Murdoch Succession Drama, Trump's Voting Promises, and Guest Anne Applebaum

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.
How are you doing, Scott?

You're going on a dude call tonight, aren't you?

I am.

I've been invited to the, what's it called? The White Guy? White Guys for Harris. Is that White Guys for Harris?

So it's finally that white men are getting a little bit of recognition and having some influence in this world, Kara. Yeah.

And you didn't ask me where I am. I'm in Aspen.
Where are you? Oh, what are you doing there? What I was doing. I'm here for a few weeks in the summer.

um i love it here and i'm mostly going to san ambrose and walking around and saying hi to people and then going to cash cash i'm just living you know the douche lifestyle capital all caps right so overpriced tiny sandwiches you're enjoying them they're great the tiny

best yeah my mom's my mom's you know it's lucky's favorite place in new york san ambrose she used to be san ambrose

yeah the one on the one in the west village or the one on um lafayette no the one uptown it started uptown i think i like lucky that makes sense she loves me. I totally can see her there.

Yeah, maybe I'll get her some in New York this week. I'm going to take Louis back to NYU.
He got an apartment.

Oh, nice. And yeah, so maybe I'll pick up some.
It reminds me to get some because I'm going to pick Lucky. Lucky spending the week with me in D.C.
That should be interesting. Oh, I'm sorry.

I mean, that's great. That's great.
That's great. So Aspen is pretty.
So you're expensive. Duna sandwiches.
Nice. Good.
Good. How's the weather? No wildfires, I hope.
It's spectacular here.

And what's interesting is it's, you know, we've been coming here. We used to come here in the winter to ski.
And we came here one summer, about eight years ago. Now we just come in the summers.

And what's interesting is the last two summers, it's been noticeably less crowded because of all this pent-up demand of all, this is a demographic that goes to Europe a lot.

And once COVID sort of burned out or started to subside, I don't know if it's a hate crime to say COVID is over.

You have a ton of these people are now in Europe. So it actually feels quite quiet.
Oh, nice. Well, I'll be there next week.

Little little privilege economic rundown. Bringing Lucky, and you two can sit at San Ambrose and like kibbets.
What do you think? Oh, we do that.

You would be good. That would be a good reality show, the two of you, Lucky and Scott at San San Ambrose.

Jesus, grumpier and grumpiest.

Yeah, I know. It would be really good.
I hate him, too. Oh, God, I hate him more.

No, I agree, Lucky. She isn't.
She is a big disappointment as a daughter, Lucky. I agree.
Yeah, I agree.

Wait, wait, just give me a minute. So this dude thing you're doing, do you know, Lucky is predicting Kamala is going to win? Kamalot, it's the cover of New York magazine.
Kamala? Kamalot.

She's predicting Kamala is going to win. Yeah, she did.
I almost fell out of my chair. 200 million bucks in a week.
The enthusiasm is, I mean, granted, some of it will wane.

You know, they're just getting their attack engine going.

She'll come under a bunch of warranted scrutiny that every candidate gets, but the honeymoon period is like, this is a month-long honeymoon right now. Yeah, it's going to be good.

And it is everything, every lot of sex happening. Oh, my God.
And I mean, Kara, this whatever you call white dude thing. And not weird sex like J.D.
Vance, but go ahead, dolphins and couches.

With furniture. I'm not sure I even understand what he's being accused of there.
But anyways,

I was asked to come on CNN tonight and talk about how weird the campaign is

or the Trump campaign is and talk about the white dude thing. But they had, I mean, they barely sent out an email and 80,000 of us raised our hands and said, yeah, we're in.

And that says something, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Although that's less than the black men and black women, I think. They're doing groups of Zoom calls, which I think is fascinating.

I think it's really, really fascinating. Don't you think?

I'm of two minds about that. I like that we're saying, don't be ridiculous.

There's a lot of white men who you immediately create a stereotype of that want a great economy, that want progressive policies, that want bodily autonomy for women, that want a wonderful world for their daughters, that believe in liberal politics.

So I like that, that that's a chance for us to say, don't be stupid. There's a bunch of us that are hand in hand with these ideals and are fighting for them.

But at the same time, it feels as if the world is becoming so much more. It's just becoming one giant identity politics exercise.
You know, just everybody identifies now based on their

sexual orientation, their background, their gender. And I think some of it is unhealthy.
Yeah, I think some of this is fun, though. They're doing it the fun way.
I like it.

The Asian ladies, the black ladies. I think it's kind of fun, like teams, and then they're all going to get together.
In this way, it feels light. I agree with you that it's too much identification.

But I think this is more in joy than it is in

anger or a grievance. Yeah, this is tongue-in-cheek and funny.
I'm thinking. I'm getting involved in another one, Jews for Harris.
I'm worried that

a lot of Jews, including myself, are so so kind of rattled by October 7th and were concerned about some of what we perceive as anti-Israel comments from the far left that it's pivoted a lot of people to the right.

And a lot of Jews have become one-issue voters. And what I'm going to try and do, and I want to do something similar to what these guys have done, I've been inspired, is a Jews to Harris.
Because

I don't think

if you'd really put on your critical thinking hat, I think the best thing we could hope for in terms of not only the end to the ward, but a sustainable peace, would be to have the continuation of the Biden-Harris administration.

I don't think they get nearly as much credit as they should for their steadfast support of Israel and immediately deploying aircraft carrier forces over there.

And also post, when the war does come to an end. Make your argument.
Make your argument. Well, I'm making it now.
And then

post-the end of the war, you're going to have to have a fairly complex multilateral peace force there. And who is most likely to build an enduring peace?

You'll probably have to have back-channel negotiations with Iran.

Is that Anthony Blinken or someone who's likely to be a future resident of a federal or state prison somewhere, which is a one in three chance of any cabinet appointee of the Trump administration?

And I'd really disappointed that a lot of people aren't slowing down.

They're more fond of the macho, they should finish the job that you hear from the Trump administration. It's like, well, okay, what the fuck does that mean? Just give, you know,

this sort of what I'll call blanket chest-pounding macho.

If you really look at what's happened in terms terms of on the ground who's been effective, not only supportive, but effective around Israel,

I would argue that the Biden-Harris administration has been outstanding for Israel. And I don't think they get the credit they deserve.

Anyways, after the white guys, I'm going to go to more identity politics and potentially participate or do something similar for Jews. So ultra, ultra, ultra-white guy.
podcast. Well, here's the deal.

So yeah, it'll be interesting. I think it has to be a nuanced conversation.
Unfortunately, it's not most of the time.

You know, it was interesting, though, you're talking about the identity politics there was a really interesting story which you've talked about is the difference between young men and young women going totally different ways going trump crazy going um you know i think that's interesting to me but we'll see what happens i think it's really exciting and again i urge people to look at the cover of new york magazine she's sitting on a coconut you know this whole thing the whole the all the um all the online stuff is cool i don't think online is

everything, if that makes sense. I don't think on like it's like snakes on a plane.
You don't know. But I I think this is real with these numbers and the money and the doughnuts.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting.

You know, I'm in California right now. Do you want to know why? Oh, you are.
I'm sorry. I didn't ask where you are.
We're at San Francisco. I am.
Yeah, I'm south of San Francisco.

Guess one of the reasons I'm here.

Jeffrey Swisher is launching a show on the new CNN Plus.

That's it. Blue.
Donuts. Blue is back.
No, I signed up. I sold my book to Hollywood.
I sold my book to Hollywood. You mean you've been? It's been okay.
So let me give you a little lesson here.

What do you mean by sold, white woman? It's it's it's optioned. It's optioned.
Optioned. Okay, so just so you know, I don't want to burst your bubble.
Let's let we can enjoy it for a minute.

Okay, minutes up. Every book I've written has been optioned, and how many have made the big screen? But you're.

I'm going to tell you, when you come to my Emmy Award-winning party for it, Emmy, Oscars. No, no, it's going to be a TV series.
Bitch, we're going to the Venice Film Festival. You're dressing up.

I think it's a TV series. Oh, it's going to be original scripted drama.
Who should play you? That's really what we want to know. Let's be honest.

It's a toss-up between Brad Pitt and the guy who played Elvis, Austin Butler. I had that shaved head, kind of that look he had in Dune.
That's just, it's like looking in a mirror, Kara.

It's like looking in a mirror. Who's optioned it? Are you allowed to say? Yes, yes, I can.
Tomorrow Studios, they made Snow Piercer. They made Physical.
They made a whole bunch of stuff.

But I think they're interested in a TV show. I think they're interested in a TV show, an ongoing limited series TV shows.
So I'm excited. Oh my God, we're competitors.
I'm doing something similar.

Oh, are you? Well, we'll see. Mine's a real story, I suppose.

Yeah, I think I asked you to get involved and you said, no, I'm doing an original script, or I'm working on an original scripted drama with billions.

It's an alternative investments or succession was to family-owned media. I'm doing this.
Same thing for Big Tech. Okay.
All right. Well, the mine's a real story.
It's based on my

real story. Who should star as me? Kristen Stewart.
It's got to be a believable lesbian, don't you think?

Who's I think you just have Anne Hathaway a foot shorter and a much butchier haircut and boom, we're done.

That was good.

We're so Hollywood. Let's see who gets made first, okay? Let's see.
No, no, Anne Hathaway and just have her stop doing Botox for a month and boom, she looks like you.

Well, I am thrilled to be doing the deal with Tomorrow's Studios and I'm very excited. No comment, huh? Actually, you know, it would be hilarious.
I've, oh my God, I've got it. I've totally got it.

You know who should play you?

Sheryl Samberg.

I like it.

That'd be good. Wow.
I like it. Do you think? She needs a new career.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it.
Yeah, who would play you? That would be fun. We should definitely do.

I'm calling out a contest, please, on threads, not on X, because it'll get ugly fast. On threads.

The words Linda Hunt popped into my mind, but that's not fair to go.

I'm hanging up on you right now. We're done.
We're done. Burn book.
I have a TV series.

Anyway, we're going to, we have a lot to get to today. Trump's Bitcoin play, Kamala's fundraising numbers, and Elon's deep fake post.
Plus, our friend of Pivot is Atlantic staff writer Ann Applebaum.

She's got a new book out called Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. But first, President Joe Biden is proposing a reform to the Supreme Court, something you've talked about.

Biden is calling for term limits. He's listening to us, Scott, a binding ethics code and a constitutional amendment declaring presidents do not have immunity from crimes committed while in office.

The proposed amendment called the No One is Above the Law Amendment would require two-thirds majority approval in the House and Senate, probably not going to get passed.

So is this a good thing for him to be doing? He could do anything he he wants right now, couldn't he? I think it starches us out wide. I think this is, I mean,

it's a shame. I would love to see this.
The most, arguably the most powerful people in the world over the medium and the long term are the president and maybe even more so, the Supreme Court justices.

And, you know, to those who power is granted, much is expected. These people should have the highest standards in the world.
And so to,

you know, you got to cut a fine line between an ethics code and something that could be weaponized by opponents of that person's ideology and use that as a means of getting them off the court.

But what's happened here has gone so far in terms of Justice Thomas deciding

which fabulous cruise or scuba ship or trip he's going to take with which people with issues before the court. I was surprised they didn't have a binding ethics code.

Like everybody else kind of sometimes, right?

I was sort of like, what?

Term limits, I think, are the most important. I would love that.
One,

no, I have trouble thinking of any institution that has fallen further faster in terms of prestige and credibility than the Supreme Court of the United States.

And two, we need more ageism in our country. We need to recognize that people's brains, perspectives, and capabilities change with age, both on the bottom.

You can't run for president when you're 34, and you shouldn't be able to run for president when you're 75. So then that should be the same way for the Supreme Court.
I guess what's that?

I think 80. Oh, 75.

Let's talk the difference. 78.
78. Just because of that.

There you go.

The Constitutional amendment thing is a little more complicated um because they have given you know a terrible possibly terrible leader a lot of outs in terms of doing things we'll see where that goes that's a much more con from what i've talked to a lot of people about it's much more complex but i think the ethics code and the term limits takes care of a lot of the problems we have with this court in a lot of ways but um but i don't know also so if they had the term limit we'd know who won and who gets to appoint them pretty much in advance so there's a little more planning to be done.

Anyway, it's interesting.

This is an interesting story. Did you see this? Murdoch family in a court battle? Who will lead Ms.
Corporate Fox?

What do you think of this? It was new. Oh, I know a lot about it.
Let me just go through it for people. Currently, the family trust gives each of Rupert Murdoch's four children equal votes.

He has two others, but they have ownership, but not votes. He wants to change that.
He made this when he divorced from his wife, Anna.

She insisted on this.

Rupert has filed a petition to amend the trust. It's an irrevocable trust, but that's what he's done to give exclusive control to his oldest son, Lachlan.

As reasoning, he cites political differences with his other children that could impact editorial stance of his companies. Three other children have responded with a legal challenge.

The trial is expected to begin September. It's in Nevada where this is.
So it's one person who deals with trusts and estates.

You know, there's one tiny little out that he's saying he's doing it for the benefit of these people. And he's doing it for political reasons.
That's not the benefit of shareholders or anything else.

Lachlan, who's presided over disaster after disaster at the the company, including the lawsuits and behaviors and payoffs and everything else. I mean, Lachlan has been a terrible CEO in that regard.

I don't think this helps shareholders.

What's interesting, I have a little knowledge of these

people. They were not together, James, Liz, and I think it's Prudence.
They were not. aligned at all.
Liz moved back and forth like shiv on succession.

You know, she was, she's very much wanting her dad and her to get along. So this united them, which was, of course, another stupid thing Lachlan does because he's as dumb as a box of hammers.

So, it's really interesting.

You know, this is a family that has huge impact on our society. And he's trying to live beyond the grave.
This old, crusty old Drakula is trying to live beyond the grave. What do you think?

There are a few companies. I have a difficult time thinking of a for-profit company who has a greater impact relative to its market capitalization.
I mean, I think the market cap

of, I forget what the market cap is, but it's essentially, you know,

you have, oh, it's $33 billion,

which is,

you know, Warner's 20, which is unfair because it has 40 billion in debt, so it's 60 billion in enterprise value. But it's $33 billion, which is, you know, big, but this is arguably, I mean,

you could definitely make an argument. This is one of the five or 10 most influential companies in the world.

And a lot of people think that this company literally picks the Republican nominee for president. It has a huge influence.

And Jessica Tarlov, who I've been spending a lot of time with, who's kind of the

what's that? I introduced you. You introduced us? Yes, I did.

You introduced me and Jess? Yeah. Really? Yes.
I didn't know that. Almost everybody important

introduced you.

There you go.

There you go. Don't worry.
I'll forget about you once I'm really famous. Morning.
Oh, yes. I remember her.
I remember her. Sheryl Samberg played her in the original scripted drama, right? That one?

Anyways, from Tomorrow Studios. Anyway, sorry.
Go ahead.

Yeah.

When something gets optioned.

I'm excited for you to see how basically LA offers Zuma Beach, the Hollywood Bowl, In-N-Out Burger, and a whole lot of people masturbating each other and never getting off.

Nothing ever fucking gets done in that town, at least not with me. Anyways, let's move along.
Too much?

Too much? Not for you, but it does for Kara Swisher. But go ahead.
Go ahead. There you go.
Anyways, Jessica, we were talking about, you know,

she's on Fox, and she read me some stats that just blew my mind. Fox's viewership is really strong.
I mean, he's actually, I don't think it's fair to say Lachlan's done a terrible job.

I think the Dominion case was obviously a huge dub toe, but I think that's more about the fact that, well, anyways,

I think it's unfair to say he's done a bad job. What I took from this entire story.
Come on, the two cases. There's Smart Maddock coming, but go ahead.
Go ahead.

Well, okay.

Let me say the HR has not been very good here, but

the company is as influential as it has ever been. And the Wall Street Journal is amazing.

Anyways,

up for debate whether you think it's done a good job or not. What I took from this had nothing to do with business, nothing.
And that is

I'm turning 50, and my sole objective right now, all the money I'm spending, almost every

biggest thing right now, and my kids are about to be 14 and 17. I am buying homes and beautiful places.

I'm thinking about where we're going to live and making huge investments in my kids because all I want, first and foremost, is I want to spend a ton of time with my boys when they're older.

And this is a man who, by any stretch of the imagination, whether you think he's Satan's devil or whatever, has had a remarkably successful career in terms of influence and impact.

And he's getting married. Three of his four kids didn't show up.
I know. Wasn't that interesting? Which, in my view, which in my view means you have failed.
Yeah. And

I also reverse engineered to another thing, tax policy. I think we dramatically need to increase tax rates above, say, 10 million a year or on trusts.

Because I'm telling you, Kara, creating dynasties, it doesn't do anyone any good. Do you think this has been good for their family? It's what it's succession.
We've got succession here. And

if he dies before this thing gets to trial, it stays the same. And then we'll see what happens to

this company. Because the other three, I wouldn't call them united, but now they are.
Now they're like, screw you, dad. This is

like the second thing I'm just behind wanting to spend a lot of time with my boys. You know what I really hope? I really hope that my boys are friends when they're older.

And sometimes with the way they go at it, I think that's not a given. Yeah, it was tense between Lachlan and the rest of them.
But

Liz was between Prudence is out in Australia, does her own thing.

But it's just it's it's ridiculous, it's a ridiculous thing to do at this moment in time because he's gonna let me just tell you, Rupert Murdock, you're gonna die.

Like, you know, for Moonstruck, no matter what you do, Rupert Murdock, you're gonna die, and you don't get to decide things after you're dead. That's it, that's it.

And he's ruining the rest of his thing just because he has this. You know, some people think that Lachlan is unduly influencing him.
He is 90-some years old. That's one of the little things.
Well,

how you can make the same argument on the other three. No, they didn't start this thing.
This was this has been in place for

decades. They

move to change it.

A little bit of background.

An irrevocable trust is basically a tax shelter. And this is what I'm getting at.
Dynasties, as far as I can tell, don't do anyone any good. They remove tax dollars from the Commonwealth.

Your kids end up fighting each other and not showing up at their father's wedding. And

dynastic wealth and tax policies that lead to dynasties used to be something that we weren't down with.

We used to have very high inheritance taxes, and now we have raised the minimums from $5 million per person to $11 million.

And here's the thing, and this is where I'm going, and I'm becoming Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Giving your kids financial security, fine.

Okay, but if they each get 25 million, not necessarily billion, anything you give your kids above 10 or 20 million, it doesn't make them any happier.

And at some point, when you have this dynasty that has all this political influence and impact on the world, it ends up separating families and dividing them. That could be.

But I'm saying this thing was in place for decades. He agreed to it.
This is what it is. And now he's having buyer's remorse.
It's all Rupert or Lachlan generated.

This is not those other kids doing this. But this is what you have to do.
To put something in something that transfers to your kids tax-free is called a trust.

But the thing about the trust is it has to be irrevocable. Now, that term irrevocable is really important.
It means that the construct and the agreements within the trust have to hold.

You don't get to then decide to change it. And what he's claiming is, no, I want the irrevocable trust to be revocable.
And there's a loophole. And the loophole is the following.

If you can prove you're making decisions that help them economically, right?

But he's basically going to try and say that my view, my endorsement of someone who has a different political complexion than the other three will help them economically.

And I would think legally the other three would be able to swap that down or just delay, just take a note, you know, page out of the Trump lawyer handbook and just keep delaying this case because he's not, his expiration date is about 10 years past due.

I don't know if his mother lived to like way past 100. I forget.
She was riding around in a golf cart. Who knows? In any case, it's sad and pathetic.

And he's going right down the Sumner Redstone Avenue, as they all, I thought maybe they would avoid this, but I don't know.

Interesting about Jessica Tarloff, she cannot come on my shows, but she can go on your show because they don't like it. Because I'm seen as Fox friendly.
I go on Fox friends. Oh, you're Fox friendly.

I'm not Fox friendly. I'm Foxy.
Irina won't let her.

I like Neil cavuto i like liz clayman i love stuart varney i like the people over yeah i don't get i don't get the same kind of thing but you're welcome that you made a friend well let's be honest when i say something stupid that inflames everybody like mediocre calling yeah they i'm not getting we're not discussing oh let's talk about it i think it's interesting i like running into the fire so but first i just want to acknowledge to come with you whenever i see something that pisses people off they get angry at you they do thank you they get angry at you and that is correct i said it, not Kara.

I know. I know.
Anyways. Oh, by the way, should we talk about that? All right.
You called, you said she was a mediocre vice president. You said she was good at the other things.
Okay, go ahead.

You're taking that out of context. The exact, so this is a thread that got 2,000, whatever, likes and 2,200 comments.

And this is the exact thread.

I said, we should be open to the notion that someone who is a great attorney general, a a great senator, and a mediocre vice president is better suited in an executive role.

Now, and then everybody just went ape shit that I called her a mediocre vice president. Let me ask you this, Kara.

A year ago, a year ago, if you polled Democrats in the United States and said, is Vice President Harris in her role as vice president, is she bad, mediocre, or good? What do you think would have won?

I know. I don't think they like the word mediocre.
I think it was the word. I think it was your word selection.
I think it was a good idea. Not a successful

mediocre was a word that drove for.

I was doing posts of my kids popping bubble wrap and it came over into that feed. I was like, get the fuck out of my kid bubble wrap feed.
Like, why are you, do you know about Scott and mediocre?

I'm like, I do. But let me be clear: the cultists on the left are just as culty as the cultists on the right.
They're mad at us over the Biden. I'm basically saying about Kamala.
I'm basically saying.

So now they're defending Kamala.

I'm basically saying, I think Vice President Harris will likely make a good slash great president.

I haven't been good at two out of three of my jobs, but everybody immediately goes, how dare you call the new cult leader in any capacity

media?

Because these are the people who are attacking us when we said Biden should step aside. It just FYI.
Same people, same people who are mad at us for pushing Harris anyway.

The bumper sticker is now, be a cultist or shut the fuck up. It just replaced Biden with Harris.

And we have to have the thing I like about Democrats, or I like to think, is we're a little bit more critical thinkers.

We're a little bit more nuanced than the far-right weirdos that are just like, oh, he's Jim Jones. I'll drink Kool-Aid.

But you know what?

It's really interesting. The people on the far right have just written me off.
I think they attack you. They pretty much leave me alone, but they've just written me off.

The people on the far left, they feel as if you've betrayed them.

They treat you like an apostate, that you're the worst in the world because they thought they could trust you and you have not signed up for the cult.

And they come after you. I agree.
Well, we have to move on, but nonetheless, get the fuck out of my feeds about Scott, about my other things. I love you.

No, I'm almost like, he can't.

All I do is I have, no, he can say whatever he wants.

He's not saying anything that's not reasonable. And then they attack you.

No one ever comes after me for you. They're like, oh my God, how can you put up with her? But how much did you love? This is my favorite.
I've watched Celine Dionne singing.

I posted her singing at the opening ceremonies. You love her.
And I'm like, I'm like, I love Celine Dionne. I did not know this.
Yeah. Yeah.

I remember watching her thinking, oh my God, there's that lame Canadian. And I'm like, oh my God, she's amazing.
She's amazing.

Did you see that? Yes, of course I did.

I was riveted to the corny last supper, which everyone got mad about. But anyway, we'll talk about the Olympics at the end.
Anyway, we got to get to our first big story. We really have to move along.

Elon Musk continues to be hell-bent on sabotaging X, particularly when it comes to making the platform profitable.

New York Times piece from Over the Weekend details ex-CEO Linda Yakarino's many attempts to repair X's advertising business over the last year in spite of Elon.

Her efforts are likened to a game of corporate whack-a-mole. Actually, it's just not doing well.
Stop it. She's not, she's been ineffective in the extreme.

So, he's what he was doing, he's doing a bunch of stuff. Internal documents obtained by the Times show that X earnings earned $114 million in revenue in the U.S.
in the second quarter, a 53% decline.

I was surprised it's not more.

She's been trying to bring it back. He also is using his ex-account promoted fake, deep fake video of Kamala Harris.

He reposted an edited Harris campaign ad on Friday that appears to have been digitally altered to add a new voiceover.

In posting the video, Elon violated X's own policy in sharing synthetic and manipulated media. But no surprise, post is still up.
He doesn't care. He owns the place.
He makes the rules.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

So he's just, as usual, making a mess.

And then the last thing,

his issues with his kids. I know you don't like to talk about this, but as I told you, it was a big friggin deal.

His daughter Vivian, who's transgender, posted on threads finally debunking recent claims Elon made about her childhood. She also called him cruel and narcissistic in an interview on NBC News.

You should go read it because he was making fun of her, her voice, etc. When before she transitioned.

The mother of Elon's ex Grimes, whom I know, is also speaking out on social media issues, accusing Elon of withholding her three grandchildren from their mother and other members of the family.

The great-grandmother is dying, and they wanted to bring the kids to see her.

It's just a mess. Like, I go to the,

I found the whole thing so rattling because

his daughter said the worst thing you can say about any father, and that is he wasn't involved. Yeah.
She basically said, all of this is bullshit. He just wasn't there.
And when he was, he was mean.

He was mean to her. Okay, so even worse.
And as someone whose father wasn't very involved in my life up until, I shouldn't say that, he did make an effort.

And mostly because this wonderful woman, by the way, shout out to stepmothers, including Vice President Harris. Stepmothers, step parents are some of the heroes.

But

the notion that

your job as a dad is one, I think, I do think it's important that you're a provider and a protector.

But what your kids are going to remember is is not how funny you were, how nice you were, what a ball you were. They're going to remember whether you were there or not.

And this young woman remembers that he was not there. That is job number one for dads.
We don't always get it right. I still struggle sometimes with how to interact and how to behave around my boys.

But here's the thing.

You know,

job number one is you got to be there. Right.

And she said the worst thing possible about him, said he wasn't. Yeah.

I think it was worse than that. I think his behavior was terrible when Vivian was a child in terms of making, he made up all these things about her saying fabulous.
All this stuff.

This is vile.

And she wasn't having any of it. Like she was like, eh, that's never happened.
The only time he did think, he made fun of my voice, my high voice, and when he was trying to PR us in a car, right?

Use us as PR punt, which he's doing with this other kid. I hate this so much.
I want to move on to what I think the bigger threat at X is.

Everyone's focused on Linda Yaccarino and the soap opera there about the advertising.

Something really dangerous happened on X, and that was the guy who controls an influential platform let a fake video, a deep fake, go out, and he endorsed it.

And we predicted this earlier, and I think this is short-term the biggest threat of AI. You're going to have a much what I call shallow fakes.

I would call what he did a shallow fake, the deposition and make candidates that aren't of his liking less attractive, likable, less votable.

But this is what's going to to get really fucking scary if they don't take actions. And the government doesn't say, you're going to get in a lot of trouble if you let this happen.

If these platforms allow deep fake videos to come out in the few days leading up to the election, you're going to see, you're going to see video that looks very, very real of violence at polling stations that happen to be in King Swing Districts.

The government, the DOJ, and because we cannot wait on the better angels of these executives, much less the person we're referencing, you could see voter turnout substantially diminished.

If you're like most people and

you're a single parent, you're trying to just get to work. Why is he doing it now to test it out? I don't think he's that strategic.

I just think he just hates Vice President Harris and thought it was funny. But this won't be funny if all of a sudden in swing districts, the GRU or somebody else, a bad actor,

starts showing fake, fake

you're in a, there's only like 11, there's not only only five swing states, there's like 10 or 11 counties in these swing states.

What happens when a bunch of deep fakes come out 48 hours before you're a single mom, you're trying to get to the voting booth, you're really fucking busy, and you see a shooting at your polling station

that's forwarded to you from

if you're using some of these platforms. Right.
That's the thing. Oh, that shit'll get around.
That's the thing. Well, here's the thing.

I'm not so sure. I think people are aware of this.
And the fact that he did this is, of course, he's violating his own rules, which is, of course, someone's like, can you believe it?

I'm like, yes, he can do whatever he wants. It's a private platform.
Yeah, surprising but not shocking. Or no, shocking but not surprising.
He's using it

as a political tool. That's all that's happening here.

And of course, it makes, he doesn't care about the business. You're right.
Linda Racarino hardly matters in this whole thing.

She can sit around and do her little. breathless, this is going to be a video platform.
Like, Linda, what are you doing? You're not running a company.

You're running a, like, he's just using it for a political cudgel. That's it.
That's it. That's all that's happening here.

She's the circus clown following around an elephant, scooping up his shit. She's constantly, she's basically the most overpaid apologist in history other than someone being in the Trump cabinet.

Or I was so disappointed by that Governor Sununu who went on. And when Trump said that you'll never need to vote again, he said, oh, it's just Donald being Donald.
Fuck you. He didn't mean it that

Elon was also defending.

Anyway, if you're explaining yourself, you're fucked.

Linda Yaccarino

is literally moving from irrelevant to less relevant. And it makes her fun story and clickbait.
She has almost no influence at that company.

She doesn't make any decisions. She has no control over her boss.

She's pushing a rock up a hill, trying to call advertisers who, my understanding, is love her and have had a wonderful experience with her professionally and saying, Linda, I love you, but there's no fucking way we're getting, we're pulling up a seat to, as you call it, the Nazi porn bar.

Yeah, Nazi porn bar. It's amazing.
I mean, I think this is just not a business. I don't know what she's doing there.

It's just, I don't really care because I don't really care for her, but it's, it's embarrassing. It's an embarrassing way to spend your life.

If you want, if you're a real ad person, which you used to be. get a job at a real company as difficult as it may be at an NBC or a warner.
This is just, you're just a ridiculous figure at this point.

Just a ridiculous side note to this really terrible person.

It's embarrassing. Anyway, and as to the families, including Vivian and the others, Sandy, who's Grimes' mother, and

Grimes herself supported Vivian, by the way, it's really brave of you. I know it sounds silly, but it's brave to speak out.
This guy has unlimited power, unaccountable power, and money and influence.

And to do this says a lot.

He can come at them in ways that are really dangerous.

So, and of course, their kids at stake. So good.

I admire you for speaking out. And in the case of Vivian, you're super friggin' funny.

She's really, really funny. One of the things she did, she was talking about not regretting transitioning.

And she said, to insinuate that I regret it is just plain false. And she goes on and talks about it.
And at the end,

this is what she wrote. This is the last I'm going to touch on that interview where Elon was saying all those false things for the time being, at least on this platform.

But other people have talked about me and twisted my narrative for profit for multiple years at this point. So I think it's fair.

I tried twisting it back with my own, my silly little platform now that I have a chance. Also, if you were Sheen to my funeral, you're getting canceled.

I thought that was funny. Because it was, you know, he dead named her, he called her dead and this and that.
Anyway, very funny person.

But if I were, again, in the Trump,

now that Vice President Harris is clearly probably going to raise a billion dollars, that everybody, all of a sudden everyone's like, yeah,

I like this idea. I want to put my time, treasure, and talent towards this.
They have the firepower now to go after several messaging dimensions.

And one of those messaging dimensions should be the following. They should show old Republicans talking about the importance of family values.
And then they should say, we agree. And

think about three families, the Trump family. Musk is now very tightly associated with the right.
He's gone red-pilled. And the Murdochs.

Look at the family. Okay, Trump.
His wife does not like him. They're not affectionate with each other.
They don't really appear to like each other.

Musk, let's not even go there.

Let's not even go there. It's pretty clear Musk's approach to family dynamics.
And then let's talk about the Murdoch family where the kids don't show up at the wedding.

And now let's talk about the Biden and Harris families. Right? Talk about,

you know what I love about Vice President Harris? She kisses her husband on the mouth. She did publicly.
They're very sexy. Don't you think they're sexy? I like that.

I've seen them.

They look like they want to have sex. That's a nice thing.

The Biden family? I mean, this is a guy who's a family man. So we absolutely should take family values.

All this stuff in the 70s and 80s about the importance of family values. Say we agree.
And here are our family values.

Because if you look at the people really dominating the Trump campaign in terms of influence, I mean, do you want to talk about fucked up blue velvet families, dysfunctional, a lack of love and respect?

Oh, by the way, when, you know, he keeps talking about childless women and that we have to like love families and liberals don't love family. Again, JD, I have more children than you do.

So you better get to it. Do you have cats? Do you have cats?

I have cats. I have a cat.
I have a single cat. Anyway,

cats are great. And dogs are great too.
Let's go in a quick break. When we come back, Trump makes an appeal to the Bitcoin bros.

We'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Ann Applebaum, about the rise of autocrats around the world, too.

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Scott, we're back. Former President Donald Trump is vowing to turn the U.S.
into a crypto capital of the planet if he returns to the White House.

Trump spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville over the weekend. He vowed to create a national national Bitcoin stockpile if elected.

If elected, he also pledged to fire SEC chair Gary Gensler on day one, who is a real

foe to

the crypto people go crazy over him.

So he's courting the

Bitcoin bros.

Kamala's not

not averse to them at all. Kamala's advisors have approached top crypto companies to reset relations.

They want to create a framework for regulation rather than getting campaign donations. I don't think she's particularly hostile to them.

And so he's trying, I don't know what he's doing here going for the Bitcoin bros. I just don't feel like it's a constituency that really needs.

I don't know. What do you think?

The crypto bros, I mean, this is shaping up to be literally in

kind of full form kleptocracy. Let's just be honest about it.
We have huge investments in crypto.

And if you're a president and say that you're going to deregulate it or use the treasury or the full faith and credit of the government to endorse Bitcoin, sending our Bitcoin investments through the roof, we're going to raise you a shit ton of money.

I mean, that's kind of indirectly been happening for a long time, but this feels just patently like, you know, I, if you asked

Donald Trump to explain what the blockchain is, I just don't think he'd have any, any ability to say anything about crypto. But what I think what a...

quite a few well-heeled investors have said is that we'll raise you a shit ton of money, but be clear, this is how we're going to get payback.

And if you look at, it's also Gary Gensler, I just would describe it as anti-crypto. He's been thoughtful about it.
And there's now crypto ETFs.

They have not done anything. I mean, I just don't, the crypto bros are maximalists and want,

again,

I think it's this sort of, this crude sort of, I'm with you. I'll use, I won't be thoughtful about it.
I'll just pay you back. Just raise me a billion dollars.

That's not supposed to be how government works.

We're supposed to elect a bunch of people who prevent a tragedy of comments and be thoughtful about regulation and be thoughtful about a good approach to this.

But I think the position Biden is anti-crypto and

Gensler is anti-crypto, I just don't think that's fair. Right.
Right, right. You know, interesting, there's this good story by Sean McCreesh, who used to work for New York Magazine.

And he was talking about him visiting this Christian group in Palm Beach this week and also in Nashville.

And he goes, he begs, he blusters, he makes outlandish promises, and his attempts to win over a crowd that is not inherently his own can be acutely awkward.

You know, he just doesn't know anything about this. He just doesn't.
He just has been pushed in a certain direction and saying, let's get some money from these,

from these Bitcoin bros. Because, I mean, it was, he,

he started by saying, hello, Bitcoiners,

and, and, and, and talking about it. So he just doesn't.
He prints, he prints his, he, he has a portable printer where he prints news off the internet in paper form so he can read it.

He doesn't, he doesn't know anything about what he's doing and he just flatters them. He's trying to get money from them.

And then he started talking about his third wedding to Melania. I don't even understand.
It was just the weirdest speech.

And so he's promising crypto advisory council,

national strategic Bitcoin.

stockpile firing Gensler, as you said, which is kind of ridiculous. It's just, he's just like sucking up to them.

What these guys don't realize, they may get a pop in the short run.

Over the long term, I believe Bitcoin price is higher with thoughtful regulation that gives retail investors the confidence to invest in what is legitimate asset class.

And it may not get there as quickly as they'd like. But if you have a total Wild West economy around this stuff, you're going to see hacks.

And Harris is going to modulate just like she just did on fracking. She's like, I'm not against fracking.
She's just did that.

So she's going to, every time he does something, she's going to modulate and be like,

I'll talk to you and stuff like that, which is, I think, smart on her behalf. Speaking of smart, the Harris campaign, as you noted, has raised more than $200 million.

And last week, two-thirds of that money is from first-time donors. Virtual campaign rallies, as you said, are going to, as we mentioned earlier, is a big deal.
You're doing white dudes for Harris.

Now you're going to be speaking there. This is our time.
You know, there's a lot of us, and I'm one of those people.

And I've been doing, I've been trying, there's a, what is a, the difference between an opinion and a value is that you're willing to sacrifice.

And I'm sick of, we spent a lot of time talking about Democrats and Harris and how dangerous Trump is.

And so now it's time to show people this is a value and commit your time, your treasure, and your talent. My message is threefold.

The most important thing to American families, I believe, at the end of the day, is a robust economy. And we would not want to do anything differently in the sense that we have inflation coming down.

We have the greatest job growth in history. Markets are touching all-time highs.

Let's keep this disco party going. And the greatest chance of keeping that party going are to maintain the current people in place.
Our growth has been unbelievable.

China has lost, shed $6 trillion in market cap. This is still the most,

the economy here. And again, Democrats are ridiculously bad at messaging.
The economy here is unbelievable. It's just incredible what the economy has done here.
Let's keep it going too. Israel.

I believe the only way we have a sustainable peace there is with thoughtful people who bring a bunch of people to the table and are thoughtful about all parties and do diplomacy, not someone who makes bold macho statements and then, like a cat, goes to the next dot.

Do you realize that Trump said to Netanyahu publicly, fuck him, because Netanyahu refused to say Biden was an illegitimate president?

That's what you're dealing with in the Middle East if Trump is president. And then specifically with respect, and then my last point would be the following.
I'm the father of two boys.

It is impossible for young men around the world not to look up to and model the president. And these are questions I got from my seven and 10-year-old during the Trump administration.

Who is Stormy Daniels? Dad, what do you think is the best nickname that Trump has come up with? That's not a role model for young men. So one, we want a booming economy.

We want a thoughtful, measured, sustainable peace in the Middle East. And we want someone our young men and boys can look up to.
Yeah, I think that's good. That's good.

Don't know Chipotle and Ozempic.

Happy to handle it. I'm so indignant.
I'm caffeinated. Don't say the word mediocre.
If you say the word mediocre, I'll kill you. Oh, Jesus Christ.

I'll call the disciples. The cultists will come for me.
They'll come for the distance. The cultists will come.
They'll come for me. They come for me.

We're getting attacked on Twitter by the tech bros. We're getting attacked on threads by the Democratic cultists.
There's no room in the middle. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.

And here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Oh, my God. All right.
Okay.

How do you assess Kamala Harris's digital strategy? Pretty good. Pretty good.
She's really funny.

The press releases are hysterical, calling them weird. And whoever's doing them is definitely under like 35 years old or 30 years old.
It's someone who has some

talent at this.

I think they're doing really well at stuff they're doing themselves. And also the stuff that's being created is a lot of fun.
We'll see if it matters, but it's actually really fun and well done.

I think.

I think she's been good, but I think the real

the real power here is that she has her candidacy has ignited

a new generation of creators who are just incredibly talented. You know, this might be the first kind of what you call every presidency has a different medium, right? Trump was the Twitter presidency.

JFK was the JFK was the TV. FDR was the radio presidency.
This is going to be probably the TikTok or video presidency, you know, short form video.

And there's just millions of young people who didn't vote in the last election, who weren't voting age, who are inspired. They're, they're more non-white.
They're more progressive, generally speaking.

Although Trump's picked up a lot of people on the young side, they're still predominantly Democrat. And they're great with these mediums and they're inspired and they're creative.

And there's just a bunch of cool shit out there. It's really cool to watch it.
It's fun. We'll see if it translates into votes, but it certainly is.
It's really being well done.

Anyway, and I think it's fun.

It feels fun is what it is,

especially with her dancing because she's such a better dancer than Donald Trump. She's got a lot, yeah.
100%. Also, she's outstanding.
Have you noticed? She's outstanding on a ramp.

She really knows how to handle a ramp. Yeah.
She knows how to handle it. She dances down a ramp.
Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Ann Applebaum is a staff writer at the Atlantic and the author of the new book, Autocracy Inc., The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Welcome, Anne.
Thank you. So

let's start with your book, Autocracy Inc., with the one man who wants to rule the world. Let's start with Donald Trump.

There's so much to talk about, including what's happening in Venezuela right now on the left. But let's start with Donald Trump.

I want to play some comments he made to a group of Christian voters at an event this weekend and get your thoughts. Christians, get out and vote just this time.

You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years.
You know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine.
You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians.
I'm a Christian.

I love you. Get out.
You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again.
We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote.

So, Ian, how concerned should people be when they hear those words?

You should be concerned because he's trying to get you used to a set of ideas. And the ideas are that voting doesn't matter, or rather, that voting only votes for him matter.

And so, once he wins, nothing else is important. And whether he's joking or not joking, I don't think it makes that much difference.
The point is to accustom audiences to a certain set of ideas.

And of course, he's not the first person to think of doing that.

So

when you look at that, you know, you talk a lot in Autocracy Inc. about the different techniques that people use.

And in your latest piece in The Atlantic, you talk about him being older and more deranged and everything else. So I'd love you to give a sense of where he fits into Autocracy Inc.

and explain what Autocracy Inc. is.
You were talking last night at your book party that it's a network,

not a movement. They're not necessarily all aligned with each other.
Yeah, that's exactly it. So what the book describes is a network of autocrats.
It's not an alliance.

There isn't a secret room where they all meet and make decisions.

And we're talking about a specific group of countries who we're talking about: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea,

Venezuela, Belarus, and a handful of others who are led by people who don't believe that they should have any checks on their power. They should have total impunity.

They should be able to do whatever they want. They shouldn't be stopped by media, by judges, by lawyers, by courts, and of course, not by voters either.
And so they have this vision of absolute power.

It's something that they deserve because they represent the people or because they're so great or because they're so wealthy.

I mean, there are different little bit different justifications in each country.

And they're not necessarily linked ideologically, but they share this affinity for absolute power, and they seek to help one another in attempts to keep it and preserve it.

And how so? How do they do that?

So, through, for example, sharing surveillance technology, watching how one another represses their oppositions.

And all of them have

activists and oppositions who talk about the rule of law, who sometimes talk about democracy. And so, they understand those things

as their main challenge. And also through their use of our financial system, basically,

to steal and launder and keep large amounts of money. So we're talking about people who are often very, very rich, some of the richest people on the planet.

And that I think is one of the things that distinguishes them from some of the more famous dictators of the 20th century. So they're wealthy, they share their wealth, they share their technology,

they share techniques, and they help keep one another in power. And of course, Donald Trump is outside of that world now.
He does admire it.

He talks frequently about how much he would like to be like President Xi or like President Putin. He, you know, he wrote letters to the dictator of South North Korea.

You know, we all know those stories.

And that's because he instinctively, I don't know if he frames it this way in his mind, but he instinctively admires their ability to get away with whatever they want.

Right, which is what he's admiring. How likely would it be that he could impose this? You talk, you warn a lot about this happening.

We are a much larger and much more diverse country, a bigger country. How likely that this would work in a country like this that we are in now?

So I'm not sure that it would work. And I'm pretty sure he would not be able to establish some kind of absolute monarchy or absolute dictatorship if the federal system alone would block him.

The point is that he can do a lot of damage by trying.

So even if he can't succeed and it's not going to, you know, ultimately we will not look like Nazi Germany, he can succeed in hollowing out institutions, in making people lose faith in the democratic system.

He could make people lose faith in the voting system, which has already happened. I mean, some of this is, some of this we're talking about as if it's in the future, but actually it's already with us.

It's already begun.

And so,

you know, and he could persuade people that it's not so bad to steal an election, and we could have people try to steal elections. That could create quite a lot of chaos.

You can imagine, you know, play that, play that out down the road, not just in 2024, but in 2028. Imagine that Trump wins now and J.D.
Vance is his vice president.

Vance has already said he would have not done what Pence did and blocked an attempt to steal the election. So then already we're in trouble at our next election.

So you can see the damage, the chaos, the distraction,

the collapse really of any kind of unitary American government as the result of Trump's autocratic wishes and desires.

Aaron Powell, we spent a lot of time talking about or trying to connect Trump's actions with the actions or complexion of an autocrat and

look through history and how bad autocracy

can end.

Can you

I'm more interested in what we can do about it. Can you speak to historically how emerging autocrats have been pushed back?

What would be the handbook for a democracy repelling a move to autocracy? Who's been successful at staving this off?

Well, the Poles were successful.

Poland, which is a country I live in part of the time, was run between 2015 and last October by an autocratic ruling party that was interested in destroying institutions, much like Viktor Orban's Fidesz Party in Hungary.

And they did manage, there was enough of the system preserved, there was enough of a free election preserved, so that when they ran an election in October, they managed to pull pull together a coalition and win.

And so, part of the answer was a coalition. So, the coalition that won went from the center left through the center liberals to the center right.

People who don't like each other stipulate and don't agree about everything, but agreed that they had to beat this party ironically called the Law and Justice Party.

Through an enormous amount of civic engagement, people joined get out the vote teams. They worked on,

you know, there was a protest against a kind of fake judicial reform that was in effect an attempt to change the judiciary.

The way the

ruling part, the winning parties, sorry, the current, who they're now in the current government, campaigned, they campaigned everywhere. They campaigned at all levels, at the grassroots level.

We are the broad majority. And

these are pieces of the story. There's another piece that's to do with election monitoring,

which may or may not be a problem in our election too, probably it will.

But it's thinking about the election as a, um, you know, almost as a, as a political movement rather than just an ordinary election. So it's not just, okay, some people have got to vote.

It's we need everybody to be involved. Yeah, I had thought that Kamala Hero, someone asked me what I thought.
I said, she should go to places they don't like her.

That's what she should spend a lot of time doing, right? Instead of being in places where they go go-girl, right? Like, don't go to the go-girl.

Go to places where they just start to see you and kind of like you because you can be likable, right? And they can sort of see things differently.

Right now, of course, there's this election as we're talking, this fraudulent election in Venezuela. It feels like the authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro claiming victory is on the left.

Um, several countries, including the U.S., are raising questions about the election, calling for transparency in the vote count. Talk about how he fits in a pattern of autocratic leaders.

He's not right, he's left, I guess, right? Which I don't quite know what to call him. Um, and talk about

what's happening there, left, yeah. No, so it's an it's very interesting because actually,

you can you can destroy your democracy from the left or from the right. So the kind of ideology you use isn't as important as what you do.

And actually what Hugo Chavez, who was Nicolas Maduro's predecessor, did in Venezuela wasn't that different from what Viktor Orbán did in Hungary, what the Poles less successfully tried to do, that the previous government, the Law and Justice Party, tried to do in Poland.

Again, destroying institutions, undermining the judiciary, suppressing the media. In Venezuela, there was actually more violence than there was in Hungary or Poland.

But

that was their path to power. It wasn't different just because they used Marxist-sounding language

doesn't make them any less anti-democratic.

So

but Maduro also fits in in a different sense in that how has he stayed in power? He's very, very unpopular. I mean, actually, this election was a landslide.

And this will come out in the next couple of days. I've already seen some of the evidence.

The opposition were doing this kind of parallel vote tabulation.

They have data from precincts. It was a landslide for the opposition.
Why haven't the opposition been able to win before?

And the answer is that Maduro has been supported by the Russians who invest money in Venezuela, by the Chinese who share surveillance technology with Venezuela, by the Iranians who help the Venezuelans evade sanctions and in exchange get the Venezuelans to help.

They help them get visas for Hezbollah operatives in Europe, by the Cubans who lend them secret police and secret police tactics.

So it's almost as if a kind of team of autocrats, this network that I was talking about before, has helped them stay in power. And watch over the next few days.

That group of countries has already recognized

the false election and will begin their attempt to maintain him in power.

Maintain him in power. Can I follow up on that? You write about Western countries and individuals who enabled Putin, Trump, and others in your reporting in the book.

And I just finished listening to both

in the middle of the season of Ultra by Rachel Maddow, which is, we've had it happen here many times. Like they tried the America First, the original America First people, Father Coughlin.

They really, they were put on trial. People went, you know, sacrificed a lot of their careers to stop them.

What did you learn from the people who enabled? these people because it's happened in this country before and they just didn't win that's all they got close though they certainly got close enough So,

when you study autocracies, when you look at the different cultures that have produced them, I think what you learn is that no country is exceptional.

There are people who would prefer an autocratic system in every country on the planet, including ours. And they prefer it either because they're going to make money out of it, or because

they're more comfortable with the idea of a single leader, or because they have come for whatever reasons to dislike their country and its system so much.

And in our case, it would be because, I don't know, it's so woke or it's so multicultural or it's so different from the America that I grew up in or the America that I want to live in, that they are willing to go along with somebody who wants to destroy it.

And that can happen anywhere. What do you see as most hopeful around

globally? You mentioned Poland.

It looks like Hungary,

we don't know how that's going to play out. But when you, when you, when, well, let's limit it to the U.S.,

do you see that some of this

do you see some of the inspiration around or the momentum that Vice President Harris seems to have ignited?

Do you see any connection between that and people actually fearing a move towards autocracy or are they independent of each other?

So here's what I liked about the movement around President Harris, the soon-to-be President Harris, maybe to be President Harris.

What I liked, candidate Harris, what I liked about it was there was this enormous spontaneous outburst that accompanied it. And it's been written about 8 million times.
I don't have to repeat it here.

You know, the memes and the, and what I liked about it was that wasn't controlled. It wasn't produced by her campaign.
It wasn't a top-down, organized mass effort.

What it meant was that there was a...

that people got together and did it themselves. And of course, that is the definition of civil society and civic engagement.
And of course,

making a meme online is the cheapest and easiest form of civil engagement. But in addition to that, there's been this enormous number of people signing up to work on her campaign.

I mean, civic engagement, participation, that's what makes change and that's what preserves democracy.

And if you look at whether you look at Poland or actually even this Venezuelan election, I don't know what's going to happen or whether they're going to win, but boy, was the opposition impressive.

You know, the numbers of people who voted, the numbers of people involved, and they had an opposition primary, which is, you know, as you can imagine, like everywhere else, very divided opposition.

Nevertheless, they came together around one candidate. She was blocked, and they came together around another candidate.
So people really determined to be involved in this election and to make change.

And that's what you need. I suspect the danger is if they don't get what they deserve here, they'll feel overwhelmed, right? And feel like there's nothing to be done.

And that's the worry about a Trump win, for example. If all this excitement is around Harris and then she doesn't win, people will be like the air will come out of the excitement kind of thing.

If she is president, if she becomes president, how are these autocrats going to deal with a presidency, President Kamala Harris?

They tried very hard to stop a president, Hillary Clinton, for sure, but it's back essentially, this idea of hope of towards a woman candidate, someone who's obviously liberal democracy, et cetera.

So they will, as a group, put an enormous amount of effort into this election campaign. They will do propaganda.
They will do social media.

They will produce narratives that will be borrowed by Americans. I mean, not all, none of this requires any kind of secret collusion or anything like that.
It'll all be out in the open.

There may be events that happen, whether in the Middle East or in Ukraine or elsewhere in the world, that are designed to throw the election off or designed to help Trump.

You know, if were Harris to win, you would see some of the same. You would see efforts to throw her off balance, I think, from the very beginning.
You know, this is a,

for some of these countries in particular, I mean, for Russia,

this is win or lose. I mean,

they're waiting for this election to, you know, to resolve the war in Ukraine.

So the war in Ukraine, they cannot win unless they're handed a victory, unless the United States says, right, we're not backing Ukraine anymore.

And it's much easier for them to win by trying to shape the U.S. election than it is by trying to crawl across

heavily mined territory in eastern Ukraine. So they have a lot of interest in this outcome and

they will be running a campaign just like Harris will. What would be the thing you'd think they would do if you had to anticipate?

There will be a social media campaign. They will join the attempt to smear her or make her look, you know, whether it's race, using racism or misogyny.

They will try to make her look incompetent.

As I said, I can't, I don't want to play guessing games. I mean, there could be a hostage situation.
They could negotiate a release of one of the American hostages in Russia with Trump.

I mean, there could be tricks played in order to make him look good and her look incompetent.

You know, I would just be, I would be on the lookout for it because it's very, very much in their interest for her to lose.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: There's usually some sort of manifesto or unifying theory around an autocrat's rise to power. Do you think 2025 is that handbook?

Do you see anything specifically there that feels like something out of the autocrats' handbook?

Well, famously, Project 2025 is, I mean, it's borrowed almost directly from what the Hungarians did, as far as I can tell.

And there are lots of deep links between the Heritage Foundation who wrote it and the Hungarian government.

So, you know, taking over the institutions, remove people's rights,

you know, alter educational institutions, all those are things that have been done before.

And, you know,

in Hungary, they were done peacefully. I mean, they were done largely legally,

either through breaking norms or fiddling around the law or changing the constitution. And I imagine there are people around Trump.
I mean, who knows what he himself thinks.

And that seems to be their goal. And as I said, I mean, it sounds crazy.
And maybe they can't do it. Maybe it won't work.
But it will create a lot of chaos if they try. Yeah, that's absolutely right.

Anyway, and it's a terrific book. I read it.
It's fantastic. The book is Autocracy Inc., The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, and good fucking luck, boys.
We'll see if you can.

Thank you. Thanks, Sam.
All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

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Okay, Scott, let's do some wins and fails. Shall I start?

I'll go first. You go first.
Go ahead. I'll go first.

So I'll start with my fail.

I think Vice President Harris should have showed up for Nyahu's comments.

I think she needs to take the Israel issue from Republicans because I think Harris and Biden should be more strident and beat their chest a little bit more about how America has been, under the Biden and Harris administration, has been more supportive of Israel when it counted

than any nation in the world. And I think it was a mistake for her to be visibly absent there.
But the real fail was Netanyahu's comments. He's basically endorsed Trump.
On Friday,

Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris's comments on the humanitarian situation in Gaza might open quote hinder a deal for the release of hostages.

So he's basically gone all in on Trump. World leaders do not criticize, typically, a candidate like that.
He's gone all in on Trump.

And Netanyahu, in my view, continues to be terrible for Israel because, again, basic scenario planning. Right now, the race is a toss-up.

His comments should have been the following. We had a frank and productive conversation.
Stop talking.

Because

these are people too.

And if Harris wins, for him to go all in on Trump, that's just not a thoughtful way to present or position your nature or position your nation for continued alliance that is arguably one of the strongest in the world.

So I think it was a tactical mistake for Vice President Harris to give the Republicans a wedge issue.

around to say, you know, they immediately couched her actions and comments as anti-Semitic, which they were not.

If you look at what she said, she said the following, we are their steadfast ally. They have a right to defend themselves.
We need to be empathetic to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

That is not an unreasonable thing to say.

But she's given them, she gave them fodder by not showing up. She should have showed up there.
She's not afraid of anybody. But

the real fail is that for those of us who are hoping for sustainable peace, like many Israelis realize Netanyahu has been a fucking disaster for Israel.

and he continues to do stupid things hoping hoping he's making a big bet on Trump. As a world leader, you do not make one bet.
You do not flip a coin and endorse a candidate because if

Harris does win, that's just not a good idea to alienate the leader of the strongest nation in the world who has a 50% probability of being elected.

He just could have, if he'd been more focused on the long-term health of his nation, he would have been more thoughtful in his comments. My win, simply put, is the Olympics.

There's just so many wonderful, inspiring moments. First off, Paris, the home of luxury, they just know how to put on a show.

I mean, whether it's those rings, did you see those rings of people running on top of down the boulevard? Celine Dion's at the opening ceremonies. And Simone Biles gets all the warranted attention.

She's just a phenomenon. But there's also so many cool stories.

Gosh, I thought you'd mention the threesome, the threesome that they were doing, the clown threesome, but go ahead.

I missed that.

I don't know if I'm getting her name right, but Hidelion Diaz, one, the Philippines' first ever Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting. Oh my God.

I've been seeing TikToks in slow motion. Can you imagine how much it means for her and her family in the Philippines to win the first gold medal?

That was, I loved watching that TikTok. And then my favorite was

the team, I think it's called Team Cooking and Bacon, the U.S. duo of Sarah Bacon.

Sarah Bacon and Cassidy Cook were nearly flawless in their five dives in the women's synchronized three-meter springboard finals to win a silver medal.

They're like best friends who have put their life on hold to the late 20s. Bacon made the team this year on her fourth trip to the trials, right? The fourth.

It's kind of probably her last time to get to the Olympics. And Cook returned to her second Olympics after finishing 13th.

I mean, these two women have been in a pool, on a pool, diving into the water together five hours a day for the better part of a decade. And what, you know, shock of their best friends.

That must have been such a nice moment for them and their families. But as the Olympics has sort of waned in terms of viewership, I really think it produces some really wonderful emotional moments.

I've just really, I've really,

I think Comcast is doing it. Amanda's a big Olympic lunatic.
She loves watching the Olympics and she's been using the peacock app and stuff and all these. She loves, it's it's well done.

They've done a great job Mark Lazarus who runs it fantastic.

It's interesting you say that because if you watch it on NBC It's frustrating because it's someone else picking that you're gonna watch swimming now whereas on the peacock app you can pick the sport you want to watch so if you're super into surfing you can just watch surfing.

So I actually it for me the Olympics in terms of media consumption really highlighted how powerful streaming is anyway.

They didn't do such a good job last Olympics. They've done a Mark Lazarus has really improved.

I didn't know it was him. He's done a great job.

But anyways,

my win is the Paris Olympics. I think they're doing a great job.
Yeah. Okay.

My win is: I got to say, there's a New York Times story about this, but the fighting in Silicon Valley between old Rose on each side of this thing is just they're yelling at each other.

Just the wars that are going on between the teams, essentially Benod Koesla and Reed Hoffman and

Reed Hastings

versus David Sachs and Nelon and

I guess Jamoth is somewhere in the fucking middle. Who knows what that guy? Such a clown.
What are they arguing about? I read about this and I couldn't catch it. They're warring about different deals.

Like anyway,

talking about their behaviors, all this stuff that's been getting to get

just been under the covers in Silicon Valley is now out in the open and they're all warring with each other. Who cares? They're arguing about deals 20 years before, like I covered, actually.

And so I'm really enjoying the bro on bro, tech, bro on tech bro fighting.

And it has nothing to do with me. Like I'm like sitting back and going, you see, they, they just, it's just enjoyable.

And every, and I shouldn't, it's not Schaden Freud, but I still am enjoying, enjoying, it's a win for Kara Swisher. Those guys are definitely doing too much.

Yeah.

I actually don't even think it's ketamine. I think it's cocaine.
I think those guys are doing a little too much of the devil's dandruff.

They're partaking in the white girl interrupted powder, if you know what I mean, Kara. Those people, they reek of like guys who are like, I don't know.
Well, not all of them. I wouldn't say that.

That's fair. But why would they do that? Why would they shit post each other on Twitter? I don't think so.
They just love to do it. It's just like going crazy.

It's about literally stuff Scott 30, 20 years ago. I found one of my stories on one of the issues they were talking about.
They're just like,

and largely because I'm sorry. A lot of the people that are arguing that David Sachs is not

in any way a particularly successful entrepreneur compared to the rest of them. And so that he's, I think they're annoyed by him in that regard.

And I, you know, it's sort of like your least talented entrepreneur is acting like he's all that. And I think that's what's going on there.
In any case, it's an enjoyable to watch.

And I have not, I did not create it. I had nothing to do with it.
And I can just enjoy it from the sidelines. You disagree with that.

Not to me, but I'm enjoying it.

My win is Vivian Jenna Wilson, who is the daughter of Elon Musk. I think she's very funny.

She's handling a lot of these issues around her father, who was a terrible, terrible parent, with a lot of class and humor and seems very funny. And I just, I'm really,

she's speaking up for herself, but she's not doing it in a way that is angry. It's it's angry enough, but it's certainly funny, truthful.
You can feel, you can feel her. her talking.

And I really, I don't usually love these brawls. Like this brawl, I kind of like because she's getting there.
She's telling the her truth, her narrative, and she's reclaiming it.

He's using her as a prop and to make points and about the woke, woke mind virus. And it's, it's been heinous to watch how he behaves towards trans people.

And she's a real person and is taking control of her narrative. And I always love to see it.
And she's doing it with wit and humor.

And it's a really,

you know. It says a lot about her mom, who she's talked about, Justine, who raised her.

And I really, it's really nice to see. It's really nice to see someone defend themselves against, you know, constant attacks by someone who has

his father in name only. Anyway,

that's my win. Oh, also, I forgot to mention Vance's attacks on women who get cats.
Really, it's not only not nice, it's totally inaccurate. You know, that there's research showing that older women

actually start getting dogs. It's called Manny Paws.

Oh, my gosh.

Makes me happy. I don't care.

Bring it on Twitter. Just go.
I'm just ignoring it.

I have been waiting for an opening the entire show for that. I will post a picture of it.
Manny paws. Many paws.

I will pose like a beautiful sunset in San Francisco and they'll go, do you know what Scott did?

I'm like, no. I just love creating trouble for you because people have given up on me.
They know I'm tasteless, but they come after you.

I just ruined you. I'm having a nice moment retweeting like a cooking video.
And then then it's like, I love,

get out of my pasta making tweet, like, or whatever thread. Get out of the way.
By the way,

word to all my brothers out there, when your wife's being a little bit upset at you, just stop and say, is this the menopause speaking? Oh, see what happens. Okay.
All right. Okay.
This is it.

This is it. This is it.
We're doing a divorce. Anyway, we want to hear from you.
Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot.

Submit a question from the show or call 85551-Pivot. Okay, Scott, that's the show.
We'll be back on Friday for more. Read us out.

Today's show is produced by Larry Names, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin, Ernie Totten. Engineer this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miles Severio.

Yeshad Kurua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine nymag.com/slash pod.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things, tech, and business. How do you stave off an autocrat? Civic engagement.

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