Trump Pleads the Fifth, Privacy Post-Roe, and Elon Dumps More Tesla For Twitter

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Free August is in full swing and going rather well, I would say, for myself.

So today I'm joined by someone I have huge admiration for: producer, writer, director, and comedy legend Judd Appetoud.

Welcome, Judd.

How are you doing?

You know, I'm intimidated.

It's big shoes to fill.

I know he brings the energy

and I'm hoping that I can do it.

I've been prepping all day.

Oh, fantastic.

Let me ask you a question.

You're in North Carolina, right?

Correct?

That's right.

North Carolina, where it can be 90 degrees and raining all day.

Right.

Okay.

So what are you doing there?

What are you working on?

We're making a movie with some young men from Saturday Night Live who have been making these incredible digital shorts.

They're called Please Don't Destroy.

And we're here this summer.

Someone thought it would be good to shoot a movie in the mountains in August in North Carolina.

I'm not sure who.

I need to locate that person because it is hot.

The glamorous life of a Hollywood person.

Let me ask you, though, I mean, because we're going to talk about a lot of stuff that's been going on in the country right now.

I'm going to talk about Bros, which is your latest movie, but do you think about where to do movies right now?

Where is Hollywood's mind on this thing?

Because they've gone through different iterations of this over the decades.

I think it changes because the laws change and you always want to encourage people who are trying to pass sane laws, you know, that you want them to succeed.

So the idea of when you say to, you know, a state, you know, if you continue to have these laws, we may not bring our work here is a is a sensitive issue because there's a lot of crews here and people and they make their living in the industry and you're you're bailing on them

also when you decide not to come to a state.

So, I think it's a very painful discussion that would be solved by people just caring about the rights of other people.

And also, it's an enormous amount of the country

that has

laws set up to prevent women from having rights over their own bodies.

So, I think this debate is just beginning about what to do.

But for me personally, I tend to drift towards places which I feel are generally more hospitable to values I agree with.

Right.

And do you, when you think about that, is there a state, is there something a state could do that crosses a line, like what Indiana just is, this very strict abortion law, versus a Kansas, which was showing some signs of electoral interest in terms of people who are pro-abortion rights?

I mean, it's all pretty awful, isn't it?

You know,

the basic right, you know, should not be the states.

I mean, that's just the worst case scenario.

Then you get into what's really

the most terrible, which is what if you have an ectopic pregnancy?

What if doctors are scared to do basic health care because they think they're going to get in trouble?

The thing that scares me the most is like bounties.

Like, oh, you can

make money if you turn somebody in because they crossed state lines or got an abortion pill.

It really sets people up to be even more polarized.

And I think all of those ideas were just beginning to come to grips with how truly terrible this can become.

And we'll see in the midterms because I would hope that a lot of people are going to vote, maybe who wouldn't have voted, or maybe their vote might change because they realize where we're headed, which is against gay marriage, against contraception.

uh you know gay adoption there's so many other issues that could head in this direction unless people stand up and vote.

So, my thing is always: it's all about voting.

Just figure out how to do it.

Even if they're trying to prevent you, figure out how to get registered and get it done.

This gets us to your movie, Bros, that you produced starring Billy Eichner.

He's also a writer.

And one of the things that was interesting is it sort of painted a picture of gay life.

You know, right now, I've never felt more under siege than back in the 80s.

I feel like that right now.

And I have four children married.

Nerve-wracking, actually, in terms of adoption and all kinds.

The idea, what the Supreme Court was saying so talk a little bit about this movie because it's a really happy version of gay people you know that feels a little bit under siege right now I'm trying to present this sort of rom-com of

how you find happiness

how you find happiness between people

well when we you know when we started the project and we started it you know four years ago maybe even a little longer in times which were, I think, a little better regarding all of these issues.

You know, we thought

there should be a gay rom-com, a big studio with a real budget movie like this.

And

it shouldn't be an area that this type of film doesn't exist in.

There's something really terrible

about that.

And

so.

We all worked together with Nick Stoller, the co-writer and the director, to try to create this to be something big and fun and about love and about dating and

about

a relationship that you don't get to see on TV too much.

I mean,

in movies and TV, by the way.

Things have changed in a really dark way in the last year.

So it does change it.

But the movie does have a lot of content in it, which is very personal to Billy about the way he feels about being excluded and what his life has been like and how it's different

to be gay in this country and all the ways that the systems work against you.

So we were surprised that a lot of the issues that are coming up in places like Florida with Don't Say Gay

were actually in the movie and in some of the moments which are more serious in the film.

And some of those scenes

are very moving and

you also wish they weren't necessary.

So there were a lot of sort of darker scenes in it.

How do you think about balancing that?

Talk a little bit about that and translating that to the screen.

Well, there's certainly plenty to be mad about.

And I think that it's important that we have an honest character.

Whenever we make these movies,

we try to start from a place of real honesty.

What's preventing somebody from getting in a relationship?

What are the obstacles generally in their lives?

And so if you're going to be three-dimensional and tell the truth, some of that would be what you're frustrated about.

And it was important that that was in the movie.

Most of those scenes are really, really funny, but it felt appropriate to have a couple where they were more serious.

Right.

One of the last questions I have about this is that there's a huge call out to Broke Back Mountain, which of course was the gay movie that happened, but it was two straight actors.

And everyone was like, it was a breakthrough moment.

I thought it was depressing.

The same thing, like a lot of the movie, they're depressing and then it's straight actors playing it.

When you thought about creating this, and there's lots of callbacks to it, including near the end.

What do you think the, why do you think Hollywood has been so slow to embrace all kinds of different things when there's a lot of appetite for it, or maybe there just isn't enough appetite from their perspective?

I think that, you know, when you look at Hollywood, ultimately, it's, you know, a few mega corporations.

who are looking to make money.

And they'll just go in the direction of where the money is and where the path of least resistance is.

But when they have theories about things, a lot of times it's hard to change them.

So if they wonder, will this type of movie about this community make money?

They might be slower to make that movie.

And I think it isn't

just about LGBTQ

plus community.

It's about,

you know, all the different communities.

And then when something makes money, they chase it.

Right.

And I think that, you know, the heartbreaking part about it is, is there are always decades behind the curve.

And so

when we showed this movie, the crowd wasn't like, oh, I can't handle this.

They were basically

loving it.

And what it felt like in the room was,

we were ready for this so long ago.

Yes.

It's ridiculous.

It's taken this long to do this.

Absolutely.

And so the movie's a real crowd pleaser.

It's really fun.

It's really romantic and sweet.

But there's something about it that makes you go, it's weird that it's 2022 and it's taken this long to do this.

Although I must say, the volleyball scene in Top Gun 2 and Top Gun 1 is still gayer than this movie, despite the amazing amount of gays here.

Those are high bars.

Those are high bars.

Anyway, so the movie comes out, Bros comes out on September 30th.

And again, it's an all-LGBTQ cast, which is unusual, I think, in general.

But today we'll talk about a lot of things.

You couldn't have a better week for having Judd here.

Trump's Wild Week of Legal Problems, also of interesting narrative.

And it couldn't become a movie.

It's so

strange.

It's too much stuff.

It's too much.

It's too much.

Too many scarles.

Too much crazy.

Like, how would you, even when people have tried, you go, how do you...

Every day could be a movie.

Yeah.

So first of all, Disney has more streaming subscribers than Netflix.

I guess Ron DeSantis's woke business ideas didn't seem to work out.

Disney Plus added 15 million subscribers last quarter, giving the house of mouse a slight edge in streaming when you added all its networks.

Disney losses are growing too.

It lost more than a billion dollars on streaming last quarter.

It is committed to streaming, though.

It's also announced it's raising prices on some of the streaming options.

I'm sure more advertising is next.

So, talk a little bit about this from your perspective, how you look at all these streamers.

Obviously, it's been a cornucopia of content for content creators like yourself, but at the same time, there's lots of them.

how do i look at it well i mean i look at it as a someone who watches it and you know i i hope that people will take chances and make good content and not just become network television that's really the fear is that when you have too much metadata that you think you know what people like And then when you think you know what people like, are you not taking as big a swing into your own gut and your own imagination and your own creativity and making choices about what to make because the data might say, well, we just love crime documentaries and I love crime documentaries, but I don't want to only watch crime documentaries or crime movies.

And there are certain areas that if you watch all the streamers, you go, oh, it tends to go in that direction

because the great things that happen usually would not be in the data.

The great movie that you didn't see coming about about the weird subject approached in a way that no one's ever done it before cannot be predicted.

And so as a viewer, I just hope that what it felt like at the beginning of streaming, which was, hey, we're going to create a place that's so creative that we're going to have stuff that you can't get anywhere else, doesn't turn into

lowest common denominator everywhere.

Right.

How do you consider as a creator or creators in general, it's like, oh, more money for us?

Or do do you see it as problematic given so many of them?

Or is it worrisome as a creator?

Well, I think the only worry is

that if everyone feels on the edge of success,

that

creative risks won't be taken as often.

You can just do.

you know, dating shows forever because you think that's what's going to get you more subscribers as opposed to

making a movie that on paper may not work

and and we all know that a lot that's what most of our favorite movies were in the past they broke the mold in some way so for me i want them all to be healthy and do great so that they can be bold that that's what i think is most important for the programming because uh if the programming isn't good people aren't going to watch anyway and we all have the same experience we go home and we scroll for like 10 minutes and we like our streamers based on if that scrolling time isn't forever.

If we find something fast, we're like, that streamer is working.

Look how quickly I got to whatever, bird box.

But if it's taken me a long time, I'm like, why do I have this thing?

And so it is, yeah.

And then as someone who makes

movies and television for them, it's, you know, it's the same thing, basically.

Are they in the mood to try something?

You know, will they allow us to do something innovative?

So, you know, during COVID, we made the movie The Bubble about trying to make a movie during COVID.

And Netflix was very supportive of

going for something really wild and silly that talked about the time.

And it was a great experience.

And that only probably could have happened with a streamer and with people like Ted Sarandos and Scott Stuber who allowed it.

And that's what you want.

do you imagine most of your movies are going to be streamed in the future or most of the future judd appetow movies are going to be streamed in the future versus in theaters do you think about that at all or do you not think about it all the time i mean i i think that you want it all to be healthy i think it's a little bit like shooting movies on film or on digital

yeah it's really important that we keep shooting on film also we don't want to lose that option

and i think we want movies to work in the theaters we want comedies to work in the theaters.

When we show bros to a full house,

people

love it and they enjoy the communal experience of it.

And you don't want that just to be for Marvel movies.

All sorts of great movies and dramas need to be seen in the theater, but at the same time, streamers are making a ton of movies that might not get made for the theaters.

And we like watching things at home.

I'm mainly watching things at home.

So I think that that's awesome also.

You just don't want one side to win.

Yeah.

Although it was Ted Sarandus who said he didn't think most movies would get to the theaters, and he thought it would be blockbusters and not the smaller movies, comedies, and the dramas.

He was last year when I interviewed him.

It's a really interesting time to think about where you're in a fear, but I agree.

Some of the, I would have liked to have watched Bros not by myself.

I was thinking I'd love to be in the world.

Well, the world will get to.

And I think that's also really exciting because I feel like Bros is, you know, really one of the best movies I've ever been a part of.

And it works well in the theater and it's new.

And

I'm assuming it's going to do well.

How I always look at it when it comes to the health of the theaters is

what was the great comedy that bombed in the theater?

Only when you have an amazing movie really bomb, do you go, something's going wrong.

And I think that Brose is great and I really expect it to do well in the theater and show people that if you make a great comedy, people will leave the house.

Yeah, that's true.

All right.

Next thing.

Elon Musk has dumped Tesla for Twitter once again.

On Tuesday, he sold nearly $7 billion worth of Tesla shares.

He implied the sale was a safety measure in case things didn't go his way in the Twitter case, which most people think it is not.

He also said he's done selling shares, which he said last April, and he dumped another batch.

And he also has more Elon-esque plans than the worst.

When asked if he'd create his own social platform, he would simply reply, x.com.

I happen to know that's a site he owns from his original company, x.com, when he started,

which he sold to PayPal many years ago.

So he still owns the URL from way back when, when he didn't have much money.

I'm just curious how you look at him from a narrative perspective, this Elon drama.

Is it boring to you or a comedy or a tragedy?

Or how do you look at it?

I've only met the man once.

I think twice, many years ago.

I don't know, maybe it was 10, 12 years ago, but before Tesla, I was at a party.

I think it was an Oscar party.

And I was drinking, seemed like he was drinking.

And I was introduced to him.

didn't know who he was.

Maybe had heard his name as the PayPal guy or something.

And I asked him what he did.

And he said, I'm trying to create a spaceship that can go to Mars and back.

And I responded in my drunkenness, you'll never figure that out before you die.

Oh, wow.

You just don't have enough time.

I tried to discourage him from innovation is what I'm saying.

And so far, he's doing pretty good.

He's gotten some steps.

He may have to also master life extension, which I'm sure he's also working on.

Possibly, possibly.

So, I, you know, in terms of him,

what do I make of all that?

I don't know.

I, yeah, I'm not big in the stock market, but I, I, I do remember watching him smoke pot on Joe Rogan and thinking, I don't know if I'm going to invest in this Tesla thing.

And probably I lost an enormous amount of money.

Uh, not that I would have invested much money,

because I just thought, well, that's kind of

different.

And it didn't make me feel

great about handing that person my money.

But maybe you need people who want to open their mind and be creative and think things that no one's ever thought before.

But I do listen to you and Scott debate this all the time.

And the thing that is terrifying is if you have someone that is brilliant and can think of things that have never been thought of before, you don't want them also to love chatting on Twitter.

Right, right.

You just want that person to be alone in a room cracking the code on Mars.

Just get back to Mars, get back to making the cars work better.

I don't want him thinking it's time for me to be a riot on Twitter.

That's my job.

And you know what?

I shouldn't be on Twitter either.

Do you think he's funny?

I'm more troubled by the fact that he thinks it's necessary to be funny.

Oh, oh.

I'm embarrassed that I want to be funny.

Okay, but that's your job.

I don't need him to feel that he needs the ego stroke of the attention, but I think that's everybody in the world.

Everybody wants to be famous.

Everybody wants to be an entertainer.

Do we want Thomas Edison to also think I must be a crack up and have a lot of TikTok followers?

I don't want those people to feel they need to do that.

I'm going to point out he really was kind of a P.T.

Barnum of his day.

He was, you know, he called reporters together.

He was difficult.

He tried to kill Tesla, really.

I'm wrong.

You've proven me wrong right away.

You've proven me wrong.

Thomas Edison was an asshole, let me just say.

And sometimes Elon Musk is.

I've heard this before.

Henry Ford, there's a lot of

asshole.

Walt Disney had his moments

with the unions and the Jewish people.

Yes.

Aren't you glad you picked a career where you don't have to work with attention-hungry megalomaniacs all the time?

I mean,

just missed out.

Let that one.

Just the sweet people of Hollywood.

All right, let's get to our first big story.

Speaking of attention-seeking megalomaniacs, Donald Trump is keeping his mouth shut for once.

The former president pleaded the fifth this week in a deposition with New York State Attorney General's office.

The AG is conducting a civil investigation into Trump's business practices, but his legal problems don't end there.

The FBI executed a search warrant on his Mar-a-Lago home this week in an unrelated case.

Trump had plenty to say about that, including they even broke into my safe.

Also, this week, a federal appeals court ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee can access Trump's tax returns.

I mean,

you reference this idea that this could not be made up by people who write these things.

Where are we in this story from your perspective?

I think that, you know,

we're all thinking, it's pretty incredible that you could do so many things, which would get the rest of us in trouble and always slip by, starting with Trump University,

that

that every time it seems like, well, that's kind of simple.

Like I feel like if I owned a house and it it was worth a hundred grand and I wanted to get a loan on my house and I said it was worth 10 million, I think I would get in trouble.

And that's really what that case is about.

If you've seen the numbers, it's not that complicated.

And so there's a certain fraud there that seems simple.

If I was running for office and I lost and I called up people in the state and said get me 11 000 votes just find me 11 000 votes i think

i would get get in trouble for doing that.

Or if there was a riot and there were thousands of people at the Capitol and I could tell people to stop them and protect them or get them out of there, and I just sat there for several hours and didn't do anything while people begged me to do something, I feel like I would get in trouble.

So I think

Sometimes you think, well, at some point it's going to happen,

but then it never seems to happen.

And I feel like he seems to have an innate understanding of all the ways our system doesn't work, where all the holes are.

Right.

I can't imagine he keeps very important things in his little hotel safe.

I mean, if he's not smart enough to find another place to put the good stuff at this point, I mean, really,

what would you keep in the safe at the place where you live?

He has other places to hide things.

So, you know, what did they find?

1970s porn, something like that.

But But besides that, I mean, one of the things that's interesting is as a character, this has been good for him.

Many people feel.

There was speculation online what it means for 2024, whether it was the timing was good for Biden, who, by the way, was busy passing the Burn Pit Bill and everything else, like was doing a great job dealing with Al-Qaeda, et cetera, et cetera, even while he had COVID.

But the attention immediately came onto Trump.

When you think about character development,

how do you look at him as a character in the American drama, I guess, or comedy or tragedy?

I'm not sure which one.

Well, in a way, he's the Joker.

He's chaos.

And that's always fascinating to people.

People don't understand him.

I think the main reason why the fascination is endless is no one really understands him.

You don't get a very coherent conversation with him to get what he's all about.

And he doesn't put himself in a position to be interviewed like that.

For instance, you know, when COVID started and he said, oh, it's just, you know, it's just seven.

It's going down to nothing in a couple of weeks.

We know that they told him, oh man, this is bad.

This is a worldwide nightmare.

Well, why would you do that?

You would do that because you don't want to look like anything bad happens on your watch, even if you know it's about to take over the country.

So we don't understand a person like that who thinks in that way, who's so self-serving.

It's a form of madness.

And it is, you you know, if it was a TV show or a movie, that is the type of show you want to watch with

an ingenious, bizarre character.

Unfortunately, it affects people's lives.

It costs people their lives.

And I think there are obviously there are people who like having a chaotic figure there to attack what they see as the other side.

I look at it in a very simple way.

These people are in public service.

They want, they should just be obsessed with making people's lives better, alleviating pain, pain supporting people lifting people up and it seems like so much of it is just uh

a fight he seems to just want to be in a fight every single day grievance constant grievance it's beyond that i think he wants a fight every day i think one of the things with president obama that we all noticed was he loved when it was calm he loved when there wasn't any news he liked when things were just working out and we could go about our lives

with trump he wants something to happen every day.

Even if it's him saying,

I take the fifth 400 times, it's a great day for him.

He's in the news.

And oh, my safe got broken into.

He's in the news.

He's fighting someone.

And that's a weird thing to really want to be in combat.

every single day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They agree.

But the other thing is people that involve themselves too.

Like Andrew Yang had an unfortunate tweet, I thought it was, saying, I'm no Trump fan.

I want him far away from the White House as possible.

But fundamental part of his appeal has been that it's him against the corrupt government establishment.

This raid strengthens that case for millions of Americans who will see this as an unjust persecution.

Andrew Cuomo, who should probably keep quiet for a while and sit in the backs some more, said the DOJ must immediately explain the reason for its raid.

It must be more than a search for inconsequential archives.

It will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation, legitimacy of January 6th investigations.

Really, him lecturing the DOJ is interesting, and especially because they're not really allowed to talk about it in reality.

Why do the people around it, how do you look at that with all the characters and including the Republican Party, which sort of rallied him around him for this particular event?

I mean, isn't it simple if somebody asks you for something for a year or so and you don't give it to them at some point they say, okay, we're going to come over and get it.

And why should he be an exception?

to that.

The only reason, the reason why he's an exception is because he has the ability to make a lot of noise and rile people up that we all think might get dangerous.

But, you know, why should you be allowed to not honor a subpoena?

That's the thing we've all found fascinating, that it took a year or more

to just get people to answer questions or get people to show up and just say, I refuse to answer questions.

Right, right.

I don't think any of us think that's how it would work for us.

Right.

You know, if I did something that was questionable, I could just keep refusing to talk to anybody about it if I was in the government.

And that's the thing that I think is shocking to most people, because you would assume if there's a question about something, you're allowed to ask someone about it.

And that doesn't seem to be the case, even for people where it's not a criminal situation, where just everyone around Trump found a way to not answer questions for a really long time until they thought it looked better for them to answer questions.

Right, which was January 6th investigations.

What's interesting is, though, others are terrified.

Alex Jones certainly got his hat handed to him in the Texas trial.

There's more to come.

Also,

his lawyer mistakenly, I'm not sure if it's mistaken, turned over two years' worth of his texts to prosecutors in his defamation trial.

Tucker Carlson is reportedly terrified that his texts with Alex Jones could come out.

The texts include also a nude photo of Jones' wife sent to Roger Stone.

Stone denies ever receiving it and says that Alex Jones should sue his own lawyer over the error.

They've been handed over to the January 6th committee.

What's really interesting is the intersection of all these stories together, you know, into one weird amalgam.

I feel like I'm in a Marvel, like the Avengers over several episodes, you know, several movies or something, and it keeps referencing back and then other people pull in.

When you look at someone like Alex Jones, he has, he is starting to pay for his sins, essentially, but not Trump.

It reminds me, you know, I made a documentary about George Carlin that's on HBO.

He did.

It was wonderful.

It's wonderful.

He used to say, you know,

when you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show.

And when you're born in America, you get a front row seat.

And it's just so much crazy.

And

it's really dark.

It's bottom feeders.

Alex Jones would talk about it being a hoax.

I mean, is there anything more evil that you could do on Earth than that?

And then sell millions of dollars of Alex Jones merchandise off of all of the

hubbub around that.

And it's, there's a lot of really bad people who will do anything for money in a way that I don't think we realize.

And that's what's happened with journalism and social media is there's probably always been people that awful around.

Now we just have instant access to them.

I find it really sad.

It's hard to have the energy to fight against it, but I think that, you know, it's our country and we all have to not let it let it get us so down that we don't do the things that we can do to lift

people up because there is a monetary

incentive to being a nightmare in America right now.

It works.

It works.

You referenced your really tremendous documentary, which people should go watch on HBO on George Carlin.

How would he make this moment?

What would he see?

I mean, it just becomes, because he predicted a lot of this stuff.

He talked about it a lot, about the power of government, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, he had a lot of observations.

And he used to say, you know, I'm here to entertain people, but I'm also here to let you know that I've been thinking.

And I don't think he had a lot of answers, but he certainly knew where the problems were.

And he talked a lot about big money and big business controlling the media and the government.

and that those people didn't have other people's interests at heart.

They just want to make money.

And we see that when the January 6th committee hearings aren't broadcast wall to wall on Fox, it's because it goes against their business interests to have the truth out there.

Or if you don't think it's the truth, at least the truth of what they're saying on that day.

Like, here's what they're debating or trying to reveal.

And he, you know, he was very suspicious of authority.

But at the same time, he loved people.

And he was concerned that people weren't educated and the powers that he wanted people not educated.

He thought that they wanted people just educated enough to work the machines, but not educated enough to ask hard questions.

And

that is a big problem.

And he thought we get the politicians we deserve because we vote for them.

And so it is, you know, a cycle of bad education, being trained to accept what's in front of you.

And then certain people seem to be making a lot of money.

Yeah, I sure would like to hear him.

I sure would like to hear him today.

I'll tell you that.

His daughter says you probably couldn't predict what his opinion would be.

That whatever you think it would be, it would probably surprise you.

Oh, no.

He'd be Joe.

He's Joe Rogan.

He's been reincarnated as Joe Rogan, who's not very funny, actually.

He was always about the little guy.

He wanted us to care about people who are being mistreated.

That was, I think, the most important thing to him.

Yeah.

Well, it would be interesting.

You're right.

You never know where he'd be today.

Anyway, this George Carlin documentary has, by the way, hasn't been nominated for five MEs.

It's well worth watching.

All right, Judd, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about privacy in a post-real world.

And I'll take a listener mail question about working with your spouse.

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Support for Pivot comes from LinkedIn.

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Okay, Judd, we're back with our second big story.

Police in Nebraska used private Facebook messages to charge a mother and her teenage daughter over an alleged illegal abortion.

Facebook handed over messages between the mother and the daughter in response to a warrant.

The woman now faced criminal charges related to 17-year-old daughter's abortion in April, and the team will be tried as an adult.

Facebook says the warrant didn't mention abortion and came before the Supreme Court's decision.

Even if Facebook is telling the truth, this is a bad look for the company.

I kept thinking burn in hell for several days after I read this.

Meta announced some privacy upgrades to its WhatsApp this week, including an obsolete user's exit of group chat without notifying everyone.

And unlike Facebook messages, WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted by default.

So what do you think of this?

Facebook likes to say their hands are tied when the police come knocking, but there are technical solutions.

They also could just refuse, as Apple did, facing down the government over encryption issues.

So how do you look at something like this?

It does seem to be the inevitable end

to all of it.

We invite all these gadgets in and

you have like a friend who's like, you got to cover up your camera.

because they could look at you or you have to shut off your microphones.

And I'm usually the the person that's like, really?

Like, what are they going to see me doing?

But the truth is,

if I'm talking in front of my phone, yes,

is it somewhere?

I mean, if I'm wandering around my kitchen and my friend Alexa is over,

my Alexa suddenly asks me what I want.

So it's listening all day long.

And then they say, well, it only records the moment when you say Alexa,

but it has to listen all day.

So we don't really know what's happening.

And then how does that get intertwined with the government and what certain states might see as a criminal act?

And then it's just a disaster.

It's just something that got big too fast that we can't manage anymore.

And,

you know, how I deal with it is I try to stay out of trouble.

I just try to

do anything.

I try to not do anything wrong.

They'll find whatever they want.

Some of these messengers, you know, a lot of this encryption stuff does solve the problem.

It keeps the police out of people's.

And of course, then it could protect criminals.

There's the push-pull of that.

But in case of abortion, they're going to

use these texts and these information of people talking to each other to convict people because this is where people speak now today, rather than just on a phone, for example, that may or may not be listened to.

Yeah, and what's really sad about it is

I've heard people say, well, we're all just going to have to pick a state that we think

is more in line with our values.

And most people can't afford to do that.

You're just trapped in a place that suddenly changed.

My dad's in Florida.

Florida.

is changing in a way that I don't think is great.

I don't think my dad is going to have to deal with most of these issues.

But people are just there and you can't say, okay, well,

I'm going to move somewhere else to not have to deal with this or to not have my children have to deal with this.

And what's unfortunate is it feels like a 10, 20 year war.

It's not something that's going to get resolved in a few weeks.

No, not at all.

They're very committed.

They're committed to a lot of things.

That's what I always say.

They're super.

There's an expression about breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed, you know, bacon and eggs.

Well, I think what people don't talk about enough is there are a lot of people, and it's just beginning to bubble up, who really want this country to be a theocracy.

And if you see people, you know, online like Mike Pompeo, Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, they're at big meetings where they want religion involved in every decision in this country.

And that's why they're willing to put up with someone like Donald Trump, because he is moving the ball forward uh and getting things accomplished that they want to get accomplished but most of those things are based on religion you know abortion had a minor plot in your film knocked up tell me you don't want him to get an a word yes i do and i won't say it for little baby ears over there but it rhymes with schmushmorschen I'm just saying, hold on, Jay, cover your ears.

You should get a Schmushmorschman at the Schmushmorschman clinic.

Schmushmorshen, yes.

Did you invent that term?

I think that's a little lost to time.

You know, the idea was

that two of Seth Rogan's friends would have the worst abortion debate of all time.

Just two idiots

debating it.

And I think we accomplished that, you know, for sure.

You know, sometimes people say to me, well,

she didn't get an abortion in the movie.

But a lot of the movie was based on personal events.

It was a mix of fictional and personal.

But if Catherine Heigold did have an abortion, the movie would have been seven minutes long.

So obviously, everyone should have the opportunity to make that decision.

That was just a story about two people that decided to see if they could get along

if they had the baby.

But that scene is a ridiculous,

a ridiculous scene.

And unfortunately, that scene is what America is about to turn into.

Right, right, absolutely.

Okay, Judd, let's pivot to some listener mail.

You got, you got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail.

The question comes from Beth via email.

I'll read it.

Hey, Kara, a couple of weeks ago on the show, Katie Tour mentioned worrying about working with her husband.

My husband and I have been starting and running businesses for 16 years while raising four kids.

We literally work side by side.

Most days, I found that having a business was actually a solve for our relationship.

Even if we were in a serious disagreement and emotional situation at home, we went to work, put our professional pants on, acted supremely respectful to each other, and got it done.

Even if we were in a fight, I really cherished going to work and being able to look at him with love and respect.

It's like a demilitarized zone.

Are we just lucky that we ended up together?

Or more couples find joy working together if they got over their initial fears?

Thanks, Beth.

Oh, you've worked with your wife and stuff.

How do you think about this?

I'm all for it.

I think it's fun to have common purpose.

I like when we have common purpose and we have a project that we're both trying to make work together.

And that is part of it, which is if you're not getting along, you know, that morning when you get to work,

you have to

put that aside.

And it's even harder for us because we have to put that aside and try to be hilarious with each other.

So you can't just tolerate each other.

You got to get to hilarity.

But I loved every time I've gotten to work with Leslie just because she's also so great at what she does.

And she is a real collaborator on all of these projects.

And even the ones that she's not a part of, she's the one, you know, watching, you know, with me, the cuts and giving me great advice because I think she's very in tune emotionally and asks a lot of great tough questions so i'm for it work with your spouses this is leslie mann who's wonderful oddly enough the other night i ended up watching her in the other there was a camera and diaz fest and and she was in the other woman she's very funny the other woman is great yeah it's really funny i like her on camera and diaz's uh shoulders uh you know with the legs and everything else it was it was really quite good um when you think about working together you also work with your family your your daughters had time.

They have their own careers, obviously.

Maude is on Euphoria and your daughter Iris is on love and many other things.

And are they in your latest This is 50?

Because you did This is 40.

Well, I'm writing This is 50 right now.

I'm living it and writing it.

So I hope I'll get an opportunity to do that pretty soon.

And yeah, it's been really fun, you know, working with them.

I like them.

You know, in the beginning,

I just thought, I just don't want to hang out with other people's kids that you know you're always looking to avoid that and yeah and we started working together when they were tiny and then over the years they were

we've done so many things together that they've just become you know incredible actresses and then are doing amazing things on their own but i think it's fine i look at it like a cobbler you know it's a you know it's a family business and you you wind up talking about movies and storytelling and art and hopefully some of it seeps into their brains yeah yeah is there another family that works as much together as yours?

I'm trying to think in Hollywood.

I mean, there's all sorts of, you know, people who,

you know, have kids

who

work in the business.

But I think it's a natural thing.

Like if I was a dentist, I would just talk about dentistry all day long and probably

my kids would want to pull teeth.

Right.

I think that,

you know, what's happening in your house, you know, if you're a firefighter, you're talking about firefighting.

Right, right.

I think that's a TV show, Blue or whatever, something.

My dentist is his father is a dentist, and his father is a dentist.

There's that whole thing going on.

In any case, they got the better end of the deal on this one.

Beth, thank you for that.

I think working with your spouse can work out.

That's an interesting thing that you sort of have to set it aside and really do the work.

Although, unfortunately, what happens, and which is the plot of many sitcoms, is people don't set it aside when they're working together.

Anyway, if you've got a question of your own you'd like answers, send it our way.

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

pivot all right judd one more quick break and we'll be back i'll let you out of here for wins and fails

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Okay, Judd, we have this section where we call wins and fails.

I would like your win and fail this week.

Well, the win, I think, would be Serena Williams announced that she is, I don't think she's announcing an official retirement, but just beginning to head

towards that direction.

And she's just the greatest of all time.

Won the Grand Slam 23 times, was number one 319 weeks during her career and is amazing.

So that's a win for

a whole career.

And choosing your family is also a win.

Yeah.

She's also an entrepreneur, really.

And I've met her because her husband has been in tech, Alex O'Haney, and she's done a lot of really interesting entrepreneurial stuff.

So I think maybe she's interested in that.

And is a great philanthropist as well.

Indeed, indeed.

Like too many great things to mention.

And then for fail,

a

right-wing dating app.

Oh, no.

Which where all of

all conservative people can get together.

And then they're going to have a problem because they're going to need abortions at the end of that road.

Oh.

And then they're going to be in trouble.

Oh, and also they'll probably have gay kids because you know what?

The gays have the straights.

The gays have straight kids.

And they are the ones that make the the gay kids.

So good luck with that dating.

Should I switch it to a win?

It might be a win.

Maybe I mess up.

It's not a fail.

It's a win.

They're going to learn from experience.

They're going to find their heart

through experience.

It'll be like Dick Cheney learned.

That's what's going to happen with this dating app.

How did you think of that video he made?

I'm really curious.

In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.

He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.

He was a coward.

Because he was pretty lonesome for so long.

It's always weird when Darth Vader comes in, even when he says something that is correct.

You can't trust it, you know?

Yeah, but that was the end of the movie.

Darth Vader gets good at the end.

Remember?

Like he's there with Obi-Wan.

It can happen.

Hollywood made it so.

It's like Darth Vader just coming out, just being like,

I mean, I don't know if there are many Republicans who are still looking to him for their choices at this point,

but it's good that he did it.

I mean, anytime he says the right thing,

we can be happy for that.

But I don't know if he has the same weight.

Yeah, yeah.

It's sort of like

getting back to Bros, and I think it's sort of like when a Republican, a very virulent, anti-gay Republican, suddenly has a gay son and it's like, now I see.

You're sort of like, you know, fuck you.

Like the whole time.

It's like when Paul Manafort says the right thing.

You don't care that much.

And isn't it interesting that no one talks about that Paul Manafort admitted this week that he gave voter information to the Russians?

Oh, yeah.

And people don't even talk about it.

Like he finally admitted that he did it.

And everyone said, oh, all of that investigation, it was all false.

And

he's like, yeah, I just did it for my career to help my career.

It wasn't Donald Trump who wanted me to do it.

I just did it for a job later.

I mean, so he has a lie in it, but he does admit that he did it.

That's true.

That's true.

Can I have that Darth Vader impression one more time of Duke Cheney?

I believe in love.

I sound a little more like the water boy.

That's true.

Okay, Judd, that was very funny.

That's the show.

We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot.

One thing before we go, as you may have heard, I enjoyed Scott Free August so much that I'm starting a whole new Scott Free show.

We're looking for an experienced podcast producer to join the team.

As you may know, I've done hundreds, thousands of interviews over the years, and I don't just wing them.

Well, sometimes I do actually.

I also rely on a team of smart people who help me prep and make it all sound good.

Enter the new job.

We're looking for a producer with a newsroom background, editing skills, someone who knows a bit about tech, business, media, and politics.

And we want someone with at least five years experience.

So if that sounds like you apply at the link in our show notes.

It's an essential role.

It'll be a lot of fun.

Judd, you cannot apply.

Although you'd be an excellent production assistant, it would be really great.

Who knew this is how you find employees?

At the end of the podcast,

I could just do that.

Like, hey, I need this person in my life.

What do you need?

I'm going to come back.

And at the end of one of your episodes, I'm just going to list job requirements and you'll help me.

Yes, I will.

It's going to be a great, great show.

Actually, you know what I'm thinking of calling it?

The Joe Rogan Experience with Kara Swisher.

Anyway, Judd, I'm a huge fan.

Thank you so much for taking the time and doing this.

I know you're a busy man.

I love that if I was 8% as good as Scott, I've achieved my goal.

Oh, well over.

Well over.

And everybody watch Bros.

It opens on September 30th.

It really is very funny, but also it's very deep.

It's much deeper than I expected.

Anyway, I'll read us out.

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

Ben Woods 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.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

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