Rudy Giuliani's on Cameo, Marjorie Taylor Greene's off Twitter (for now), and Baratunde Thurston's on Pivot to discuss it alll

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway is off again today, and we are lucky to be joined by author, commentator, and podcaster Farratundi Thurston.

Faratundi, how are you doing?

I'm doing great, Kara.

I am not an Ibitha.

I am not on drugs.

I am a Bifa.

I have chosen to be with you like a responsible co-host.

Just saying.

You know what you do?

You're working too.

You're working.

I want you to tell us about what you're doing.

I love Puck so far.

Many of the people there, I think, are quite good.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm excited.

Matt Bologna is.

I've joined up with this dope new media company called Puck.

Folks can find it at puck.news.

And I'm in great company, Julia Ayafi, Matt Bologna, Baratunde Thurston.

And I think of it as a place where I can go along with my writing again.

I used to have a column years ago at Fast Company.

I got literally the last word in that magazine for three years and I kind of miss it.

So what are you going to focus on?

Because, you know, are you going to be an aggrieved person?

Because that's a lot of successful newsletters.

I mean,

to be awake and aware in this era

requires some level of aggravation, of aggrievedness.

Yes, that's true.

That's true.

In this preview period, folks can sign up.

I'm calling it the easy stuff.

TheeasyStuff.news is the website people can go to to get on my particular list to kind of get a feel for what this is.

And I focus on race, on tech, on democracy, and on climate, aka the easy stuff.

Oh, gosh.

Geez, that sounds heavy.

So what are you writing about?

What's your first debut episode?

Ooh, my first piece.

So I think it's going to be about taxes, Kara.

Oh, wow.

I'm not entirely sure, but

I had a realization that the great tax evading efforts of our much lauded, wealthy people in this country is not really working out well for any of us.

And that

it's a tiny form of secession when people so grotesquely withhold from common investment.

And so I just think follow through.

If you want to opt out and secede in that way, then you also opt out of like the court system or access to the FBI when you get a sort of malware situation

happening.

How do you keep them off the roads?

That's my question.

How do you keep them off the road?

I mean, they're working on it.

They prefer to move by rocket now, I hear.

Oh, true.

That's that's true last i checked it was also our air community air so it's going to be so like very serious topics heavy-duty stuff so long pieces short pieces what's your they'll vary in length and it's a new you've done enough new media startups to know that i have everything i'm saying now is subject to change right yeah it looks like it's off to a good start it feels like it's off to a good start i mean i get asked to talk about all those topics literally i do a lot of public speaking and then i tweet of course you waste it on twitter and they don't pay you exactly and this i think it's good it helps me think i actually am one of those people who thinks through my fingertips at times and so to actually get back into writing in this mode i'm excited to just go long on stuff just take whatever you have on twitter and then put it there like yeah or the things i would say on msnbc but you know there's never enough time on cable news no exactly even though all they have is time and minutes so told me that about she took everything on twitter and she put it into her thing anyway it's a really great thing it's very exciting and people can sign up for it but let's get into what's going on we have a lot of things to talk about big stories and small ones but just speaking of someone who's sort of putting himself out there rudy giuliani has joined cameo we're very excited he's currently charging 375 though when he launched the page his price was 199 which i thought was a much better price other celebrity prices for comparison donald trump jr 500 sean spicer 199 stormy daniels 250 there's lots of prices on these things um obviously giuliani is reportedly broke now you can make some dough doing these things but he also that's the more important thing he faces a 1.3 billion dollar lawsuit from Dominion voting system over defamation, and the judge just let that one go forward.

And that's a lot of cameos.

That's a lot.

It's a beautiful country we live in when people who explicitly try to overthrow an election and bring democracy to a

crashing halt.

He told the FBI can monetize, can monetize that.

You know, that's what we call a free market.

And I'm just, I'm looking for, I'm surprised he started with cameo and not OnlyFans.

Just given his work in Borat, I thought he might try to get a little bit more.

We might be a stormy dandelion.

Yeah, I'm also hoping he uses total landscaping background just from all the videos.

Can you make people say things on cameo?

Well, kind of.

They don't have to.

Like they may not realize.

There's been a couple where they've said things they don't realize what they're saying and gotten in trouble.

I forget.

I did it.

I did a sway.

I did a sway with the CEO and we talked about there was a couple times.

And then the guy who was a soup Nazi wrote me a mean letter because of something.

I forget.

They keep telling how much he's making.

They're super Nazis making a lot of money.

Are you on TV?

No, I'm not.

They wanted me to go, but then I'm like, I don't want to make messages to people.

I can't do it.

I don't have time.

I don't.

And it's like, it's lucrative.

It's

going to pay for curmudgeon Lee Cara

to reluctantly wish me a happy birthday.

Oh, happy fucking birthday.

I can, you know what?

If you want me to do that, I will call, tape it for you and then do it.

Happy by birthday.

All right, good.

All right.

For free.

What would you pay for Rudy Giuliani?

Let me just, before I say it, these things are really interesting because it's a way for celebrities to monetize things and interesting and unusual celebrities for one.

It's also to have this relationship with fans.

And I think the fan person, now he's not someone you want to be a fan of.

You're almost like a non-fan of his.

And that's what the funny part is.

But this relationship between fans and their, and their, and the people who love them, fans and the celebrities and the fans and other different people is very interesting to me.

That's what you're going to be doing with your thing at Puck.

And people are fans of you, for example.

They are.

I will not be doing kind of custom birthday messages.

No, no, I get those.

That's the difference.

I mean, when I was trying to think quickly about what I would want to hear from Rudu Giuliani, it's a small list of words that I would want to hear in a certain order.

I would pay Rudu Giuliani to say, Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States of America.

The vaccines are effective.

I've taken it, and I encourage everybody who's a patriot to take it.

And I'm sorry for everything.

I would actually, I think I believe in incentives for positive behavior.

So I think

the Michael Wolf book, he sounds like he's like a sad, drunken man.

Like, I don't know.

I think a lot of these characters are sad.

I think he's damaging.

I think he's awful.

I think he should go away.

But part of me is like, oh, what a sad, pathetic, drunken.

broke man.

That's a very humane interpretation.

I can't stand him and I hope he goes away.

You know, I would, as I said to, I said one time when I was mad at Rupert Murak about something, and I think I said something like, you can't die soon enough.

You said that to his face?

I did.

He couldn't hear me.

I was at a party, but the person next to him heard me.

I just smiled and went, you know, I did that head shaking thing because he was like, you know, he had treated us so badly on our way out of Dow Jones.

I won't go into it.

It's a long, horrible story.

But he had said it to me like, oh, you should have lunch soon.

I'm like, no, I'm never going to have lunch with you.

And you can't die soon enough.

One of my political and comedic mentors was a man named Barry Crimins and great satirists.

Died a few years ago, sadly, but he has a book out that I hope people check out.

It's called Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal.

Oh, yeah.

And it's about Henry Kissinger, but about a lot more than that.

It's just I think you had your birthday.

Not shaking hands with a war criminal moment with Rupert.

Yeah, I just, he just was like acting like nothing happened.

He does that to a lot of people.

A friend of of mine who he fired was like, oh, what happened with us?

He's like, you fired me.

Like,

well,

he's literally above it all.

He's above it all.

There's bodies everywhere and he doesn't know which ones he shot.

He doesn't do the murders himself.

Yeah, the murders.

He does the murders himself.

Let's just say.

Speaking of which, the CDC now recommends that pregnant people get the COVID vaccine.

Less than 25% of pregnant women have received at least one shot of the vaccine.

The FDA is expected to authorize booster shops imminently.

I think it's critically important.

But the problem is the CDC and others are messaging so confusingly.

I think it creates an opening for anti-vax type of people to say, see, look at this, see, look at this, whether it's masks or whether it's anything else.

There's one voice I trust above all on this pandemic, Dr.

Michael Osterholm.

I heard him on Joe Rogan, May 11th, 2020.

And then he's got his own podcast now, very straight shooting, Midwestern, like doesn't amp things up, doesn't, and he admits his mistakes.

So if anyone's looking for solid info and there are reasons to have all kinds of questions because things are changing constantly.

And I don't envy the CDC because COVID's like psych doing spin moves on us, you know, and like launching, you know, variant attacks and whatnot.

It is.

So with that, I'm glad I did a little bit of reading about how they came about the decision around pregnancy.

I know a number of people in my life who have been or planning on or were pregnant during COVID.

And it was terrifying to not know.

And so they're doing more long-term studies.

They've got real data in to not just say you can, but you should.

And they're going to continue studying the children after to see if they even inherit some of the immunity.

But I hope it can urge a few more folks to get the jab.

Well, it's interesting because people are, you know, there was a good story in the Atlantic about, you know, not lumping everybody together.

I'm so furious at the people who aren't vaccinated, even if they're dying.

I'm like, you know what?

Before, none of us had a chance.

Now you have a choice, essentially.

But it's sometimes how you have to sort of sort them out.

People that are truly truly confused and don't understand it.

And that is legitimate versus people who just have these conspiracy theories about Bill Gates or whoever the heck it is.

And so it's a really problematic thing, which gets us into our big story.

Marjorie Taylor Green and Rand Paul have both been suspended from social media this week.

Green was booted from Twitter for the fourth time after tweeting the FDA, quote, should not approve the COVID vaccine.

Meanwhile, on YouTube, Rand Paul claimed that masks were ineffective in fighting COVID-19, leading to his suspension from the site their suspensions will last seven days green is one suspension away from a permanent ban according to twitter which i'm sure she'll be doing really soon she's obviously active on getter which i have been on lately for reasons you'll find out soon enough

twitter is state-run social media they banned me for uh o-n-w one week she can't spell one week for telling the truth paul said google and you two are becoming an arm of the government Paul also revealed last week that his wife bought stock and drug maker behind a COVID treatment.

His disclosure comes 16 months late per congressional rules regarding stock trading, which is, of course, he's trying to make money off it while also insinuating there's problems with it.

His is that brown mask, but he has lots of other things he says.

So if she gets a fifth ban, will Trudeau follow through and actually ban her for good?

What do you think about this?

I think the age of accountability is expanding and landing more firmly upon us.

And I believe they will.

I also believe she'll raise a lot of money off of it.

Yes, exactly.

She will perform victimhood very well, as she's talented at doing.

Speaking of aggrieved.

Yeah, performance art to the shenanigans from the right wing around all this stuff.

And I tolerate a little bit of it because politics can be theater.

Humans can be silly.

But when we're talking about, you know, this pandemic, which has killed 615,000 just in the U.S.

and is ripping the world apart and tearing families apart.

I would hope that that would be off limits.

My hope is misplaced, obviously, because it's not, but it's just it's below any kind of line of decency and i don't have much tolerance or patience for people who i know know better they're smart enough

they they have access they're members of congress they're senators like they get the best intel and the best info so they're going out of their way to play dumb to play loose with the facts.

And that's influencing people and hurting the country.

You call it political theater, but is it helpful for you?

There have been several stories about whether they're going to sort of hang COVID around these people's necks, essentially, because now they have a choice.

And it's really interesting because this is a vaccine that Donald Trump wants total credit for, of course, whatever.

But he doesn't really.

He doesn't, but he does, right?

He has opportunities.

You know, he has media moments.

He's got his blog or whatever.

And he's got, you know, his underpopulated rallies.

And he could be out there affirmatively encouraging the people who clearly do what he says.

They storm

the Capitol in his name.

I think they'll inject some science into their bodies if he said so.

So he is underutilizing his power.

Oh, what he used it for this week was Ashley Babbitt calling her a hero, essentially, which was crazy.

You know, just another crazy thing.

What a waste of power that person.

Yeah, I don't think it was.

Is and was

a waste of power.

Self-aggrandizement at this point.

But what does Twitter do in these situations?

I mean, for example, I had a really interesting discussion.

If Trump runs for president, if he wins, and I said, God forbid to myself internally, what would happen to Twitter?

Can they not, can they keep him off?

But they're going to throw her off.

She's going to, she is, she loves this whole game that they're playing with her.

But what do they do when these people are continually doing this stuff, sort of walking up to the line, crossing it, coming back and things like that?

I want to live in a world where Twitter.

doesn't have such concentrated power to have such impact on our society.

If we don't live live there yet, hopefully things that are happening on a regulatory front will help us get there.

They're not that big, though.

Nope.

Paratondate.

Like Facebook is much bigger.

And then I want to live in a place where they stick by it.

You know,

we allegedly live in a rule of law and nobody's above the law.

Right.

That's kind of a premise of American societal membership.

And

I'd like rules applied equally.

So it should not be interpreted as it will be, but it should not be interpreted as political if you violate.

Now, where they've gotten themselves into trouble historically is that they were so focused on technical engineering, they let the social impact go completely off the rails.

And then they were very selective and then they walked forward and then they walked backwards and they lost credibility, much like some people described the CDC.

So I get it, but we can always expect more and better.

And so I expect more and better from Twitter.

And I think they've started to demonstrate more and better.

So I encourage more and continued consistent enforcement of you know what i think yeah i think elected officials shouldn't trade stock or be on social media oh well the trading stock thing i'm with you i know they're god they always do this this is a racket within a racket that they got going on in dc

is really quite a loathsome character but i need someone to yell at on twitter so if you took all the politicians off then you're really reducing the value proposition of this platform

yeah yeah that's fair that's fair so when she calls it though you did mention the state-run social media uh it's it is not let me just be clear you don't have to be on Twitter.

You don't have to be on Facebook.

You don't have to be on YouTube.

The problem is size

is the fact that there's no alternates.

And by the way, Marjorie, you can go over to Getter.

Go over with your people over.

And this is extremist right-wing thinking coming back to bite them in the butt.

Twitter is my pillow.

Twitter is

the Christmas tree, you know, the hobby lobby company, right?

Twitter is a private business.

And they will defend a private business's right to to discriminate against LGBTQ plus people.

They will defend against a private business right to discriminate against black people.

But if they get subject merely to the rules of the platform, they cry foul.

It's government run.

So either you believe in private property rights or you don't.

Yeah.

That's it.

That is absolutely true.

That is 100% true.

I think

what's happened, though, is the idea of what a public square has been changed, right?

And so people consider it the public square.

And the fact is these people in Silicon Valley are just making these decisions and they're so haphazard about how they do it.

I think that's the problem.

And it's by nature has to be haphazard because it's just, it's everything coming at you at once from people who have no abilities to handle this.

And by the way, I don't think I could.

Like, how could I?

I mean, I could.

I'm like, no, you're off.

You're on.

Like, I would have no problem.

I love the faith in yourself, Carol.

Why?

Because I said so.

The judge has ruled.

Here comes the judge.

Because I said so.

Judge Swisher.

Because I said so.

That would be my.

I'm giving you no good reason.

There's no transparency.

I just decided to do it because I am in power.

We're in production for season three of How to Citizen.

Most of my focus is on that podcast, and it's going to be all about tech and like how we design spaces and uses of tech that actually help us show up as citizens.

I just had an interview with someone this morning about this.

So teaser.

There's good news on this front.

There are people designing.

Basically, we're all living in private spaces and we forgot about the need for intentionally design spaces for the public.

And so we're using somebody else's lawn when we should kind of build something and mix up where we spend our time.

That's, we have libraries,

we have parks, we don't just hang out at the mall.

Most of us

also malls are dying, but yeah, malls have died.

No, there's still a few.

There's still a few.

I had to go to the spectrum store with my in-laws to help them combine their broadband.

It's a whole thing.

That's what

I'm part-time IT administrators.

I covered retail for the Washington Post in the 90s, right before I started coming to the internet and they were dying then.

So in any case, Veritondate, Let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about what the new census means for national elections and take a listener mail question.

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All right, Barrettunde, we have another big story.

The U.S.

Census Bureau has released updated population data, which will be used to draw new voting districts across the country and could determine control of the House in 2022.

The under 18 population is likely majority non-white for the first time ever in 2010.

During the last census update, Republican state legislatures redistrict most of the country to their advantage.

So, what do you think this means?

Because, and by the way, because you're non-white doesn't mean you're going to vote any certain way, by the way.

And there's been a lot of surprises all across the country in different areas.

But, what do you talk a little bit about this?

Does it change Texas and Florida blue states?

A lot of growth is coming from New York and California.

So,

what do you think about these?

The first thing I want to say is thank you to everybody who worked to try to get us an accurate census count in any

decade that Trump's.

That's hard to do.

With COVID and with the former president, it was even harder.

And I know people are out there struggling to count all of us so that we can like live together and choose our future together and elect our politicians and do the things we're supposed to do.

So thank you, census.gov.

Thank you, government.

Thank you, people who volunteered.

Thank you, influencers, like everybody who tried to help make sure we were all counted as we the people.

In terms of the impact of all this care, i i want to live in that world where people compete for my vote fairly you know i like the whole level playing field and i love competition it's great it makes it sharper we have a problem where the same people who tried to overturn the last presidential election and encouraged insurrection the same people spreading all this covet misinformation and leading to death right they're they're aiding and abetting a pandemic that same faction is now trying to rewrite the rules of our electoral and control them and control them because the GOP will control registry in 20 states a container

187 house seats it's it's it's a it's the it's a show of strength that reveals a deeper weakness they don't believe in themselves they don't they don't believe in the product that they're selling right if it's this anti-competitive behavior right it kind of if you sure but they control they control the state legislatures in growing states like texas

but they're abusing the power that they have in that control we shouldn't have any party choosing its voters.

Democrats have done this gerrymandering nonsense in the past before.

Republicans have perfected it with the technology they have to now optimize a map for disenfranchisement.

And then they've stacked the courts and they've got the U.S.

Congress in their pockets as well, because most of these House members were elected after Obama.

Like 80% of the Republican House is post-Obama, a lot of white grievance type Republicans.

And they've co-signed on this lie about the last election and used that to make it harder for us to have our voice.

That's whack.

That's my eloquent conclusion.

At the same time, let me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push back.

Well, there's two interesting things.

One is Trump increased his voting share with Latino voters in 2020 versus 2016.

We all know that.

At the same time, the census is expected to show the population of white people shrinking for the first time to below 60%.

So there's just, and it's, there's all these very interesting signs of where people are moving from New Yorkers are leaving for Florida.

I don't know why they would leave such effective government in New York State.

Well, you know what's interesting?

Scott and I always joke about it is that they, all these people say, we're moving to Florida because effective government, but it's like you don't leave, there's much more effective government elsewhere with higher taxes.

Yes, taxes.

As you just were talking about taxes, but what does that mean if they have this amount of control?

They can control the courts.

They can control Congress.

They can control redistricting.

And they control governorships.

I think it's terrifying.

I think we have.

a two-party system, which isn't what I would choose to live under, but it's what I've been born into and currently live under.

And one of those parties has leaned strongly toward authoritarianism, toward throwing people's votes in the garbage, right?

They're still challenging certified election results still.

So I don't trust their motives because they made their motives clear after January 6th.

It's just January 6th is still here.

I'm still, I'm sorry I'm harping on it, but not since 1812, right?

So I'm going to bring up that old stuff because it's the same characters who were using that as a justification.

to abuse their power and keep themselves in it.

And we shouldn't be living that way.

We just shouldn't be living that way.

So I think it reveals a lack of faith in their message and their product and their beliefs.

I think it's terrifying because they, in many cases, have the power to do.

You see these Texas Democrats having to flee the state to try to slow down with something that feels kind of inevitable.

Unless, and there's, I always come with the good news, Kara, the For the People Act.

There is federal legislation pending.

that can put the kibosh on a lot of this nonsense.

It won't solve every problem.

It may not pass, probably unlikely.

But if the influential listeners of the Pivot podcast would use a modicum of that influence to call up their elected official and say, get off your butt and preserve my voice.

And then we duke it out, you know, fairly.

But this whole like land grab for power and this disenfranchisement, we're moving in the wrong direction.

And we like to think of ourselves as a nation of progress.

But I'm not feeling good about the way the Republican Party today is doing this.

Texas House Speaker just signed a civil arrest warrant for 52 Democratic lawmakers.

The lawmakers fled last month to prevent the GOP from passing a bill that would impose voting restrictions.

The warrants came hours after the state Supreme Court blocked a restraining order that protected the Democrats.

So it's the courts and the House and the thing.

So it's a very, it's a very diced situation because some of the census sort of bears this out, bears this idea of people shifting and moving around and going to places of what will be powerful.

So what states become really powerful in this?

Is it Florida, Texas?

So yeah, power is shifting to the South south and to the west, right?

We see New England, I think it was something like 42 of the 62 counties in New York State lost population.

There's a greater concentration around cities in general versus rural areas because of the way our economy has screwed so many people.

It didn't have to be that way, but it is.

And folks are migrating.

into fire-prone areas and hurricane prone areas, but you know, these new areas nonetheless,

the political outcome of the migration doesn't have to foretell who wins elections, right?

People moving to what seem to be reddish, purplish states, maybe they don't even vote.

Maybe they vote and get super active.

Maybe the legislature there makes it harder for them to vote so they don't actually have the ability to exercise their political power.

Or maybe the majority will of the people who live there still isn't exercised because the politicians are going to do what they're going to do.

So it's not to me an obvious, we don't read the census results and then project the presidency in 2024 or 2028, etc we have a lot of moves in between migration and political power you have your own feeling about it my here's what i want you know because i i don't like predicting because i'm almost certainly going to be wrong i'm going to make you predict but i'm very clear about what i want i want all these people i know a number of people who have moved to texas especially the austin area and they they like to talk a lot of trash to california new york on the way out the door And the same with Florida.

And one of your co-s does the same thing.

Shut up.

Be active when you get there.

Yeah.

Right.

A lot of folks, you know, do your homework on a place and folks don't realize, oh, it's much harder to access family planning services in this state.

Yeah.

Oh,

the moves that these folks are making, Kara, they're taking the voting certification away from cities and counties and doing it at the state level.

They can overturn a local elected official, a local elected decision.

Understand that when you get to these states and fight it.

Don't just go there because you like the weather or you don't like the tax rate where you left.

Become a member of society there too.

Then I think we can, the country will be all right in certain ways in that sense because folks will be citizens where they live.

That's what I want to see.

I don't, will Texas become more powerful than New York?

Probably in the long run, this country's changed a lot and it will continue to change.

But the political fortunes, that's still up to us.

I feel like climate change is going to really determine everything eventually.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, are we going to talk about the IPCC?

Did you already do that this week?

And no, we didn't, but we can.

It can be part of, you can, please, please include it here.

Go right ahead.

So it's, it's, look, this is like a multi-thousand.

The UN.

Yeah, yes.

This is a UN report on the climate, which is essentially, we're fucked.

Really?

That is kind of the headline.

It's an amazing joint effort to get the governments and scientists of like 192 countries to sign off on one document.

That feels

like we have very few things to celebrate in terms of multilateral anything.

So yay.

And then you read the contents, you're like, oh, dear.

Oh, dear.

It's not great.

So yeah, we're going to be suffering.

And I think one of the things I've been, maybe you have a similar set of people where you're trying to like optimize for our climate future, you know, is coming.

So you're like, oh, maybe I shouldn't live here because the fires, maybe I won't be there.

And one of the sub headlines on this report is, it doesn't matter where you live.

Yeah.

This is,

it won't ever be fully equal opportunity.

Like COVID wasn't either.

Money will help, but it won't stop it.

And so if you don't have wildfires, you'll have smoke from somebody else's wildfires, right?

If you don't have floods, you'll have migrating, you know, growing areas because of floods.

So we're all in this thing together.

And the scientists are getting about as agitated as I've seen them since the March for Science.

Did you know I'm getting in a spaceship with Elon Musk and leaving?

Just so you know.

Is this breaking news?

Are we

amazing?

He's the only one that hasn't gone off in a spaceship and done a billionaire round about the the

sense of stupid.

I also think SpaceX's efforts in this

are more solid, shall we say.

They're actually not

versus a vanity project.

He does want to get us to Mars and make us a space-faring nation, but he doesn't think he should do like a little ride flyby in the world.

No vanity rides.

He doesn't care.

Yeah, climate, to your point, climate will have a massive impact on the politics of this country and the whole world.

But they seem to be denying them, of course.

That's as, you know, Ron DeSantis doesn't look like someone who's going to to get up and say we need to do something about it.

There's something interesting.

So I've been traveling.

I've spent a lot of time around the country this summer filming.

I'm doing this PBS program.

It won't be out till next summer.

So even the title may change, but I've had a chance to interact with folks I don't get to and or folks I might just think a certain thing about due to social.

You feel good?

We use different words.

I'll be real about that.

But everybody's feeling the impact and everybody wants us to do something about it.

And that's a different place to be.

The loudmouthed politician who's like trying to appease a former president may never say the right things, but the mayors, the county executives, the local judges, they will call it erosion, right?

They'll call it accelerated erosion.

They'll call it, there's some other technical term for like land loss underwater sub something.

I don't remember the science, but they will say we have to do something about it.

We need to raise money to do something about it.

We need to build a barrier or get more infrastructure.

And thankfully, we have, you know, hopefully, fingers fingers crossed, it's almost actual infrastructure week, which is

one of the things that's really, it is infrastructure week, it's almost there.

But, you know, it's really, it's a really interesting question of who's going to code up and say it, or else we're going to sort of live in this.

I'm looking up the movie.

Oh, the day after tomorrow?

The day after tomorrow.

That's it.

One of my favorites.

That's a great documentary.

I feel like, I know, I feel like we're in that.

And then, you know, who the vice president guy is like, what are we worried about?

And then later he's like, okay, I should have been worried.

Like, and they're all living in Mexico, essentially.

Look, I don't, I don't need the shot and fraud moment.

I don't need

someone who

denied the effectiveness of the vaccine to suddenly clamor for it on their deathbed.

That does not make me feel good.

And I don't need someone who denied climate science to say, I was super wrong about the climate science.

Lash me 50 times in public.

Take your pot shots.

Have your way.

And just let's move forward.

Let's make the right investment choices now.

Let's upgrade our grid.

Let's go electric.

Let's decarbonize.

Let's go.

You're a better person than me.

When I see those days with people, like, oh, I should have.

I'm like, that's all I felt.

Of course, there's a little satisfaction.

I'm not above being able to do that.

I don't have satisfaction.

I'm like, move along.

Like, enjoy the next life.

I don't know what I feel like a terrible person.

This whole thing has put me into a terrible zone.

I'm like, I should feel like, oh, Bear, for the grace of God, go ahead.

And I thought, good luck.

Like, I feel terrible.

One of the darkest thoughts, since we're acknowledging our shadow selves,

one of the darker thoughts I had, and it was really a question too, which is if vaccination and essentially effective public health become partisan issues where Democrats follow CDC recommendations and wear in 95s and keep distance and get vaccinated and Republicans don't, then that party is literally killing itself.

That's

that's not good, right?

It's it's any loss of life is terrible.

Avoidable loss of life more so.

Avoidable partisan loss of life is sick.

It is.

And it's like, what is your, you're willing to literally lead your people to slaughter to score a rhetorical point and raise some money.

I'm always like, bye.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

We are free.

I feel terrible for saying that, but I do think about that.

But speaking of don't let the door hit you on the way out, let's listen to a listener question roll tape.

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

You've got mail.

Hey, Cara, this is David in Texas.

The Washington Post reported this week that Chris Cuomo advised Governor Andrew Cuomo and the governor's staff on matters pertaining to the elder Cuomo sexual harassment scandal.

Some have found this advisement to be ethically problematic.

And in the same vein, listeners may recall CNN clips of the Cuomo brothers' lighthearted and sometimes humorous report during the spring of 2020, when Chris was supposed to be interviewing his brother on New York State's pandemic response.

One wonders if more hard-hitting journalism might have hastened revelations of, for instance, New York's systematic underreporting of nursing home deaths, a separate scandal in which Governor Cuomo has been implicated.

Given your long history in the media realm, I'd like to know what you think CNN should do about Chris Cuomo, if anything.

And I'm curious if you think this is emblematic of any deeper problems with cable news or journalism more broadly.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks, Kara.

What a nice person from Texas.

Very nice.

I like the scandal.

Here's the deal, David.

David, they should fire him.

I don't have any qualms about saying that.

I think it's astonishing how much he participated.

You saw someone like Roberta Kaplan have to leave because of it.

They really need to give him responsibility for what he did here.

And I find it objectionable and ethically problematic, I think is a nice way of putting it.

I think he should be fired.

I think they won't, but I think they will not fire him because he's super popular and their ratings are declining.

And a lot of that stuff that he did around COVID early on was highly entertaining, but you're right, that hard-hitting journalism was ignored, especially with the under-reporting of COVID of nursing home deaths.

I think he should be fired.

The Cuomo Brothers comedy hour

brought a lot of us some relief, but it came at a cost.

I really, David, that's a smart, that's a smart ass question.

Because it also gets to kind of like the nationalization of the news, not like a government takeover, but just examining things at a national level without any depth.

And like local reporters, they know who Andrew Cuomo is.

Local politicians, you know, one of my good friends, disclosure, is a Democratic state senator in the state of New York.

He's been publicly on, this Gustavo Rivera, look him up.

He's been publicly on about this governor.

I've had him on my shows in the past talking about this governor is not good for voting rights in the state.

This governor is not good for anything progressives have ever wanted or just sound.

government and the intimidation tactics that are suddenly be spilling out into full view.

He's been trying to get somebody's attention to talk about it for a while.

And folks were happy to have a little comedy sideshow when we also had no real president.

So it's not just the media.

It was adorable.

It's the whole, it's the whole environment.

But man, what that opportunity cost?

Because instead of getting to the bottom of these stories, we papered over abuse, you know, collectively.

And that's, that should be reckoned with.

And I don't even, I haven't watched much.

What do you think shouldn't be fired?

Have they even acknowledged that that shouldn't have happened?

Well, you know, I interviewed Jake Tapper about it and he was like, this was problematic.

He was, he could tell he wanted to say, what an asshole

about Chris Cuomo.

But, you know, he was trying to be a good corporate citizen at the same time, at least indicate he has a problem with it.

Here's the thing.

If you're going to yammer on about Sean Hannity advising the president and Tucker Carlson, who's really, you know, such a ghoul, like it doesn't matter.

You cannot ignore this.

You cannot.

And when someone was telling me, I got a lot of stuff where it was from a media point of view, like, Kara, you didn't do attack this person for this, or you didn't attack the, you know, Cuomo got, had to leave and Trump didn't.

Well, you know what?

We take out our trash.

That's the way, that's how I say it.

We take out our trash.

That's what we do.

And we're going to keep taking out our trash.

We shouldn't seek to get away with as many crimes as the other side.

Well, what about this person?

I'm like, if I, you know, if I think John Hannity is a, you know, a 10-car traffic accident on the 495,

this guy is the same thing.

And I'm sorry.

He shouldn't have done it.

It's just, maybe it's not the same level as Duck Old Carlson, but this is a cut and dried issue.

It's the same I alone can fix it energy.

It's the same authoritarian tendencies.

I lived in New York for 12 years and several of those years were during the de Blasio-Cuomo wars.

He must be doing a jig, de Blasio.

Which is unproductive, you know, for the people of New York.

And this turf.

war, the way Cuomo did this subterfuge-like deal with the Republican Party to undermine the will of the people in his own state.

Dirty, dirty business.

But, you know, we didn't have the best reporting to get it out to the widest.

There was some great reporting, but most of the country never heard it.

So they could become homosexuals instead.

Yeah.

Oh, those t-shirts aren't selling very well.

I want to buy one now.

Well, you should be forced to wear them, I think.

I want to buy one now for like history.

It'll be like your cosmo.com swag.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, you know, or tab or something.

Like, I have a can of tab somewhere in a box.

Maybe it'll end up in a future season of Stranger Things when nostalgia from this era is peak.

That is exactly right.

But let's just say, if I say fired, what do you think?

They won't do it, Jeff.

I don't think they will.

And, you know, it's so funny.

I'm hesitating to say he should be fired.

I think that advising him does cross a bigger line.

I was still so heated about the comedy hour.

And this is news to me.

He'd be fired from almost every news organization for this.

So it's not, you know, it's not journalism.

It's not ethical.

And you should know better.

So I guess he should said, he should say, bro, I can't help you.

I'm sorry.

And he'll

find another job.

You know what?

Maybe he'll end up on Cameo.

Yeah, maybe so.

With Rudy, the two of them.

I would pay for that.

They could do a show together.

The two of them.

Maybe they wouldn't take country.

I wouldn't take an Andrew Kuhn.

Not in that second, but I would take a Chris Coma.

No, we're talking Chris.

I don't want to hear nothing from Andrew ever.

Yeah, I think we all sort of in reaction to Trump fell for that act and it was bullshit, as many things are in life.

But if we're, we take out our trash.

That's all I got to say.

Yeah.

All right.

Baratundi, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, Barrett Timbi, each week we like to make a prediction.

It can be about anything and you get to make it.

I want something good.

Good.

Okay.

This just popped into my head.

So this is not well planned or well thought out.

All right.

Thanks for planning.

You got it.

You got it.

I honestly like, I would be, I totally, I listen to the show all the time.

I, when you say we're going to hear listener mail, I heard, you got, you got, you got mail right now.

That's how much of a fan I am of nice.

And yet, I didn't remember that I should have come up with it.

I bet you have a prediction in you.

So now that I've filibustered effectively and stalled to try to parallel process, in the next year,

we are going to see

a real excitement, like a deeper level of excitement around electric vehicles that we haven't quite seen yet.

It has been the province of like environmentalists, very wealthy people, status flaunting, sort of virtue signaling types, a few cost cutters at the margin who understand how to work the tax credits and get a affordable car, but mostly it's these like premier high-end, very expensive cars.

And I think folks are going to start to get a taste of this.

And we get this infrastructure built through that'll help provide some federal cover for like, this is a great thing.

It's going to become more of a cool thing.

It's going to become a strength thing.

It's going to become a smart thing.

And it's going to become the thing you do when you're buying a car.

It'll be, it'll be increasingly weird to not use an EV.

So in the next year, we're going to see that tip even more.

It won't be a majority in a year, but I want to give some kind of range where we're not going to be talking about fuel efficiency with electric cars anymore.

I would say that is an interesting thing, except they've got to make them cheaper.

I mean,

I've interviewed lots of people on this green premium.

If it's not equal and it's come down, absolutely, no question with cars in terms of what you get and what you're not getting.

But the green premium has got to be equal to the regular thing.

And

that's where the problem is.

Well, it's not a problem.

And to bring it back to citizening, if we could cancel the subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, which clearly doesn't need our help.

Yes.

Right.

They don't even know what to do with all their money.

So I say give it back.

And then we can use it to subsidize something that won't destroy our home planet.

Yeah.

But I'm crazy.

That's true.

I mean,

or we're going to have Mitch McConnell making that I was wrong about climate change speech while we're all living down in Mexico.

He can take credit for it.

I don't care.

Just change your mind.

Let's go.

Yeah.

He's not going to.

I think he's what if we paid him to do it on cameo?

Oh, Mitch McConnell.

I would, hello, Carl, Hopper,

Harper,

no one actually listens to him except senators, but but you know, if we could.

I would pay for him.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm going to ask you one more question.

Who else?

Who would you say?

I'm going to pay for that who of all the people.

So I already, this I have thought about way too long.

I want to know Sean Hannity's price

and I want to give Jeff Bezos to pay it.

Those can happen.

We already know.

You and I both know enough people in this business to know that these fools do not believe what they're saying.

They're saying it because it gets them money.

It gets them influence, audience and money so give them more money do it secretly i don't really care the terms right again i'm not i'm past the shot so if you were as rich as jeff az you'd go around and take

bribe him they could if anybody's proven they can be bribed right it's these cats so go to hannity

and he's an he's a great actor he can cry on demand he can pound the table and do it for the vaccine and do it for climate justice and do it for our future.

And then he gets to pocket, give him a billion.

I don't, Jeff Bezos has extra billions.

It won't hurt him.

It'll probably help him.

It'll relieve him of the burden of what to do.

He has a billion dollars and he could turn around and do anything.

He just gave 100 to Van Jones.

He gave 100 to Jose Andres.

Like he's willing to write big checks.

So give a cool bill to Sean Hannity to stop slaughtering us.

Public service, bro.

Public service.

All right.

I like that.

So if Jeff Bezos came to you and gave you that, that's what you use your money for.

I mean, I keep some for myself.

Like, I want those cool new EVs I just talked about.

I think my wife might want us to do something to the house.

EVs.

EVs.

All right.

I like that prediction.

But I don't need a billion.

That's that's you know, I could round shave a teeny tiny bit off of that and then pay off the messengers of death.

I feel like he's not going to do that.

See, if I was that rich, I'd just have a lair and I would do things for my lair.

I'd have an evil lair and I would

enjoy it too.

I do.

Yeah.

Good for you.

Self-loving.

I don't know what to say.

What do you want?

Anyway, Veritunde, thank you so much for joining us.

You've done a wonderful job.

It's always a pleasure.

You're 100% nicer than Preet was to Scott.

By the way, Preet's prediction came true in two seconds.

It was very good.

He predicted that Cuomo.

I said Cuomo was going to stick for longer because he's such a trumpy type of personality.

And he said, no, he's going to be out right away.

And he was out right away.

I think he had inside knowledge.

That's what I think.

Yeah.

What's pre mostly?

I haven't heard that episode yet.

What's he up to now?

What's he doing?

He's lots of things.

He works for Vox Media.

So he's podcasting, right?

He's podcasting.

He's doing things.

He's being preached.

Maybe he'll run for governor.

Who knows?

I mean, that'll be interesting.

Who's going to run for governor of New York?

Who's going to run?

Well, Tish James is obviously going to run for governor.

Tish James and the lieutenant governor.

It's always the AG that brings down the governor that runs.

Hokul.

She's running again, she said today.

So she's going to run for the main office.

You know, Cynthia Nixon might throw hat in the ring again.

She had some great ideas.

Yeah, she did.

So there's, and then pre, there could be pre, there's a lot of people in, there's a lot of people that are going to throw their hat.

Maybe Hillary Clinton again.

Who knows?

You know,

we can't do worse.

In New York State, the last four governors kind of left in some form of disgrace.

I was just hugging them too hard.

Oh, God.

That was my fate.

I was like, get off.

Like right now, get off the stage.

Anyway, I want to thank you, Perry Tunde, for joining us today.

You can find him on his podcast, How to Citizen, as well as read him on Puck.

Can you, what is the name of it again so people can find?

TheeasyStuff.news.

That is the gateways.

The EasyStuff.news.

Yes.

Okay.

And sign up for it.

I have to tell you, Puck is really good and you should sign up for several of them.

You can sign up.

You get all of them when you sign up.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just, it's kind of a gateway to kind of who's, who's your, who's going to welcome you to the party?

Let me welcome you to the party, but you'll get to meet everybody at the party when we open.

You are going to find something there.

You are going to like a lot of people you find there.

And it's very, it's useful.

It's incredibly useful and sometimes funny.

And I have, I've enjoyed every single one of them almost, not everyone, but almost all of them.

Anyway.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

This is always a pleasure.

I'm feeling more comfortable doing this,

but I don't want Scott's job.

So, Scott, if you're listening, your job is secure as far as I'm concerned.

No, it's not.

It's not secure at all.

Don't want to.

That was your co-host.

That was not me.

Don't forget if there's a story in the news that you're curious about, want to hear an opinion on, go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a a question for the show.

All right, Baratunde, read us out.

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

Ernie Andradot engineered this episode.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify, or frankly, wherever you're listening to podcasts, which you can clearly do if you hear the sound of my voice.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media.

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

This month on Explain It To Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well.

Collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

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

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