Pivot - Google Search Troubles, Trump Trial Aftermath, and Guest Elie Honig

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Kara and Scott discuss the Paramount/Skydance merger, the Washington Post's major changes at the top, and Salesforce's worst trading day in 20 years. Then, Google is in damage control mode after a document leak raises questions about search, and its new AI Overviews feature goes viral for all the wrong reasons. Plus, Tesla shareholders are getting ready to vote on reinstating Elon Musk's multi-billion dollar pay package. Will Elon come out on top? Finally, our Friend of Pivot is CNN's Chief Legal Analyst Elie Honig. Elie discusses his New York Magazine column on why he believes the Trump hush money case was flawed, and he looks ahead to next month's sentencing. Follow Elie at @eliehonig. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, I'm very tired. We're moving this week. Why do you do this to yourself? I don't know. I've reached the point of no return on moving. I have so much stuff. I was having a Marie Kondo moment. I know she's gone back a little bit on that stuff, but I would like the original Marie Kondo back. I've got the ultimate hack for moving. Burning my house down? What?

No, the week you're moving, you come up with a business reason that you need to leave town. Oh, well, I am. I've got the ultimate hack for moving. Burning my house down? What? No, the week you're moving, you come up with a business reason that you need to leave town. Oh, well, I am. I'm going out of town. You saddle your spouse with it. I am a little bit. I feel bad. I did a lot. I am a packing Olympic hero, I have to say.

I'm really good at it. But it just gives you that idea of how much stuff you have, right? And you're sort of like- That's crazy. You know what I mean? Like, oh, God. Everywhere. Yeah, we're renovating the house.

But you didn't ask my question. Why are you moving? Do you need more space? No, we're renovating. Yes, we're renovating the house. And so the whole bottom half of the house is gone. I've gotten in Scott mode now. And the whole bottom half of the house, and they need this upper part of the house.

Because all the floors, they tip to the center. It's really like you put a marble on one end of it. And we want... I've been pulling you to the center. Right, no, you haven't. And then it needs insulation. We need a family room. We need a place for you to stay when you come.

That's nice. I only stay in hotels. I know that. I'm not going to have you at my home. I'm not having you at my home ever. You would not do it. I would stay at your home at any time. I am so... I could show up on meth at 4 a.m. and you'd have to let me in

after the Hotel Galloway you have checked into about 11 million times. I know. I would let you in in a second. You would just hate it. It's so noisy. There's kids. There's a cat. No, no, no. I like to yell at people when my breakfast isn't there. I don't, I never stay with friends. I always stay at home. Let me just say, you are more than welcome to stay at my house. I just know it would end our relationship. I know.

So the other thing is, anyway, it's just a lot. It's just a lot. And we're moving into this really cool modern building, apartment building. So we have about

half as much space there during the six months of the renovation. And so we have to- You got to do this again? You're going to have to move back? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. What do you have to take everything out and you put everything back?

Yeah, that's right. Especially with kids. Yeah, exactly. So, anyway, it has a pool. That's nice. And you're, again, welcome to stay there too, although it's even smaller and there's a cat inside. So, anyhow, that was my weekend. That was my whole weekend of exhaustion. Apartment with pool. That sounds like hot interns. Daddy might have to swing by. Yeah, you can come. You can do that. Actually, you know what? You're going to come down at the end of June if you're around Washington because Mike Birbiglia wrote me. He has a new show he's testing out. And we're going to throw him a dinner. You should come because you like that, Mike Birbiglia. We're going to be in Cannes together. I know, later, end of June.

and then I'm going to Germany for the European, for the Euros, the Euro Nationals, whatever they call it. I just, by the way, I saw the UEFA finals. I saw Real Madrid beat Dortmund. That was kind of disappointing. Anyways, I'm going to be in Germany watching football. Oh, all right. That's soccer, right?

In American. That is soccer. No, it's called football. All right. Well, in any case, you're invited. See, you're invited. I invited you to my basement apartment and I invited you to, it's not a basement. You figured this out. I like to be invited. I just don't like to attend. Okay, you're invited. See, you're invited. I invited you to my basement apartment, and I invited you to—it's not a basement. You figured this out.

I like to be invited. I just don't like to attend. Okay, you're invited. No matter. I'll make you eggs. I'll make you delicious eggs. I make very good slow eggs. That's an offer.

Anyway, we have a lot to talk today. There's so much going on since we met last. Oh, my God. But Google dealing with a whole host of issues, including a major document leak and a problematic AI search, to say the least. Tesla pulls out all the stops as shareholders prepare to vote on reinstating Elon's pay package. I think it's probably going to happen, but maybe not. People are against it. He has a lot of enablers helping him, though. And we'll be joined by friend of Pivot, CNN chief legal analyst, Ellie Honig. His New York Magazine column about the Trump verdict has a lot of people

talking. But first, Paramount and Skydance have agreed to a merger. The $8 billion deal is waiting sign-off from controlling shareholder Sherry Redstone, as we tape. Skydance and Redbird, its private equity backer, will contribute $1.5 billion to help reduce Paramount's debt. Apollo and Sony had also expressed interest in acquiring Paramount for $26 billion. But Sherry Redstone favored the deal that would keep Paramount together. They were going to chop it up for pieces. Now, you've been back and forth and back and forth here. This means the return of Jeff Zucker and Jeff Schell from NBC, the team. I think they're going to be either involved in Redbird. All kinds of interesting mishigas happening here. Tell me what you think.

all got done, if I read between the lines, I think what was happening is that the initial deal proposed by Skydance recognized that Sherry kind of held the keys and was offering her a premium on her shares, which is kind of a no-no in corporate governance. You have one class of shares, a bigger price than the other, just because they can hold out. And the board acting as fiduciary said, and the other shareholders said, we're going to block this deal because we'll have the courts on our side. And it sounds like what they did was they figured out a construct that gets the non-voting or non-Redstone shareholders almost to the same point as her. And so they accepted it and then they can roll their shares and they're not going to need shareholder approval. That's interesting. Explain that for people who don't understand why

that's the case. Well, my understanding here is this doesn't trigger a shareholder vote, that they can basically get this deal done without shareholder approval. And my sense of this deal is that the bankers have really earned their money here. I can't imagine the amount of dysfunction dealing with a billionaire who has a controlling stake, shareholders threatening a lawsuit, board members resigning, CEO resigning. I mean, this was, the bankers can't be paid enough here. But just to give you a sense of this, so I think today, NVIDIA is going to increase their market cap by 90 billion or 10 paramounts. And it just goes to show you, like, there's economic value, and then there's soap operas.

This is a soap opera. Yeah, although they're way ahead of their skis in what they could possibly earn to grow into that valuation, but still, nonetheless. Yeah, but my point is, we just get a sense, this is an interesting story as far as the economy. It's a nothing burger. NVIDIA will lose or gain the value of this company in 120 seconds in a trading day. Yeah.

I mean, we're talking about, if we were going to talk about economic value and impact on the world, you know, we just have a podcast on technology. This stuff is fun to talk about because people love Top Gun and MTV. I listen to Sherry Redstone. That's right. That crazy dab. It's a soap opera. It is. It's the Kardashians of business.

You can't turn away, but it really is unimportant. It really is meaningless. I think you're right. I think you're right. Still, it'll be interesting to see Jeff Zucker coming back and doing something with CBS. Could be interesting. That's where he started. Wait, where did he start?

He started the Today Show, right? Today Show, NBC. Yeah. He's been trying to find his footing in a broadcast medium. We'll see what happens here. Talented guy. Yeah, we'll see what happens here.

And also Jeff Schell, who got fired from NBC for affairs and stuff. And so he's kind of back. And so also talented. But anyway, it'll be interesting to see. It'll get a lot of attention because of the principles. You're right. And David Ellison is interesting. And anyway, speaking of dysfunction, the editor of The Washington Post, Sally Busby, will leave her role. She joined The Post in 2021. Matt Murray, a former editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, who also lost his job, will take Busby's place through the presidential election. I know Matt. I know him very well from a long time. Very nice guy. But still, I think the staff of The Washington Post is shell-shocked by this. It came suddenly. Well, it's lucky they're not going through a move.

Right. Yeah. My poor wife works at The Washington Post, and she's going through a move. So have a good day, Amanda. I think it was a shock to a lot of people. I think she was shocked last night when she got the news. And so did I got texts from lots of Post people. You know, Busby just won a bunch of really, some really fine stories. But obviously, she wasn't to the liking of Will Lewis, who is the new CEO. And he has worked with Matt at the Wall Street Journal. And actually, interestingly enough, we'll get to what the loss is there and everything else because it's a mess there. But at the meeting that they had today, I've gotten it was a shit show for many people that they were,

he was asked why he now the post is now run by essentially four white guys who are all buddies of Will Lewis. And he said, it is what it is, essentially. That's what he apparently said. You'll see the reporting on this. It's pretty, it was a pretty testy meeting. And what he did was he said, well, yes, it is what it is. And I guess I should do more about diversity, essentially. I guess I should do more about diversity, essentially.

But this is one of the most prominent women who did a very good job in terms of a very bad hand that was dealt to her by its former CEO, Fred Ryan. In any case, she pays the price. In the town hall, he said, told staff the Post had lost over $70 million in 2023 and had halved its audience. He said he repeated that today. His plan is to improve revenue, including premium subscription products, a service division of the newsroom targeting non-traditional news consumers, and some nonsensical social media stuff that I didn't understand. To me, the way to turn this around is to make products people like with costs lower than revenues, but they don't seem to be able to do that here. And the Times certainly does. I don't know. What are you, any thoughts?

I feel like we've gone from the Kardashians to Sarah Palin's Alaska. I feel like this is an even less important story, but- It's a trend, Scott. It's a trend among media. I'm going to try and relate this to something unreliable. 70% of divorce filings are filed by women. And people think, oh, it's a lack of shared values or infidelity by women and people think oh it's a lack of shared values or infidelity often times what happens when it's a lesbian

but go ahead move on sorry anyways the they oh god so many

so many retorts running through my mind and my judgment is saying just don't do it oh please just one just don't say it

who gets the German Shepherd? That's the biggest question. How can you split a Subaru? It's a Lesburu, but go ahead. Lesburu, I like that. But here's the bottom. You know what? If you are married and you're upper income,

your chances of staying married are much higher. Despite all the fun clickbait of rich people getting married, marriage is becoming a luxury item because in a capitalist society, an absence of money puts stress on everything. And this is a series of relationships that will have a tremendous amount of undue stress because this company is going through financial strain. And what I tell young people is try and find an industry that is growing because here's the thing, growth creates so much opportunity, so many good times, it wallpapers over so much dysfunction. And when a company is shrinking and hasn't come to grips with the fact

that it's shrinking and they will still convince themselves that it's a great brand and meaningful and there's all sorts of opportunities for new products. And I'm not saying there isn't. But generally speaking, every day, a little bit of oxygen gets sucked out of this room and everybody gets a little moodier and everyone gets a little bit less patient. That's a good, shockingly good analogy. I agree. And people who wouldn't ordinarily get along are going to stop getting along. People are going to be insecure about their jobs. People are going to feel like they haven't been made good on promises. They're going to start getting weird emails on weird decisions from people they don't even know who made these decisions. Being at a shrinking company is painful. It's being in a household

that is under economic stress. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I don't think he's doing himself any favors by, you know, I've met him a number of times. He's a very, the British, he's got that British way, you know. I think today probably was a day he could have been a little less dickish. And I think he was full dick from what I can tell. I'm going to his dinner at Cannes, though. Want to come with me? We should go.

We should go make trouble. I think it's just, it's such a weird situation at the post and uh and let me be clear I'm speaking Amanda has nothing to do with this because I worked there for many many years as you know um and I was there and it's Ben Bradley days and it's you know salad days but you could sense the things coming I kept warning about digital stuff you know you could feel it and they didn't really pay attention like a lot of companies until it was too late. But one of the things is the Post was always and also ran to the New York Times always. You know what I mean?

No matter, especially in the political people, there was always that feeling. And then it had the pull of being a local newspaper, too, like just like the Los Angeles Times or Miami Herald or whatever. And I think it's always had that sort of insecurity, no matter how you slice it. And now it's owned by a billionaire, a multi-billionaire owner who you don't know what he wants, why he has it, right?

And then he puts- He wants to not own it. Yeah, I think so. He's like every other billionaire. He regrets buying it. It's like buying a boat. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like a boat.

Do you think Lorraine Powell-Jobb, do you think any of these people are happy about purchasing this shit i think she is a little bit uh because she's pretty proud of the stuff they make i think she's a more media interested person um and they they they did really well this year unless that thing shows up with a thong he wishes he had nothing to do with it okay in any case i think that's it so adds confusion. And so then you have these people he's appointed who are just, it feels like Amazon. I know it sounds dumb, but it's got the, the staff has the arrogance of Amazon. So he does, and he's got a really, I understand, you don't tell people you presided over a cut in audience. Well, the cut in audience had to do with the previous CEO that Jeff Bezos picked and not the excellent work of both Marty Baron and Sally Busby. So I think it should be put squarely in Jeff Bezos' camp. And instead of haranguing the staff, he should be haranguing Jeff Bezos. But he's not going to do that.

Anyway, you're right. I stopped listening like two minutes ago. Why do they give Bilbo Baggins Viagra on his deathbed? Oh, no. Why? Because old hobbits die hard. Okay. I'm going to move on. I like that. It does matter to a lot of people. It's a very good newspaper. Anyway.

What I'll say, one thing I will say is despite all the dysfunction and tier C off-off-Broadway soap opera here, which no one but 11 of our listeners care about, you wouldn't know it because they continue to produce a great product. They do, they do. That's what I'm saying. There's got to be. It's great. They do a great...

Anyway, I think... They do a great job. They have... It could be great and they could make money. I think they could. Anyway, and New York Times... Let's buy it. Let's buy it together.

It would be so good if we ran a newspaper. Anyway, speaking of that, everyone's doing well in tech. Salesforce is reeling from a disastrous trading day and its worst performance since 2004. Shares for the company closed down 20% last Thursday after the first quarter earnings missed Wall Street's estimates. Revenue for the quarter rose by a record low 10%. Projected growth for the current period is 7%. It's starting to feel like a media company. Salesforce isn't alone.

Eight of the 10 largest cloud software providers have seen their stocks shrink by an average of 9% after the latest earnings. You know, they could invest in AI, but AI is going to have a big impact on these businesses. At the same time, there's been a lot of stories about how most AI investments are going to be zipped. It's not going to, as we've talked about,

way too much investment for the revenue and the profits as yet. So any thoughts on this? Tech is not immune. You know what? I think it's income inequality even among the rich. And that is SaaS companies are trading at six times revenues. You know, consumer companies trade at 0.5 to two times revenues. SaaS, which is the business we all wanted to.

trade at 0.5 to 2 times revenue. SAS, which is the business we all wanted to... When I started L2, I immediately moved to the subscription model because I thought, all right, the last strategy firm I started, I sold for 2.8 times revenue. I'm going to sell this one for 8 times. So I needed to look like a SAS company, have subscription, recurring revenue, churn, all those. I needed to get in front of investors and make it look, feel, and smell like a SaaS company. But even among the software companies, there's now income inequality. Because when one company increases its market cap two-thirds of a trillion dollars in one calendar month, that's not all money piling into the market. That's money coming from somewhere. That's money coming from somewhere. So now there's income inequality among the most, you know, income inequality within income inequality. And that is, I believe investors are taking money out of tech firms that are not hardcore,

that are two blast zones away from AI. So Dell just got the shit kicked out of it. Salesforce, why? Because everyone is taking money and saying, we got to go to the ground zero. It's going to be a problem for the economy. We're going to see, do you realize that, I mean, they can't claim to be sitting on top of massive amounts of compute. They can leverage AI, but they're going to have to rent it from someone else. Yeah, I sent you that story, who's sort of the winners and losers, and there's not any real winners yet, even among the winners, right?

There's not massive profits for giving the investment. So it's unclear. If all of these shareholders are piling into NVIDIA so much that it's become a zero-sum game and it's coming out of somewhere, who are the likely investors in NVIDIA? Is it people pulling money out of P&G? No, it's people pulling money out of Dell and Salesforce. Because if you look at Salesforce's numbers, they weren't that bad.

They did announce their first single-digit growth. It's always been double-digit. But they actually beat expectations, but it is getting hammered. In sum, anything that's not NVIDIA or off or compute is suffering. So what would one do? Elect people that will go into the FTC and DOJ and break these companies up. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. I mean, okay. I'm talking about as an investor. We're going to see, we'll see a flow back. The rivers will reverse again. The first time a major customer announces they're scaling back their AI efforts because they realize that Chick-fil-A can't leverage AI to the extent they thought, I think you're

going to see the AI ecosystem get cut in half. Okay, good. That's a bit of a prediction. I like that. Anyway, speaking of which, let's get to our first big story. Google is dealing with a fallout from a massive leak after 2,500 pages of documents from inside its search division were shared by SEO experts. The documents detail the data that Google collects from websites and users. They offer an unprecedented look at the search process and how content is ranked. Google is

saying, of course, that these are out of context. The documents suggest that Google might have misled the public in terms of ranking content. It denied in the past that users' clicks play a role in ranking websites, but leaked documents indicate otherwise. They're saying, actually, it's not what it says. It's not the best thing. At the same time, it has an AI problem on its hands. Speaking of the current days, that's its old business. The company is scaling back on the new AI overviews feature, the one that put some wildly incorrect AI-generated answers at the top of search results.

Some are correct, let's be fair. Some of the major reported errors included users being told to put glue on pizza. That was the famous one on a claim that John F. Kennedy graduated from college in 1993. Wow, there's a lot going on at Google. They're going to disable the misleading advice, limiting the answers from some sites.

They had a similar problem with their image tool, if you remember. It was too woke, whatever. You know, these things work themselves out. My issue with these companies is, away from the leaked documents, is they're always beta testing on users without putting out products that are fully baked. That's always been my experience with Silicon Valley. I don't think this is a good look for Google. It makes it look like they're not competitive with Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta. Thoughts? Well, I'll turn it back to you. And my only observation, because I think you know more about this than I do, my only observation is that it feels from observations of a bystander that Google got

caught flat-footed and their investors and the entire world said, let me get this. It was invented here and everyone's making trillions but us. And I think that the ultimate like hurry up and catch up, like you better hurry up has resulted in kind of a ready fire aim mentality that's haunting them a little bit because I think they feel real pressure to catch up. They do. People internally have told me this, but go ahead. I just can't imagine that QA hasn't been a little bit more promiscuous here, because they need to show their investors that they are catching up. But you know this so much better than I do. I know nothing about this. Well, you know, these leaks, these search leaks,

is Google has always sort of been such a performative company in terms of, we're the better people. We're the, you know, don't be evil. They always had that nonsense when you knew, you know, they were doing all kinds of stuff behind the scenes that weren't in line with what they said they were doing. This search leak is interesting, and it's an important and big deal that they had been sort of doing search in a different way. Now, again, it's only 2,500 pages. They're older, some of them. The fact that they were doing whether user clicks played a role in ranking websites, they had insisted they were giving you the best things versus what was most popular, as I recall. I'm not sure if the leak is that damaging, but it does suggest that they weren't being fully honest with people, which is, I think, a disease of all these companies, completely a disease of all these companies.

I'm not so much focused on that, although it is interesting. But you're right. They have been slow, slow, slow. And I think a lot of people are complaining about CEO Sundar Pichai as being indecisive. I think that's been a take on him for many years now. And not being fast enough. And I, you know, I've had that experience when he when he they were very slow to cloud, I had lunch with him. I'm like, why exactly are you laying AWS dominate when you have much? This is your area, you know, and he was like, well, you know, he's a very considered person. And I think in this case,

they shouldn't be putting out products that that embarrassing because they're a worldwide, I mean, they're the most consumer facing of all these companies, more than Microsoft, Meta, I suppose. But they're the most consumer facing and they're known. What I thought was amazing is this is a company known for searching and getting you the answer you want by pointing you to the answer. Then they give you the answer and it's wrong. It ruins the brand in seconds, right? Isn't that their whole promise of being correct or being helpful? I don't know. From a brand perspective, I think it's disastrous. Yeah, but narratives have momentum and the momentum is against Sundar and Alphabet right now. They're seen as being disrupted in the classic case of the innovator's dilemma,

where they didn't want to challenge this billion-dollar tollbooth called search and let other people come around them and disrupt it. So the narrative is negative. And some of the things you were talking about, where he quote-unquote doesn't make decisions quickly, if the narrative was positive, everyone would be saying that he's a thoughtful, mature business leader that the world needs right now. Because if you look at the numbers, the actual numbers, the stock is up 37% in the last 12 months. I mean, the company continues to perform. It's touching. I think the stock is at an all-time high. It's outperformed even the S&P. I think, quite frankly, I think these stories are a little bit bullshit. I think they make for

clickbait. I think they're embarrassing. And you're right, it might impact the brand because the media picks up on it because they're funny and it's tabloid. But the reality is they continue to perform. This was my big tech stock pick for 2024. They have not given up any ground on search. Their cloud business is, you know, firing on all 12,000 cylinders. YouTube is the most dominant video platform among young people. And they are trying fast to catch up in AI. I don't, the narrative right now is bad and momentum is against them. But the data gets in the way of the narrative here. This company is performing really well. Yeah, that's a fair point. That's a fair point. I just don't think a thing like this leak comes out when they're under the Justice Department scrutiny. And this idea, it works well for the

people that are trying to slow them down, definitely for the Justice Department, right? It shows them, you know, saying one thing and doing another. I think it's someone, the guy who, one of the people who leaked this information, I think, or he had this information, where's this guy's name? Fishkin, I think is his name. Fishkin is a veteran search engine optimization industry, told The Verge. to the last part, which I thought was important. Journalists and publishers of information about SEO and Google search need to stop uncritically repeating Google's public statements and take a much harsher, more adversarial view of the search giant's representatives. When publications repeat Google's claims

as though they're a fact, they're helping Google spin a story that's only used for the company and not to practitioners, users, or public. The reason why that is important is because everybody, that is a black box nobody gets to see the inside of, and they're just starting to see it, right?

And that's, you know, it's not what they were told. Or did a lot of people get those sort of erroneous answers? I mean, how many consumers were actually exposed to that? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's just, I don't know. And in this case, this is about the leaked documents. I think it just, it's not a great public image for a company in the middle of a Justice Department thing.

So we'll see where it goes. But you're right, it's performing well. I do think there is a sense, though, from people who work there, and I ran into a bunch last week in Silicon Valley, of they're the slow-footed company right now. Even if they're, you know, it's like sort of being in the newspaper business in the salad days before everything went to hell. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Tesla shareholders are getting ready to vote on Elon's pay package. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot,

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and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month at Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Scott, we're back. Tesla shareholders are a vote on whether to reinstate Elon Musk's multi-billion dollar pay package in just over a week. Tesla has been busy rallying investors in a series of paid ads on Google and X. Elon's also offering a private tour of the Tesla factory to 15 shareholders who vote yes on the pay package. Oh, good heavens. Meanwhile, we should

absolutely buy shares to do that. Meanwhile, at least two advisory firms have urged shareholders to vote no, the big ones raising concerns about Elon's various side projects and saying the package would dilute shareholder value. How do you think this will shake out? Tesla is already firing back at one of these advisory firms, Glass Lewis, big firm, accusing the firm of scaremongering and faulty reasoning. Elon is referring to shareholders who vote against his pay package as oath breakers. OK, maybe they just like to make money, Elon. He also got accused of insider trading in a lawsuit filed by a Tesla shareholder last week. The suit claims he sold over $7.5 billion of shares in 2022 before Tesla announced some delivery expectations would

not be met. So what do you think? What do you think about this? I think the investor lawsuit is bullshit. The SEC is the one charged with bringing people up on insider trading charges. That's just a distraction. So just a little bit of background here. I have a lot of experience with ISS and Glass-Lewis. And what happens is the following. Corporate governance is supposed to mimic traditional democratic governance. And that is instead of one person, one vote, it's one share, one vote.

Instead of one person, one vote, it's one share, one vote. And then when they have big issues, such as whether there should be a merger or to reject pay package, whatever it might be, or certain conditions or operations of the company to divest from wherever, the shareholders get to show up on election day and vote for different resolutions. Now, because shareholders don't want to get cross-haired with management and or they own 400 different positions because they're a hedge fund. An industry emerged called advisory firms, where basically these firms, the two biggest, Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, ISS, their job is to look at these

issues and make a recommendation. That way, Vanguard or Fidelity or Schwab can say, management, this isn't a statement on you. We're just taking their recommendation. They have the time to do this. We want to outsource responsibility for this. When I was ran a proxy fight at Red Envelope and tried to sweep out the entire board, I flew to Washington, D.C. and said, this is my board. This is why they're better. This is why the current board sucks. And they put out a statement saying, Scott is crazy. He should not go back on the board. But he is one of his nominees. Bob Perkowitz should go on the board because the current board is not living up to its fiduciary duty, and most people vote that way. Why I believe this pay package will probably be refuted or turned down is because both ISS and Glass-Lewis

have said no. I've never seen something go through over the objections of both shareholder advisory companies. What's unusual here in their argument is that distinct of his pay package, he's already vested. And I go back to another experience. When I've been on the board, when I've been the CEO of a venture-backed company and I've stopped vesting shares and I've said, I want more, typically what I have heard back is, Scott, you own so much of this company, you're already vested. We don't need to give you more. You already are incented to do the right thing. And that's what they're saying here.

Right. So you think it might refute it. People do think, I know the chairman, what's her name, Robin Denholm, who's just such an enabler of Elon Musk, it's crazy, is pushing very hard. And this idea of oath breakers, it's just noise, correct? I mean, but he always does take things on that others haven't, right? So he loves this fight. The argument in favor of this

is that the headline number of 40 billion or whatever it is, is misleading. Because when they made the award, the stock was dramatically lower. And the award, because it was options, was worth dramatically less. And that, if someone showed up, was worth dramatically less. And that, if someone showed up, if Tim Cook said to Apple shareholders, I want a trillion dollars,

but I'm going to add 10 trillion in value over the next five years, the majority of shareholders would probably say, sure, have at it. That's the argument they'll make. That's not a $46 billion pay package. It's single billions based on the value of the options when the stock was much lower and he lived up to his end of the agreement. Now shareholders need to live up to theirs. However, I have never seen something go through that has both week about him getting political. Now we're hearing more about his plans. Axis is really teaming up with News Nation to host a live town hall with Donald Trump, as well as one with RFK Jr. The Biden campaign also invited a participant in a town hall or debate. They declined. They're obviously the tech stuff they tried with Don DeSantis. Hopefully, it'll work.

What do you think about these town halls? Do they matter? I don't know if they matter so much. I think most people will watch the CNN one because it's a debate, but for the most part, it's early and possibly noisy. I think the next few ones are going to be really interesting just to see how the public and media and how the candidate deals with a post-felon candidate. Is it a speed bump that he just rolls right over, or does it become this poltergeist that he can't shake? And I think we're going to get a sense for that in the next kind of town hall.

So I actually think this one's pretty important. Well, it'll be interesting to see how he behaves, because he did an interview with Fox, but they edited it quite heavily, apparently. So they edited out the crazy, I think, is what happened. And so he tends, if you saw that press conference, that was one wackadoo press conference. And I think he has a tendency to just spin in this really way, this really unusual way, which many people are used to, but it's also seems crazier than ever. And so it'll be interesting if it's unfettered, it could be fascinating, you know, if we see it. And there's some reporters, I assume Chris Cuomo will be part of it, for example, at News Nation. But, you know, it's good. As we've said over and over again, Elon Musk wanted to be a media mogul, and now he is one. This is what he likes, this influence peddling. And he likes all the like the bells and whistles of being a media company. And so he's behaving like that. I think it's probably good for Biden not to participate, but I'm not sure. Does it matter? If I were Biden, oh God, this is such a tough one. I think he should do. I'm not sure I would get on the stage with Trump. I just think he's so unpredictable,

so strange. The whole thing just makes me so fucking nervous. I personally just couldn't even watch it. I would just be like... I think maybe that's the night I take mushrooms for the first time, the debate night. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Eli Honig is CNN's chief legal analyst and a former federal and state prosecutor. He's also written a column for New York Magazine about the Trump verdict in which he says, victory is a great deodorant, but a guilty verdict doesn't make it all pure and right. What a nice metaphor.

Ellie, welcome. Good. Thank you for having me. It's great to be on the show. I'm fans of both ears. So this is- Thank you. We ran each other in the green room at CNN, I told Scott. And you were getting a lot

of buzz from this piece you did for New York Magazine. And you would think the prosecutors essentially contorted the law to get Trump. You say the DA's charges were, quote, obscure and nearly entirely unprecedented. And just to be clear, as you note in the piece, both DA Alvin Bragg and Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanch, are former colleagues of yours. So make your case here, because people were surprised. You tend to, Michael Cohen thinks you're contrarian for contrarian's sake, but talk about what you were saying here. So I think it's really important to draw a distinction here, and I do this in the piece, between the jury's verdict on the one hand, draw a distinction here, and I do this in the piece, between the jury's verdict on the one hand,

but the prosecutorial and to an extent judicial decision-making that led up to it on the other hand. I have no problem with the jury's verdict. I lead off the article by talking about how as a prosecutor, I was taught the jury's verdict is sacrosanct. That's not to say you can never disagree with the jury's verdict, but you have to respect it. And the way I look at this case is, given what the jury was given and the way they were given, this verdict is completely reasonable. It's within the very broad swath of criminal cases where reasonable fact finders could go either way. They're the ones in the courtroom. I have no qualm with what they did. In fact, you know, as I say in the piece, they deserve credit. They did a very tough job here, apparently very well. Now, my criticism is in the

way that Alvin Bragg, again, as you say, a former colleague and a friend of mine, brought this case, charged it, and prosecuted it, and to a lesser extent with the way the judge handled it. I guess I'll start with the sort of underlying parts that I have a problem with. One is that Alvin Bragg, when he was running for office, no pun intended, bragged about the fact that he would go after Trump. I mean, we've seen this repeatedly. Letitia James did the same thing. Other elected prosecutors in other areas have done the same. But Alvin at one point said during an interview during his campaign that he had stewed Donald Trump over 100 times, which is bizarre because Alvin's not a liar. That's not true, though. I have a problem generally with elected prosecutors running for office on the basis of vote for me and I will

get this specific person. I think that's broadly problematic. OK, I believe not uncommon, but go ahead. Not uncommon at all. Very common. The incentives are obvious, right? I have I believe Judge Marchand should have recused himself. We could argue about whether he had to. He got an ethics opinion saying he didn't have to. But I think have to and should have are different things. He gave me thirty five dollars. Yeah. A very silly, small amount that he gave to explicitly provide and explicitly resist Donald Trump. Act Blue, not charities, but, you know, movements. And the problem with that is, one, judges aren't allowed to give anything. It's clear under the judicial rules you're not allowed to donate anything to a political cause. And two, just think of the flip

side. What if a judge on one of the other Trump cases had given 35 bucks to MAGA forever, Donald Trump 2020 or 2024, resist Joe Biden, I think people would have a problem with that. Sure. I mean, right now, people think that Judge Eileen Cannon is going to get paid later, but go ahead. Maybe, maybe. But my point is, like, let's make it, there's 49 other judges in that courthouse who have

not donated. Recusal doesn't mean the case goes away. Recusal just means a judge with no issues handles it. I think Judge Marchand, by the way, and again, there's a nuance, I think he did a generally good job running this case, but I think he has a conflict of interest. Now, as to the charges themselves, you know, you will hear the DA's office and its flax. I don't mean that in a negative sense, but their spokespeople say, well, this kind of charges the bread and butter. It's what we do every day. you draw your definitional lines so broadly that they're meaningless. And the more salient point to me is this is the first time in U.S. history that we have seen state or in this case, county level prosecutors bring a charge that is based entirely or in some part on violation of federal campaign finance law.

And that wouldn't apply to only presidential candidates that apply to the hundreds or thousands of not hundreds of hundreds or thousands of people who've run for House and Senate seats over our history. Nobody's ever been charged in a state court with anything based on federal campaign finance crimes. So I think that's a problem. And I think it suggests, well, also, if you look at the way they charge this case, it's, as I argue in the article, it's not just unusual. It's unique to Donald Trump. It's bespoke. And let me just quickly run through the way they charge this case. It's a three-layer sandwich here.

Layer one is a falsification of business records, misdemeanor, which was expired under the statute of limitations. They added on top of that a New York state election law violation for using unlawful means, which is also a misdemeanor, which somehow you add two misdemeanors together and they become a felony under this alchemy of New York law. And then what were the unlawful means? They offered up three menu options, which they didn't even specify until very late in the trial, federal election law tax, which was never explained, and then falsification of business records again. So it's sort of

circular. It's a bizarre, unusual sort of tortured charge that they brought. So they still won. They still won. And the jurors bought it, whoever, however you want to put it. So I assume this is what Trump's lawyers will bring up in the appeals process, who you think will be successful. Yeah, I think the best argument they have is the one I just laid out, that you cannot take an area that's dedicated to federal enforcement, immigration as one example. And we have this going on in Texas right now. They're passing state laws about immigration. I've said those are doomed because that's a federal area for enforcement, not states.

Federal election law, I think, probably falls in the same category. So I think you have a problem constitutionally when you have states charging and enforcing it. The other appeal arguments I've heard people talk about don't strike me as winning arguments necessarily. They should have changed the venue out of Manhattan. While I believe the judge should have recused, I don't think that's going to get this case reversed. Admission of the salacious Stormy Daniels and other stuff, that's standard appeals fodder that will probably lose. And by the way, I don't think it's more likely than not that Trump wins his appeal. It's very hard for any defendant to win, but I think he's got a better

shot and a better argument than your average defendant. Nice to meet you, Ellie. So it doesn't mean you're wrong, but my sense is you're in the minority of legal scholars. The majority of scholarship I've read so far posts the decision is that the judge was very buttoned up and that most avenues of appeal look pretty scant. But anyway, that's not my question. My question is around sentencing. And my understanding is that about 90% of the time on this level of charge or conviction, there is not a prison sentence. At the same time, a big component of the judge's discretion around whether to imprison someone is the level of contrition, or in this case, just blatant, historic, singular, non-contrition, slandering people, refusing gag orders, mocking the judge. Just so you know, Ellie, I always manage to bring

everything back to me. I was on a board call a few months ago, and I remember saying to the CEO, I feel like you're begging us or daring us to fire you. And I feel as if Trump is daring the judge to sentence him to prison. How would you handicap the sentencing here? I put the sentencing at 50-50. I know it's not an exciting answer, but it's actually a little bit of an unusual answer. But it's not 90-10. You think he might get sentenced to prison.

I do, right? Because I've said on air, if you look at the universe of this statute, 50 of your New York class E felony falsification of business records, it's the lowest of five levels, A through E, somewhere in the range of 70 to 90% of people convicted of that get no jail time probation. But for exactly the reasons you say, Scott, I think not only the judge is 50-50 likely to give him prison time, but would be justified in it. I think what you've articulated is exactly what the prosecutors will ask for. I'm actually really interested to see what does the DA ask for? Because they've got to make the first move here. They're going to have to say, judge, here's what we want. Now, he may or may not agree, but I think the DA will ask for

prison time. I think it's hard to justify bringing this case. And then as a prosecutor saying to the judge, very serious case, DA's argues it impacted the 2016 election and we're fine with probation. Sentencing is entirely up to the judge. This one strikes me as a real close call. And Scott, just to your first point, just to be clear, I agree. I don't think that the judge did anything that strikes me as reversible on appeal aside from the federal state campaign issue. And again, I think Judge Breshawn did a good job overseeing and running this case. But being conflicted is not the same thing as whether you're a good or bad, effective or ineffective judge. So I don't know that there's that much disagreeing. And there was the issues of his daughter, which I think is sort of nonsense. Yeah, I don't care about that. I agree. Yeah, most people don't because most people can point to work they did. But explain where the appeals process is going now and what Trump is doing to affect it. Because he obviously uses social media really heavily.

He had the whole crew, his little crew out yelling about it and saying it's the worst travesty of justice in the history of the world kind of stuff. Is that effective on these appeals, judges? Is this correct? Five women of color? Is that correct? So all of the things that Donald Trump has been saying before, during and after this trial up to now are counterproductive and self-destructive. And if I was his lawyer, I would be begging him to stop it. It will hurt him on sentencing for the reasons Scott just laid out. It will hurt him when it comes to appeal.

Potentially, if you say things that that are inconsistent with what you're arguing, what you've argued before, that can be used against you. No judge in the world, I think no decent good faith judge will be remotely persuaded in favor of any litigant who's out there making inflammatory statements. Okay. How is the appeal going to work? Unfortunately for Speaker Mike Johnson, there's no such thing as the Supreme Court, quote unquote, stepping in as he has urged them to do. Trump did today, right? Trump asked for them to step in. Yeah. They can't reach down and just pluck out whatever case they want. They don't do that. They can't do that. Here's what's going to happen as you allude to, Cara. The next layer of appeals, so we're in New York State Court here, we're not in federal court, is going to be to the New York Appellate Division. And to your question about the five circuit, more or less. Five or more of them are Black or Hispanic women,

but we don't know who of them, who of the 21 are going to be put on this panel. Typically, it's five. Typically, they are chosen at random. 20 of the 21, I should note, were appointed by Democratic governors. I mean, New York State has had since Pataki, I guess, almost all Democratic governors. That picture that's been going around, I think, is is making the point that there are a good number of minority female judges. But that's not to say they will be. By the way, they'll do a good job. I think the point was this is someone he's been hostile to. Yeah, yeah, sure. And then if let's assume Trump loses there and I think he's likely to lose there, you know, he's not over 50% to win there, then he can ask the highest court in New York City, New York State, excuse me, which

confusingly is called the Court of Appeals. They call their trial court, the Supreme Court, whatever. The top court in New York State, he can ask them to take the case. And like our U.S. Supreme Court, they don't have to, but they might. Seven judges sit on that, all of whom were appointed by Democratic governors, though it's a little more of a complex process. And look, they just threw out the Harvey Weinstein case, so they will surprise. Again, I don't think they're particularly likely to throw this case out. But when Trump is done with the whole state-level appeals process, wherever that ends, only then, and we're talking a year and change out from now,

only then can he ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case. And by the way, the U.S. Supreme Court can and should, well, historically, they only take a case if there's a federal interest in it. So if it's like, well, we should have moved the case from Manhattan to Staten Island, that's not a federal question. That's why I'm focused on the federal state election issue. There certainly is a federal issue there. So we're a long ways away from this being done. And he would have to go to jail if they get immediately. Right. So very important point. His sentencing is currently scheduled for July 11th. If the judge sentences him to prison, Trump will certainly ask for and I think is 95

percent likely to get what we call bail pending appeal, meaning you get to stay out of prison or you don't have to start serving your sentence, whatever it may be, until all of your appeals are done, which is why, in my view, there's no way he's locked up before the 2024 election. But, yeah, he will likely if he's sentenced to prison or whatever he's sentenced to, he will almost certainly be given bail pending appeal. And then if the Supreme Court loses, he loses there, he loses everywhere. He goes to jail if he's president. Well, so there's the other X factor. Does he win the election? Obviously, if he loses the election, sure, he goes to jail. Right. If he wins, you know, that is in an area that we've never had to confront yet another of the hypotheticals Donald Trump makes come to life. My unsophisticated constitutional view is it just can't be. It just can't be that our system would permit the commander in chief to be locked up at Rikers or in a state penitentiary. How that is executed, how that decision comes down, whether it's from the state saying we aren't going to try to lock up the sitting president or the federal court somehow getting involved. I don't I can't tell you, but I just can't see as

a practical matter a scenario where the sitting president, the sitting commander in chief is behind bars. So I have two more questions. Do you think it has an effect on the election? Is this helpful to him? But, you know, these legal antics are things he's known for. He tried it in the E. Jean Carroll case. It didn't work. He tried it in the New York State case. It didn't work. He keeps losing legally. Talk a little bit about that and what impact that has, because he obviously raises money on these things. He's raised unprecedented amounts of money and become the victim, using victimization as a tool here. He's pretty good at using victimization as a tool politically, I'm saying. And you're right, Cara,

to note that Trump has now been hit with three or four really, you know, serious verdicts in a row between the civil cases you just mentioned. This is a big deal. Like, I don't want to downplay this. I don't intend to downplay this. When a former president

is convicted of a felony, that's a huge deal. And I'll leave it to you all to sort of decide where the political angles sit. But, you know, the big one thing that I do think is happening here is we all collectively have paid so much attention to this case, rightly, but hasn't it really obscured and almost pushed to the back burner, the January 6th cases, the classified documents case, which to me are so much more important. And, you know, the concern I think

that people have, a legitimate concern is, given what I argue, and I think a good amount of people I've heard from, seen and heard from a lot of people across the spectrum who agree with my criticisms of the way this case was brought, in a way it undermines the seriousness and the integrity of the bigger cases that are to come. And let me say, Alvin Bragg at least has recognized that his case is less important than those because there was a moment when it looked like they were all going to collide on the calendar. And Alvin said publicly,

if I'm at the same time as those federal cases, I will step back. And I think that was the right move. So I would be worried in the bigger sense that the questions, I believe legitimate questions about this case, the way it was charged, could undermine, could lend fuel to Trump's largely bogus claims of victimization. Right. So, but still, those are moving at a glacial pace. Scott, last question. on CNN and you understand how the media responds, the doomsday or the really terrible outcome I

think a lot of us were worried about was that he gets convicted and it helps him be elected president. So far, and granted, it's sort of the morning after, but I think we're all sort of really wondering what impact this has. Do you have any sense for at least how the media is shaping a narrative around this? Do you think this is going to negative, neutral, or actually... None of us want to admit this. This could end up being... There's a non-zero probability this could end up being a positive in terms of his chances of being elected. What do you sense so far? The same rational, maybe former prosecutor part of me thinks the most obvious answer is how could it possibly be a good thing to be a convicted felon, right? And even if it peels away 1.2% of his support-

It's as if a game show host was elected president. Right, right. I mean, couldn't that be, wouldn't that be decisive if he lost 1% of the populace net because of this? On the other hand, Scott, you're right. There is polling showing that it could actually have the opposite effect. I do want to flag to your point in looking ahead. The sentencing is going to be so interesting because you know what Donald Trump's going to say either way, right? Think about it. All right. July 11th, he's got the convention in four days. Even if it gets pushed out a little bit, he'll be in the heart. All right. If he gets sentenced to prison by Judge Marchand, you know what he'll do. He'll stand up and go, folks, this is no longer hypothetical.

They want to put me in a cage. If he does not get sentenced to prison, you know what he's going to say, right? He's going to go, what a joke, folks. Oh, the DA brings this big case, first ever. And even the judge, even the Democratic donor judge, thought that it was so petty that he gave me probation and pick up garbage in the park. So he's already angled. The sentencing, I think, is going to be politically charged either way.

He's, he's, he's you, you both know as well as I do, he's so good at building in these defenses, making himself what, what my mom used to call perfectly defended. She would say, you don't be perfectly defended.

Like you're fine either way. And, and he's going to manipulate those. And, and, and you became a lawyer. What a shocker. Your mom said, don't be perfectly defended. Well, listen, can I defend my mom? Is your mom a lawyer? Let me defend my mom. She's a social worker. She used to place

poor kids for adoption, but my dad's a lawyer. Okay. All right. Can I ask you one last question? If you were his lawyer right now, what would you advise him to do? Because he obviously does control most of these proceedings. And Todd Blanch was trying his best, much more appealing when he wasn't sitting next to Trump on TV, I was noticing. But what would you do now as a lawyer for him? I mean, my first piece of advice to him is the same as it would always be, which he would not listen to, which is shut the blank up. I mean, there is no good to be done to this. But how do you tell

how does Donald Trump listen to that? I mean, and you're right, Karen, Donald Trump, by all appearances and given the reporting, really undermined his own defense at this trial. All the things that were reported that he made Todd do focus on Stormy Daniels and argue. Say I didn't never happen. Never completely counterproductive in a tactical setting. I would beg of him, shut up. Let me do this appeal. Let me focus on the actual appeal issues we have a chance on, not the issues that are

up your butt and worrying you and keeping you up at night. Those aren't the ones that are going to give us a chance on appeal. And look, the right strategy with the other cases, exactly as you said, exactly what he's been doing, just raise every argument, try to push them out past the election. Two of the three are gone already. I mean, the Fulton County case is not going to happen before the election. The classified documents case is not. Just one more thing for everyone to watch.

The moment, the biggest moment of this summer will be when we hear from the U.S. Supreme Court, probably end of June, end of June-ish, on the immunity case. Because if this, look, I don't think Trump's going to ultimately prevail on immunity. I think the Supreme Court may well say there is such thing as criminal immunity. We actually don't know. And here are the parameters. Ultimately, Trump's obviously got to be outside whatever the parameters are. It's not part of the job. If the Supreme Court cleanly rejects immunity and says, you lose, Trump, that's it. It'll go back to Judge Chutkan. And I am as

certain as I've ever been. She will put a trial on the calendar for August, September into October. I don't think she cares about the election. We can argue about whether she should or not. We will see that case happening in this scenario and it will be playing out September, October. We will see that case happening in this scenario, and it will be playing out September, October. But if the Supreme Court says there is such thing as immunity, it's the first time, here's the parameters, and back to Judge Chutkin, you have to hold a hearing and do fact-finding and tell us whether he's inside or outside the scope. Then it gets appealed up the line again, then it's gone until after the election. That's the most important thing to watch. All right. Oh, well, good to know. All right. We will be watching that. And it's the full,

I called it, I told it to Ellie, it's the full lawyer employment with Donald Trump. So it really is. You guys, there's lawyers crawling all over CNN, Scott. It's like crazy. And they're all like duking it out. They're all like, no, Norm Eisen, what are you talking about, Ellie? That's a pretty good norm. Yeah, yeah. What are you talking about? Anyway, I urge you to read the column at New York Magazine. You do it regularly. You do legal columns regularly for them. Every Friday for New York Magazine.

Every Friday, which is great. All right, Ellie Honig, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you both. Nice to meet you, Ellie. Appreciate it. One more quick break, and we'll be back for Wins and Fails. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Would you like to go first today? You go first, Carol. What do you got? I think my, it's a win fail. Well, no, it's a fail. This Trump, tech investors doing this Trump fundraiser, tech has gotten very, very right wing. There is pushback from people like Reid Hoffman and others, but the real momentum is on the side of sort of the Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sachs who are doing this fundraiser. Polly Hapatia was a former Democratic donor who then, we've talked about him a number of times in not a nice way, but one of the things that I liked was a piece by a guy named Paul Carr, who's a very good writer, was around for the tech thing. And I like it so much. He's

not a fan of Kara Swisher's, but that's okay. He wrote a great piece about this fundraiser. And he wrote this one section, I'm just going to read it. The optics of the fundraiser are already particularly challenging for Sachs. Longtime tech followers might recall that the Yammer founder has spent years trying to distance himself from a book he published in college with his pal Peter Thiel, in which he described date rape as, quote, belated regret. In 2016, Sachs explained to who else, Kara Swisher, that the outcry was all just a big misunderstanding. The book, quote, does not represent who I am or what I believe today, Sachs insisted. I'm embarrassed by some of my former views and regret writing them, because nothing says I no longer defend rapists like hosting a half-million-dollar

fundraiser for Donald Trump. I love that writing. Good job, Paul Carr. I gotta say that was exactly right. It's sort of shocking. And that I suppose that was my positive because I like this piece. And I think you should everybody should go read it. My negative is the you know, the continued swirl around media companies. It is getting sad to me. You know. I know you said I'm not paying attention, but there's some amazing work that The Washington Post did under Sally Busby, and she deserves full credit for that work. They won people's prizes. And that's not just the reason you should do it, but really good, especially feature work and some really deep

work about what's going on in our country, which I've really enjoyed. And so it's sad to see, you know, what's happening at Paramount and The Post and stuff like that. And I wish they would come up with a way to figure out how to make it work because their product remains excellent in many forms, especially in the news section, which she ran. So that's it. All right. I'll start with my fail. My fail is, I don't know if it's an inability to come to some sort of resolution or that we no longer want to rally around a truth, but because every day everybody has a need

for some reason to put their views out on everything, and because you go on your friend's Facebook or Instagram and we have such an intolerance that if they don't line up perfectly for my orthodoxy, that's it, one strike, you're out. We don't like them. And I remember back to, I remember when I first moved to New York and I was dating, I don't think of all the women I dated,

I could even tell you what their politics were. We didn't, it was sort of like a more innocent time where is this person fun? Is this person nice? Am I attracted to this person? And it feels like the politicization and these issues

that everyone feels the need to vomit all over every platform they're on. It's just further and further dividing us. And one of the outputs of that is that

we refuse to have any sort of resolution or refuse to have any sort of resolution or come together around any sort of truth and or acknowledge that at some point there has to be a decision model where we agree to come together around a decision. So I saw a lot of stuff around the deep state around this trial. And what people need to remember is that this wasn't Alvin Bragg, it wasn't the DOJ. It was 12 jurors who gave up time with family, who, if based on the demographics of New York, were probably seven Democrats and five Republicans, who have to unanimously decide on all 34 counts. I thought this was a shitty case.

I didn't like it. But the closest we have to some sort of resolution that we're supposed to all come together around are juries and science. And I'll use a personal example. When I first heard about gender affirmation therapy, I thought that makes no sense. Kids are stupid and they shouldn't be trusted with this type of irreversible decision. And then the American Pediatric Association, which is filled with people who know more about this than I do, have much deeper domain expertise, do tons of peer-reviewed research,

said that with the following protocols, we approve this. And I say, okay, if people have taken more time to examine the issue, have a different view than mine, I'm going to defer to their decision. And there's absolutely no deference anymore. There's no respect for institutions. There's no respect for domain expertise. I think part of living in a society and part of being a

thread in that fabric is that you have to, at some point, have deference to the institutions and people who have the credibility and have been earned with the charge to make these decisions. And there's a total lack of deference in our society now. No one wants to come together. It used to be in Congress, when the numbers came in, you would compliment the president on a good quarter of GDP. It used to be when the unemployment numbers came in, everybody waited and said, okay, this is working or not working. And instead, there is nothing that anyone defers to anymore. So anyways, a total loss of deference across people who have just seemed to just never want

to say, okay, people have taken the time, know more about this than me have weighed in so i'm going to defer to their decision my win is a straight uh not a strange one but just um uh personal privilege here my ex-wife's father ken spencer passed away at the age of 95 he was born on a farm farm in kansas uh he worked on the farm joined joined the Air Force. After four years of service, he attended college on the GI Bill, graduating from Kansas State, or he graduated electrical engineering. He married Barbara Coulter, my former mother-in-law. They were together 67 years. Joined Lockheed in aerospace as an electrical engineer. He worked on the L-1011. He worked on submarines, the P-38. He spent the last 20 years of his career focusing on the L-1011. He used to have models of the L-1011 in his house. But this guy was literally ground zero for what it means to be an American. He was a Cub Scout leader, an Indian guide chief. He had an interest and a passion in the American West history and art. He was a docent at the William S. Hart Mansion. He was on the board at the local park. He was a trustee at Santa Clarita United Methodist Church. This guy just reeked of America. And he had a really wonderful life, married for 67 years, four kids.

Anyways, Ken Spencer, really a great American life. Oh, Scott, tearing up. That was lovely. That was lovely. Such a nice man. I mean, it's really a shame. One of the terrible things, one of the many terrible things about divorce is you lose touch with a really nice family. Anyways, my heart goes out to the Spencer family. Oh, that's very lovely, Scott. That's lovely. I like experts. Speaking of expertise, by the way, I defer to you on penis jokes, just so you know. There you go. I appreciate that. We're going to do that.

We're going to do that. What is long and hard and has semen in it? What is long and hard and has semen in it? I don't know. A submarine. A submarine. Oh, God. That's good.

That's bad. That's good. All right. I think that means it's time for me to read us out. No, not yet. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your minds. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Some programming notes coming up on our other podcast. Scott talks to Jess Tarloff. I can't believe she gets to go on your, she's not allowed on my podcast. I love it. Do you know that? She's not allowed. I have access to something you don't have access to.

You do. They will not let me, the Fox News people. By the way, happy wedding for Mervyn Murdoch. Number five. You got it, sir. You got it.

Anyway, good luck, sir. I'm sure this time it'll work out. Anyway, Jess Tarloff talks about the Trump verdict on a special episode of Prof G dropping later today. And on with Kara Swisher. I'm talking to AOC later this week. out. Anyway, Jess Tarleth talks about the Trump verdict on a special episode of Prof G dropping later today. And on with Kara Swisher. I'm talking to AOC later this week. So that'll be up. You got AOC? Yeah, I did. I love AOC. I know. Oh, my God. I've got such a crush on her. Yeah.

Okay. In any case, I will be also at the Tribeca Film Festival next week, June 11th, also at the Tribeca Film Festival next week, June 11th, 5.30, for a taping of the Slate podcast, Death, Sex, and Money, with Anna Sale, who I love. You can get tickets at tribecafilm.com slash deathsexmoney. So please come and see me if you want, and we will be talking about death, sex, and money. Mostly, I will be recycling Scott jokes, hopefully, the whole time.

Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her dad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Saverio. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. 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. Kenneth Spencer, rest in peace.