. But they tend to be the ones who elected to the top ten to be Christian. He's a Hindu, a practicing, faithful Hindu. He's a British Indian. And so that is and again, that has caused debate, too, because there are plenty of people of color who are saying, well, he doesn't represent me.

there are plenty of people of color who are saying well he doesn't represent me he's not representative of people of color because or brown people as they you know people are saying here because he doesn't have the life that we have he doesn't know the circumstances we have and so there's triggered that very familiar debate about does diversity count or does it only count if you have the right views the correct views and so the left have tied themselves up in a few knots about Rishi Sunak. Should they welcome it for diversity reasons or oppose it because he's a billionaire from one of the most elite, you know, second private schools that the country knows? So does this give any opening for, they're not going to run another election, presumably, or they don't have to, is that correct? Or can the Labour press, given this mess?

Labour cannot force an election because it's all up to the votes in Parliament. And so if the Conservatives have still, from an election that was back in 2019, they have a healthy majority. If they don't want something to happen, it won't happen under our system. And so, therefore, there is no way there can be an election unless the conservatives themselves vote for it, which they could if they just fight each other and collapse again, like they have done, you know, over Liz Truss and over Boris Johnson, then yes, it could happen. But one of the things Rishi Sunak said today was no early election.

I'm not going to do it. But he doesn't have to at all, correct? of the things Rishi Sunak said today was no early election. I'm not going to do it. But he doesn't have to at all, correct? He doesn't have to until legally their mandate runs out in December of 2024, because they were elected in December of 2019. And in Britain, you have five-year terms. So he can carry on governing legally until December 2024. And he's in no hurry, because right now, if you look at the opinion polls, the Conservative Party would be wiped out, the Tories would be wiped out. That's correct. Obliterated. And so the last thing he wants is to have an election now. What he's hoping is

he can steady the ship, deal with some of the chaos created by Liz Truss, and potentially go back to the voters. And Boris Johnson, let's be fair. And Boris Johnson. Yeah, I was thinking of just the immediate stuff. But yes, the deep stuff is Boris Johnson as well. Absolutely. So he can sit tight. There's no pressure that would change this in Britain right now for him to move if he doesn't want to, unless he did more screw ups and it became so, you know, untoward that they couldn't do it.

Correct? Yeah. I mean, there would have to be rebellion on his own side, people turning on him. And that could, you know, it's given what's happened, you would never say never. But that's what would, you know, the arithmetic is such that if he doesn't, doesn't want it and doesn't screw up, then it won't happen. So what is the profile of the British governing now a pro Ukrainian war? What does the United States have governing now, a pro-Ukrainian war? What does the United States have to think about with this new prime minister?

It's a very good question because it goes to this thing about what are the Conservative Party now? What do they even stand for? Because there is uncertainty and confusion about that because they are ideologically really riven. Just take the small question of, you know, how big should the state be? How much government spending should there be? Liz Truss wanted to shrink it right down ideologically, even though she was splashing the cash for those energy bills. That's on the one hand.

There are people who are on the right who say shrink it down. And yet there was Boris Johnson, beloved of the right of the party, who wanted to spend big because he was one of those kind of conservatives in a completely different tradition that wanted grand projects, big infrastructure, you know, partly to do with his ego, actually, about, you know, big things that would bear his name, big spender. So they're not united on that. They are united on Ukraine, there is really next to no, you know, pro-Russia faction. There's no equivalent to some of those Republicans who are apologists for Vladimir Putin. There's no real equivalent of that.

So they're solid on that. The big problem, I think, for the Biden administration is still that this is a government, Rishi Sunak and the others, committed to Brexit. And that has led to this big problem about Northern Ireland, which has this odd in-between status, one foot in, one foot out, the European single market. And that causes huge problems for the big peace agreement there that brought peace to that civil war in Northern Ireland back in the end of the 1990s. And Joe Biden has always said, you know, Irish American proudly, that that is really

important for him. And he was out of sympathy with uh boris johnson and with gliss trust on that issue and i don't see any progress on that soon plus um from what i read people around the world were getting pretty worried about the contagion effect that by britain tanking its own economy could that spread and you've had the international monetary fund warning britain look we've got our eye on you because if you mess up you know if you sneeze we catch a cold and so that there's there are big interests at play here besides the sort of large big picture one which is you know britain by leaving the european union did step away and there are plenty of countries

and i think the united states would be one of them, that says, look, the world is a dangerous place. Come back, Britain. We need you. You've been on this weird six-year kind of bender, and we need you to come right back. Right. And do you suspect he will have a strong relation with Joe Biden? Well, I think, you know, he will have plenty. He's work cut out. But I think everything that we've seen of him so far is he wants stability calm and order and all one of the things that would reassure the financial markets

is the appearance of the the you know being back under adult management again and a way to signal that is good relationship with the american president because it suggests that is, yeah, and with the Europeans, actually, anything which suggests statecraft, responsible statecraft. You know, we've had vandals in charge here for a while, disruptors. You know, Truss and Johnson both reveled in the name of being disruptors. I don't think there's any market for disruption right now. We've had enough of disruption. Right. And the British people, they're different. All the British people are different, but they, they are for this, or they're just sort of sitting agog like, oh, good heavens. Well, the popular support for the government has absolutely fallen through the floor. And it's a big question whether they will look at Rishi Sunak and say, okay, the last, we're going to erase the last six weeks from our memory,

pretend it didn't happen. The meme that's been circulating is the Bobby Ewing coming out of the shower scene in Dallas. And people are saying, if that's what we would like to happen in British politics, pretend the whole thing was a bad dream. But it's very hard to do that. And partly because David Frum, bush former bush speechwriter said you know it's not recently he's made this clever remark he said you know you can change the captain but until the the new captain admits that it was a mistake to scupper the ship six years ago with brexit the ship will keep on sinking and i think there is a body of opinion here that will think you know look he seems a nice guy and he's obviously smart um and he's better than the other two but still the

country is in a doubt on a downward path and that's because of yeah and then there's always the the possibility of johnson returning at any point he's like the goblin that could pop out of the very much and he he said that i mean he said in his statement when he dropped out the time for my return is you know it's not right now yeah meaning and yeah as and as you absolutely i'll be back he said when he finally did resign his final speech to the house of commons to parliament was his final words were hasta la vista baby he said meaning i you know i'm coming back okay lastly what does murdoch think of the whole thing? Obviously, he has an impact, or the media, all the different tabloids.

Besides being a dishy, liking him. Murdoch is very important in all of this. I would say that Murdoch's key lieutenant, or his key ally in the Conservative Party, is Michael Gove, who's been a minister in many governments. If he comes back in a big way under Rishi Sunak, that will be an important sign. But I thought the other sign was that Rupert Murdoch's newspapers and other right-wing newspapers, and most of them in this country are right-wing. You're talking to a guy from The Guardian. It's one of the few left-of-centre papers here. But the right-of-centre papers,

tellingly and interestingly, they were not pro boris johnson yeah they were not saying come back they were saying as nicely as they could you know you're a great guy but now is not the right time and that played a part that played a part in him not going yes they were not sticking with him Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

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He's really an interesting character. But I also want to switch the discussion. It's fascinating. I can't wait to see how this guy does. He's really an interesting character. But I also want to talk about your new book, which is a good segue into bringing on our next guest. John's book is called The Escape Artist. I'm going to talk about the book in a second, but I want to bring in Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, to kind of set us up for what's going on today. And by the way, stick around for any audience questions about London. I'm sorry to split this up, but it's good to have John Friedland talking about British politics, too. So Jonathan Greenblatt, welcome. Good evening. Thanks for having me, Cara. So explain to us what's going on now. You've been, I've seen you everywhere, obviously,

with Kanye West and some other people. It's really a, the rise of anti-Semitism seems to have again and it doesn't go away ever and you and I have talked about it online and things like that and let me read you a quote from the ADL's anti-Semitism uncovered guide while anti-Semitism obviously harms and worries Jews we must also be mindful that it threatens democracy

as an indicator of the health of society as a whole and of society's capacity to think reasonably and behave humanely so I want you to sort of give us sort of what the landscape from your perspective is with the rise of anti-Semitism and the far right in the U.S. Well, look, I think a few things. So number one, indeed, anti-Semitism is sometimes described as the oldest hatred. It doesn't seem to go away and it persists over millennia, different countries, different cultures. And it is this, you can think about anti-Semitism, Kara, as a conspiracy theory about the way the world works that positions Jews at the center of a nefarious plot because they are

too greedy or they have too much power or because they're not legitimate. But the evil of anti-Semitism is its ability to adapt and take the shape of whatever psychosis a particular person or particular community might have. So indeed, as you were saying a moment ago, we definitely see in America today that anti-Semitism has reached historic new highs. So in 2021, the ADL, which has been tracking this information for almost 45 years, counted the highest number of antisemitic incidents we've ever seen in America, 2,717. And when I say we counted, the ADL, I have 25 field offices that get reports that investigate everyone and verify them. So I'm talking about the search.

And they can range. Tell us what they range from so people have an idea. They can range from acts of harassment, like a kid being bullied at school, a child or an adult being yelled at on a bus for obviously being Jewish. Or as we saw happen, a rash of flyers were dropped in Los Angeles over the weekend. Yeah. Where they had anti-Semitic flyers in plastic bags, some of them with pebbles, and reportedly care of some of them with ashes inside the plastic baggies, which is particularly, I think, grotesque. It is.

So sometimes it's harassment. Sometimes it's vandalism, like, for example, swastika on a house or Jews get out on a business or Jewish stars and such. Right. And sometimes it's actual violence, which can be an assault. It can be mass casualty events. I mean, this Thursday is the four year anniversary of the massacre at the tree of life synagogue where 11 Jews were murdered, you know,

while they prayed on a Saturday morning in Pittsburgh. Right. Right. So it runs a gamut. And so one of the things you and I have been talking about the online as being one of, that's the one thing you and I've talked about a lot and your efforts to, to talk to the online companies about that. But before I get to that, I want to talk, obviously,

a person getting a lot of the attention is Kanye West. His very public person, very famous person, his anti-Semitism has a big impact. Can you, can you speak to the rallying behind him since? What, have you, I don't mean to say, have you spoken to him? I don't think he speaks to people except in anti-Semitic tropes. But talk to me about this impact and why you think you're seeing this. And I want to then talk about corporations who still work or promote their partnerships with him. Yeah. I mean, there are a few dimensions to this. So first, I mean, I'll say right up front, Kara, like I don't want to minimize or stigmatize mental illness. There's a lot of reports about Kanye being bipolar or Kanye having other issues. I don't have a clinician's ability to diagnose him. That being said, I don't think illness is an excuse for intolerance.

And when one of the most prominent entertainers in the world, this man has hundreds of millions of fans. He has scores of millions of followers on social media platforms. I think he had 31 million on Twitter alone. Yeah. When he says he wants to go death con three, you know, in all caps on Jewish people. I mean, that is a threat. I mean, that's not, I don't know exactly what it means, but I don't think it's nice. what it means, but I don't think it's nice. When he blames Jewish Zionists for controlling him,

or he claims that, for example, the Jewish underground media mafia is trying to hurt him, or he claims that Disney, a Jewish company, or Jewish record companies, and so on and so forth, are trying, he said things like they're trying to milk and own black people. I mean, it's very incendiary language that of course can inflame people. And in an environment where we're just saying antisemitism is empirically on the rise, where Jews already feel a degree of anxiety about what's happening on college campuses and workplaces, just in public public spaces. His he is adding a kind of fuel to the fire that should have everyone alarmed. It's not normal. It's not OK. And do you understand why he's doing this? Now, the last person who was this famous, I'm thinking is Mel Gibson. Am I incorrect? Yeah.

Well, let's let's I mean, look, people like Nick Cannon. We'll get to donald trump in a second but go ahead there is trump people like the entertainment field i was going to say like nick cannon but then nick accounted for his errors and like apologized and went on what some might call like a learning process or i think about myers leonard who's a player with the heat who had a similar thing or john galliano the designer mel gib Gibson, suffice to say, I'm not a fan. But while he said some incredibly hateful things, think about the difference. He said some hateful things. He was shunned by Hollywood when that happened. However, Kanye West got on, went on Instagram,

then was shut down, went over to Twitter and said horrible things, then was shut down, then on Chris Cuomo and Piers Morgan and on a few podcasts and said the same things again and again and again. And what's amazing is just today, I think a tide has turned in part because we've seen this explosion of anti-Semitic propaganda events in LA. But at first, you know, the Hollywood community barely said anything. John Legend, Amy Schumer, Josh Gad, and David Schwimmer. And that's literally the only people who initially stepped up. But today, thankfully, a few big names like Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Reese Witherspoon, Jessica Seinfeld, and others stepped forward.

But until then, it was deafening silence. And still to this moment, I think what's more notable than the few people who've said something is the far larger share of people who've said nothing. Who've said nothing. Now, that includes corporations. Let's see. Who has he been shunned? Who has he broken relationships with? I guess CAA announced they were parting ways. MRC did something pretty amazing. They had produced a multimillion dollar documentary on Kanye that they're shelving because of what he's done, you know, at great expense. Right. Which that was all welcome. UTA came out with an important

kind of statement. But here's the thing. Like if you look at Balenciaga, they didn't mention his anti-Semitism. No. Or him. I mean, Kim Kardashian didn't mention him, which was interesting. She didn't call him out directly. She's his ex-wife, and certainly he's been harassing her in some fashion. Yeah, I mean, the things he said about her in these tirades. Like, I wouldn't want my children to hear this stuff.

Right. So I suppose you have to be more careful, but not really. Gap and Adidas continue to back him, correct? Well, it doesn't. Gap dropped him, although I know I've spoken to senior leadership at Gap. I think they're trying to run through the inventory and run as far away from Kanye as they can. But Adidas is worth pausing on for a moment. Adidas has co-created a line called Easy with Kanye West. There you go. One of mine, too. And it's reportedly $2 billion of gross revenue on a $25 billion P&L.

I mean, it's a big piece of business for them. What's interesting, Cara, is they announced that they were, quote, unquote, putting the relationship under review after the White Lives Matter t-shirt. But in the days that followed, Cara, despite the rancid anti-Semitism and the just vituperative anti-Jewish threats, ideas didn't say boo day after day after day. And so I've spoken with the senior leadership there. I've spoken with some of the large investors there. And it makes you wonder, when they say the relationship is under review,

what more do they need to review? No, I'm shocked that they haven't said anything. I'm sort of... It's kind of stunning. And I don't know if you're aware, but the company, its roots are in Nazi Germany. It is indeed. Yes, yes, yes.

I think many people online have pointed that out. So moving from Kanye, one of the things we talked about, I do want to talk about Donald Trump's statement, which was strange and loaded. Or perhaps it wasn't. I can't tell. Before it's too late, whatever that means. Essentially, evangelical Christians are better Jews than Jewish people are, which was an interesting way to consider it. Can you talk to that? I mean, is it acceptable?

Of course, there's Marjorie Taylor Greene spouting off an anti-Semitic remark every five seconds, I think. Yeah. I mean, look, so there are a few things here. So, number one, I don't think Jewish people need the former president to tell us who are the good Jews or not. Right. I mean, he made his post on his unregulated and unhinged, you know, true social platform. And I think this is another reason to be wary of Trump being permitted to return to Twitter, a platform with 400 million users. I mean, just imagine that for a moment. But what's difficult here is that when Donald Trump tries to, if you will, Jewsplain to us, who are the loyal Jews, who are the good Jews, that just evokes classic anti-Semitic myths about dual loyalty and where we are supposed to align ourselves. I don't need

Donald Trump or certainly any other political figure, Marjorie Taylor Greene included, to tell me whether or not I'm a good Zionist or a good American or a good person. And the idea that when he does this, he invokes these, again, age-old tropes about are Jews really loyal to America? Are they loyal to Israel? Frankly, Kara, this stuff isn't new from Donald Trump. He's been doing this for years and it's just as noxious today and ugly as it was when he first did it back in 2015. So he also, he's also on true social. Let's get to social media and then I want to bring in John Friedland about his book because it's the same issues. It's the exact same issues, which is kind of shocking. Talk a little bit about that. Where are we with social media companies? The social media companies now, you and I have gone round and round with them about these issues.

Where are they now? They did kick off. They did kick them off Instagram and Twitter. Elon Musk is about to own Twitter on Friday, probably. Yeah. I mean, I think, look, there are a bunch of very difficult issues. I mean, in some ways, I have been optimistic or maybe the better word is hopeful about Elon Musk because I think he has solved some very big problems. I don't know, rocketry, transportation, batteries, et cetera. And yet I look at this situation and I am, I'm not alarmed.

I'm sort of terrified. I mean, his flirting with Trump, his like, you know, lifting up Medved and like playing footsie with the Russians. And now this with Kanye, like welcoming him back. He welcomed Kanye back to Twitter after he had been kicked off Instagram for anti-Jewish tirades. Right. Yes, I am aware. I just think we continue to have a problem where these companies are entirely unregulated and they're allowed to have on who they want or don't want, but they are warping our public discourse in deeply dangerous ways. And they're creating an environment that is

unsafe for minorities like Jewish people. I mean, all it takes is one crazy person to see the stuff that Kanye is saying and to feel motivated to go take action against the quote, Jewish Zionists. It's very frightening. What will you do if Elon buys on Friday and lets Trump and Kanye back on? He has said he spoke to him, which sounds like, I called a dude and I said, not cool. That's what it felt like. So Elon, you mean, so there's two things. There's two things.

Number one, Trump said he spoke to Kanye. And when asked about Kanye's anti-Semitism, Trump's response was, quote, well, he's always been very nice to me. So there you go. And then Elon indeed sort of implied that they talked and he kind of told him, but look, this is the problem, right? The lack of transparency is incredibly damning. And while Elon might be able to finally turn the company around in terms of generating a more meaningful kind of profit and making the business model work, he could screw up society along the way. And I think that's deeply damning.

And the idea that our public square becomes the plaything for oligarchs is alarming. And it may be how capitalism works, but unregulated markets never work well for consumers. And as we've talked about before, Cara, we need the government to come in. We need 230 to be reconsidered. We simply need these companies to be liable if, if you will, liables committed on their platforms, like every other publishing. Sure. Like Alex Jones and things like that, which of course, a lot of people didn't, a lot of people on his side did not think that was fair. I heard, I watched a lot of, like, he said what he wanted.

I'm like, it's still defamation, you dumbass. Support for this show comes from Grammarly. 88% of the work week is spent communicating, typing, talking, and going back and forth on topics until everyone is on the same page. It's time for a change. It's time for Grammarly. Grammarly's AI ensures your team gets their points across the first time, eliminating misunderstandings and streamlining collaboration. It goes beyond basic grammar to help tailor writing to specific audiences, whether that means adding an executive summary, fine-tuning tone, or cutting out jargon in just one click. Plus, it surfaces relevant information as employees type, so they don't waste time digging through documents. Four out of five professionals say Grammarly's AI boosts buy-in

and moves work forward. It integrates seamlessly with over 500,000 apps and websites. It's implemented in just days and it's IT approved. Join the 70,000 teams and 30 million people who trust Grammarly to elevate their communication. Visit grammarly.com Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Uncertainty. Self-doubt. Stressing about not knowing where to start. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Word art.

Sorry, Live Laugh Lovers. In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. So Jonathan, I want to bring you in, Jonathan Wan, Freeland, in talking about your book, because a lot of this, I really enjoyed your book. It was, it was, I don't want to say it's a thriller, but it's a page turner for sure. Can you talk a little bit about, it's called The Escape Artist, and it's someone who escaped.

Explain your book. You do a better job than I. Thank you. I mean, that's kind of you, and I'm glad you liked it. It's The Escape Artist, the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world. It tells the story of Rudolf Werber, who was a teenager in Auschwitz and broke out of Auschwitz when he was 19. You know, it was vanishingly rare for Jews to be able to do that. Only a handful ever did it. He did it when he was a teenager, and he was driven to do it because he came to this great insight, which was that he could see, because he was working on his job, unloading those cattle

wagons, cattle cars, full of Jews day and night. And he realized that not one of them knew the fate that awaited them. The reason why they had got onto those trains in a relatively orderly fashion and had calmly lined up was because they had been lied to from start to finish with an ever increasingly elaborate lies and so he made which was we're going to give you a shower we're going to give you food just get in we're just moving you and the big lie was we are resettling you in the east you're going to have new lives you know yes it's bad that you're not why everybody brought everything and they brought pots and pans and clothes and children's books and children's toys because they thought they were going to have new lives.

Right. And that made a huge difference in terms of how they behaved. And he thought the crucial element in the Nazi killing machine, a crucial component, was deception. stop the Nazi killing machine was to break that wall of ignorance, tear through that veil of ignorance that meant Jews were arriving on those trains with no idea of their fate. And he just thought somebody has to get out of here and tell the Jews what is waiting for them at the end of those railway tracks. And that somebody might as well be me. It's an amazing thing to think of. It's the sort of almost the arrogance of youth that he thought he could do that. So he gets out, which is a very gripping escape. He gets out using, what is it, tobacco and gasoline to keep away the dogs and things like that.

Can you talk to me about, so he gets out, but nobody listens to him. Well, he gets out, he has to cross, you know, occupied, Nazi-occupied Poland, crossing marshland and forest and mountains. He and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, they travel at night. You can't go during the day. And they make it to their home country of Slovakia. There they make contact with the remnant Jewish community, the handful of Jews who are still holding on there. And in an underground basement, you know, in hiding, he pours out everything he's known. He's incredibly, he's memorized all those transports because he knew no one would believe a teenage boy.

So he thinks, I've got to have the facts. Chapter and verse, dates and days of all those transports. They put it into a 32-page, single-spaced report, which then goes on its own incredible journey, past, hand-to-hand, crossing borders, you know, a whole cavalcade of extraordinary characters get this report out. It reaches Franklin Roosevelt, the desk of Franklin Roosevelt in Washington. It reaches Winston Churchill in London. It reaches, crucially for our story and for Rudolf Weber, it reaches Jewish leaders in Hungary. And some, you know, different reactions

in different places, sometimes prejudice in London and Washington, you know, the why should we believe these wailing Jews is what a foreign office memo writes in Washington, I think, says one army journal, this is too Jewish an account. This too, can we have a less Semitic account of what's going on in Nazi Germany? So there's prejudice. But the other thing which he never bargained for is he encounters just sheer disbelief. Remember, nothing like Auschwitz had ever existed in human history before. The idea of a killing factory where 10, 12, 15,000 people are being murdered every day. And therefore, even people who would otherwise be sympathetic, they literally found it unbelievable. They could

not believe it. And I think now about the big problems we face, often it is not enough just to have the fact set out in front of you. You have to also believe them think that we think it's obvious once you've got the information or the evidence you'll believe it but we know from so many issues in our own time now you can lay out all the evidence in front of people but people have all kinds of guards and defenses in their heads that prevent them receiving news they don't want to hear right and so i think there's huge things in rudolf Verbe's story, in the story of the escape artist for our own time, actually, that resonate for me.

I think of, you know, it's a completely different thing. But something like the climate crisis, you know, we have laid out, scientists have laid out the facts, but there's this step between having the information to believing it. And that was the wall he ran into. Well, Jonathan, I must tell you, I think the story is extraordinary

and it's incredibly inspiring. It's just a reminder, I think, not only of the unfortunate persistence of anti-Semitism, but of the resilience of these people in the face of such horrors. Yeah, I mean, the sheer physical resilience, but also, and courage, but also the brilliant ingenuity of Verba. I mean, what strikes me about his story is he was merely a teenager, and yet he had one amazing insight after another. to the Nazi method. The second was this notion that actually you had to have more than just facts and information. You had to somehow get people to believe you. And that was what I think

set him apart partly. So when you think about this, Jonathan Greenblatt, to today, there's a lot of this, oh, don't worry about it. It's just the typical Kanye West is crazy or don't believe it'll lead to anything or so what they put up signs or you're overestimating it. Do you feel that you're in that a lot of people are becoming increasingly worried and there's only so many times they can become worried before something actually happens? And I don't mean isolated events, but a real, you know, where it becomes sort of spoken out loud constantly. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I mean, I think we've watched the situation, if you will, deteriorate in recent years. From 2015 to today, we've seen Charlottesville, we've seen Pittsburgh, we've seen Poway. Just, you know, earlier this year, we had the hostage

taken at the synagogue in Colleyville. We had a shooting in Jersey City at a kosher supermarket. We had a stabbing. We have assaults in Brooklyn. And now we have like rabid anti-Zionism on college campuses. We have violent white supremacists putting flyers and driveways all over the United States. I mean, I've got to be honest with you, Kara. It feels a bit like the frog in boiling water. And I think anti-Semitism

is often described as the canary in the coal mine. It's kind of like, you know, the stalking horse of broader illiberalism and societal decay. That's why I think this moment is so meaningful and alarming that we've let anti-Semitism run rampant. It's been normalized in our kind of public conversation. Again, thanks, social media. Thanks, Mark and Cheryl and whatnot. And by the way, you alluded to this before, we have Christian nationalists openly running for office whose view of the world excludes Jews, it excludes LGBTQ people, it excludes immigrants, and they're very open about it. And that is deeply terrifying that people in positions of leadership think this is somehow okay or normal. There's nothing normal about it.

So Jonathan Friedland, when you look at the book, what are some of the, you know, I hate to say, let's have some learnings here, but what are some of the, you know, I hate to say, let's have some learnings here, but, but what are some of the lessons you think need to happen now when you look back at what happened to this man, this very brave man, um, who wasn't believed. Um, and it was, it was, it's a little bit of the same thing, except we don't have, I don't know, Twitter. It's like someone would argue, oh, he came with this report, but I've noticed that this, you could see if this report was around today, someone would like try to dunk on it on Twitter or Instagram or whatever. And everyone's an expert, just like you're seeing all these tech bros giving foreign policy advice, which is exhausting to me, at least. It's true. It's all high school level of foreign policy experience so or even that that's

even generous i'd say fourth grade um so um how do you look at that john jonathan friedland and when you think about what's what your character did i can't even imagine him today coming back and trying to bring these these ideas i mean i have thought about that what would happen to a report like this now i mean on one level information would spread so much faster i mean there is a positive side to this he was reduced to handing physical copies um you know to that would pass hand to hand across borders now information like that at a press of a button the world would know about it it took months weeks and then months to get into the hands of the right people and finally reach London. And every day that went by, thousands more were dead every hour that people wasted. So on one level, our information world is much better now. But you're right, I have thought about that, that people

would question him now and say, Oh, isn't this the guy who once said this? Yeah, you know, and there would be a sort of there'll be reasons to discount it. I suppose the thing to take away from it is, we need to think hard about our own barriers to understanding. What barriers do we unconsciously perhaps put up to receiving information that is really uncomfortable for us to hear? Because people found all kinds of ruses and tricks in a way back then in the 40s to not hear the warning. And, you know, I wrote this book before that movie Don't Look Up came out, but it did resonate a hear the warning. And, you know, I wrote this book before that movie Don't Look Up came out, but it did resonate a bit. The idea that, you know, that everyone's

telling you this is happening and you find all kinds of reasons to look away. And what failed Rudolf Verber was people wanted desperately to find an excuse to look the other way. And we have to, in a way, force ourselves to think and i and so i've people have responded to the book this way they've said after reading it they are now going to in some ways force themselves to look at things that otherwise they would find their mind would find a reason not to look at and that's that's hard to do but i think i think it's it's one of the things that um more than most people i spend more time watching stave bannon very carefully because I think in a weird way, he really does understand flooding the zone with misinformation. He does. He certainly does.

And confusion and upset that people become after, especially after the pandemic, very upset. And therefore, more bad news makes it's just hard, too hard. It's like you'd rather just go into your house and be quiet. So, John, I'm going to get to a couple of questions. We only have time for a couple of questions. But Jonathan Greenblatt, what do you what do you think the solution is right now? Have you been in touch with, you know, the companies obviously around Kanye? It's sort of like putting out these fires almost continually, but what do you think needs to happen? Well, look, I have been

in touch all day, you know day with companies, with investors, with celebrities, with influencers. People are all like, where are we going from here? I think, number one, it's almost specifically with respect to Adidas, it's almost too late for them to issue a statement. I mean, that is to say it will feel hollow and empty relative to the moment we're in. I think they need to do something much more concrete, like a programmatic initiative, introduce some kind of new training effort. I think they've got to really think long and hard because, you know, there's been a lot of criticism, Kara, of these companies kind of virtue signaling on these different issues of the day.

And when a company like Adidas with a Nazi history is faced with a moment right now that would cost them some money. I mean, we know there are issues with Kanye, but sit silent in the face of this ugliness. I just think like a tweet does not solve the problem. Yes, it does not indeed. So what needs to happen? I would say a few things. So I think number one, we really need a whole of society approach. Businesses and celebrities are a great start. I want to see public leaders step up, mayors, governors, elected officials, and reject hate no matter where it's coming from, particularly the kind

of right wing variant that seems to be poisoning the political space these days. Number two, really want to see universities take this much more seriously and not allow for, as we saw at Berkeley a couple of weeks ago, quote, Zionist free spaces, but recognize that Jewish students and all students should be welcomed regardless of how they pray or where they're from or who they love. And number three, I think it's really time that these issues get attention in the public domain beyond the one-day headline. We need to take a serious and deep look at how we're going to combat this rising intolerance. So I hope media will be much more responsible.

And again, as it relates to social media, Cara, we come back to if we don't see some kind of government intervention. And I'm not even commenting on the ability, again, of billionaires to make these platforms their playthings. But we need simple rules that hold the companies accountable for the content that they publish. It's not hard, actually. I have a feeling you're going to see them online very soon, all these people you're talking about. Anyway, let's get to some questions from the audience. Go ahead, Evan. Thanks so much for this great conversation.

On the subject of the UK, I wonder what the mood on the ground is as far as the pound collapsing. Is there, you know, is there really concern? Is there panic? Is, you know, I know Brits love to spend vacation overseas in Florida and Europe. And is a recovery, you know, anticipated or likely, or is this a new normal? Thank you. I mean, look, it's not the British way to be flooding onto the streets and mounting the barricades.

People haven't been doing that. Instead, there's been, you know, the mild raising of the eyebrow and so on. I joke slightly just because British people don't tend to do that kind of protest. But there is definite anger about particularly what it's done to this financial, reckless financial experiment, what it's done to the bills, household bills people pay for. Yes, we've talked about energy, but also for the cost of rent and for home loans.

And that has, in some ways, radicalized people who never would previously have been radicalized. You have people who voted conservative their whole lives, saying they will never do it again. But also, let's face it, we haven't really gone into the hardest period yet, because these rises in home loans and interest payments are projected. They haven't really kicked in yet. And when they do, there could be great anger. In terms of the currency, that is a long, long-term structural decline. You know, I wrote recently that when the Queen went on to, Elizabeth came onto the throne in 1952, you would get $2.80 to the pound. And now, you know, in the month she died, it went down to basically a dollar to pound parity.

And that said something about the decline of the currency and in some ways the decline of the country. But the country was kind of doing okay. And then in 2016, it decided to enact of self-harm and to distance itself from its nearest neighbors by leaving the European Union. And the cost of that is feeding through into people's lives. Yes.

Okay. Definitely. Ross, next one. Go ahead, Ross. Hey, Cara. This question is for Jonathan. They're both Jonathan. They're both Jonathan.

For ADL Jonathan. Okay. For your last point on what Adidas needs to do, I'm a little bit confused as to why no organizations or athletes or international teams have spoken up that they're wearing Adidas and still promoting a brand that condones anti-Semitism. It is a very good question. I actually had an exchange with one of the leagues today, and I won't mention the name. And the response I got was, well, we're going to wait and see what Adidas does. And like, that is just inadequate. And to your point, every player who dons Adidas,

every team that puts on the uniform, every guy who gets on a court wearing their Stan Smiths, I think they've had to really ask themselves today, is this the brand that I want to represent? Does this brand represent my values? Who is the most prominent athlete under Adidas right now? There are a bunch of NBA players under Adidas. I don't have the names in front of me at the moment, but there are a bunch of very prominent players in the NBA. But look, you know,

Maverick Carter and LeBron had, we're going to have Kanye on their show and they shut him down because he was spewing anti-Semitic stuff. I mean, this is LeBron and Maverick Carter, two guys who are on the cutting edge. And if they're saying this isn't okay, then I don't understand why the leagues and the teams don't drop them. At least tell Adidas, we're taking a break. We're taking a break until you get this right. By the way, the editor-in-chief of Bild, the German daily newspaper today, he tweeted out this afternoon, Adidas should call it anti-Semitism. To quote one of their competitors, just do it. Oh, dear. Oh, dear, dear, dear. Okay. Jerry, we have time for one more after this.

But, Jerry? Wow. What an honor. No problem. I am a former ADL board member from the central region. So it's an honor to be on the same channel with Jonathan two or one. I don't know as well as Jonathan one or two and Kara. I've been a fan.

You know, I am. Thank you. I think we have something to learn by Matt Kiefer, Dr. Matt Kiefer from Zionsville Community Schools, who doubled down when he said, not all Nazis are bad, listing Oskar Schindler, Karl Plaga, George Colemanahneman, and he says, we just need to have a conversation. And this is where I would, I think Jonathan Greenblatt, I think, suggestion about the media, let's invite them to a conversation. We should be talking to the Nazis on the one hand, but on the other hand, we've got to meet their terrorism more aggressively.

Sharad Hadin. All right. I need a question, Jared. I need a question. Out of Israel, who's terrorists for the money that supports them? Okay. Let me get a question. I need a question. So the question is, do you agree that we should have what Jonathan Greenblatt asked for, the media being responsible for bringing in conversations, and number two, using litigation, the American litigation process to hurt these terrorists? I got it. Great. So look, first of all, thank you for being involved in the deal. I appreciate it. I do

think we've got to look at litigation. As Kara was saying, you have defamation. Indeed, we can go after those parties, as we saw with Alex Jones. I also think in terms of inviting these people to speak, look, Kara, I will say this on your show for all to hear. I do not believe in cancel culture. I believe in counsel culture. So we have a tradition of embracing the scenario in ADL and helping people to understand why what they've said is hurtful or wrong and trying to work with them to figure out a better path forward. That's always our approach. The challenge becomes that someone like Kanye does it with impunity, is unwilling to listen or even acknowledge the offense. That's where you

need consequences. And you mentioned Mel Gibson earlier, and we're talking about him today, we're talking about Kanye today. I believe in council culture, but there needs to be consequences when someone really, you know, crosses a line. What do you think, Jonathan Friedland? Yeah, I think that's right that, you know, the calling out this sort of action, and being brave enough to say, even if you feel sometimes that you're being, and I know Jewish organizations often feel this, that we're being kind of broken records. You know, we've said this so often, we go on about it. And you can be, you know, it can make you hesitate to raise this. But actually, it has to be raised. There is something

very alarming, I think, going on with the jonathan greenblatt has mentioned in the united states and i do think the weight of history does help and the reason by the way i went back to the rudolph verba story i first came across it when i was 19 years old myself was partly because of this truth this age of misinformation and disinformation that we're in now i think it can be very unnerving to feel this is something wholly new. Actually, it isn't new. The point about the Nazi period and all the deceptions was they were in the business of, they didn't call it fake news or, you know, post-truth, but it was about lying and how important lying is to those people who spread hate. The reason why Verber was significant

was he was determined to get the truth out from underneath this mountain of lies. But when people sort of tell you, and they shrug and those politicians who lie and they sort of indulge them, truth matters in such a big way because what Verber understood was the difference between truth and lies

is the difference between life and death. It can be that serious. And therefore, when we take a stand about misinformation or disinformation, fake news, lies on social media platforms, this isn't just about the hygiene of our Twitter timeline. This is really serious stuff. And the reason the Verba case is so important is it's so extreme, but it illustrates how central this can really be. You know, I was giving a speech and someone was talking about, you know, different things. And I said, Hitler didn't need Instagram. But boy, if he had it. Right. Yeah. My word. Yeah. Look, that's the Sacha Baron Cohen point.

Right. Kara, Sasha has talked about this. Like Goebbels could have invented Facebook. He would have loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, autocrats love social media and stuff. But in any case, my last question for you, and we do have to go actually, is are you hopeful or hopeless or somewhere in between each of you? First, Freeland. Well, I think you've still got to be hopeful. And I'll tell you one reason why I say that is if even somebody like Rudolf Hofer, given everything he'd seen, he was in Auschwitz for two years nearly unusually long time saw so much nevertheless he kept on going and was determined uh even in later life actually a lot of bitterness

a lot of anger but he still put one foot in front of the other I think there's it's all hopelessness is almost a luxury that we have no right to, really, given what other people have seen. So I'm still hopeful, partly because, you know, I look at the way for every person who has, you know, given a thumbs up to Kanye West, there are people who have condemned him, there are people who are listening to this conversation now, there are people who are open to hearing it.

And so you have to feel hope with those people there. And as I say, I think it's almost a duty. The despair is a luxury I think we can't afford. Jonathan Greenblatt? I love what Jonathan Friedland said about, like, we don't have the right, you know, when people have been through so much worse to not be hopeful. Look, I do have a degree of kind of cautious optimism. I mean, for what it's worth, I believe in American exceptionalism. I mean, this country, this democracy has bounced back from global conflict, civil war, you know, economic depression, you know, natural calamities. And like this is a this is definitely a dark moment.

And if you're a Jewish person, you feel it. But on the other hand, Jews, we live with so many rights today. We live with so many privileges today and we have systems that support us. And so while I am not pleased with where things are, I am optimistic that our better angels will prevail. Our younger generation, which is so thoughtful and so kind of worldly, will lead the day and we'll get to the right place. I am hopeless. I am hopeless. So I will stay on that. I think we've gone way too far. Anyway, we'll see. Today's Twitter Space was produced by Michelle Berg and Naima Raza. Thanks also to Amber Davis, Chris Shurtleff and the Twitter Spaces team. We'll see who you're

working for next week. We're very excited to find out. Jonathan and Jonathan, thank you so much. David Wilson engineered this episode. Special thanks to Blake Neshek, Christian Castro Rossell, and Rafaela Seward, the fearless producers who make us sound great every Monday and Thursday and sometimes on other days too. Thanks for listening. We'll be back Thursday with a fresh episode of On with Kara Swisher.