House Arrest, Meta Fined Over Fine Print, and More...with Audie Cornish

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway is obviously still recovering from New Year's, and he'll be back next week.

But for today, I'm thrilled to have Audi Cornish, the host of CNN's The Assignment, as my co-host.

Welcome, Audi.

Hey, Kara, thanks for having me.

Thank you for coming.

I really appreciate it.

I'm in awe of your talent and your various things that you've done.

Well, I'm a big fan of you because of your interview style specifically.

You're like, well, we both do interviews.

We both do interviews.

You've got a very distinctive style.

Not interviewers have their own style.

That's

obnoxious.

What is it?

Like casually cruel.

Someone told me I was casually cruel.

That's what I was.

Oh, I don't think that at all.

I think, I think I've talked to you about this in the past.

Like you have a way of dealing with men the way they deal with women, and it is disarming to them.

And then the back and forth, it's like a totally different level.

Like, I mean, just trust me, like I try and interrupt people sometimes, and the way I have to do it.

is completely different.

And I sit there and listen to you and I'm like, oh my, I want to do it that way.

Like, oh, it's called ball busting.

Ball busting is happening.

It is.

It is.

So let me ask you, what is your style?

What is your style with this new interview show?

What are you hoping for with the assignment?

The slow boil.

No, I mean, I think that I like.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, one thing is I'm starting from a place of empathy and not in the corny sense of that word.

Just the idea of I realize in a way I'm kind of retraining people how to listen.

And if you listen to the first episode, you know, we talked to these school board members.

They're conservative activists activists, and they aren't used to anyone listening.

Right.

Which is their, which is their thing, which is their grievance, really.

But also we're not used to listening and to sitting through it and to having follow-up questions that aren't, this is the next question that has to be asked, but you said something.

And I want to know what you mean by that.

Explain it more.

Right.

And my goal in a way is I don't want people

what's the phrase?

You want people to dislike someone for their best take, not despise them for their worst take.

Right.

And

I personally believe in a conversation like in terms of what we do, the idea is for people to give their best.

Yeah.

Yes.

I agree.

I agree with that.

Not a bunch of shouting in their worst argument.

You know what I mean?

Like who gains from that?

So anyway, that's how I think of it.

Is that different at a cable network versus an NPR?

Because an NPR, you have that time to roll things out.

Exactly.

You do.

And we tape way more.

Live interviews are a totally different ballgame.

And you've probably experienced that as well.

One thing that happens, I think, in a breaking news environment versus an analysis environment or an environment like you're in, there's a heavy emphasis on the turn of the screw.

Right.

So the question of the day is like, will so-and-so get the vote?

Instead of being like, why does it matter if they get that vote?

What is the greater context?

What does it matter to my life if they get that vote?

I think that's it.

We've not

trained ourselves as cable news viewers to want to sit through that level of inquiry.

I think

it's snackable.

You know, that's the nice way of saying it.

I think it's reductive.

I find it super reductive.

I have a hard time going on it.

Oh, you do?

So tell me about this.

I do lately because it's like, give your idea in 1.2 seconds and you're like, well, it's complicated.

Like, you know, know when they go elon musk good or bad and you're like um that's not how it works that's not how people work yeah which is interesting are you enjoying it are you what's your favorite show so far i i really love talking to the only fans sex workers because i think that's really

at the intersection of a lot of things the way modern feminism has turned prostitution into labor

and had and moved it under the umbrella of labor something in a way that you know a long-running movement, but like really getting it there because of the way the internet brought so many mainstream people onto it and hearing them talk about ways they were pushed out of the economy and into this work.

Wow.

You know, one was a nurse.

Like

people do this stuff because it's safe in your house, you know, to take off your clothes, safe in your house, theoretically.

And interestingly, we did one on journalism

and we had Maggie Haberman from the New York Times.

We had Margaret Sullivan, you know, who's a longtime public editor, and Jelani Cobb at Columbia.

And everyone, it's a classic episode of the assignment in that everyone hated it just based on its name in the list of the guests.

Oh, yeah.

They're very constant.

Yeah, well, especially Maggie has been in the center.

That's kind of the point of the show.

It's like, if you want to take the time to listen a little more, it's worth the listen.

Yeah, people do not listen.

You're absolutely correct.

I think that's true.

Yeah.

I believe in people.

When I I started this show, and then let's get to the news in a second, but when I started the show, they were like, you have to make it shorter.

And I said, I trust people can listen.

I honestly, substance is what people are dying for.

What they're not dying for is these like reductive bullshit takes and they're tired of it.

And you're making them stupid.

And trust is built.

You've built trust, right?

Like, you have built trust over the years.

And so people, when they turn on your podcast, we're here to spend time with you, right?

And experience your point of view and way of the world.

No, it is.

I mean, I'm not listening to any random, oh, tech sounds good.

Like, I want to hear your take.

And I think

I've learned to embrace that because I think before I thought that that was a kind of like branding and self aggrandizing, you know what I mean?

I was like, oh, no one wants to spend time with me.

They'd be like, you should have a newsletter.

And I would be like, what?

Who cares?

Who cares what I think?

No, no, we care what you think, Audi.

Anyway, I tuned out on the news for a few weeks because I had heart surgery.

And so I just turned everything off, which was fantastic.

Well, congratulations because you're standing, heart beating, looking good.

Oh, it was a minor surgery.

It was fascinating because many years ago, I talked about this already.

I had, it would have been open heart surgery, but now it went through my leg.

I was out of the building that afternoon.

It was crazy.

And I now have a cyborg heart, which is great, which I'm very excited about.

Yeah.

So I really am paying attention because the news is back again, really, in a lot of ways.

And the Republicans today, we're going to talk about the Republicans can't elect a leader.

We'll talk talk about the mess in Congress, what it means for legislation.

Also, the European Union makes Meta feel the brunt of their tech regulations.

And we'll hear from a listener about media bias, which I think this is great for you to be here to talk about this.

That's perfect.

But first, another one of Sam Bankman-Fried's former allies is cooperating with investigators.

Something Scott and I said would happen.

Obviously, everyone's dropping a dime on SBF.

The company's ex-top lawyer, providing details about what was done with customer funds, basically stolen, it sounds like.

Bankman-Fried is set to go go on trial in October and could face up to 115 years if convicted after pleading not guilty to eight counts of criminal charges.

He's currently out on $250 million bail, which is a lot.

His co-founder Gary Wang and Alameda Research CEO Carolyn Ellison are both cooperating with prosecutors.

Any thoughts on this?

Like what's happening here?

It seems like he's going to jail.

It seems like he's on a quick, quicker ride than Elizabeth Holmes, but that's where he's headed.

Well, it doesn't help that he gave a round of interviews on the way there, right?

Effectively.

Like, no one asked you to say anything.

Yeah.

But it probably speaks to the icarous nature, you know, of this particular story and the hubris involved, right?

If you actually start to believe your own press and if you actually start to believe that you are sort of philosophically doing some good, even as you're very clearly doing something that is not good,

that's going to come back and bite you, you know, in this phase of things.

My question going ahead is how many more people will be charged i just don't believe that one

person

did all this a lot of people signed checks a lot of people moved the period on zeros uh and a lot of people operated in in his fear and um i just i'm curious to hear how it all worked so to speak right not

you know dime dropping that's what they're doing

for like carolyn allison's right in the up in the middle of this and i assume they're giving her a certain thing.

Same thing with Gary Wang.

But it's like I want the full picture, you know, especially because I think it'll help us understand better what to look for in the future with these exchanges.

Like there's no way this digital currency can mainstream the way its proponents want

if the very base, if it still feels like a financial instrument and a toy.

I just interviewed Tony Fidel, who was actually the creator of the iPod, and he's been doing a lot of crypto wallets and stuff.

And he still feels it's still a viable industry in certain ways as the, as an identity, a way to do identity and move anything from contracts to money to whatever.

In this case, I think this is just a simple case of a liar.

And I think this idea that he thinks he was going to do the world good, I think he was very cynically, went around and gave money to politicians and media and

did this whole altruistic whatever

charity, whatever the fuck.

I never could understand that.

The bros will come at me, but I definitely, it felt like a scam.

It felt like the plot of Glass Onion.

It's just like...

Yeah, the Glass Onion.

Did you say that?

Yeah, just the Glass Onion billionaire, you know.

But we're seeing more of this archetype in pop culture, which I only mention because the movies, et cetera, are art.

That's where we start to paint a picture about how we really feel about certain figures in our culture.

And the billionaire is taking a hit right now, not just as like the nasty guy or something like that, but as a BS artist.

And I think that that is a very interesting development culturally, and it does have effects for something like crypto, right?

Because now it's got to overcome this sort of public distrust.

And it needs the public because if it wants to be decentralized, like we all have to sign on to it.

Right.

100%.

We'll see what happens here.

I think he's going to jail.

I don't see how he doesn't go to jail.

Yeah, for sure.

Why not?

He's made off over and over.

It's the same story.

And it's also very straightforward.

And I think it's a good lesson for the crypto world because if you want to play the big boy finance game, then you also have to play by some rules too, because all this is done before.

You know, there were runs on banks.

We had the Great Depression.

Like, it's not as though we don't know how currency can work and how it can fail.

And you don't defy the laws of gravity.

What was interesting, he was trying for legislation.

He was saying, oh, please legislate.

He was one of the few, which is why politicians were attracted to it.

Was he?

Or was he using it as an excuse to make donations?

Yeah, yes, that's correct.

They're so easy.

They're so absolutely easy to deal with.

These regulators.

Speaking of Glass Onion Billionaire, it actually, Ed Norton played that part in a very funny movie.

Brilliant movie.

Janelle Monet was fantastic.

Everyone was great in that movie, actually.

You might say.

Have you noticed there's a bunch of people who hate that movie?

Why?

Yes, they know.

It's Ben Shapiro.

So that means it's fantastic.

So I don't know what to say.

Yeah, it was great.

I did watch it because I'm open-minded.

I'm like, okay, I didn't like it.

It was great.

I thought it was great.

I don't know.

I don't know if you did or not.

You know, it's funny.

I didn't care for the first one because I didn't get it.

I was like, Daniel Craig doing this accent.

Like, what is this?

And then

the second one, for some reason, appealed to me more, maybe because it was much more,

you're in on the joke of like, okay, this is just Clue, the movie and the journey's the destination and just have fun.

And it's a good,

it's a good, you know, well-executed thing for what it is.

And I think that's good.

After a decade of like puzzle box, anti-hero

pop culture entertainments, you know, like Westworld or like Breaking Bad or whatever.

Yeah.

Oh, I can't watch that.

I cannot.

Yeah.

I think everyone's just like, yeah, I just want to see something that has a beginning, middle, and end and is just amusing.

Yeah.

It was a romp.

It was a very funny romp.

You know, speaking of the glass on your million, he was actually based, Ed Norton based it on Elon Musk.

That's obviously.

And he's off to a rough start this year.

He's become the first person ever to raise $200 billion from his net worth, which is a lot of money.

Fidelity's value of a stake in Twitter is down by 56%.

That's, I think that's being kind also.

That's after recent drops in Tesla stock, including 11% drop on Tuesday after deliveries fell short.

That's been down even higher.

The Tesla stock dropped 65% in total in 2022 due to production disruptions, concerns around demand, and of course, Elon Musk's Twitter distraction.

What do you think about that?

I don't think we've ever talked about it.

What is your take on what's going to happen?

No, we haven't.

I mean, it's funny watching mythologies because I do feel like the tech industry of one of just true self-mythologizing is just key to the whole enterprise, watching those break down in real time.

And

these are a lot of self-owns,

you know, as the young say.

Like, nothing that has happened to Elon Musk in the last six months had to happen to Elon Musk.

No, nothing.

Nothing.

No, he did it himself.

Yeah, every single part of it.

Even, let's face it, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta.

Like, that is nothing.

None of that had to happen at the scale it did, at the speed it did, in the way it did.

Right.

And the

faltering of it is just, you know, it happens.

It's a cell phone.

Yeah.

Someone asked me just recently why, you know, I had been

a fan of Ilamas.

I was very impressed with Tesla, what he was doing at Tesla, and what he was making.

And it's obviously several years ahead of other car makers, so everybody's catching up.

And the SpaceX stuff is impressive.

And someone's like, what's your new?

I'm like, he changed rather quickly.

And he sort of showed some

side of himself that's really unattractive.

Now, we had covered the issues,

the allegations of racism at the factories.

Yeah, don't you feel like this was always there?

It's there.

Yes, exactly.

We had, you know, he and I had got got into a big beef about COVID.

Um, when I was in, he tried to walk out on an interview when I said he was wrong about COVID because he was sort of being very cavalier and saying it was going to go away.

And he was forcing people into work and driving regulators crazy around that.

And yes, it's sort of one of the people I interviewed said he was 90% fine and 10% kind of crazy like this.

And now that crazy part has taken over.

I suspect that ratio was a little

that was a generous ratio.

Well, this was someone who worked with him.

I think it's different when you run a private company

and you are self-contained, and no one really knows what you're doing.

I mean, let's be honest.

Like, I know everyone has their mythologies about how Teslas were made and the production, and it was bad at first, and then it was good.

And instead of really talking about what it means to get to that point, yeah.

And it's interesting that Twitter is the thing that has undermined him because it speaks to the

like oddball nature of this media slash public infrastructure slash private forum company.

You know, it's not, you can't make Twitter in private because you, me, we're the creators.

We're making the car.

So you can't tell us to sleep in the office.

You can't tell us to do any of this stuff.

And as it turned out, he couldn't even tell the employees really to do that.

So he weirdly met his match with media.

Are you using it a lot less?

Are you a heavy user of Twitter?

I was a heavy user when I very first started covering Congress because it was a little quieter and smaller then, and it was almost like a second newsroom.

We can talk about that later because I think that is a huge issue in terms of media bias.

Later on, I realized, like, oh, this is a toxic nightmare.

But

this is where you can spread word about your stories.

This is where you can be in a dialogue about the news of the day, and that there's value in that.

And I especially love the way

a whole raft of commentators who could never come up writing a column at a newspaper or whatever were suddenly

there.

Right.

They were writers.

You know, we

can hear from a Jelani Cobb or a Zerlina Maxwell or a Wes Lowry or a Roxanne Gay who never, you know, where would she be without this weird platform that just sort of rocketed her to the public consciousness?

And even the way it opened up the dialogue for black and brown communities.

I mean, I have thoughts about the obligatory black Twitter weekend clickbait story that most news organizations default to now.

But what it means is instead of some old editor being like, you should go to a barber shop.

What are the blacks thing?

Like tick, tick, tick.

Let's call this church.

Did you ever have an editor that said that to you?

Yeah, you have to.

Oh, the Obama campaign.

That is how we were all treated as marginalized groups.

It was like, you need to do a black voter story.

You're going to to go to a church.

You're going to go to a barbershop.

And if you get spicy, you're going to go to a hair salon.

And your editor with a straight face would assign you something like this.

Oh, no.

And now it could be like, or you could kind of like hear this dialogue happening very publicly, hear the factions.

Anyway, I'm ranting, but I think it had its use.

It was a private-public partnership.

And once the private part, as we saw with Elon, took over,

it's done.

That equilibrium was really thrown off.

Yeah, I feel that.

I wasn't on it for weeks.

I really, I mean, except for

in a very small way.

It's crazy.

And I'm fine.

It's, I'm perfectly fine.

I feel like I have a lot more time for sure.

But you're right.

It was the newsroom.

We'll get to that in a second because I've actually used it more for this Kevin McCarthy thing.

Yeah.

We'll see what we'll see what happens to it.

Lastly, a lot of tech layoffs.

Amazon will cut over 18,000 jobs.

It had hired like crazy.

They had previously announced 10,000 job cuts.

It's the largest tech layoff.

I'm obsessed with story.

Not just them, but yes, you said layoffs in general.

Yeah.

Right.

Salesforce is cutting 10% of its staff, which is around 8,000 people, cutting back on office space.

They just have this huge tower in San Francisco they built right before this all happened.

A listener wrote us this morning.

She said her wife was laid off at Salesforce this week and took a day of emailing up the managerial chain to get clearance about what was going on.

She went on to say, people speak highly of Mark Benioff when it comes to being good and empathetic leader.

I can attest to that as our family has gained a lot from Salesforce fertility and same-sex parent benefits.

With the current change in C-level leadership and poorly executed layoff, is Salesforce facing something more than just an economic downturn?

It seems like there's something going on with leadership.

There is, by the way, Salesforce is a sponsor here, but it's really, we've talked about this quite a bit, like with Brett Taylor leaving and others leaving.

It's there's something going on there.

And all these companies are really seeing economic contractions affect them, which never did with tech companies.

They were able to hire like crazy.

Amazon hired 500,000 people during the pandemic, one year, I think,

2021.

Why are you fascinated with it?

Because during the pandemic, the quarantines led to a bunch of consumer behavior that people mistook for long-term behavior.

And so, and obviously I've experienced this, right?

Entering the streaming world.

It was like never-ending growth.

There's only more subscribers.

There's only more people who are going to want to go into the meta-mall.

There's only more people who are going to want to order on Amazon.

TM?

Is that your name?

MetaMall?

Yeah, exactly.

It was just like, I don't know.

People actually sat in boardrooms and were like, this is how we're going to live now, which I understand.

There were moments of the pandemic where I was like, I guess I'm going to be in my house with a baby.

Like, we're never going to leave the house.

And then when we didn't leave the house, I guess, I mean, when we, once the quarantines ended,

I've been a little surprised at how these companies have been shocked, shocked that things have changed for them.

And I've been a little disappointed that the media has conflated

these really high flyers and their, frankly, readjustment to reality with the economy as a whole.

Right.

Because people do have jobs.

People's wages are better.

And I just, I'm not sure that like a company that.

that hired as much as Amazon did having to contract is a sign that the whole economy is bad.

Like it's just a sign that I left my house and I buy things at the bottom of the business.

Although I do think people did start to do practices that they didn't do i definitely use delivery more than i use absolutely

uh and i clearly not as much right no not as much

but i i definitely do less office stuff i think it moved it accelerated trends that were happening anyway and now it's starting to shake out it accelerated trends but it also minted billionaires and it pushed some companies into places that were not sustainable yeah no there

they did not.

I'm not some socialist.

But it's just like, guys,

no, no, I'm just saying like, I'm not some

progressive socialist here.

It's just like, no, like,

you're not, there's only so many people in the country.

Right.

Well, we'll see where it goes.

They're not used to this.

The numbers are crazy.

The stocks are off like by massive amounts, anywhere from, you know, Microsoft, I think, is in the 20s to 80% for Snapchat.

But the stock market is not the economy.

And I think I spend a lot of times when I talk to people

just as a journalist, I have to say, like, let's be clear, you know, like, obviously they are linked, but they are not one in the same.

And it's very easy for the news cycle about,

it's very easy for the business news cycle to tell regular Americans that things are going sideways.

And it's not totally, it's maybe wobbly, but it's not fully sideways.

right?

Exactly.

Speaking of, let's get to our first big story.

Is the House of Representatives the government?

That's the question.

And it doesn't seem to be.

It doesn't exist.

Yeah.

One-third of our constitutional democracy.

Exactly.

It's off.

Taking a break.

Like, like a used Toyota Corolla, the U.S.

House of Representatives still lacks a speaker.

As we record this, the House has voted six times.

They may have voted a seventh while we're sitting here.

No, they meet at noon.

That's right.

it.

Kevin McCarthy's vote is shrinking.

He started with 203 votes from fellow Republicans and dropped to 201.

Even if they elect a speaker after we finish this episode, the chaos still matters.

So let's talk about it.

You covered Congress.

Just tell us what is going on here.

This seems chaotic.

And all it is is people showing pizzas being brought in.

And I'm tired of the

pizza discussion.

They kept going, look, there's pizzas.

Can you give us some news?

It's really a sign that all the journalists are hungry.

So it's like a camera guy being like, when am I cut?

I don't care.

I don't care.

So what is going on here?

Give us like a an overview of what you, you know, this sort of chaos caucus, the freedom caucus and what's going on.

And McCarthy keeps giving into them.

So

in a nutshell, just in terms of the McCarthy story itself, essentially after the House majority went to Republicans, they were, yay, were victorious, but of course it was only by a handful of votes.

And that means that all kinds of things things were going to be difficult, or you'd have to get Democrats to sign on, et cetera.

So that was, that conversation was already brewing.

But in the background and in the meantime, you had not all of it, but some core members of what is known as the House Freedom Caucus who were starting to say, this is our chance because the margin is so narrow.

We will have leverage to

ask for things.

And the reason why I'm saying as a small group is because

it's five or six people who are like never Kevins, they call themselves.

And then there's like one or two who kind of yesterday were like, I'm tired.

I'm going to

be paid.

Yes.

Because next week,

they don't get paid next week, but go ahead.

Exactly.

No one does, by the way.

Like, I think the whole hill.

Yes.

Never mind that there aren't security briefings going on right now.

Never mind that anyone who tells you they're a congressman right now is like technically wrong because they haven't been sworn in.

They are, like I said, a massive self-own.

And I think Kevin McCarthy, who I've talked about this a lot, has watched every major Republican leader of the last 20 years go down in flames.

So Gingrich, Boehner, Paul Ryan, I'm going to count Eric Cantor as majority leader.

Every one of these people were felled by the early iterations of what we now call Trumpism, but obviously came to the public's consciousness with the Tea Party.

And he thought he would be the guy to wrangle them, so to speak, right?

Like he would genuflect to Trump enough.

He would build those relationships enough and he would make them happy.

So even though he was a hardcore establishment guy, and by that I mean the one of the group of young guns they called themselves, of which Paul Ryan, et cetera, were part of it.

They were going to be a new generation of hotshot Republicans.

And now they're down to this one peace shooter.

You know what I mean?

They're like, I don't want this one guy.

What's interesting is I'm watching a little bit of Twitter and other places.

They're calling him like Rhino, although Fox News is backing him, which is interesting, you know, and yelling at the little group of people.

I've been joking that Fox News is now the Kevin McCarthy of right-wing media.

Yeah.

So what happens here?

I mean, the dynamics of this small group, it seems to me like, I know know Stephanie Ruhl interviewed Lauren Boebert.

If you haven't seen it, it's hysterical just with Stephanie's facial expressions.

Watched it live.

Today you're backing Byron Donalds, a speaker.

He's got 20 votes.

You think that guy's getting to 218 tomorrow?

I know that there are many of our colleagues who are cheering us on silently.

And

218 votes.

We're going to get there.

Yeah, it was like, I was going to say, I was going to send them to her in real time.

I'm like, what the fuck?

derp like all the all the different expressions derg blerg and so she was nonsensical like she i don't understand what she was saying in half the time but what i what i did come away with was like they don't care they don't care that they're making trouble and they can continue to make trouble even though there's more than two you know he doesn't have enough votes but he has a lot of votes right but this small group of people can keep him out of office which presents all kinds of opportunities in lots of ways does he have any other choice but to continue to give in because he'll anger the rest of the caucus, right?

Because they're mad too, but they're not going to, they're going to keep voting for him no matter what.

I mean, I think the history you have to remember for all these people is, and as a country, we went through this before.

2015, kind of 2014, the government shutdowns, these like weird precipice votes where all of these people who claim to be fiscal hawks would say, we can't spend this amount of money.

We can't raise the debt ceiling so the government can spend more.

We can't, we can't, we can't.

And it was like like a personality, you know, it was a whole identity.

Then Trump comes along and they're like, well, actually, maybe fine.

And, you know, Mark Meadows, who had been in the House Freedom Caucus, becomes a key part of the Trump orbit, et cetera.

Mick Mulvaney.

A lot of these people who were part of this founding Ron DeSantis came out of the House Freedom Caucus, okay?

Right.

It is a political identity.

And I think they're fighting for their survival a little bit after Trump's

faltering with the midterms.

And by that, I mean the Trump brand is

dinged

through a variety of reasons, right?

Yeah.

But now the rubber has met the road through the ballot.

Voting.

Right.

Through voting.

And

there are a couple more Trump-backed candidates that would have been in the House, right?

Like if the red wave materialized that weren't.

And so I think now these people are in the House, they're realizing like, oh, well, wait a second, the tide could be turning a little bit.

This is our last chance.

We got to solidify our power where we can.

So they're arguing ostensibly for these rules changes and they want to have more participation and blah, blah, blah.

But also note, they want specific committee assignments, right?

Assignments that will be helpful and powerful for them.

They also have asked

the leadership to not jump in on future election and future races that are open, safe Republican seats.

So translation, the next time a Republican seat is open and safe, don't get in there because we know that if one of our guys get in there, there's a good chance a Trumpist will win that primary vote and that that person is the person who will advance.

Whereas if you jump in and bring in your moderate or bring in your whatever, your establishment and come talk about election deniers, our numbers will be smaller.

So there is a way that they're kind of, there's an existential conversation that is buried underneath pizza boxes.

That's a really smart analysis.

So what will happen, though?

What will happen is Kevin McCarthy wants to wait them out.

I mean, all the clowns, essentially, Matt Gates, and then you have Marjorie Taylor Greene against them, which is sort of like, what is happening with this?

I don't know.

I mean, Kevin McCarthy is going to probably snap into a Slim Jim, right?

As we learned from Nancy Pelosi, get his energy up, and he's going to wait them out.

Because if there's one thing we have learned from this group over the last couple of years, they have nothing to lose and they will wait.

Every day that it goes longer is another cable news hit for them.

It's another day they can tell a constituent that they stuck it to Kevin and Mitch and the swamp and that is their gain.

That is their reward.

So they're not

being, yeah, they're not like, but what about governing?

Like they're not on it for that.

I think there's a way people kind of forget that.

Because there's also this fantasy that Hakeem Jeffries will become speaker, like that six Republicans peel off.

Not a fantasy, not a fantasy.

I mean, right now, Google in Pennsylvania, this something similar happened, and there's now a like Unity speaker.

So it's possible for people to function like normal human political beings and find a solution.

It won't happen here, but just know that an actual model exists right now in the world.

I think Kevin is going to absolutely wait it out.

He's going to,

he's working the phones.

There's one or two people he's going to finally peel off.

But the problem is, what is it going to take to get there?

What do you have to give away to get there?

And the other thing about the rules people should understand is by the time you give away so much power, what is the speakership anymore?

Is it just symbolic?

Because now you've set yourself up where any two or four or one person can raise their hand and challenge your leadership.

This puts us in a British situation, you know, where it's no confidence votes and it's this and it's that.

And it's like nobody is actually running the thing.

Right.

They're always watching their back.

Yes.

And people need to remember Nancy Pelosi did this.

Small majority, challenging group.

And look at what she was able to pass.

Yeah.

I mean, it is.

So what's the difference?

What is, I love her.

I got to tell you, every time she does a little hit and they, she's like, I don't know.

I did those stilettos.

I don't know what to to do kevin and backwards right like yeah right

and on top of that hakeem jeffries is getting like three days of sustained commercial time where people just get up and say how great he is yes exactly

hilarious he said some good quotes himself yeah democrat so what happens where does it where does it end because they can't they they don't want to govern too right they're also like we we need to actually get in here and do something

does that mean chaos for the next two years or does it mean an opportunity for democrats to get together with republicans Yeah, I think arguably not that much would have happened no matter what.

Like, even if he just took over as speaker and they just went on their merry way, it would just be a lot of investigations into Hunter Biden's laptop and things like that.

I don't think you would see a ton of legislation.

Investigation.

Yes.

And I mean, a good way of thinking about this is where was Mitch McConnell?

Well, Mitch McConnell, the last couple of days, has like been in photo ops with Biden, you know, because he got spending in Kentucky.

So he's perfectly capable of getting things done that meet his needs

through the Senate without the House at all.

They effectively took themselves out of the process.

I think going forward, there is a chance that another candidate will come forward or that there's another option like a Steve Scalise.

People have talked a lot about him.

And I think the only way you'll know that's happening is if someone gets up and does it kind of

without Kevin McCarthy's blessing.

Because now a couple votes in, there are votes that are going to be just about showing everyone in the room where the support is.

Right, right, right.

Right.

But when is the 200 going to say we're going to someone else?

That's who has to do it, right?

Not the 20 or the 20 has got to convince the 200 to come on.

It could, I mean, 200 aren't going to bolt.

They just don't like these folks enough, right?

Like Matt Gates is not like a popular figure in the house.

There is so much of this that's personality driven.

Right.

And Lauren Boebert, not super popular.

And unfortunately for Kevin McCarthy, not super pop, like they're just people who do not like him.

And so I think it does matter what these handful of people choose because they can also make trouble going down the road.

And I think the real question now is

now that Democrats have seen this,

how are they going to play?

the next year or two, right?

Like, do they feel like, oh, we got to just stay in line no matter what?

Because that's where our leverage is.

Are there going to be some cinema types?

You know, just joking.

But like, are there going to be some figures who say, oh, well, I have more leverage to pass things now because the Republicans are so desperate that there's just five or six votes they need to get something done?

I actually think this affects their calculus in a way that they didn't expect.

They knew it would be a mess.

They didn't know it would be a hot mess.

So give me a prediction and then I'm going to get to our story about how long it's going to take.

There are no predictions.

This is no prediction.

No, it's too many.

It's like trying to make a prediction about a room full of cats.

Like which one will come out on top?

Like, I don't know, but there's going to be a lot of scratches.

Like, I don't know.

Is that an old congressional thing?

I just make it up.

Just like in politics, we say, no, it's not.

But I do, I think people need to understand

this is unusual.

Period.

This does not happen, period.

But they're so used to hearing us say that coming out of the Trump era that it's it's hard to grab just how weird this should have been the easiest vote of the entire year.

Right.

Period.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think they're slowly, I think eventually they'll make progress.

I mean, they have to, right?

They've been in these talks discussing things.

They've also already shown in positions.

You know, and this is one of those stories, no matter what reporters tell you who are like, my sources say this is the kind of story where everything is playing out kind of in front of the cameras.

Right.

Yes.

Because everyone who's complaining is just going out and being like, I'm pissed because of this.

I'm pissed because of that.

And he needs to give me this and that.

Right.

So it's not quiet negotiation.

It's not really.

I mean, is stuff happening behind closed doors?

Sure.

But will we see the result of that fairly quickly?

Yes.

Yeah.

I would agree with you.

I would absolutely agree with you.

Anyway, let's go on a quick break.

We'll see what happens.

Good luck, Lauren Boebert.

We'll see what goes on with you.

When we come back, we'll talk about how the European Union is coming for Meta and take some listener mail.

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Audi, we're back with our second big story.

The European Union says Meta must pay for privacy violations.

Not a surprise.

Regulators say that Facebook and Instagram violated the EU's landmark tech regulation, the GDPR.

The EU ruled the social networks' terms of service forced users to agree to data collection for personalized ads.

Now, regulators have fine the social networking giant more than $400 million.

Meta says it will strongly disagree with the ruin and will appeal.

Again, this is Europe now regulating U.S.

companies, which the U.S.

government, which because it's not functioning, has not been able to do for a long, long time.

And wouldn't.

They're not at anywhere near where the EU regulatory

infrastructure is when it comes to tech, period.

Yeah.

When is our Congress going to get in here in the way the GDPR?

Now, they may appeal, and the court isn't telling Meta how to fix it, but it is taking the lead on privacy.

The two things that are taking the lead are Europe and Apple.

Yeah.

I mean, I would love love your opinion on this.

I think there's a very,

very deep connection between

the Republican and even just American capitalist sense of like protect innovation at all costs

versus the European sensibility about these things.

I think they can't get around the European Union.

They don't care.

They don't, you know, this is.

Oh, no, I mean in terms of us ever regulating.

Like I said, no, I don't.

I mean, look, Amy Klobuchar's bills went nowhere, right?

They're sort of sitting there.

They were sitting there and didn't pass in this last section.

Or talk to a kid about TikTok being regulated.

Right.

They're just like, what?

You know, to the barricades.

That might come sooner because

of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the U.S.

That may have some teeth to it.

And because Republicans are very deeply invested in this battle with China.

Like it is directly tied into some philosophical underpinnings going on right now.

Not so much them being like, privacy is important.

Agreed.

And I think there's no regulation.

U.S.

is nowhere on this regulation.

And also, by the way, they're also helping Donald Trump to get back his Facebook and Instagram accounts.

He was banned indefinitely after January 6th, which I never liked, indefinite.

What is it?

Either ban him or don't.

Yeah, there was some sort of cowardice to that.

Meta shortened the ban to two years

after the oversight board.

They tried to send it over to the oversight board.

They're like, it's your decision.

It's going to be made soon by Nick Clegg, who is not Mark Zuckerberg.

Twitter's bringing back political advertising on the the platform.

Political ads have been banned there since 2019.

So they're not going to be regulated in any way and they're going back to their practices, I think.

Well, but it's also hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube or whatever, right?

Like they've already entered the political sphere in this way.

They've already, they've literally become a place for organizing

rebellion movements, right?

Like January 6th, that's like organized on social media.

Facebook.

Yeah.

And I think their attempt to sort of say like, well, we're not going to get into into the moderating anymore.

They've just struggled.

They all struggle with this.

You know this.

They don't want, they want to be the size of a country, but they don't want to create infrastructure or roads or anything or safety.

Like they don't want to do any of that.

They just want the money part.

Yeah, without any government regulation, they're not going to do anything.

Great power, great responsibility, all of that.

They don't care.

They don't want to speak anti-vaxxers on Twitter tried to link the collapse of NFL player DeMar Hamlin to COVID vaccine and no one did anything about it, which was ridiculous.

He was hit in the heart.

He got a, whatever it's called.

But that's where I actually feel optimism because while the places where that conspiracy boil is always simmering, I feel like the rest of us and like kind of more mainstream America and I, in your regular person's Facebook, was not so quick to jump on that.

And I feel like the last couple of years, we've all been so burned by social media, either by its

bosses, right?

Like

faltering on the philosophy and the image, and or watching what happened with the elections, watching what's happened in some of our own families, where you like try and have a conversation with someone who has educated themselves in online conspiracy patrois.

Like we're all different.

And I think we're more reluctant now to let these things come to a boil.

That's what I hope.

And that's what I thought coming out of the election, you know, just with the election deniers getting the door slammed in their face.

Right.

It was people being like, I'm tired.

Like, I am tired of this.

I would agree.

And I'm done.

I would agree.

Although I do think these privacy regulations are critically important.

Antitrust and privacy regulations seem to me to be the lowest bar our government can put in in terms of how these companies operate.

And yeah, and I don't want to rely on Apple.

I don't want to rely on.

But you do rely on Apple.

Apple is who you're relying on today.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Any over-under on Donald Trump getting back Instagram?

I think he's getting them back.

I don't think they're going to get it back.

I sort of have bigger questions about what his quote-unquote campaign is doing.

Right.

Right?

Like,

where is he?

What is he talking about?

Is it Mara Lyon?

He's there about.

According to Olivia Nuzzy, he's

a Mara Lai.

Yeah, but like,

he's on Truth.

So like, he's not even acting like a candidate.

He's not even acting like his version of acting like a candidate.

Maybe it's all the legal stuff, blah, blah, blah, but he's different.

And I can't even, the social media question is important because it was so key to who, to the building of him as a candidate.

And with that infrastructure all messy and crumbly, he's struggling.

Yeah.

You know, it really doesn't think of how reliant he was on it.

I think putting him off for those two years has rendered him less powerful on those platforms.

Yes.

So that's what's so wild about the people who are like, you got to bring him back

and who have made it this free speech cause and everything.

It means they looked in the face of January 6th and they said, look, you got to break some eggs.

Thanks for things back.

For free speech.

You just got to.

And it's like,

okay, I don't know how to argue with that.

Yeah, it's true.

Well, I think they're probably going to let him on.

I think I don't know what other decision they can make.

If they don't, if Elon Musk had not bought Twitter, they would have not let him on because why cause any just they just said we made a decision

that we threw him off.

That's what it is.

In this case, it calling it indefinite was a problem.

Like they should have either thrown him off or not thrown him off or given him two years and then said, You're back on in two years.

And if you violate again, we'll kick you off for good.

That's something very simple.

It's like dealing with kids.

It's like dealing with,

you know, maybe I'll.

Can I ask you what this decision or others in recent months make you think about the direction for Zuckerberg and

him specifically?

He's not interested at all.

Yeah, like where is he?

Is he just like exiting?

He's interested in the metaverse.

He's not interested in running this, the real business anymore.

You're saying he's not of this earth anymore.

Yes, he's not.

He's in the metaverse.

Yeah, he's tired of it.

It's exhausting and he's not very good at it.

And so.

Yeah, but does that mean like Trump's in the metaverse?

You know what I mean?

Like, where does he?

He's trying to make the metaverse happen.

We'll see.

He's giving it, he's handed a major decision over to someone else.

So that's, you know, he doesn't want to deal with the fallout of it.

So he doesn't want his name next to it.

Sheryl Zamberg's left the building,

actually left the building.

And so they're all like, I've had enough of this.

And it is exhausting on some level, unless you establish rules from the beginning, like they did at Reddit.

Actually, if you want to talk to a smart person, talk to Steve Huffman at Reddit.

They changed many years ago because they knew.

And he just said, I'm throwing off malevolent players.

That's it.

Like, he didn't, like, he didn't sit and hamlet the whole thing.

He just said, this is our rules.

If you like it, if you like it, great.

If you don't, you're okay.

And here's what we're doing.

I don't know.

Let's pivot to a listener question, though.

You've got, you've got.

I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail.

The question comes from Janine De Noves on Twitter.

As a journalist, how does Audi Cornish make sense of the both sides that's taken over so much of the press?

What do we do, the public who depend on the free press, do?

What do you think about that?

That's a good question.

Interesting.

Well, both sidesism is a very specific critique, I think, that does come from a place of its own political bias.

But it is the idea that you present

two or three sides of things as co-equals,

even if one of them may be immoral or doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny,

and that you put them on an equal plane.

And I do think that the Trump era really brought that into deep relief because it was very hard to be like, oh, well, we're not going to have the cabinet member of such and such on.

Right.

Even if, you know, or we're going to like, if the most, one of the highest advisors gets on and uses the phrase alternative facts, it's like, do you ask an intern to come on?

Like, who is the communication voice coming out of

the seat of power?

I think it was very hard to figure out how to do that.

And the public didn't love it, you know, especially on the left.

Right.

So what do you do?

I mean, I think that there has been a sincere recalibration.

You know, I do think that it is much more common for people to

just immediately say, oh, this person isn't serious or this, this is not a serious conversation or this is a bad faith argument.

Or

I do think that that is far more aggressive than it used to be.

And that that makes a big difference.

I mean, these are active questions.

Like I don't have an answer for her that's going to satisfy.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Do you, when you think about that, when I think about who I want to interview, someone was, you know, Stephanie had Lauren Bobert and she did a long like, this is why I had her because she's in the middle of this mess, not on the other stuff.

I don't know how you can separate them, but I did see her do that.

It was really, she did a good job of it for having, you know, Lauren Boebert.

Yeah.

And listen, I do a podcast that is absolutely.

vulnerable to the criticism of it's platforming this or that, right?

Like you're platforming these conservative activists without the other side.

You're platforming sex workers without the other side.

Like, you know, that was a conscious decision I made to be like, okay, well, what does it look like to create something where you hear an argument out all the way?

How much work can I do as an interviewer to make the conversation feel fleshed out and balanced?

You know, the show may not be the same format forever, but I think it's part of my own personal reckoning with some of the ideas that people are talking about when they talk about bias.

I have two things.

I say, I say what I think, like, so it's not hidden.

So it's not as if I'm like trying to be, I'm fair.

I'm like, I don't don't like you.

You're nonsensical.

And I'll also do what I damn well please.

You know what I mean?

That's how I say to people when they do the platforming thing at me.

You shouldn't plan.

I'm like, don't do it on your show.

Fine.

Whatever.

Do you have a show?

No, you don't.

I do.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I think I'm sort of like, I'll do who I damn well please and I'll do a good job.

And if you don't like it, don't listen to it.

And I think that's what I tend to do.

And I do, I do think, like, what I have Marjorie Taylor Greene on.

Like, I both, I interviewed Piers Morgan recently, and we both were like, she lies so much.

How do you, how do you, you spend a lot of time batting packed lies.

At the same time, I heard her

speak and

she's clearly intelligent.

She's clearly like a sharp political player, even though she lies incessantly.

But go ahead.

Sorry.

Well, that's probably key to being a sharp political player at this point.

Yes.

No, that's a very good question.

And I think each journalist has to kind of make that decision for themselves.

Like, am I best positioned to service this conversation in a way that's going to enlighten the audience and that is actually going to elicit not just information, but understanding.

And there's some interviews you would do that I wouldn't do.

There's some interviews I probably would do that you might be like, ah, that's not for me.

And I think that's important to understand too.

Sometimes we look at our heroes as journalists, air quotes, and then we're like, why are they doing that?

Yeah, I get a lot of that.

Is there anyone who you wouldn't do, who you wouldn't interview?

Can you think of someone?

You know, I'm not a fan of the talking to a white supremacist.

You know, that's something that I want, in a way, I kind of want white interviewers to pick up that mantle and do it in a way that their predecessors completely failed or, frankly, co-opted.

But I don't want to sit down and talk with someone who doesn't believe me or my children should live freely.

Yeah.

Why?

Yeah.

That conversation is

a literal non-starter.

But for a white interviewer, I think, yes, I I want to hear you ask bluntly,

why should we live with this privilege and not acknowledge it?

Like, what should the, you know what I mean?

Like, what does it mean to talk about reparations without spiraling into some nonsense conversation?

Like, there are real things that I think, especially white Americans post the awokening, are capable of dialoguing about that they like couldn't, you know, before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, they should go do that.

You know what I mean?

And then there are some things that that I feel like I can handle more sensitively than I hear some interviewers doing.

And that, I don't know.

I mean, is there anything you'd like to do a lot more of where you're where you may not agree with people?

Oh, oh, yeah, for sure.

That's actually, we're having a pitch meeting in two days.

And that's for the staff.

I've said, listen,

you guys are giving me a lot of things you kind of agree with.

And I need you to go down the rabbit hole in some places and with some people that you don't necessarily understand.

And again, I said to them, I gave the same example, I don't need a Klan member.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't need to do any of that.

But like, there are some worlds we need to tap into and better understand.

And there are ways that we can bring context to the conversation.

Like, that's our job.

That's a really good way of putting it.

Here's another email from someone who doesn't share our social media.

I'll read it.

Love the show, but please recognize that people who've never had any presence on social media do exist.

And for the most part, we eat happy, socially well-adjusted lives.

I've never had Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, or an Instagram account.

I'm an ER doctor and researcher.

I love pop culture and fashion.

My husband and I throw a lot of dinner parties.

We have a fabulous group of friends and a large, loving family.

All of this to say is one can strive to live the best life and contribute meaningfully to society without social media.

My dream is to impart this philosophy to my young children.

I know they will only be happier people if they're able to live as social media-free.

Thanks for all your great work, Roseanne McElroy.

Roseanne, come over for dinner at my house.

I know.

Well adjusted.

I love it.

That's a life.

P.S.

Rest assured, I engage in many other forms of procrastination.

We do recognize that, Roisanne, and we wish we were the, you, we wish we were you, correct?

I don't think for journalists, we need to pretend that social media is a thing we need to abandon completely

at all.

Like, I think it's been beneficial to journalism to have this ruckus back and forth.

It's beneficial to see Ben Shapiro's dumb tweets.

It's beneficial to know know what's being said in the various echo chambers.

I think that there is value, though, to the broader public not living in social media in the ways that they do.

Which they don't.

Terrible.

No, absolutely.

Absolutely.

But I mean, for the people who are those like weird power users, you know, how you go on Facebook and there's someone who's posting 10 times a day and you're like, how?

I wish somehow I could reframe for people that you're doing free data entry for billionaires.

Right.

And you are the product.

And it's not necessarily doing all the things you think it's doing.

And the reason why I don't want to abandon it completely is because so many marginalized communities have benefited from it.

You know, people like who are disabled, like people like that, there's...

You know, it's the, I kind of joke, the Arab Spring argument.

Like every time we talk about how terrible Twitter is, someone's like, oh yeah, well, Arab Spring.

And you just kind of be like, well, first of all, that didn't work out so great.

So we need to be clear that like there's difficult things still happening in those countries, right?

Like,

but it's just the idea that like, yes, Black Lives Matter, me too, that political movements are taking place there and that that's important and significant.

But there's a lot of other stuff that I'm not sure is so additive to one's life.

And it's

totally okay to embrace that.

Yes, I agree.

We think that's great.

I do think it is a good news distribution.

I think for this

thing in Congress, it's much easier to get the news from a twitter or a facebook

also for her her kids may feel differently and their kids like you this movement of quiet quitting and i don't like hustle culture and i don't do this and i want to be in a union some of that is a rejection of the attention economy and being online all the time as a way of life um and that is like gen z's all over that you know they're just like i gotta tell you my kids don't use social media at all At all.

Not even, they took them all off the thing.

It's really interesting.

They get it.

My older sons, my sons don't.

I think

maybe girl, maybe teen girls are on it a little bit more, some of them.

But not interested in TikTok.

They let's watch YouTube a little bit and Reddit, and that's it.

It's interesting.

I don't know.

And the three-year-old has yet to get a phone, so we'll wait for that one.

Anyway, I have a three-year-old too.

Why didn't you do a segment of the show?

It's like three-year-olds.

What the hell?

Frozen.

Audi, they like Frozen.

They continue to like Frozen.

That is really.

They're obsessed.

And let me tell you, I, because I'm a streaming household.

How old is your, how old are your kids?

Three and five.

Yeah.

They don't really watch TV.

They don't get to watch TV.

But the profound cultural reach of Disney is so deep and so insidious that just by attending school, they now know the entire soundtrack of Frozen and Encanto.

Encanto is there, but Frozen.

Let me tell you.

Have you heard your three-year-old sing Surface Pressure?

I have.

Which is

many times.

Hundreds of times.

It's literally a song for like first-born immigrant daughters.

Like I heard that song and I like shed a tear.

I was like, I know the truth.

And Disney is in my house.

Marvel's in my house.

And even though they have not seen a single one of these films, period.

Yep.

Well,

I applaud you, but I unfortunately have given in to the frozen, whatever it is.

No, they were stuff, but just like they haven't seen that stuff, but they know it all.

It's very weird.

They know it all.

And also Taylor Swift.

That's what I would say.

And they know how to use my device, right?

Like they can get onto your phone.

It's the frozen Taylor Swift pincher.

My daughter was singing Anti-Hero the other day.

She's three.

Oh, my God.

You know, you're old when your kid shows you how to use your device because I didn't think I was very old.

And then they were like, no, swipe this way.

And I was like, oh, it's happened.

It just happened.

That's it.

Gray hairs, come out now.

Anyway, these are great questions.

We like them.

We really enjoy them.

If you've got a question of your own and you'd like answered, send it our way.

Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

All right, Audi, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and sales.

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Okay, Audi, let's hear your wins and fails.

I'm going to give this sole segment to you.

Obviously, number one, fails, still Kevin McCarthy.

I can't help it.

It's just the biggest first

new year fail

that was, you know, for no reason.

You know, wins.

I'm actually not sure about wins, who's winning right now.

I mean, Joe Biden looks pretty comfortable.

He's like a president who's passed a lot of legislation.

He will have earned the legacy of being the vice president to the first black American and having a black American vice president of his own.

He's just going to be in the history books in a bunch of different ways.

And I think that

people underestimated him at their own peril, especially Republicans.

And he's now going to the border for the next day or two, which is exactly what Republicans said they wanted, but they can't capitalize on it because every single camera will be on Kevin McCarthy's pizza boxes.

Yep.

So not to be a political hack, but

this one is just too big not to comment on

in terms of wins and fails.

I think you're right.

I think you're right.

I think Biden is always underestimated.

Kicking off the year.

Yeah.

I think him being in a limo with McConnell and and dwine and very successful and everyone's like well that's the aviators were back it was the full he felt full biden yeah he felt good he's looking good he's feeling good it's interesting you know i i have a theory and i'd like it to put it out on you years ago nancy pelosi invited me to talk about tech in front of the democratic uh caucus right they were out at some hotel in virginia and they get together and they they whatever they all do their thing yeah their retreat their retreat right i so i went out and i talked to them and it was a good speech And there was all these moderates and then there were the left wings.

It was really interesting.

I took my son at the time.

He was maybe 12 or 13 at the time.

And he came up to me and he goes, mom, these people can't agree on anything.

And I was like, really?

He goes, they just argue with each other all the time.

He was wandering around and listening to them.

Right.

And I thought, you know what, Alex, it's actually a really good thing.

They know how to disagree together.

And he said it to Pelosi.

And she goes, and he goes, I can't believe you keep these people together.

And she goes, but I do.

And it was really, it was like a loud family.

She's Italian, obviously, the loud Italian family.

Italian and from Baltimore.

I always want people to remember that.

She's actually a Baltimore politician.

She's a Baltimore, right?

And I was like, they know how to disagree with each other.

And they're fine with it.

It's a mess.

And I think one of the things that Republicans did, having covered it very briefly when I was at the South Section of Washington Post, is they threw the best parties because they all fell into line.

Like the Democratic parties were a mess, right?

They were always like all over the place.

And I thought if you're people that fall into line all the time, once you don't know how to disagree together, it's a real problem, right?

Like you don't know how to get along when you're in disagreement.

And that reminds, it reminds me of that.

The Democratic parties.

What I like about this argument that you're making

is for everyone listening, you're going to hear the exact thing that Kara is saying, only Republicans will say it in the middle of this debacle, right?

Because they're trying to use that argument to put some sort of sheen on this

show, right?

Like, no, they're disagreeing badly.

They're just

not good at oh, democracy is messy.

This is just what happens.

And it's like, no, no, this isn't actually how it works when you have a messy family disagreement.

This isn't actually like recalcitrance, is not the most significant or important part.

So, if I were you and you're at home watching and you're trying to figure out what's going on, imagine the relative at your Thanksgiving dinner who just won't stop.

Right.

And who just really, at a certain point, you're like, oh, okay, can we eat?

That's what's happening here.

And it's not helpful.

It's not healthy to bait, which is always good.

Anyway, Audi, thank you so much.

That's the show.

You can listen to more from Audi on the assignment every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast.

We'll be back on Tuesday for more.

I really appreciate it for you to come here.

And I urge everyone to listen to your show.

And I would love to have you back anytime.

I loved it.

I am a huge fan of yours.

Thank you.

Scott Galloway is a brother in CNN Plus, RIP.

He's an alum.

He didn't have a good time at CNN.

I heard.

I heard.

Yeah, that's all right.

Whatever.

Whatever.

Poor Scott.

He never gets a TV show.

Anyway, with Scott gone, I'm going to read us out.

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Enderdott engineered this episode.

Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

And again, Audi, thank you so much.

Thank you.

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That's this month on Explain It to Me, presented by Pureleaf.

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