Pivot - The DOJ’s Trump Investigation, Meta’s Revenue Drop, and Joe Manchin’s Deal

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

MSNBC’s Katy Tur is Scott's guest co-host on this episode! They discuss Meta’s first ever drop in revenue, and the backlash against Instagram's new design. Also, Trump is under investigation by the Justice Department, Verizon gives OAN the boot, and Sen. Joe Manchin's surprising deal. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa, 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 Scott Galloway.

And I'm Katie Turr. Kara is actually taking a day off today, so we're joined by the host of MSNBC's Katie Turr Reports and author of Rough Draft, Katie Turr. Katie, a couple things. A couple things. First off, you're welcome. I know this is a big thrill for you. I am so pleased. I thought that having two books on the bestseller list would have been a fulfilling experience, but I didn't understand what fulfilling was. I get it. Until I sat down and got to host a podcast alongside you, sir. This is a trick we pull, and that is when we ask people to co-host with me, we ask them to co-host, but we don't tell them they're co-hosting with me. That's what happened here, isn't it?

It totally is. I mean, I thought it was going to be me and Kara. And I said, absolutely. And then I found out it was you. And I tried to beg off, but I just couldn't do it without burning a bridge. So here I am. Somewhere at CAA or WME or whoever manages you, there's a meeting right now saying we need to be more involved in Katie's decision making. This is from the Vox Media Podcast Network, credible journalist jumping the shark. By the way, if Kara is taking the day off, you know what that means. That means she's getting married for like a seventh time. We don't buy this whole vacation thing. Yeah.

If she was a man, she would be horrified by her. Kara gets away with a lot of stuff. Okay, so today we're going to talk about Instagram's new look and Meta's new troubles. Also, storm clouds are gathering over Trump land. We'll hear from a listener about whether lack of abortion access will impact college decisions. That's interesting. So first, Joe Manchin says we have a deal. Can you break down what's gone on here? You know, I have to tell you, when I found out about this yesterday, I was gobsmacked because when I left work last week, Joe Manchin had just put a knife in the Democratic deal and he said he wasn't going to vote for anything with climate change or raising taxes. And to hear him double back and say, no, I'm good at this deal was quite shocking to me. So what happened was there, he had said that he was always welcomed at the negotiating table.

He was always there. His team was looking through the bill. He was really concerned about inflation. They were going to make sure that whatever this bill was, wasn't going to add to inflation. And they came back apparently with Schumer and continued negotiating in secret and got to a place where they could decide on a big package that would give a lot of money to fighting climate change would be a really really big deal money that would allow medicare to renegotiate drug prices which frankly i am shocked that that hasn't been on the table or hasn't been passed before because why in the world would you not allow medicare to negotiate drug prices it benefits the entire country the country. The only people it doesn't benefit are the lobbyists or the drug industry, excuse me. And, you know, a lot of money

for other Democratic programs as well. It's a big deal for Joe Manchin to come to the table. It's a big deal for Democrats to get this. And the Republicans feel a bit slighted here, which is also interesting when you look at what might happen with chips. So, Senator Manchin, is he a moderate who sticks to his principles and wants to reach across the aisle and the last of a dying breed known as moderates? Or is he someone who is a raging narcissist who sees himself having these opportunities to be the swing vote and get in front of a million cameras and be the spoiler. What's kind of the view from inside the Beltway?

So the view from inside the Beltway is that Joe Manchin is reveling in the position that he is in, where he is kingmaker right now. I mean, who's president, Joe Biden or Joe Manchin? Joe Manchin is the one that has all of the leverage here. He has all of the leverage in the Democratic Congress. Kyrsten Sinema has some of the leverage as well, and she certainly could still hurt this bill. But he is somebody who's leveraging the position he has. He's always been more of a moderate. He comes from an extraordinarily red state. It's a remarkable, Scott, that he even gets elected in that state still. So he's got to guard those interests

right um but again i think even a lot of senate uh democrats a lot of them were surprised that he went for this they thought that he wasn't going to go for anything especially with the climate provisions i mean he got some energy stuff on the back end including a project that he's close with for a pipeline uh that should come soon but then there's the taxes, you know, like when you're talking about Manchin, you have to look at who Manchin is. And he gets more money from the energy industry than any other senator in the Senate. His son is the CEO of a coal mining company. He has it in a blind trust.

And so there are questions about, there are natural questions raised about where his interests lie. And I think that that's an ethical issue that should concern all Americans, not saying that he's doing anything nefarious, but it does raise the question and the appearance doesn't look good. So for him to come to the table on this, I think it's going to assuage some of those fears. Also, can we talk about the carried interest loophole being closed? Democrats have been running on this for years. Trump ran on this in 2015 and 2016. He said it wasn't fair that all these hedge fund guys and these private equity guys were making tons of money on the back end. And then when Trump passed his tax law, this somehow got erased from it and

it was let to stand. So if this goes through the Senate, that's going to, that is going to get a lot of money back to go back into the economy and pay for a lot of these big plans that Democrats have, which was one of the reasons that Manchin said he wasn't for some of these bills. He didn't see how it paid for itself and he was worried about inflations. So what Kate is referring to is the carried interest tax loophole. And it's arguably the most outrageous tax in the tax code. And it's the following. If you sell copiers and you get a commission,

you pay ordinary income on those commissions. But if you're a hedge fund manager and you get a commission on the money you make on money, so your stocks, your fund, you have a billion AUM, you're up 10%, you make 100 million for your stocks, your fund, you have a billion AUM, you're up 10%, you make 100 million for your investors, you get a 20 million or 20% carried interest. That 20 million is taxed at long-term capital gain. It makes absolutely no sense. And it's nothing but a giveaway to the top, not even the top 0.1%, but the top 0.01%. So most importantly about this story, where does Katie tour vacation?

Cape Cod. Oh, fancy. Yeah. My husband's family has been coming here since the 50s. You know, that fits. All right, Katie, and speaking of deals, Twitter shareholders will vote on Elon Musk's offer on September 13th. Twitter board is urging investors to approve the deal for a $44 billion bid. Musk and Twitter are slated to head to court in October shortly after the vote. Is there a view in D.C. around what's going to happen with the Chancery Court?

And has this been a bridge too far for Musk? You know, there is an open question about whether the courts are going to go after him and try to make an example out of him. There are rules that apply to everybody when you sign a contract that says you are going to do something. And if you back out of that contract, there is a penalty and there's a penalty in this deal as well. And he's going on Twitter. And what Twitter is saying is they're attacking, he's attacking them. He's taken down their, their market value. He's making the company look worse in order to to get a better deal out of them and they're kind of saying this is essentially blackmail that you're doing um and the courts have a chance to make an example of a guy who is you know one of the richest men in the world who as we spoke about

before is kind of acting like the rules don't apply to him um and if you know things are fair in this country if the rules do apply to everybody know, you would imagine that they would say you can't do this. You either have to pay the penalty or you got to buy the company. Yeah, a contract is a contract. How would you describe the relationship between D.C. and Musk? Because a lot of his profits have come from government tax credits given to purchasers of EV vehicles. It appears that Biden's had some high profile misses or he's decided to not include Tesla in some stuff. What's the relationship between D.C. and Tesla and Musk? You know,

I am not an expert in the relationship between D.C. and Tesla and Musk. I think that the relationship between Washington and the tech industry in general is not a strong one because I don't think Washington understands the tech industry, as we've seen from some of the conversations that senators have when these tech leaders are sitting in front of them. big ideas and has done some really remarkable things. Creating energy technology around cars that is desirable, making them look sexy, making people want them is a really big deal. These solar panels and these energy grids that he's talking about, the space exploration that he has, these are all great, big ideas that make this country an amazing place. The question is, can our government figure out a way to harness that so that it benefits everybody? And I don't think they've quite figured that out. I don't think they know how to deal with somebody like Elon Musk, who's eccentric.

It strikes me he has pissed off and been offensive and really just kind of out of line with so many of our senators and elected officials. Isn't he due for a cold lunch? Don't I can't think that. But look, look at what Trump did. Trump proved that none of that matters. I mean, they're transactional. I mean, he just he just he slapped around everybody in Washington, including other Republicans.

He might he slapped them the worst. And they came crawling back to him. I mean, is Elon Musk Donald Trump? No, he's not. You know, he's them the worst. And they came crawling back to him. I mean, is Elon Musk Donald Trump? No, he's not. You know, he's not a politician. He's not harnessing, you know, the will of 50 million or 150 million people or whatever it is, 50 million people. 90 million on Twitter. I think they're more similar than people think. Yeah, but he's not running for anything at the moment.

Yeah, yeah. And so he's not the threat that Donald Trump was, but does that mean that he can get away with things? I think so far he has. The chancery court stuff might change it. Yeah, I hope so. And again, this is projecting because he calls me names on Twitter, but I got to think a lot of these senators, legislators, judges, courts have just said, okay, we've got to send a message here. And you said this before, that if contracts aren't upheld, if there's got to be a certain code, and it just strikes me that he has pissed off so many people that it's going to come to roost here. Anyways, we'll see, though.

You're right, so far. But listen, I think what we have in this country are, this is part of what got Donald Trump elected, are people who are above the rules and people who have to follow the rules. And it seems like there's a class of people in this country who are very rich or very powerful that get to do whatever they want. Donald Trump was one of those people, even though he was the one railing against it. Elon Musk seems to be one of those people. There are a lot of lawmakers that seem to be above all the rules. And if you want to run things that make people confident, run a system that makes people confident in it, you've got to start applying those rules to everybody. And I think that goes the same for what we're seeing, we can get to this later, with the DOJ and Donald Trump and the insurrection. Are you

going to apply the rules to him as you would apply them to everybody else? Is that the kind of country we are, or are there actually people who are above the law? It's a big question. Yeah, that does feel like that question is coming to a critical juncture. And I think a lot of people are hoping that both this Chancery Court case and potentially a criminal indictment against the president are going to be, you know, send a signal that we've hit kind of peak megalomania, that maybe this is the point at which justice does start to kind of punch back and say, no, no one is above the law. But then what happens if, say, Donald Trump gets reelected again, or somebody who's very sympathetic to Donald Trump gets reelected again and installs a DOJ that takes it all back or starts going after political rivals. I mean, we are on this really

weird, we're in this inflection point, as you said, where you're going to go after people and you're going to apply the rules the same to everybody. But if Donald Trump or somebody like him gets in power again, are they going to take that example and then bastardize it and start using it to their own advantage? I mean, just who are we as a country? We're going to start defining it in the next few years. And it may get pretty ugly. Yeah, it does feel sometimes you do wake up and think, you know, this is not the America that at least I'm used to.

It feels as if we've really gotten to a weird point. And optimistically, I think these two cases or these two situations are going to set a big tone for what happens over the next decade. Anyways, another important poll, the Fed voted this week to raise interest rates by 75% or 75 basis points. That's in line with expectations. But less expected, a Senate report says that China tried to woo Fed officials into disclosing sensitive information for over a decade. Fed Chairman Powell pushed back on the report. So, I'll put forward another thesis, and I'm curious to get your response. I think corporate espionage is the most efficient way to grow an economy. We did it in the 19th century by stealing textile and manufacturing IP out of Europe.

And I think the Chinese have been doing it to us for the last several decades. Is it as out of control in D.C. and across corporate America as I think it is? And is this just another example or is this an example of xenophobia? If you were the one perpetrating the espionage, you don't think that it's unfair. You think that this is. Yeah, you don't think you're doing anything wrong. Yeah, this is the way the world works. I don't have to live by your rules.

You don't have to live by my rules. I'm going to try to get as much information as I possibly can. And listen, we are in a battle with China right now for economic position. And they have a lot of power. They've got a lot of power. And they don't have the same rules we have. So when they start trying to infiltrate our stuff, they're not going to play nice. Of course they're not. And they're going to try to get the information in any way that they can. And it's our job to try and protect that. I mean, it's a hard thing to do. Obviously, it's information warfare. I mean, it's not, you know, hot war, but it's information

warfare. And we've been engaged in it in one way or the other for the entirety of human history. I mean, this is, it's natural. You brought up an interesting point, and that is if you're doing, you're actually doing the espionage, you don't feel as if you're a spy. And I call it soft espionage. And the example I use is say you're a kid, a bright young woman who came from fairly modest background in China, and you get the opportunity to go to university. And they say, we'll pay for it in America. And you get an MBA. And then you're an incredibly impressive young woman and you get a job at Google.

And the people who paid for your education, the people who are giving your dad and your cousins jobs in the government call and say, hey, we would just love to talk to you every once in a while and get your view on technology. And then the calls get increasingly like, well, what is Google planning here? Well, could you find out this information? Is there a way you could ask to be transferred to this team such that we can have more of these calls? You don't call them and say, hey, start killing executives. And I think this is happening everywhere, everywhere. And I think it's the most efficient form of economic growth. And I'd just be shocked if we didn't find out. And I think a lot of this will come to that in every tech company, there's soft espionage everywhere.

But I do think if you are coming from a place like China or another, and you are sending your best and your brightest to school in a developed, rich country that is somebody that you want to gain a foothold against or that has information that you want, use the leverage that you have. Again, yeah, we'll pay for it. We'll take care of your family. And then who is that person going to be loyal to? The company that pays their paycheck or the person who got them there? It's going to get complicated. But I mean, I imagine that loyalties lies in the place that's paying for you and keeping your family safe and well. Anyways, Jerome Powell raises interest rates, 75 basis points. What's people's view of Fed Chairman Powell and any thoughts on inflation, which tends

to be like a massive dilemma here? Elizabeth Warren thinks that the Fed is making the wrong decision. It's too blunt. It's going to hurt lower income families. The prevailing wisdom is that the Fed's got to do something because inflation is out of control. And it is out of control. I mean, you go to the supermarket

and you're paying $10 for bacon when you used to pay $8. It's a lot of money. And people's grocery bills are rising hundreds of dollars. That is not tenable for a lot of American families. So the Fed's got to do something. In history, they've had one big tool, and that's raising interest rates. And so far, the raises, the increases that they've made have not done anything in the immediate aftermath. So they're going to keep on doing them. The question is, if they're able to get inflation under control,

will they have done it without sending us into a recession? I know the GDP numbers came out today that show that we have two straight quarters of declined growth, which worries some, and the Republicans are already using it to campaign, saying, we're in a recession, Joe Biden and his economy are a mess, and American families are hungry. But it's complicated. It's a really complicated picture that the Fed's looking at. It's probably more complicated than ever with the war in Ukraine, the supply chain issues, and COVID backlash. It's a weird time, and I don't envy Jerome Powell at all. I don't think anyone does, because who knows? Yeah, although the market seems to like it. The market was up. The market went up a ton. Yeah, it seems to. I think that the market responds to what I'll call an adult in the room.

And I think Fed Chairman Powell, I actually think he comes out of this a winner. I think he's making hard decisions. I think Senator Warren's view, inflation is much more damaging to low-income families than interest rates. The people who interest rates hurts the most usually, an increase, are usually people who have a lot of leverage or a lot of debt. So I don't understand that comment. Anyways, let's move on to our first big story. Mark Zuckerberg, the Zuck. Katie should be glad he's colorblind because Meta is seeing red for the first time ever.

In earnings reports this week, the company announced its first ever drop in revenue. So this is a big deal. In Facebook's, whatever it is, 20-year history, it has net, I mean, it's usually reporting 20, 30% revenue up. Its revenue was down. It's down about 1% from Q2 last year. The stock has been cut in half. Their net profit dropped as well to under $7 billion, and the company's VR division posted a loss of $2.8 billion. Curious to get your thoughts on the Zuck or Facebook or their plans around the metaverse. Any thoughts? The metaverse is such a strange concept to me. My husband's done stories on this. He's gone into the metaverse. I don't get it. And maybe I'm just an old person. I don't get why you'd want to live there in that alternate reality. What does that do for you? I could be totally wrong. And in 20 years, it could be all the rage, 10 years, I doubt it. But to me, it just feels strange. Facebook, listen, I work in a dying industry. I work in television news. We are contracting. We have been contracting now for decades. And I think Facebook and these media companies who have now been around for a while are going to start to see the same trends eventually, where they harness lightning in a bottle for a time with social media. And now as social media is diversifying,

there's so many different apps. There was a study that showed that people under 30 are now using social media even less. There's a decline in social media use as they're starting to feel like they're being taken advantage of. They don't want all of their information out there. They're going to these smaller communities where it's just them talking with their friends. I think the Facebooks of the world are in for something of an awakening. And the question is,

are they going to be able to pivot and redefine themselves? Zuckerberg's obviously betting on meta. But as a layman, Scott, and I'm really just a layman here, as a layman, I don't get it. I don't get it at all. I don't want to be a cartoon with no hands i'm sure the technology is going to get better no no legs you get hands just no legs what about the physical what about the physical

experience of life i mean to be crude you can't go have sex i mean you can go have sex in meta but are you going to feel anything that doesn't make sense me. If you go eat a peach in the metaverse, is it going to taste good to you? I mean, your life is centered around physical experiences, the physicality of touching sand. How do you get that in the virtual world? How do you approximate that? And if you don't do that, how can you ever enjoy it as much as you enjoy real life? So, look, I think you don't get it because it's not gettable. His vision of it, the bull argument is we already have very big businesses based on the metaverse. Video games are a metaverse. Twitter, to a certain extent, is a metaverse.

When you go on a trading or investment app, it's sort of, you know, technically the metaverse is a three-dimensional rendering of the web that's an immersive experience. The thing that is so what I'd call arrogant or kind of, you know, consensual hallucination between Mark Zuckerberg, his employees, and his shareholders, and by the way, his employees supposedly don't buy into this, is that they can address gaming, education, work, entertainment, and they can do it all using this device called Oculus. And so far, it's been a giant thud. And all of these companies are all looking to reignite growth. Like when their businesses become mature, they have an obligation to shareholders to

take some of the cash flow from those mature businesses and pour it into growth. And Facebook's growth vehicle or attempted growth vehicle is Meta. Now, they made the acquisition of the century with Instagram. And Facebook's growth vehicle or attempted growth vehicle is meta. Now, they made the acquisition of the century with Instagram, and that was the gift they kept on giving. Until now. That's right. Google and Amazon were in cloud. That was their growth vehicle.

And now Amazon, I think, is going into healthcare for their growth vehicle. But I think Facebook has really stubbed its toe here. And to your comments, it doesn't make any sense. And the numbers are starting to come in. Their troubles do not end there, though. High profile users are angry with Instagram's new video first redesign. Very. This is big news. Kylie Jenner and Chrissy Teigen both complained that the app is losing its focus as it tries to compete with TikTok.

In response, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri posted a video where he doubled down on the changes. Are you a TikToker, Katie? Is your husband on TikTok? Neither one of us have TikTok because both of us feel, why would you want to give the Chinese government all the information about you? That's how we feel. Are our kids on TikTok? Yeah. You know, our older son is on TikTok and he's, you know, constantly face down scrolling in it.

I, as most respectable old people, see TikTok videos two weeks late on Instagram, which was a meme that went around that I identified with. But TikTok's obviously a very big deal. Everyone's on it, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. I'm just getting to be a fogey now. Even Instagram. I mean, my one addiction don't know. I'm just getting to be a fogey now. Even Instagram. I mean, my one addiction now is Instagram, and I find myself mindlessly scrolling through it all the time. But I am of the same mind as Chrissy Teigen and Kylie Jenner, which is like, I just want to see pictures of my friends. What happened to the pictures of my friends? Why am I being flooded with content that I don't follow? Why am I being pushed toward these

stupid videos where I just see stupid things happening? Or I'm just transfixed by somebody icing a cake. Why am I watching this video of somebody icing a cake? Why can't I look away? I don't enjoy it. And also like, why am I looking at these influencers or why am I, I'm just constantly being sold stuff and I'm, I'm just, I'm tired of it. So I'm with them. Let's go back to smaller. And this is again, with the trends with people under 30, they're going to smaller groups where they can connect with their friends, have interesting conversations with the people that they want to talk to and not being forced to consume what an algorithm or what a big company wants. I have a Twitter account. I've got a lot of followers on my Twitter account. There are tweets

that go out for my Twitter account. I have handed over the reins of my Twitter account to my husband because Twitter was driving me nuts. And I book coming out and I said, I just don't want to deal with it. And so I gave my husband my account number and I said, just please tweet stuff that's relevant and tell me anything that I need to know. Was it making you unhappy? It was a mental health decision. It was a mental health decision because the book that I was releasing was deeply personal. And I knew that it was, I mean, it was already hard for me to talk about it. I knew it would be even harder for me to hear from the peanut gallery, especially when so many of those voices are, as you said, just bots.

And so I decided just to log off. But then there was also a professional decision behind it, because I found that in my job, I would go just as muscle memory, I would just go to Twitter in the middle of a commercial break to see what people were saying about the last segment. I know. I know. I do, too. And while it was kind of helpful real-time feedback at first, I thought, I realized later that I was bending toward what one or two people said. It would get into my head.

And subconsciously, I would start asking questions that were more along the lines of a comment they made. And I don't think that that's a good thing. I think that it's better to do my own research, to ask my own questions, to not be influenced that directly by just one or two voices in real time. And so in order to stop the temptation, I just took it off my phone. And I think it's helped a lot. And so if there are conversations about this conversation we're having on Twitter, I will be blind to it. Happily. I do find myself watching Instagram Reels more.

I like Instagram because I enjoy watching people younger and hotter than me, i.e. everybody. And then the videos that play, I do find myself doing more of it and going less to TikTok. So I think they're just saying we've got to... It's working? I don't think they have any choice. I think they've got to pivot to what is the biggest trend in media consumption right now. If you think about every quarter for 10 years, almost every media company reported kind of anemic earnings and profits. And that's because Netflix was sucking the oxygen out of the room. For the last 25 years, every retailer has, on average, announced flat to bad earnings because Amazon was sucking the oxygen out of the room. And now in the last, literally in the last 72 hours, Twitter, Snap, and Google announced sort of meddling to just horrific earnings because TikTok is sucking

the oxygen out of the room. And Facebook looks at TikTok and Facebook's most innovative action is copying other people's innovation. And that's a decent strategy. Stealing from Snapchat. 100%. And that's a decent strategy. And I think they look at TikTok, which is algorithmically driven, short form videos. And they say, we got to go there because that's what the kids want. And I don't you think that I wonder when the inevitable full scale backlash comes or if it comes. Don't you have a nostalgia for the 90s?

I have a nostalgia for not being connected. I remember it. I remember not being connected. I remember it. I remember not being connected. I remember having to go to a pay phone to call my parents to get a ride. I remember having a landline and having, you know, my friends call and talking all night on the landline. I remember meeting up at a mall and saying, here's where we're going to meet at what time. And not texting, where are you? And they're just around the corner from you.

I just, I remember a simpler time and I miss that time. I miss being able to go, to go off the grid for hours or for days. I mean, I'm on vacation. There's no reason why I should, I should be looking at my phone. And yet I'm looking at my phone. I don't want to be reachable when I don't want to be reachable. Can we go back to that? Is there going to be a backlash? Are the kids that are starting to drop off social media? Yeah, I don't think we're going back. Why? But they love Friends. They love the show Friends. Okay, that's one thing. Yeah, they love Ross and Rachel. Yeah, that does not make an economy.

But they love the interaction without the phones. When are we going to have a bunch of sitcoms in the future where everyone's just staring at their phone? Let me guess, you are Adidas superstars. I agree, but it's the world we live in. All right, Katie, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the latest with Trump and his allies and take a listener question about higher education and abortion access. about higher education and abortion access. Fox Creative.

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In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Katie, we're back with our second big story. Trump is under investigation by the Justice Department as part of a probe into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. DOJ investigators have asked witnesses, including top aides to Mike Pence, about conversations with Trump. And the DOJ has also obtained phone records from key officials and aides in Trump's administration. What is the view?

Are we looking at a criminal indictment here? What's the momentum here? I am going to be the brake pumper on this because as somebody who covered the muller report day in and day out i think we did a disservice to the country to the report itself to the country by by over analyzing it and by pumping up every single indictment and guessing essentially, educated guessing, guessing what Robert Mueller was going to find and what would come from this report. I don't think it was good. I think that if we had just waited on the Mueller report, waited for the findings to come out, didn't cover it every single day, didn't set expectations so high, that the report itself would have landed with a much stronger thought. And it was an important piece of investigative material that just disappeared. You know, a lot of obstruction there, a lot of problems, a lot of still unanswered questions about relationships that the Trump team

and Trump himself had with the Russians. And I think it would have landed harder if we shut up about it more. So I think we want to be very careful with how we talk about what DOJ might be doing and what sort of criminality Donald Trump himself might be exposed to. That being said, the committee itself, the January 6 committee has done a remarkable job of laying out the timeline, laying out all of the people involved, the extremist group involved, the signals that they were getting, and then Donald Trump himself not doing anything on the day of January 6th. And I think it's been revelatory. And I think that it will have an effect, if not on the midterms,

and on the 2024 election, it will have an effect on the Republican primary. I think it's already having an effect on the would-be Republican primary. So when we talk about the Justice Department and what they're doing and who they're looking into, I think it's interesting. We raise an eyebrow. We ask some questions about it, but we don't set expectations. Still, they're investigating, which is interesting. And there's a rumor that to get back in the news in a positive way that he's going to announce his candidacy for 2024. Do you think that's true? And also there's rumors or there's a belief, and I wonder how much of it is us just hoping that large contingencies of the Republican Party are moving to other candidates? I think that it is starting to happen. When you look at the polling in the Republican

Party, half of the Republican Party now says they want a candidate other than Donald Trump. That is a really big number. And if I was working for Trump's team, I would be nervous about that. Whereas if I was working for DeSantis' team, I'd be very excited about that because I think people, as the Republicans expected, got a little exhausted by Donald Trump and him being in the news every day and him saying something every day. His hardcore base, forget about them, they're not going to move. But everybody else are saying to themselves, well, is there someone else who has the same policies, who looks and sounds like Trump in terms of policy, but doesn't have the same drama attached to him? And they might be looking towards somebody like Ron DeSantis.

I don't think the January 6th hearings are helping. They're not hurting the Republican Party per se, but they're hurting Donald Trump. Yeah, great. I'm curious, you've been covering elections. And one thing about elections is the frontrunners at this point usually never end up getting the nominee. I remember us talking about Giuliani or Fred Thompson or whoever it might be who was the front runner. Fred Thompson, wow. Remember Herman Cain? He was at one point leading.

So you see kind of what it takes, so to speak. Who are the names that we don't hear about that you think have a shot either on the Republican or the Democratic side? You know, people will talk about Larry Hogan. Some Republicans will see him as the great Republican hope that Larry Hogan, somebody who's more measured and more reasonable, a more traditional style Republican, not divisive, will get the nomination. I think he's got a hard uphill battle in front of him. The Democrats are, there's a lot of people on the Republican side. The Democrats are a lot more tough.

They don't really have much of an obvious bench right now. There's Kamala Harris, who's the vice president, but people see issues with her because she hasn't been very high profile in her time as vice president. Let's just pause there. I think you're being kind. Everything I've read or heard is that her office is a shit show, that the West Wing doesn't even like dealing with their office, and that she's basically been already kind of sidelined, like that she's generally thought of as ineffective. The issue that I've heard about her is that she doesn't know why she's running or didn't know why she was running when she was running in 2020.

She didn't have a forward-looking thesis of why she should be president. And while she's fun and charming, she couldn't gain any momentum because she couldn't define her reasons for getting in the race. And that's the issue they still see around her. This administration, I mean, there's Pete Buttigieg, but his profile hasn't really risen at all since he's gotten into this cabinet. What's the view on him now that he's in D.C.? Has he... I mean, I think he's doing a perfectly, I think they see him as doing a perfectly fine job in his role, but his profile hasn't been raised at all. He hasn't done anything where people are looking and pointing and saying, oh, Pete Buttigieg. Yeah, look at that guy.

Look what he did. I love the way he speaks. I think the people want somebody who has executive experience, and I think they're going to look, if Joe Biden doesn't run again, toward governors. There's a lot of talk about Gavin Newsom right now, who has his own problems if he's going to get into the race. California is a hard state to run from when you are a Democratic candidate. Republicans have done better there, but it's a very blue state and it can tend to pull you into a much more progressive zone than the rest of the country is at. But he's going hard at it. He's coming. He came out of his recall effort stronger than ever. He's attacking DeSantis,

which is an indicator that he is flirting with the 2024 run. He's running ads in some key places. So he's somebody to watch out for. And then there's a lot of whispers and talk about Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. Hmm. Yeah. It already feels like I thought Governor Newsom's kind of aggressive move of running an ad in Florida was a stroke of genius because I think he sort of indicated that I am, you know, I'm the kind of the torchbearer for the next generation of democratic politics. politics. Is this, do you think, if Trump announces, it strikes me, I don't know if you've spent much time with Governor DeSantis, but I've said that people like Governor DeSantis from afar,

but he's distinctly unlikable. My prediction is that he'll shoot up and shoot down really fast because you just listen to the guy talking, like, this guy's a jerk he has been very successful in florida and i think that alone means that he's someone to reckon with i think that he listen there are candidates around the country who want him to come speak on their behalf that says something but the the knock on on desantis and this was a knock that even he that that followed him in his college days was that he is very bad socially he's just not good one-on-one he's strange and he is quiet and he's as you said not likable not friendly how does he overcome that running for president does he need to overcome that because when you get in these big rallies and say you're just going after the other side and you're, you know, owning the libs as the Republicans want to

do, I'm not so sure how likable you need to be. As long as you're, you know, you're feeding the red meat that the party wants. Well, the good news is you can be strange and awkward in college and go on to host a podcast. So that's some consolation for those of you out there. So other Trump allies are in trouble. Verizon's cable TV network will stop carrying One American News Network after this weekend. I didn't even know what that was. Oh, yeah. OAN is a rabidly pro-Trump network and peddled conspiracy theories around the 2020 election. Verizon Fios was its last major distributor. One OAN host called Verizon a radical Marxist corporation. Well, sure.

Okay. And urged viewers to cancel their subscriptions. What's going on here? Well, streaming is rising. So arguably they shouldn't need to be on cable television. If they're really that influential, they should be fine getting streaming. I think it's a big deal. And I think it's a line in the sand for these companies who say, we don't want to distribute what you are peddling because you are peddling dangerous falsehoods. And OAN was on the leading edge of that. I mean, you might not know who they were, but you remember some of those Trump press conferences where there was always one question that the press secretary would go to when they were feeling too much heat from the regular press.

And there would be a girl in the back and she had black hair and she always wore a scarf. And she always asked like just the biggest softball or she would say, tell me why the Democrats are so terrible. How can you be so awesome? Yeah. Exactly. And that was their, it was their safe space. That was OAN. So good riddance, you know, good riddance. And not only that, it's some data here. OAN had a total viewership of 14,000 people, just to give a reference point here. By the way, you know, I've had a TV career. I was on Vice, and that show got canceled. Actually, I walked from that show. Then I was on Bloomberg, and that got canceled before it aired. And then I was on, I don't know if you knew this, Katie, I was on, I had a program on CNN Plus, and it was very successful. I heard weak networks. I put them over the edge. And by the way, testament to you, you were brave enough to have me on your show, and your show is still on,

which says that your show is enduring, Katie. You survived the dog. I would still have you on my show. Are you still contractually obligated to CNN? You know, they're still paying me, which I think means I'm contractually obligated. But to be serious for a second, you said it before. I think we're in a lot of media channels. So, podcasts, newsletter, books, speaking, and television, and I'm fairly analytical in every piece of data I have. When I look at the amount of time to produce TV, when I look at the amount of money we make relative to the effort, TV comes in a distant last. It is, I believe it's empty calories. I can't get over how few people actually watch television anymore.

I can tell the feedback I get based on volume of Twitter, but there's something about TV, I don't know if it's credibility or it tickles my narcissist, you know, sensors, where I keep going back to it. The foot you lead with is television. Have you thought about in terms of managing your own career, I'm going to lean more into books or podcasts? Because I do think right now, and I'm saying this of all anchors, you guys are pilots for 747 for Pan Am. And that is, you're the bomb right now. But I don't think it's got a great outlook.

I share your concern. right now. But I don't think it's got a great, I don't think it's got a great outlook. I share your concern. And, you know, you and I had this conversation a couple years ago, and I don't really have an answer for you, because I just didn't see it in the immediate future. In the past couple years, year, past year, especially, I've started to get very concerned about what happens on the cable side of things, on the broadcast side of things. I mean, I mean, we're over leveraged. I work for a cable company and my husband works for a broadcast network. And, you know, we're riding high right now. But as you said, we could be running into a mountain very soon. So where do we go now?

Or where do we go next? I have books as a backstop. But, I mean, if you've written a book, you know that a book is very difficult. It doesn't pay. You can't make a life off a book. Podcasts. You know,

do I have a great idea for a podcast that I think would get the kind of viewership that you have? Not at the moment. But I would love to find one. I love the idea of talking.

I love, my husband and I really want to do a podcast together because we like each other right now. We want to kill our marriage. So we thought we thought working together would be a great idea. Yeah, I was going to say I would I would advise against that.

I do believe that people on a base level want to hear the news told to them. And there is a desire for something along the structure of what TV news provides with visuals and with somebody anchoring the coverage, especially on those big days. I mean, you can't, where are you going to go on a day where the Capitol gets sacked by thousands of angry Trump supporters? You're not going to go to the Pivot podcast. You're going to go to television. You're going to want to see it happen in real time. And that might not be on DirecTV in a few years. That might be on YouTube TV in a few years. And it will look a lot like DirecTV because you'll turn on your TV and you'll see a bunch of apps at the bottom and you'll just go to the place where you find the live streaming news. I think there will always be a place for it. It's just, there's going to be, it's going to contract and there will be fewer people needed to do it. And who survives those hunger games?

Anyways, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. The question came in via email and I'll read it. Hi, Scott. You recently mentioned South Carolina's crackdown on abortion and how it will impact people's decisions to move there. My son graduated from Clemson this year and my daughter from Washington University in St. Louis a couple of years ago. They each had terrific college experiences, but now I question whether I'd want a child to attend college in either of those states

since Roe v. Wade has been overturned. We live in New Jersey where access is not an issue. I'd love your thoughts on how lack of access to abortion and reproductive health will impact college decisions. Thanks, Kathleen Brown. Katie, your thoughts? I want you to go first. I don't think 18-year-olds give a good goddamn about Roe v. Wade in terms of their decision around where they go to college. I think that we've engaged in higher education in this awful rejectionist luxury brand position that makes it very difficult to get into a good school. And I think probably in terms of a stack ranking

on where you're gonna go to college, that state's view on choice is just not gonna be in the top 10. I think people will think more about whether they have a good football team versus these types of decisions statewide as it relates to your decision to go to college. I think parents will think about it and they will try to assert some influence over their kids. And some of that might be just talking to them and other factors might be financial. I do think it will be consequential for especially women who men too, but women who go to these states for college and have an unplanned pregnancy.

And it happens. It's not unusual, especially around the age where you're starting to be more sexually active, which is college. Kids don't always make the best decisions. Or they make great decisions. Sometimes that's the right decision. Anyways, go ahead. Sometimes it make the best decisions. Or they make great decisions. Sometimes that's the right decision. Anyways, go ahead. Sometimes it's the right decision. But I think it will have consequences.

And if it starts having high-profile consequences, that could have an effect. The question more is, do they stay in that state afterwards? Do they go to college in South Carolina or, you know? Because generally I find- I love it here, but this is not the place I want to be because I got a future to plan, and I don't think I can plan my future, especially if those states start going after you if you try to get an abortion elsewhere. I mean, that's what's really scary.

I find, though, generally speaking, almost every campus environment, and I would imagine this is, it feels fairly progressive. I find that in almost every state that the universities are kind of this little progressive kind of, you know, West Berlin enclave, no matter how conservative the state, they feel progressive. And I just don't think people are going to feel threatened by this. I think you're right about that. I mean, look at Austin. It's the same way. Athens, Georgia, all of them. Yeah. When you're choosing schools, you've had your heart set on a school probably for a little while. And this is not going to affect your, it might not affect the next few years, but I wonder if it starts to affect the

few years after that, if these laws remain in place. I mean, there's a lot of questions about what it does for the midterms, how people vote on this issue. I think Democrats are hopeful they will turn out, although historically abortion has been more of a single voter issue for Republicans. There's a lot of loud talk among Democrats, but are they actually going to say that this is their one big issue? And are there enough, you know, Republican, moderate Republican women or independent women who say, and men too, who say, I don't like this. This makes me uncomfortable. And this is my one big, this is my one big voting issue. That's a question. It's an open question. So Kathleen, we're, we've, I guess the net net is maybe not going into college, but whether people stick around in that state might have more of an impact. So if you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way.

Go to newyorkmad.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Katie, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Katie, let's hear some wins and fails. Democratic Party, win. Joe Biden, win this week. Manchin getting on board for this legislation for the Inflation Reduction Act of 2020, signing on for climate provisions, signing on to increase taxes among the wealthiest, to close that billionaire's loophole. That's a really big deal. It is a big win for the Democratic Party.

More for the party or for Biden? I saw it as a win for Biden. I think a win for Biden is a win for the Democratic Party right now. They're one and the same, and they need to run a victory lap to give them some momentum in the midterms, which, you know, historically speaking, doesn't look great. And your fail? My fail is me, Scott. My fail is me for being on this podcast. That's not true. That's not true. You're going to see our book sales. We're going to sell at least three or four books here, Katie. This is a big deal. I'm going to call my editor and I'm

going to say, you better print. Better print those copies. I need three more set. That's right. My fail this week in keeping on topic is the Republicans. You work for MSNBC, right? I'm going to go out on a limb here. Mitch McConnell, but only because of this. Because Mitch McConnell is usually so very good at manipulating the system to his advantage. He had said, we will pass chips so long as the negotiations on this Democratic bill, which was resurrected, stop. And Manchin said, I'm not going to do it. So it looked like it was dead in the water. All the Republicans signed on, they whipped them, they got them ready to go. And now Manchin, after saying yes, has put McConnell

in a position that McConnell usually puts others in, which is feeling like he got duped. Yeah, it's really weird to read that the Democrats played the Republicans. That's just an emotion I'm not used to. It's not normal. I really am going to be honest with you. I was very surprised to find out that Joe Manchin signed on to this bill. I was genuinely shocked that Joe Manchin signed on to this bill. Yeah, so my win is I think Amazon's acquisition of One Medical for I think it was $3.8 billion is a huge turning point or hopefully a catalyst or the flag dropping for overdue disruption in the healthcare industry, the leading cause of bankruptcy. It is nearly impossible just to text your doctor and get some information. So a combination of regulation coming down because of the pandemic, the deep pockets of Amazon dispersing medical care from doctors' offices and hospitals to our smartphones and our smart speakers.

I think this could be an enormous turning of the tides across what is supposed to be the wealthiest nation in the world where we spend on average double on healthcare what other advanced nations spend for worse outcomes. I am really hopeful, while I believe Amazon should be broken up, I think that they should let this go through and we should bring in the great white shark of disruption into the healthcare industry. So, I think that's a win. Any thoughts on the acquisition of One Medical, Katie? I think it's great for the healthcare system to be diversified and disrupted. I think, as you said, it's a big problem in this country. I will tell you right now, I am still getting medical bills for the C-section I had now 15 months ago with my daughter, and they come in the mail,

and I have no idea what they are, what they're for. All I know is that I have to pay them or that my credit's going to get messed up. And I have more time than most to try to figure it out. And I have more resources than most to try to figure it out. And that just goes to show you that the system is not set up for you to understand it. It's set up to take advantage of you. understand it. It's set up to take advantage of you and our healthcare system for all the things that we do right and all the innovation that we make and the high quality healthcare that we have at the very top. There is a lot of unnecessary suffering and unnecessary financial pain that is built in and it's unfair. And anything that will try to disrupt that, to fix that, I think it's a good thing. So,

applaud. And my fail, if you will, and this will get some shit on Twitter, the prisoner exchange that might happen where Brittany Griner could be traded for the arms dealer Victor Bout, who's one of the world's most notorious arms dealers referred to as the merchant of death. I think it's a terrible idea, and I think it reflects weakness on the part of the president and his administration. And I think all this will do long-term is ensure that more people from special interest groups, more gay people, more athletes will be incarcerated on trumped-up charges across the world. This was negotiating with a hostage. It's no accident that they decided based on an alleged minor infraction of having vape oil that they incarcerated someone who is LGBTQ and an athlete because Putin, who is the Yoda of PR and propaganda, knew that it would inflame certain communities here in the United States, understandably. And they would put pressure on them and they would get back someone who is a very dangerous

individual. I think this shows an incredible lack of leadership in bowing to outside pressure. Your thoughts? What do we do? We don't negotiate with terrorists. That usually is what the standing rule. 100%. Listen, I think it's hard. And obviously, anybody who wants to see Brittany Greiner and the others who are imprisoned in Russia freed, I understand the intense desire to get her out and to do so at any cost. If that was my family member there, I would feel the same exact way. There are questions that rise about what precedent it's setting and the leverage that it gives to foreign powers. And I also wonder what it means for Americans who are deciding to travel abroad to, you know, not the mainstream places. I mean, do Americans still travel abroad to a place like Russia? Do they travel abroad to some places in South America that might not have leadership that's friendly to the United States? Do they travel abroad to places in Southeast Asia who

have the same issues? I mean, it makes you think twice about where you want to go and what sort of risks you want to take. Yeah, it feels that way. I was with friends last night and my close friend Greg Shove and I took our sons to World Cup in Russia. Almost four years ago, I'm going to go again. My sons are football crazy. And I thought about it. I don't think I'd go back to Russia. I'd been there once before on business. But here's the thing. A professor, a no-name professor, who if they found vape oil in my suitcase, I don't think they'd do anything. I think they are going to strategically start incarcerating people that will create dissension agita controversy in the United States. And I think we've fallen for it. I think this is a terrible-

So you're saying you're not a high value enough target? I don't even think they would trade the guy who played a Russian on Homeland for me. I don't think they would. I just don't think they'd be like, well, sorry about that, Scott. You know, Mrs. Galloway, you're welcome. So just a quick pat on our own back here. We had a listener named Jonathan DM us on Twitter after our last episode about career advice. And he said, open quote, I asked for a raise yesterday after listening to your show. I got the raise. Thank you. End quote. So thank you for letting us know that made us all around here. We talked about it before the show, made us feel really nice. I will say, I listened to that. I listened to that conversation you had with Kara about getting a raise and every two years going to see what your market value is. And I have to tell you, I found it useful for myself and not getting too comfortable in a position just because you've been there and making sure that, you know, people know what you're worth. Because you do, there is a tendency to see you as the person you were when you came into the company,

which can be especially harmful if you come into a company when you're really young at a very low rate. It's hard. It can be hard to leave that behind, leave that perception behind. You need competing offers. You need competing offers. Yeah, and especially there's a lot of research showing that it's especially difficult for women who tend to be less aggressive about asking for increased compensation. We don't value ourselves as much because we have been conditioned to feel like we are not as valuable as men. We don't contribute the same thing. We don't work as hard.

We're not as smart. That's what we've been conditioned to believe throughout our lives. And it shows in the way that we're paid. I mean, we make less, we still make less than men. I applaud the effort to get us toward equity. And I think we need to be loud about it. And I think we need to retrain ourselves to say, hey, listen, everything that we grew up with is bullshit. We need to retrain ourselves to say, hey, listen, everything that we grew up with is bullshit. And we are just as good, if not more, if not better than everyone else. And to ask for what we deserve, you know, demand what you are worth, people. Ask for what you deserve.

That's a good place to end it. Okay, Katie, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. True story, Katie. We actually, because we do get a lot of downloads, have a lot of currency in the marketplace and can ask a lot of people. You are number one on my list and solely because I was really moved by the courage and vulnerability that you demonstrated about your relationship with your father and your family when you came on and talked about your book. I think it's important that people who are as

famous as you are demonstrate that kind of vulnerability. I was really moved by what you said, and I appreciate you being on the pod. Thank you very much. It was a hard thing to do, but I think transparency is best, and telling the truth is best. And sometimes the truth is ugly. There you go. There you go. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin, Ernie and Jutad, engineer in this episode. Thanks also to Drew Brose and Mia Silverio. 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. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thanks, Katie. And thanks, everybody. We'll see you on

Tuesday.