The Bulwark Podcast - Kara Swisher: Musk's Cry for a Giant Hug

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

Elon Musk says that running Twitter is very painful, but it's a pain he brought on himself with firings, stunts, and overpaying for the company. Plus, Kara Swisher and Charlie Sykes discuss the art of podcasting, and the potentially much bigger goal behind the expansion of 'Don't Say Gay.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is April 20th, 2023. And for some bizarre reason, I still have a blue checkmark on my Twitter. It's going soon. Can you explain this to me? I mean, by the way, we're joined by Kara Swisher, journalist, legendary host of the podcast, on with Kara Swisher, co-host of the podcast, Pivot. So no pressure on me to be interviewing a professional, legendary podcast host. You do very well, Charlie. You do very well.

So what's with the blue checkmark? Why isn't it gone? What's going on? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know is a technical answer. I think, you know, it's a very difficult thing to do technically with Twitter, and especially when

they have such a much smaller tech. Yeah, it is. It can really iterate through the system in not a good way. And so it's been explained to me by more technical people than myself, and I'm not that technical. When you create these big changes on a platform like Twitter, which was already a problematic platform to start with, you're going to see a lot of possible shutdowns, things happening. And so they have to do it. The only one they took off was the New York Times because they said they weren't going to pay.

And they just hand took it off. And so I think there's a real difficulty figuring out who paid, who didn't, who to take off, who not. And there's nothing... I did not pay. I do not want anyone to be under. But see, that's what I'm concerned about. If it's up there, are people going to think you paid?

No, no. I don't think anyone's paying attention, but Elon Musk and some people in the press. You know what I mean? Like, honestly, who cares? I was given it many, many years ago without, I didn't even know it was suddenly appeared there. You know, they needed to have people there to look legitimate.

And so that's what it was used for. It was never of any particular benefit to me. I'm also not paying, have never paid. It's just his little weirdness. I don't understand it. It's weird, whatever. Now that you mention it, if you are one of those people that actually care about having a blue check mark, you need to re-examine your life choices. This is one of those moments to step back and have a moment of Zen, maybe read a Stoic philosopher or something. There's something wrong. Yeah.

Although it does say who someone is. These ones that have been verified for years, it does confuse things. I think William Shatner actually is correct. He likes the platform he uses. He doesn't like a lot of stuff Elon's doing. But nonetheless, it protects him and users to know that it's him that is talking. And so if they're already verified, why bother? It just doesn't make any sense. And it's possible technical snafus are going to happen. And mostly he's doing it to attract attention and piss off

journalists, but whatever. Most of them don't care from my perspective. I want to spend some time talking about Elon Musk. I want to talk about Twitter. I want to talk about Ron DeSantis. I want to talk about Fox. I want to talk about this podcast thing with you. But we have to start with this because you and I are having this conversation on Thursday morning. And among the many shambolic things that Elon Musk is involved in, one of the best things that he has done has been SpaceX. This is one of the good things. This is one of the successful things. This is the good. Yes, good Elon. This is one of the successful things. This is the good. This is the planet be striding visionary of the future. And he just launched this giant rocket this morning,

which blew up after four minutes. I admire the pioneering and the engineering involved in this, but it feels, I'm tempted by the metaphor. I'm sorry, I'm just tempted by the metaphor. Yeah, it is. April 20th, Elon Musk's biggest freaking rocket ever blows up. Yeah, it's an interesting, this is a super complex rocket and has a lot of engines from what, I'm not a space expert again also, but it's incredibly complex things. And people have tried previous versions of this that also same thing happened. And so he really did, you know, he pushed down expectations of this, that it's going to take several tries.

He also likes the drama of it too, like, oh, no, no, yes, kind of thing. But it failed to reach orbit, which is what it's trying to do, these test things. And they need to get to speeds fast enough to do that. It still remains the most important company in the sector. Starlink is very critical to Ukraine, which also creates problems that a single person is dominating communications in a critical war. But the stuff he's doing, not just around this, but also these rockets, these Falcon 9 rockets, which have been working very well. What didn't happen is it didn't explode right there on the ground.

And that would have been a real problem because then they would have not been able to do it for a while. So they can do another rocket and try it again. And there's several others that they've built already. And so that was critical. What is harder is that they're trying to use our ship for some moon missions and creating moon bases and things like that. So it's the move to people living in space, getting them to go to the moon is really important to stay there. But you know, this is typical in rocketry. This happens all the time. And the level of complexity here is massive. So here's the puzzle of Elon Musk is that he does some things very well. And then he does Twitter. I mean, and you just wrote about this recently for Time magazine.

I mean, his tenure at Twitter has been just one snafu and embarrassment after another. So I guess I'm trying to disaggregate this. The Elon Musk, who appears to be a prisoner of his own narcissism over on Twitter, and yet SpaceX. So we know what his involvement is with Twitter, which appears to be sucking up about 80% of his brain these days. So what does that mean about space? Is SpaceX, is it Elon or is there a little bit of separation? Should we be concerned that the same kind of shambolic management is going to affect and maybe tank Tesla and SpaceX or how does that work?

Well, they're not unrelated. I mean, they have other people, Gwen Shotwell is running SpaceX. There's another executive more focused on Tesla, which has more challenges because there's all kinds of competitors now. There's not really a competitor to SpaceX right now. What I think he's doing at Twitter is a little bit what's happening at SpaceX, which, you know, when they first started doing these Falcon 9 rockets, there was all kinds of problems. And then they kept tweaking things. And now there's not a real problem, right? I think that's what he thinks he's doing at Twitter, and quite publicly, which is tweaking it, trying it, tweaking it, trying it. Of course, nothing blows up, but it does blow up, right? Things blow up publicly. And so I think he's

doing in real time what he does at the other companies, but it does blow up, right? Things blow up publicly. And so I think he's doing in real time what he does at the other companies, but nobody's paying attention at them. And because Twitter is a media organization, he's doing things that are like writing obnoxious things or attacking people or making claims that just aren't true. So it has a very different feel of what they're doing, but it's always tweaking. Tweaking is what he's doing. And he likes to publicly tweak people for his own amusement. And so it's not unlike what you do when you make software. What they're doing with SpaceX is important and at the same time puts enormous power in the hands of one person, including for just not NASA, but in Ukraine and eventually in Taiwan, it will be really important. You're just not seeing the tweaking and it's not quite as prone to stuntery,

which he loves stunts. And that's what's happening there. Let's talk about that because you have had a long and complex relationship with Elon. So I want to talk about you and Elon, by the way, you discussed this on one of the episodes of on with Kara Swisher back in November that you've been covering Twitter from the beginning when it was called Odeo? Odeo. Yes, it was. Yeah. Yeah. It was a podcast company. One of the guys who founded it was a podcast pioneer, really, technically. Yeah. Well, and you were a Twitter fan. You loved it. It was your hobby. You have 1.4 million followers. You're kind of a professional Twitterer. And I think the last

time you and I spoke, you were willing to cut Elon some slack. You said you were willing to defend Musk even when he behaved badly because he was this visionary. So just talk to me about since then, because you describe him now that he's become kind of a troll, that Twitter has become a nonstop grievance platform. He wastes too much of his time fiddling on his toxic violin while it burns. Sounds good. You close by calling him the opposite of progress. So this has turned out worse than you were expecting? You know, the level of radicalization, I don't know what to call it, the incessant need for attention, really, it's become a giant hug me Twitter for him, like hug me, I'm in pain. He talked about it on the Tucker Carlson thing. It's been very painful for him. And so given someone who could do these astonishing things at SpaceX and Tesla, you'd imagine they would be and someone who was very politically, I would say, centrist, had voted for, I think, Biden, had voted for Obama.

Yeah. But is also open, he was always open to other politics and friendly with a lot of people. It was sort of a surprise to go so red pill, right? And so ridiculous and just tweaking people and being obnoxious to people. I'm like, how big is the yawning maw of your insecurity? Pretty big. Yeah, I guess. And I think I was sort of like, when you had all these accomplishments, is nothing going to fill this empty hole inside of you?

I don't know. I just, I mean, I'm not a psychologist. And, you know, a lot of people say there's a method to his madness here. I don't know if there is. I think we're just watching therapy in real time that's not working very well, essentially. And you've seen it before with Trump and others. It's this yawning maw of emptiness that can't get filled. There's also this red pilling that's going on that sometimes I think I understand and then

other times I don't. It's this vast vortex that takes people who are perhaps reasonable, appear to be intelligent, and it sucks them into these extreme, strange corners of our politics. So what is going on? Because my sense was that he was eccentric. He was kind of funny. He was a troll. He liked to tweak people. And then everything seemed to accelerate when he's listening to Cat Turd.

And now he is really embracing the far right. That feels like it happened in a relatively short period of time. You watch this guy. You know this guy. I don't know. I don't know what's happened. I've seen this happen to a number of people. It's not like an unusual thing. It just happens he's the richest man in the world doing it, and he has other really critical companies like SpaceX and Tesla at the same time. So it's not just a clownish personality. He has real power, probably above almost anyone on the planet, I would say at this moment. It's really interesting.

A lot of people are like, why are you giving him oxygen? I'm like, do you know how important this guy is in real terms for geopolitics, for what's happening with electric cars at this moment? I don't think he's going to hold onto that lead, by the way. But he's way ahead. He's certainly way ahead. He was very prescient about that stuff, took a lot of risk. The only thing I think of is he loves drama and he loves attention. And so it becomes intoxicating when people are licking you up and down all day. Doesn't he want respectability and trust? He doesn't care about that at all. No, he doesn't.

No. He's gone from being Times Man of the Year to kind of a punchline. And yet here's a guy who is very, very powerful. He gets lots of subsidies from the government. I want to come back to all of that. Yes, he does. I would call him government funded. Yeah. And if he is insecure, so much of what Twitter is important to his other businesses around the globe. We're only thinking in the US and being offended by whatever stupid thing he tweeted yesterday kind of thing is. I don't even remember what it is anymore.

Twitter has a lot of influence around the globe, so it could help his other businesses. Maybe we don't realize. I'm paying a lot of attention to that, is what power it gives him. Two things I think he's aiming at here, and I think people aren't paying attention. One is media hegemony, right? Like, what's the next Fox News? What's the next propaganda platform, right? You know, now we know that to be a propaganda platform, of course, which we thought anyway, but I think he's sort of thinking about how important media is to influence. And so that's the play here. If I was just being a cold, like, okay, aside from crazy, he wants media hegemony, essentially,

or he wants to be in charge of the discussion of what's happening. And that could work because Twitter is a super small company from a business point of view, and it's smaller still under his leadership, but it still has an outsized noisy role in news and with politicians and media. And then the second thing is that he's trying to go into the payments area, which is his origins where he started. He wasn't a PayPal founder. He had a company called x.com. X now owns Twitter, by the way. And it was a real failure on his part because he sold into it. But then of course, PayPal sold. He sold it at the right time. He made some money to do this. It all worked out for him. But he's always been super interested in the power of finance and control of that with people. So having media power and financial power, and now he has military power

in some weird way. Think about that. Think about that. The word that comes to mind, though, is also megalomania. You gave an interview to the BBC where you're talking about Musk, saying he made mistakes and how he fired people who were loyal to him. He paid way too much for the company. But you said, for Silicon Valley people, it's never their fault. Never. No. And there does seem to be, for all the other explanations here, you do have a certain kind of Silicon Valley megalomania times 10 with him. Or is it not times 10? Or is he just, yeah. Well, I think a lot of people would like to be like him, right? Like, oh, he did that. Oh, we did that. That's, you know, maybe we should do that. All of them are sort of bound by shame,

right? What if you could operate without any shame? Well, it's very powerful. You know, again, it calls to mind someone else, a media person who then shifted it into politics, Donald Trump. If you have no shame, you can go very far if you continue, if you stick to it. Late last year, Musk stopped talking to you. You tweeted about SpaceX Starlink satellite service in Ukraine. He emailed you that you were an asshole. Yeah. And so you haven't talked since. I was supporting him in that one. He broke off with you. Yeah, he's done it before. You think maybe he was irritated at you for saying that he shouldn't be homophobic and

transphobic, like when he made fun of the Paul Pelosi attack and act like a freaking child? Yeah, that was later. That came after that. I was supporting what I thought he should be paid. He was a defense contractor, you know, important one in Ukraine. And so when he was talking, he had given it quite generously to the Ukrainians, but at some point it costs money. And then he started to be like, wait a minute, I'm in the middle of a war. I don't want the war to happen. And then, you know, you have an individual making decisions like this. And I was quoting from an article talking about that wrinkle and I thought he should be paid. I thought if you're going to do this stuff, he should be paid by the defense department, but he shouldn't have say over what happens.

So it was in a unique position and he got mad because I retweeted it. And he thought maybe he thought I wasn't on his side. I don't know. But the Paul Pelosi thing happened after, and that was just heinous. It was heinous and rude. And then, you know,

he's done it since he did it around a murder in San Francisco. He blamed the homeless people. You know, he keeps doing, it's the same thing. He has no information. He tweets it and he's like, he doesn't even the same thing. He has no information. He tweets it and he's like, he doesn't even say my bad. He just does it. And so, you know, he used it to

attack San Francisco and the issues. Of course, they're massive in San Francisco, as they are in many cities, including cities in Kentucky and Florida, you know, like not just cities or the more dangerous parts of this country are not where you think they are. And there are a lot of them are in red states, by the way. But San Francisco has become a symbol, whether for better or worse. And so he was blaming that and sort of demonizing homeless people. And then it turned out to be a very sad and tragic situation between people who knew each other. He seemed to have become addicted to any of the cat turd-like memes. I don't know if the cat turd had anything to do with this. I just wanted to say cat turd again. He seems to be addicted to this. He likes jokes and stupid jokes and poop jokes.

I get the stupid jokes. I get the inner 12-year-old stuff. It's the, when you go after the Paul Pelosi stuff, you're in a whole new category. Yeah. And you know, he's got family members who are trans and it's really kind of sad. I don't even understand it. I mean, it's just sad. It's cruel for someone who's so powerful to punch down so frequently. Do you have any thoughts on that, that he actually has family members who are, and is this encouraging his radicalization? I have no idea. The only thing I can think of when someone that powerful punches down so frequently,

and it's real punching down, it really is, is they think they're small. They perceive themselves as small. And so there's something happened. And, you know, I'll be eager to read Walter Eisenstein's book, but he talked about it with me on a podcast. You know, he had some parental issues with his dad, a lot of bullying in school. There's a lot of background that he was quite bullied when he was a kid. Now, again, lots of people have been bullied and do not end up behaving like this, but you know, there's someone who must feel small if they have to attack people beneath them.

That's always seems to be the case. So let's talk about this weird episode where he tagged NPR, state-affiliated media, then labeled it government-funded media. NPR stepped away. PBS has stepped away. You made a great point on your podcast. CBC has stepped away, too. That's right. Canadian broadcast.

You pointed out Elon Musk is government-funded. The electric cars get enormous subsidy. He controls 50% of the electric car market. He got an original loan for Tesla. He's benefited from SpaceX. He is government funded. And it's just, again, he wants to tweak them. He wants to get it to, it immediately gets attention. And so again, it returned to yawning, empty maw at the center of his personality. And when you're the emperor, the emperor, you don't have to be consistent or ever say you're sorry. Yeah. It's kind of sad if you do think about it, but the irony is rich. And of course he doesn't point that out or, or when he makes mistakes, you know, oh, I guess I was a little wrong. What's interesting is something like NPR gets very little of its funding from the government. He probably on a case-by-case basis, he would be more of a government-funded institution than it is. And so it's just a way to tweak at them. Maybe they wrote something sideways about one of his cars once, and now he's getting the back.

He has a long memory in that kind of stuff. So who knows? I mean, he pays attention to an awful lot of things that really most people would just let go by. Among the things he's paying attention to is the development of AI tools. He was one of the signatories of that letter from 1,000-plus technology leaders and researchers calling for a pause. And he talked about this with Tucker Carlson explaining how dangerous AI is. But once again, the irony, Musk himself is investing in the growth of the technology through his own startup. So what's going on with Elon Musk? We think he's a hypocrite.

Of course, it's bullshit. It's bullshit. It's so much. You know, let me just be clear. I've done lots of interviews with him and a lot of public ones. And he has been talking about this issue for years. I talked to him a lot about OpenAI many years ago when he was one of its principal funders, one of its early funders. And, I mean, far back as 2018, 17, whatever, very early,

he and I had extensive talks about the dangers. And he was one of the first, him and Stephen Hawking were the two people who were really talking about the dangers of AI. And good to bring it up, by the way, good to bring it up. In this case, he's really disingenuous. He got sidelined at OpenAI and he didn't like the decision that Sam Altman made. So what does he do? He attacks Sam Altman, who's the person who's been running OpenAI. He attacks the whole process and then he sides with good debates going on about these issues. And they should be, it's good that people are debating them, but he's got economic interests that are completely opposite to that. And slowing down

would be a very good thing for him. Interspersed in there are correct things. Big companies shouldn't be in control of all this stuff, private companies. There should be a bigger government involvement here, at least, because it's so critical. We saw what happened at the original internet that the government owned and then got out into the wild. So he's correct on a lot of things, but of course he has economic self-interest happening on the other side. And then he cloaks it in, I want to do truth GPT, which is like GPT is liberal. And of course that plays to the Tucker Carlson audience. And obviously we know from Tucker Carlson emails, what he says publicly and privately are very different. And so same thing with Elon.

I don't want to go down this particular rabbit hole, but how worried are you about AI on a scale of 1 to 100? 100 being the machines will kill us all. It will be nuclear winter. Zero being it's going to be Google. Where are you? That was a very good movie. That was a very good movie. I love the Terminator movies.

They were terrific. I totally agree. I think there are issues around who controls this and whether they're private companies or the government's involved and what the regulatory scheme work is. That's one thing. Two, I do think that there is a lot of benefits from this. Just like the internet on a net basis has been positive even though there's a lot of negativity around it, obviously, in the radicalization of people, misinformation, use of bad actors. I think what I'm most worried about, and then there's the jobs issue, will it change jobs? Every single technology changes jobs.

So I don't think this more than others is going to, the cotton gin, the this, the that, everything. There's always some technology coming along. Cars are technology, changed everything. They didn't stop the process of cars right and by the way a net basis cars have been good right except they're not except they're not uh for lots of reasons but the cars and the cotton gin do not become self-aware and want to destroy humanity as we know it you know what's the problem with this is let me get the one thing that's the problem with this technology is humans humans that will take it and use it for nefarious always it's humans that cause the problem that's not reassuring whether they're asking questions no and so therefore you want to look at human

history that's where i would look before i would look at the technology it's not sentient it's not going to suddenly go it is not going to become humans no it for a while elon was actually talking like that it might just kill us, you know, and we need a chip in our brain. He has another company called Neuralink that he's testing different things out. Still just aspirational. There's nothing there there yet. But I think it's really more this technology doesn't care for us one way or the other. And Elon actually compared it to we're like house cats. But I do think that it will replace a lot of stuff we're doing that's rote. And that's a good thing. But it doesn't want to do anything. It does what it's

told. And there's not a moment where they're going to go, you humans are a pain in my ass. I'm going to blow you all up. It doesn't care. It doesn't care. It's humans that'll be the problem with this thing. Are you a fan of Blade Runner, the Blade Runner movies? Yeah, yeah. I like Terminator more, but yes, same thing. There's a new series called Mrs. Davis on Paramount about an algorithm that's helpful to people, and then she's trying to kill it. And, you know, that's an old story.

One last question on Twitter, because I want to get to Ron DeSantis and Fox. Sure. Is Elon Musk killing Twitter, or what will Twitter look like a year from now? Because he does seem to be succeeding in driving people away. What do you think? Yes, yes.

It's a less good business right now. Maybe if he comes up with some payment scheme that people want to sign up for, maybe. Certainly has opportunity there. I've always thought Twitter is a huge opportunity that's been blown over and over again by its management. You know, Maybe it'll be smaller. It's definitely smaller. It's half the size of Snapchat now in terms of revenue. Maybe he'll come up with another business. Maybe. He's done it before, but doesn't mean... Rockets and

cars are very different than this. Media. Media is hard. So I don't know. I think it'll just keep bumping along. Him screaming. It's going, oh my God, can you believe he said that? It's a less good place to be. And eventually someone will come up with something that's better. There's not a lot of innovation going on there. That's really the problem with it. It's just a lot of noise. And so I'd like to see some innovation from someone who calls themselves the most innovative person on earth. There hasn't been anything he's done that wasn't already in the closet there at Twitter. So we'll see. Okay, let's switch to a little bit of politics. Ron DeSantis, you were on Twitter yesterday, calling out DeSantis for extending the Don't

Say Gay bill to 12th grade. Yeah. And what's interesting about this is so many of his supporters and fanboys had absolutely insisted that, no, this is not Don't Say Gay because it's just young kids through grade three. And I know that Tim Miller, my colleague Tim, just got beaten up about this. This is not don't say gay. It's just for really young children. Did you get all this? And now they're basically saying, ah, yes, screw that defense. We're going all the way to 12th grade. That's correct. Oh, that's what they were doing. I did the same thing. I had an event in Florida. I pulled out and I'm like, I know where you're going with this.

And I got attacked by DeSantis. People, direct people who work for him called me a groomer or whatever. And I was like, I know what you're doing. But I called them a bunch of communists because they want to tell me what to do with my business. But they were trying to insert government into a punitive place against a business, right? And so, which is what they're doing at Disney. And which seems rather Democrat of them to do, you know what I mean? If you want to insult Democrats, which people have done over the years, too much meddling. And so sometimes justified, sometimes

good that they meddled and sometimes not. So when I did that, I got totally attacked by DeSantis people. And I'm like, I know exactly where you're going. This is not about third grade. It's not about families. In fact, you're anti-family compared to the people you think you're. And they're playing in on this. They correctly identified people who talk about parental rights, which parents have, by the way. They just do. And by the way, they do mostly have most of the rights kind of stuff in certain things. It's a thing.

We can argue over as a society. But I knew that this is just where they were headed. They've been mad forever about gay marriage and adoption. And so they found a way in through trans, by attacking trans people relentlessly and pointlessly and cruelly. And this is the next step over for that. So what is the directional arrow here? They want to overturn gay marriage. Okay. So you think that's where they're going? Yeah. I have no question. Or taking back the strides gay people have made for visibility and normal visibility as citizens.

And it's so confusing and ridiculous and such a virtue signal to a very small group of people. Most people would be like, what are you doing? This is gross. And are used to now gay families and everything else. And so they're attacking a whole group of people and they're just using the leverage to continue to claw back their retrograde visions of society. So what strikes me about this is that rather than simply take the win, okay, so you win on these issues instead of taking the win and moving on, there seems to be this relentless pressure, no, you must keep going further. So Ron DeSantis, for example, you know, having passed that bill

could have, you know, just, you know, planted the flag, spiked the football and ignored all the criticism. He didn't need to go to war with Disney. Having done this, he could have said, okay, we've done it for a really young kid, you know, come at me and explain why a first grader should learn about all of this. And that's a defensible position. Instead, there does appear to be this relentless pressure, no, let's go for the next thing while we can. It does feel as if there is this, and I'm sorry to use the old cliche about absolute power corrupting absolutely. But in these states where they have the super majorities, it seems that there is this absolute impulse

to go as far and fast as possible, even if it makes no political sense. Well, because they know they have to grab it now. It's going to be taken back from them, FYI, eventually. But, you know, they got to grab it now with the third power. And so that's why the right has always been focused like this. It's not a new thing for the right.

Like, let's grab all we can now and take stuff back that we got. And then hopefully it'll stay in place for at least a while, right? So I think this is such an enforced error from him, several of them, not just these bills, which I consider anti-family bills. You know, he's aiming at people that people aren't mad at. People aren't mad at Disney. People aren't mad at Anheuser-Busch. They're not, you know, just one after the other. I think everyone's confused about this new Florida. It's the Board of Education that's doing this, but it's all DeSantis appointees. It seems like they're unforced errors. When Donald Trump is the voice of reason, you know, same thing on abortion with six weeks, going far, doing it in the dead of night. Trump is like, that's too much. Whoa, what are you doing to the gays? What are you doing to Disney? Like if you have Donald Trump, the voice

of reason in the Republican Party, you know something's off. It shows that he's not ready for prime time for sure. It also shows, you know, how he just hasn't quite figured out how to be authentically a MAGA lizard person. I did my newsletter today on his lizard person that, you know, and I've said this on several podcasts now that, you know, a guy from Yale and Harvard has to, you know, convince, you know, like, hello, fellow lizard people. I am just like you. And I think you want me to do this. And so he does it in an incredibly inept way. I said this months ago when he was surging.

I was like, he's charmless. He's utterly charmless. And people like a funny person. They like a tall person. I hate to say that, but if you look at presidents, they're all tall. He seems like a small man in many, many ways, physically. And I don't usually comment on people's physical, but the fact of the matter is presidents are all tall, like if you just look at it. I know that's weird, but it's so actually factual.

They just are, mostly, recent decades. But more to the point, he seems like a small man mentally, right? Like even though he's super and charmless charmless charmless is what i say he's just not he's just seems like oh my when he was doing the whole disney press conference he's just an irritating i recently compared him on one of my podcasts i said remember people said that elizabeth warren felt like your ex-wife you know i know it's an obnoxious mean sexist thing to say but he feels like your ex-wife, you know, I know it's an obnoxious, mean sexist thing to say, but he feels like your ex-husband that you just can't get away from. Like, oh my God, that, you know, and the guy at the table, you're like, oh, that's her ex-husband. No one wants to talk to him. That's

what he feels like. Well, I think he made the calculation that this is the age of the asshole and therefore, you know, the more performative assholery you can do. He's not good at it. But the problem is that he is a jerk and he has a lousy personality and he's paying a huge price for it. I mean, these stories that you're getting about the Florida congressmen who are not endorsing him, they're saying he never calls, he never talks to us. He doesn't like talking to people. He doesn't do retail politics. He is absolutely charmless. And believe it or not, that actually matters. And the thing about Trump, he's looking at Trump trying to imitate him and he figures, I'm going to be your retribution. I'm going to be a jerk.

I'm going to bully people. I will insult people. Except the thing about Trump is that Trump had enough buffoonery to sort of leaven the cruelty and the lies. He was able to be a little bit entertaining, and he also understands something about interpersonal relationships. I can't believe I'm saying anything positive. No, he does. People like him. None of which DeSantis gets. Yeah. Even people who don't like him say, oh, Trump's entertaining. I don't want to debate Donald Trump. I think he is curdled rather significantly, but Ron DeSantis starts curdled. And so he's Scott Walker of this era, I think.

Also a charmless person. Sorry. That hurts being from Wisconsin. And I think what happened is that he was exposed on the national stage. This feels very similar to me, watching Rhonda Sanders to what happened, how the on-paper expectations versus the reality of the real guy. I mean, I don't know if I've told you this story. I mean, I remember when Walker was giving a speech, and I, of course, have known Walker for many, many years. He gave a speech in Iowa, and people were like, oh, that's fantastic. This guy's great. He's the front runner. What do you think? And I said, well, you know, call me, Mac, and let me know what you think the 25th time you've heard that speech, because that's the speech. That's the only one he's got.

Right. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't move. And you have to shift in this media environment. That's the only one he's got. Right. So. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't move. And you have to shift in this media environment. It's a social media environment. And he seems like a troll. And if you want a troll, go to the original, the OG troll, which is Trump. Like, really. And I see what he's doing.

He's trying to go right of Trump, but it doesn't work. There's no space. Speaking of a big man, he's a big man in the troll space. So you have to really, I don't know where you go. All right, let's talk Fox Dominion. I'm going back and forth on this. I know there's an interesting debate, people who are saying, you know, this is the beginning. This was massive accountability, the price of lies versus those of us who are saying,

come on, we were kind of hoping for the six-week festival of schadenfreude. And there was no apology. There was no correction. Where do you come down on all of this? And sort of glass half full, glass half empty? You know what? I'm sorry you don't get your entertainment people, but it was a very good business decision on behalf of Dominion. They would have gone through appeals. They wouldn't have gotten this much money. They might've lost an appeals court. Fox was not letting go of this. Fox had a reputational disaster on its hands, including putting Rupert

Murdoch on the stand. And as sharp attack as that guy is, I always used to joke, I'll never turn my back on him if he's 103. I just wouldn't. I just went back out of a room because you never know what he's going to do. He's still older. He would have issues on the stand. There's all kinds of emails to shove in his face that he's lying about things. Same thing with Carlson, with all of them. God forbid getting Lou Dobbs on the stand. That would have been just a meltdown of all massive proportions. And Maria Bartiromo and Laura Ingraham, just not good for the brand. It's very obvious why Fox needed to stop this. So why didn't they write out a check for $1.6 billion then?

It was too much. And Dominion had backed away from that number. It was an impact on lost business. They backed away from that anyway. They were already showing indications. They were not going to get that amount of money. Look, Dominion was worth $80 million a couple of years ago when this group, I think it's Staple Street Capital, invested in it.

And they paid $38 million for 76% of this company or something like that, even before that. And so this is a massive windfall. It's crazy amounts of money. All the stuff got out, all the stuff, all the shitty emails got out. So everybody knows, right? So that's good for them. The money is massive. It's a massive amount of money that they will get directly along with their lawyers. It's a good deal all around. And I know that sounds terrible, but it's already out

there. And by the way, there's more coming. Smartmatic is right behind it with Fox. Obviously, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell will be in litigation for the rest of their lives. And then you have the shareholders of Fox. 60% of that company is owned by other people. They're not going to love all these payouts. This is not the only payouts Fox is going to have to make. But Rupert has a history of paying out, whether it was the $90 million around the sexual harassment related to Roger Ailes, whether it was the money they gave to Gretchen Carlson, I think that was $20 million or $30 million. And then the $139 million they did around phone hacking. Rupert pays people off for his bad behavior, and it's in keeping with his business. He though? We've had the lawsuits against Alex Jones. We've had this lawsuit. Is it going to change the environment where people go, you know, I was going to peddle these lies, these conspiracy theories, but no, perhaps I had to think twice about it. Does it change this? Does it change the incentive structure in a positive way? Why not? No, I would say overall, no. Well, for a lot of small companies, they can't afford to do that. I think OWN is also subject to Dominion and Smartmatic, I think, but Dominion,

for sure, they're going to be out of business. They can't pay these things off. They'll be out of that. That's good for Fox, FYI. They aren't going to be able to afford this. For Fox, definitely, they're not going to be quite as in your face, although they just had a lovely thing on the fact that climate change doesn't exist. So whatever. They'll continue along the sides. I think they'll be very careful in their emails from now on, as they should have been in the first place. I was sort of... They'll be careful about their

targets, right? Targets, yes. They can attack liberals, but they're not going to go after a deep-pocketed private company. You notice they're not really attacking Disney here. You know what I mean? They're not going to. All their bread is buttered with advertisers. What we know now, and which we thought, but now we have proof is that it's a propaganda organization interested in making money. It's an entertainment company. That's what it is.

The people who watch it don't care. Their ratings are doing great. The people who watch it want their little entertainment and that's what they're going to get. They'll just do it in a different way. That's not quite as stupid. This is the problem. And I know that it's cynical, but I think that's very real. People say, well, what would happen if the Fox audience learned all of this? What if they learned that they were saying one thing in public, one thing in private? They don't care because they want what they want. The heart wants what it wants. They want to hear certain things. We have a culture in which people think of media outlets as their safe spaces, as the place that serves them. Right.

That does not challenge them. Yeah. And that's not simply fine. On all sides. That's right. It is on all sides. I mean, you, speaking of which, now I'm a contributor to MSNBC, so I'm going to tiptoe over here. So you had Jen Psaki on your podcast,

and I thought it was interesting. You kind of pressed her. She's got a new show, and you asked her, why do you never have Republicans on your show? So how did that go? Well, I got yelled at by Keith Oberman, but that's sort of par for the course. I don't care. Sorry, Keith. I'm going to ask the question. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Why did he yell at you for asking a question? Oh, because he's like, how dare she ask? Why should they have these bunch of liars? Like, come on, really? Like, is that where we are right now? That's the culture is that we don't have Republicans because no one who's not us has anything interesting to say or that we should engage with in any way.

There are reasonable Republicans. There are people you can, like, I'm talking to you. I'm not, I would doubt we agree on a lot of things, but more for her coming from the Biden administration. It's a very successful show. It's turned out really well. She's speaking of charming, completely charming. She's a charming media personality and people like listening and watching her. Very successful show out of the gate. I think that she needs to show that she can mix with everybody. That's all. You know, George Stephanopoulos does it. And so I think it's really important given how close she's mix with everybody. That's all. You know, George Stephanopoulos does it. And so I think it's really important, given how close she's affiliated with the current administration. Stephanopoulos goes back to the Clinton administration.

You have to really show that you can engage with a lot of people. That's all. That's all I was asking, you know, that she should have some and debate them. And that would be good for her, for her media brand and for the show. And it would be interesting. And she basically said, I'm new around here. Give me a chance, right?

Yeah. I think she's asked. I think they're nervous about going on her show. That would be my guess. I know this from, I try to book a lot of conservatives and a lot of them are like, no way. And some people ought to do their homework.

I'm always amazed when, when certain people go on, say, Mehdi Hassan show. And it's like, have you ever watched how he, do you know what you're getting into? So who's your favorite guest?

What was your best podcast? Mine? Yes. All of them. All of them. Is this like asking you to choose your favorite child? Yeah. I like the last one I did.

I did Larry Summers' Up Today. That was interesting. We went back and forth on a bunch of things. Yesterday, I interviewed Evan Spiegel. Tomorrow, I'm interviewing Ron Klain. I did one with Maggie Smith. She's a poet whose book is on the bestseller list right now. She's amazing.

I like people who I'm curious about, you know, ranging from, oh gosh, I mean, obviously Steve Jobs' interviews were probably among the finest. I think the most important one was the Gates and Jobs interview, historically speaking. That was a home run in terms of getting them together and getting a really great interview about both of them. They're the two titans of technology of the modern era. And obviously Steve Jobs is dead now. So this is historically important to have done this interview. So I think any of the Steve Jobs interviews I loved, I think they really will stand the test of time. I think the Zuckerberg interviews where I pressed him quite a bit early on were great. I think the Musk interviews are really good. If you go and watch them, we talk a lot about these issues today and you see flashes of what's coming with him,

like that he turned, he was about 90% pretty normal and 10% kind of an asshole. And now it's flipped rather significantly. And so I like all those, of course, you know, it's all white men. I'm like the specialist in white men interviews, but this is the way the business is. This is tech. I don't know what to say on that. I thought some of my Hillary Clinton interviews were really quite good. And we had some testy back and forth too. This is what I love about podcasting is the opportunity to sit and have long form, in-depth conversations with really interesting people. And in terms of what's happened with podcasts, I think that the guests now understand,

particularly if you have somebody who goes on cable television and has to speak in two-minute soundbites or anything, the ability to express a thought, to think something through, to express it, to go in depth. My sense is that both the audience and the guests really kind of appreciate that. And you don't guests really kind of appreciate that. I would agree. And you don't find it anywhere else, really. I'm not trying to diss anyone else. I'm just trying to think, where do you have interesting conversations that are unpredictable that last 40, 50, 60 minutes long?

Yeah, you move off talking points. You have to immediately move off talking. There's only like 10 minutes of talking points. And you can actually even say it. And I think people feel it. I think very smart people has always been my, when I started podcasts, someone was like, it's got to be shorter, Kara. I'm like, no, it doesn't. It has to be longer. Like that, it doesn't have to be shorter. And so- To get past the talking points.

And you also get insights into people you hadn't thought of. I was just thinking last night, I had dinner with Monica Lewinsky, who I had interviewed. I didn't know her before I did an interview with her. And I have to say that interview was resonant because I think it was very touching. It was really interesting talking about someone whose life was, you know, we forget she was a very young girl when this all happened. And it was a terrible, you know, situation around power and dynamics that we're still talking about today. And, you know, she's sort of reinvented herself doing these really great documentaries. She's turned out to be a very thoughtful and graceful. Talk about someone who could have dropped a dime on anyone, and she never did, right?

Talk about the grace. Or have descended into bitterness. Yes, not at all. She has not. She is absolutely not. And so that interview was really great, especially the last question I asked, which I didn't expect to ask. And we talked about it last night.

She goes, well, I could have been something else. And I said, what could you have been? And she started to describe a life she'd never live. Right. And I thought I was teary. It was like, wow. You know, and again, of course she has responsibility, blah, blah, blah. But she was a kid. She was a kid. Like in many ways, I have a son who's older than she was at the time. And I love that interview because if it not been for the length of time and the discussion that went on for a while, you wouldn't have gotten to that moment of revelation. And I think people rethought her like, oh, wait a minute. What I think in the media that's played at me as these cartoonish characters, maybe there's a little more, a little complexity here.

And that's what I like about podcasts. And also you have the ability to think in real time. I don't know whether you've ever changed your mind in the middle of a podcast, but this is something that you can't do in another medium. In another medium, you need to have what your agenda is and stick to that agenda. I think one of the things about the podcast is, one of your podcasts is called Pivot, is that you can pivot right in the middle and go, okay, you know what, this is a completely different point of view, or let's go off on a different tangent that I wasn't planning on talking about. I hadn't thought of that. I was not expecting to talk with you about Monica Lewinsky. What's interesting is Scott today, with this new Florida education thing moving essentially to 12th grade, which is some 12th graders are 18. I have an 18-year-old 12th grader. And Scott had been like, oh no no, they're just doing this one bill, you know, months ago when they did. I'm like, no, and I forced this out of Florida.

He agreed with me, and he was very supportive. But he goes, oh, my God, you were totally right. Because months ago I had said, oh, no, it's a much bigger deal. A year ago I was like, they're moving to everybody in school, just so you know. And he's like, that's ridiculous. It's only for third grade, this and that. And I was like, no, no, it's a larger thing.

Today he's like, oh, my God, I had for third grade, this and that. And I was like, no, no, it's a larger thing. Today, he's like, oh my God, I had thought you were wrong and now you're right. We had a great discussion about it. And he's done the same to me, like to lots of issues I hadn't thought about. I've shifted my perspective and that's important. This is funny because I'm going to have the exact opposite conversation with Tim Miller on our podcast tomorrow because I was the one who was wrong and he was the one who was right. So I'm going to be the one to say, okay, so I really did think that you got out over your skis

on all of this. No. Wow. They hate the gays. Any gay person knows this. And this is why I asked about what the directional arrow is because if they're willing to go this direction, they're not done. No. On all of these issues, there's not a point that they go, okay, we've won this. Okay, we can, let's celebrate, let's pack up. It's no, okay, so we're here. We need to now go take the next hedgerow. Well, what is the next head?

What is this agenda? And at this point, well, I'm willing to, I guess my default position would be to say, oh, no, they're not going to go. Yes, they will. Yes, they will. You know, it's so funny because- I actually hadn't thought of that until you mentioned it. I mean, that they are serious about it. Well, a lot of them are self-hating in a way that allegedly all these reports of very serious

Republicans who are closeted and this and that. And so there's an element of that in it. I remember early on when I was at Georgetown University, Young Americans for Freedom was, Terry Dolan was there the same time I was. And this is a group of very right-wing students at the time, which is unusual. It was sort of the dawn of that age, if you recall. And it was a really interesting group, but all of them were closeted gay people and they were anti-gay. And I was always, you know, 18, 19 years old, I was like, look at that. That was interesting, right? What's happening there in terms of speaking, getting back to insecurity and self-hatred. It was really interesting to watch.

And so there's that element. There's also the religious elements that are, you know, most people are, across all the political spectrums, are very reasonable around issues around gay. It has changed and shifted. And everyone's seen families and they've seen how it works fine and it doesn't take down society but the ones that stay off to the edge are still steaming about this you know this weekend i went my aunt died a couple months ago and they did a memorial service for her in west virginia where my father came from and she's

buried there my father's buried there and so i went and I'm always like, oh, West Virginia. You know what I mean? They were very anti-gay when I was coming out, some of the people there. And very religious, but very not kind, I would say, in general, towards gay people. And not everybody. My aunt was wonderful and others were in my family. But I was at a place where they were very friendly to me. They're like, we're friendlier than you city people here in West Virginia. And I'm not going to do a West Virginia accent. They're like, we're friendlier. And I almost wanted to say, well, stop beating up on trans people then. Like, I'd rather have you be rude like New Yorkers and not kick people who are down.

Like, please, like, I could take a little less friendly and a little more kindness and not lack of cruelty. And it was kind of funny to think about. But so I think a lot of the people, they mask their, whatever it happens to be, religion or woke culture and just cruelty towards people who did nothing to them. And so I don't think there's anything they won't do to pull it back. A lot of this is not straight line. It is looping. And you mentioned the issue of trans because my experience was that it's an evolution and it's, you know, it's uneven, but there's broad acceptance, live and let live, tolerance, acceptance of gay marriage, not that controversial,

kind of disappeared off the radar screen for a couple of years. And then the trans issue came up and it feels like the trans issue is this sort of, you know, flanking maneuver or looping around that fires all of this up, that they couldn't go directly at gay marriage. So they're coming around and then having fired it up, it's like it becomes paired with gay marriage. Am I being clear or unclear here? Yeah, I think that's the next step. Next step. The next step. You know, look at the attacks on Pete Buttigieg. Like, you don't have to agree with him on him being a transportation secretary, etc. But, you know, I know his husband a little bit. The attacks they get are just demented.

We can discuss the train stuff all you want. Like, he's responsible for it, whether he caused it or not is another issue. But he's transportation secretary. You can absolutely hold him responsible at this moment because he has the job. But the kind of personal attacks that he got was just like, you know, he took parental leave. Like, really? Is this really a big issue? Is this like, what's wrong with better fathers? I'm sorry. I feel like better fathers is a good thing for society. And so this sort of plays into a trope that many people have

about men and women and things like that. And anything that changes or questions, it bothers them. And honestly, I'll tell you, kids do not care. When you talk to young people, this is all such bullshit to them, right or left. Although some on both sides are a little too much. And I don't want to both sides it, but they are like it just in certain ways. But most kids and you know, my kids are like, what are we wasting our time on when we have like climate issues, we've got poverty issues, we've got homeless issues, we've got, you know, things in Ukraine, real problems. And that's where I think, you know, you see that on social media, a lot of that, which is great. That heartens me. You know,

my son's taken all the social media apps off his phone, by the way, he thinks you should call people, which is kind of funny, coming from parents who are very techie. But I think I really believe in young people will sort it out better than our stupid wars with each other. Well, and this is also how social media is really destroying the right because they've created this hermetically sealed bubble where all of this stuff makes perfect sense.

And yet if you step outside of it, you almost need like a Rosetta Stone. What are you talking about? What is this issue? Why am I supposed to be set over Bud Light? Or don't you know? What are these things? And I don't think they realize the way this plays. Kara Swisher, thank you so much for all your time. No problem. It's a pleasure coming on your podcast. It is a pleasure listening to your podcast. We got good reviews last time. People like when people disagree respectfully. They do. They do.

They do. Well, and we agree most of the time. We'll see. I bet we don't on some things. Your podcast is on with Kara Swisher, and you are a co-host of the podcast Pivot. Thank you so much. We will do this again. Fantastic.

You're coming on my podcast next. We'll just keep trading podcasts. I would love to do that. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'll be back tomorrow and we will do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.