American Airlines cancellations, Bitcoin mining bans, and Friend of Pivot Chuck Todd

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Hello, Scott.

I'm in a closet right now.

Again.

Again, I'm I'm back in the closet.

I'm up in Rhode Island on a vacation on a purported vacation, and of course, I'm not going to take any time off.

And I have to work out of a closet because it's really noisy here.

There's a lot of birds and ocean noises.

And so I can't allow that to happen in this podcast of ours.

I find nature fucks up everything.

Does it?

Yeah, nature fucks up everything.

Anyway, happy Father's Day.

How did it go yesterday?

You know, I'm glad you noticed.

My kids filled out a book, not that you asked, but my sons filled out a book.

And the nicest part was,

and I'm sure you saw this because I know you follow my tweets because you want to be more involved in my life.

I did see it.

I did see it.

There's a page that says, you are three parts, and they have to pick three words.

And they picked funny, which is nice.

Embarrassing, which I also kind of like.

I aspire to be one of those embarrassing dads.

And the last one they chose was determined.

And I'm like, how do 10 and 13-year-old sons describe their father as determined?

What did they just just sit there and decide that's the word?

Is that what they did?

I don't know.

I don't know the process.

What does that mean?

I don't know.

But do you know?

Okay, so the number one, let's talk a little bit about the holidays and how dads get no love.

So the number one holiday by

financial and human capital devoted to it is.

I don't know.

What?

Well, it's Christmas.

Yeah.

Oh, number two.

Yeah.

Well, all right.

Yeah.

I thought New Year's would be.

Number two, any guesses?

What number two would be?

New Year's.

Mother's Day.

Oh.

Right.

Okay.

I mean, Mother's Day is a pretty, you know, we like, I've got a plan.

It's got to be sentimental, yet luxurious,

yet organic, yet very planned out.

Anyways, Mother's Day is a big deal in every household.

You know where dad's or where Father's Day comes in?

And then in terms of the ranking?

Like 10.

Number 20.

Wow.

Just behind St.

Patrick's Day and ahead of Kwanwa.

Well, that's an important holiday.

That's ahead of Kwanzaa.

That is an important holiday, St.

Patrick's Day.

We just began.

That's why St.

Patrick's Day is so low.

That's really kind kind of interesting.

Yeah, Father's Day.

I'm so sorry, but they're all fake days.

You do know that, right?

Like, I hate them all.

I hate all the days.

Like, I don't like holidays either.

I don't either.

And those kind of things are fine.

But the sort of Mother's Day, I can't stand it, even if it's number two.

I don't like holidays.

I don't like anything where people like take off work and don't want to work.

I don't like any of it.

I'm like, oh, shit, it's a fucking holiday.

I can't trade stocks.

I can't call people and harass them.

I just, I don't like any.

I agree.

I don't like holidays at all.

When I started L2, we used to, me and my co-founder, Maureen Mullen, would head to Europe over Thanksgiving so we could work through the holiday and we'd always say we're going to lap the competition this week.

Yeah, come to work with me if you want balance in your life, you millennials.

But what do you think?

Did you have a nice day?

Do you feel good about being a father?

Do you?

And by the way, mothers do more work.

But go ahead.

Are we being serious?

Yeah.

Did you like it?

Yeah, I'm serious.

Yeah, it's the first time in my life.

I kind of sort of have an idea of why I'm here.

It's the most rewarding thing of my life.

We'll see.

All right.

Well, good.

And I'm glad you got the day then, just the day.

Now go back to the rest of your life.

There were the other 364 days.

That's right.

I'm back.

I'm back.

You are the man who has everything.

I'm so glad you have this.

So,

you know, I ended up speaking of a father, I interviewed Anthony Fauci, who was very worried about his children in the interview I just did with him.

And why is he worried?

Because of death threats and stuff.

That's the one thing in the whole interview.

He was quite angry

about the way, you know,

he has been politicized essentially as a political punching bag.

But one of the things that sort of got him was the impact on his family and his children, his wife.

Yeah, and

I think it reflects poorly on our culture.

It's a lack of dignity.

It's a lack of grace.

It's also

fueled and powered by social media and networks that let

their

anchors engage ridiculous conspiracy theories such as the FBI plan, the insurrection.

I mean, it's just, we've lost all, it really is, there's sort of a death of truth and a death of, I don't know, grace.

I don't know.

I don't know what it is, but it's really, it was depressing.

So a lot of what he did talk about was that is he's tired of it, that he's, you know, being called names like Hitler and that was Roger Stone and many other things.

And yesterday, just yesterday, like Marshall Blackbourne and that lunatic, Ronnie, whatever the, I don't even know his name, the one who was the doctor who over-medicates himself.

The guy who was a doctor for Trump said he was super fit.

Well, that he was in great shape.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So he, they were doing it yesterday.

It's crazy.

Now, there's things things to be brought up, and he talked about it: making mistakes and saying, you know, not having perfect communications and developing your ideas as they go along, but nobody in public health is allowed to do this anymore.

And that I thought was really interesting.

You're not allowed to say, Okay, we told you this a couple weeks ago, but actually, now as the evidence is developed, we didn't know this was this, and we should do this.

And so, that was one of the things he talked about, which is, you know, in anything he does, there was one thing in particular.

He got an email from Mark Zuckerberg, a lot of which was redacted.

And so, the right has decided he's been plotting to censor the Wuhan lab theory, which he didn't, which he wasn't.

He just said he just wrote him, asked him for help, and he can't believe it's gone like crazy like this.

And so it's an interesting situation with him

and problematic, I think, for public health.

He thought, I think he probably thought it would be better in the Biden administration, but it's gotten worse because nothing sticks to Biden in social media.

It really doesn't.

And so they've decided he's, I guess, the new Hillary Clinton.

I'm not really clear.

They go after it.

They need a punching bag.

And it works on social media.

By the way, you know, speaking of rants, then this wasn't the same rant.

You had a rant about Comcast you gave a few weeks ago.

Tell us what happened.

Yeah, I used this as an example of monopoly power, and they had come out on a Friday, and then it didn't get fixed.

And I said

they showed up unannounced to my door early in the morning on a Saturday, and I use that as a rant of this is part of the problems with monopolies.

Right.

And a guy named Sam Schwartz, who runs

the memberships.

Yeah, who I know and I forgot.

He's a lovely guy.

I actually was on a podcast with his wife.

She does a good podcast on education.

Sent me this really thoughtful email.

You know what?

There's really a downside to having some influence.

I forget how many people actually listen to this thing.

And he said he tracked down the work order in Palm Beach and followed up with the team.

And it ends up that they had found that there was a wiring problem.

And they came out the next day to fix it and that they should have communicated to me, but they were actually trying to do the right thing.

So I want to set the record straight.

Comcast, which charges me $300 a month just for data, no cable, $300 a month, just saying.

Hello, Monopoly.

I want to correct the record.

And by the way, I love, there's a lot of wonderful things about Comcast.

I love MSNBC.

So Comcast, I love Stephanie Ruhl.

And when I saw the Friends Reunion, I don't know about you, but I felt much better about it.

I've been watching it.

Yeah, I can't believe it.

I haven't watched it.

Oh, do it.

You feel much better about it.

I didn't like how they looked.

I was at settings.

That's my point.

That's the most rewarding thing about it.

I don't.

You know, some of them, I thought Lisa Kudor looked good.

Otherwise, it felt like a lot of work done for people that didn't, shouldn't have done.

Because they were all adorable.

They were all, I don't know.

I just.

If you laugh, you're like, wow, maybe my life is going better than I thought.

I don't know.

I don't know.

No, and that guy named Play Chandler.

I just, Matt, whatever.

Anyway, I can't watch it.

Love Comcast.

Apologize to Sam.

Entertainment and Scott Galloway.

And I hope you don't get any work done after you hit Famous.

Do you have a Tooth Fairy update?

Okay, so I did start.

Thank you for asking.

It's Father's Day.

I'm giving you all this.

I appreciate it.

A lot of softball is coming my way.

I did, on Friday, I recorded.

I kicked off my career as a voiceover actor.

I'm the voice of Kingston, who is the

grand tooth fairy instructor in a tooth fairy tale.

And do you want to hear the opening line?

Yeah, sure.

Go ahead.

Go for it.

Okay, hold on.

Magic has always existed.

Oh, my God.

A star is always.

Really bad acting.

A star is born.

Did you try that again?

That was how you read it?

A star is born.

Oh, my God.

And by the way, Pixar reached out to me, and they want me to be a new toy in the new toy story.

I'm going to be a sex toy.

And my name's going to be Buzz or Woody.

No, no.

And Randy Newman is writing a song for me.

Called You Have a Friend in You.

You got a Friend in Me.

Did you take a fancy?

That's good humor.

How long did that take you?

That's good humor.

How long does it take you sitting there sitting in a chair, you know, being served orange juice to make that one up?

It takes, it literally takes, no, it's lemon water.

It literally takes seven or eight hours.

It's not easy, too.

You have these directors and they'll say shit like, we really want you to own this statement.

And you're like, what do you mean by own?

How do I own a statement?

Or they'll say, it should be fatherly, but in a teaching moment sort of way.

They give you this very colorful instruction.

But it's not, I just thought it would be me reading lines.

You know, you have to act.

You have to act.

Yeah, you have to act.

You have to act.

And I got to tell you, Joey Tribiani, you've got some work to do anyway seriously though morgan freeman he hears my footsteps behind him he does not hear he and the penguins are nervous no he doesn't i'm gonna be doing the next march of the penguins they do not hear your voice in anything in any way but i'm so glad you're doing this i'm so i'm trying to podcast i i know it's practicing and podcasting but the acting could use a little bit of work in any case it's time for the big story

There's trouble for travel.

American Airlines is canceling hundreds of flights throughout July and mostly due to staffing issues.

This time at the height of the pandemic, the company furloughed thousands of workers.

It was a huge layoff that they had.

Meanwhile, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker made over $10 million in compensation during the same time period.

And now they don't want to come back to work.

So what do you think?

And they all got a lot of CARES Act money, et cetera, et cetera.

What do you think of what's happened here?

Well, I think it's more of the same.

I think it's just what's shocking isn't that workers are coming back, but it's shocking that people making $10 million a year are shocked that people don't want to come back to work at $15 an hour.

So it's nice that

there is some truth to the fact that the market is the ultimate arbiter and the fact that the market does seem to be reaching into wages finally at lower income levels or people who frontline workers and bringing their wages up.

But look,

I'm not a big fan of bailing out companies, small or big.

I think we need to be more harsh with companies.

Companies are in abstract and airlines would still be flying if they'd all gone bankrupt.

To be fair, a lot of them, including Delta and Southwest, opted to get loans in the private markets.

I think American and United opted to take loans from the government.

But look, if you go back to long-term capital management, if you go back to the initial bailout of Chrysler, all bailouts do is set up for bigger bailouts.

And when you're bailing out a company, it's positioned as CEOs like this try to position it as saving jobs and saving America.

And really what they're doing is they're saving their own compensation because the stock goes way down.

They get awarded options.

And then when the stock comes back up, they make $10 million.

But who they're really saying, when we bail out companies who are really bailing out is the 1%.

And I don't even want to say bailing out because that connotes that they're in trouble.

Well, it's simple.

If you look at the S ⁇ P 500 and you disarticulate it into deciles and you take the biggest 50 companies and you keep going down, there's now a correlation between size and returns.

And the reason why is the market, which is smarter than all of us, absorbs the notion that there's asymmetric risk return to the upside.

Because if you're too big to fail, the government comes in and says, okay, take big risks.

And if they work, boom, you make money.

And if they don't work, we'll bail you out.

And all we're really doing with these bailouts at the end of the day is bailing out shareholders, which by gross dollar amount, 90% goes to the top 1%.

So all of these bailouts, they shouldn't be called bailouts.

They should be called, we're making the rich richer.

We're making the shareholders richer.

So what should they have done?

What should they have done here they laid off all these people this was an extended period of non-travel the business fell off there's other other companies did this airbnb did this many others did this um laid people off um what what do you think is the issue then what do we how do you how do you get people back to work if they don't want to work and this was of course the republican uh calling cry like they're not people aren't going to work but they think like that's i i don't think it's a bad thing i was in a a supermarket the other day a very good supermarket i'm in rhode island right now um and they were they were couldn't do the deli counter because they didn't have enough workers, right?

And so I asked someone, and they were like, well, you know, it is because why come back to work if you're going to earn less?

Like, what is the, you know, the end, but the minute that employment benefits and they're going to go back to work, it's that, you know, they're going to pick the jobs, they're going to try to get a better job or a better deal or something like that.

And some of these companies, which have been riding off the backs of workers for a while, are going to have a real problem.

And in American's case, they laid off a lot of people.

And the contrast, while it's more complex than just, oh,

ceo gets money and and workers get furloughed is really going to challenge employers to do better for employees presumably

but you there's a few components to this and you summarize the first component perfectly and that is if a company can't a small business or uber or whoever it is can't survive without software that circumvents minimum wage laws or without an employment contract that pays people $2 an hour plus tips, that business should go out of business.

We don't need businesses like that.

That's That's bad for the economy.

We can also raise minimum wage.

We can also, quite frankly, say, look, I'm a big believer in you should be able to fire workers.

The countries that have the easiest time firing workers are the countries that hire workers at the greatest click when the economy comes back.

You should also let businesses fail.

They go out of business.

And when they go out of business,

everyone imagines that no one would get to fly again if Delta went out of business.

No one wouldn't.

The creditors would come in, take over the company, the shareholders would be wiped out, senior management would make as much money.

A lot of people would be fired in the short run, and then someone else with fresh capital and fresh legs and a fresh vision for a post-pandemic airline would come back.

This is something that Chamath Polyhapatia said to me, like when we were talking about his things should just die.

Like he was, no, Chamath could be very

or be reinvented.

Yeah, that's what he was talking about.

And not those not inventing in growth are going to be in trouble.

This was in the middle, right as the pandemic started.

He said, any company that is giving dividends or overpaying overpaying its CEOs is in big trouble

after the pandemic.

Well, we have more flora and fauna in a capitalist society.

And one of the things that makes America great is that we believe in pyrophilic plants.

And those are plants that are only born of germination by fire.

And fire is rejuvenating.

And occasionally, and what happens is when you keep bailing out these companies, all you're doing, Kara, is letting more brush and accelerant gather such that when the actual crash comes, it is a firestorm.

You let businesses go out of business.

And guess what?

If Carnival was allowed to go out of business or

American was allowed to go out of business, there would still be an airline.

People would still get from point A to point B.

People would still be hired back.

And in terms of employees, I just find it shocking that everyone looks at it in the existential crisis that people have said, it's not that people don't want jobs.

People have said, you know what?

I don't want a shitty job.

I'm sick of getting paid no money.

They realize the trade-offs they've been doing and what they've been putting up with.

It's interesting, it'll have what ripple effect it has, like something like Airbnb or other ancillary companies.

One of the things that when I was talking to Brian yesterday, he thought business travel was over.

He said, I'm not even depending on business travel anymore.

His business, he has sort of written it off as a direction for Airbnb and things like that.

They've already made those adjustments and not depending on it because he thinks people are going to do, you know, more virtual, that they don't have to go as much.

And he's going to focus more in on close-to-home travel and also other travel as it returns tourist travel and consumer travel.

What do you think of this?

I think Brian is mostly right.

Business travel isn't going to go away.

It's going to be like malls or retail or movie theaters or even office space.

And it'll experience a dramatic, a structural decline in demand, but it'll still be there.

But I think travel will actually be compensated by

or the slack will be picked up by people are going to spend more money and more time.

for leisure travel.

I think that's going to absolutely boom.

What do you think?

I do.

I agree with him.

I thought it was just interesting how very clear he was that he just was, he said it was dead.

And I thought that was an interesting thing.

And I might agree with him.

I'm just not going to travel as much for work.

And I think a lot of people, a company, speaking of say like the employees reestablishing themselves and figuring out what really is earning is about, I think companies are like, I don't need to spend that.

I'm sure Jeff Banko was like, why am I spending so much money on hotels and planes when my business did better?

So I think it should be interesting.

I think a lot of people have reassessed a lot of things, Scott.

Well, I commuted commuted pre-pandemic.

I commuted to New York for 10 years from Delray Beach, go to Palm Beach Airport, PBI, Sunday nights, up and back, Sunday to Thursday.

That's 100 flights a year, plus meals, hotels.

I mean, that was 50 to 100 grand a year.

And that is now I'm going to go up once a month.

I mean, it's a big shift.

Yeah, it's a big shift.

All right.

We'll go to a quick break, and we'll be back to talk about the SEC's new metrics for curbing climate change, China's ban on crypto mining, and friend of Pivot, NBC's Chuck Todd.

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Scott, we're back.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is gearing up to have companies disclose more about how they're responding to climate change.

It's a really interesting new trend.

It's like what their climate report is essentially.

Gary Gensler, Biden's new SEC chair, has said that climate-related disclosure is a huge priority.

He will be meeting with financial regulators in the next week to come up with metrics to help investors get a sense of how a company is dealing with their links to climate change.

It's something that tech companies have been doing for a little while, but it's and then have been pushing for this too.

Meanwhile, China is shutting down 90% of its crypto mining, which is interesting.

That's where a lot of it goes on.

The notice ordered that local electric companies immediately stop supplying power to crypto mining projects they have detected.

The ban, which came over a weekend, seems seems less about environmental concerns raised by people like Elon Musk, for example, and more an effort of the Chinese government to control the market before releasing a digital currency itself.

So what's happening here?

There's all sorts of things going on.

Well, Gary,

first off, I've been shocked.

Supposedly a third of the capital raised for alternative investment vehicles has some sort of ESG component where they want to know what your climate policy is.

So creating metrics that investors can better evaluate where where they want to allocate their capital is the kind of thing the SEC should be doing.

The SEC should be coming up with standards that not only say, here are

some protocols and common metrics, but also doing away or not allowing metrics like community-based EBITDA and all the bullshit metrics that companies come up with to fool people into believing they're worth more than they

actually are.

The other thing you mentioned, the crypto thing is really big.

Crypto took a bit of a hit over the weekend.

And I had said, and I didn't realize what happened in China, China, but I've always thought that crypto was an existential threat to the U.S.

dollar because

this incredible force globally is having the dollar as the kind of the premier currency for foreign exchange reserves because dollars have to flow through our system.

We get incredible visibility into the flows of influence.

Our economic sanctions have more power.

And China's the one that said, well, you know what?

Crypto is an existential threat to the yuan, and we're going to shut it down.

Because they can do that, just like they can do things to Jack Ma that you may want to do

Elon Musk Musk and you can't.

It's nice to be an autocracy on certain levels.

But the argument they're making is that it's a bullshit argument about environment.

And it's a really interesting

discussion.

And that is, okay.

Bitcoin is supposedly responsible for electricity consumption greater than Argentina, but at the same time, a lot of people would argue that putting it close to alternative sources of energy creates a greater market and capital for the development of alternative sources of energy.

But

I think this is a big deal.

I don't, you know, what happens when the hash rate, which is basically a measure of the viscosity or how robust mining is,

it's still way up if you go back one or two years, but it took a substantial dip when this happened.

Mining has seen a serious slowdown over the last several days because of these actions.

I think it's fascinating.

I'd love to control

Ferguson's take on that.

Yeah, it's an interesting, well, I'm going to give you mine.

I think it is a question about control.

You know, Peter Thiel has talked about this.

A lot of people are talking about this issue of the threat to the dollar and what it means.

And of course, the people who are proponents of Bitcoin think this is a good thing, the ability to decouple currency and finance from government influence.

And that's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen in China.

And by the way, it's not happening in the US of A.

So it's going to be an interesting battle between them in terms of setting standards and everything else.

And so, but at the same time, that's the inclination of Bitcoin in that way.

But what successfully happened is to sort of hang the environmental bandit

name around the neck of Bitcoin.

And even Elon Musk was saying this.

I'm still trying to figure out why he suddenly shifted that way.

But the environmental impact gives a huge opportunity to create more environmentally conscious Bitcoin, obviously, or any cryptocurrency.

And so it's a really interesting concept.

There's a lot of opportunity there to do that.

And at the same time, I think

these cryptocurrency people are not going to escape

regulation, global regulation.

They just aren't.

They're just not going to do it.

They're going to try because that's the sense of it, but they are not going to be successful at it on some level, to my mind.

By the way, the company I invested in,

the cold storage hardware wallet, Ledger, they just raised $380 million.

It's an opportunity.

Can you believe that?

Yeah, I can.

380.

That's got to be bigger than 95% of the IPOs.

I was blown away by that.

You know, someone was making a lot of money making those little sleeves you put coins in a million years ago.

It's just there's businesses around all these things, and I think this is a huge opportunity.

Everything deposit boxes, right?

You know, right, yeah.

Like someone made those.

Like when you look at them, someone made everything that had to do with.

It's recurring revenue.

They charge you, you know, 30 bucks a year to have a box where you store grandma's ring in.

I mean, this is kind of

I have one in San Francisco.

And then I keep thinking, what am I going to do if there's an earthquake?

Anyway, so last question.

What is the what happens with the SEC?

Do you think investors do care about environmental issues?

Or will it just be another checkbox for investors?

I think they do.

I think a lot of investors do.

But

why the move, do you think?

I have been just blown away by...

So investors, I've always said that it's regulation and then in terms of importance, that waiting on these companies, Better Angels to show up is a flawed strategy.

That needs to be regulation.

And that the second place of power, Fulcrum of power, is to change boards because it all starts at the board picks the CEO, the CEO picks management, compensation, schematics, et cetera.

What I miss there, it's another really powerful force that's really been incredibly influential is investors.

And a lot of big investors, it's kind of strange.

We talk about concentration of big tech, the concentration of alternative investments is crazy.

If you look at the Fortune 500, Two of the three largest shareholders are one of like five companies.

It's State Street, Black Rock, and I forget who the other one is.

There's another enormous one that's in everyone.

So people people say, well, the markets are somewhat inert that you have the same kind of guy sitting around a table owning every company.

But what's exciting is they all seem to have rallied around this notion of sustainability and ESG.

And again, a massive amount of capital now has as an investment criteria, some sort of ESG or climate component.

I think it's exciting.

And to be honest, I'm a little bit surprised.

shocked to the upside that they are taking this stuff on.

And what they I think they've also seen is that companies with more diverse, more diversity overperform.

Companies with a climate policy overperform.

So they have linked the two, that there appears to be a congruence between stakeholder value and shareholder returns.

But

it's crazy the amount of money that now says, unless you are buttoned up around these issues, we are not investing.

Yep.

It is interesting.

And I think tech companies, I've been talking to a lot of tech companies, they've been really pushing this heavily because they're already doing this Microsoft, you know, zero carbon, Google, stuff like that.

It's an area where they can actually look like white hats in.

And so they've been pushing it really hard with

the government, which is interesting.

I think it'll be interesting.

And the time, obviously, the Trump administration never would have considered this at all, thought it was like...

you know, thumb sucking, essentially.

Anyway,

it's a really interesting area.

And both areas are intertwined in a lot of ways.

We're going to see a lot more development is there, including investments.

It's a huge opportunity.

Aaron Ross Powell, yeah, it's really exciting.

And there's something about

the question I get asked most when I do a speaking gig, they say, people always say, what's going to snap back to normal and what will never be the same?

That's the question you get the most.

And I saw that Arthur Anderson is hiring, or Accenture, I think it is, I guess Arthur Anderson no longer exists.

Accenture is hiring like 10,000 people in AI.

And the thing about America that has always made, or at least since the end of World War II, kind of the economy,

the big engine that could, so to speak,

that always does incredibly incredibly well is our agility.

And you can literally feel the economy reshaping around.

Venture funding is dramatically up.

Funding around AI startups has already exceeded last year, and we're only, you know, we're not even halfway through the year.

It feels as if the economy is reconfiguring out of sort of a

information age, AI, machine learning-driven world.

And it's just striking.

You can literally feel the ground beneath us kind of reshifting.

There's going to be a lot fewer restaurants.

There's going to be a lot fewer.

Yep.

I mean, just

there's a ton of industries, whether it's commercial real estate, whether airlines, workers, everything.

In our industrial complex.

Relationships, everything.

What am I going to do now?

I agree.

This has been one of the penalties.

Numero Tres and Numero Nueve Niño.

What aren't you?

I mean,

the Sultan of Calorama.

I don't live in Calorama.

Anyway, let's move on and bring on our friend of Pivot.

Chuck Todd.

He needs no introduction, but nonetheless, he's NBC News' political director, moderator, and host of Meet the Press and host of Peacock's Meet the Press Reports.

Welcome to the show, Chuck.

Thank you, Kara.

Nice to talk with you.

So, so

we want to talk about a lot of things.

There's a lot of things you're up to, but streaming television is one of them.

And this is this new NBC Reports.

Now, Scott and I talk about this a lot.

So making the move from cable television to streaming television is a big one.

And a lot of companies are focused in on it.

Largely, shareholders are interested in it.

There's all kinds of reasons and consumers like it.

So, tell us about this future for you and the audience.

Well, I would say we're, I look, I'm, I'm, we're trying, I'm trying to constantly reorganize

to be platform neutral.

So, I kind of view it as, and in fact, now we're actually organizing ourselves as a company that way.

If you look, we, we, we used to be uh a news division that in some ways was

um highlighted, you know, it was divvied up by platform, right?

You know, your cable head, your broadcast head, your this.

And, you know, when they started Peacock, they started on the entertainment side, but they stopped worrying about, okay, I'm going to pitch NBC broadcast or I'm going to pitch USA.

And instead, no, no, no, no, it's one entity.

So in that sense, I sort of,

I think this sort of the old platform divides are going away and that divvy, that divide up.

So I kind of think we're, you know, we say it's, we're going to streaming.

Well, it, it's, you know, I'm sure it's like people in the 1940s radio saying they're going to TV.

And then eventually it's just all television, right?

Eventually it's just, you know, streaming is just sort of the,

you know, your entry point into all visual media and maybe visual and audio media.

So

I guess that's sort of the world I'm envisioning that we're headed to.

Now, I view streaming right now as an opportunity for, I think, the audience

on streaming is interested in more deeper dives, single topic, right?

Which is something that I've been dying to what I call news adjacent stories.

I mean, there's plenty of Sunday, you know, you want to say, hey, I want to do a whole hour and like get a, for instance, our season finale.

What's the, what's the next war going to look like that America has to be prepared for?

On one end, you could say, hey, that'd be a great, that'd be a great meet the press hour.

Could have been.

But there's sort of an expectation and, you know, there's, we can go through the business reasons and the sort of the reasons you've set for your viewers.

your viewers are expecting what's going on this week what's going to happen next week so um in that sense it's it's a place to

um where you feel like you can connect with an audience that is looking for something deeper we know that there's um one of the i think the things that we all discovered when streaming sort of started to go mainstream is that there was a lot of demand for for documentaries there was a lot of demand for a lot of uh what I'd call non-fit non-fiction television that isn't dated hour-to-hour news.

I get that.

Why haven't you guys have gotten it before?

Because I remember the same thing was around the internet.

It was sort of an adjunct versus the main thing.

And I was like, it's the thing.

It's the thing.

It is the thing, right?

So why?

Why was it so slow?

Why has it been slow?

Yeah, I think a lot of the big companies.

I think it's a resource issue.

It's also a money thing, isn't it?

Don't you still print money running those military industrial complex commercials and meet the press?

I wouldn't say it prints money, but there is certainly an adjunct.

You're the most profitable show in history, aren't you, Chair?

It is.

Well, it's because we're also very low cost, too.

Highly profitable.

Right.

That's right.

But

there's certainly that audience, which has got its own

unique advertiser base, there's no doubt.

I mean, I always say the Washington market is

probably my most important market, not New York, right?

Every other entity has to worry about New York or LA.

You know, for me, it is Washington, right?

Because it is sort of the, it's who's watching, not necessarily how many are watching

on that front.

But,

you know, I think the bigger issue has just been we're an aircraft carrier.

You know, when you're the largest aircraft, I've always said NBC is basically the largest aircraft carrier in that, in the sort of the television landscape or whatever you want to now call this landscape, this sort of the media landscape.

It just takes us longer to turn.

But then once we turn, you know, it's sort of like

it's it's, you know,

it's not done.

Right.

It's not as willy-willy.

I mean, I look, I look at what we're developing.

I mean,

I say this, it's going to sound as if I'm just, you know, humping the home team here, but

I'm ecstatic at how well Peacock has launched.

I'm ecstatic at where this is headed.

I think we're, you know, sometimes you worry when you try to play catch up to the cool kids that you won't do it as well.

And we're learning all the time.

But I feel like, you know, I look around at our competitors and I feel like we're light years ahead of some of our other competitors and where this is headed you know uh you know i look at our friends over at cnn and i think they're they're behind already and i don't it's sort of a head scratcher to me oh they sell us for in some ways

i don't understand how they've not become espn you know how espn is this i love this i gotta interrupt first off i learned i always finish let him finish nobody because he interrupts his guests

and now a word from opioid and now a word from opioid induced constipation of the person selling music

constipation drug yet but

Nobody thinks of ESPN as a cable channel anymore.

You know, you can go to ESPN and there's like 35 feeds all the time that you can get.

I was watching my nephew play in the college baseball tournament.

It wasn't on ESPN or ESPN2, but I had the feed that I wanted to watch on the SPNN.

And that's where I, you know, and that.

That's something that I'm surprised CNN's been a little slower at on that.

Well, Jason Kylar talked about it, but he's not going to be in charge anymore.

He did talk about it extensively, actually.

That was the plan, but it's not the plan anymore.

Scott, go ahead, keep going.

Now you may interrupt.

Okay, so first off, whenever I listen to Chuck Todd, I learn.

And you are the first person I've ever heard the following from.

I am ecstatic about Peacock.

So

I want to understand what it is about.

Peacock that you think they're doing really well.

I also, I'm curious,

you are on every medium.

My sense is you're the second hardest working person in show business behind Kara Swisher.

When you look at the different mediums, podcasting, ad supported, cable, streaming,

which if you were going to say, all right, I'm Chuck Todd and I want to devote all my human capital to one medium, what would that medium be?

What stage of life am I in personally?

You know, I sit there and say, I find the podcast conversations to be the most rewarding at times.

You can do nuance.

You can go serious and you can go light all at the same time.

There isn't this sense that it's performance arts.

There's not a theater that goes with it, that sometimes you're being judged on fair, unfair.

So if you're asking me on that front, I feel like

that's the,

if I want to...

If I want to figure out how someone ticks, like what makes them tick?

What's really motivated them in their lives?

Why is it that they decided to get into politics or this?

I think that's the best medium.

Now, it's not the best medium for accountability journalism at times.

It's not the best, you know, there's different, I think there's different,

there's, you could argue that that's in some ways the television medium is

can be very helpful on that front or the sort of the old version of however you want to describe that.

So, um, but you know, I'm not going to sit here and be polite.

The reason I'm happy about Peacock is that I feel like it's a tentpole.

All right.

And I sit here and say it's, and we're getting more right than wrong.

And I feel like, okay, we're built to last.

It makes sense.

I see where we're headed.

I think that

they have correctly straddled the fence of the folks like my mother who still sort of needs to.

have a little more like Netflix overwhelms her, Amazon overwhelms her.

But there's this idea of channels and all of that.

And sort of,

I just think it's a, it's going to help people transition from linear to streaming.

What is different?

Better than I think some of the other ones have done.

That's why I feel pretty good about it.

When you talk about what you're making, what's different?

What are you making that's different on these channels as, you know, meet the press reports?

Is it more documentary style?

And the audience would be your mother still or younger people, or who are you trying to reach in that regard?

So So I look at it as I'm trying to reach the more casual information seeker that doesn't, that may be a little bit turned off by the day-to-day news cycle, maybe thinks that cable news and social media is silly and sort of pointless to follow, but they're pretty serious people.

And I think

they're more likely to watch 30 minutes on, you know,

what are millennials going to be like as a voting block over the next 25 years.

You know, so I view it as sort of the news magazine meets a documentary short.

You know, I think sometimes it, you know, I, I've,

my favorites, you know, I, my favorite spinoff of 60 Minutes is real sports, right?

60 Minutes is sort of that, you know, everybody's got this idea of what a news magazine show looks like and

there have been derivatives of 60.

I think real sports is my favorite derivative.

And if I were to say, if I were like ripping off anybody, it'd be my friend Brian, you know, and that you, you, you sort of lay it out, you lay the story out, but then you unpack the story, and then maybe you add a little bit more to it.

So it's sort of, you know, it's a doc, it's a doc short that maybe meets a magazine piece in that sense.

So that's why I enjoy it.

And that's where I feel like I've scratched some itches where you feel like, okay,

we were able to, you know, we want, you want to do it and you just don't have enough time or you don't have

the backing.

And now there's, there's,

you know, there's suddenly demand for more news.

There might have been demand.

Audiences might not have liked the screamy reductiveness, you know, I mean, ultimately, that cable has often turned into.

There might have been that demand just ignored by programmers in a lot of ways.

Well, I think now cable is like, you know, it's funny, it's cable

news or even cable television no longer,

you know, it used to just describe how you got that television channel, right?

And now there is a, now it sort of is, it's descriptive of a, it's almost a, it's a genre now, right?

Particularly on the news side.

So it, it, it is, it is sort of, it, it means something different today than it did in the 90s.

But to you, implicit in your comments is the assumption or that there's an editorial direction.

And the editorial direction is more what I call hard

fact check based journalism that you're confident.

And have you seen that?

Have you said, look, it's become a food fight in cable news, and we're going to try and bring more legitimacy and more reverence for the truth to the streaming.

Do you feel that and see that at Peacock and other streamers?

Well, what I feel like is that I do think, and if you see sort of,

I think we're all, you know, all the different streaming news sites, whether it's ours at News Now, what CBS Digital has done, what ABC Digital has done, I think we're all, nobody thinks you should replicate the cable model.

Right.

If you've noticed that there seems to be an assumption that, no,

you want to be there when people are seeking out news and information.

Oh, a big event is happening.

Let me check out news now.

A big, you know, so I think there's there's there's a bet we're making there.

I don't think we have enough data to support whether we're making the right bet yet.

I'm going to just be honest.

I'm, I'm, um, you know, there's certainly anecdotal that you feel like you get out of it.

Um, you see there were, you know, all the time, I'm asking for data and I get it.

I mean, they share some of it with news now, and you sort of see

that there is constant growth all the time.

I mean,

it is cord cutters, right?

Like ultimately on the big news event nights, when NewsNow erupts, they're able to see it is the cord cutter.

So I think there's that.

But I know

I just think cable has become,

I think that.

Cable and social media have the same problem.

They worry too much about who's watching

and they cater to the audience.

They don't, they don't report the news.

You know, I always say I cover politics as it is, not as I wish it were.

And I think cable is catering to the viewer that is looking for politics as they want it.

And

I think that social media has sort of supersized that.

right and the two are sort of almost intertwined so so i'm i'm making a bet that there's going to be this

i don't you know that that more and more there is well not only that i know know this i mean we sort of watch how often social media political

uh seers are so wrong now constantly because it isn't representative of sort of where america is it's representative of where the people that are on twitter are Yeah, okay, so talk about this.

How does this streaming television affect the next election coverage for the next four years?

And voters getting their information differently.

Now, Donald Trump is perfect for the cable, news, and social media universe.

It's twitchy, it's reductive, it's narrative, it's entertainment.

It's kind of toxic entertainment, but that's what it is.

And obviously, the numbers have fallen off rather dramatically since he left, as he predicted, and he's correct.

But what will be different?

How should people on streaming intelligence get their,

how will it affect the election coverage in the next few years?

Well, I think that streaming is going to be the home of

all the long-form journalism for a while.

That's about 2024.

Now, whether that is impactful or not, I think I'm sort of reading that in your question a little bit.

I'm sort of trying to, it is, because I don't know the answer to that.

I'm hoping it's impactful.

I'm hoping there are ways we do this impactfully.

I think you're going to see all sorts of experimentation on streaming.

Well, you'll have maybe, you know, you'll have people that are just some entity that'll be like the, you know, the all-Ron DeSantis channel, right?

The all, you know, things like that.

You may see it, you know,

that's a potential negative side of where this could go um look i think we're headed for uber fragmentation um but i have this pollyannish hope that uber fragmentation means there are so many bubbles that you can't help but have your bubbles collide with each other and you may accidentally get get uh cultural feeds that come from different perspectives where right now our sort of our cultural bubbles are are very defined in the in the pre-streaming world.

But as we continue to fragment,

the idea is like the more fragmentation, the more you're you're, well, I'm also a baseball card nut, so I'm going to go into that bubble.

Oh, that's going to expose me to a point of view that I had no idea about X.

So

it's, like I said, a bit Pollyannish point of view about what

Uber fragmentation could lead to.

But I think that's what's going to be definitional about 23 and 24 is there'll be a lot more of that and streaming will will be filled with a lot more experimental coverage and will some will work and some won't but that's kind of how I view how the next cycle is going to look like on streaming.

Kind of what I would say,

I was in, so I was involved in the very first political website that

mainstream networks invested in in 95, 96 called Politics Now.

It was actually, we were one called Politics USA.

I would equate it.

That was a very experimental time with the internet between I'd say 96 and

the internet didn't really become a

driver, arguably, you know, drudge was it on Criticism?

You know,

no, we were

on the internet.

They were on the internet.

We were on the web.

They were.

I joke.

I remember doing moderating chats and all of our conversations

were with libertarians.

Like the only people online were the libertarians and they wanted a lot more Harry Brown coverage because Harry Brown was the libertarian nominee in 1996.

So that was a, it was an early reminder that to this day, I've always, and it's been true to this day that the sort of the more hardcore the internet whole is, think Reddit and all this stuff,

its base ideology is still that libertarian mindset.

Scott?

I'm curious.

I want to just pivot to politics.

By the way, you so owe me drinks.

I watch your show every week.

I'm literally

drinks.

Right.

Why do you want drinks?

Where is my loyalty card?

And

I think I'm literally the youngest hippus viewer of the 3 million people watching your show.

Lobar.

Low bar.

Star me at that age.

Lobar.

Anyways,

I think I'm still younger than the average table.

The average table.

I'm nagging the guest and asking an actual question.

I admire him.

I think he does a great job.

Anyways, Chuck,

you have this really rare seat.

You sit at the fulcrum of two political parties.

And my senses, and correct me, I may be wrong here, and this goes to my question, that a lot of them don't even, not only don't speak to each other, they don't really understand each other.

What do we get wrong?

You know, these people, you come in contact with more of them from the entire spectrum.

Like, what are, what would you tell us that our impression of these people is not correct?

What can you tell us we don't know about these individuals?

I'll give you an answer I used to give, but I don't believe it as much anymore because I do think we've, we've, um,

I do think running,

I would say before 2010, I would say

that 95% of people that were elected to Congress ran for what I would call the right reasons, meaning there was something personal that motivated them, a local issue,

and there was a sort of a there was a core.

I remember one of my things that I did a lot when I first started Meet the Press, actually was Daily Rundown, the pre, the first iteration of a cable news before I took over Sunday Meet the Press and then

changed to a Meet the Press daily is I used to do exit interviews with longtime retiring senators or like committee chairs in the house.

And I remember doing one where he's like, I said, what, you know, why'd you run for office the first time?

And this person said,

because

I didn't like the lines they were drawing for my kids' school district.

And I was upset.

And then I said, well, what'd you learn from the experience?

And he says that I was wrong about their motivation of why they drew the lines, but

I won the office anyway.

And then it just sort of it was, but it was, it was like, that's, that's how you at least hope someone gets involved because they're like, oh, what's this happening?

Maybe I need to get more involved.

Maybe I should, you know, go to a board meeting and find out what's happening.

And if I don't like it, maybe I should run.

It sort of,

I can't say that anymore because there is a, unfortunately, running for political office is now a fast track,

is now a get-rich-quick scheme

for a chunk of people.

Not going to say a majority of the people, but you look at a Matt Gates and it's pretty clear he views politics as some sort of

fast track to stardom, fast track to celebrity, fast track to money in some form or another.

And

that's the

world we've headed to that

I'm concerned about, that it's,

because then

it sort of cheapens the idea of public service a little bit.

And I do think, in fact, that we don't, I'll tell you a story that

stares us in the face every hour.

And that is the language that's used in email fundraising.

And I think that we sort of overlook it too often collectively and not realize, read those words.

It's like, this is just,

this is becoming a grift.

It is bordering on becoming a grift and a weird get-witch scheme and that consultants are like abusing people, you know, raising money just to, just to, you know, collect fees.

And the money never actually goes to anything.

And we can do all the stories that were blew in the face telling people this is the case and it doesn't matter, right?

It keeps working.

It keeps happening.

And so

that's, you know, that's a part of this that I'm, that's disappointed me.

And then I'm, you watch a lot of people who I think came in to public service for the right reasons and now just want to survive and keep their job.

And that has made them

do things that, you know,

I think just publicly have, you know,

not to

face the idea of public service.

Sure, but hasn't cable news by putting people like Matt Gates on, or all of the, all of them, not just yours, but, you know, made it so they have to do these hot takes and then they move to Twitter and do a hot take.

You and I both recently interviewed Anthony Fauci, and obviously he's the latest version of that, right?

He's become ridiculous.

He's been fighting back against it.

But, you know, just yesterday, Marshall Blackburn put out an idiot tweet.

Ronnie Jackson put out an idiot tweet.

I mean, you know, I think I tweeted Dumb Dumber and then there's Dumbest, but it's still, it's part of the game of doing that.

Can you do any decent political coverage

in any of these medium when that's the fact and Trump has made it so and still exists in the universe?

I guess what I'd say is I want to try.

I mean,

I take your point.

I always say there's sort of two different political news cycles every day.

There's the political news cycle that's about

getting crap done, right?

Whether it's preparing, you know, what's going to happen in the Biden-Putin meeting, what's the latest on the infrastructure talks.

And then there's this other news cycle of the outrage of the day or the manufactured crisis, you know, whatever the manufactured

crisis is, particularly on the right-wing echo chamber,

which is

on one hand,

they're extraordinarily gifted at manufacturing controversy.

I mean, I sometimes like, I don't think we fully appreciate, sadly, how effective they are.

It's amazing how quickly

right-wing politicians will just echo whatever the right-wing media, you know, if it knows that it's getting traction or it's going viral, they now glom on to it on that front.

So,

and and you know, it's funny when we put together a Sunday rundown and, you know, my favorite question on Fridays or Saturdays will be, what are we missing?

And inevitably, the what are we missing is this part two of political coverage, the stuff you're talking about, Karen.

And it's sort of like, how much do we delve into it?

How much do we not?

Like this past week, I did do an e-block on what on basically what we were shorthanding internally is MAGA bingo, right?

This sort of how the entire Republican Party, like there's, you know,

the Republican base doesn't care what's happening in infrastructure talks right now, right?

The Republican base is animated by something, right?

By

other issues, right?

Whether it's this, the so-called critical race theory manufactured controversy or the

election,

or we got to somehow send troops to the border,

or I'm going to the, I mean, the Missouri Senate candidates apparently have to go to the Arizona audit

in order to show affinity to primary voters.

So now I think that story collectively is important to show

this is how Republican primaries are going to look for the 22 cycle.

It's going to be a competition of who can sort of virtue signal the best to the MAGA bays.

Question I have is:

this feels like a mistake for them that this is going to alienate middle-of-the-road voters.

But, you know, that's also a story that's not yet fully baked.

So

I think it becomes a challenge on when to cover sort of that part of the news cycle, which is sort of the cable clings to it because, let's be frank, I think they think there's a ratings draw to it.

Well, I think you all can't look away from Trump.

I think it's really hard.

And he is compelling as a figure, as a character.

And he takes advantage, fully takes advantage of that.

But that is a debate that can go on forever.

Scott, last question.

So I want to do a lightning round with you, Chuck, and that is look at the insiders,

our representatives, the House, Senators, and I won't ask you.

I'll ask you what you think their impression as a body would be.

Hardest working elected representatives in government.

The hardest working

representatives of government, I would say

it's the committee staff are the hardest working people.

The people that run the committees.

The staff director.

Lightning, Chuck.

We're going lightning here.

All right, sorry.

We're going lightning.

Sorry.

Substantive now.

God forgot to see it.

There's no screen in this now.

What do you think this is?

A podcast?

Oh, wait.

God, I'm not Twitter.

I'm not going to go after you.

Like, tooth and nail.

God, you get it on Twitter.

Here we go.

Here we go.

All right.

But doesn't that tell you what Twitter's about?

Most interesting.

Isn't it more reflective of Twitter than it is of what we do?

Chuck, we're going to lose Boeing as a sponsor if you keep interrupting me.

Go ahead.

Keep going.

Okay.

Most interesting person people would want to hang out with

in washington yeah i know that's an oxymoron

jesus the most interesting person

uh i don't man i'm so uh

jill bid

okay most effective mcconnell and pelosi most feared

McConnell and Pelosi.

Yeah, I knew you were going to say that.

What if they elected a president?

Who do you think they would elect amongst themselves if they had to pick a president?

Who's the the least offensive to the other side and they could coalesce around?

Oh, interesting.

Good question, Scott.

Oh,

gosh, that's a, that's a you stump chuck top.

I'm going to say Stanny.

I'll put Stenny Hoyer

as the Democratic nominee for that spot

and

Roy Blunt.

And who gets the biggest turnout?

Are you sure I'm going there?

Yeah.

Who gets the biggest turnout of their funeral?

And people are generally want to honor that person.

Barack Obama.

That's an interesting and kind of macabre question, Scott.

I like it.

It really was.

But I mean, you know, you're

all about 105.

We need to think about that for a lot of them.

Not poor Obama, man.

That's a guy that, you know,

to be done, and all of a sudden you're just in your 60s.

Don't you have the 60s?

I think it's honoring that.

All right.

I mean, so Spielberg.

Yeah.

Everybody's on Netflix now.

All right.

Last, very, very last question.

Looking at all these mergers and acquisitions, you can't help but think about them.

Now, NBC bought,

Comcast bought NBC a long time ago, but and it was sort of early to this, but there's going to be more and more and more.

How do you look at it?

I mean, like Paramount's a possibility.

There's a whole bunch, you know, there's a whole bunch that are possibly going to get bought.

How does it feel like to be part of a news organization that's going to probably be part of a bigger thing?

Even the internet companies will probably get involved at some point.

It used to scare me a little bit that we would just, you know, get marginalized more and more.

But

it now feels like you need it to happen to survive and get the resources.

You know, it's funny.

It's like, you know,

what I'm interested in is sort of

where does the New York Times go?

You know,

does it get consumed by one of these big entities?

That's my theory.

um you know and that's just in our space in the new space i've been i've been i've pondered that for a while and

and

where what happens to the

you know when when does amazon merge the washing when when does the washington post and amazon fully fully sort of um get together and you know the next big thing to me is is

does netflix buy one of these legacy, one of these remaining legacy media companies.

I mean, it is, I feel, look, I feel confident.

The reason I'm happy about Peacock is that it's funny.

It's like, I don't know who survived.

I would feel less comfortable being at CBS right now than I would here.

You know, I think everyone is less comfortable.

Yeah.

And by the way, I feel that way about CNN.

Like, on one hand, they have this amazing brand, global brand.

On the other hand, I've they've always had owners that don't know what the hell to do with them.

Um,

and you know, they're a they're they're this

to me, the the

second most fascinating place is,

you know, does

do they become the tent pole for Warner Media or is Warner swallowed?

Right.

Yeah.

We have said swallowed.

It's too small.

You know, it's too small.

You think it is too small.

Yeah.

And I think the question I have is:

I don't know if we're big enough or not.

You know, I feel like we're right.

Some people think we're right on the edge.

We're too big to be consumed.

Nobody can,

we're too big to be swallowed.

So it's no doubt we're probably going to be consuming.

I know this, I thought we would get into the, you know, but if Amazon's going to overpay for MGM, then it's hard to get into this game sometimes, right?

So I think that's been, it's pretty,

it's pretty clear that my company wants to be a consumer

in that sense.

So pretty much

for Chuck Todd.

Prediction.

Chuck Todd, you'll be working at CNN within a year.

They're going to throw up in earnings, and the Roberts family is sitting there in in the weeds, waiting for that stock, that single class of share stocks with a quarter of a trillion dollar market cap, which Comcast has.

New head of CNN politics, Chuck Todd.

Within 24 months, Comcast will be able to.

I will tell you this.

If I ever didn't want to be on air anymore, I would love to try to

sort of strategize where all this is headed is, you know, I'd love to do what you guys do.

You can, Chuck.

You can do it.

You can just do it.

You just say it.

You just vomit up information like we do.

how much would we love to see chuck todd and anderson cooper at the same desk oh my gods just talk about brains and dreamy that is chocolate and peanut butter stop don't

chocolate and peanut butter

love they go great together you don't understand what's happening here but he's got a weird obsession with anderson cooper in any case is that right thank you

please don't please stop please stop anyway chuck thank you so much this is incredibly smart and we really appreciate it and we're looking forward to going over to peacock to see Chuck's a floridian.

Peace out.

Word to my Floridian brother.

All right, Chuck, thank you.

Come home.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate it.

Have a good day.

See ya.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

I think you and Chuck had a little mind meld there, but asking for a drink was, I think, a little forward.

Can you imagine him and Anderson Cooper on the same stage?

No, I can't.

Mind

alone.

All right.

Mind.

I don't think they have the guts to do stuff like that.

I don't think, I don't, I think they should, and we'll see what the government does.

Can you imagine those two?

Seriously.

Can you imagine those two?

They would own news.

They would own news.

They or whoever their progeny are.

They would own it.

Yep.

Yep.

It's theirs for the taking for if they do it.

I don't, I think the government's got that great voice.

Ando's got the tries and the buys.

Do you think Robert Murdoch is going to let stuff like that happen?

It's going to be one of the biggest fights in Washington, speaking of Washington.

Anyway, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

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

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

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Okay, Scott, wins and fails.

What is your wins and fails today?

Unanimous decision from Supreme Court that the NC2A and universities are engaging in antitrust by not allowing athletes to make more or make any money.

And it just shocks me.

If you want to look for what feels like systemic racism,

I was a college athlete.

I was road crew.

All-white sport loses money, universities subsidize it.

And then the two sports that over-index and people of color,

essentially black people, is basketball and football, which make a shit ton of money.

But we've decided the sport needs to be pure.

And we can't pay the guys on the court or the gals on the court, but we can pay the white people, the coaches.

And if you look at the coaches of the top 25 schools, I am engaging in identity politics here.

The top 25 schools, the coaches make between $3 and $8 million

and the athletes don't make anything.

And yet the NC2A,

which is again more boomers,

they make a shit ton of money.

The university and administrators, it comes down to this.

We continue to ask ourselves at universities, the administrators and leadership and the older people and the coaches, the administrators,

ask themselves the same question every day.

How can we reduce our accountability and increase our compensation?

And

an illegitimate answer for the last 50 years has been, let's pretend that there's a purity.

Do you know how many actual paying jobs there are in the NBA?

There's maybe 20 or 30 a year.

And when do a lot of athletes peak between the ages of 18 and 23?

Why on earth wouldn't you let them

capture a fraction of the value they are creating?

They are being used

as fundraising and money raising for these editors.

And you know what the NC2A's defense was?

What?

That the fans would be turned off if the athletes got paid anything.

That's like saying that we're going to define Uber's business model because I want drivers to make less than minimum wage so they can continue to engage in that.

I think there's a question of how money could really coarsen it in a lot of ways.

And there is, at the top, you know, I get it.

I don't think nothing about sports is ever pure as far as I'm concerned at all, which is probably why I don't watch it as much.

But I do think you're right.

I think there's, it's sort of like, here's the colleges and the coaches and the alumni making all this money.

And these, the, these, these people who are performing for the audience are, are free.

Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

Yeah.

And it's the two.

And what do you know?

What do you know, Kara?

It's the two sports that it's predominantly black kids, right?

It's baseball.

I'm sorry.

It's basketball and it's football that make all the money.

And guess what?

They make no money.

They don't get anything.

Whereas the sports like lacrosse and crew, we get subsidized because we don't make any money, but anyways, right, but this is different.

You wouldn't get paid for that, nobody wants to pay a lacrosse player to play, you know what I mean?

Like, that was this is just they are the they are that's where the money is happening, and it's the only group of people in this money machine that isn't making money.

It has to be done right.

I think that's really, I think, there is some feeling of not cheapening college sports, but it already has been cheapened in a lot of ways.

Um, all right, what's your win?

What's your win?

Uh,

well, my win and my loss loss is

I've been watching the Kaminsky method.

Have you seen that?

No, I haven't.

I've seen

it.

Yeah.

It's about a couple of old white guys, but it's really.

Michael Douglas is one of them.

It's really a nice show.

Actually, I think the star of the show is Alan Arkin and the woman who plays Michael Douglas's daughter.

I think they kind of seal the show, but

it's a really well-done,

elegant show.

And I've never been a big fan of Michael Douglas, but he's outstanding in this.

Really, why not?

I like him.

I think he's like one of those people who performs and even in bad stuff.

I watched him in a movie called The Sentinel the other night.

I stay up late and watch like action movies and I'd never seen this movie.

And he played as it did.

Kathleen Turner makes a guest appearance in season three.

That's right.

They were together in Romancing the Stone.

Yeah, it's really, it reminds me, it's a little bit like Shit's Creek.

I don't know if you watch that.

It's not what I call a profound.

It's not a profound show, but it's nice and relaxing.

It's like a little, it's like a dessert almost.

I like that.

Anyways,

it's it's in its third and final season.

And I think they do a great job.

And it's nice to see a show about people in their 70s and 80s.

And I think Alan Arkin is a genius.

I think he is wonderful.

I love watching him.

Anyways,

he's always been great.

I just think, I think Michael Douglas is one of these.

I used to watch Michael Douglas in the streets of San Francisco.

That's right.

I remember that with Carl Malden.

Yep.

Carl Malden.

He was the best.

He was the best.

In any case,

American Express commercial.

Those are nice wins and fails.

I got to say.

I don't have any fails.

Well, thank you.

Chuck Todd and Ando

on one screen.

Can we pick some more interesting pairings, if you don't mind?

That's Sybil Shepard and Bruce Willis of the news age.

No, it's not.

But I like the concept on it.

I think he was blown away by that, by the way.

He's like, huh, huh.

He hadn't thought of that.

He was humbled.

He was humbled.

Humbled.

He was like, hmm, interesting.

No, I think he's always tried to be different.

He gets the, he was, he referenced it very briefly, but boy, does he get beat up on sometimes he says things that really just, I'm like, oh, Twitter's going to kill you now.

every week he says and i'm like oh twitter's gonna kill you now like he really

threads the needle meet the press right now it's interesting

it's a complex thing he's definitely speaking of lightning rods on twitter he is one of them he's really

oh yeah oh i didn't know that but when you think about it there's so many left and the right and the everyone there's so few media properties that have been able to establish themselves or maintain some level of being perceived as uh balanced or neutral arbiters and meet the press is one and literally nobody else has been able to maintain the position.

Not everybody thinks so.

Just go on Twitter

any one day after anything and watch.

Again, I think Chuck is right.

Twitter does not represent the world.

But

do people think Meet the Press has got a liberal or a conservative bias?

Oh,

if he's not tough enough on a Republican, they, you know, they slap him silly every week.

I think a particular Republican, or you didn't ask him this question.

And then if he asks something that's tough, they go, it's interesting.

It's interesting to watch.

I just, I feel like, like a lot of things, it's sort of like, wow, that was, you know, I don't know why people who are on Twitter, who talk about Me the Press, are not there for illumination.

Let's just say.

I don't know how else to put it.

They're not there for illumination.

It's just not never good enough.

And at the same time, you know,

there's feedback and criticism to be had of every new show, including ours.

And in that case, it takes on a weird life of its own and it centers around Chuck Todd.

He does a great job.

I wasn't exaggerating.

I watched Meet the Project.

It's a lot.

It's just every week.

I think it's a live.

They do a fantastic job.

Longest running TV series in history.

They could have gone a certain way and they've managed to keep relevant.

It is, I think he himself, as he was talking about, gets exhausted by the reductiveness of it, and that's why he wants to do the longer form stuff.

He's a real political nerd in that way.

Anyway, Scott, that's the show.

That was really interesting in any case.

And we'll see if it comes to pass, if your prediction comes to pass.

We'll be back on Friday for more.

I will still be in this closet, but Rebecca and I are going to keep trying to make it sound better and better.

Maybe I'll put a blanket over my head in the next show.

Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit your question for the Pivot podcast.

The link is also in our show notes.

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

Ernie Andrew Tott engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs.

Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend.

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

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

Fred and Ginger, Shamu and Orca,

I don't know, other famous Share and Sonny, Chuck Todd, and Ando.