Pivot - The “Woke” Smithsonian, South Park’s Latest Dig at Trump, and Co-Host Wesley Morris

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Scott-Free August continues as Kara is joined by host of The New York Times' Cannonball podcast, Wesley Morris. Kara and Wesley discuss President Trump’s beef with the “woke” Smithsonian, The White House’s new TikTok account, and South Park’s latest Trump Administration burn. Then, Taylor Swift hits the podcast world. Listen to Cannonball here, or watch on YouTube here. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠. Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠. 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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Claude? Claude. Yes, Anthropic. Who's Claude? Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and August rolls on.

Welcome back to Scott Bre August. Do you like that? Do you like our sting? Okay. Scott is still, before I introduce you, yes, Scott is still away, and I know he misses me terribly. He's been posting a lot.

a lot pretending he's still on the show, but pretty much he's gone, and he's sitting on the beach wishing because there's so much news. But in his place, once again, I have yet another amazing co-host. He's a critic at large for the New York Times and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, which Scott will never win, and the host of the Times' brand new podcast, Cannonball. It's Wesley Morris. I can't believe this is happening to Scott again. I mean, day after day, it's another fantastic person who is so more well-qualified to be my partner than other people. So I'm thrilled that you are here.

Let me just explain what your podcast is all about. And you had a very popular podcast. Obviously, the New York Times is glowing up the whole podcast division with videos and this and that. So talk about where the name Cannonball came from. And talk a little bit about your podcasting history because it's been terrific, actually. Thank you. Um, well, you know, Jay Wortham and I had this show called Still Processing. Um, it was, you know, one of the happiest things I've ever been involved with.

Uh, and now I'm doing this other culture show. And I mean, mostly it's, it's me sort of thinking through, you know, art, TV shows, movies, books, sports. I mean, anything that I'm kind of curious about and trying to make these connections, between one thing to another thing. Usually, you know, so far it's been me talking to other people about, like, what's coming up for them, as I'm trying to work out my stuff, with the other person. And the name, you know, I wanted to call this show some other things.

Tell me. Tell me the name you wanted. I know how the New York Times is about names. I shoved mine through so hard. Did you have to fight to get sway called sway? Oh, yeah. Really? You know what? I didn't care. I refused to do it without the name. But what was the name you

wanted? Tell me the name. I wanted to call it Parlando. Prolando? Parlando. I love that. Which, you know, for our musicologist friends, you know. Explain that, please. It's essentially, it's an opera term. And it essentially means to sing in a manner that is recognizable as speech, essentially. But there's also, and there's a great tradition of Parlando and pop music, we just don't really call it that. But, you know, some of your favorite singers are parland. I don't know, Kara. I don't want to, I don't want to, like, I don't want to accuse you of being a Leonard Cohen fan. Oh, yeah. No, no, they talk. Yeah. Or a Grace Jones fan. Yeah. But I wanted to call the show that because I can't sing, but I can talk.

You can parlando. And it sounds. But you know what's great about Cannonball is that I have discovered that I have been using it at people when they come on, both, you know, as a verb, like we cannonballed or, you know, the back and forth to get them to come on the show. Like, I can't wait to cannonball with you. Oh, good. So you're going to make it into something. I mean, it already is a verb, right? That is how we're using it.

Yeah, I mean, like, you're in a pool and you do a cannonball. Ding-de-d-ding-de-ding. There's a song. Yeah, there's a song Cannonball. Do you play that on the show? That's a terrible song, I believe. No, I think that probably costs $500,000. I would love to give Kim Deal that money, but I don't think the near.

I mean, we have a great theme song. I love our theme song. A guy named Justin Ellington did it. It's wonderful. It is so not cannonball, like, by the breeders, but it's something as good as far as I'm concerned. You don't like Cannonball the song? I didn't want to let that slip by. I don't love the Cannonball.

I don't know. It reminds me of my youth, I guess. I don't know. I got to listen to it again. I don't know. Whenever I heal it, I'm like, ugh. Like, it's not the song. It's not the song.

It's something that happened during the song. I don't know. Maybe teenage. We've got to recover this memory. This is 1993, I want to say. Last Splash is like 93, 94. 94, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to lean on my arm for this one and just, I want to recover the memory, though.

Because it really, you know, there are these cultural artifacts. that are, you can't quite, you don't, there are things where, like, you know exactly why you feel the way you feel about it, but then there are these other things that they're not, they're not Proustian, like, I don't, well, I can't save in your case if this is, is or is not a pristine experience, but like, it's not one of the high ones. I mean, landslide, forget it. That's the, that landslide, that one I listen to and weep. But do you know why? I had a crush on a friend of mine, and I was gay, and I was, I listened to it a lot. I just, I can't believe I'm telling you this, that's what happened.

I think, I think that that's, that's an important one, but you can identify why landslides a song you love. Cannonball being a song you don't like. Let's see, 94, what was it, what was I doing in 1994? God, it was so long ago. If you can't remember what was going on then, isn't, that's another, I was, I thought, I was going to ask if you're in D.C., that's important. I was, I was at the Washington Post.

I was, I was, I just become a reporter, you know, is in the business. section. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's got to be a relationship. They're all relations. Were you going to bars? Were you going out? No, I'm not a bar person. I'm not. That's the whole thing. You know, you know my wife, Amanda. She loves a bar. Yeah. I mean, you know, Amanda's one of my favorite human beings. I don't like to dance. I know. Wait, you're not a dancer? I'm not. It's just like my son and Amanda always joke. One of my sons and Amanda always joke that I don't like swimming. I don't like dancing.

I don't like bars. Well, were you missing out in D.C.? Because D.C. strikes me as having, like, some great, like having had, anyway, some great gay bars. Yes, it did. It did. There's still a couple there, except now, like, it's populated by the government. Yeah, I was going to say they're, they really, can we talk about that? Why are they hanging out at the gay bars?

I mean, I mean, listen, Kara. It's always been an issue. Anyway, all right. We're going to get to a lot of things. Anyway, Cannonball. So you talked to, who's the last person you talked to in Cannonball? That the public can hear, it's probably Vincent Cunningham. He and I talked about the new Spike Lee movie, Highest, the Lowest.

That happened this week. And then next week is going to be a conversation with me and Sam Anderson talking about old summer movies. I, well, you know, I had this feeling that this summer was going to be really dry. and it was in fact dry and you know it was the usual thing that happens now with our summers

you get a lot of sequels a lot of you know eighth editions of something but you know my favorite movie from this summer

is weapons I don't know if you've seen this movie I can't see it it's scary I don't like Karen you gotta just like that's another thing

I can't do really? I can't I know I know it's like sinners I finally went to sinners I did I thought it was scary and then it was fantastic

this is scarier than sinners to me I know exactly and the kid This guy is a very gifted filmmaker. It's very clear. It's incredible. But the arms with the kids.

Yeah, I mean. I just don't like that. I don't know why that upset me. And I don't want to see it and I don't want it. I've seen it in this posters and I don't want to see it in my head. Like I was just in my town. I was driving through, it was on Long Island doing something which the New York Post is reported about. But they were filming the devil wears prodigua out there.

I won't say more. Oh, shit. A ticket has just been sold! All right. So, a very minor situation. So I grew up there, and there was a movie theater that used to be there in Rosalind Harbor and Rosalind Village. And I saw Tales from the Crip there when I was a kid with my brother. He dragged me on a rainy day.

I had a turkey sandwich in my pocket, which, by the way, stayed there for too long later. But it was from the Clock Tower restaurant, and that I did. did not like seeing that movie that upset me. There was a Santa that was evil in it, et cetera. I remember that movie, and I was with my brother in an old movie theater, and I never forgive him for taking me to that movie. So I don't see horror movies very much. Since then?

Since then. I saw Halloween once, and I did not appreciate it, even though I very much like Jamie Lucas. Yeah, I mean, Halloween's a, that's a no-brainer. In terms of just, like, a really visceral movie-going experience, you had a bad way. Yes, well, a guy grabbed my legs during the scary scene. behind me because he had seen it before. And I have a bad experience as Hollywood.

So this one looks beautifully done horror movies. That's why I imagine it would stick with me. It's very good. Anyway, the point of bringing that up is... Weapons is the only... Like, it's the only thing... It's one of the few things this summer based on an original screenplay.

And I... So it went sinners sort of bled into summer, right? Yeah, the conversation around it did. And I think, you know, part of the reason Sam and I wanted to talk about old movies is because we didn't think we were going to get any good new ones this summer. Turns out that is basically true. I mean, we got weapons and, like, some residual sinners conversation because it arrived, I don't know, onto one of these streaming platforms,

probably HBO, HBO Max, which I just, I'm just saying HBO. I don't know what we're doing here. You do whatever you want, does they'll change it next week. What was your favorite old movie? Old movie? I mean, well, I mean, the thing that Sam Anderson and I talk about is ghost, but in total recall, those are our two movies. I love that movie.

That's a great, that's the summer of 1990. Yeah, you know what the Swisher's at watch every year here on the summer vacation? I'm on a fun of, is Patrick Swayzey and Roadhouse. Oh, wow. It was so good. Well, it holds up. Why that movie? Because we love it, because there's so many great lines in it.

Go watch it, Wesley. I mean, I've, listen. Your life will be changed. My life has already been changed. By Patrick Swayze. I mean, many times. I mean. Well, Ghost was amazing.

I just love Patrick Swayze. I really do. I don't know. like, dance, you know, a dancing movie. He's a dirty dancing. Yeah, dirty dancing. He's a strange movie star that we'll never get again because, you know, he's not really good in anything.

No, but he's a good dancer. That's not true. He's a beautiful dancer. That's true. Well, I mean, he's good enough for the movies. You know, he's good dancer. But what I would say is, like, the thing that's great about Patrick Suazy as a person on camera is he's got all the intangible things, right?

I mean, handsomeness, but also a little swagger, but like a real vulnerability or an access. He's feminine. He's got a femininity to him. And I think that there's that that conflation of several different, like, his gender spectrum is bright and functioning simultaneously with every performance. He's just a sweetheart. And he seems like a kind person, yes. He does. And he's always great. We're going to be nice until it's time not to be nice. Yeah, point break. No, that was Roadhouse. Point Break was another one. He was amazing.

I mean, I forgot. I can't quote Roadhouse the way you can quote Roadhouse. That's correct. And we sit around and we insult the Jake Gyllenhaal version. I feel bad for the remade Roadhouse. I don't know why they did it. I'm a big Jake Gyllenhaal person. I don't. don't like him doing movie star karaoke, like the idea of him doing Patrick Swayze and Harrison Ford in the same year, essentially. I didn't like it. But, I mean, because he's his own thing, right? Like, I don't think that he needs to.

I love that he was doing that movie this summer that Taylor Swift had her enormous tour because it was like, here he wasn't a sad little roadhouse and she was billionaires selling out stadiums everywhere. I mean, I don't want to skip ahead or anything, but I did find that part of that podcast conversation that she had with the Kelsey Brothers to be really fascinating

when she's like my favorite part of that entire re-recording Odyssey was getting to do her 10-minute version of All Too Well, which allegedly, you know, is about the person we were just discussing. Of course it is. We're going to get to her too. Okay. Look, look.

Look, we got to cannonball. I'm not trying to rush us. Okay, you're rushes. You're not rushing us. We've got lots of things to talk about. We've been talking, it took just a little bit. This week you're talking about Spike Lee's latest movie. Last week you were talking about the series finale even just like that.

Listen, did you watch that show? Hello, I love Sarah Jessica Barker. I'm not of the haters. I mean, I can see why people hate watch it, but I love it. It was so fuck you. I love a fuck you. Yeah, to everybody. I love it.

The poop? Like, oh, my God, they really did that. And then her last thing was like, fuck you, I'm going to dance away in my thing. Yeah. Did you like it or not? You probably hate watching it. No, I love the show. Okay, I love the show.

I really think it's one of the great projects about friendship that we've ever had. I mean, I don't care if we're talking about books, movies, TV. I mean, it's one of the great works of friendship. and all the vicissitudes of being close to people for a long time. Well, we have to forgive them for Che. Che was a bad character. Of course, of course. But that's okay.

It's okay. Can I give you a premise? You remember when they got in a troll for not being diverse enough? There's lots of shows of dudes, white dudes, black dudes, all kinds of dudes kind of thing, where there's never diversity among them, right? This show got slapped for it in a way that other shows don't. And I thought it was really interesting as I watched it. I was trying to think of a popular show that didn't really try very hard.

That was a long – the thing is it was on forever, I guess. That's because it was so long. 98 to, you know, now more or less, right? As much as I hate to say, this is probably what a lot of – if the people they're depicting, their lives would have been like this. Yes. So they were kind of depicting the lives. They wouldn't have had a lot of diverse friends, necessarily.

Unless, you know, just unless they sort of, you know, van diagramed into fashion, I guess, right? Right. But no, I agree with you. I mean, that's, I don't want, if this is the, if, I live in New York City. I go to restaurants all the time. And you know what I see a lot of the time when I go out is four white ladies. Mm-hmm. Just yucking it up. Yucking it up. And I think I didn't need that to be the case if that wasn't the case from the beginning. Right. But I think the amazing sort of one of the cool things about the, and just like that project was it was going to take a different risk, right?

It was going to absorb the criticism of the show not being, quote, diverse enough. Right. Which nobody, I mean, did anybody say Tony Soprano needs a black friend? That's what I was thinking of. I was like there were no black people in terms. Well, no, never. I mean, it's just, I mean, there were, there were some, but they, they weren't, they weren't major characters. I mean, they were, like, ancillary, you'd get an episode where Christopher, Christopher was hanging out with some Negroes.

Yeah, yeah. That's what would happen. But I think that, you know, the idea that these women would come back, you know, minus Samantha, and be put into a post-George Floyd United States, what would it then mean for them to be able to stay on HBO, for one thing, and during this period? But also, what would be realistic, what would be a realistic experience for them as women who were realizing that the world had changed and that they, they were part of the problem in some way without actually saying, hey, we're part of the problem, right? Like Charlotte goes on it, like Charlotte, Carrie, and Miranda go on these respective crew. crusades to find some non-white people. So the ones that you have would make sense would have maybe happened, right?

Yes. It didn't feel forced to me. Yes, it didn't feel. When they got past Che, it didn't feel forced because I thought the woman who played the real estate agent was amazing. Oh, oh, Sarita Chowdry? Amazing, amazing. That is one of the best performances on a show. I love her. That I can think of.

I mean, with all due respect to, you know, I bow down Kim Cottrell. But this is just like a deeper version of the same character to me. And I believe I've met that person. I've met that person. I met real estate lady who's like a killer. Yes. And the same thing with, with, I'm totally believe. Lisa, Nicole Ari Parker, yeah, yeah.

Amazed. I've met that woman. Yes. I know her. And she would have hung out with them. Anyway, I love that show. And let me just say, I love Sarah Jessica Parker. I know her a little bit.

And she's actually a fan of Pivot, but she may be listening to this. I think she has delivered more entertainment. I always think of, like, who delivers more entertainment in their lifetime? And she certainly has in lots of roles. But I actually think that what you're identifying is something interesting about her,

which is that, you know, we haven't really, I don't know, I have not experienced, like, a useful or enlightening appreciation of what it is that she did. both as Carrie and what she, what kind of entertainer she's been all this time. I think that there's something, one of the things I loved and sometimes gringed at, but, like, loved the nerve of, in her work as Carrie, is that, you know, Carrie Bradshaw was somebody who was very present to the moment in the late 90s and early 2000s, right?

she kind of had a really great white bee girl energy and she there was like a little hip hop dimension to her glamour and the way that she would both incorporate like black slang and like borscht belt comedy um into her like throwaway line deliveries i always thought that was great um the way she could screw her face up was you know that's like 1930s 1940 screwball um I just think that that performance is very, very good. To the end. And it got to the end.

And it got better. It got even better. The last four episodes were amazing. Yes, I agree. I agree. I think she's great. I would give her kudos. She was also in a movie that it was about a family where she was sort of the girlfriend that nobody liked.

Oh, was that the, um, that was home, was it not home for the holidays? It was like that. Oh, Family Stone, the knockoff home for the holidays. Yes, but I love that movie because I loved her performance in it because she was sort of this difficult woman and she didn't hide it and her difficulty and then she falls in love with the other brother, et cetera. But I loved her in that movie.

I appreciate her after that movie. Part of that great stretch that she had in the movies because of the show, right? I mean, if you can remember this, Kara, her early 90s version of her, the early 90s version of herself, I don't know if you remember this, but there was this movie with Bruce,

Willis as some kind of like river cop, like Coastal Guard, Pittsburgh, I think. It's striking distance. And Sarah Jessica Parker is his partner in that movie. His cop partner, I believe, wore a uniform and everything. Yeah. That's like when Meryl Streep drove a boat. The River Wild, who could forget?

May I say she's the classiest day I've ever met? I won't say how. So anyway, President Trump is – we're moving on. President Trump is accusing – We can't go from Meryl Streep to President Trump. We are, because, listen, because historically speaking, she's been in many history movies, that's why. President Trump is accusing Smithsonian of focusing too much, unquote, how bad slavery was, and not enough on the brightness of America. Trump sent a post on true socialities.

He's directed his attorneys to go through the museums and start the same process done with universities across the country. You also noted that country cannot be woke because woke is broke. The comments come a week after the White House announced a sweeping review of the Smithsonian. Museums are given 120 days to change content that Trump administration finds problematic in tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals. I mean, please just go on. Please just pontificate on what this happening here. How bad slavery was. Can I start here?

I want to take you back to February 21st. Sorry, February 21st, 2017. This is like a month after the inauguration. And, I mean, because this is what I've been thinking about. This man, a month after the inauguration, gets a tour of the relatively still new Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, which we at my house call the Blacksonian. The president

gets a tour of this museum from Lonnie Bunch the man who is now in charge of the whole Smithsonian system and is under fire to gladden it up President Trump gives this speech I have the entire speech

I'm not going to read all of it but Kara I'm going to I'm going to just like read some of it because I don't recognize this person this person is a different person I am very proud of Lonnie Bunch the work and the love

that he has done in his heart and what he's done is I always need to talk he's like this is not a written speech I always need to talk to you I always need to talk about your you need need enthusiasm you need really

you need really love for anything you do it successfully and Lonnie where are you come on Lonnie I'll skip ahead and he thanks David Rubinstein who he just fired from the Kennedy Center it's a privilege to be here today. This museum is a beautiful tribute to so many American heroes. Heroes like

Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, the Greensboro students, the students who had a synod at a Woolworth in Greenboro, North Carolina, the African American Medal of Honor recipients, among so many other really incredible heroes. It's amazing to see. I went to M-Dash. We did a pretty comprehensive tour, but not comprehensive. enough, Kara. Not comprehensive enough. So, Lonnie, I'll be back. I told you that. Because I could stay here for a lot longer. Believe me, it's really incredible. I am deeply proud. I am deeply proud that we now have a museum that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage, especially when it comes to faith, culture, and the unbreakable

American spirit. My wife was here last week and took a tour. And it was something that she still is talking about. Ivanka is here right now. Hi, Ivanka. And it is really very special. It's something that, frankly, if you want to know the truth, it's doing so well that everybody's talking about it. Incredible. Well, you tell me what's happening. Because he had people around him who were like, this is a good thing. And, you know, look, I'm sorry. I've been a racist since Oh, come on. I mean, who are we talking about? Forever. Like, never not been a racist. And so this is what's happened between age, power, and not being stopped by someone, not having a governor on him. I like where you're going on this. Yes, yes. He now is showing you exactly who he is. Like, slavery is, like, why is it too much on how bad slavery was? There is not a number of how bad it was, right? There is not a number high enough to do it. But I think he just was told what to do.

there. And he had, I hate to say it, he had Ivanka there. You mean on the, on the, on February, 21st, February 17th, 2020 or 2000, he had people who were like, yeah, slavery was bad. Let's stick with slavery was bad on this one. A terrible, the worst thing ever. And, you know, the original sin, whatever, there's no, there's several original sins, but. Well, he wants them all gone. So, all gone. So what do you, how do you, what do you think about these attempts? And do you think they're, you know, he just will not give up on this woke thing, which is nuts. And there was a bunch of interviews in front

of the museum, and they showed people what he said. Like, all kinds of people, not just like, what you'd imagine, be angry about it. But they were like, what? What? What? Like, talk about this and what they're trying to do here from a cultural point of view. They're trying to purify.

They're trying to create some idea of a thing that, you know, has been being attempted for 400 years, right? That's true. It's not a new thing. A racially purified, well, it's just never been achieved, right? There's never been, I mean, not even Woodrow Wilson has gone as far as Trump is trying to go.

And Wilson was, you know, all but a KKK member. I think that this is propaganda at its, at its, I mean, most blatant, right? This is the beginning of something, right? I mean, if you look at the prongs that are laid out on this table, essentially, holding it up, you've got the National Guard down the street, probably around the museums right now, right? Exactly. Because, you know, those black people act up a lot. Like, that's where they would put the National Guard like idiots, like where no crime is taking place, but we'll get into that. Right.

But where, like, in a city where, you know, if you ask the average D.C. resident, like, could, could, could, things be a little better from the standpoint of public safety, they would say yes. But do I think the solution to that is the National Guard? No, it's housing. You know, it's get, let people go to sleep. I mean, this is my number one thing about like, like, what we call crime and mental health situations. I think a lot of this stuff is just, I think, I think, I think, stress and not having a place to actually reset your brain every night contributes to what we don't, we probably wouldn't even qualify certain aspects of urban crime as mental illness because we've been culturally conditioned to think of it as gang warfare.

It's bad people. And the people suck. But no, it's the systemic conditions that have led people to behave this way. Now, I'm not tried, whatever. This is a whole other, this is a whole other aspect of this conversation. Including C slavery. Right, right. But I think that the point here is that something is being gotten underway, essentially, right?

And I think purifying the story of American history is part of it. I think creating an environment in which they can use Washington, D.C. as a test case for, how this might go once you start rolling it out in Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia. I mean, he's describing cities as bloodsoaked and cesspools. No, they're not. I have raised children in D.C. and San Francisco and ever. But, you know, Kara, I'm actually curious about this because I think it only takes one upset white woman to have an experience that she didn't like and for that to reach somebody

on the staff of this administration or to reach him, right? Well, in this case, it was Big Balls, right? Big Balls got beat up on 14th Street, which is not as, you know, it's crazy on Saturday night. And as I lived over there, and I lived a block away. And it's a city. Like, I don't know what to say. It's a city. Like, all cities have their issues.

And you don't want to minimize crime, but the idea of maximizing it and create, it's almost pornographic in the way they're maximizing it. Like, bloodbath, ongoing this. It's, like, just not true. Yeah. It does not correspond with. with the reality that most people are living. But I will say that, I mean, I can't speak to its effectiveness. I think what you're telling me about when people are like,

man on the streeting responses to the news that he wants to, like, remove slavery from a museum that, you know, is telling the story from slavery to, like, the glorious things that African Americans have contributed to this country. And how you can't, if you, you know, you remove slavery and we're not America anymore. Right. Like, who are we? They will be removing the glorious things, just so you know.

It's not just slavery is bad, but white people did the most things. I mean, I think that's what's really what's happening here. I mean, although talk a little bit about the Kennedy Center honors, because it goes there, too, speaking of cultural impacts. It includes Kiss, Sylvester Stallone, and Gloria Gaynor. The country music star, they picked George Strait. Good country music star. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not against Stallone.

I'm not against Stallone. Even though I think he's kind of heinous in many ways, I think, he's culturally relevant in some fashion. Talk a little bit about these honors. What do they say? Well, it's funny. I'm going to do an episode about these five people and this particular situation. Who's the first of all in Gloria Gainer, George Strait?

Michael Crawford. Again, important Broadway star. No question. He's not getting, like under ordinary circumstances is Michael Cros. Like, can I give you a list of people who are not being Kennedy-centered? Yes, I get it. You start with, has Alder McDonald gotten one yet? I mean, no, she is not.

Has Madonna? I mean, you know, I mean, I just, there's so many people. No one. The Democrats aren't giving it to Madonna either, but go ahead. But I mean, but somebody on the board at some point would just be like, listen, I think it's kind of cool that Madonna hasn't gotten it because it's kind of, it's sort of a badge of honor. But the idea that Julia Roberts is inducting George Clooney X number of years ago and she hasn't been Kennedy Center. You know, I mean, Glenn Close. I mean, there's just like a long list of people who have not been, who've not gotten it.

But here we are, right? But I actually think that, you know, Sylvester Stallone and George Strait, those are no-brainers to me. Yeah, I agree. That's like, that's easy. That's not hard. Gloria Gaynor, I don't know what that is. I mean, listen, there's a part of me. There's a part of me that's like, I don't know, still a little DEI left in this administration.

They needed to find a person of color who would say yes. I mean, who could they get? But even they still feel a kind of pressure to acknowledge that even though they're letting all these Afrikaners in the country under victimization statutes of some kind. We got to find one. We got to find one. Are you going to go? I used to cover the Kennedy Center honors for the Washington Post just so you know when I was a young group speaking of my time. That was my job, one of the jobs in the style section.

I have to say it was a ball because it was like amazing. It's fun. I've been. Trump's hosting, which could be hysterical. I mean, he's hosting for now. I don't know how that's going to go. Can you imagine? Like, what are the rehearsals? Well, for, Kara, what are they going to get?

What are they going to get? Wait, stop for one second. What I'm sorry. This man is going to have to go to rehearsals. I know. I know, but he loves that. He doesn't want to rehearse. He's just going to extemporaneously talk about how slavery wasn't that bad.

I mean, and broadcast it live on CBS, which is also what they want to do. Yeah. I mean, typically, for anybody who doesn't know, I mean, this, this is a, this is a ceremony that happens a month before anybody in the public gets to see it. That's right. They have a month to, like, make a television show out of this live event. Right. Right.

That's right. You can't broad. I mean, you could broadcast it live if everybody's on their peas and cues. It will be broadcast live, stop it. You know, I mean, today's, whatever CBS does in their, in their behaviors. It doesn't matter. Are you going to go? You need to go.

Oh, my God. I need to go. signing me? I'm assigning you to go and do a show about it. You need to go. I am going to do an episode about the nominees and like the rightness and wrongness of having the president choose them. But I guess, I don't know, I could try.

I could. That's like, I'm going to think about that because you're right. Maybe it would be worth going. But he's trying to culturally take over this old, old age. He's going to rename it after him. He's going to rename the center after him. He's already on his way to naming the opera house after Melania. The Trump Center. No, that's not going to work.

I've been listening to you talk about this man. for years. You were one of the smartest people on this person. I think that you understand what, I think you understand him. You're one of the people who understands him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's because my mother is Trump, but go ahead. I know. I mean, I think that that, I think the people who have the biggest insights into him understand him as a family member, right? Yeah, for sure. But I also feel like, you know, it's funny because I feel lucky because I felt like, you know, in my house, it was pictures of John Kennedy, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. That was who my grandmother and her sisters had around the house. My mother liked Jackie's outfits. But I think that there is, I just am curious about, you know, he's like a stopped clock in some way. So that when he says like things that the candidate, like, there aren't good shows at the Kennedy Center.

It's not true, but they would, I mean, some of the things didn't work, right? Not everything was great that went on there. I mean, in terms of, like, the quality of the thing, not morally bad. There had been. There had been years ago I saw when Audre McDonald, her first show, Masterclass was uncalled well. Oh, you saw the original masterclass. I saw it six times.

She was amazing. And I saw Spalding Gray there doing his show was amazing there, one of his shows. And so there used to be a lot more interesting things there. And then it just became like. But the fact of the matter is, the point is like the great people who made that place an exciting place to go do anything, I've gone. Like Ben Folds split one of my favorite like performers, Ben Folds. I love him.

He's out. Renee Fleming hit the road. And now he's taken over the board. I don't know. I truly... Well, you know, the telling thing about this whole Kennedy Center thing is, I don't know if you caught this, but when he gave that press conference talking about like how bad it was and talking about how he was going to take over, like he was going to host the show, he said, I want one of these. I wanted one of these. He wanted an honor.

He does. He wants everything. He wants a Nobel Prize. I waited and waited and waited. And I said, the hell with it. I'll become chairman. I'll give myself an honor. Maybe next year we'll honor Trump.

Yep. That's what he said. We probably will have to, although I would enjoy that. What the fuck? I say yes, because I just want to see the whole horrible thing. All right, well, we have to go on a quick break. We'll come back. The White House joins TikTok.

This week on Criminal, in 2019, E. Jean Carroll published an essay called Hidious Men. In it, she said that President. President Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her in her Bergdorf-Gudman dressing room in the 1990s. Donald Trump told her reporter that it didn't happen and that, quote, she's not my type. You knew he would react, though. I thought he would say it was consensual. This summer, I went to visit E. Jean Carroll at her house in the woods. We spoke about what her life has been like since she wrote that essay and what it was like to sue Donald Trump.

twice. You can hear my conversation with E. Jean Carroll on the latest episode of Criminal. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Support for Pivot comes from Grooons. If you've ever done a deep internet dive trying to discover different nutrition solutions, you've likely had the thought. Surely there's a way to improve my skin, gut health, immunity, brain fog without offending my taste buds. Well, there is. It's called Grooons. Grunes are a convenient. comprehensive formula packed into a daily snack pack of gummies. It's not a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic. It's all of those things and then some for a fraction of the price. In a Grooons daily snack pack, you get more than 20 vitamins and minerals, six grams

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Get up to 52% off when you go to Grunes.com and use the code Pivot. That's G-R-U-N-S dot CO using the code Pivot for 52% off. Hey, this is Peter Kofka. I'm the host of channels, a show about the biggest ideas in tech and media and how those things collide. And today we're talking about AI, which is promising and maybe terrifying. And if you happen to be in a very select group of engineers that Mark Zuckerberg wants to hire, it's incredibly lucrative. Which is why I had the New York Times, Mike Isaac, explain what's going on with the great AI pay race. I'm talking to executives across the industry who are pissed off at Mark Zuckerberg because he has dumped the entire market for this stuff, right? And like this is something that's painful for Open AI, I think, because they can't shell out a quarter of a billion dollars for one dude. That's this week on channels wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Wesley, we're back. TikTok just got a new user, the White House, the Trump minister. launched an official account this week, despite the fact that a federal law requires TikTok to be sold or banned. Though Trump keeps extending the deadline illegally, by the way. The new White House account posted several videos, including one in which Trump says, I am your voice. Posts were quickly flooded with spam and negative comments, many referencing the Epstein files. Trump is reportedly still working on a deal for U.S. investors to buy TikTok from its parent company, Bytance, probably Larry Ellson will be involved in that. The latest deadline for the ban expires in mid-September. Talk about him. him using TikTok. And years ago, just so people don't know, he called TikTok a national security

threat in 2020 and tried to ban it back then. Then he shifted when one of his biggest donors, he realized was one of the biggest investors in it, Jeff Yoss. So any thoughts on them doing this? You know, I got to be honest. Well, first of all, I would have just assumed that the White House had already had a TikTok account before this guy got back into office. Not that Biden would have been all over it or anything, but there would have been. some, like, there would have been some, like, young person in the Biden administration who's like, hey, Uncle Joe. Yeah, yeah.

They had a pretty good social media group there. Yeah, I mean. So I'm surprised by that. But I also, I mean, I, this as a story, I know that I'm supposed to be disturbed and upset by the idea of simultaneously the national security threat being addressed, like, you know, legitimately you got to find somebody else to do this, can't let the Chinese government involved and, you know, our private business.

I think the ship is sailed. I don't know about you. If you were on it, they got it. I think it's a wrap. It's how many, like every American, like are there new TikTok users besides the White House? Yeah. No, I agree.

TikToks, that's what I always thought we have. They got everything. They don't need anything else. They don't, they just think, like most of these immediate things, they'll go up and down and TikTok's not on the ascension necessarily. I don't know what the new thing will be, probably YouTube in many ways. How do you, well, YouTube knew how, like in terms of growth? I mean, people, growth, yeah.

When you look at the growth, I think they've been, they're fine. They're sort of baked in. Threads is actually growing bigger than X right now, which is really interesting. They're reaching the same daily users. I think blue sky is doing fine well. I think what's happened is everything's gotten dissipated in terms of social media. So there's just more, there are more options. Right. Yeah, depending on what or people not using it as much. My kids use Reddit. That's it. YouTube and Reddit. That's the whole thing. Interesting. That's the entire, they don't participate. I've noticed I don't use social media as much. I am having a love affair with Reddit. Reddit is great, actually. I, you know, I now I'd sort of been led to the, well, you know, what's interesting is that Google sort of is giving me more Reddit threads in my searches than I'd ever been getting before. Interesting. Are you still using Google for search?

Yeah, I'm not a, I'm in a relationship with a, I, I'm not even going to take that as shade, Kara. You're in chat, I don't, I bet you do. No, I'm not. No, you don't. But, you know, I'm probably going to get there because I'm in a relationship with a man who is, you know, I love a man who loves some chat GPT. Oh, well, certain people do. But he is really good at it, and I'm learning that you can't treat chat GPT like some annual Google search. You can't.

It's not. You can't. It's a relationship. get cheap with chat GPT. You've got to whine and die and chat GPT. You got to prompt. The prompt. Yes. You got to talk to it.

You got to make love to chat GPT. You know, you've got to really like give it what it wants. If you like, it's like, you know, ain't nothing going on but the rent, you know, use what you got to get what you want. I just, you got to give chat GPT what it needs, you know. Yeah. Do you, do, does he step out with any other L.A. I mean, he's tried everything.

He's off over to Claude. He's... Wait, there's a clot? Claude, yes, Anthropics. Oh, no. Carrey. My man is secretly out with Claude, pretending to love chat GPT with me. That's right.

Claude, there's a lot. Claude is pretty good, actually. Everyone is a different one. And then there's Google, Gemini. I just think my point is when I'm using boring-ass, basic-ass Google. Well, Google is now Gemini, really. The answer's coming AI. By the way, you've noticed.

Yeah, yeah, I have noticed that. And I don't like it. You know, a lot of the time it's wrong. You'll learn to like it. Even though it's not right? It's like right-ish. It'll get right. Okay.

It'll get right. But Reddit is the thing that Google is now pushing me. Like, it's near the top of a lot of my searches when I'm looking for information. So I've become a Reddit person. Like, I'll just go to Reddit now. There used to be a lot of heinous stuff on there, but the people who are running. That's what kept me away. Something changed.

Something changed. It did. It's, you know what it is. It's a consumption. I think Reddit is like YouTube. It's consumptive where you don't have to necessarily participate, but it brings you all kinds of interesting information if you curate it properly.

And I know people have talked about it this way, which is like it does remind me of the past. It seems somehow innocent. And at the same time, you know, a lot of the people there take it. It is like the information is good. Like I have traveled based, I made travel decisions based on Reddit threads. And you've gotten good results. Yeah.

I've gotten good results. My sons use it completely. Good system. Let me ask you about another cultural thing because this is all over Reddit and all over social media. South Park has done it again. I have to say,

whatever is in these people's drinks is working for them. The third episode of the show current season continued to mock the Trump administration, an episode focused on federal takeover in D.C. In the episode,

the president is mocked for accepting bribes from big tech CEOs, sort of real to life, once again, is in bed with Satan, and yes, still has a micro penis. Let's listen to a clip of Trump receiving gifts from a line of suck-ups, including Tim Cook.

Mr. President, you have so many great ideas. Your leadership is truly beyond anything we have ever had in this country. And you do not have a small penis. Ah, thanks, Gant. On behalf of the state of Florida, I'd like to give you this gift, a silver-plated space shuttle. Next? Mr. President, your ideas for the tech industry, you're so innovative, and you definitely

do not have a small penis. Ah, thank you. Please accept this gift on behalf of Apple. So tell me what you think. It also did take, this latest episode also took some shots at Chat, GBT, by the way.

But we talk about, with this show right now, something's in there, Wheaties, or whatever. I think that the timing is really good. I think there's something about the brute force of the South Park comedy ideology

I think the show didn't have to change for us to come back to it what do you mean the brute force of the comedy ideology explain that their their approach is really to just name the thing right to just say the thing

that it that to make the subtextual textual there's no line to you don't need to be literate to watch the show if you know what I mean like you don't need to be visually literate and you don't need to really have a great sort of sense of cultural literacy you just have to basically know like have a gist of what's happening especially now but I mean these guys their genius is for I think that's part of their genius to sort of be declarative in as comedians.

to not need to have, it's like the Easter egg is an omelette on that show. You just see it. It's just the thing that you, they've cracked it open. You don't have to look for it. You might not agree. Like the trans stuff, people complain about that. I just think they go after everybody, right? I think that, well, that's the thing that, like, always sort of scared me about those guys.

I mean, I'm doing it, I'm doing an episode with. somebody about my relationship with this show. And a lot of what I'm, a lot of where we're starting in this conversation is me sort of thinking through how much the show scared me because it was forcing me to think differently about things that, you know, as a young person, I thought I understood. And here were people who were basically my age who, who were making fun of things that I didn't think you could make fun of. You mean an example. Jesus.

Yeah, they do make fun of Jesus. I mean, I'm not a, you know, I wasn't an extremely religious person, but I didn't have time. I wasn't thinking, I mean, you know, and I had lived, this was, I mean, I would consider South Park part of the culture war era of this, of the country, right? The beginning of the show was happening at the end of the so-called culture wars. And, you know, I'm familiar with Andres Serrano's Christ Piss and Chris Ophile's. work and Madonna, and yet there was something about the subversiveness of doing that dismantling and undermining in the form of like crude children's animation, right? It was actually, the animation is so crude that it isn't, it isn't for children because all the lines are sharp,

right? All the lines on those drawings are sharp. Yeah, one of the things that's interesting about it is, you know, that they can, not that they continue to push against Trump, they push against anybody, I think. And obviously, the tech leaders are perfect for that. I mean, they don't even have to mock them. That's exactly what Tim Cook said, you know, when he was handing him the golden statue, essentially, or whatever the gold and whatever the fuck he handed him. It's just, I think one of the things they do is, as you said, they are brutal. They're just, they don't even have to make satire here, right? Because everything is so ridiculous on some level. Well, I mean, I think that the one thing that they have changed is the calibration. Because, you know,

when South Park, bigger, longer, and uncut the great, truly great movie musical they made 26 years ago came out, there was a degree of subtlety happening there because, you know, they were taking the satire of the sitcom and essentially overlaying it. They were stretching it to fit a musical, movie musical format. And so the movie is a legitimate musical, while also, functioning as social and political satire. It's just that in 1999, the culture was different. And so the thing that that people were upset about was the way in which it depicted Satan and homosexuals and it was having a good time with these conflations. And I found that naughtiness to be really

liberating in a way. I did too. I was not offended, interesting. No, I was, I mean, I should have been an offended party as a gay Negro, but I wasn't, because I kind of understood the place that the comedy was coming from.

And I think that in these, in the lifespan of this show, we've seen our relationship to comedy change like 10 times. Yes, well, you think about the Book of Mormon too, though, right? Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, I loved that show so much.

And oddly enough, I was there, I saw it several times, and there's a lot of offensive gay things in that, you know. And it's fun, but it's funny. It's funny. But it's really funny. And I know it's like, don't pick on the gays. I'm like, it's okay, a little bit to pick on them. I mean, the gays pick on the gays. The gays pick on the gays, let's be clear.

And other people. In our meetings, in our meetings when you're not there. But the Book of Mormon to me, I was recommending someone see it even now because it's so. I actually may go back and see it again. I'm going to go back, actually, because I think, you know, for the book. purposes of this thing that I'm doing. I'm going to go back and see it. But one of the things is I was there once. Still on Broadway. Still on Broadway. With a bunch of Mormons went, because they thought it was funny. Certain Mormons think it's funny, too. And it's so insulting to Mormons.

So, but it's, it's interesting that I don't think the Trump administration thinks this is funny, because they have no sense of humor, right? This group of people are not going to, if they continue at it, they may, especially the micropenus part, which is really funny, which is what everybody thinks of Donald Trump. He is a micropanus. That's what is, you know. I mean, Kara, I can see the tie. Yeah. That's correct. And, you know, the thing that, like, I find scary, I found scary about Trey Parker and Matt Stone as a kid was that they didn't seem to have any allegiance to anything other than, like, their comedic version of the truth and the joke. Is the joke funny? And after that, We don't care. This is why I like them. You know, sometimes I had a real issue with Dave Chappelle because I didn't mind

he was making jokes. I was like, do you need to make an hour of them and some aren't funny? Like, make it funny. Like the other, at Easter in San Francisco near my house, they have hot Jesus. Have you ever been to the hot Jesus contest? Oh, I mean, hello. Yeah. Hello.

But it's like, someone's like, oh, it's sacros. I'm like, no, it's funny. It's like, if it's not funny, then why do it? And that's what I like. Hot Jesus, come on. I'm like, I mean, but again, like. I think that the return of this show has been really useful to remind us. I mean, because we've had more fights about whether comedy can be comedy in the last.

I mean, this has been going on since 9-11, honestly. Like, what can be funny? What are we allowed to laugh at? When can we laugh? What now is comedy is really about, like, who the comedian is? And the thing about having South Park back is nobody's changed. It's not like, and just like that where Carrie, Miranda, and Charlotte are now no longer 28 to 34. They're in their mid-50s.

They're mid to late 50s. And figuring out how the world works. The world has changed, but the people in South Park have not. Have not. That's exactly right. And it's still funny. And it's still funny. It's still funny.

All right. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the latest to join. Join the podcast game, Taylor Swift. Searchlight Pictures presents The Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. From the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things, comes The Roses, starring Academy Award winner, Olivia Coleman, Academy Award nominee, Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Sandberg, Kate McKinnon, and Allison Janney. A hilarious new comedy, filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always. A Bed of Roses.

See The Roses, only in theaters, August 29th. Get tickets now. Wesley, we're back with more news. Last week, Taylor Swift went on her boyfriend, Travis Kelsey's podcast, to announce her newest album. As usual, she broke the internet. The episode had 1.3 million live viewers, which is almost double the audience

to tune in to see Donald Trump on Joe Rogan. At the time of the taping, the episode has 20 million YouTube views in total. Meanwhile, Spotify reported the episode has become one of the past year's highest performing within just one day at release, increased female viewership of the shows by 600%. Not a surprise.

600%? 600%. God damn. I know. I know. I guess dudes were watching that. Talk about that. She can do whenever it wants. Of course, Donald Trump was saying

she's not hot anymore. She's still hot. She still remains. I'm sorry. Can we pause her by it? What do he mean she's not hot anymore? I don't know because she is hot. She looked beautiful on that.

Like, does he mean, did he mean it like that? Or she's not like. No, she's no longer the thing. She's not, I'm like, she's still the thing. Exactly. This man, I mean, I can't talk about big tie energy. I just can't do it. I just won't do it.

Yeah, exactly. Big, like long tie energy. Is that what it is? I, first of all, I found it interesting that, that she basically was using it to, she was using this appearance to announce an album, essentially, right? Yes, exactly. It wasn't as though this show needed, you know, there are shows that would love to have Taylor Swift come on for the numbers.

This didn't feel like a numbers play to me. It felt like she was trying something out. I mean, she kind of said it herself on the, in the, on the episode. But I think that, you know, I mean, this is a show that has Adam Sandler come on, Brad Pitt's been on it. Like, it's not, it's not like they, they. It's not a desert for celebrity guests. So having her come on, it felt kind of sweet and to the extent that, like,

a thing that turns into an album, announce, an album release announcement can be sweet, pure, and innocent. This felt a lot like that. You know, the thing that I, that sort of, listening to the show, the two of them, you know, the brothers, Travis and Jason Kelsey, you know, who have these, like, they have, like, very different off the show lives. And to bring their different personalities and energies into the show is often fun. It really does feel like two brothers. Yeah, they have a nice relationship. They have a good relationship.

But it was interesting watching Jason try to drive this particular episode. Oh, because he's all Taylor. Right. Yes, right. Oh, my brother's famous girlfriend. Well, but also the way that Travis Kelsey is just hype-manning her pretty much the entire conversation. It was just interesting seeing the show dynamics change around the arrival of this person. Right.

That must be like that outside, right? She's got to suck up all the energy. I've heard that that happens. Even if she doesn't try, she can't help it, right? Because one of the things I thought about the show is, again, like Sarah and Jessica Parker, different, but pound for pound, she's really entertaining. Like, she's really, like, you can't stop watching her, and I don't know why that is, right? And so wherever she appears, and she even sings about it, right? You know, my daughter was dancing to anti-hero the other day.

I don't know why she's so attractive to people, which is especially women, that it was a completely pleasurable experience watching it in a way that was very satisfied. I thought. I don't know. Maybe not. No, I listened to it, but I didn't watch it. I watched it like a tiny little bit. But I listened to it most little. You got to watch it because she leans into it. Anyway, go ahead. I mean, I was allowed to imagine it, right? I find, I don't know. It's interesting. She's an interesting physical presence. And I kind of like her better in my imagination, if that makes sense.

Um, you know, I, like, one of the, I have a real, it was interesting listening to her talk about, listening to the three of them talk about the Erez tour in their different ways. And, you know, the way that, that, I mean, I had forgotten the entire story of the relationship, right? Like, I mean, he was at the show and was like, I got to know who this person is. I mean, you know, he's the luckiest fan in the world. We all know this. Um, he gets to go home with the thing that he went to the show to see. and she seems happy with that. I think that she,

the way she talked about that show was interesting to me in that I have a lot of wonder about what these tours are like for the artists. And, you know, unlike the Beyonce concert documentary of her Renaissance tour,

the Erez tour film didn't have a a lot of backstage stuff. It didn't. You're right. She wanted to sort of preserve the magic of the live experience, whereas the Beyonce film, to me, was fascinating because she wanted to kind of enhance the mythology of the achievement of the live experience by humanizing the person who becomes someone else on

stage. Yes. And so it was great listening to her talk. I mean, you know, it was enlightening hearing Taylor Swift talk about toe spacers. But she does that. I would encourage you to go back and watch Miss Americana again. That's true. Because that gives you enormous insight into her.

Watch it now when she's famous because at the time she was on a down swing, right? Yeah, it was around the time that reputation was being rebuffed. Or there's another show where she's in someone's house where they're singing all country songs. She's with two of her, and they're just talking about the songs. I mean, I think she's quite accessible and yet unknowable in a lot of. of ways, and I felt like this was, you know, but she's very, you do know a lot about her in a weird way. And I think she may be just like this, right? I always think, does the, does a drunk agree with the sober is an expression? You know, when people are drunk, they're different when they're

sober. Yes, yes, yes. I think sometimes you meet certain people who are exactly the way they are in private and public. And then there's some that are quite different, you know, like a Johnny Carson would be the perfect example, like shy and kind of, you know, you would be disappointed to meet him person. Yes, exactly. I think she's pretty much like this. I think she's lived in fame for so long. This is what she is. I would agree with that. I also, but there's something about, yes, I mean, I think that the thing that I loved about this conversation was how seriously she was taking it in some way. Like, she wasn't there to do all the joshing that the brothers were trying to do. Right. And so, like, there'd be.

Jason would ask a question and she'd be in the middle of answering it. Travis, Kelsey, would kind of interrupt and then they would start doing their brother thing. And she would not even acknowledge that that was happening. And she would continue giving her answer. And that was, to me, I just felt like she was happy to have this opportunity to just think through herself in a safe space. in a place where she wasn't going to be asked a follow-up question, basically. Right, right, exactly. Listen, the results are the results.

People are still thrilled with her, which is really interesting. We'll see how this album does, but people still. We'll see how this album does. What do you think is going to happen to this album, Kara? It's going to be huge. Like, nobody's going to care? No, everyone's going to care. But I'm saying, like, yeah, but how can you top yourself if you're this woman?

That's the difficulty of being Taylor Swift. I will never forget my night at the errors tour. I truly will never forget it. Me neither. It was one of the most special communal experiences I've had. I've had a lot of special communal experiences. This is definitely in my top 50. And I think one of the things that was special about it

was one of the things that she kind of wanted to unpack a little bit, which is like the toll that it took on her body. And you can really, you know, after two and a half hours, Kara, I watched this show. Well, I was fine. But I was watching it with a friend in front of three, I don't know, 13 to 15-year-old girls. And for the first hour of this show, which really annoyed me because Lover is the opening album and I'm mostly a lover person. It's not my favorite Taylor Swift album, but I do really, there's some great songs on that album.

And these girls were screaming for like an hour, just screaming, just screaming. It didn't matter what, they just screamed the entire first hour of that show. And I just turned, I couldn't, and also like the part of me that is like, like, wanted to turn around and give them like the dirtiest look I possibly could. I was like, don't do that. You're not supposed to be here, Wesley. These people, this show is for them. It's not for you. Don't you old man them.

Just stand there and take it. But Kara, at like hour 107, I'm sorry, hour 107. I'm sorry, our 1007, at minute 107, when Taylor's still going strong, guess who is passed out on the seats behind me? The kids are out. They don't have the stamina of this 35-year-old woman. No, no, she is the bomb. It's crazy.

She wiped these girls out. Yep. And she did it night after night. She did the same thing with podcasting. She did the same thing. But she made that look easy. I, but I think what I'm saying about the limitation. are the only limitation to me is

that I think it keeps her from doing something that I think is really critical for like artistic growth in some way which is to like be reinterpreting yourself Yes, but she doesn't want to I mean just the act of re-recording those songs she basically doesn't I mean I think the original recordings

are the important artistic document the important historical and political document are the re-recordings, 100%. Like, one of the greatest things a pop star has ever done is re-record the old material. That's correct. It's not artistically, it's good.

To me, she thinks it's better in some ways her singing is better, but I didn't, that's not what I'm showing up for. Yeah, I agree, but let me just tell you, Taylor Swift does as you damn well, pleases. That's all I understand. Newsflash. Newsflash, and she's going to continue to do so.

All right, Wesley, one more quick break. We'll be back for, Fiji Airways is on sale now. Fly from Toronto via Vancouver to Fiji with round trips starting from $1554. For a destination or a stopover, Fiji is where you want to be. Fiji Airways is now a part of the One World Alliance and has joined the Advantage program. Enjoy warm island service and earn seamless global benefits. Book now at Fiji Airways.com or visit your travel agent today.

Conditions apply. Okay, Wesley, let's hear a prediction. Anything you want. Anything you want. Another thing, I'm going to do an Adam Sandler episode. Okay. I love Annap Sandler. I'm sorry.

I'm not against this. And I am just obsessed with these directors trying to win this man in Oscar. Oh, because they're trying to have this serious one. Everybody wants to try to win, like the murderers' row of people who have tried to win this man an Academy Award is just, y'all need to, just stop it. Just stop. Because when you stop trying, it will happen. I mean, I don't know. I just so, there's this Noah Baumbach movie coming out, um, toward the end of the year that he is in. And, you know, I really enjoy Noah Baumbach. I enjoy Adam Sandler. This isn't even my favorite Adam Sandler mode. I can't, I won't even get into it here. But like, I think I believe for a lot of reasons, the, the stars will align for Adam Sandler to at least go to the Academy Awards with his name on a list.

I'm, that's a prediction I'm going to think. That's what you predict. And you know, he's done a lot of certain. I mean, remember Spanglish in 2004? I just watched the sandwich scene from that movie. It's so, it's such a good movie. It was amazing. I love the lighting in that movie, the reason I can't really go back and

keep watching it, is some of the worst lighting I've ever seen in a movie. Just truly bizarre. Like, it's all lit from above with fluorescence. Nobody looks good in the indoor scenes. Taleyone always looks good. Yeah, but she's mostly outside. You'll notice Taleyone is mostly outside in this movie.

She's got, like, three indoor scenes. Everybody else is inside. Okay. Anyway, I think he's probably, he's not a bad thing because he is actually, every now and then you see very good acting. And then he goes, they're like, you know, a little like Jerry Lewis. Can you do that again?

A little lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, lo, there's a really good S&L skit where he visits his relatives. And they're like, I think you're taking my character. And they're all his cousins. Oh, yeah. It's really great, actually. But he's, I think he's, he's like Jerry Lewis to me. And Jerry Lewis, I think, was a fascinating actor. Yes.

He's a, he's more interesting to me that, well, no, that's not true. I mean, Jerry Lewis is his peak. They're comparable. Jerry Lewis has more cocaine in him. And Adam Sandler is more weed. Oh, yeah. Or beer. I don't know.

I mean, but if there's a drug, if there's a drug that, if like, what is their drug or what is the drug that personifies them? Jerry Lewis is hands down cocaine. What's a speedball? Speedball. Cannonball. He will, I mean, like if the speed, like maybe it's a handoff. The speedball that's Jerry Lewis. Yeah, speedball, that's true.

Who knows? Or a drink or a martini, just a lot. No, that would be Dean Martin. That's Dean. That's Dean. You're right, rodeo do-do. Anyway, so you predict he's going to get an Oscar. Nomination, let's not go crazy, Kara.

Okay, all right, because who's going to, like, hip-check him? What does he have to do? Because he's been in some serious movies. Yeah, but that's not enough. You really, I mean, like, truly, do I think he should have been, I mean, it just hasn't happened because it doesn't need a, You know why? Because he does Happy Gilmore, too. That's why, even if it's highly successful. But I think the thing that makes him great is that he doesn't want it. Like, he, the thing that makes him great is that he's doing Happy Gilmore, too.

Yeah, he, this is a person who really enjoys himself. I miss weird Adam Sandler. And that's, I won't get it. Like, that's the thing I really was going to try to get in it. But I'm not going to do it. You will have to come back for the Adam Sandler episode. Okay, I can't wait. That'll mostly be about none of the things we are talking about, but this other. other mode of Adam Sandler that I really- All right, I can't wait to listen to it. Well, this has been great. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business and tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot. It's been a question for the show. Or call 85551 Pivot. Okay, that's the show. Wesley, you're wonderful. I think you're wonderful. I can't believe I got to like spend 75 minutes talking about. Oh, come on.

You can hang out with me in real life. I know, I know. People can listen to Cannonball or Parlando, whatever you want to call it. Cannonball, it's not Paul Parlando. You've got to be real clear about that. Palando. In my head, I'm going to think Parlado.

Well, fine, but it's cannonball. And you're on YouTube as well, even though you don't like it. You got a nice shine up. You look great. Thank you. You look really, all the times when some of them less, I'm not going to say anything about Ross too had at all. I think you just said it. I just did say any of you.

There's no shining possible for that man. But he's got other attributes. I don't know. Okay. Sure. I know. Okay, I'm not going to, don't make me insult him. I have a name for him and everything else. You do? I do. I'm not going to tell you on the show. I'm not going to do it. But ask Amanda. She knows. She knows. She's named him. Okay. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Also, we'll be back next week. And please listen to Cannonball. It's a great show. Thank you, Kara. Wesley is a very prescient person on all things culture. You always make me thank. And I really appreciate that on lots of ways in ways I didn't think I would think about. Back at you. Thank you.

Anyway, I will read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zilli Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderjad engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited this video. Nishat Kura is Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business, the days to Scott are ticking away. But, Wes, I really appreciate you being here.