Pivot - Facebook readies the ship, Robinhood looting, Katy Tur on election night and Ant Group

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about the measures Facebook will put in place if there is unrest after the election. They also discuss funds being looted on the Robinhood app; the company does not have a system to retrieve these funds for users. Then Friend of Pivot, MSNBC anchor, NBC News correspondent, and NYT Bestselling author, Katy Tur, joins the podcast to discuss differences between the weeks leading to 2016's election and 2020's vote. In wins, Ant Group – Jack Ma's company – is having the biggest IPO in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Leslie Stahl. You wish you were Leslie Stahl. I do wish I was Leslie Stahl.

Do you want me to introduce you to Leslie Stahl? You know, I have a story about Leslie Stahl. Okay, go ahead. Mark Benioff invited me to this celebration of Time's Man of the Year, and that's when I realized he had purchased Time Magazine. Uh-huh. And that's when I realized he had Purchase Time magazine. And it was Andrew Ross Sorkin, Leslie Stahl, all these kind of, I don't know, icons of journalism and me. And I literally, I got there and I looked around. And then they had one of those Placido Domingo, I forget who, the blind, who's the blind singer? Who's the one who's got an amazing voice?

Yeah, that guy. Yeah, okay. And his son, who also has an amazing voice. And I'm sitting around this table in a midtown thing, and I'm like, for a moment, I literally thought, okay, there's an Australian rules football player named Scott Galloway. And for a moment, I looked around and I thought, did they mean to invite the rugby player? Because I could not figure out how I ended up in this room. But anyways, Leslie Stahl was there, and she seemed very lovely and very smart. She's lovely. She used to come to the Code Conference quite a bit.

She had a big interest in tech for a while. She was great during that, by the way. I hope everybody saw that, because that was quite a back and forth that she had. She was trying her level best to deal with baby Huey, but it was crazy. I was like, can you stop talking about your victimization?

Did you watch the whole thing? I'm curious. I did. Because you did all four of them. How would you stack rank or what were your impressions of all four of them? I thought Pence was like, you know, the weird robotic penis that he is. I don't know how else to explain it. You got to admit, though, I mean, one of the things I like about you is that you're able to take – you are able to separate the person from the ideology. As a politician, he is very good.

He is in the old style, in the way that like he says no – Kind of Reagan style. No, I don't think Reagan. Reagan was charismatic and delightful. Whether – like I can't – stuff on his aides, I want to literally – it's horrible how he behaved. But he is a charismatic and, and, and really attractive candidate. Pence has, leaves no emotion. You don't go, oh, that guy, I love that guy. He, he, he, he's just has no, you have no affect to him except that he's a suck up now. That's,

that, that's. Yeah, but look at the hand he's been dealt. I mean, he gets on there and he manages to kind of pivot away, not answer the question, but try to answer it. He is, I mean, I forget the spokesperson's name. I don't think it's good anymore. I forget her name. It can't be. Oh, Kaylee. Yeah, I can't. I think she's fantastic.

I think she's very talented, even though she makes me want to cringe. Oh, she did a little sharp thing at Leslie. Did you say, oh, the president gave you enough time? I've had that happen to me with so many PR people. You know, so-and-so gave you enough time. So, Pants, okay, so, Pants, I interrupted you. What did you think of Biden? What did you think of—

Biden was fine. Was very, like, Uncle Joe and sharper than usual. I think he's fine. I think he's fine. He's been in politics forever. He's like a comfortable sweater. Like, you know what I mean? Like, he's fine.

And he was actually— That was good, yeah, he seems more lively than ever and more engaged. I agree. So that's great. And he is. He's invigorated, which is good. And Senator Harris? I think she's sharp as a tack. I think she will be subject to hatefulness because she's a woman of color and she's smart and she's in your face.

Yep. woman of color and she's smart and she's in your face. Sometimes she goes a little light when she shouldn't because she tries to play down how incredibly sharp and intelligent she is sometimes. I thought Senator Harris in the 60 Minutes interview, I actually thought she came across as the least credible, quite frankly. I thought she came across as, gosh, I'm so excited to be on the ticket and she was laughing too much. She seemed nervous to me. Yeah, she has that tick. She has a tick of laughing. I think she'll, once she gets more comfortable,

she's been in public a lot of time, but not at this level. And so even though the senator from California is a big deal, I think she's moved through the system, through the city lawyer, San Francisco, to the attorney general, to this, to that. And so I think she'll be more comfortable when she's— Well, she's new. She's early. She needs some marinating, you know, kind of—

She's not used to 60 Minutes interviews as the VP, so— There's a lot of appealing things about her. I think people will— There's going to be a turn for her. There's going to be a turn for her. She's either going to be with all women politicians. It's either, I really like her, or you get into the Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton zone where people have to like dislike

you for no good reason other than you're a sharp and smart woman. But we'll see. We'll see. I thought Trump was the worst. He seemed like a big giant baby and wouldn't talk about policy. The man is like impossible to talk about policy. And I think he, of all of them, is the most charismatic. possible to talk about policy. And, and I think he, of all of them is the most charismatic. So that's, he sort of wastes his time on his weird little petty grievances. Um, when he has a lot of political gifts that he doesn't avail himself to. He's like, so, um, I was just saying, I just interviewed Sarah Cooper who does these impressions of him and she's, she thinks he's not funny because he's, he doesn't, he's inadvertently funny, but he's unaware of his ridiculousness in the way most comics are.

Anyway, I thought he looked terrible. I don't know if it matters, but he looked as usual. It's the same stuff we all know, this kind of stuff. There was a brutal takedown that was contrasting his kind of spray tan face and his hands. Yeah. Just talking about how this is kind of really the kind of illusion

in the chasm between what is, how the country is actually doing and who he really is. Yeah. It's all illusion. Yeah.

It was brutal. I don't usually like talking about people's looks, but in his case, that spray tan is about a lot of things. Yeah, but you invite that kind of scrutiny

when you... Well, it's about, it's metaphorical in a way that's significant and very clear. I'm sorry. There's a story. Let me just... There's a story today, I think at the Washington Post, about what happened with Carrier, the air conditioning. And, you know, this guy was like, you know, all he does is press releases and then he leaves and nothing ever happens.

It shows how this town has lost all these jobs. So it's all press release. It's all spray tanning. It's all image. Yeah, it's all. Which is like, it's not uncommon, but it's taken to a ridiculous extreme in this administration. Speaking of which, I'd love to know what you think about TikTok. You know, that was all noise, noise, noise.

And now it's, you know, it's working its way through where it's going. It's got till mid-November before anything really has to happen. And there's all kinds of lawsuits waiting. So it may even be delayed past that. But how do you think Biden is going to deal with this soap opera if he's elected? And Trump still has time in office to deal with it, obviously. I think he recognizes he has no domain expertise here. And I'm not even sure the vice president does.

And he'll do what, I think there's going to be a lot of quote-unquote bipartisan commissions coming out of his inauguration if he wins. And that is, they'll look at it and they'll decide, all right, if we're going to ban TikTok, which might make sense, it needs to be under the auspices of a ban against Chinese internet companies in response to their banning all American companies. Yes, the systemic thing rather than these one-offs. Yeah, it needs to be policy. It can't be governing by 140 characters. But again, what this looks like is, and I think we were pretty cogent here, we said, this is nothing but a distraction, an attempt to look tough. It's not sustainable. It's not legally viable. And just the amount of time that Microsoft and what looks like Oracle wasted on this, it weakens us.

It weakens us. One of the things, it's always struck me, I have a lot of friends who came here who are immigrants who've been extraordinarily successful in the alternative investments world. They're hedge fund managers. And the thing that they always impressed on me that I think I've taken for granted as Americans, as an American, is that they said one of the things they just love about it here, and they, from a lifestyle standpoint, from a family standpoint, the draw to go back to El Salvador or Spain or wherever they're from is really strong. But they said the rule of law is just so powerful here that if, you know, the notion in a lot of these countries, is so powerful here that if, you know, the notion in a lot of these countries,

you can be hugely successful and there's always a non-zero probability that a government or a populist movement is going to, or a bad actor could take everything away. And that the rule of law here and the protection and respect for private property is a real draw for people around the world. And we're demonstrating it now by saying, okay, maybe TikTok shouldn't be here. Maybe it is a threat. But if we don't have laws we can consistently apply to this, we're not going to do it. These one-offs are really dangerous. That's right. The same thing with Carrier, the same thing with all these things. You cannot make policy by having like, let's get one company to do one thing. It has to be a systemic policy. And I'm the same way on this internet stuff. I'm like, we need, cannot have one-off lawsuits. We have to have a systemic look. I welcome the bipartisan commission. Speaking of which, speaking of things that have to be bipartisan, at least,

let's talk about the big stories. Facebook is prepping for post-election unrest using the same tools for what it calls, quote, at-risk countries. We're now an at-risk country. The emergency measures would slow the spread of viral content and lower the bar for suppressing inflammatory posts. These measures have been used before in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. That's where we are right now after the UN accused Facebook of fueling their Hinga genocide. Whoa. Like, I'm glad they're doing this, but boy, they caused it. They're like trying to put out a fire they caused. And you saw some videos this weekend of pro-Trump people and anti-Trump people fighting in ways that were, their guns and things like that. There's all kinds of stuff. So, you know, this leaping into the physical is very,

you know, the tinder is there. So what do you think about this? Well, I think it's 11 a.m. the Sunday after the rager you had as a senior in high school, and there's blow everywhere and a donkey and the dog. The donkey get in there. Your dog has been lit on fire and everything is literally destroyed. And your parents sent you a text saying they decided to come home early and you are scrambling to clean up the mess. Right. And what has gone on here.

Because they recognize the parents may be on their way home. Biden-Harris up by 10 points and this election. I mean, so this kind of goes into the New York Ad Observatory has been collecting publicly available data on the platform showing what political ads are running. This is Stanford one? No, this is NYU. Okay. I know they're in a fight with them. They're in a fight with them. And Facebook has said, this violates our terms of service and we're going to take further action if you don't stop doing it.

Yeah, explain that. NYU people are such activists. Well, it's actually a PhD student at Tandon, and it's pretty benign. It's, okay, this is the ads that are running in Pennsylvania. This is who's paying for the ads. And Facebook has said, no, no, no, it violates our terms of service, and we're going to shut you down. And this is, the reality is, any data you can scrape from a public platform is almost always kind of free reign for academics. And not only that, academics oftentimes have access to data. Companies provide academics with data that the public doesn't have

access to. So So this is just not unusual at all. It's nonsense. And what it says is that Facebook recognizes that this academic is probably going to find out that, yeah, people were leveraging our data and our tools to suppress the vote, or that people were leveraging our tools and our technology to spread misinformation. And we'd rather that be as opaque as possible and to roll out as slowly as possible. So this is, anyways, it is Sunday morning at 11. They are freaked out. The parents might be coming home because the parents are up by 10 points. And now in an election, if we find out, if we find out, and we're going to, that they fucked with what is the most important or seminal moments in a free society for the second time in a row, and maybe they didn't promote it, maybe it wasn't their intention, maybe they would have rather it didn't happen, but they traded off security for letting people do it or they traded off revenues for allowing it to happen, there's going to be hell to pay.

When dad and mom get home, there's going to be hell to pay. When dad and mom get home, it is going to be ugly. And you know what? Except if it leads to Trump's, because Trump will do nothing with this. This company is his age. Yeah, but that's my point. They're hoping. I genuinely believe that a lot of senior executives who worry about, not only worry about their share price, but I think are starting to probably believe, wow, I personally could probably get in a lot of hot water here, are really hoping for a Trump re-election. I think Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg have more riding on Trump's re-election than almost anyone other than maybe Putin and, you know, Borat or Rachel Maddow. We'll see. So, yeah, I know a lot of

people will do. well, I think people are exhausted by this, but why wait until after the election to create these measures? Well, that's exactly the right question, Cara. Why aren't these measures a part of their policy? Why are these even measures? Why isn't this just policy? They're talking about reducing the virality of inflammatory content. Well, that sounds like a reasonable policy for any media company, period, not pre-, post- or election. Why is it something we're only contemplating post-election? Should there be a mute button for someone like if Trump starts to put out stuff that's just inaccurate? So this gets into the whole notion of censorship.

And in my viewpoint— Yes, it does. In my view, in my view, and let me be clear. I think they're a media company. I think media companies have biases. I think media companies are allowed to edit people. Their terms of service, if they had any reverence or allegiance or fidelity to their terms of servants, both platforms would have shut his account off or down or kicked it off. And they didn't because he alone is probably generating several billion ads served. The conversation he inspires, the rage, the dialogue, the clicks, the Chobani and Nissan ads is just worth a ton of money to them.

Yep. What do you think? I think they are culpable here if they don't do the right thing. And I don't know what I would do. I think they've backed themselves in a corner where they have to censor now or they, or if they don't, there's damage. It's just, they've put themselves into the worst. They have not gotten people used to the idea of who they are and that they are a private company that can, can do these things. And so everybody now thinks it's the, it's the public square and they've allowed that to happen. They've put no strictures

in place. They haven't made clear that this is their platform and this is how people are going to behave on it. And now they're paying the price and they will pay the price. If there is a, this is a close election and Trump starts to mess with it, I wouldn't want to be that person to make that decision, but they're going to have to. But you used a key word there. I don't know what I would do. You used the word censoring. And I would argue that— I don't think it's censoring. That's right.

I think that's—it's got that in the mind. I don't think it's censoring. It's stopping someone from lying. That's right. Very problematic. When Leslie Stahl, in her 60 Minutes interview, says— She stopped him. No.

This is 60 Minutes. We can't put statements on the air that we can't verify. And I know we won't be able to verify that. And when Facebook shuts down content, it's not censoring. It's taking responsibility for being a media company where two-thirds of America get their information. Well, the fact that they don't have reporters is how they get out of it. But one of the things that I thought that Leslie saw beyond the we can't verify thing, I think when she said, when he said they had tried to steal the election, she said no. And he said, they tried.

You go look at the papers. Go get the papers. I was like, what papers? Like, I would have been like, what freaking papers are you talking about? Where does it say that? Yeah. You know, and she goes, no. And he said, and then he kept saying again, she goes, no, that is inaccurate.

Right. Like, that is how you do it. Like, that is all, no one's going Leslie Stahl censored him. He's just goes, no, that is inaccurate. Right. Like that is how you do it. Like that is all. No one's going Leslie Stahl censored him. He's just saying, no, that is inaccurate. That's right. You just it came out of your mouth. But guess what?

It's a lie. So it's it's difficult. Anyway, we're going to speaking of damage. Let's go on a quick break and to talk about the issues with the Robin Hood app, which is something that Scott has talked quite a lot about. And we have a friend of Pivot, Katie Turr, to help us lead us through next week's election. 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

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Welcome back. Robinhood users are saying their accounts are being hacked and looted. They have no way to report the thefts. Bloomberg reported that users have been targeted by cyber criminals without any way to hold the Robinhood app accountable or track their funds. You know, like do their job. These users have to contact the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority with limited success. Robinhood said they've doubled their customer service team this year, which they had talked about before with me and other people, but clearly does not help users from being looted.

Oh, Scott, tell me. Well, first off, notice how they said doubled their customer service team, but they didn't put any numbers on it? Yeah, right. They've gone from four to eight people. Well, no, it's hundreds. I do know that, but go ahead. Okay. So, the social dilemma kind of really depicts this really well, and that is when the product is free, you are the product. And what we have in our surveillance capitalism society is incrementally they say,

we'll give you something for free and we'll start taking data from you. And even if you don't provide us with permission, we'll start monetizing that data. You're the cow. You're not the customer. You're the product. And we're going to milk the shit out of you

and find people who are willing to pay more and more for this milk, which is a data set, which we continually enhance. And the order flow that Robinhood gets from its quote-unquote product, that's you, the consumer at Robinhood, gets more money. They're able to sell that order flow for more money than any other brokerage. Why? for more money than any other brokerage. Why? It's either that, A, they're able, the people who take that order flow can either create a greater spread and sell Robinhood Traders stocks at a worse price, or that's the dumb money, and traders like to know what the dumb money is doing so they can

take the other side of that trade. But be clear, you are the product, not the customer. And then, and then they're like, we don't want anything to get in the way of this blitz scale, including getting to a point, and this happens several times, and you send me the articles on this, you get an alert on Robinhood. This happened. Your Moderna stock has been sold, a trade confirmation. It's been sold. And you're like, wait, I didn't sell it. And then it says, you get another alert saying, we are about to transfer the funds, the proceeds of your Moderna sale out of your account. And you're like, oh, my God, someone has hacked my account, is stealing from me, and is about to transfer it out. And then you're like, okay, I caught them.

You try and call Robinhood, but they don't have an 800 number. They don't have a customer service number. Why? That would get in the way of scaling. Any bank, they immediately shut it. A credit card company, you get an alert before something happens. Everybody. And these people start calling desperately.

Anyone emailing them on LinkedIn. And you know what they get? They get an email back saying, this is a serious issue. Someone will be back to you within a few weeks. And some of these people literally lost or were worried they were going to lose their life savings. I have traded. So, Scott, shouldn't that be the very bottom amount of work that Robinhood should do for its customers? When you're dealing with people's livelihoods, when you're dealing with money, the notion I've traded on Schwab, Goldman's trading platform, Northern Trust,

TD Ameritrade, the idea that I would register and notice that funds had been, that there was a legal activity in my account and funds were about to be stolen out of my account, the idea that I wouldn't be able to immediately get somebody on the phone and that they would immediately take action is absolutely unheard of. And all Robinhood users, you should know, you're the product. You're not the customer. And then the language that Robinhood put out was very telling. They said a limited number of our accounts where the passwords were stolen because the passwords were hacked outside. And they said this wasn't a breach.

In other words, if Walmart is broken into and something bad, it's not our fault if the key used to get into the store was copied somewhere else. They are taking a page out of Facebook's playbook. Slow roll, deny, obfuscation, don't take responsibility. You're not the consumer. You're the product. And quite frankly, we're going to start parsing you out and selling you to other people. Robinhood's focus on blitzscaling, their inability or their willingness to totally abuse their product, who right now is their consumer set, has reached a new high. And here's the question we all face, and regulators in the SEC face, and that is, if we could go back in time before Facebook really started levying a ton of damage on the Commonwealth, would we stop them? Well, guess what

we can, because Robinhood and their CEOs, they're a fucking menace. And we have the opportunity, we have the opportunity to shut that shit down early before it becomes out of control. This is the opportunity to move in now. Well, what's good here, and we're going to get to Katie Curtis in a second, is that this is an area that there is much more attention paid because it's finance, because it's people's bank accounts. So I think you will see some action by the SEC and other organizations. I do. I do think. With Facebook, you don't know who is in charge of this. And, of course, the F and other organizations. I do. I do think. With Facebook,

you don't know who is in charge of this. And of course, the FTC punted on these things. But I feel like you have a point of view on this, Scott. So we'll see where it goes. Well, this is a test for the SEC. Does the SEC exist to protect management or to protect investors? This is a test for them. All right. It's a test. It's a test. And they have failed so far, according to Scott Galloway. Speaking of tests, we have an election coming up. We do. And we have Katie Turr. We have Katie Turr, MSNBC anchor, NBC News correspondent, and New York Times bestselling author. Yep. Katie, welcome to Pivot. Scott is extraordinarily excited just because you're so famous.

My first question, my first question, who does not love Katie Tour? Katie, who does not love Katie Tour? Oh, gosh. My son doesn't love me as much as he loves his dad right now. I am the second favorite person in the household. So this is key. I know before Kara starts her whole substantive interview thing. Katie, you literally play, but it's just, you know, all my questions are just an excuse for me to talk about me. So let's

get going. So Katie Tour plays the same role in my life as Goodfellas, a 1990 crime drama. Whenever I am, I am browsing on live TV, which I still do because I'm 108, if I see Goodfellas or Katie Tour, I stop and I just watch. You are so substantive and you bring so much humanity to important stories. Katie Tour and Goodfellas. All right. Now I'm going to move on. Ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster. There you go.

You are a gangster. You are a gangster. All right. That's my favorite line. Gangster. Joe Pesci. Listen. Listen to me.

Let's talk about the key differences that you see between the weeks leading up to 2016 election and 2020 election. I'm sorry I'm not effusively complimenting you, but I think you're an excellent reporter. So talk to me about how you look at it, because you've covered both elections. So it's diametrically different than 2016. Donald Trump isn't running as an outsider any longer, although he's trying to. Yeah, he is an incumbent. He's had four years behind him. He's got a record to run on. And there are those in his orbit who say he should run on the specifics of his record that they like. But then there are a lot of people who have been watching him for four years and you know, may have thought that he would have pivoted to be a more presidential leader once he got into

the White House and realized very quickly that that didn't happen. And might be looking at the last four years and thinking, I don't really like him so much. There are others who say, hey, listen, the coronavirus has been a complete and utter disaster, and I'm really tired of, you know, living inside my basement. Like you are right now. I'm really tired of going to the market and having to fight with people about wearing masks when I think they should wear them, and the president should show some leadership on this. Or people who look outside and say, oh, my God, look at all this racial unrest. This is a problem that we need to address, not just pretend it doesn't exist. Or people who want to have Thanksgiving dinner

with their family without somebody storming out because of politics. So there's a lot going on right now that he wasn't dealing with in 2016. I'm not saying he's going to lose, but I am saying it does dramatically change the landscape. How is covering it different? Obviously, there's the COVID issues, but what is the tonality? Because before it was sort of this insurgent campaign, there was a little more humor around it, despite all the ugliness that he brought to bear. There was more, you know, what do we have to lose with this guy? It's really difficult to cover him because when he opens his mouth, the majority of what he says isn't true. And you can't spend all of your

time picking through it because an hour would go by and you wouldn't have covered anything. So you have to, as a journalist, pick and choose what you are going to focus on. And covering the lead up to this election, obviously, is so much different because I'm not out on the road as I normally would have been, which I was, and I had a real sense of where the voters' heads were at. Now you've got to focus on what is the biggest issue at hand, which is the coronavirus. And choosing to cover that over whatever Donald Trump may have said at a gaggle or whatever he may have tweeted. I so infrequently talk about his tweets now because most of the time, the vast majority of time, they just don't matter. Whereas in 2016, because he was so unpredictable, we felt like we were following the bouncing ball a lot.

Right now, you ignore the ball and you focus on the target, which is right now the coronavirus. Scott? Yeah, just a couple of things seem different. I'm curious what your take is if they're really having an impact. The first is it just seems like the president and the vice president are at this point super spreaders. And we haven't seen that level of super spread from either Biden or Harris.

I'm curious if you think when you're out there talking to people, if they see kind of the different approach or the different results as leadership or symptom of incompetence, like the campaign's registry or, I don't know, interaction with coronavirus, how has that impacted voters' sense of what is going on between the two campaigns? Well, I mean, it depends on who you're talking to, frankly. Because if you're talking to the majority of people here in New York, their sense is that Donald Trump is a public health danger from the way that he's behaving, you know, by holding these rallies where there's no social distancing and no masks, by himself not modeling the behavior that his own health experts and officials are advocating by making fun of Joe Biden, all of these things, by having an outbreak at the White House, by having a second outbreak

at the White House and not, a second outbreak at the White House, and not going to the hospital and getting treated and coming out and not taking it seriously. That was the worst fear for a lot of people was that he was going to go in, be fine, come out, and say it's not a big deal, and give motivation and give a talking point to the people who don't want to take it seriously. But then, you know, I talk to others who are more in Donald Trump's camp, and they'll say, well, I wish he took it more seriously, but they'll have excuses for it. There's nothing he could have done better than this. It was a virus that was out of control from the start.

That's their new thing, correct? That's their new, like, there's nothing anybody their new, like there's nothing anybody could have done. There's nothing anybody could have done. He saved hundreds of thousands of lives. You can't fault him for this. They had a plan and they executed it. I see. So when you think about where we are right now,

we're a week away. How are you preparing in the days up to the election? And how are you thinking of the days after as someone who has a show and you're obviously gonna have to be, you were talking about the idea of not following the bouncing ball. There's going to be balls everywhere here and it's going to be all over the place. So how are you preparing, you know, as you're watching early voting and the early takeaways that's already started, nobody knows, but they doesn't stop them from reporting on it. So talk about how you think about how media should do it,

and then talk about how social media platforms should do it, because I think cable and they sort of work in tandem together in a weird way. So I just got a text message from my producer saying that I'm locked in our A1 lead, so I've got to get out of it. I just did. I don't even know what you just said there, but it sounded very impressive. Yeah, but it was cool. It sounded very impressive.

It's the open of the show. It's the first read of the show. And we spent a lot of time on the first read because that is the framing for the entire day's coverage. Sure. And what I have been doing and what we have been doing specifically in the last few weeks is we have been framing it as two stories coming to a head, which is that we are coming down to the wire on election day. People are voting in numbers that we have not seen before. Millions of people deciding it is too risky to take a risk. I'm going to mail my ballot in early. I am going to show up in person while at the same time, hundreds, if not more than a thousand Americans are dying every single day. There

are new hotspots popping up every single day. Hospitals, again, are running out of ICU beds. You've got the crisis of the coronavirus, which is whipping itself up again, and you have the election. And those two things are intertwined. You can't separate them. So we focus on those in the beginning and we try to give you a sense of where the race and the country stands. And that's how you don't follow the bouncing ball. And oftentimes the bouncing ball stories kind of fit into the larger story of both the election and the coronavirus. Donald Trump's going after mail-in ballots because he says it's fraud. Well, there are mail-in ballots because of the pandemic and people don't necessarily feel safe in going and voting.

On the question of social media, social media is so, as you know, and we talk about this on my show, it's difficult. I think that it has made the ability to get the truth out almost impossible in some scenarios. I mean, the ability for people to be misinformed or disinformed on social media, it's not just social media, it's some cable news outlets, is profound. And I am always overcome and scared when I talk to people who are spouting off conspiracy theories or just wildly incorrect information that has no basis in reality. So you talked to my mother this morning. Well, I come across these people a lot. I mean, you can find them in New York, you can find them outside of Trump rallies in Pennsylvania. You can talk to them online. I get emails from people saying these things.

But I mean, the majority of it is coming from the right. But there is a problem coming from the left as well, where I will get friends who will text me something they saw on Twitter or Facebook and say, what about this? And I'll say, oh my God, where are you getting that from? And it's like just some unknown website. Well, I heard it and I, you know, it feels right to me. And you say, well, okay, but you can't, you can't trust it. What do you do as a broadcaster, as a reporter? What is your responsibility? Especially if this gets very close and ugly. How are you thinking about that? I think you have to be very clear with what's at stake, but also with the expectations. We might not have a winner on election night. We probably won't have a winner on election night.

We might have one in the days after, but maybe not. It might be weeks after. Prepare yourself for there to be a delay. And also know that there are going to be people out there, nefarious actors, who are going to try and manipulate your opinion about what is happening. And arm yourself with accurate information. How do you find accurate information? Well, if you see something online and it piques your interest, Google it. Try to find it backed up at the New York Times or the Washington Post or USA Today or NBC News or CNN or CBS, whatever. Find another more liable news source that backs up the information you just read. And if you can't find it, I don't trust it. Push it away and wait until that gets confirmed somewhere else. That's a level of media literacy that not many people have.

They don't really understand. I have a question about early voting. You would think that we would actually have more insight into what's going to happen here than any previous election, because we're coming up on about 50 million people have already voted. Is that right? And I get the sense that we have been the progressives on the left. We were hit so hard by this car in 2016 that we don't want to say out loud anything positive. We don't want to jinx any of it. But what, if anything, have you seen or do you take away or what thesis do you have around early voting? Like, what are the signals telling you? felt surprised and maybe waylaid by the 2016 election. So I think that what you're seeing is a lot of enthusiasm from people who do not like Donald Trump, want to see him out of office,

don't want to take a risk on it, and are getting out there very early. What I think is most interesting are the number of people who voted this time that did not vote in 2016. That's going to be what sways this election. It's not going to be Donald Trump taking some Democrats or Joe Biden taking some Republicans. It's going to be the millions of people who didn't show up. There were 4.4 million Obama 2012 voters who didn't show up in 2016. 4.4 million. That's a lot of people.

If just a handful of those in a couple of key spaces, key counties, show up and vote and vote for Joe Biden. Also, they're young people. They're African-American men and people who just didn't think that their vote mattered, assumed Hillary Clinton was going to win. If they show up, then the election is going to be completely different. Yeah. So let me ask just two more questions, and maybe Scott has one more, is when you're broadcasting like this, and you were on the road, you were a reporter for the last election, when you think about you broadcasting, you're in a basement. You're broadcasting in a basement.

How do you think about your job differently now, this election versus last election? Because you have to now have a Twitter status and what you're doing here. Talk about sort of that, the difference of what you were doing, because you wrote a whole book on being on the campaign trail. So it's been really humbling being in the basement and not being out there. So I have come to focus on and rely on the reporting of my colleagues who are out there talking to people every day and know that they probably have a better pulse on anything than I certainly do sitting here or that many of the talking heads that we have who are experts and very intelligent than they do coming on because a lot of their political education and knowledge spans decades back and it might not be necessarily relevant today. I want you to get rid of all the pundits. I just want you to have reporters, honestly. I love the reporters and we have people in the field and we have, you know, this county to county project that that Meet the Press launched that we have a couple reporters doing, including a girl named Dasha Burns.

And she's going to these counties and she's talking to voters in these swing swing places that are either not changing their mind or changing their mind. You know, they're the people who will potentially make the difference in this election. So for me, it's relying on that information. It's calling old contacts from 2016 and getting a sense of where they are. But it's also knowing that the smartest thing that I can say right now is, I don't know. That's unusual coming from a reporter. I'm more curious about your view on your industry. You're a rigorous journalist. You're ascending. Your career is ascending. And so you're a pilot on a 747. You have the

premier seat in what you do. But you're in the cable bundle, which is like Pan Am Airlines in the 70s. It just doesn't look good long term. And I'm curious what you think is going to happen. So far, politics and sports are still kind of the last firewalls of ad-supported media. over time I need to get to subscription media? Do you think that, okay, I need to develop different channels of communication and develop my own direct channels? Like, how are you, how do you view the industry and the kind of the ice cube that is the cable industry right now and think about your own career management? So I think that's a really important question. It's also a tough one. I think that the media industry is facing some giant obstacles. The biggest one that's going to cross any platform that you might live on is trust and confidence. And we've had that plummet now for decades. It's risen a little bit since Donald Trump came into office, but it's very partisan. It depends on whether

you're a Democrat or a Republican. I think our most important task right now is finding a way to build back that trust. And that's going to include some media literacy. So that's getting out there and explaining what we do and how we do it. Secondary to that is finding the medium that will reach the broadest audience. I think you can silo yourself and reach the segment of the population, but I'm not sure if that's going to do anybody any good. Right now, the broadest audience is on broadcast news, but they're in dire straits. Cable has seen some growth, but who knows what might happen after this election and if politics aren't as interesting as they have been or as unpredictable and and boring biden is not good for your business well i mean i don't know i think

there's a lot going on um post this election that that only because i think you train the audience for constant like entertainment really but i do think that there that there's a lot at stake here. Of course. And there will be a lot to cover with what Congress does, especially on the issue of climate change, which we don't cover enough. I'm excited to get past this election and start focusing more on climate change, which I think is a broad issue that affects absolutely everybody and has more bipartisan appeal than you may see in the numbers. Anyway, but so when I think about my career, my future, I hold on to where I am right now. I and then I find my husband and I talk about this all the time we find we talk about whether there is another outlet and digital obviously is is the next step in that direction. But finding a way where, a place where digital can still reach the American voter. But wait, I want the question to be more pointed. Play production executive,

it can't be on Comcast. So we'll just, we'll give you a hall pass there so you don't have to answer an uncomfortable question. But if it's not Comcast and so we'll give you a hall pass there so you don't have to answer an uncomfortable question. But if it's not Comcast and there was going to be a 30-minute program of content, of rigorous content for rigorous journalists covering politics and society, what platform would you want that 30-minute program to be on? That is a really difficult question. I want to say it's on a social media platform because that has the most reach. But I also, I mean, my first thought would go to like having a rigorous or 30 minute show that lived on a platform that had as much reach as Twitter does. But the problem with Twitter is that it's, people don't have the attention span. It's twitchy.

Or anything more than 285 characters, whatever the number is now. Yeah. But it's twitchy, exactly. So I think. I've stumped Katie Tor, Kara. I mean. Do I get a prize here?

I'm going to ask you the last question. Do I get a coffee at Brian Williams? What's the prize here? No, no. Oh, well, I don't know. Do I drink coffee? I'm not even sure. Dad, dad, dad. So listen, last thing you're going to do for this week.

What are you prepping to do? How are you thinking about the election day? What are you doing? So I am going to try and sleep between 6 and 10 p.m., which seems odd because that's the prime hour. But I am anchoring with Eamon the overnight shift from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. Oh, man. I'll be watching. Which actually, which sounds really brutal.

But because this is such an unpredictable election, it could be some really, it could be a really interesting time. So I'm going to try and figure out how to fall asleep. Are you doing it from the basement or are you all getting together? Is NBC doing it? That's a good question. I've asked that question and I've not gotten a clear answer. Yeah, it should be together. I have a sinus infection. So I think it'll probably depend on whether I am all better. By the way, as a pilot, that's what's called the Sacramento to Lubbock route, that 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. That's not a great route. You are so New York to London. Who do we speak to?

Who do we speak to? I don't know. I'm sure you know who you can call. No, they need to have Brian on for the main part so he could make all those little like, you know, like cows in the barn leaving Nebraska. This is what's interesting about becoming an anchor. When you're a reporter, you can be on top of your game and you can be the one out front and be the star in your position. But once you get to what is the promotion, which is the anchor gig, you're back down to the bottom of the flagpole

again. Bottom of the totem pole. Got to work your way back up. There you go. So welcome to 2 a.m. I can't wait. We will be watching you at 2 a.m. because, you know, we are, there's still, everyone's going to be watching all night. It's going to be primetime somewhere.

Yeah, exactly. Hey, Scott, if you come up with a good place for me to go take my 30-minute show, you tell me. We just know not to quit. Careful what you ask for. We'll get back to you on the rest of it. Careful what you ask for. Uh-oh. Uh- a podcast with Scott. Don't please don't do it. I urge you not to. Anyway, Katie, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. And good luck with your show today. Thanks a lot.

Bye. Bye. Okay, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? And you're making content that no one sees sees and it takes forever to build a campaign. Well, that's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing and makes writing blogs, creating videos and posting on social a breeze. So now it's easier than ever to be a marketer.

Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Okay, Scott, isn't Katie Torr the best? Yeah, I think she's wonderful. I have, you know, I have fake friends because I'm sort of living in my own world. And I've decided my new fake friends are Katie and Brian Williams. I like him. I like that whole MSNBC. Yeah, I like them.

I like to watch them. I always am like, I've got to watch my Katie and Brian all the time. They both sound like nice people. Yeah, I would like, one of the things she was talking about is I would like a return to less punditry and more reporters. Just like I prefer reporters, you know, with points of view who actually know what they're talking about. And I think cable, if they're going to try to revive themselves, they just do reporting, like, and tell stories. I think that would be great. There's a very unhealthy tension in our society where it used to be, you know, there's a tension between fact and novelty.

And you remember the old 70s Jerry Dunphy where you'd have 27 minutes of fact and then three minutes of novelty or opinion? It's totally flipped. And MSNBC, quite frankly, is guilty of it. Yeah, they've got to go back to it. Because there's more money in it. But at some point, there'll be a market to go back. I actually think that's why a lot of these traditional media outlets, the Washington Post and New York Times are thriving. New York Times, by the way, is thriving.

Because they're reporting. It's because they're about just the facts. Stories. Yeah, the truth. Whether it's a kooky story or it's just good storytelling. Good storytelling. Okay. Scott, wins and fails.

What's your wins and fails? Sure. So my win is the largest IPO in history in terms of proceeds and financial, $34 billion. I think the average- Jack Ma. That's right. It's basically the payment division of Alibaba. But if you think about, I mean, this thing is part Square, part Tinder, part Quicken Loan, part Venmo, part PayPal. That is a good way to put it. And 700 million people on the thing. And they went public. They raised $33 billion just edging out Saudi Aramco to be the biggest IPO in history. And when you think about that, the average IPO, I think the proceeds are $100 to $300 million.

So this IPO was literally 100 to 300x greater than typical IPOs. So, they dominate. Imagine, I mean, they dominate. They make Amazon look like a niche player or square. They have just taken, you know, you really, they've really consolidated the market and they're about, I think it's like 30 or 34 billion in top line revenues and 10 billion in EBITDA. It's just, This thing is just a juggernaut. Their challenge will be to see if they can expand beyond national borders. Chinese companies, they're kind of their Achilles heel. They're not great at global branding.

But it's arguably one of the most, I would say other than Shopify, it's probably the most impressive company of the last 10 years. But because we're such narcissists and we think we've invented innovation, we don't cover these companies? Yeah, Jack Ma is a fascinating entrepreneur. Oh, gosh, incredible. I've interviewed him many times. And I actually went to China to visit on his day, the sales day that they have. I forget what it's called.

And he invited me there. Just what Alibaba's done is really fascinating. And for people who immediately think the Chinese steal everything or they're intellectual property thieves, maybe absolutely true. The fact of the matter is this company is so innovative. And I visited all their headquarters and stuff like that. It was really interesting.

And I think their Achilles heel is China, like the Chinese government and the linkages that they have to endure. But this guy's a real entrepreneur in terms of fascinating ways to pivot. He really does. This is a really interesting thing. And the question is, can they, they can go all over the globe, but can they make a dent in the U.S.? Which Alibaba has not done except for, you know, people use it to move goods between China and the U.S. So interesting.

And he's also sidled up to Trump. He did right at the beginning of the administration. So it's an interesting question of how you deal with this company because it is a giant financial tech company and one of the most important ones. Do you have a win? Good win. Win?

No, I do not have a win. Well, the win is this early voting, I think. I have to say it's really interesting. Someday I wish people would be able to vote on their phones, but I realize, I recognize all the worries about it and everything else. If they're worried about mail-in voting, and we've been mailing things for hundreds of years or whatever, there's going to be an issue with it. But I do, I am heartened by people physically showing up at these things. I mean, to me, long lines are voter suppression because you have to wait in long, long lines. But people are distant, so I'm sort of trying to figure out if they're really long lines

or it's just there's now six feet between people. But I do think that it is lovely to see all those people. Like right now, I guess another, I forget, New York opened early voting, whatever, and D.C. opens it tomorrow. The enormous lines that people are waiting in in order to cast their vote physically, I think is really very heartening. No matter how this election turns out, their people care about what's going to happen and they're acting. And I do think Americans don't take their vote for granted so much. And I think it's something I've drilled into my children. for granted so much. And I think it's something I've drilled into my children. My son voted,

which he was very excited to do so for the first time. And I just feel like it's your duty to do so. I don't think I've missed an election. But Katie highlighted something we don't want to say out loud. I canvassed for Hillary in 2016, and I bring that up because it makes me,it's total virtue signaling, so I mention it kind of every six months to people. But when I went into—I was out in a middle-to-lower-income neighborhood just west of where I live in Florida, and I would go into households. So if I'd knocked on the door and it was an African-American household, they'd invite me in, super nice, super grateful. And I'd ask them where their polling place was, and they wouldn't know. I'm like, they're not voting. They're not voting.

And then I'd get to a white household, and they'd slam the door on my face. And I thought, he's going to win. Because take passion. Take passion over the apathy I was registering for Democrats. And what I see, and again, we're scared to say it out loud, what I see with this early voting in those lines is I see passion and anger. And that passion and anger right now is the rocket fuel or what I'm hoping is the rocket fuel for, you know, for a change. But I think it's hard not to interpret this as a good thing,

you know, for Biden and Harris. I think it is. So how do you feel then about the rallies then? Because that's passion. It's misguided. It feels like misguided. I mean, only, look, they can have the rallies that they want if it wasn't a health crisis, but it really is kind of, that's what makes it disgusting. Actually, those rallies is the health crisis part of it. If it wasn't, how do you look at those? They pretend there's no COVID and you have these, but actually there is COVID and they're still doing these and they're attracting large numbers. How do you look at that? Because that's my fail. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? I think his rallies are a lot of fun. If you're, they're a chance to turn out and hear this kind of outrageous, you know, provocative, charismatic.

I mean, they're an event. They really are. Whereas most politicians are so scared to say anything. It ends up, you know, they kind of, the content just isn't that great at these things. And his are a lot of fun. I believe, and again, it might be confirmation bias, that these are constant reminders that this is not a responsible administration. These are constant reminders that this administration prioritizes their own key ratings and awareness over the health of the Commonwealth. I think they may rally his base, but I think moderates look at these things and go, you know, boss, is that really a good idea?

rally his base. But I think moderates look at these things and go, you know, boss, is that really a good idea? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This campaign has been really executed really well. One of the things that Olivia Nuzzi,

who writes for New York Magazine, who's terrific, she just put out another story today. She was noting in one of her very funny, she's done a lot of Instagram posts, she's had to go to these rallies, is that they stream out when he starts talking. So she goes, she's decided it's just entertainment for them.

They just want to say, like, looking at the Grand Canyon. Look, I went and saw the Grand Canyon, and now I check my box. And I actually, the first time, I was like, you know, that's exactly what I think is happening here. They're not listening to anything he's saying, because he's almost not talking. He never talks about policy. He just makes a lot of bad and juvenile toilet jokes, essentially, and insults.

You know, he's like Don Rickles of politics, essentially. But they leave because they just wanted to say they were there and they enjoy it, which is a really fascinating way to look at it. So, what is your fail? Oh, my fail, again, is just Robinhood. The notion that a consumer platform that is dealing with people's livelihood, potentially theft, is going on The consumer who's having their funds stolen finds out before Robinhood, tries to alert Robinhood, and there's no one there. It would be like calling the police whose job is to protect you in the midst of a home invasion or someone stealing from you, like, oh, my gosh, they're in my house and they're stealing my money. And you would get a hold. You'd go on, if you called 911 and you were on hold for

three weeks. And it just, and then their response was so, they tried to blame the consumer because of passwords that were obtained outside the network. Your fault. Your fault. So let's be clear, Robinhood product, i.e. its consumers, you could find out today that your stock has been sold when you didn't sell it and that that money, your money is being transferred out and the response will be an email saying, we'll get back to you in three weeks.

What could go wrong? Well done, Robin Hood. Well done. Anyways, that's my fail. I think my fail is, and it's actually when there's a piece by Rich Lowry in the, I think he writes for the National Review. He's a well-known writer. And he calls it the only middle finger. And he talks about that conservatives will ditch any principle they purport to hold if it means sticking it to those people.

The National Review guy? That guy? Yeah. Yeah, I think he wrote a really interesting—it is true. It's about screw you. And I'm so sorry that that is how people feel, that this is—anything to do the middle finger to the man. I think at the heart of Trumpism is that, is the sad fuck you to people they don't like. And I get why there's anger.

I get why there's, like, they've been treated shabbily by a lot of people. You mean his supporters? At the same time. Yes. Just so angry at government, so angry at limousine liberals. Right. Their state in life, which is not the fault of limousine liberals that they're where they are. It's not the inability to.

No, come on. Like, like at some point, this is a group of people that talks about standing on their own two feet. They should stand on their own two feet. Like it's fine. But I do feel sorry that this is where it goes to, um, is having to put a middle finger to everybody. And it would be nice if there was some way to stop this dysfunction that occurs. Maybe there isn't. Maybe it is our country. There's the elite, and then there's the ones who have to say, fuck you, the elite.

Because neither of them is working. And so I would like to—I recommend that you read that story because I think he's saying the quiet part out loud, which is—it's a middle finger. It's a different form. I mean, it's maybe an uglier form of what Obama was saying. Obama was about change. And to a certain extent, Trump represented the mother of all change. And these are people who had been, felt like they'd just been lied to over and over and over. And they said, whatever's going on here, we just want radical change. And to be fair, Donald Trump represented on a lot of dimensions more change than any politician previously. So we think of it as being something sinister and ugly. The reality

is they wanted the same thing that we wanted when we voted for Obama. We want to change, or they want to change. Yes, but it is sinister and ugly because it's about petty grievances. Well, yeah, and it's about mocking the disabled. That was... Yeah, exactly. It's petty and cruel and pointless and not about policy. That would change. It would actually change people's lives. So it's easier to say. I was reminding of, and I'll finish up on this, is my son, when I, I think I told you this,

that there was an election at my college when I was in college where there was people that, lots of, you know, the people who run for student body president are just usually those kind of people. You know what I mean? Like they were super earnest and irritating and lots of like things that you feel about people that run in college for student body president. And these two guys ran on the like, fuck you party essentially.

Like we're going to have beer bongs and we're going to do this and we're not going to run government. And everybody voted for them and they won. Like everyone was like, yeah, fuck the man. Like, you know, that kind of thing. And they won overwhelmingly over a lot of really qualified people.

And everyone was like, ha, ha, we showed them. And then, like, everything fell apart. People didn't get their, you know, didn't get the things that students expect. There was no representation. Groups didn't get funded. Things didn't happen. And I remember going, oh, you won. You sure did win.

Like, you got nothing. Did you ever run for office? That's my way of wanting you to ask me. So, but you go first. Did you ever run for office? Did you run for, I didn't, I never ran for office. I ran for junior class president in high school. I ran for senior class president in high school. I ran for student body president. Yeah. Lost them all. And? Lost them all. And one of the key. Why did you run? Because I think one of run? What is that movie, Election? Tracy? What was their name? Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. That's a fantastic film. And I tell my kids, my son just ran for seventh grade president and lost. And I said, the key to one of the reasons I feel like I'm honestly successful is that when you run for something and you lose,

you realize it's not the end of the world. And then you get back up and you run again and you lose again. That means at some point, at some point, you're going to win. How much did you lose? Oh, a lot. Oh, really? Actually, no, I think-

Yeah, that is tough. I don't think- Look, you miss every shot you don't take. The key to success is your resilience over your failure. That's it. That's the ratio. Show me anybody who hasn't had serious disappointment and losses. That's so sweet.

You're not successful. Little young Scott with hair losing the election. And a skateboard. Ponytail. Oh, my God. It's killing me. You lost the three elections. That's a lot to lose.

I think it might have been four. I think I ran for sophomore class president, too. Yeah, it was more than that. Oh, it was always president. And cut from the baseball team and cut from the basketball team. Oh, my God. But I had really bad acne, which helped my security and confidence. You'll be happy to know I had a very happy high school period.

Of course you did. Of course you did. I went out with the star football player. I was a really good student. Yeah, but there was a glitch in the matrix. I should really be enjoying this, making out with the football player. But, know. I will, yes, obviously. I wanted to be a gay, but still, he was really nice. I'm sure he was really nice. I've talked to him, not recently, but he's a great guy. He was great. He was great. I'm just telling you. No, not me. Not me.

I was the yearbook editor. Of course you were. I was. Of course you were. Yeah, there you are. I was in charge of everyone's future face. And the one sentence to sum up their future. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Oh, I'll have some good stories about that. Anyway, I stopped people from doing, I kept going 40 years from now, you're not going to want that quote, that particular Led Zeppelin quote right there. This person will never amount to anything. Next. This person, you could tell, right? Exactly. I had that sense even back then. Okay, Scott, what questions do you want people to answer from later this week? I want you to stop asking me that. I want people just to ask

us whatever. I like the random stuff. Don't get mad at me. It's in the script. What do you want from me? Random. We would like random stuff, not a bad stuff. I would like, would you like online voting on your phone? Okay. Email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Scott just wants you to ask about whatever the hell you want. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinan.

As Fernanda Finite engineered this episode, Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or, frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Kara, you know what they did on that flight? What? That flight, the terrible flight that ended up crashing in a Pennsylvania field after being hijacked on 9-11.

You know when they called their loved ones? Yes, they did. And they called their loved ones and they called their loved ones and they found out that their death was imminent. And the first thing that people registered or academics looking at it was they called to just tell people they loved them not to settle scores. But the second thing when they found out that they were probably headed towards an imminent, their imminent demise. This is dark, Scott. They decided, okay, 300 people in the back of the plane, do we just hope things work out, or do we crash through the door, the cockpit door, with a meal cart?

And how did they decide one of the most difficult, probably the most difficult decision in their life? You know how they decided? They voted. I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all.

I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of AI.

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