The Latest on Ukraine, A TikTok Investigation, and Guest Gal Beckerman

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Galloway is out today who knows what he's doing.
So we've got a very special co-host in his place.

She joins me early today after taping one of her first episodes as host of MSNBC's 11th hour, Welcome Brian Williams. Oh, no, Stephanie Rose.

A much shorter version of Brian Williams, both from the same day. Oh, in so many ways.
So many ways. So many ways.
So talk to me about how the first week on the job was.

You couldn't be more different than Uncle Brian.

I hate to do this, but what were you, was that vinyl vinyl that you were wearing, white vinyl on the first night?

You know what? It was pleather, to be perfectly honest. It was, it was pleather.
I thought a lot about what I was going to wear, and I thought pleather might be a good call.

Listen, it's been a super stressful week.

And there's tons of news going on. So this whole idea and the pressure that I've been under, listen, Brian Williams is a hero of mine and icon at NBC.

And sort of when I got this opportunity and everyone said, so what show are you going to make? I was like, I'm going to join Brian Williams team.

And I think a lot of people often think, oh, what are you going to call that show? And, you know, a lot of people love to use their last name and turn it into something.

Brian made a great show that has a great audience and I'm joining it. And right now.
And what is why, what's the difference between morning and night?

Is it like, you know, we have this long text chain, a bunch of friends of ours, including Stephanie, we're like, is it going to be naughtier? Is it going to be sassier?

What is, what is, how do you look at it though? Because you have to make it yours. And what's the difference between what you do in the morning and night? I think, you know, Brian and I, I'm probably

by nature naughtier and more sassy than Brian is. But the difference really between day and night is time, right? At 11 o'clock at night, you've got a lot more time to go deep in conversations.

At 9 a.m., we're really covering news, news, news. Now in cable and MSNBC, nighttime really is where we have perspective shows.
And while I'm definitely not an opinion person, right?

I don't have deep ideology.

I am excited to have a little bit more flex in what we cover because I think there's a huge difference between having a point of view, which you can absolutely change,

and having deep ideology.

And so, you know, much like Brian, a lot of our guests are going to be reporters, you know, not just correspondents who are covering a story today, but really reporters who know their beat.

And if you're somebody who's covering, right, Kara, you are someone with an opinion because you have been covering a beat for years and years.

That's very, very different from being an activist with ideology who has a goal of an outcome. And I think at 11 o'clock at night,

there are people, sure, who watch cable all day, but there's other people who just want to know what's the most important thing? What do I need to know? And how do I get ready for tomorrow?

And that's kind of our game plan. So we're, I'm joining Brian.
And you've jumped into huge news. I mean, boy, like, you know, talk about like jumping into into the fire.
What has that been like?

And how do you decide? Obviously, Ukraine is the story, is the story, period.

It really gives you from a

programming standpoint, you're really ripping up the script. Because when I think back to we're starting the show, what are the, you know, who are the guests going to be? What are the ideas?

Like all that flies out the window. And right now, we're just trying to help people get as much information as they need to know about Ukraine.

And I would say maybe what I'm really trying to do, when there's giant news like this, you have a chance of an audience that's bigger than your traditional cable news audience that wants the wonky policy.

You've got people who are simply saying, what the hell is going on on the other side of the world? And we're trying to focus on that for people who don't know every in and out of all of the policies.

They're not foreign policy people. Just, you know, what does this mean to us? Why do I need to care? So for me, I don't know.

Do you ever, you know, I just last night when we started, you know, it was really our first show. And Gary Kasparov was one of the first people we had on.

Gary, you know, chess grandmaster, but he's written many, many books.

And he was the one who said winter is coming. Putin is a madman.
And so now here we are realizing his fears.

And he kind of walked us through, not a snarky, I told you so last night, but this whole idea that we're going to have diplomatic talks, you know, Ukrainian delegates and Russian delegates.

He's like, what? Are you crazy? Putin is completely isolated. And if you think Ukraine is the only place he's going for, you're sorely mistaken.

And that point is why people really need to pay attention. Those people who say, I don't even know where it is on a map.
What does it matter to me?

It certainly matters because it's a threat to democracy.

And I think maybe the amazing thing that we've seen this week, think about all of the Western countries that have coordinated around these sanctions. I mean, extraordinary what they've gotten done.

Yeah. Yeah.

And yet there's still fear in Poland and Finland and Sweden and other places and Germany, especially the first time Germany's added to its defense budget and Switzerland hasn't been neutral.

Switzerland is really neutral. The brand is neutral.

Yeah, not today.

Anyway, we'll talk about obviously the latest developments in Ukraine and a new investigation into TikTok, which has to do with China also, which is also in terms of the social media space and manipulation and things like that.

We'll talk with author Gaul Beckerman about the difficult relation between social media and social progress. But first, a correction.

Earlier this week, my absent co-host Scott cheered on two teams in a soccer match, of which I knew nothing about, but he got the name of the match wrong.

It was the league cup final, not the FA Cup final. Thank you to everyone who wrote in about that.
Again, sports ball is not my area of expertise and obviously not Scott's.

Anyway, let's check on some headlines. Melinda Gates, wow, spoke about her divorce from Bill Gates for the first time in an interview with Gail King.
Let's play a short clip.

People look at you, Melinda French Gates, and say she has it all. Well, I think it's really important to say, look, I had a lot of tears for many days.

I mean, days where I'm literally laying on the floor in the carpet, you know, this close to me, thinking,

how can this be? How can I get up? How am I going to move forward? And days I certainly was angry. That's part of the grieving process.

You're grieving a loss of something you thought you had and thought you had for your lifetime.

So I was not expecting this from her.

She plays it very close to best friend names, interviewed her.

It's all business, usually what she's working on, which was a lot of the philanthropy and some things around education or whatever she happened to be working on.

She's a very serious professional demeanor. I was sort of surprised by this.
What do you think? I know her pretty well too. I was surprised by it, but at the same time,

Melinda's the real deal. And she doesn't want to be treated like or viewed as Bill Gates is plus one who does stuff at the foundation, right? She is a force.

And it certainly sounds like, and, you know, kind of reading between the tea leaves, leaves,

she really went through something with him. And

I don't, it doesn't appear that she's going to air all of their dirty laundry, but it almost seemed like she was saying

that person I was living with, it wasn't about forgiving someone for doing something.

It was about a person I was married to living a different lifestyle. And that's not,

I was surprised to see Melinda Gates be so vulnerable. But the reason it's so refreshing when people of influence

kind of not show you their dirty laundry, but show you how complicated life is, it kind of gives freedom, it gives license to everyone else that like life is bumpy and ugly, but it doesn't mean you can't lead an extraordinary one.

And so, I think she talked about it.

At the end of that interview, the piece that you saw, she said, 2022, it's a new life for me. Why, though?

I just didn't know why. I just was, she wanted to say it, I think.
She just wanted to say it publicly because she's been silent.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, I think back to when I used to, I'm sure you did these interviews, when I used to interview Bill and Melinda, when their letter would come out.

And listen, it would always be. This is an annual letter they put out for people who don't know.

But let's be honest, it would be, and when they would come for interviews, it would be everybody would want to interview Bill and they were a package deal.

And she probably felt like she didn't get the credit that she deserved. And maybe she didn't.
And now she wants it, right?

These, especially from a philanthropy standpoint, she's got a whole lot of money to give and she wants to give it in a purposeful way and be a voice of influence.

And she's saying, I'm here to do that, right? I think she's

she also has pivotal ventures. She's also an investor.
She's been doing a lot of investing in women-run companies, et cetera. So I suspect she wants a higher profile.

In a very different way, you know, people love to like Mackenzie Bezos, Melinda Gates. Mackenzie Bezos, in the most extraordinary fashion, is giving her money away.

She's giving it away in a big public fashion, but she remains very quiet about it and

is going to stay that way. Melinda's different.

Yeah, absolutely.

So other things, something you know a lot about, Jerome Powell said the Fed is ready to raise interest rates and the Federal Reserve chairs that he will move to fight inflation.

The move comes as the Ukrainian war has already raised gas prices and probably will further. But Powell says the effects of that war in the U.S.
remain highly uncertain.

So if the issue is gas prices, shouldn't Democrats seize the moment and propose clean energy subsidies? Obviously, they're releasing

gas so that we'll have

from our different reserves

and liberate West from Russian oil. Biden has said nothing's off the table when it comes to banning Russian oil imports.
And still, the oil prices, I think they're higher than $113 a barrel.

You saw $117 a barrel. So talk a little bit a little bit about the interplay between energy prices, interest rates, and inflation.
So the gas prices thing is really rough.

It doesn't matter how far, how well we're doing in the economic recovery, because we are doing well, right?

Unemployment is at 4%. Biden created 6.5 million jobs.
Wages are up. All those things are great.

Consumer spending is up, household savings. However, look how he's polling, especially in terms around the economy, very low.
And it's because of inflation. It's because of how people feel.

And when gas prices are high, it's a political disaster because you could have a great new job with a great new salary but on your way to work you're driving by six gas stations and people pay attention to the price of gas and they do my son was just saying look at that price the guy was like what do you care you're not paying for i mean it's my mom's favorite topic and so this is an issue for the biden administration um

what they say nothing's off the table earlier this week they're like well they're releasing um barrels from the strategic reserve it's a drop in the bucket I mean, we could see things that we didn't expect.

You know, they could potentially strike a deal with Iran. I just asked the question last night.
I certainly wasn't advocating for it.

I asked Secretary Buttijej, I said, any shot, the president could authorize the Keystone pipeline, which, and Twitter just lit me on fire.

Biden's in a tough spot. You look pretty good.
And Jerome Powell is too, right? If you want to start to address inflation, it's about raising rates. Now, given the situation in Ukraine, it gets hard.

But I just think back, why are rates as low as they are, Kara? Interest rates are supposed to be at zero when when you're in an economic crisis.

They have been extraordinarily low for way, way, way too long. It's why the stock market did so well.
And it was just like this giant, giant safety net.

So now we're here in a situation where this inflation problem is a huge issue. And one thing I really been thinking about in the last 24 hours, inflation's a problem.
Gas prices are high.

And this is all coming just as people are going back to work. You heard Joe Biden say State of the Union two nights ago.
Get to work. It's time to bring federal employees back to work.

And on one hand, I absolutely understand that. You live in D.C.

where, you know, the city doesn't have a lot of people going to work. It's empty.
It's hard on the city. But

people have also proven over the last two years, many people, that they can get the job done. They can work in different ways.

And now we're going to ask people to go back to work, to get in the car and commute when gas prices are really high and getting a coffee, getting lunch is so expensive.

When what we should be doing is saying, you know what? If if you're saving some money, that's a good thing. So it's complicated.

This is a time when a lot of business leaders maybe need to rethink who is coming back to work. What does work look like?

We convince our, you know, the Jamie Diamonds of the world are of the mindset work gets done if everybody's sitting at the conference table. And I don't entirely disagree with him.

I certainly like to be with everyone, but this is still a complicated time, not just because of COVID. Maybe we should be reimagining work.

For federal employees, if you're commuting an hour and a half to work, and we often say, How do you get people to take some of these jobs?

How do you get really smart accounting people to go work at the IRS where they're not going to make as much money as they would in the private sector?

Well, if federal employees could work from home, that's a lot more attractive to a lot of people. Yeah.
You work from home. Yeah, but there's also the...

Yeah, I always said, but the political pressure to bring people back, you know, he's competing against Ron DeSantis or whoever.

This is also a political issue as well as anything else. I think he has to say COVID's over, essentially.
Yeah,

a democratic version version of COVID. We're going to be safe.
I mean,

he said it in the state of the union. But we also need employees to start saying, not, I need to stay home from work.
I need to stay home from the office because of COVID.

Now is the time where we can say to our employers, let's talk about optimizing my job, my performance, and is there a chance for me to work from home? But I fully understand how frustrating it is.

Listen, there's all sorts of business leaders that you and I both talk to who say, I don't get it. Right here in New York City, office buildings are empty, but our bars and restaurants are open.

So there are a lot of employers who aren't buying the argument that people don't feel safe. They don't feel safe enough to go to work when the Expedia CEO is expecting the biggest travel summer ever.

You can't make the argument, I'm staying home because I don't feel safe.

But you could potentially make the argument. Now it's inflation.
Now it's gas.

But guess what? How about this is a time when businesses can talk to their best employees and say, what is it that you're looking for? It might not just be compensation.

Work from home should be viewed in a different way now. Let's get creative.
But to just say, oh, it's not COVID safe. I'm not coming in.
That's going to be a hard argument.

Interest rates going up to deal with inflation. They have to.

They have to.

There's no choice. Unfortunately,

the people who are, when you look at polling, who are most worried about inflation, Kara, are wealthy people.

And, you know, one of the things that keeps prices very high is that people are willing to pay those prices. When people aren't willing to pay the high prices, there's pressure for them to go down.

And right now, while there are a lot of people struggling economically, at the same time, there are lots of people who saved a lot in the last few years, and they're doing quite well.

Yeah, and they're spending a lot of money. Okay, let's get to our first big story.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is forcing big changes for companies in tech, media, and finance.

Apple halted sales to Russia earlier this week and pulled apps of Russian state-sponsored media from its app store, although there's plenty of other Russian state-sponsored stuff that you don't see quite as clearly.

But apps remain available to Russian users, however. Meanwhile, the Instagram users in Russia and Ukraine can now send encrypted messages in the app.

Meta says the change is part of its effort to keep users safe. Encrypted messaging is already available in WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

There's all kinds of YouTube is doing all kinds of things. Facebook, Google,

Oracle pulled, stopped doing business there.

Obviously, there's rumors that Microsoft is considering it, although they're trying to, I think, figure out what to do about its current customers, its existing customers.

I think most companies feel they're probably aren't going to be doing business in Russia now for a while,

but they have existing customers there that they have to service. So what has to happen with that?

Apple's stock is down since the invasion began.

Russia's business is estimated to be $2.5 billion, but there's no physical store locations. It's certainly not as important as China China or other places.

So how do you look at the tech response, which is sort of finally making choices that they were unwilling to make in other areas? Well, this time, Kara, it truly is life or death.

Civilians are being murdered in Ukraine. Eight days ago across Ukraine, children were going to school.
Now they're either in the crossfires in a war zone or they've fled their country.

Chances are with their mothers and not with their fathers or teenage brothers, right? When you really think about how grave this situation is and how much worse it can get, right?

There is no reason to believe if Putin is successful in Ukraine, he's not going to push further, right?

This is, so to see tech companies step in right now is huge, right? What's happening in Russia? Those people are in an information vacuum.

What Russia's state-run media is shoving down their throats is beyond conspiracy theories.

Just yesterday, there are some radio stations that shut down in Russia because they just can't bear to be pushing out the lies.

I mean, the fact that Putin is telling people this is a denazification of Ukraine is just absolutely insane.

Well, although, you know, I think a lot of the population doesn't believe it because, like, for example, they shut down

the independent news organization TV Rain.

The site's editor-in-chief says that he's now fled Russia. They notice these things.
They've depended on these stations too.

There's been a few independent ones, mostly for entertainment and things like that, because most state-run media is decried by the they make fun of it.

You know, when you're in Russia, that's what they do.

But nonetheless, they have an information deficit there, as you said.

When these things go away, they notice that. They notice that maybe the truth isn't there.
And a lot of this information is seeping through, whether it's

all kinds of ways that people do manage to get information.

Do you consider what the tech companies are doing to be a good thing? Is starting throttling them off in terms of information? Absolutely.

I do think it's a good thing because the tech companies, you know, when it comes to Russia, have to deal with the government. The government controls everything.

So it's not like Apple was the lifeline for the people there. And I do have an enormous amount of sympathy for Russians.
I mean, they're experiencing economic warfare.

And while Putin, who is a multi-multi-billionaire, doesn't mind being cut off, he is sending them on a road to North Korea. With every passing day, they are more isolated.

And their economy, and it's always important to remind people, Russia may be a nuclear superpower. They are an economic midget.
Before this, they were the 11th largest economy.

Okay, it's like the size of the state of New York. It's pathetic.
And under Putin's rule, their economy has done nothing, right? Their only exports are oil and gas and wheat, no other industries.

That is pathetic. And now all of those Russian people are suffering yet again economically.
And he's never cared, right? The oligarchs are richer than beyond belief, as is Putin.

He's never cared about his own people suffering. The question will be, will this get so bad? that he could get removed from office.

And I don't think there's ever been a time that he's been in power that people have thought about that credibly. And you wonder

if the West is successful at sanctioning oligarchs, and even though we're talking about it and we're doing it, I still don't believe it because you know better than I do.

If there's one thing that mega-rich people know how to do, it's find loopholes. It's get protected.
And if those oligarchs really start to get punished, you wonder if they will turn on Putin.

Because guess what? None of them live in Russia. They live in London.
They live in the south of France. They live in New York.

They don't have his delusions of grandeur about Russia being a superpower.

They're just his boys. He's been theirs, and he's enabled them to become obscenely wealthy.
But if that changes, they could turn on him. They could.

Now, the online investigators are still tracking private jets and yachts of Russian oligarchs. That's become a problem for Credit Suisse.

The bank asked investors this week to destroy documents showing its financial relationship with sanctioned Russian Tygoons, specifically their yacht and plane loans.

Credit Suisse said the private documents were leaked to the media.

What were they thinking?

This leaked documents, the Suisse secrets, I guess. Okay, well, I just say pathetic to Credit Suisse.

I worked at Credit Suisse for six years of my life, and they're panicked right now because Credit Suisse years ago was a major global investment bank. Now they're not.

If you go to their website right now, it basically says private wealth management with a kick of investment banking on the side.

So they desperately need to keep all of those private, well, all of those private banking clients. Right now, it is all about being a private Swiss bank.

So they don't want any of that information to get out. And the fact that they want it kept secret just shows how self-serving they are.
And I would go one step further.

If you look at the last few years, it's even from the financial crisis, how well banks have done, how well bank stocks have done, Credit Suisse's stock has sucked.

And this speaks to the culture of a company.

If this is how you operate, you can see a through line and say, wow, well, Jamie Dimon, who runs a completely different type of bank, has had much stronger stock performance.

And here's a great example why.

That they're not in bed with these people. So one of the things that's interesting is sort of squeezing Russia informationally.
We can get to what Ukraine is doing, which is very canny.

It doesn't mean it means anything because, you know, it's one thing to win the social media meme more, and it's another to have a tank roll into your city and bomb all the apartment buildings.

It's a really interesting juxtaposition. In some ways, it's a very good thing that they're winning this war, especially the cyber war, I guess, or social media war.

But does it mean anything from your perspective? Does it actually matter?

You know, that remains to be seen. And while

we're all standing here saying, I stand with Ukraine and it's amazing to watch these civilians fight for their country, we're saying that from the comfort of our homes, right?

The president is literally

in a bunker. The president, you're right, Zelensky is in a bunker right now with a helmet on and he's, you know, public enemy number one.
We're, you know, thousands of people are losing their lives.

And when you look at those videos of women and children leaving and saying goodbye to their sons, and I mean, Tara, both of you, if you were Ukrainian,

you would be leaving your sons there.

And so I think, you know, we're, we sit here and we're like, we're so inspired by Ukraine. It's so amazing what they're doing.
I I don't think we're appreciating what they're experiencing.

We'd rather do memes. And another thing, what, by the way, American companies putting pressure on, which I think most of us support,

they did not put out, do they have to do it in every international conflict to come? They are facing criticism for doing this in Ukraine and not in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

You're seeing a lot of that.

But they are making choices, and it's interesting the choices they're making.

I, you know, people think it has to do with race and color and stuff like that. So it also brings those issues to mind.
Well, they wouldn't have to make those choices if we had more regulation.

Yep. Right? Yep.
That's a fair point.

If we had more government regulation about how these businesses operate around information in the way that, let's say, traditional media companies, like the one I work at, does, then they wouldn't have to make these choices.

I actually think it would be easier for them to conduct business.

Right. Well, they also, you have certain standards and rules

where you are versus other places. One interesting thing is they're also cutting off entertainment to Russia.
No Batman. That's an interesting thing.
Russian, Batman, which is maybe a favor.

It's getting terrible reviews. Warner Brothers is postponing the release of The Batman in Russia.
Disney and Sony will pause their upcoming release schedule in Russia as well.

Again, it's not a huge market for Hollywood, so it's not.

it's not the biggest flex, I suppose, but the studio needs all the ticket sales it can get. Do you think taking this hit is a good thing? Yeah.
Or just a meaningless gesture?

Whether or not it's meaningless, we should be doing absolutely nothing right now to serve Russia. Nothing.

So just pull them, pull the plug online. But listen, I understand what you're saying, that when you make moves like this, it's a slippery slope.

Because what about when the next conflict comes and the next conflict? But guess what? That's what the boys in the C-suite and women have to figure out. Not our problem.
It's theirs. Yeah.
Okay.

Stephanie, we're going to have a quick break. When we come back, the law comes for tick tock and we'll speak with friend at pivot gall beckerman

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Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

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Okay, Stephanie, we're back with our second big story. State's attorneys general around the country are investigating TikTok's effect on young users.
This is not a new thing.

Facebook already faced this around Instagram. The inquiry looks on how TikTok may have tried to keep young users hooked on the app.
It's a very hooky app.

Another coalition of state AGs made a similar case against Facebook last year, and Facebook is still under the microscope. President Biden brought Facebook whistleblower Francis Haugen.

I was sort of surprised to the State of the Union address earlier this week. I was like, what? Like when that popped up.

Here's how the moment played out. Children were also struggling before the pandemic, bullying, violence, trauma, and the harms of social media.

As Francis Haugen, who is here tonight with us, has shown, we must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they're conducting on our children for profit.

Oh, all right. That's just a big thing with politicians.
Even though there's been some pushback that maybe we don't have enough research yet, I think there should be plenty.

There should be more research and transparency to understand the causal relationship here and the correlation.

So, state's attorney general's case against Facebook still had trouble from the start, although it's a good political thing to pull out.

The case against Facebook involved the acquisition of its WhatsApp and Instagram and things like that. But this issue around teen girls and such is an important one.

It's added with TikTok is owned by a Chinese company and there are some worries about that.

So what do you think about this? I got to be honest. Like you said, you were surprised to see Francis.
I'm frustrated by it. It's a political show.

Our lawmakers have done absolutely nothing from a regulatory front to curb these businesses and protect our children. And great, let's parade Francis in there.

Well, you know who's standing outside the building? The scores of high-paid lobbyists that work for these same companies that are shimmying up to these lawmakers, and it's working.

So I just don't buy, oh, great, Francis is there. Call me when you actually do something.
We haven't and our children are suffering for it.

Do you, you know, there wasn't this New York Times piece talking about whether this really does have an effect because we don't have enough proof. It wasn't saying it didn't.

It said there isn't enough proof that we have it. What do you think has to happen?

I think, you know, there's been some legislation proposed to require transparency to outside researchers, et cetera, to get this information.

There is a worrisome issue around TikTok collecting all this information on young people.

Why go for this thing right here versus some other more serious issues around tech companies, do you think? Because there must be details around this one that make it gettable, right?

I think that they're going for this thing for honestly, like technical reasons that are not very sexy at all. But the issue is there's not enough outside conclusive research.

They're not actually breaking any current laws, rules, or regulations. But we know that these attorney generals would like to do something.

And so I think there must be some level of technicality where they think they have a decent shot. And for the average person, this is so frustrating, right? Just this, right? And

they're saying, How on earth can nothing be done over this? Imagine what this is like for parents who have kids that are suffering, who have kids that they've lost, yet nothing happens.

And these businesses just get bigger and bigger and bigger. It's devastating.
Is it an issue you have with your kids? My kids are not very on those things. You know what?

Most of them are like, it makes me feel bad. Why should I do it?

The issue for me is, right? So my kids are 8, 13, and 15. The issue for me is that we're really strict in our house about devices.
And

the problem on the other side of that, you know, it kind of makes your kid an isolated pilgrim. And that's hard too, right? Because

you know what I mean? Like, kids, kids aren't talking on the phone. Like, this is how, this is what their world is.
This is how they communicate.

And I have a 15-year-old. And as soon as he's on Snapchat, the world ends because he gets himself in trouble.
And

do I blame these teenagers? No, they're impulsive. If everything you and I did when we were 15, 16, 17 was recorded, oh my gosh.
I mean, disaster city.

Our texts are bad. Our texts are bad.

I mean, you know, we have a, gosh, Kara and I are on a very, very exciting text chain.

And so I feel sympathy of what

we're expecting our kids to have self-control that we certainly didn't have.

No, it's, trust me, it is definitely a problem in my house. I'm most worried.
I have an eight-year-old daughter who I'm on her like a hawk. When you see what they have access to, it's just crazy.

When I see my son,

the girls who he talks to, what they're wearing, how they're behaving.

And it's so hard for parents to even keep up with it. No, it's, it's terrible.
I mean, it's a huge problem. Should you age gate these things? Scott has talked about age gating.

Are you a proponent of that? Like, this is one thing that could come of this, this idea of age gating all of these things.

You age gate liquor, you age gate cigarettes, you age gate the military, et cetera.

Yeah, and it's complete bullshit when companies like Instagram say, Well, you can't have an Instagram account if you're under 13.

Like, really, I invite anyone who works at Instagram to come sit next to me, and I'm gonna show you puppies, chimpanzees, and babies who have their own Instagram pages.

And I assure you, when they're having meetings with consumer brands and advertisers, they're not saying, Oh, we don't have any eyeballs under the age of 13. That would be a big, fat lie.

Absolutely age-gated. They do not have the impulse control.

When I just think about how sad I was as a girl in the sixth grade or the seventh grade or the eighth grade, you know, in fear of missing out or girls being mean to each other or, you know, not getting invited to things.

And all I was doing was thinking. about where other girls could be on a Friday night.
Now you're watching it endlessly. Yeah.

And you you didn't have your white vinyl outfit then at the time so you know you know you couldn't you didn't have your tv show and white i did i did have a white leather fringe jacket that i wore for years oh yeah

that's that's precisely why you are sitting at home um so one of the so when you think about is there any that's worse than the other do you feel like it's instagram or tick tock or i just see air i have a burner phone that i use tiktok on because i'm quite worried about the chinese government and it is connected to nothing but public wi-fi that's just like it doesn't connect it to anything that is my information.

And I watch a lot of air fryer.

I mean, TikTok. That's it.
It's air fryers. Yeah, that's what comes up.
I just like air fryers.

I just had the fire department show up at my house this week because of a slight air fryer incident, to be totally honest.

I don't use the only TikToks I see are through our friend Brooke Hammerling, who basically, I think she just looks at TikTok all day long and finds the best ones. So that's why she does.

I don't use TikTok because I think I would get sucked into it.

But it worries me very, very much, right?

When my son, who's 15, when all of a sudden he comes downstairs with these like crazy, crazy, ridiculous conspiracy theories that are often about young men or tied to politics, all I have to do is walk upstairs and see where YouTube or TikTok took him.

Took him. Took him.
And that is different.

That is wildly different from when I was a teenager, babysitting at people's houses, hoping they had HBO or Skinamac so I could watch, you know, rated R movies that I wasn't allowed to watch at home.

Right. Skinamac.
I haven't heard that word in a long time. Watching Gilbert Gottfried up all night on Saturday night is just nudity, right?

What our kids are watching, how dangerous it is when you go down a TikTok path, is significantly worse than me wanting to babysit for rich people that had pay cable.

Yeah, my kids stay on John Oliver. That's where they stay.
Oh, you know what? You're a show off. You are a show-off.
We all wish that. But they do.
That's what happens.

They just watch John Oliver as I'm borderline and meaning. Like, I think my son is following alt-right influencers.
Claire watches and can't do on a full loop that goes on and on and on.

It's a very good movie. It is.
After this point, it's not. Last question: Facebook stock.
We're going to have a goal Beckerman in on a second to talk about some of these kinds of issues.

Facebook stock has been in the dumps lately. It's still in the dumps.
What do you make of that? Whoo-hoo-hoo. Don't Don't cry for me, Argentina.

Facebook will find its way again.

I have no sympathy for Facebook. I have no sympathy for Facebook shareholders.

What do I think about Facebook? I think Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg should sit down with you and I for an interview. Yeah, they're not going to do that.

And I think it's so tiresome to watch Cheryl do her Instagram videos of here's Cheryl Sandberg talking to a small business and how excited she is. Give me a break.
Yeah.

Two of the most influential people in the business planet. Why don't you sit down and have

an have an unregulated conversation about your real business? Until that, they're not getting any more of our breath.

They're not going to do that. My Jim Bank off ran into some of them and

they were complaining about how mean I was. Anyway, their stock is down 44%,

45%. What do you think of this? It's the past six months.

I don't know if it's going to recover. You know, they always recover.
They're the only game in town from an advertising point of view, but I think there's a feeling about them that's not good.

And I think Instagram is losing a little steam to TikTok.

But their only hope is that TikTok is revealed to be, you know, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party definitively or if the Biden administration does something.

Well, if that's your only business strategy, you need a better one. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.
I think they're a level of innovation. I think the spending on the metaverse is problematic, et cetera.
But we'll see where they go.

But they are certainly trying to do the right thing in this case. And we'll see.

I think you see the influence of Nick Clegg here from an international perspective. But do you really believe they're in any sort of trouble? You and I might say, well, we don't use Facebook, but

millions of others. I think

that I do. But

I think eventually all these companies die.

I think they, no matter how big they are, or they morph into something else like Microsoft did. And we'll see.

Sure, but as you're saying that, I'm sure my sister is Facebooking whatever she ate for breakfast this morning.

While saying that she doesn't like doing that,

yeah, okay. All right, so anyway, we'll see what happens.
But now we're going to bring in our friend of Pivot.

Gaul Beckerman is a senior editor for books at The Atlantic and the author of The Quiet Before on the unexpected origins of radical ideas.

He joins us to discuss the way social media complicates and maybe inhibits any movement for social justice. Welcome, Gaul.
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for coming.

So, we were just talking about what was happening in Ukraine with their use of social media and platforms to get out their ideas. I guess I sort of want to start there.

Like, this is a book that talks about, you know, so the history of this thing going way, way back: orators in Victorian Britain, futuristic, as the Times noted, futuristic manifesto, shouters in a Florence theater in 1913, the evening concluding with a light bulb smashing against the side of, is it Filippo Martinetti's face as he tried to read out a political political statement?

This is not a new thing, the ability to scream and shout. It's just amplified and weaponized in some cases.
So let's start with Ukraine.

What do you imagine through the lens of this book you're seeing there?

Well, what I tried to do in the book is look at the various modes that social movements and people who try to make revolution in their societies,

what modes of communication they have at their disposal, right?

So, and the criticism I have of the last 10, 15 years is that we've sort of over-relied on social media that that the loud sort of bullhorn that twitter or facebook provides has has made it so that that activists dissidents people who are you know aching to make change don't recognize the smaller quieter spaces where they probably should be first communicating and strategizing As for this moment, what I'd say is that it is one of those rare instances where activists really need the bullhorn.

They need to be able to draw attention to what's happening, especially considering the disinformation that's going on in Russia at the moment.

Most Russian people don't really understand at all what's happening in Ukraine. They think there's some sort of minor conflagration in the east and not a full-scale invasion.
And so

a Twitter or a Facebook could be extremely helpful in getting out a narrative at this moment.

Rather than these quiet spaces. Can you explain this idea of the quiet spaces? Because social movements like Me Too and Black Lives Matter have been fairly successful.

So have right-wing efforts to sort of amplify and anger people, election lies, anti-vax and stuff like that. Very loud, very bullhorn.

Talk about that versus the quieter organizational places because nothing's quiet these days. Nothing is quiet.

It's not just that nothing is quiet, but that these movements that the way they set their expectations, sort of how they understand change actually works, has been really molded by the metabolism of social media.

So the thought is that, you know, all we need to do is gain this moment of visibility, this moment of attention, this sort of sugar high of everyone turning towards our way and our slogan, and it's done.

And the reality is, is we've seen sort of over and over again, and I sort of track the beginnings of this to the quote unquote Twitter revolutions in the early 2010s and in the Arab Spring in particular,

what we've seen is that they do get these moments of attention, visibility. There's even

moments where the conversation changes at a societal level. And undoubtedly that's important, especially when we're talking about the kind of progressive causes that we might all be on board on here.

But then they just kind of fade away and they don't know how to translate that into the on-the-ground

organizing and sort of

moving laws in their direction, kind of the actual real, concrete, tangible changes that are in many cases the ultimate goals of these movements, but that sort of get swept away

by the hugeness of

that bullhorn.

What about, I mean, while it's extraordinary to see, right, some of these amazing social movements that represent really important causes, the fact that they're able to mobilize and get these platforms and these megaphones are inspirational.

But are we forgetting that

on the other side of the coin, Carol's mentioning it,

forces for evil, anti-vaxxers, just

conspiracy theorists are able to use these same platforms, right? When you said, listen, it's great for, you know, for people who are living in Russia.

So they can actually, if you can use a Twitter, a Facebook and actually see what's going on there, that's assuming the videos that are on those platforms haven't been altered. Right.

Because there's no standards on these platforms, you think, oh, we're going to bring this to the people so they can see the truth. But who's deciding what the truth is? There's no rules.
Right.

Well, that's, I mean, that's one of the challenges of that sort of public sphere where

it's so loud and so viral and so much about grabbing attention, too. I mean, we know that these are the sort of incentive models on those platforms.
And

I think that the problem is that

some of the...

Some of the movements that we look at today and we think about the kind of anti-social and terrible ways that they're affecting society, they actually have had some of of that quiet space.

And the reason is, is that they've been sort of pushed down there, right? So

I have a chapter.

So I have a chapter on the white supremacists who sort of built up to Charlottesville. And I was able to gain access to their chats sort of in the three or four months leading up to Charlottesville.

They were on Discord. you know, the gaming app, because it was an extremely useful place for them to be.

It was private. They had their own moderators controlling their little chat rooms.
They could kick out anybody who wasn't sort of on board with what they were talking about.

And what I was able to observe there, once I got past sort of the disgustingness of just even spending that much time in their presence, was

people really incubating a certain set of ideas. They were hashing things out.

They were working as a movement towards making the kind of change they wanted to make in the world and consolidating their visions, figuring out, hammering out ideology, deciding optics.

Optics Optics was a huge thing for them. You know, they want to recruit more people to their worldview.
How are they going to do that? You know, what should they be wearing?

Literally, what should they be wearing and what should they not be wearing? All of those questions had a space to really be discussed and worked out.

One of my worries is that because the bullhorn is so attractive, that the movements that are allowed to kind of flourish there, take a Black Lives Matter, you know, or a Me Too, don't give themselves that space.

And in fact, we've kind of vilified those small quiet spaces. You know, we call them derisively safe spaces, right? And

my argument is that there is a definite role for them in the building

and development of a movement.

It's interesting because, you know, so if not Facebook and Twitter, what does good communication look like in a successful social movement?

I'm thinking, you know, you're talking, you know, Reddit used to be a place for that, a quieter place, although it was a public place.

These groups are, there's all these new conservative social networks where they're all talking.

They're not doing very well because they're talking to each other and they don't like, you know, they want to yell at liberals or they want to be engaged with, you know, so much is done out in the open these days versus sort of in plain sight.

What do you consider a good communication looks like in a social media movement? Is using both,

doing that hashtag of

ism?

Or is it, is it these, you know, because nobody's been meeting each other physically for a while now. Well, first of all, I think you do need to use both.

I wouldn't deny that there is an absolute role for the bullhorn, and I wouldn't want to take that away from people who, you know, have now the ability to reach at a scale and a speed, you know, that was never possible before.

So let's put that aside. But then I think you also need a place for real conversation.

And I think it's not hard to kind of take the conditions that social media has imposed on our own personal life, our personal interactions, and even look at democracy and the the effects that it's had on democracy and understand how those could apply to social movements in a negative way.

And the antidote to that is to say we need to be able to have a place to communicate. with different incentive structures, right? So if you just take away the like button or the upvote or the sort of

this mode of communication that privileges

the bombastic or the shouting,

you immediately enter a space like this discord room for these white supremacists, where they're not just trying to get attention, but they're actually trying to continue a conversation. Organize.

They're trying to organize.

And there's sort of, you know, even if you look at how a conversation develops, you know, without the like button, you know, when it's the incentive is not, let me say the thing that's going to draw everyone's attention in my direction, but it's let me say the thing that's going to keep the conversation going, that's going to say, that's a good point.

Have we thought about this? Or I know you're saying this, but I think this. You know, that sort of flow

is just not, there's no,

those platforms weren't built for that. I mean, they were not, they don't really serve those ends.
And it's a little like the QAnon thing, right?

I mean, because QAnon was this little club that everybody is in, but they're by themselves, and no one was aware of it for a long time.

And then everyone lost their mind, their ever-loving minds that they were talking about these things.

I mean, in a way, you could say that what I'm arguing is that

what has incubated these kind of the same

conditions that have incubated a movement like QAnon could be a wonderful thing for a kind of pro-social movement of, say, you know, activists trying to figure out a different way to confront climate change, let's say.

You know, do they have those spaces where they're just sort of, you know, in a small, heated, intense, intimate environment where they're talking amongst themselves as opposed to kind of shouting out to the world?

Can I ask, what was it like for you to spend those weeks or months in that chat room, in that space with white supremacists?

What was that like?

It's pretty it's pretty,

I'd say it's a combination of horrible and kind of slightly amusing, if I'm honest with myself, because like they're so embedded in their worldview, that even just like the jokes they make, the way they talk to one another.

It's just so, it's like they're living on another planet, you know, and which is, which is the value of it too, right?

Because they're able to sort of feel that they're reinforcing one another's ideas, that

those ideas actually have power.

I say as a somebody who's Jewish, it was particularly disgusting because, you know, they, they are obsessed, obsessed with Jews and the role that they feel Jews have in a kind of nefarious way in affecting all levels of society.

In some ways, it was more. Not new, not new, but.
Yeah, not new, but not new, but to actually be like, who should we throw into the gas chamber first?

You know, like to see them kind of make these jokes in such a flippant way.

In some ways, it felt more anti-Semitic than overtly racist, bizarrely, you know, because they think the Jews are really behind even, you know, things like immigration, things like, you know, helping, you know,

minorities in all levels of society. You know, they, they, they, it's the one sort of evil that they imagine.
And so, uh,

Kara,

but I guess I ask because

how jarring it must be to actually hear it

yeah i mean the other thing that was interesting to me about seeing you know we we sort of associate uh the what that sort of online white supremacy with a kind of that their mode of communication is sort of snarky and always like you know memes and you know just but they actually there was a level of sort of earnestness you know if you took an intimacy yeah

intimacy yeah if you took like three steps or many many more steps than that away from the actual content of what they were talking about they were like hey fam.

You know, they would refer to each other as family or like, you know, they would, you know, I remember there was one exchange that kind of, again, made me laugh and was disgusted at the same time about a guy who, a guy comes in and says that he, he went on a date with a woman who he found out is half Jewish.

And everyone is like consoling him and sort of

saying it's okay, man. You know, it's, it was almost like a kind of a locker room.

kind of thing, you know, and

I was just struck by the almost like the level of vulnerability that they allowed themselves when that was. You know, here's a question I have.

One of the things when I was covering the early internet, one of the great things was for people that were that were like-minded or had like-minded, like hobbies finding each other.

Whether it was gay people, you know, who never could, who are separated and disparate,

or I remember a time when all these quilters came together at AOL and they made a quilt online for Steve Case.

And it was really quite moving in terms of people not finding each other across chasms of time and and space, essentially. Then what really happened, though, is the right wing took over this.

I interviewed Ralph Reed very early. They were using online spaces like this to find each other because they were zeroed out of regular media.
They were zeroed out of, you know, take

newspapers and television. This is pre-Fox News.
And what was interesting to me is that they could find connection. And the connections they found were

like white supremacists or right-wing things. And they do very well in these spaces because they need that feeling of community and connection and they're being attacked.

So I would ask you what I think of when you when you have these one of the great things about the internet is millions of connections that get

made every day. It's astonishing.
And people can be thoughtful or they can be thoughtless or whatever they want to be, but it does create, it is a perfect place for

people who are disgruntled to gather.

And you see this, you know, you have, you know, Gavin McInnes, Richard Spencer, et cetera, who you see physically, but there's many more spaces that are either anti-vex or election lies, or it tends to go towards the aggrieved more than the let's all get together and talk about air fryers, which again is my biggest interest these days.

Why are you so into air fryers? Why are you so into air fryers? Because they're cool. They are.
Just don't even speak to me about it. They're cool.
They please me.

They please me on every, I don't know why. I'm not going to explain it to you.
It's one of my passions. Anyway,

I like an air fryer. I look for air fryer recipes, but it's definitely not my go-to.

Gaul doesn't care about any of this. What I'm wondering is

why does it tend towards the negative? He might. Why does it tend toward the negative and not the enjoyment of air fryers, for example? And it does to an extent, by the way.
It does.

So I'm actually, I'm really interested in this question of sort of what the internet was for and sort of and how things got skewed and it was nice. It was nice.
It was nice.

I actually have a chapter in the book that's sort of, you know, about cyberspace, as we called it back then.

And I focused on the well, which I'm sure I feel like you must be familiar with. But the well was like pre-internet, you know, in the 80s.

It was this group of a few thousand people, I think, you know, mostly in the Bay Area. And it was truly the first sort of online community.

You know, there had been sort of message boards beforehand for very, you know, kind of geeky

Star Trek message boards, you know, but this was like a really interesting bunch of intelligent all communicating in this new disembodied way.

And

what was interesting about it is, you know, the people who ran the well were hippies.

I mean, they were people who had all lived on communes in the 70s, and they felt they were bringing to this community a knowledge of what it means to sort of to create community and how you, you know, what guardrails you need to have up to keep things productive, you know, how you kind of pull people aside and say, look, you know, things are getting intense here.

Let's kind of cool down. And they did all of that.
You know, they really. It was also about how they lived.
It was out of the whole earth catalog, right?

It was about, you know, build your own entire home. That kind of stuff.
Yeah. They believed in the power of tools.
You know, so they had this kind of...

So what was interesting to me in kind of delving into the well was that there was this idealism that emerged from the well, right?

That the internet could be this place that had all of these private spaces where people of common interest could come together.

But the thing, and, you know, Silicon Valley has picked up that ideology and that romanticism in a big way, right?

We still sort of, you know, if you listen to Mark Zuckerberg, he still talks about, you know, what he produces as being a place to make connections and a place to, but the part that got lost, that got kind of forgotten was like day two, they had a troll, you know, like they had, they needed bouncers in cyberspace, you know, they, and they understood this.

And that element of it, then the need for kind of

structure to make sure that the conversation that was going to happen, these spaces that were going to exist for people actually proved to be

creative and productive for them, that part of it sort of got lost somewhere along the kind of capitalist route towards creating bigger and bigger platforms that were going to keep people on for longer and longer.

And so I do think that that sort of seed is still there, what you're talking about, this place where, you know,

the time and space doesn't exist. You can sort of connect with with people in new and interesting ways.
I think it's just right now, we've lost a bit of self-awareness about where that can happen.

And I think that's the interjection. The metaverse.

So what's your takeaway at the end of all this? My takeaway is that

we,

you know, I'm my book is focused

on how kind of new ideas enter into the world and the fact that the public sphere that we

inhabit today is one that is not particularly good for generating

those new ideas. It's not twitchy and reductive.
Twitchy and reductive. And we know this.
This is not new.

We know this in almost every other realm of our life. We know this, right?

Even in the time that I've been working on this book, I feel like there's been such a more growing awareness of how it's affecting us, how it's affecting my kids.

But yet, when it comes to the building of movements,

to change happening and social and political change happening in the world, I think we still hold on to this kind of romantic idea that all you need is a hashtag to go viral and like everything will change.

And I mean, I'm being a little flip, but I do think a lot of people kind of still have that sense of it.

And what I would like people to do to the extent that I have any recommendations for coming out of this book, because it's essentially a book of stories that I hope people will sort of learn from, but is that there are other modes of communicating and that we should look for them.

And it's not that we can't find them online, but we need to maybe stop vilifying the kind of value of seclusion a little bit, you know, and understand that that's important. Connective tissue.

Exactly. And we need connective tissue.
It can't be through a TikTok dance video. Yep.

Anyway. All right.
Gal, thank you so much. It's a terrific book.
I love all the historical stuff. And I indeed was using the well, and it was quite a place, I have to say.

It was irritating too on someone. I'm sure it was.

It was, but it was in a good way. You sort of, you know, it was, it was a different time and a different place place in terms of what the internet would become.
And it did not become that.

It became a capitalist engine of financial growth. Anyway, Gaul,

I recommend you reading this book. It's called The Quiet Before on Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you for having me.

Okay, Stephanie, aside from insulting my air fryer love, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in.

It's the only business software you'll ever need. ODU is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything.
That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more.

No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

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okay stephanie predictions here's a prediction kanye west is now um putting up a new music video where he decapitates and buries pete davidson who is apparently dating his now ex-wife um oh do you say apparently because you want us to act like you don't pay attention they are dating

they are dating. I don't know.
I never know if it's real. I don't know if J-Lo and Ben are going.
I don't. Okay.
Thank you. I'm glad you're friends with them.
But in any case, I don't know.

God saved me from the crash just so I can beat Pete Davidson's ass is his is his lyric. He's been harassing him online for weeks now.
I feel like a restraining order is coming. That's my prediction.

A restraining order. So wow.

It's just appalling what he's doing. I'm sorry.

It's appalling. It's glib, but you know, we look at it like it's, oh, it's entertainment.
What they're experiencing is absolute harassment and it's

a restraining order should be coming uh i would say my but the problem is he has lesions of followers just like elon musk does and when they unleash this it's a real issue that is 100 true uh my prediction uh things are going to get worse in ukraine much worse before they get better and while it's amazing and inspirational to look at all of these everyday citizens now you know fighting to defend their country um they're going to get exhausted.

And we don't know what, and I don't mean nuclear power, but I just mean firepower, manpower, what, what

Putin has, right? You've got people putting their lives on the line in Ukraine. And

I'm very worried and concerned about how much worse it's going to get. And from my positive,

I'm happy to see. Is there a better? You said before it gets better.
What's better? I mean, before this thing, right? So people are saying, listen, Putin's humiliated right now.

You know, he's backed into a corner. You're right.
He's humiliated and backed into a corner. So what does an irrational animal do? Double down and get worse.

No, there's often these thoughts like, listen, Putin's on his own. He's screwed.

I, I, I think even if he is on his own and screwed, he will do horrible, heinous, ridiculous things that will cost innocent people their lives.

It's a little, it's a little, you know, Trump, same way. Like a lot of the stuff that's coming out just today,

he's still here. Still here.
Yeah,

but

I'm using the word brave, but I don't mean to.

Brave isn't the word.

It's like Trump. Putin is like Trump in the way he conducts himself, but he's

far more fearless than Trump. Trump wouldn't actually do physical harm.
I think Trump is more cowardly than Putin is.

Yeah, that's a very good idea. This guy is brutal.
Brutal, yes. I think the word you're looking for.

But, you know, this whole idea, right, people are saying, well, you know, the January 6th committee now thinks Trump

may be liable, you know, may be a criminal. Listen, that would be great if that's the case.
Like, wake me up when that happens. This is a guy who doesn't use email, doesn't use text.

He rolls like a mob boss who never, ever, ever puts his fingerprints on anything. So I'm hard pressed to believe that they're going to get him.
When they do, great.

My win, I'm really happy for school kids that so many across the country are going to get to play sports and go to school without masks on in a week.

But I am sad for people like your family who get easily forgotten, who have kids under the age of five, right?

People like mine who are celebrating, going, oh my gosh, my family is about to have the biggest win.

My sons cannot wait to play basketball with no mask and my daughter and go to school smiling win for us. We're forgetting what a dangerous loss it is for families like yours.

That's what I'm worried about. And immunocompromise.
I'm more concerned with immunocompromised people. I was, they just taken masks off in D.C.

and I was in a store and someone was clearly immunocompromised. And,

you know, I put my mask right on and I, because she, this woman was wearing a mask. And there, you've got to be aware of kids.
And I know you're sick of COVID. I know you're sick of masks.

Most of the lecturing about kids and masks comes from people that don't have kids.

But, but it, which is like, I don't think did you see Ron DeSantis yesterday?

Ron DeSantis was. He was kind of joking with them.
I think that was taken out of context, wasn't it? Yesterday. All right.
At an indoor event.

Remember, people who are arguing against masks aren't saying that masks are dangerous, they're saying it's freedom of choice.

The government shouldn't tell you you have to wear a mask, you have to vaccinate. And he walks in and screams at teenage boys to take their masks off.

And then he proceeds to say, I can't believe these Ukrainians are out there fighting. That's so weird.
You wouldn't see that happen in France, which is so

it's a reminder that so many of these lawmakers are saying

that he went to Yale undergrad,

Harvard Law School. He knows what happened in France in World War II.
The sick thing is, is that he's banking on the fact that you and I don't. And that's what's gross.
Yes, yes.

Yeah, he's a smarter Trump in a lot of ways.

What's really interesting about that is I, you know, it's true. A lot of these people who don't want to wear masks, they certainly have been very aggressive in telling people not to wear masks.

But that's the thing. What business is it of anybody else's? Nobody's business.
We're lucky to have these vaccines to allow us to move through this. But I'll tell you,

let people do what they want and have their degree of comfort and stop. Stop it.
You've already been assholes on one side. You don't need to do it on the other.
How about be kind, full stop? Be kind.

That's a very be kind to Stephanie and Kara. Okay, we'll take a listener question in our next episode.
What do you want us to know?

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for us or call 85551 PIVOT. The link is in our show notes.
Okay, Stephanie, that's the show. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.

I know you're busy and tired. This has been a tough, it's not a tough week, but you've had like a big crash course in anchoring, I think.
I know you've experienced anchor.

You know, women, every time a woman, every time we have another child, we gain a superpower that our human bodies don't require sleep. We're just smiling zombies.

I am Captain Marvel in that case, but your show is terrific. We watch it every night.
Sadly, the golden child who did like watching your show in the morning cannot watch it now because she is asleep.

Well, she may start waking up at 11 p.m. Cause she wants to have a cocktail and tune in.
You never know. I think not.
I think she's watching Madrigals and the Family Madrigal, and that's it.

That's her whole media diet right now. Anyway, it's a great show.
Everybody should watch it. The 11th hour.
Is it with Stephanie Rule? Is it called the 11th Hour? It is.

The 11th hour with the children. They probably don't call it 11th hour with Brian Williams anymore.
Just slight shit. I think he should have kept that.
Yeah.

That would have been a good thing for people.

Can you start using those folksy metaphors that he did? You know, like a two-headed chicken and whatever. You know, he's got his own.

I'm going to use my own. Brian had his own very special style that I wouldn't dare

or try to. All right.
Okay. Well, I like those folks.
I miss those. Anyway, Stephanie Ruhl, she's a big star at MSNBC, and she still manages to come on the show.
I'm going to read us out.

Today's show was produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Enderdutt 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, Stephanie.

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