Pivot - F-Bomb Diplomacy, Cabinet Shake-Up Signals, and OpenAI’s Podcast Play

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

Kara is joined by Echelon Insights pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson to unpack Trump’s expletive-filled Iran ultimatum, and what his latest numbers say about the MAGA base and the midterms. Then, they dig into who might be on the chopping block amid a potential cabinet shake-up. Plus, OpenAI’s podcast deal, the battle over prediction market regulation, and how “Silicon Sampling” could reshape the polling game. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. His brand is firing. His brand is getting rid of incompetence, and now he keeps them, and you're like, oh, my God, you're keeping the incompetence. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher. Scott is off, so I brought in a brilliant co-host again, as are everyone who's not Scott. Kristen Soltis Anderson, Polster, and co-founder of Echelon Insight, and contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and someone I really like a lot who's super smart.

Nice to see you. Well, thanks for having me, Kara. Yeah. So welcome. What's going on? What's going on? The world of polling is insane right now, correct? It is as insane as it can be considering that there is not an election that is imminent.

Right. You know, like the polling world gets crazy in the immediate lead up to an election because somebody's got a new survey coming out every day in some interesting swing state. when it is election season. But right now it's a little bit of the doldrums for that. And so what is instead kind of crazy is all of the changes around how is AI going to change our industry and those sorts of things? We're going to get to that. We're going to talk about the predictions industry and play a little bit of Scott who loves it.

I don't love it quite so much. And I know you have some thoughts. So it's really important to be talking about it because what we're interested in is accurate information. And it's very hard to get it. But anyway, there's so much going on. Let's get right to the news. Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Iran. his 59th, posting on true social on Easter Sunday quote,

and let me just read this correctly, open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell, which sounds like a line from, I don't even think movies would write those lines anymore. If Iran doesn't comply, Trump is threatening to target the country's power plants and bridges. Iran says it will retaliate,

crushingly and extensively, if civilian infrastructure targets are hit. So they're just coming back with the same dialogue. This all comes after a successful rescue of two U.S. airmen whose jet was shot down over Iran on Friday. It's not great that the jets were shot down. We're taping this before Trump's press conference on Iran and these military rescues. So, Kristen, most polls show the majority Americans are opposed to this war, right? Pretty significantly. You recently did some polling with Trump's MAGA base. Talk a little bit about what's happening here in the polling and the thinking around it. Yeah, so normally, historically, when the U.S. gets into conflict overseas, there's normally a little bit of a rally around the flag effect. Because normally we are getting involved in response to some kind of provocation, whether it was after 9-11, et cetera. In this case, there was not really groundwork laid to make the case to the American people for why we needed to do this. And so, you know, in my polling, when you say, would it be legitimate to engage in.

in military activity against the Iranian government if they were developing a nuclear weapon. Like, two-thirds of Americans say yes to a bunch of those different kinds of things. But it's clear that that case wasn't really made well to the public because then when you say now, do you support or oppose what we're doing in Iran? Most don't support it.

Or they have some real serious questions. In fact, it is the MAGA base that is the most supportive of what we're doing. Which is odd. There's so much interesting discourse around how Donald Trump reshaped the Republican Party. And there's this view that there is the old Republican Party that like longs for the day of Ronald Reagan

and says, you know, we love when the United States projects its power overseas and that Donald Trump has, you know, refashioned the Republican Party and his own image away from that. No More Forever Wars, America First and all of that. But actually when you ask voters who identify themselves as like Trump supporters first

before being Republican supporters, they are the most likely to sort of say, if Donald Trump says it's a good idea, I'm kind of willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this. Even though they backed him for America first and no foreign wars, not everybody.

Obviously, Marjorie Teller Green put out a pretty big, long, well, a lot of things that she put on about his health and his mental state and stuff like that. But why is that? Why is the shift?

It's just whatever he says goes, or they don't really care what the words are or the policies? There are some people who are part of Donald Trump's coalition, who are pretty, you know, they don't want the U.S. to be involved in military activity overseas. And they're very outspoken. And they're quite outspoken about it. But those are different from MAGA voters. And I think there's a, it's like very easy to kind of conflate like the MAGA movement equals everybody who voted for Donald Trump. And like, that's not true. There are a lot of people who, in fact, in some of the polling that I've seen, it is the type of voter who is not a Republican and is pretty, I think, isolationist is among the most likely to have like come join the Republican coalition recently. So Donald Trump does have a potential political problem with some people who really liked him

and feel betrayed by what he's doing. But the core MAGA faithful and the Republican Party as reconstituted by Donald Trump at the moment is reserving judgment and saying, you know what, I think he's probably on the right track. Let's see how this plays out. And how many people is that? What is the amount? Because majority of he's lost into, the numbers are pretty staggering when you look at any poll, almost every one of them, including Fox Polls, all kinds of polls. Yeah, so I sort of estimate that the MAGA movement is about a quarter to a third, depending on, I mean, it's a pretty fluid section of the Republican Party, but it's not half the country. Like, it didn't have to be something where he was losing a majority of Americans. He could have,

I think, communicated at least somewhat effectively about, hey, this is a government that's been declaring death to America for decades. And here are these specific things that they are doing that put us at risk. Here's why I'm going to do this. Here's what I'm going to take out. And I don't think it had to be a situation where he was losing half the public right from the get-go. But because of that lack of clarity in communication that has not really been followed by a ton of clarity and communication, like the numbers are getting worse, not better.

Right. Okay. So we talk about that for a second, the clarity and communication, because a lot of it is marketing. You're talking about marketing. Like, we're going to market this more to you. Why was it not there? Because most people do give presidents the benefit of the doubt. Something was up.

Although he had previously bombed them and said he obliterated them, so why they need to obliterate them again. I mean, I even had Tom Tillis saying that. Like, oh, we obliterated, then we obliterated, and now I guess we're obliterating. He was sort of articulating that lack of clarity. Yeah. Well, I don't know that I would just say that it is marketing,

because I think for something like this, I mean, to me, the bar does feel higher than trying to sell somebody soda or potato chips or sneakers. I know that's not what you're saying, but I think that the, it's not just can you put out a snazzy video that makes it look like we're winning at a video game and you win, because that's obviously part of the strategy and yet the numbers are what they are, that I think it is just that the American people simply want to know why is this in our interest. And if you can give a reasonably good answer to why something is in our interest, we tend as a people to sort of give the commander in chief. Maybe not today with Donald Trump as such a polarizing figure, but we tend to say, okay, if you think that this is in our best interest, like I'll give you a couple weeks to see how this plays out. And especially if the costs are not significantly high, people will give a little bit more of that roadway. But one, you know, thank goodness that they have gotten these pilots back, because that's that's, that's,

That's the kind of thing where it is, I can't wait to hear the, like, thrilling story of how this was done, but a combination of if military losses begin to pile up in a very significant way or the domestic impacts of the Strait of Formuz, gas prices, all of that, you know, you can run out of that goodwill much more quickly. But right now, he didn't start with the reservoir of goodwill that as a president you would want. Some of that's because he's Donald Trump and there's just some people who aren't going to like anything he does. But he also starts with people who will like anything he does, who do sort of give him that benefit of the doubt, even if they would not give a president Marco Rubio or President J.D. Vance, that same leeway. And it does not seem like he has taken this moment and his numbers have not gone up at all. They're going down. They're going down with everybody, correct? So let's talk about that because the numbers really are, they keep declining, which is really usually doesn't happen, especially for the midterms. President Trump's. approval rating is just at 35% for his handling of the presidency overall and 31% for his handling of the economy, according to recent CNN polling. However, the news isn't great on either side about a quarter of the country holds negative views of both parties. That's something

not a fresh thing. Talk about when you look at this information as it is, you know, one of the things about Donald Trump is he's unprecedented. He's unprecedented in the decline and he's still standing kind of stuff. He keeps kicking the punches here from a polling and, and you can feel it. I have a lot of MAGA, not MAGA. We just Trump adjacent relatives and they really don't like him, like, suddenly. And they never would express that before. There's, I think, two things that are that are ominous for Republicans. The first is with everything that's going on in foreign policy, um, foreign policy is not most voters number one issue, but it is the background music. It is the thing that tells you what the commander in chief's values are. It says,

a lot about what his temperament is. I mean, we already, this is like well... Or what he's interested in. Like, not daycare. Not prices. This is well-covered territory with Donald Trump in some ways, but it just sort of focuses the mind a little on, like, what is it that this person is all about? You frankly saw something like this with Biden when you saw his job approval as we withdrew from Afghanistan, and as that went terribly, that was the moment when his job approval went underwater and never recovered. It's not because most voters said what we used. What we do in Afghanistan is my number one issue. But it just, it like communicates something about the level of competence and priority setting and decision making within the Oval Office that like carries over and

bleeds over into how people think on a whole variety of issues. That's risk number one. Risk number two, on the economy, I don't want to take credit for this, but this was the, my friends at the Central Air podcast were talking about this, that essentially Donald Trump had really good numbers in his first term on the economy, even among voters who didn't like him overall, thought he was crude, thought he was crass, thought he was a jerk, all of that. They still thought, not all of them, but a small subset thought, yeah, but at least he's good on the economy. And when COVID happened, he still got kind of a pass. Like, people sort of understood. Not his fault. Yeah, like, he did not create this virus. For all his faults, he's, this is, this, this was not on him. For all the bleaching injecting.

So for, for, for this time around, there's really no one else he can. blame for the state of the economy. And he has tried to say, I'm just cleaning up Biden's mess, but you kind of run out of runway on that eventually, where voters say, like, Biden is so irrelevant to me. I'm tired of hearing about him. Just tell me what you're doing. What are you going to do? I don't care what happened in 2023, 2024. The fact that his numbers on the economy in that CNN poll had 31% job approval. That is atrocious. That is a five-alarm fire level number because, one, it's way below, like the norm for job approval these days hovers around 40%. You start getting into the 30s and that's scary land. You get into the low 30s and that is like terminal. And for it to be on the economy, which, you know, there have been other issues where his job approval has

fluctuated big time and people said, oh, I don't trust him on this X, Y, or Z. The economy was always the thing. Oh, he's the apprentice guy. Oh, he's the business guy. And so for his job approval to be that low on the economy, if that does not turn around, that suggests to me a very troubling midterm for Republicans with that as the background noise. So you focused recently on how Gen Z voters are feeling about the economy. What did you find there? Give us some specific. So Gen Z voters have the worst view of the economy, and even in just the last month, it has plummeted precipitously. So when I say, you know, on the foreign policy stuff that Donald Trump mostly has the MAGA movement, there is a divide within the Republican Party, and it is older voters versus Gen Z. And so it is Gen Z Republicans, in addition to Gen Zers who are not Republicans, who are increasingly saying, like, this economy isn't working for me.

And whether it's a combination of they're approaching graduation and the job market's not what they want, whether they feel like the affordability crisis is keeping homeownership and, you know, a whole variety of sort of life aspirations out of reach, or just a sense that there's not as much opportunity for them to build the kind of career they want. I did some focus groups for the New York Times very recently where we talked to Gen Z white collar job seekers. And it was, I mean, it was like unsurprising, but also just heartbreaking to hear these young people talk about what it is like to try to get a job in a moment when they, for some of them, they went to college because they were told, you need this credential. Now they've got debt and they still send out 100 applications and they get five people to call them back, of which three then proceed to ghost them. And the other one, the other two are AI. Yeah, exactly. And so it was just, it felt there was a bleakness to it that was dispiriting. Because normally when I talk to Gen Z folks, like there's very much a, yeah, everything's

terrible, but like our generation's going to fix it. And it almost feels like right now, do people feel like they have any sense of control or ability to shape the future? Or is it just like bigger, more powerful stuff at play that they won't be able to just put their heads down? And they blame Trump for this, correct? So in our focus group, in our focus group, it was actually a more dem-leaning group. I don't know chicken or the egg is that because that's more of who was looking for jobs or what have you.

And we really didn't talk too much about Trump himself. Right. But it's a feeling and he's standing at the top, right? Yeah. My sense is less that they say, I can't get a job and it's Donald Trump's fault. And it's more, I can't get a job. It feels like society has been moving in a bad direction for a while. And I don't know like who's sending the life boats, like, who's coming to rescue us? I don't know that anybody is. He's in a prime position. When you think about that, his outbursts, how much do they matter anymore? Like the one this weekend, of course, once again, and I don't mean to say the word pearl clutching, but everyone's like, oh, can you believe he said it? I'm like, yes, he seems cognitive disabled to me. I don't,

I'm not a doctor, but he's as crazy as ever, and he's not, that's not changed. Does that matter when he does these sort of outbursts, or are they just noise now with him, with voters? There's this, well, there's this weird disconnect where if you, ask voters what they think about things like that. They tell you they don't like them. And yet, if market signals are to be believed, more politicians seem to be leaning into that kind of behavior, a sort of like if you can't beat them, join them type approach. So like I would think if you if you just take people at their word, they want candidates who compromise and candidates who behave in a manner that is befitting the office and all of those different things. And then

who shows up and votes in a primary, like puts people in who have unbelievable flaws in any number of ways. So I think you're right. And I don't think it's pearl clutching or if it is, like I'm I'm I'm pearl clutching a little bit, not that I'm surprised, but that I'm disappointed, that we now have this coarseness where, like, the president of the United States is tweeting F bombs. I don't love that. That's like maybe that's just me as a small C conservative. of I'm not interested. No, thank you. But the reality is that voters say they don't want it, and then this is who gets elected. And whether it's they're voting for him in spite of it or because of it, like I think there's some people it's because of it. They like that he doesn't sound

like somebody straight out of central casting. But I do wonder if there will be a backlash at some point, if Americans will start to want straight out of central casting at some point. It seems like it. It seems he's starting to actually sound like the old man at my mom's senior living facility who you really need, you go around to get off the elevator for. And initially you're like, ha, ha, ha, and then you're like, shut the fuck up, daddy, grandpa. Anyway, it's a really interesting thing because I think just like with Iran or anything else, it's a background noise that's disconcerting, right, rather than a direct thing. It's not soothing.

It's not, this is not, America does not feel like the spa music is on. It's on right now, especially with these young voters that you're seeing it. If you had to pick one polling thing that you went, oh, my goodness sakes, one upside or downside, is there something that stuck out from you recently in your polling? Well, I think it is about Gen Z and the economy, and it is when we've been asking people, do you think the economy is headed in the right direction or the wrong direction? We've been asking them this for years. Sure.

People generally have been saying it's been headed in the wrong direction, and you can break it out by generation. And for the most part, this has not been something where, like, older voters think everything is great and younger voters think it's terrible. Like, everybody's kind of been aligned about where things are at. But in just the last month, in our March data, the Gen Z respondents, I mean, it fell off a cliff in terms of their feelings about the economy. And the reason why that sticks out is, one, it's a breaking of a big trend that we'd had for a long time of kind of everybody feels like the economy's not doing great. But just to see them get so much more depressed in just a month was really jarring. But number two, think about the kind of coalition that Republicans put together that have enabled them to have sort of better than expected elections.

It's in part because they tried to repair the damage that had been done with younger voters. And if you are presiding over an economy where Gen Z is feeling like this, like that's it. The only thing you have going for you is the fact that Gen Zee's the fact that Gen Zee's He finds Democrats to be uninspiring at the moment. That's not a great thing to hang your hat on. So to me, it is that Gen Z economic number more so than anything specific about foreign policy. So it's an opportunity for Democrats, presumably, correct? It's an opportunity.

It is. It is an opportunity for Democrats. But I think the thing that Democrats are getting wrong is like that they know that affordability is the thing on everybody's minds. And so they know to like mouth the words, yes, we care about cost of living. And that may be enough. If things are bad enough, you can just say, I'm not the other guy. And that that could be adequate. But I still think that voters also, in the surveys that I see, harbor some skepticism about what Democrats would do if given the reins again. Like, okay, we don't love what Trump's doing, but we still don't love the way Biden handled this either. So what's your plan? Is your plan to open up the spigot of money and subsidize everything to pretend like it goes away, but that drives inflation? Like, we don't want that either. And the deficit? Yeah, I don't, I don't think that they have a clear. Yes.

Fresh ideas that actually solve people's problems. Incredible. That's what they're supposed to do. Okay, Kristen, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about a potential cabinet shakeup and who might be the next to go. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Tax day is just around the corner. I don't need to tell you that.

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top 1% of talent. In under six hours, no endless searching required. Upwork also cuts down operational hassle by handling things like contracts and payments in one place so you can spend more time running your business. Visit Upwork.com right now and just post your job for free. That is upwork.com to connect with top talent, ready to help your business grow. That's UPWO.O. O-R-K-com, Upwork.com. Christian, we're back. Pambandi and Christy Noem may have just been the beginning. A Trump cabinet shakeup is reportedly in the works, though the president is denying it,

which means it's happening. The White House official told Reuters to expect a targeted churn rather than a big, dramatic reset, which this feels like a corporation. Some of the names potentially on the chopping block, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI director Cash Patel, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, Labor Secretary Laurie de Riemer. As for Bondi's replacement, her deputy and Trump's former attorney,

Todd Blanche, is currently serving as acting AG, and he's already trying to distance the DOJ from the Epstein file, telling Fox last week that all the files have been released. Talk a little bit about what's happening here in terms of this. And does this create more of a voter dissatisfaction? Or is it, I mean, this happens in every administration

where there's a shake-up kind of thing. It's not a, and the last Trump administration was like a manic episode of The Apprentice, of course, and people went in and out quite a lot. These people have had some staying power, and they're 100% less competent. So talk a little bit about that. I think a shake-up can be a very good thing,

especially if, like, let's take Christy Dome. This is a great example of an issue. Immigration was an issue where Republicans and Donald Trump had a massive advantage that they haven't always had, But there was a real willingness to like, America had moved to the right on these issues and said, do what you had to do to get the border secure. And the way in which this was handled culminating in,

I mean, embarrassment is probably too light away to frame it, but the events of the last couple of months in terms of ICE specifically. Just this week with the service member's wife being grabbed off a base. Yeah, I just feel like for Donald Trump, you can't, your political coalition can't survive if you don't have people coming to you going, well, at least he knows what to do about the border. At least he knows how to handle this issue. It's kind of a core piece of glue that holds different piece of his coalition together.

And if you lose that, what do you have? So by being able to sort of say, okay, I'm cutting this person. This person has been an embarrassment to me. And look, my numbers on this issue have fallen. And it is good that he is at least not taking the position of like, I'm just going to, I'm going to circle the wagons and we're going to say that everything's fine and it's just the liberal media that's being mean. So I think to some level, these shakeups are what Donald Trump's voters expect from him, especially those folks who are not diehard Republicans, but instead gravitated to him for some combination of the economy and immigration and vibes. that like being able to show, yes, I want new people running the show. I have been unsatisfied with what they've been doing. Oh, that's his brand. Started with that.

You're fired. Exactly, exactly. So I don't know what that means about who would be next. I mean, I think about some of the names that were on your list. And some of them have done more that has publicly brought strife to the White House than others. And I think that's probably the thing that is animating this more. Like, I don't know to what extent his decision to be. farewell to Christy Gnome,

wasn't about how ICE was handling the issue of immigration, or was it how she handled hearings and some of these embarrassing stories about, like, you know, the planes and God knows what else. Right, yeah. But so that's sort of how I evaluate this. Honestly,

her husband's the coolest thing about her, but go ahead. That's true. All of which is to say, I think, if you want to know, like, where the change would come next, I think the most important criteria is likely. Who is reflecting well on this White House, not who has, you know, something that's like got the beltway in a stir, but it's not really reflecting badly on him. Right. So it has to be. So who does

break through of these cabinet members with the voters, the ones that you're polling? So I honestly think that if you asked voters, they wouldn't know, which member of the cabinet is the most supportive of tariffs, I do not think very many would be able to name Howard Letnik. So that, again, I am not a Trump Kremlinologist, but to me, it does not seem as though there's anything on the outside that would be driving that in quite the same way as, say, Cash Patel at the FBI, drinking with the hockey team, or, you know, any number of cases that the FBI's been handling and questions about the effectiveness of that. So, again, don't know which way he would go first, but to me, that seems to be the most obvious variable. Are you looking like an idiot publicly to a wide range? range of people, in other words, like a lot of people, as opposed to say the Labor Secretary, who's just seems naughty in a really bad way kind of thing. Because we've had naughty cabinet members

forever, from what I can glean and stuff. But it doesn't break through with voters. More like Cash Patel drink it down in the beer as a real bad visual, for example. Well, and you know how Donald Trump feels about visuals, like that that's really, really, really, really important. The public image, do you look the part? And if you begin to fail on those dimensions, that's often when it's time for he's looking for somebody different. So is that, is that a good thing, as you say, to shakeup isn't a bad thing, right? It shows your, you know, you know, look busy, Jesus is coming kind of thing, like that kind of thing. Well, yeah, I think especially because of what you said about his brand as the apprentice guy, I think

the idea that you, I mean, remember, like, think about what he did with Doge when he first came into office. He just went through and slashed and burned. So we're going to fire a whole bunch of people. I mean, that is his brand, which it should not just be isolated to lower rungs. If you're really going to live through, you know, live up to it and press through with it, it almost uniquely is a probably a good thing for Trump in a way that it might not even be for other administrations. Right. No, his brand is firing. His brand is getting rid of incompetence. And now he keeps them. And you're like, oh, my God, you're keeping the incompetence. I would agree, having watched all those shows.

I mean, then the last question is for all of this, whether it's court appointments or cabinet appointments, what do you think the United States Senate is likely to look like after November? And how likely is it that you think you will be able to get someone confirmed through a Senate that potentially has more Democrats in it than it does today? I mean, those are things that I think are probably also weighing on the minds of the Susie Wileses of the world or are keeping track of that. Yeah, the incompetence might have to stay. So one of the things that's interesting also happening is the federal government is suing multiple states. over attempts to ban betting on Kalshi and other platforms. Now, let's be clear, Donald Trump's children are part of this, are on the boards or advisors to both Polly Market and Kalshi. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is arguing that it has the sole authority, that's what they're using to regulate these predictions markets. Meanwhile, Pollymarket is apologizing after users were allowed to bet on the fate of the U.S. pilots,

whose jet was down in Iran, pretty loathsome, saying it did not meet their integrity standards. Incredible. both Polymarket and Cal Shear now rolling out campaigns who attract female users framing prediction markets is another way to be a hashtag girl boss, which by the way, girl boss is over, kids, boys. We've been talking a lot about these markets here on Pivot, and you and I have talked about it.

And so I want to play something Scott said a few weeks ago and get your thoughts. Let's listen. The speculative markets, speculation markets, or prediction markets, have essentially put pollsters into a certain extent investment banking analysts out of work because guess what? They're much...

Kind of. I would push back on that. I just met with a bunch of pollsters. on this topic. Go ahead. In my opinion, they're done. If you look at the prediction markets record versus pollsters in the last election, the prediction markets kicked their ass.

All right, pollster. What's your response? I was trying to defend you there. Talk about what's happening with them and your thoughts on it, and what you like and don't like about them. And just so you know, there's another impossible nail in the coffin for polling. There's now something called silicon sampling

that uses AI models to simulate, simulate. survey response is not real people. Talk a little bit of what's happening here in the polling market. Sure. So I have a lot of thoughts on both of these. First, to Scott's point, I do not think that prediction markets are going to put polling out of business. One, because 99% of what pollsters do is not polling that tries to track who is going to win an election. Like, I know that's the most public thing that people see from our industry. But 99% of it is message testing, strategy, model building, the sorts of things for which being within margin of error, meaning your result is within three points in either direction, like that's okay. That's sort of understood. Give me an

example, just make it up, just like you poll what? So I can tell you about the polling we've done on, I've done some polling on prediction markets where, you know, I'm asking to what extent are people using them? What are they using them for? And those are the kinds of things that are valuable for somebody who might be trying to decide, do I invest in one of these companies? Like, if I'm going to regulate them, what sort of regulatory approach should I take? It's the sort of thing where, like, I'll give you an example. In our poll, we found about one-third of people either bet on prediction markets, that's not the majority of them, or, like, use the data.

Like, either they tune into it just for entertainment purposes or what have you. So if my poll shows 36% of people fall into that category, the real number, Assuming that I've done my survey, right, the real number could be a few points off in either direction. And that's not the end of the world. It still means my analysis is still useful. Directionally, it's telling us something interesting about where things are going. I think this focus so exclusively on polling as a crystal ball to tell me if an election is going to get one by Canada A or Canada B. Just sort of misunderstands our industry.

But the second thing is, what is causing these prediction markets to give the predictions they are? So think about there was a man. I think he was based in France who placed a huge bet in the last election that Donald Trump was going to win. And afterwards, you know, he makes this like six-figure sum off of his bet and that's all great. And they ask him, you know, how'd you do it? And he said, oh, I commissioned a poll. The polls are still an input to what these prediction markets are doing. In a world without polls, your prediction market is running on vibes and fundraising numbers, which are fine.

But polls are an extremely, they are a load-bearing pillar in what people think about what's going to happen in an election. So predictions would be a trailing indicator? How do you look at that? Yes. So I think that in general, well, I think when it comes to election results, they don't have to be a trailing indicator. But I think that polls are an input. They are not the only input. So other things can change, right?

My poll can say that so-and-so is going to win the primary in Texas. But all of a sudden, some new news story could break that shows that Ken Paxton or John Cornyn did something, you know, that could upend the race, who knows. It's usually Ken Paxton. And then the prediction market would be the leading indicator ahead of when the poll is going to capture that. But you still need the poll involved. And that's also what I think about this whole synthetic respondents, AI respondents. Yes. Nowadays you're seeing more people like, yeah.

Yeah. And there were some attempts to do this in the 2024. election that I think we're actually less accurate. Explain what it is. You use AI model. Explain for people who don't understand. So if you've ever used one of these models, whether it's your chat GPT or your Claude, and you can train Claude or chat GPT or whoever to kind of learn a certain persona, imagine that you've then trained a thousand different personas that kind of look like a real voter.

Okay, I've trained one persona to be a 40-year-old woman living in Orlando Florida. and she's a moderate Republican. And now I've got another bot that is trained to be a conservative Democrat and he lives in rural Pennsylvania. And then basically you just ask those thousand AI personalities to tell you, are you voting for a Republican or a Democrat? And then you take those results and you say, hey, look, I did a poll. I did a poll of a thousand AI people who represent real voters.

Right. And I just think presenting that as a poll is disingenuous. I think you can present it as a modeled estimate. Like, I think there's lots of things you can present it as. Do you use that? Do you use model that, like, use AI? How do you use it in polling? So we, the way we use AI, you can use AI to help, you know, with programming tasks.

It's enormously helpful. You can use AI to help you analyze data when it comes back. Like the old school way of analyzing polling data is you do a survey and you get back cross tabs that is this like 500 page PDF with a ton of numbers on each page and you as the pollster are sifting through looking for stuff that's that's meaningful. The fact that you can feed that in and have AI tell you, hey, here are the top 10 most interesting things in that poll. Eight out of 10 are going to be pretty good. One out of the 10 will be right but not really that important. And then one will be like completely wrong. And so you still have to as the pollster

exercise your employees, but go through, go through your own data. And no. But, like, there are useful applications of AI in polling. But ultimately, if you think about those synthetic personas, what's training that synthetic 40-year-old suburban mom who lives in Orlando on how she ought to respond? It's probably a poll. It's probably a poll that was done to originally. So all of this, whether it's prediction markets or these synthetic AI samples,

all of them at their root, have real polling as an input. And it's like a game of telephone. And they're just like the next piece in the line. And you can add other useful inputs that might give them some advantages. But they're still not a replacement for polling. They are just a different application of polling. So when you say that when the federal government is saying the commodity futures change should be regulating them, they're not regulating them.

Is it fair? Is it sort of like, it reminds me a little bit of your like commerce people, retail people who are offline having to fight with online, they had distinct advantages here. They can do whatever these people to grow large. What do you imagine? How should be, you know, states are rushing in because they have long, long regulated gambling. Every state does, has this different gambling laws. And that's not something the federal government ever did. So is it like gambling from your perspective or how should they be regulated when you think about it, given presumably you're not that regulated, but you have a set of standards.

that you're working around? I think the big challenge is how do you balance the value that a prediction market can provide to society beyond it's just entertainment, right? Like, what is the value beyond entertainment of I'm betting on who's going to win the Super Bowl? And so we have to decide do we think that's an acceptable form of entertainment? But the promise of prediction markets is theoretically that you can also surface new information about things that have not yet happened that might be valuable for the public to know,

the question is then, like, when does that cross into insider trading? Like, for me, I feel, I've never bet on a prediction market because I would feel uncomfortable about, like, I come out of the field with a survey, I then know what's happening in the Texas primary, and therefore I can know, hmm, I think candidate X, Y, or Z is probably up. And if I really trust my data, why don't I put a couple thousand bucks on this bet?

And I just don't feel right about that. Something about it feels like insider trading. Is that insider? You're just having more insight, right? That's kind of an interesting example. You have some, is that insider or is that was your own data? I don't, I think you're right that that's not insider trading in the way that, but it is like, it is non-public information that I would be using to benefit. It's not the same as being an insider at a company where there are, you have a specialized.

where you have specialized information. But I think it's that muddying of the waters, right? And so you've been seeing this, too, with some of these markets that have had bets around things like, will the United States do military Operation X? And all of a sudden, right before it happens, you see somebody bets like $300,000 on yes. Yes, because they're sitting next to Trump in the White House and they just heard it, right? And so I do think that that raises some real question. if we're going to have rules around insider trading, when does that start to bleed over into what is

or is not allowable conduct in terms of prediction markets? You know, but sometimes it's not insider. It sounds crazy, but when Warner Brothers was $7 and that all the bidding started, I'm like, oh, these rich people will pay anything. And so I bought 10 share because I was like, and it was only 10 because I was like, I think they're dumb, stupid money. So they're going to overpay. And I just, and I took myself up for a nice dinner because I was right.

And that was information I had, but anyone could have figured it out, dumb, stupid money, for example. And thank you for the dinner, Allison's, I appreciate it. When you have these things doing this, when they're putting in this, it sort of, they kind of muddy the line. There's also these betting on heinous things, right, which makes it feel like gambling. And then attracting female users is a problem. They've got a bad reputation from the get-go, including attracting the attention of regulators, right? like in terms of their bad behaviors. Yeah.

So when I look at the polling I've done on this, and again, in disclosure, I did polling for an organization. It's all publicly available, but sort of an entity that I think invests in some of these prediction markets. And in general, just a lot of people don't know that much about them. Like, that doesn't necessarily mean that everybody loves them. They're pretty split on whether it's good or bad. But everybody's got an attitude about it.

Everybody has like an opinion of some sort. But when we ask about prediction markets, like half of Americans have no idea how they feel about it. Most have not heard anything in the news about a prediction market in the last 12 months. So there is a real risk and real opportunity for that industry. And it's why they're trying to get out ahead of it and say, hey, right now, like in my data, it showed it too. If you are male, if you are under the age of 50, if you are higher educated, higher income, like you are the most likely to know about prediction markets and be interested in them and think they're a good thing. And so they're trying to say, okay, we've got to tell our story or someone else is going to tell our story. And that's why you're seeing efforts to try to expand beyond that initial core.

So they've got an opportunity despite all the bad press, but it seems like the bad press keeps piling on this U.S. pilots jet thing. I thought, oh, my God. I thought they said they were. You know, for any, for a platform that has control over what markets can be made and not made, You know, having that judgment of what, where's the upside? Is the upside in maximizing the sorts of things people can bet on and not restricting it too tightly, knowing that we're going to have a couple of these that are like cringe-worthy versus more tightly regulating it, sort of playing it safer, you have higher upside in terms of your favorability. But you then as a platform are in that role that you will recall the social media companies did not want to be in when it came to like, disarmament. where's the boundaries of political speech? How do you decide what constitutes a market that is out of bounds? You don't want to be in that business.

So there's some of them that did better by looking safer, right? Like right now from the polling, do you think that doing what anything goes is a particularly good way to do it? No. And I think there is a significant difference between people's comfort level with prediction markets as a sort of adjacent to the sorts of betting and chance things that they know. But it's slightly better than just chance because you can use your own judgment to say, okay, I think X, Y, Z is going to happen. You can use your own smarts toward it accordingly.

I think that's why it could have a slightly better, it could wind up with people liking it more than they like something like sports betting where you're just like, oh, I hope this team wins. I like them. But there are real downsides if you have people creating these horrible or unsavory markets where it feels like you've just turned something very serious into something grotesque. No, it feels like we're into cockfighting. That's what it feels like we're like in the cockfighting mode. Like I don't mind a little bit of a boxing match, but I don't really want to watch animals rip each other apart, right, either. Like some people do.

But it sort of feels it has that sort of stink to it. Let me at last question is, you know, Scott is absolutely saying, you know, you know, Your business is finished. You're out of work because of them. Give one more answer to Scott Galley. Please smack them back to last Sunday. Look, the political polling industry is going to be fine because when we are in moments of deep uncertainty,

that is the moment when people, companies, trade associations, you name it. People are the most hungry to know what the heck is everybody thinking. Where is this all headed? And with the understanding that polling is not the only or perfect way to get a read on that, but is a, as I described to like a load-bearing pillar, it's a really important input. I mean, when the world is in a moment of turmoil or dramatic change, that is when people want this data more than ever. And where something that is trained on polling data, but kind of off and not quite there, is not going to be, it's a lot. As much as real polling is imperfect, it's still the real thing.

Yeah, I always have, like, I always with Scott, I was like, what's in there? Who's doing it? Who's doing the betting? I don't know who they are, right? Like, it could be a bunch of, it probably is a bunch of white bro millennials. And I don't, that's their opinion, not everybody's opinion. That's my thing. And especially if there's not a lot of women in there, there's not a lot of different economic

groups. You don't get a really particularly good sample. That's my feeling. When we get closer to the election, the safest and healthiest way to consume polling to is just take it and throw it in the average. Don't panic about anyone individual poll. Everything's going to be all right. I know. Thank you. Well, I don't know about the last part. I don't know about the last part. Anyway, you're crazy bastards. You know, like I say, every accusation is a confession. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Open AIG gets into podcasts. Support for the show comes from Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your

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You just sort of talked about this, the idea of where you get your narrative and information from. It has to be good and wide. So OpenA has acquired the Tech News podcast, TBPN. The online talk show focuses by the minute analysis of tech news and interviews with top tech leaders. TPBN averages 70,000 viewers per episode across everything. and let me just say they are tiny compared to pivot and other things, tiny, tiny, tiny. That said, it's become popular among a certain group

of Silicon Valley power players who go on it because they want to be licked up and down all day. Oh, I'm sorry, boys. Did I say that too wrong? Okay, sometimes you're spiky and fun, but really it's pretty much up to meet PR. Open A.I. says the show will stay editorially independent, which we do not believe.

Talk about this idea of buying narratives when you're thinking about it because, you know, a lot of people want to, you know, you do polling so you have better narratives and craft messages. That's one of the things you do for people is tell them how to craft their messages. Talk a little about this effort. And, you know, that's in the backdrop of many tech companies trying to buy into various things like Paramount, etc. So what this reminds me of is there's actually a piece out in today, which I guess the day we're taping this, New York Times, David Pluff, who I think is very, like, still one of the smartest minds on the Democratic side. He loved this piece. Please talk about this. Yeah, this piece is essentially saying that everything is content creation now. That if you are running for office, if you are engaged in politics, the most important thing you need to be doing is creating content. That if you are relying on anybody else to get your message out but you, you are foolish, and that you need to essentially have a studio within your campaign headquarters.

where you are just nonstop producing content because everything now is that. I think that's really smart. You know, I think about that in terms of, like, look at the media properties in the political space that are really, like, thriving and doing exciting stuff now, the, like, the pucks and the punch bowls and all of that. I mean, they're very focused on, like,

we are constantly creating content. We're finding a million new channels to do it. Sometimes it's in-person events. Sometimes it's digital, but it is a, like, always-on kind of approach. And I think companies realizing this is probably smart, although there's a flip side to this, which is, you know, we've been going through a moment in the last few years where it feels like, you know, everybody, everybody's got a new podcast, Kara. You know, everybody's like, ah, I'm going to create content. If you build it, they will come. And that's not true at all. Lots of people can build podcasts that or, you know, create content that sort of goes out into the ether to die. And especially if it doesn't feel authentic, if it feels driven by a corporate narrative, it starts to lose some of what might make content great otherwise. So like I imagine there are a bunch of candidates who could take Pluff at his word and start doing what he says and would produce terrible content. Yes, it has to be. good and genuine. Yeah, you're right. 100%. Yeah, so that was a really interesting piece and I really, I like David. And it was absolutely true. Although it's kind of like, no shit Sherlock. I was like,

what? You're kidding. The content's important. No, but see, you and I think like, oh, yeah, no kidding. But it is truly this idea that politics is now about being always on media messaging, nonstop. Like, that is actually something that is not native to a lot of people. Which is important. I think Donald Trump has proven that for many years, obviously. Now it's getting, the show's getting a little old in the tooth right now and kind of crazy, but that's all right. It's a little like network at the very end when Howard had some problems. But, you know, you see AOC did it from the get-go, was very genuine to herself.

And she's obviously talking her own book, but it's very effective. Same thing with Mom Dani, who's been very good. And he's continuing to govern that way, if you notice all his really interesting. And they're good. They're good. They're fun and they're creative. You don't have to agree with them to not say, wow, look at that. That's really well done. Especially during Snowstorm, he did a couple of good ones that were just sort of big. It wasn't political. It was just, here's how we're doing it. And they were funny and quirky. His whole thing, there was one, he did the smile where he has that

weird smile. And his whole staff made fun of his smile. And I thought that was, it was based on the movie smile, which was a horror movie, which was funny. He's very on top of things. And so were a lot of, by the way, Republic had some of. Republicans do a good job at it. Not as many, but Trump certainly, absolutely, for many years, has done a really good job. I think the problem with these things is people don't realize tech has tried this a dozen times. Many years ago, Yahoo tried to do a news product, and that didn't work because they weren't doing any original reporting or anything else. They're just mouthing stuff. Andrews & Hards famously had a blog and called me and said they were going to beat me at my own

game, and I'm like, good fucking luck. First of all, media is hard, and it doesn't make money. sorry, like you're entering a really, like, what are you doing? And it didn't work. They've tried a number of times that particular group. And, you know, it's always sort of failed. They have welded in a little bit, like around the edges, tried to, you know, to create some, and it just doesn't happen. So I think one of the things is I get that you feel more comfortable in these settings where people are a little bit like your giant brain is so smart. Tell me how that works. And I think that has value, by the way. You know, Startup people are always interested in how did I do that, right? How did you do that? And they don't want any pushback. They just want to hear your techniques, whatever, even if it's PR. But eventually, it's not truthful, right, of like the real struggles companies have. And when you have a little friction with a reporter, it does create really interesting conversations.

And the only person I would look to would be Apple, Steve Jobs. He kept coming back to be interviewed by me, even though I know I irritated him, right? Because it was an interesting conversation, and it would help him. It clarified things. We were fair with him at the same time. I don't think we ever pulled any ridiculous, stupid, snarky moves. But in a lot of ways, I feel responsible for this kind of nonsense because they just don't want to talk to anyone they consider difficult

and would prefer to be. And I don't think that is the best outcome editorially. I just don't. I just don't think it becomes, I think there'll be a backlash and they'll start talking to actual reporters that are fair. That's my feeling. But I don't know. Maybe I'm open.

I don't really want to talk to them anymore. anyway, so it doesn't matter in some level. But I don't know. We'll see. It's a small amount of money to pay for possible good PR in a new fresh way. Is it a small amount of money? I feel like the reporting was that it was not a small amount of money. Yeah, but for them, it's a small amount of money. And they've said that essentially on the show is like, that was a lot of money. We're taking it and running. And that will be the end of it, I suspect. But it's glad they have people telling them they're great. That's really good because they need that because, you know, money doesn't seem to make them happy. In any case, we'll see. Do you see a lot of, are you impressed by a lot of

political outfits? Give me, give me things that you think have done it well in the political space, or of corporate space. Well, yeah, so I'll cross party lines and say that I think that AOC is somebody who, an example that I always give of something that she did that has just like lodged in my brain and I wish every politician would understand that this is the way the world works, is she appeared on a skincare influencers platform. This was like two or three years ago. This wasn't, this isn't terribly recent. But she went on to talk about sunscreen regulation.

Like right now, if you try to buy sunscreen in the U.S., there are sunscreens that are better elsewhere in the world, but you cannot get them here. They're not FDA approved. They're not dangerous. Everything's fine with them. They just, for whatever reason, you can't get them here. And so she went on this skin. care influencer show to talk a little bit about that specific issue. And like, isn't it crazy that

you can't get these good sunscreens here? Which is not an issue that is obviously right left coded. Or if anything, it's almost more right coded. It's like, hey, the government is regulating away your right to have this really good sunscreen. But she went somewhere where people who are not necessarily going to tune in and watch her on MSNBC or MSN now, whatever we're calling it. you know, that's not the audience she's going after. She's going after people who might be much more loosely attached to the political process, but she's getting herself in front of them on an issue that they care about with some credibility. And that opens the door then to say, hey, come follow me.

Like, you may not follow members of Congress because that may seem lame and horrible, but I am not as lame and horrible as the rest of them. So please come follow me. And you build that audience. And I think most politicians, if you were like, go on a skincare influence, I mean, you wouldn't want that for most of them, but just whatever the equivalent of that is, like you want to talk about emissions regulations?

Like, go on a car podcast. I just think that most people in Washington are not thinking in that gear. And that is where the future is going to be one. Yeah. It's not. And also corporations, too, participating. I think Wendy says a good job.

I think King Arthur baking. You can name a dozen of them. Sometimes they can spin out of control, but often it's a really interesting, way to sort of genuinely explain yourself to people, as long as it's not cringe, right, in some fashion, over advertising. 100%. I mean, if you're not out there, if you're not telling your story someone else is,

so it's important to go out there. It's important to be in places where it's not just, it's important to be in, I think, non-obvious places. But I also, like, the tension is then you don't want to do stuff that's forced and feels cringeworthy. But just letting the other side own the airspace or letting your opponents own the airspace is not really as much of a viable option. Yeah. Very quickly, obviously banks and advisors are working on the SpaceX IPO dealer being required to buy subscriptions to GROC, Musk's terrible AI chatbot.

They're going to do it anyway because they'll do anything it takes. They'll take sure we'll buy your shitty product if you'll give us the banks. He's also asked them to advertise on X. It was less insistent on that request. Obviously, they're going to all do it. That I'm not surprised by, but I'm just curious. Have you done any polling on Elon now post? You know, he's now going to be very wealthy again, once again, more wealthy than he was before. Where is his polling? Have you done much on where he sits? Because he's about to enter the political spectrum again quite significantly, it looks like. I mean, I still think that he has residual favorability from Republicans, who I think have by and large forgotten his doge. Well, I was going to say the very big public falling out that he had with. Trump that got very ugly, very quickly. That all but seems to have been kind of memory hold at this point.

But there is still that lingering negativity from Democrats. It may not be as acute. I mean, I have not heard reports of like protests outside Tesla dealerships in the way that you had about a year ago. So it feels like the temperature has turned down, but it is not as though anybody has converted back to liking him or not liking him. wherever you were a year ago, you're probably still in about the same place. So when you're a Republican getting money from him, it's worth it, correct now?

Or is it a bad thing? Because he lost in Wisconsin. He lost a lot of – his presence tends to be a problem for some people. I think he is not as much of a potent lightning rod as he was a year ago. When we were in the midst of Doge being in the news every single day, some new agency getting shut down or somebody getting fired. or something happening that was causing some stir. You know, him showing up in the White House,

him in the White House was one of his kids, you know, like those were, that's not happening anymore. And so I think him having less, him be, he is less of a lightning rod today than he was a year ago. So I think it would probably lessen any, you know, downside to having him to support you or anything. But he shouldn't act up again, correct, creator? As last time I was on your show, I said like less chainsaw more Mars and I stick to it.

I think to the extent that he has spent the last year doing less chainsaw and more Mars, I don't think that it's necessarily won back anybody from the left. But I do think that the temperature has been turned down around him to where he's a little less radioactive. Right. Less chainsaw, more Mars. That's what you got to do. Build your fucking rockets, Elon. I've said that. And I think you were absolutely right back back then. All right, Kristen, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. For the last 10 years, everything in American politics has basically refurb. involved around one man.

And as a political journalist who came of age during Donald Trump's rise in 2016, I've had a front row seat. I am officially running for president of the United States. It's going to be only America first. America first. Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. capsule building. But is it possible to talk about politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm going to ask in our new show from Vox. The idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump-focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items.

It really does feel like so reactive. You know, I think this Iran thing is also going to cause a big split in the GOP. So far it doesn't among like people who say their MAGA voters are still with Trump. But like for the first time you see on a major issue open opposition from the start of this war. I'm a Stead Herndon. And welcome to America, actually. All the way back in the year 2000, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had this big idea that maybe the future wasn't typing, it was talking to your computer with your voice. Jeff Bezos didn't invent this idea, but he did push his team to invent what would become Alexa and the Amazon Echo,

two things that brought voice computing into millions of homes around the world. This week on version history, our chat show about the best and worst and most interesting products in tech history, we're telling the whole story of the Echo and how Amazon managed to get it right and still kind of missed the future. That's version history on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. Okay, Kristen, let's hear some wins and fails.

You go first. All right, well, we're going to talk space. And mine is a win and a fail combined. A win is that as you and I are recording, probably right about now, Americans are flying around the backside of the moon. That feels like the biggest possible win. The fact that the rocket took off

and it was fine and it wound up working is unbelievable. But the fail is the toilets do not seem to be staying in operation on this. This is a subject of great interest to my daughters. They are like really, really, really trying to keep up on the, what is the status of the toilets on this Artemis. I think Orion might actually be the name of like the part that they are in. But so it's both a win and a fail. I think NASA has shined itself up a little bit.

It's always, it's been sucked away. by Bezos and Musk, but I think NASA feels kind of cool. I think their social media is excellent. I think Victor, the pilot, is such a hunk. Like, all of them are, and the whole team are amazing. They have a great inspirational message. I mean, just every time you hear them talk, and it doesn't feel like hypermedia trained either, again, to what we were talking about earlier with like, it just feels like you found genuinely incredible people and are sending them to do an incredible thing on behalf of humanity. Yeah, I agree. I think they just are doing flawless, speaking of social media, flawless social media. I haven't seen one thing that I, the pictures are beautiful, the enthusiasm,

again, it doesn't feel cooked in some fashion. The fail is the continued sort of, I know you, like you said, I'm not clutching my pearls, but come on. I think people are sick of this, and I think there's going to be a significant backlash to politicians that, I think there's a real opportunity for people to be funny and nice and, you know, sort of more open-minded rather than dunking, dunking, dunking. I just have this, I think what Trump is doing is this step too far. And I can't even believe I'm saying that because I'm never that person who goes, oh, you're kidding, can you believe what he said? I always believe what he says because I think he's like that. But I do think people are tiring of it. And I think even though they're sloughing it off, they're not

sloughing it off. They're, you know, that's him. I think there's more, it's like, I'm tired of hearing this now. And I think there's a real opportunity for politicians to make people feel better. Like, I know, in political life in general and not, but, and also not do it in a stupid way where you just pretend it's not happening, like that kind of thing. So I do think that's been a real fail. And I do think it's a, it's a bigger problem than people think. That's one. My win is the Netflix documentary, Dynasty, the Murdox. I have to say, I watch this, like, I know everything about the Murdox. I really do. I'm in this documentary, by the way, on Netflix. It's about the Murdoch Empire. I found out stuff about Rubber Murdoch that was fascinating. I thought it was incredibly Liz Garbis

directed it. I thought it was a terrific documentary. I learned a lot about this very, I thought it was very fair to the family at the same time. Sad to watch, you know, this kind of fall apart. And I'm endlessly fascinated by Rupert Murdoch, but, you know, he's getting on in years and everything. but I do think it was a really interesting documentary, and not just because I'm in it, although I think I'm spectacular in it. No, I'm kidding. Now, the people who are mostly who have done all the reporting at the Times did an amazing job, and so I recommend it.

I recommend watching it. He's a unique political figure, as you know, but I learned a lot from the documentary. Have you seen it? I have not. I will say the last movie that I watched that referenced Rupert Murdoch was I re-watched The Devil Wears Prada from 2006, in preparation for, you know, the rebirth, the two devil, too furious that's coming up.

Yeah. And he's mentioned. There's a, there's a scene where it's when Merrill Streep's character, Miranda Priestley, is sort of her husband is divorcing her. And she says, like, Rupert Murdoch should cut me a check for all the papers that I've sold for him, like, assuming that like she fuels, you know, all these gossip brag headlines. And so, yeah. Anyhow, I haven't seen the movie you were talking about, but I did see Devil Wars Prada. Yeah, it's a series, a couple of episodes. It's really good. I shouldn't say this, but I'm in the Devil Worse Prada too.

Oh, this is exciting. Yeah, it's like, I'm sure it's blinking, you'll see it, but they did a lot of, it was reported already, and the reports were true. I don't know if they've cut me, but I'm there. I get to play myself a lot, Kristen, besides on billboards in Times Square. But I actually, for some reason,

I'm the go-to person now. if they have AI in the plot, they bring in chairs. It's like Wolf Blitzer. So there is, I have one funny story about this. You know that movie, Edge of Tomorrow? Or it used to be called, or like Live, Die Repeat is what they rebranded. Yeah, I love that movie. Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise.

Fantastic movie. So at the beginning, there's a scene where it's Jake Tapper interviewing, and it's a panel where it's like Olivier Knox from, I think he was at the post at that time, Kiki McLean, Democratic Strategist, and then Tom Cruise is in the middle. But that scene never happened. They edited him in and they edited Tom Cruise on top of Ross Douthith. Perfect. I like it.

I'm there for it. Because I was watching the movie and I was like, was like, who is the Republican that was on set that day that got edited out to be Tom Cruise? Was it me? I don't think so. Oh, yeah, that would be harder. Wow. Okay, good to know. I love that movie.

Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. go to NYMag.com slash pivot, to submit a question for the show. Or call 85551 Pivot. Okay, that's the show. Again, thank you for joining me today. Kristen, everyone should watch her polling.

She also appears on CNN, and she does wonderful stories in the pieces in the New York Times, which I learn a lot from just she lets the voters speak, and actually it's really interesting to hear them because it's a little more complex, and that's why it's great, and that's important to understand the complexity of all this. Anyway, thanks for.

for listening to Pivot, be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you for having me. Today's show is produced by Laura Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Endroddrenge engineered this episode. Rich Schibli edited the video. Nishap Kerw is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at NYMag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Sam Altman, tivots not for sale. Sorry, so sorry.