Pivot - Musk Drug Use, Plagiarism Debates, & Disney's Family Feud

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

Kara and Scott are back with a lot to discuss! They start with the new Wall Street Journal piece on Elon Musk’s drug use, and get some medical expertise and insights from Kara's brother, Dr. Jeffrey Swisher. Then, they discuss the fallout from Harvard president Claudine Gay's resignation, and Bill Ackman's wife facing plagiarism charges. Plus, Disney's family feud between ESPN and Jimmy Kimmel, a possible Warner Bros/Paramount merger on the horizon, and more. Follow Jeff at @jeffreyswisher 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 it's 2024.

We have so much to catch up on. We're coming to you a little early this week. That's right, Kara. Welcome back. Thank you. 2024, New Year's. New Year's Eve. I found this.

I was at a party, and I saw this ridiculously hot woman. Okay. So I went up to her, and I said, what's your New Year's resolution? Oh, no. And she said, fuck you. So I think it's going to be a great year. Oh, my God. Oh, God.

There you go. How was your holiday, your whole holiday? How was it? It was really nice. I just got back from an Arsenal-Liverpool game where Arsenal went down 2-0. But my son's a Tottenham fan, and I guess Tottenham hates Arsenal. So I guess it was sort of a victory. We were in Florida for a couple weeks, which was lovely. I taught my kid, or sort of taught my kid how to drive, which was both gratifying and horrifying at the same time.

Kind of like sex with my first wife. Kind of like sex with my first wife, anyways. So, is he good? Is he a good driver? He's surprisingly, it's one of those things, I don't know if you, I remember thinking when I had kids, I remember thinking when my girlfriend was pregnant, her water will never actually break. I never actually thought it would happen. Oh. And I could never imagine my dog ever being house trained. I could just never imagine it. And I couldn't imagine that

my son would ever be able to drive for some reason. And he can drive. And here he is. You know, I have to say, I'll get to my holiday. Louie drove a lot during the holidays. We were in California for most of it. And we drove all over the place. We drove up to Napa. We got oysters. We did all kinds. All four kids were there. We did a photo shoot of the family. In the Bay Area. Yeah, in the Bay Area. It was great. We stayed at kids were there. We did a photo shoot of the family. In the Bay Area? Yeah, in the Bay Area. It was great.

We stayed at my house there, and we had a great time. We had much wine, oysters, driving around Chinatown. You were there for two weeks? At least. I think it was more than two weeks. And then we had a lovely Christmas at my brother Jeff's house. And Louie and he cooked seven fishes. And it was lovely being in California, and we had a great time with the whole gang.

And we did all kinds of things. It was very family focused. My New Year's resolution is to be more assertive, but only if you think it's okay. Oh, okay. All right. Anyway, but one question is, how much did you miss me? I missed working. Okay, that's not what I asked.

Yeah, I always enjoy seeing you. Yeah. And I'm antsy to get back to work. Do you ever feel like you had too much vacation? Yeah, I didn't get much vacation because there's a lot of logistics with all those kids. But yes, I do. I want to get going. We got things to say because guess what?

Even though it's 2024, some things have not changed from last year and the year before. Today, we'll talk about fallout from Harvard President Claudine Gay's resignation, the New York Times suing OpenAI and Microsoft, and a possible Warner Brothers Paramount merger. But obviously, our first big story. A Wall Street Journal piece. It's a new piece that came out last night. Elon Musk has used illegal drugs, worrying leaders at Tesla and SpaceX.

The article cites people close to Musk who say his drug use is ongoing. That includes board members and one name specifically, but it looks like they were all talking, particularly the ketamine. And there are concerns it could cause a health crisis or damage the business. Musk has a lot of business with the government and he's already, I don't know if he was sanctioned, but he had to do drug tests after he smoked weed on Joe Rogan. This is seemingly more serious. And it's interesting that, you know, this has been around, we've talked about it. Ronan Farrow wrote about it, like lots of people have cited this issue, not so much in Walter Isaacson's book, which it should have had more about it. But it's, it's sort of an open

secret about this. And the Wall Street Journal, obviously, has lawyered up to be able to say this. In a minute, we're going to bring on my brother, Jeff Swisher, to help us talk through this one. Just first reaction, Scott, and then I'll bring on Jeff. Look, we talk a lot about substances. The majority of people, I believe, who use substances manage them. And I'm not an anti-substance person, but along those same lines, there's just no free lunch. And I remember when I saw Arsenio Hall had Eddie Murphy on, and this is the 80s and I was in college, and Eddie Murphy came on Star Talk, and I'd done enough substances myself to be able to recognize him. I'm like, Eddie Murphy's fucked up. And when I saw Elon Musk in that interview at the Times deal book, I'm like,

he's fucked up. And it all comes back to one saying, what I tell young people around their use of substances is there's just no free lunch. And what I have, and I'll stop here, but the thing that really struck me was when I was in Aspen this summer, I was alone, and I was bored, and a friend said, I have a bunch of friends there, and we all went to dinner, like 12 of us, a bunch of total players in technology and private equity, and we went to this lounge, and I said, what can I get everyone? I'm headed to the bar. And they said, and this guy goes, they all kind of nodded or laughed and said, we're all on ketamine. And I thought, oh, my God, everybody? Yeah.

It was interesting because, you know, this was the holiday season this came out where he has some time off. I had heard rumors. There was rumors running around Silicon Valley that they had him in Hawaii last year. Same thing. And obviously, he's talked about it. Let's be clear. He's talked about his use of ketamine. He's talked about his mental health issues.

Obviously, he smoked weed on Joe Rogan. And nothing wrong with that, except he has government contracts, which is a big problem. And I think away from his own health, which makes you worry, because there's been history of a lot of tech people like this getting into real trouble, like Tony Hsieh. And, you know, I think it's been an ongoing discussion among and between people in Silicon Valley. And this one example in the piece was him being incomprehensible during a SpaceX meeting. And I think you're right, that interview, I looked at it and I thought, what, he's on something. I mean, I don't have any reported knowledge of it, but it really was such a bizarre interview. It seemed either mental health or something

else was happening. I want to play a clip of a prediction Scott made about ketamine last September. Let's listen. I don't think you can use something, an external substance, and you would argue, that's when use becomes abuse. But I think you're going to find, I think when the biography of this cohort is written, I think a lot of this behavior and a lot of this weirdness, we're going to start to hear the word ketamine. Yeah, Scott got that right. Anyway, we're not experts, so we're bringing on my brother, Dr. Jeffrey Swisher, to help us talk through this one. Jeff, come on. Hey, Kara, how you doing? He's in the house. By the way, whose idea was it to bring on the good doctor? It was not my idea. It was your idea, but it's a good idea. Thank you, Scott. And it's good to see you when it's not Scott Free August. And it's fantastic. You look great.

I do, Kara, I do have unfortunately one Scott joke for you. So Scott, a Scotsman goes to the doctor's office, right? And he goes into the doctor and he lifts up his kilt and he says, Doctor, I don't know. I think I'm going crazy. And the doctor says, I don't know about crazy, but I can sure see you're nuts. Oh, my God. O is like, O is like Swisher. Oh, my God.

All right. Are you on ketamine, Jeff? Because that's what it sounds like. No, you're not a ketamine user. Explain. You use ketamine in your job. Let me talk to you a little bit about ketamine. So ketamine is what's known as a dissociative anesthetic, and that's really important to understand what it does.

It dissociates you from essentially reality. It was first synthesized in 1962, the year you were born, Cara. And it was FDA approved in around 1970 for use in anesthesia. And I use it really pretty much on a daily basis. It's a very, very useful anesthetic. And in fact, the World Health Organization lists it as one of the invaluable drugs in the world. It's a very, very useful anesthetic. And in fact, the World Health Organization lists it as one of the invaluable drugs in the world. It's really good because it has a lot of beneficial effects from an anesthetic standpoint. It's not a respiratory depressant in usual doses. It's not a cardiac depressant. In fact, it slightly increases blood pressure and heart rate, and it doesn't blunt airway reflexes. So it can be used in a pre-hospital setting, let's say in the emergency room to sedate children.

I use it as an adjunct anesthetic. I use it because it helps decrease the amount of opiates I use in the operating room. I use it for procedural sedation. If I'm going to be doing something painful, let's say a regional anesthetic block of the upper extremity, I will give somebody, you know, 30 or 40 milligrams of ketamine, and it allows them to actually participate, but essentially not be there. So they feel calmer, right? What's the effect?

Yeah, actually, they do. They do, you know, depending on the person, they do sort of, you know, leave their body in a sense. In fact, some people describe a ketamine experience as similar to a near-death experience where they can actually see themselves, let's say, floating above their body. The best description of ketamine from a patient that I ever had was, he told me afterwards, he says, imagine that you're driving a car toward a beautiful sunset and the Grateful Dead is playing on the radio, and it's a fantastic, wonderful day with the breeze blowing through the window. Now, for a second, imagine that you're not driving the car, but you are the car, and you're driving. And all of a sudden, you're not driving the car.

You're a passenger in the car. And that's really a really great description of ketamine. People describe a feeling of melting. You've heard the expression K-hole. People sort of fall into this kind of warm molasses pit when they're on it. And it's a very pleasant experience for most people. Not everybody. Some people do get, you know, frightening dreams, et cetera, on it.

But for the most part, it's a great anesthetic. And it's very short-acting. Have you had that happen with surgery where they get dreams or anything? Oh, yeah, all the time. I mean, people describe, you know, one of the most common uses for it is when I'm doing, let's say, a little old lady with a hip fracture and it's very painful to put someone on their side to do a spinal anesthetic. So, I'll give them 10 or 20 milligrams of ketamine and they love it. I mean, they wake up afterwards and they say, that's the best experience I've ever had.

So it's a very euphoric drug, and I can understand why people would use it for recreational purposes, not that it's safe to do so. But talk about it in a recreational context, outside of the medical context, and that is, my understanding is, in contrast with alcohol or opiates, it's not physically addictive, but it can be psychologically addictive. Yeah, that's exactly right. What we were saying before is that tech bros or the tech community or just successful people in general

like to believe they've found a better blueberry or a better solar panel. Like their tech, their diet is better. And I have found the same thing is true here, that people feel that ketamine is a safer high. Talk about it in the context of addiction and recreational use. Sure.

So ketamine, A, it's widely available. It's very inexpensive to make, and therefore you can get it fairly easily on the street. It is a relatively safe drug in the sense that, as opposed to methamphetamine, which can be really dangerous if you have cardiac issues, et cetera, or cocaine. The problem is that, like any recreational drug, people tend to binge it. They like the feeling of it, and then they need to start upping their doses of ketamine. And, I mean, you know, the really unfortunate situation that happened recently is Matthew Perry.

And Matthew Perry was legitimately getting therapy with ketamine for depression. But the problem is he also was using it recreationally. And he also had other substances in his body on the coroner's report. He had buprenorphine. Yeah. So the piece quotes an attorney for Musk saying that he is, quote, regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test. But we don't know. Can you talk about, and the attorney said there are other false facts in the Wall Street Journal, but didn't have any details. So this is Alex Spiro, who's sort of Musk's lawyer front man. But what do you, how do you think about drug testing on this kind of thing? ways of testing for ketamine, the metabolites. It's metabolized by the liver, and there are several metabolites of ketamine which are detectable. It's cleared by the liver, but it's excreted in urine and feces. So you can certainly test for it. The problem is it's

a fairly short-acting medication, and it depends when you use it and what the levels are. Clearly, with Matthew Perry, for instance, they had it immediately because, you know, he wasn't metabolizing anymore after he died. But for people who are using it, you have to catch it fairly soon after they use it to detect it, which is one of the reasons, Scott, you mentioned that I think a lot of these tech bros and stuff are using it. But, you know, great caution because dosing is very important. The other thing about ketamine I want to mention is that it can be given via a variety of routes. So you can inject it intravenously, you can subcutaneously inject it, you can intramuscularly inject it, you can snort it, you can swallow it, you can put it up your behind if you want. There's a lot of ways of taking ketamine. And so it's very bioavailable, let's put it that way. Bioavailable?

Yeah, bioavailable. 100% intravenously down to about 50% if you take it orally. Or snorted, it's about 50% to 70%. How do most people, when you give it, you do it intravenously because you're in an operating? How do most people recreationally use it? When I give it, I give it intravenously and intramuscularly. It's a very useful drug. Let's say if you have a person with severe mental disorder who is combative prior to anesthesia and I want to start an IV,

I can give people intramuscular ketamine in that situation. And it takes a little bit, but then they'll sort of fall asleep. But usually I give it intravenously. But I'd say most people who are using it recreationally are probably snorting it. intravenously. But I'd say most people who are using it recreationally are probably snorting it. Snorting it. Okay. Let's talk about, Matthew Parrott, you were referencing, the coroner said he died from the acute effects of ketamine. He was on ketamine infusion therapy, as you noted. Talk a little bit about these therapies. There's a lot of people trying very hard to replace opiates and other things with ketamine and other psychedelics.

Is that problematic or is just the abuse problematic? I think it's the abuse that's problematic. I mean, ketamine for depression is an off-label use. I mean, and not that off-label uses are wrong. In fact, every day doctors use medications in an off-label manner. It just means it's not FDA approved for that indication. They actually did make what's called an enantiomer of ketamine called esketamine, which is a nasal spray, which was approved by the FDA, I think, in 2019.

It's called Spravato. And that was the indication for that is depression. And as I said, it's a mirror isomer of ketamine. It's the same drug, but the mirror isomer of it. But ketamine clinics have popped up like kudzu, you know, all over the place. And it's very, very expensive. I mean, thousands of dollars for a couple sessions of injecting. Now, keep in mind that the injection of ketamine in these clinics is a very small dose. It's typically a half a milligram per kilogram, so usually 30 to 40 milligrams infused over about a 40-minute period. That's not a lot. It's not a lot to get you super high.

A little dissociative, but not super high. When you're using it recreationally, you know, who knows how much people are using? You know, you can't really regulate your dosage. Right. Now, one thing Elon tweeted about ketamine last June, depression is overdiagnosed in the US, but for some people, it is really brain chemistry issues. He went on to say, quote, zombifying people with SSRIs for sure happens way too much from what I've seen with friends. Ketamine taken occasionally is a better option. Some of my best friends, Elon. So ketamine is in the class of drugs that are called NMDA antagonists. And there's a lot of very useful work that's being

done understanding NMDA antagonists in general for depression. And the research on it is, I wouldn't say it's definitive, but it's definitely statistically significant that ketamine definitely improves symptoms of both unipolar and bipolar depression in the short term. The question is, is it a lasting effect? That's hard to know. And I think that's ongoing research. And personally, I think, you know, Mr. Musk is correct in that sense. I mean, SSRIs are very different than ketamine. Still, though, ketamine is not a first-line therapy for depression. It's probably like a third-line therapy. Right. And they're trying to get it to be one for people with post-traumatic stress,

et cetera. Sure. Yeah. PTSD is a good indication for it. And I personally know people who've had ketamine therapy who swear by it, who say that it's really improved them. And so I do think that shutting down any kind of research on this, that's why I don't really like that Matthew Perry article or even this Wall Street Journal article, because it demonizes a very useful drug.

And ketamine is a very useful drug. I mean, similar to what happened with Michael Jackson and propofol. I mean, every day people tell me, you're not going to give me that propofol drug. It's like, yeah, basically, it's the most common anesthetic in the world. Yes, I'm going to give it to you. And by the way, it's amazing. Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing.

Whenever I've had a colonoscopy, I take that thing, and 30 minutes later, I mean, it's amazing. Yeah. No, it's literally probably the greatest invention in anesthesia in its history. But not for daily, nightly use. No, so that's the problem, is that using propofol in your living room by someone who did not admit. So it's not the drug that's the problem. It's the person giving it or the person taking it. Drugs are tools.

And if you use tools incorrectly, you know, if you use your skill saw, you can cut your hand off if you don't use it right. And the same thing with drugs. You've got to know what you're doing. And the widespread recreational use is going to cause problems. But my sense is more generally as it relates to drugs in our society. And I don't know if it's the far right or an attempt to use drugs as a tool to keep people of color down through incarceration and drug bill, whatever it might be.

But we have a tendency to go very black and white. Marijuana helps people sleep, helps people with anxiety, helps kids with glaucoma. But we just decided, oh, it was all bad. kids with glaucoma, but we just decided, oh, it was all bad. And it strikes me that no one wants to have a nuanced conversation around what is an appropriate use of a drug. And the fact that something like 85% of people who use alcohol and drugs are functioning, it's not impacting them in a terribly negative way. Having said that, alcohol is a menace and terrible for tens of millions of homes in America. But nobody wants to have really what I would describe as a thoughtful conversation.

They want to assign something is only used in a medical context. But when it's used outside of a medical context, it's immediately, it must be all negative and all bad. And we demonize it, criminalize it, and in my view, just make things much, much worse. Anyways, it wasn't a question it was a ted talk no i mean it's it's you're right the most commonly abused drug by far and away is alcohol and you know more people drown because they uh are you know drunk and you know doing stupid things in boats than than have ever been you know drowned by ketamine it was not even close right right but this creates a situation where they're trying to bring ketamine and other psychedelics into really good medical uses.

And then it gets, you know, either glamorized and demonized, both glamorized and demonized by people like Musk and others. Which is, you know, it's a cart before the horse because I think they will be using these. It's an intriguing drug, correct? Scott, what's the responsibility of a board member in this situation? It looks like several board members talked to her. Someone's worried. This is why I can't imagine the journal would move forward this, you know, Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch family would move without some level of assurance that they, and I have to tell you, discovery would be fascinating because I don't think, you know, the stories of Elon's wild party life are really quite out there all the time.

And they just are. They just are. The governance question here is complicated because supposedly there was a director who resigned over concerns of Musk. Because they weren't doing anything about it. Yeah. But I would argue he doesn't, and this goes to a broader issue here, I would argue that he doesn't have any governance. That it's family members and people who have made so much money because of his genius and his bold innovations that effectively they have no power. They're there to have dinner once every three months and collect a big check because his

behavior would not be tolerated across anything resembling what you would call a real board of governors who are supposed to represent fiduciaries. They just wouldn't allow it. So he doesn't have... The duty and care that is levied on fiduciaries in the form of boards of directors does not and has not applied to Elon Musk for a long, long time. The fact that he's still on Twitter, that would never be allowed of a CEO who had done what he has done. A CEO incorrectly accuses former employees of being pedophiles would never be allowed to be a CEO. He plays by a different set of standards and whether you think he should be allowed to or not, but it goes to a much broader issue. And I think the key

issue here and what I would describe as the learning or the takeaway for young people, and that is the most important thing you can have in your life is people who love you and serve as guardrails. And to have people idolize you is different than having people who love you. And I think the guy has a lot of the former and not a lot of the latter. And as someone who has participated in interventions, they don't invite powerful, important people to those interventions. They invite people who love you. And this is turning into a cautionary tale along the lines of Tony Hsieh, because you have a guy who, as far as I can tell, is living alone, doesn't have a close relationship with a romantic partner or his children, and is, quite frankly, just fucking off the rails. And if at the age of 52, you don't have people in your life who can

sit you down and you listen to because you know that it's not that they got rich because of you. It's not because they think you're just so fucking awesome and can land rockets on two surfboards. It's because they just full stop care about you. If you don't have that, especially men, you literally can lose it all. What happens with extended use of ketamine? If you use it a lot and there's no guardrails, as Scott says there should be, and I agree, what happens over time to your mental state? Or do we not know this? I guess we probably do, right? Well, yeah. I mean, there's some research on chronic long-term use of ketamine

effects on the liver and on the kidney. I mean, there are physiologic effects of it, which, you know, large, large-scale use of it can be toxic to your liver and kidney. Then what happens? Well, you could get, I mean, anything can damage your liver. I mean, there's so many, well, alcohol, number one, is the biggest. But so, the big problem, I think, with ketamine is the psychological, as Scott mentioned before, the psychological dependence on it. And it is a dissociative anesthetic. So, you're not going to behave normally if you're doing high doses of ketamine. It just will make you not functional as a human being. And then, Scott, Elon also has a lot of government contracts, which was mentioned in the journal article, as CEO and founder of SpaceX. And he's also the key man there.

Musk has a security clearance that gives him access to classified information. I think the journal was trying to pin, like, here's why we're writing this thing. I think the journal was trying to pin, like, here's why we're writing this thing. And obviously, the government has already and it can blow up, and he just puts another one up in a few weeks. NASA could never do that. NASA could never send projectiles into space to blow up. He is willing to take risks and has access to capital such that he can put together communications, low-orbit communications networks that the government, at least in this current infrastructure or current regulatory environment, isn't able to do. So he plays a really valuable role. And I don't want to be an apologist for the guy, but to think that he's going to be subject to anything

resembling the same standards as other contractors, you might find it unfair, and it is. There are so many things he would have lost all security clearances for that the government has made exceptions around. He just plays by a different set of rules. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but you could never see the head of the Forestry Service or the CIA go on a podcast smoking a joint. Yeah. That person wouldn't be allowed in the government building again. So, last question for each of you. Scott, how do you think Musk is going to react? I haven't seen anything yet. I have no ability to predict his actions, Cara. I just don't understand.

He'll threaten to sue them. Yeah, but I don't. That's his go-to. And I think all his fans will come to his defense and say that he's being persecuted and it's bad reporting. But I don't, you know, actually, when I read that, I felt bad because I have had some people in my life who have an addiction. And I find they slowly but surely, when you know you've lost them, is when they choose. I remember one of the interventions I was in, one of the most rattling moments I've

ever had. Everyone went around. Kid was addicted to heroin. Everyone around said their piece, said, I love you all. Your heart's in the right place. I know this is going to kill me. I choose heroin. I mean, no one knew what to say. So if he in fact is, I think he plays an important role. I don't like the man. I think he abuses his power. But as it relates to the government innovation, he does play an important role. And you just got to hope a guy with 11 or 12 kids like that gets help. And you also hope that the right way to react is if in fact he is struggling, that he's

open about his struggles and people can learn from it. Because I do think a lot of people are fighting these demons in quiet. And a guy like that, who is literally the idol of billions of people, you know, optimistically, you'd like to think he could play a key role in education about it. What he's actually going to do, I have no idea. You know him better than I do, Kara. I put it back to you. I think this article means a lot of people close to him are worried again, as they were last Christmas time, when there's a little downtime. And I think that's what it looked like to me when I was like, oh, I know who said that. You know what I mean? Like, I could guess. So, I think a lot of people are worried, and they're worried for a bad outcome in lots of ways, not just economically. And maybe

this was their way of talking to him. His tweets recently have been pretty unhinged or juvenile recently. They've not been, I'm spending some time thinking or anything like that. And so, Jeff, that's my last question. I know some of his doctors. If you were his doctor, what would you say to him if he were to listen? Well, I would say that any kind of polysubstance abuse is not necessarily in your best health interests. And clearly, you don't go around doing fairly powerful psychoactive medications and drive a car or fly a plane or buy multi-billion dollar social media companies. And I think that that's what I would tell him. It's just like the old adage, everything in moderation. I mean, one thing I just want to be clear that your listeners understand that ketamine is not a dangerous drug in the right hands.

But like any drug, it can be misused. And it's a very useful drug. And I would hate to see a drug like ketamine, which is so useful, being demonized, and there'll be government reaction against it, et cetera, et cetera. That would be the worst possible thing that could happen, because it is a very useful medication. But I would just tell him, you know, like, I mean, the same thing that would if somebody came in and they were showing signs of alcoholism, I would say, this is really bad for you. And this is why you just give him information. He clearly is a very smart man. And, you know, you try to

appeal to people's reason. Well, thank you for joining us, Jeff. Always helpful to have a doctor in the house and in the family. D-Swish. By the way, Jeff and I, I just finished my book. It's coming out in the end of February. And Jeff and I are going to be working on a book where we'll talk about things like ketamine and other things. It's about tech and healthcare. And so if we're doing it together, it's our next book.

Couple of years from now. The next, the Swisher Project. He's a beautiful writer, by the way. And I'm not good at medicine at all. So that's why we brought him in. Jeffrey, thank you so much. You're so welcome. Thanks, Jeff.

All right, you guys, take care. See you later. Bye. That was great, Scott. Isn't it nice to have Dr. Jeff? I'm a huge fan of Jeff. Yeah, he's a good man. When I had my hit show on CNN Plus, he was one of the first guests I had.

Oh, you did? I forgot. Out of five shows, I had two of the five guests had a last name Swisher. Or Swisher. Yeah, yeah. Let me just say, like, I know your dad wasn't very involved in your life because he tragically passed away early, and Lucky has her own set of issues, but someone did something right. And I've heard your second brother's a nice man, too. Yes, he is. He's lovely, and they're all great. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. We'll talk about repercussions

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sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim and we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why?

In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. I know you're dying to talk about this. You've been texting me quite a bit over the holidays over this. Harvard President Claudine Gay announced her resignation, as we predicted. Gay briefly survived that disastrous congressional hearing. It looked like she was okay, but following accusations of plagiarism that didn't stop,

the writing was on the wall, so to speak. After resigning, Gay wrote in a New York Times op-ed, quote, this was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society. It's probably true, but it was also a plagiarism issue. Conservative activist Chris Ruffo did say that's exactly what it was up to. One of the people taking credit for Gay's ouster, he posted on X, this is the beginning of the end for DEI in America's institutions. Definitely. It was a planned attack by the right, and it worked. Let me hear what you think about what happened.

My preference is for you to go first here. Oh, I see. Okay, you don't want to, like, step out on a limb or anything? I think you can be right about a couple of things, and we'll get to it. But, you know, Bill Ackman was another person who was really involved in sort of screaming about it on Twitter for a long time and had a lot of stuff where it felt like it was a hunt, which was disturbing. Of course, he's gotten a little slapback because his wife committed similar things to what Claudine Gay did. And a little worse, even with these Wikipedia lifts, which I think any eighth grader knows to paraphrase. Anyway, the whole thing is a mess online from

like everyone's hands are dirty, essentially. I think that because she was, there are total elements here of a black woman who rises to a level, and she has a very elite background, she absolutely does, I think went to Exeter and et cetera, et cetera, that you cannot fail. You do not get a pass like we just talked about with Elon. Elon gets pass after pass after pass. I don't think you get any pass. That said, if you're the head of Harvard, you kind Ackman's wife did. And I was like, I doubt it. I think if you're the head of Harvard and the scrutiny was there and it wasn't stopping, there was only so long that your supporters can hold on.

And I think she was pulled into a trap and not smart about it in Congress. And again, had she handled it a little differently, maybe she would have made it out, but I still doubt it. They were really, and I hate to use the word gunning, but they were gunning for her. And then tweeting things like Ackman A2, the woman who's running MIT, it's just grotesque, that sort of hunting thing. So what do you think? It's just grotesque, that sort of hunting thing. So what do you think? There's just so much here.

So first with the accusations of plagiarism, I see plagiarism as in an academic context, you're trying to, you're deliberately taking credit for someone else's ideas or insights. And I don't think that was either, I don't think that was neither her intention nor Neri Oxman's intention. This is the wife of Bill Ackman. I agree. Because I just don't, I don't think it's fair to call someone out for plagiarism in their PhD dissertation. What this was in both instances was what I would refer to as citation inaccuracy. It's sloppy. They should be reprimanded, maybe forced to take a class on journalism. But to go after them for this, it really is a witch hunt. And I do think that, just more broadly, I'm trying to come up with a word, whether it's Wellsian or time machining. But I think there has to be a statute of limitations

on non-criminal act. If you're running for president, that's one thing. But in both their instances, I found their quote unquote plagiarism, in my view, wouldn't elevate to, it's like that notion you take gestures with the intention they're given. I didn't find any of the instances.

They were trying to take credit for someone else's work. They were just very sloppy as academics. I don't think that's why she should have been fired. I do think she should be fired. I think that the ground has shifted beneath her. I think all this hand-wringing over her firing is a little bit dramatic. People get fired all the time. Is she a little bit dramatic. People get fired all the time. Is she a victim?

Maybe. But the handling of the situation was horrible, and I think warrants her being. And keep in mind, Bob Chapek didn't handle the situation around the homophobic activities of Governor DeSantis. He didn't handle it well. He was fired. He was let go. For a activities of Governor DeSantis. He didn't handle it well. He was fired. He was let go. For a number of reasons, but yes. Including not performing well and the former CEO wanted back. A lot of stuff there.

But he lost tens of millions of dollars and was escorted out of the building, basically. Keep in mind, these people aren't really fired, Cara. They just go back to their jobs as tenured professors in their departments. They just go back to their jobs as tenured professors in their departments. And also, I don't think this was—I think people are overplaying their hand when they say it's racist that she was fired. Yeah. It's interesting because she defended herself in the New York Times. I've been saying she never missed, as you said, misrepresented research. That is true in our claim credit.

There's a lot of pile-on going on, I have to say. blame credit. There's a lot of pile on going on, I have to say, over some, you've tweeted something like there was a shooting of kids or somewhere, and you're like, yes, let's focus on plagiarism by all means. We've had five mass shootings so far in 2024, and the media is obsessed with what is plagiarism and what isn't. Yeah, and the word plagiarism is a very heavy thing because some of it is quite minor. There's very few instances of major plagiarism. The Atlantic had an article headline, Claudine Gay's resignation was overdue, and it was just two sentences. Claudine Gay engaged in academic misconduct. Everything else about her case is irrelevant, including the silly claims of her right-wing opponents. So that was sort of a pox on all their houses, essentially.

And so I think that's one of the things. You can have these right-wingers with a very clear intent here. They can be right about something, and it's enough to pull her down, right? It certainly was enough to pull her down from the head of Harvard because it's such a big name institution. But what you said was that Harvard is an esteemed institution. They should have, quite frankly, you could argue they should have higher standards. And I think if I was on the board of the Hospital of Business at Berkeley and if we were going to look for a new dean, it would loosely be three key criteria, their ability to manage an organization. And by the way, that doesn't get enough heft, because these are big multi-billion dollar organizations with HR and operating budgets.

And you need to be able to, the second thing is you probably need to be great at fundraising. We don't like to admit that, but that has become the primary job of a chancellor or the head of a school. And they also need, ideally, ideally some academic heft because you can't fire faculty. This person has to get along with them and faculty wants someone that's one of their own and has real deep scholarship. She did not have that. She did not have that. Her academic heft was pretty light. But at the same time, if the board of governors, Harvard Presidents for whatever it's called,

they might have decided, and this is okay, we like her, we think she has real leadership potential, maybe she doesn't have academic heft, but she could be great. That's their right to do that. But Harvard can have it all. And also, it's not a national tragedy. I don't think it's racism that she was fired. She'd been given a lot of advantage and privilege. I think where this all heads in the more interesting conversation is this comes down to race and DEI and affirmative action. All right. So, I want to ask you about that because actually Mark Cuban's been doing a lot saying DEI is great for my companies and has been sort of taking on a lot of critics of DEI. People get really demented when you talk about it at all. I have to say, I had it on the Chris Wallace show this week and people lost

their frigging minds over it. But you've had some criticism of it, of course. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. The idea of focusing in on, I think Mark was the most persuasive way of arguing about why it's good for companies. And I would tend to be on his side of the coin. I think creating all these structures of DEI is a problem. But a lot of straight white men are incompetent and never got put to the test the way people of color and women often are. But several companies seem to be moving away from DEI-related job postings. And I know that's true

throughout tech, which was very aggressive in this area, with a 44% drop in mid-2023 compared to the previous year, according to data from Indeed. Where do you think this is going? Obviously, you've talked a lot about it in the academic setting, but what about business too? Oh, yeah. I think ESG and DEI, we've hit peak ESG and DEI. And you're going to see a lot of corporations use this as cloud cover to unravel the DEI roles and objectives and missions. And diversity among a board and a workforce is just generally smart behavior. One, you want a workforce that has some connection to your customer base. You don't want

groupthink. You want people with different backgrounds because when you all start barking up the same tree, you make stupid decisions. And having said that, in academia, we all began barking up the same tree. And that is we pursued DEI such that it ultimately ended up in a situation where I would argue the most systemic examples of racism in the last 40 years were under the banner of DEI, where there was shorthand for there's this group of rich white people called Israelis that are oppressors. And I think some of the most racist things that have happened in America have happened on campuses in the last several weeks. In addition— Sure, but you're sounding a little bit like Elon tweeted, something he thought was just

dumbheaded and not interested in solutions, which was, you know, DEI is racism. And I'm like, hmm. Well, let me go to a solution. And I've proposed the same solution before. And everyone has a tendency to paint all of academia with the same brush. There are 5,500 universities. The University of California did away with race-based affirmative action 26 years ago. 60 years ago, the academic gap between black and white was twice what it is or what it was between rich and poor. 60 years onward today, the academic gap between rich and poor is twice what it is between black and white. So affirmative action is important, but it should be based on income and adversity, not on race. Race-based affirmative action in DEI, in my view, causes more problems than it solves.

It started out with the right intention. We need it. We needed it. It needs to evolve. Affirmative action is a wonderful thing. And by the way, if the board had said, we like the idea of having a black woman as the president of Harvard, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think a lot of people went into the polling booth and said, it's time for a black president and voted for Obama. There's nothing wrong with that.

But when it gets to a point where you effectively have accidentally the snake starts eating its tail and people can accurately accuse you of racism on the other end, it's become a problem. It clearly has. Let me just read Mark Cuban. He just posted on this. So, he made a funny one about the Trump administration. And then he goes, let me show you what happens when you don't have DEI. And he listed all the terrible white men that work for Trump. But this is what he wrote, because I think he's been very thoughtful. Since this seems to be the most common response, let me address it. This is about whether, because like J.D. Vance and others, all of a sudden, why don't you put an Asian, short Asian lady on your basketball team? Which is like not even wanting to have a discussion.

They just want to be assholes. That's just looking for a fight. I know. He goes, DEA does not mean you don't hire on merit. Of course you hire based on merit. Diversity means you expand the possible pool of candidates as widely as you can. Once you have identified the candidates, you hire the person you believe is the best. What makes the whole, what about the players comment ridiculous is that it presumes that all positions are hired based on some quantitative rather than subjective version of merit. They aren't. Even choosing the best basketball player is very much a guess,

which is why the best players weren't always the first pick in the draft and sometimes go undrafted. The reality is most positions hired in a company don't have a quantitative metric you can use to hire someone. How do you pick the best barista, sales assistant, marketing, or salesperson? More often than not, it's an educated guess. So when a company like IBM says they want to add X percent more people of color or women or whatever group, they already know that the majority of positions they hire for don't have metrics for picking the best. As Elon Musk said, if merit for a job is

roughly the same, then the tiebreaker should be diversity of all kinds, which is exactly what well-managed companies choose to do. DEI also does, this is long, but I'm going to read it because it's good. It's almost done. DEI also does not mean you can't fire someone if you made a mistake. Of course you can. I'm a big believer in hire slow, fire fast. If it's the wrong person, fire them. Finally, let me address the thought that I'm virtue signaling. virtue signal. I want people to challenge my positions. I want to have engaging discussions to help me learn. I think he is doing incredible, like very smart arguing with people who all they want to do is junk. And on that final thing, and kudos to him for doing so and going in there. I was there for four seconds and I had to get out right away because it was so nasty. Bill Ackman is now threatening to investigate Business Insider, saying, how dare you come after my wife and children when he himself has done it. His friend Elon,

who he wants to get in on a lot of investments with, certainly has attacked Paul Pelosi. And I do believe his wife, Neri Oxman, did a very good, she acknowledged improper quotes. I don't think she's addressed the Wikipedia stuff, but has promised to make corrections. She did that correctly and with great class, I thought. It looks like he's just aching for more war. And you have someone like Mark Cuban saying, let's figure this out. Let me tell you my experience. Where do you think this is going to go? We're both fans of Mark Cuban. He's the only business person I would like to see run for president. I think Mark Rowan at Penn has handled it well. He kind of got his trophy.

He got his head on the wall. He's gone quiet. Whereas Bill seems a little bit, I don't want to call it drunk on it, but Bill had the right as an alumni and someone who's given a lot of money to have his views heard. But also, when he pulls out the time machine, if he called for President Gates' resignation because of, in my opinion, incorrect and unfeeling comments and an inability to call to say that genocide was, in fact, qualified as harassment, then I think he's entirely, you know, justified to do that. People have said, you know, I think he has the right as someone who's engaged as he is, who's given as much money in an organization that continually raises money,

he had the right to say it. When he pulls out the time machine against President Gay, then he needs to be ready to have the time machine pulled out against him and his family, full stop. There's no reason why he shouldn't be subject to the same scrutiny as the woman he's going after. The issue, in my opinion, that needs more attention is that this is all a giant misdirect. And that is, it becomes a very heated conversation around who gets in. And the conversation and the question shouldn't be

who gets in, it should be around how many get in. Because when you're only letting in enough students or similar number of students as a good Starbucks serves in a day, you are, in my opinion, morally corrupt and should not get student funding, should not get government grants because you are no longer a nonprofit company

and you're pursuing an LVMH strategy. You are not a public servant, you are a Birkenback. And it creates all these heated arguments. This is what we need. With $52 billion, you shouldn't have 1,500 freshmen, you need to have 15,000. And guess what? Then you don't have to have arguments over how many non-white or white kids, you can let in more kids. So this is all a misdirect that becomes highly emotionally charged because these organizations aren't fulfilling their mission to be public servants. But we're going to see, I think, there's just no getting around it. You have seen peak DEI.

You have seen peak ESG. And my issue is I hope it doesn't contaminate the need. I'm here with you because of affirmative action. Oh, okay. Jewish guy born in the 60s, heterosexual. How did that happen? The only reason I got through UCLA was because of Pell Grants, which the government has said, if you're from a household that is in the bottom quartile of income-earning households,

you need our help. And if I hadn't had the government look at me and go, you're needy. We need to help you. We're going to tax other people, and we're going to give you an unfair advantage, and we're going to elevate you with affirmative action in the form of Pell Grants. And most Americans, Democrats and Republicans, do believe that a lot of Americans have not had the same opportunities and giving them a hand up is acceptable. The question is, what are the metrics for who deserves a hand up? And in our society, every year, the data goes one place. And that is you would rather be born black, non-white, gay, I think, in America right now. And this wasn't true 20 years ago, much less 50 years ago, but I think it's true now. You'd rather be born non-white than poor in our nation.

So you would rather, in my view, we need to think more about how we lift up economically disadvantage. And by the way, it gets, in terms of effectively who you end up helping, it gets to, in 70 to 80% of the cases, to the same place. Yeah. Okay. Well, good point. Okay. You've made this argument, and several people brought it up to me and said that was the best answer, what you were talking about, is doing it economically. In any case, listen, boys, stop with the hunting things. Stop with the death assassin stuff. This isn't a game. This is really serious. And you can attract really dangerous attacks on these people no matter what you do.

And if you think it's funny or aggressive, it makes you look ridiculous. Anyway, let's move on to some other rapid-fire stories. New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. The new lawsuit, the Times says millions of its articles are being used to train automated chatbots that now compete with the outlet. The lawsuit says defendants should be held responsible for billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages. OpenAI and Microsoft are also being called to destroy any models and training that uses copyright material from the Times. I'm not surprised they're taking legal action. I think a lot of people will. They just didn't want to do it with a group. I know Barry Diller had contacted them to do it with him. And what

do you think about this? They didn't win the book lawsuit many years ago, not the Times, but media. I love this. They have the right idea. I just think they're executing it correctly. I think they absolutely should call Barry Diller and the New York Times and the most iconic properties, get the most iconic owners of media companies and, you know, get Matthias Dofner, get the Newhouse family. Well, they have been talking. They've all been talking. Yeah, but they all need to speak with one unified voice, Cara, because there's far fewer and more powerful buyers here than there are sellers. So the sellers need to get together and speak with one voice to Microsoft and slash OpenAI, to Google, because they have models. And that is simply they go and say, all right, what percentage of a radio station's revenues are paid to the artist's rights group?

What percentage when you license or you syndicate comics or stories from AP? What percentage of a regional newspaper's revenues? They can say it's somewhere between, I don't know what it is, somewhere between 10 and 30 percent. And then they all bind together and they go to these guys and they start a bidding war. But the New York Times is doing the same thing they did when I was on the board there. And I'm doing a lot of name dropping right now because I'm desperate for our listeners' affirmation. When I suggested in 2008 that we turn off Google, they laughed at me and said, oh, they're going to send us so much traffic. And I'm like, you're overestimating how powerful we are. Google is more powerful than all of us or most of us. So it has to be all of us speaking to them because they don't

necessarily need the New York Times. And the deals they're offering, I've heard from a bunch of media people, are quite small, modest, like a million, five million. I'm like, do you know what it's caused to put the New York Times together? Quite a bit. And then the invaluableness of it being the New York Times, because they are pulling big chunks of my stuff. I've noticed it's like crazy, actually. And it is. It feels like theft. Whether they're going to win on the fair use argument, we'll see. That's their argument. It's fair use. This is not fair use. This is like walking into a CVS and taking all the aspirin or whatever. But all they need to do, if they just got, and the great thing about a consolidated media market is with, say, two dozen players, they could have a lot.

They can. If they did Axel Springer, Condé Nast, you know, the New York Times group, the News Corp. AP already did a deal. Portfolio, Penguin, Random House, they got them all together and they had one person represent them and they said, okay, year one, it's 150. One of them is going to go, yeah, we want to lock up that content. And you create a bidding war because it's like the other guys are going to have no— somebody like an anthropic or someone who's raising money at $30 billion will go, we'll give you 5% of the copyright.

Yeah, and then just sue and sue and sue again. 100%. Like all over the place, copyright infringement. Anyway, documents tied to a lawsuit involving a deceased sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, have been made public over the last few days. It's a little bit of a nothing burger. The documents reveal names and new details about people connected to Epstein, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Stephen Hawking, all of which we knew.

There's a lot of funny Stephen Hawking memes all over the internet. ESPN has issued an apology for false comments made by Aaron Rodgers. What a putzy is on the Pat McAfee show, suggesting Jimmy Kimmel could be on the Epstein list. Kimmel has denied allegations and threatened legal action. ESPN versus Kimmel puts Disney in a tough position because they're all in the same thing. I'm sure Bob Iger had a terrible weekend and Rodgers is on this show, on this Pat McAfee show, but he's just a ridiculous chode, but I don't know. Thoughts? I think it kind of goes back to the same thing.

It's like, put the time machine away. If someone committed pedophilia, then the authority should be alerted and they should see if there's a there there. But all of this going back in time, I mean, They're there. But all of this going back in time, I mean, if you're a powerful executive and this guy, you hear this guy has great parties on an island. And everyone from Stephen Hawking to whoever, I won't even name names, are on that island. And he's got Nobel Prize winners. And it's also a great party. And, oh, by the way, the Gulf Stream is swinging through your town, through your city. We'll come get you.

Yeah. And, oh, guess who you're going to be on the plane with? I think I probably would have said yes. I mean, do people have an obligation to do this? I was invited to one of those dinners. I said no. Well, you're smarter than me. Well, I had a problem with his conviction.

But anyway, go ahead. But I don't. Okay. I had a problem with his conviction. But anyway, go ahead. But I don't— Okay, if someone— If there's accusations, as there were against several of these individuals, that they engaged in sex trafficking and having sex with underage women, the authorities should get involved. But going back and revisiting who was on the island and who flew on us plane— Yeah, they have proof that they did something.

It feels like it's a similar weave in the fabric of this bullshit around plagiarism, and that is it doesn't serve any purpose other than gotcha journalism for clicks and embarrassing people. Well, it's gotcha more than people have the interest in it, whether or not it's not just journalists doing this. It's a lot of like Aaron fucking Rogers. So, but yeah, I get it. He's not a journalist, whatever. Who cares what like an aging but yeah, I get it. He's not a journalist, whatever.

Who cares what like an aging quarterback thinks? I mean- I get it, I get it. But I think you still can't say Jimmy Kimmel's about him. Like this is the thing people shoot words- Oh, he should be. Oh, I would imagine Jimmy Kimmel's lawyers and Disney have reached out to ESPN.

We're actually the same company. That's what's weird about it. It's ABC and Disney is, ABC and ESPN are owned by the same people. That's slander. That could have a tangible impact on advertisers because if he's accused of it once, it never goes away, or if he's even associated with it incorrectly. I'm speaking more broadly about this gotcha culture where, okay, be careful because you might find yourself on a plane with somebody. You might accept an invitation. You're a busy person. Epstein is like a mold.

I was at a party he was at where 100 people were there, 150 people. And it was like, how dare you go to a party? I didn't even know he was there. And I have several people like, you were an Epstein friend. I was like, I literally never met him. When I was in St. Barts, I ended up at this amazing party on the beach. And I'm like, who's hosting it? And they're like, it's Gaddafi's nephew. And I'm like, what? Yeah.

Gaddafi's nephew? I'm at a party hosted by Gaddafi's nephew? Anyway, it just feels to me more of this call-out gotcha culture. There were no new names, as far as I could tell. No, it was a lot of non-news. It was a lot of non-news. So, it's like, again, it's this culture where we'll do anything to embarrass people, call people out, and get more clicks. What's the point? Yeah, I agree.

Let's find some prosecutions if people did something. But I do think it's dangerous to be throwing around the word pedophile. I wish, you know, Elon did it and stuff like that. It's really gross. It's really gross. A Warner Brothers-Paramount merger might be in the works. Warner Brothers CEO David Zasloff has reportedly been in talks with Paramount CEO Bob Backish, as well as Sherry Redstone. Both companies have hired bankers, but the status of these talks has been described as preliminary. There's a couple of people looking. There's been some great writing on this by Bill

Cohen and others about what's happening here from a financial point of view. A lot of debt, more debt. I don't know if this deal will happen, but Paramount will not be an independent company by the end of the year. The entire streaming market and the media market is a fascinating case study in economics and market dynamics. And you got to cut costs and you got to consolidate. I mean, even Disney might be not big enough.

I think they are. I think they'll be the biggest niche player, but basically it's going to come down to three players. It's going to be Netflix, it's going to be Warner Brothers Discovery, and it's going to be probably the biggest niche player will be Disney, which will own Family. But this makes all the sense in the world.

Warner Brothers Discovery couldn't do it because of tax reasons. They will be able to do it, I think in about six or nine months. This will be more for efficiency. I mean, I would hate to be in the CBS newsroom after this thing happens. But this is what naturally needs to happen in the marketplace. They have some great assets.

They have heft. And together, they will hold on to 90% of the combined revenues, and they'll be able to cut costs by 20%. When you're television declining. It's tough. It is tough. We'll see what happens. But I do have to say, I think Disney's going to be one of the survivors.

I literally, their glittery unicorn claws are like deep into my kids. Now they're watching Vampirina. They're watching, now Frozen is gone, which I was thrilled, but now it's Vampirina. Every year I make stock picks. And last year I picked Airbnb, Meta, and Chinese Internet stocks. I went two for three there. This year I picked Warner Brothers Discovery and Disney. They're selling at such low multiples

and this consolidation, they're going to... If you just look at what Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount would be able to do in terms of overlap and cost cutting, and they'd be able to hold on to the majority of their revenues, champagne and cocaine makes a ton of sense. Makes a ton of sense for them.

I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. big savings on plans, 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.

Okay, Scott, we're going to do some wins and fails. I'm going to do a win, which is this movie, American Fiction, with Jeffrey Wright, by Cord Jefferson, directed it and adapted it for the screen. It is, speaking of, you will love it. It's set in academia. It's about woke culture. It's about the African American experience in academics. It's about, it's really, and that's the funny part. And it's sort of being put as this funny, like, white people say stupid things about black people, and not meaning to, trying to be well-meaning.

But it's really about a family. And Leslie Uggams is in it. It's an astonishing cast. Leslie Uggams, remember her? She's fantastic. Everything about it is amazing. It's such a beautiful movie. And Jeffrey Wright, who is possibly one of my favorite actors, finally gets a turn

as a star. And he's so good. And you know, when you see movies, you know, when you see everything coming. I didn't see any of it coming. You know, I didn't. It's Sterling K. Brown plays his brother. Every single person in this movie is fantastic. And it's a life-affirming movie, but also very tough. So anyway, loved it. American fiction. Fail, I think the continued, I still, I find this, like we're going to A2, the lady from MIT, all this violent stuff around catching these people. Look, people get fired. You can have some dignity about it. I think, as usual, the right will overreach as they did with parental rights or book banning or whatever. But there's such a hatefulness to it that it's really like, look, let's have a good

debate about DEI. Let's have a good debate about preferences and diversity, and there's nothing wrong with inclusion. Like, when did that become a bad word? So I just, I think people need to calm the fuck down. All right. And can it be in the context of, let's revisit it and celebrate our progress? Yeah, yeah. It's been a wonderful thing.

The basic intention has been- Scott and Cara are positive this year. It's been a wonderful thing. We have made huge progress. So let's build on that progress, also recognizing that it probably needs to be changed or edited or improved. Anyway, I agree with you. Okay, so my win is President Biden's speech at Valley Forge. I thought, I'm going on Christiana on the port tomorrow,

and she's asked me to talk about messaging in the presidential campaigns. And I was initially thinking it should be about autocracy versus democracy. I love what you said, that should be about freedom or the economy. And whoever is in charge of his messaging right now and wrote that speech, they win. I mean, some of the quotes, Trump is running as the denier in chief, the election denier in chief once again. He's saying he won't honor the results of the election if he loses. He still doesn't understand the basic truth. And that is you can't love your country only when you win. Donald Trump's campaign is about him, not America, not you. Donald Trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He's willing to sacrifice our democracy to put himself in power. And so is the Republican Party. At least Stefanik won't promise to certify

the results, but go ahead. There you go. Another great quote. These MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump on January 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy. They made their choice. Now the rest of us, Democrats, Independents, mainstream Republicans need to make our choice. Today, we're here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America's sacred cause? I mean it. I just thought his messaging was outstanding. And he's basically setting up a message that it's democracy versus autocracy. And put your emotions aside. What is America about?

I just think, I wish I knew who his messenger-in-chief and speechwriter was. And also, by the way, it's in contrast. People are starting to now pay attention to Trump and the magnets thing and the weird, like. And he came out swinging. I just thought he was great. I think the contrast, Trump, you crazy old man, is the way I would go. It was a great speech. So anyways, my win is President Biden kind of kicked off 24's election cycle by coming out swinging. And I love the framing and the messaging there. My fail, which will probably piss off the progressives who like the win is I just think it's a huge mistake to take, to pursue and remove, if possible, Trump from ballots in states. I would agree. I actually agree with you.

And look, if a democracy wants an autocrat, they get to do that. And while I understand the Colorado State Supreme Court's justification, rationalization that he, in fact, by putting pressure on election officials, by organizing January 6th, that he's responsible and he's an insurrectionist, and I do believe he's an insurrectionist, the bottom line is a court has not found him guilty yet of insurrection. has not found him guilty yet of insurrection. And to start taking people off ballots, if this happens, it'll be the first time that a presidential candidate was taken off the ballot for this type of reason since Lincoln. And that started a civil war. And we need Donald Trump to have no excuse for why America rejects him a second time.

And the people who follow him need to see what a loser him- They won't accept it. and his ideology. Well, at some point, they're going to have to. They're in the cult. They're there for life. But I agree with you. I think the Supreme Court will- Let the people decide. I'm going to make a prediction. 9-0 on that one, on the ballot, and 9-0 on the full immunity. He's not getting full immunity. Not at all. So, I think I'm going to say they're all going to go the same way on this. Or maybe they'll be a little like Clarence Thomas.

I'll stick his little I'm not going to agree with anybody mentality. I'm going to go off in my paid for trailer. But I think they're going to rule against him getting full immunity because, oh my God, Biden could do whatever he wanted. He could arrest Trump and put him on a ship or whatever. And they will say no to the ballot thing. Even if it does apply, it doesn't apply yet, right? That's the thing. So, we'll see. But it's an interesting legal case. I think we'll see what happens. Let the voters decide. Let the voters decide. Let the voters decide. Anyway.

And if America wants to put an insurrectionist and a traitor back in the White House, that's their right. Yeah, I guess. Well, if he's convicted of insurrection, we have another issue. 100%. We'll see. 100%. Anyway, this was great, Scott. I missed you so much.

This was such a good show. Very good. It's great to be back. We miss our – this morning, again, people love the show. Very good. It's great to be back. We miss our... This morning, again, people love the show. They have messages for you, lots of them. And mostly... Some not so nice.

Yeah, the penis jokes. Some not so nice. But actually, I got a lot of jolly stuff all through the holidays. And just this morning when I was in Steak and Egg here in Washington, D.C., we had some fans there. Anyway, and we aren't kidding, we love our fans. And I'm going to say a shout out to Abby, who said hello today and thinks our shows are great. Thank you, Abby, for saying that. It made my day. Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more. Please read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Injotot engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Severio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you 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 care. It's great to be back with you in 2024.