Inauguration Day, Biden's antitrust issues, and the future of Fox News

Support for the show comes from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Sacks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

Follow us here, and you can invest in some new arrivals that you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed product blazer and Gucci loafers, which can take you from work to the weekend.

Shopping from Saks feels totally customized, from the in-store stylist to a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you things that fit your style and taste.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in, or when that Brunello Cacchinelli sweater you've been eyeing is back in stock.

So, if you're like me and you need shopping to be personalized and easy, head to Saks Fifth Avenue for the Best Fall Arrivals and Style inspiration.

Thumbtack presents Project Paralysis.

I was cornered.

Sweat gathered above my furrowed brow and my mind was racing.

I wondered who would be left standing when the droplets fell.

Me or the clogged sink.

Drain cleaner and pipe snake clenched in my weary fist, I stepped toward the sink and then...

Wait, why am I stressing?

I have thumbtack.

I can easily search for a top-rated plumber in the Bay Area, read reviews, and compare prices, all on the app.

Thumbtack knows homes.

Download the app today.

Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

And Kara, when day comes, we ask ourselves where we can find light in this never-ending shade.

The loss we carry, a sea, we must wade.

We've braved the belly of the beast.

We've learned that quiet isn't always peace.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

President 2048, 48 Amanda Gorman.

I love your dramatic reading of her beautiful words.

That's just

totally bastardize it.

Did you listen to her reading it?

Reading it was also an important part of it.

You know, Anderson Cooper tried this last night, your boyfriend, Anderson Cooper.

Me and Ando.

I'm going on with Ando tonight.

I know.

Well, he was reciting her to her, which was my favorite part.

He did a little better than you, I'll be honest with you.

I love a white guy reading

Kara, it's always

I like to think of it as not a white guy appropriating other people's intellectual property.

I like to think of it as shavings of shit on a beautiful salad.

Listen, she was amazing.

She was a star.

She was a star.

It was a very good inauguration.

What did you think?

We're going to talk about that in a minute.

But I thought in general the show was good.

Well, I was saying I cry every four years just for different reasons.

I found it very moving, very emotional.

I think all of us are

have this kind of catharsis.

You know, they say when people not all of us, some of us are unhappy.

Like there's half the country's unhappy.

Let the dog run.

Let's go.

Let the hound run.

Okay, go ahead.

You know, when soldiers come back, when soldiers come back, supposedly when they touch American soil, they get very emotional.

And I think a lot of us had unexpected emotion yesterday and what I would call like a like a 24-hour

exhale.

But what struck me

distinct of the inspiration and the hopefulness is that the bottom line is an inauguration took place in a in a in a militarized green zone yeah we are not in a good place and if you had if you had not known what was going on and you had gone to sleep four years and a month ago and woke up and you saw that inauguration

you would think are

are we in a nuclear war you would not understand they managed to cover it up pretty well like in a lot of imagery a lot of flags a lot of military a lot of those flags were a genius move uh i think they did a lot with the military in terms of whether they're the Trumpet Corps or whatever and Tom Hanks.

And they used the memorials rather well.

You know, I think if Donald Trump had done it, people would have been angry.

But there was Biden right at the memorial.

Kamala Harris was there watching the fireworks.

Katie Perry was singing.

Bruce Springsteen.

It was really interesting.

It was a nice piece of, I hate to say it, propaganda.

It was a nice piece of propaganda.

Imagery is important.

Imagery.

Yeah, imagery.

And I think they did the lovely thing with the fireworks.

And they did cover up what was essentially a military job.

I'll tell you, if I could get in anyone's head, I'd like to see the master class called Mixed Emotions.

It is Vice President Pence at that thing.

Yeah, he did a good job, he was good, he was dignified.

He walked down, he did his job.

He comes out of this a winner, he comes out of this a winner.

McConnell was sitting there.

They put Cruz way in the corner.

Uh, Ted Cruz, he was way in a corner.

But I thought it was nice to see all the presidents.

It was nice.

Why would he show up for something he doesn't want to certify and he thinks is illegitimate?

I don't know.

He's He's going off on Twitter now these days about everything.

He's such a dope.

Anyway, let's just get a little more banter.

Apple's reportedly talks to start a subscription podcast service to compete with Spotify.

Is it too late for Apple?

I know everything is what it means to Apple.

Excellent.

But they're in there too.

I mean,

this was going to happen, correct?

Yeah, and they're a player overnight because when you own the rails, when

that's another issue, two-thirds of all income flowing through apps,

even if they don't, let me back up.

The gangster move across media platforms has been pretty straightforward, and that is launching original content.

Netflix stock went on a tear from the moment they dropped Netflix full season.

That was the innovation dropped a full season.

Joe Rogan did a terrible deal.

He has added billions in shareholder value since agreeing to do a deal with Spotify.

Spotify is going vertical because they realize that the music industry has smart people representing them.

They have their own oligopoly oligopoly and they starch most of the margins.

So it's very difficult to make money off of streaming music platforms.

You need to launch your own original content.

And Apple needs to go vertical, and they've launched their own content in the form of Apple TV Plus.

And now they're coming for podcasts.

And heads, they win if they can establish a stable of vertical content and then drive a ton of people.

I watch, the only reason I watch the morning show is because it was from Apple TV Plus.

They've got some interesting things coming, actually, some shows I was noticing.

But I turn on my phone and I see, you know, it's three clicks.

I've done this.

It's three clicks to Apple TV Plus.

It's 17 clicks to get to Bridgerton, right?

Because when you own the Rails, you have certain advantages.

So they will, if they can just come up with B plus talent, right?

Yeah.

So if they were to do me without you, even they could make me you, right?

Is that the plan?

Ooh, perhaps I should not have said that.

Tell Tim I'm busy.

You cannot quit me.

You cannot quit me, as they say.

I hope I don't end up like that.

But even if they don't establish, tell Tim went to the same.

Even if they don't establish

their own vertical content, do you realize across every streaming platform from Disney Plus to Hulu to Peacock, Apple gets between 3% and 12% of their total revenues by being

the toll keeper for the App Store?

Yep.

Yep.

So this was a massive.

There's some issues.

We're going to get in this in a second, but I think they've got to be careful as they tread into this area because of antitrust issues because they're already at war with Spotify over music.

So the other thing that was interesting, we're going to get into the Biden administration in a second, was Trump's last-minute flurry.

Remember him?

Trump?

Who does new president?

He pardoned ex-Google engineer Anthony Lewandowski, who was convicted of stealing trade secrets from Google when he took, when he moved to Uber.

It was supported by bigwigs in Silicon Valley, a lot of BCs, but Peter Thiel at the head of the line.

That's a wonderful thing.

That was Teal.

Yeah, that was, of course it was Teal.

Well, it's nice to know that we have billionaires who can not only put media companies out of business, but now can exonerate people from any scrutiny of the law.

Yeah, that was a big case.

That was a big case.

That's going to piss off Google.

That was

a big case.

You know,

he was a complex figure, let's just say.

But that was sort of the era of Travis Kalek.

Sams, can you give us just a

era of Travis Kalanik when Tavis was one of the things that he's the guy that left with self-driving technology?

Yes, he left with self-driving and whether he took it on this.

And I don't even remember.

We had reporters on it all the time.

And it was really a significant trade secrets case.

Oh, wait, wait, wait.

He's the guy that stuck a thumb drive up his ass, went to China, and then Russia.

Now everyone says he's a hero.

Oh, wait, no, that's Edward Snowden.

He didn't get a pardon.

He didn't get it.

I would have given one to him over Anthony Levendow's case.

Perdona Maison Eduardo Snowden.

He did not.

He gets to stay in Russia for the rest of his life.

So Trump was his ticket out.

But, you know, he was, I don't think he was going to get when there was way too much pushback from the intelligence services.

But

I didn't even know that was on the table.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Him and Julian Assange, all those characters from that whole era.

But it was Lewandowski that got it.

It's just.

It's about Julian Assange's cat.

That is an innocent victim.

Steve Bannon.

That's who got the pardon.

I know.

And then Janine Pirro's husband, Albert, her ex-husband.

She has a husband?

Yes.

Wow.

I did not know that.

They're gone.

You know what?

They're all gone.

We're at this point.

We're sort of like, fine.

We don't, who?

Fine.

Bailey, who the fuck?

The way I felt about all of it was,

I'm in the midst of raising money for my startup section four.

And I've worked with the same venture capitalist for a decade now.

But when I used to raise money towards the end, they and their lawyers would just wear you down.

And you would just be like, okay, you can have a prep of 7%, not 6%.

You just, they would literally just wear you down.

That's how I look at our relationship, but go ahead.

Don't say that.

You don't mean that.

You don't mean that.

I put spring in your step.

In any case,

I am a blooming bouquet via across the home that is.

You're going to get to the big story.

They are gone, Scott.

You're going to have to leave.

Let's have a moment and let's smudge them out.

I need to be more delicate with my emotions.

I am very emotional.

I am very emotional.

Scott works out before these podcasts, which is really a problem because he gets all testosteroneed all over the place.

In any way, that's a verb, by the way.

Listen, we're going to get to the big story.

I am not a podcaster broken, but unfinished.

Oh, hello, Amanda Gorman, my new role model.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Anyway, this leads us to the big story.

Amanda Gorman was fantastic, but we did discuss.

We have a new president.

This week, Joe Biden was sworn in as 46th president of the United States.

We just discussed that.

Kamala Harris, we were the first woman

to be vice president and the first woman of color to be vice president.

Madam Vice President.

That has a nice thing.

Madam Vice President.

she looked great she looked great she everybody looked great though no i don't think any of them look fit what i i think it's i think it's insulting that you would reduce the would you have said that about joe biden yeah you would he looked great too i thought everybody looked good i thought everybody looked like like all the ex-presidents looked good i thought it was like a nice clean group of people i don't know what to say no biden biden looks i'm thinking they're clean and well dressed and i'm happy to see that biden looks 76 again um and uh i was thinking bill clinton i think the mask given what bill clinton's going through i think the mask is perfect because it's sort of like, there's Bill.

We generally have good feelings about him.

Generally.

But we don't want to see the contour of his face and his emotion and think about him anymore.

He was the mask works for Bill Clinton.

Did you like the three presidents talking to each other?

That was nice.

I thought it was wonderful.

You know what?

I also thought I.

George Bush is funny.

I saw Madame Secretary Clinton taking photos.

Every time I see Madame Secretary Clinton in an unscripted moment, I actually like her more and more.

I like Hillary Clinton.

I I do not like her husband, but that's okay.

You don't have to like everybody.

Shocker.

You don't like her husband.

What is she talking about?

Well, I'm sorry.

He got away with a lot.

Anyway,

nonetheless.

Did a lot for America, Kara.

Did a lot for him.

Did a lot for America.

Yeah.

Last president to get in the way of genocide in the Balkans.

I'll remember that.

Look, you know what?

There's a lot of things I don't like about him.

I'm not going to go into it.

I'm not going to go into it.

And anyway, let's focus on Joe Biden.

Joe, just regular Joe is our president.

46.

Grandpa's Gramp and uncle or whatever you want to look at him.

46.

So what do you think of the takeaways?

He did all those executive orders, one of which was the first of which was around COVID.

Obviously, he's really getting to work.

His press secretary, Jenner, I think it's...

Sake, I think it's Saki,

was like, I'm not here to yell and scream at you

and flounce from the room, which was nice.

You're not an enemy of the people anymore.

But what was interesting is a lot of the stuff around COVID.

And Amazon, as we have talked about, reached out to President Biden immediately, offering to help with COVID-19 vaccine distribution.

Amazon executive Dave Clark said in a letter, Amazon stands ready to leverage its operations, information technology, communications capabilities, and expertise to assist your administration's vaccination efforts.

It's interesting that they hadn't before this.

And why did they wait?

For example, they also want to get vaccines for their own people because they've got 800,000 people, a lot of them frontline workers.

So, what do you think?

What do you think?

Well,

you know, you hear about these stories that when people are diagnosed with cancer and they, the surgeons go in to remove it and they open someone up and they find that it's everywhere and they just close them up.

Yeah.

That's the process we're undergoing right now with the Trump administration.

We're doing an autopsy on his administration and we're going to find that there was just cancer everywhere.

And one of those cancers was that

You know, an immigrant who went on to lead the most valuable company in the world, Microsoft, a man

who was raised in the South

as a gay man,

a man who owns the Washington Post, and I think sees himself as a major.

That was Jim Cook you're talking about, but go ahead.

He's a progressive.

They had no desire to assist in the lies and the disability and the disease that the previous administration was fueling with incompetence.

and propaganda.

And that really hurt us.

Nobody wanted to work with this guy.

No one wanted to say, all right.

The others didn't know.

Remember that meeting where he had the Walmart people?

They just didn't want to work with us.

They all just said nothing at present.

He's not interested in actually saving lives.

He just wants to get in between us and the camera and vampire off our credibility and our star power.

And so it's no surprise that the moment he's out, you're going to see, you're going to see

a plethora of.

I'm on the board of a company and we're talking about, and I'm forgive the virtue signaling, we're talking about figuring out how ways we can send supplies or just food and sandwiches to vaccination centers.

I think everybody, and this is the opportunity, everybody is thinking, how can we work

with competent people who share our values to try and destroy this virus?

But I still, again, and again, I'm a glass half empty kind of guy.

You know what would have saved 100 or 200,000 lives?

Amazon.

Well, doing this.

Not so much Amazon, but if Amazon, Google, Apple, and more generally, the NASDAQ

had

declined 50% as opposed to accelerated 50%,

and the people who control our government, the people, the shareholder class, if their wealth had been cut in half and they had felt a fraction of the pain of people of color and Stephanie rule like point.

That is an excellent point.

This is, unfortunately, our incentives are not aligned.

And

if you are wealthy and this is a dirty secret and the ugly secret of the pandemic, you are living your best life.

And so we have not had a full-throated capitalist response.

The virus has not seen what America is capable of.

And, you know, within within 10 days of World War II breaking out, Chrysler converted a factory to building tanks, and they were punching out tanks in 15 days, and that one factory produced more tanks than the entire Third Reich.

And we haven't had that kind of mobilization effort because people don't want to.

What do you think of Amazon getting in here?

It also makes me a little nervous.

I'm like, oh, what are they going to get out of it?

Like, you know what I mean?

Knowing that.

I think it's wonderful.

I think it's wonderful.

I think they're,

I know a lot of people.

Well, I'm not a fan.

You know, I'm not a fan of Amazon.

And I think Jeff Bezos

doesn't reflect the blessings he's registered in terms of his own code.

But I know a lot of people at Amazon.

It's generally, generally speaking, as are most of these firms, a group of very bright people that want to do the right thing that are blessed with a trillion dollars in market capitalization and the best supply chain infrastructure in the world.

Let's put that bitch to work.

Let's put that motherfucker together.

I'm so glad, for example, that Trump doesn't have his Twitter because he'd complain about this.

Like Jeff Bezos did nothing.

Now you'll see COVID going away.

And I'm like, you'll see COVID going away because competent people are running the show, actually.

And it's not going to go away.

It's a long haul.

You know, it's going to be difficult to get.

I'll be interested because they didn't have much insight because the Trump administration didn't let them do transition efforts very well, what they find inside, right?

What they

when they open the drawers and be like, oh, look at this.

This man has a lot of people.

Yeah, this is awful.

Look at the cancer.

But back to nationalizing the supply chain or enlisting it in our efforts here.

There is a Walmart within 10 and a half miles on average of every American citizen.

The average hospital is 11 miles.

They own essentially their parking lots are like combined the size of Rhode Island.

You're going to see Doug McMillan working with competent people at the Biden administration.

This is just a projection.

I don't have any inside information here.

Launch remote pop-up.

Instead of click and collect, they're going to have click and vaccinate.

Apple and Google could easily figure out an app strategy that scores.

They did, though.

They were the thing is, Apple and Google, remember they were working on the app thing.

Walmart was at one of the first press conferences.

It was all bullshit, is the issue.

Nothing ever happened.

So they had the inclination to do that.

Like Jared Gushner called people and made them show up at the White House without masks, by the way, if you recall that.

I remember that.

I was like, why aren't you wearing masks?

What's going on?

So it's really, it will be interesting to see how much corporate America does move in that direction.

He now, you know, and that the Twitter noise is down.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's like it's

governing time, not this loud, constant rendezvous with the press and anger and statements and bullshit.

That will take a lot of pressure off of everybody, I think, including politicians.

But critics of big tech are concerned about Biden nominees to head up the antitrust division of the Department of Justice.

There is an ongoing case about Google, and there have been others looked at.

Renata Hess, who defended Google a a decade ago and helped Shepard through Amazon Whole Foods merger as a leading contender for assistant attorney general position.

That is worrisome.

Worrisome.

I have said this several times and people have slapped back at me.

I'm like, these people are not enemies of tech in the Biden administration.

They're quite centrist.

So where's Elizabeth Warren when we need her kind of thing?

We have racked up during the Trump administration $7 trillion in additional debt, just another $4 to $5 trillion in the last 12 months.

And at some point, we have to think about managing our house responsibly.

Countries fail, civilizations decline, not because they're invaded, but because they go broke.

And we are on a path at some point, maybe not in our lifetime, but

at a minimum, our children's lifetime of going broke.

And one of the things we need to do, we need to have, in my view, and this is the first time I've ever actually come to this side of it, we need a one-time wealth tax.

We are quick to do one-time extraordinary bailouts when something exogenous happens, but we've seen seen the mother of all exogenous events, and that is billionaires massively increase their wealth, absolutely explode it.

We need to do away with capital gains tax.

And the most oxygenating revenue increasing thing we could do, we could do would be to overfund the IRS, the DOJ, and the FTC.

The concentration of power here has been like putting a boot on the windpipe of the American economy.

I agreed.

We talk about this, but look who they're putting in.

Look who they're putting in.

Oh,

I think it's going to to happen i think he i mean you know these guys better than i do but quite frankly i know them i know i think they're centrist i think kamala harris is in the center of this i just i don't think she's centrist you say centrist like it's a bad thing we need more of that because i understand that but this is not this is a group of people that have to stick with our friends of tech they are a little too close to tech and there's a lot of tech people invading the government at this point and i think it's you have to like stick with the plan that the Trump administration started around these cases.

I think they're going to.

I think the breakup, the oxygenation of our economy has moved from the far left to the center.

I think it's a centrist view now.

I even think, I mean, we've been talking about this.

This isn't true of Mark Zuckerberg, but I think Cinder Pachai is probably like, for God's sakes, just get it over with so I can get back to planning products.

Right, absolutely.

But I think that it's not, you know, especially around Facebook and some others.

It's an Amazon, like Amazon's helping the government do the vaccine thing and then needs to be looked at around the marketplace.

And so

it'll be interesting to see who gets power here.

I'm going to wait and see.

I'll do a wait and see.

But a lot of it looks like same old, same old as the Obama administration.

And honestly, the Obama administration, you know, blew this issue

rather

badly.

You know what I mean?

And I don't blame Joe Biden for this.

I think it's Obama was in charge and his people, but there's a lot of Obama people there.

And I think they're like, look, we have enough to point to that we have to deal with.

And so we're not going to go after big tech in the way they need to.

I don't know.

You know what's the most underreported motion against big tech?

Is the Texas AG

going after Google and Facebook for cartel pricing.

And the reason why that is so significant.

Is that the one that needs to go to jail, Texas AG?

Well, first off, the Fed should adopt that because the Texas AG is, I don't know what's the term, insane and corrupt.

But the case is very interesting.

And the reason why the case is interesting is around cartel pricing.

The remedies can be criminal.

And there's nothing like the threat of an orange jumpsuit to

get people talking and negotiating.

Jumpsuit?

They're helping us to distribute vaccines.

They're going to be our best citizens now.

I don't think they're that easily fooled, Kara.

I think people have really, and maybe I'm just projecting here.

I think people have said, okay,

it's overdue and it's time.

That's my sense.

The House Subcommittee on Antitrust did a fantastic job.

Mussolini, yeah.

They're cases propping up everywhere from different states.

I think they're going to stack it right down to nothing.

I think this is not their priority.

And they've got a lot of other priorities.

They do.

By the way, was it in all their priorities that they were mentioning?

You know, they were talking about the things that the things they're mentioning are critically important.

That's the thing, racial justice,

climate change,

vaccinations, and COVID.

I get that this is getting people back to work, back to school.

These are much more important issues.

I think I would have done it better.

I would have said our top three priorities are eliminating.

the novel coronavirus, eliminating the novel coronavirus, and eliminating.

I would have gone all in on that.

And instead,

it felt like Bill Clinton's triangulating off of all the key issues from a focus group.

But anyways, I appreciate that he incorporated those things.

And I think all those things were.

I like that he added in the dreamers.

He did the Muslim band.

I agree.

That was just like slappity.

What was interesting about that event last night, and we're going to take a break in a second, was how they were slapping Trump quietly without saying his name.

There was a lot of slap.

There was a lot of little underhanded slappage in the song choices.

The thing that I think that's a new day.

The thing that defined it

defined, in my opinion, was like the icing on the cake lovely exclamation on the on the on on the point on the exclamation here was

was um vice president pence's send-off it's like okay donald trump decides to even abdicate this responsibility yeah he did a nice job and that was like that was actually very lovely with the four that

the two couples i thought so too yeah also the winner of course was is it emma and mhoff the daughter ella ella mhoff anyway

outfit she's fantastic she's from brooklyn she's so brooklyn the whole thing.

It's all about her.

It was like nice.

The new fashion icon.

So I'm a little.

I'm a

place.

I'm a little upset you don't buy into my narrative that big tech's been breaking up.

And also, by the way, Dorsey's out of a job and Tesla stock is crashing.

All right.

You keep going.

I'm right about this.

I think they're going to like

I am going to keep banging on them on this issue.

This needs to happen.

And if it doesn't, Carol's going to be angry.

Anyway, Scott, we're going to go to a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about management departures at Fox News and a listener mail question.

Commercial payments at Fifth Third Bank are experienced and reliable, but they're also constantly innovating.

It might seem contradictory to have decades of experience, but also be on the cutting edge of the industry.

But Fifth Third does just that.

They don't believe in being just one way for your business because your business has more than just one need.

Like needing your payments to be done on time, safely, and without any bumps today, but also needing to know you won't be hitting any bumps tomorrow.

That's why they handle over $17 trillion in payments smoothly and effectively every year, and were also named one of America's most innovative companies by Fortune magazine.

After all, that's what commercial payments are all about.

Steady, reliable expertise that keeps money flowing in and out like clockwork.

So Fifth Third does that.

But commercial payments are also about building new and disruptive solutions.

So Fifth Third does that too.

That's your commercial payments of Fifth Third Better.

Support for Pivot comes from groons.

If you've ever done a deep internet dive trying to discover different nutrition solutions, you've likely had the thought, surely there's a way to improve my skin, gut health, immunity, brain fog without offending my taste buds.

Well, there is.

It's called groons.

Groons are a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a daily snack pack of gummies.

It's not a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic.

It's all of those things and then some for a fraction of the price.

In a Groons daily snack pack, you get more than 20 vitamins and minerals, 6 grams of prebiotic fiber, plus more than 60 ingredients.

They include nutrient-dense and whole foods, all of which will help you out in different ways.

For example, Groons has six times the gut health ingredients compared to the leading greens powders.

It contains biotin and niacinamide, which helps with thicker hair, nails, and skin health.

They also contain mushrooms, which can help with brain function.

And of course, you're probably familiar with vitamin C and how great it's for your immune system.

On top of all, groons are vegan and free of dairy nuts and gluten.

Get up to 52% off when you go to groons.co and use the code PIVOT.

That's G-R-U-N-S.co

using the code PIVOT for 52%

off.

Scott, we're back as the Trump era ends.

Let's talk about how Fox News pivots and changes management.

This week, Bill Salmon, Fox News Senior Vice President Managing Editor in Washington, who was assigned on the night of Fox News, called the election for Biden in Arizona particularly.

He was very critical to that decision desk,

announced his departure, his retirement.

Fox also laid off 20 other staffers, including political editor, well-regarded political editor Chris Steierwalt, who worked on the, who was a key member of the decision desk.

This is the one that called Arizona, that sent Trump into a crazy, and got in the way of his plans to declare victory that night.

That's what happened.

Like he was, he had a whole plot in place to declare victory and cause all kinds of problems.

And things could have been different had Fox not done this.

So let's talk about how Fox moves forward in its coverage because its ratings are down.

Its ratings are down quite significantly, actually.

And CNN's happened to be up.

I don't know if none of this will last, I think, but they're down quite a bit.

And then

I did a disfavor to myself by watching Hannity last last night and he's really doubling down on crazy in terms of all kinds of stuff having that Bobert person whatever the one with the gun the murder the murder I call her murderer Sarah Palin essentially

on with

who else was on with her oh Matt Goetz all those horrible like chuckleheads.

What are they going to do?

What do you do if you're Fox News?

They got rid of people who were very significantly fair.

So what do you do if you're the Murdoch?

And Rupert's entered the picture again because he was worried about how that

decision was made.

So I think that

more important than the individuals or whoever the fall guys are.

So I've always found that Fox is

generally crazy, but prone to fits of sanity.

I go on Fox.

I like Neil Cavuto.

I think that there's some, I like Chris Wallace.

I think there are some outstanding journalists.

Well, dayside and nightside are different.

Chris Wallace was very clear last, was fine yesterday.

Did a good job.

Agreed.

And the problem is, do they just add a veneer of legitimacy to the crazy?

But

I think the more significant thing is the following.

Linear TV thrives in crisis.

The Iraq war made CNN.

Trump has been the four-year gift that keeps on giving to linear TV in the cable bundle.

And

just as Twain described going bankrupt is happening slowly and then very suddenly, Trump's

or Biden's inauguration, in my opinion, is really the final death blow to linear TV.

And it's not only going to happen to Fox.

Their ratings are the first to go down because they come across as the most confused.

And the crazies on the right, even they feel deflated.

And kind of, I think a lot of them are horrified.

You know, the majority of us are center right or center left.

And the center rights that went to Fox and saw what happened two weeks ago, I think are legitimately horrified and also exhausted like the rest of us.

And we decided, I don't need to tune in every day to see.

And my mom's been watching Netflix.

That's right.

She's taking a break, right?

I think a lot of people are taking a break, but quite frankly,

we like to backfill and say, oh, it's Fox's fault.

That's why the ratings are down.

You know who's also really going to suffer?

MSNBC.

They're really going to suffer.

And these linear TV that benefits from an immediacy, from crisis, the most exciting thing.

That's Trump's

exciting thing.

about a Biden-Harris administration is they might be strikingly boring.

I agree.

We might just have an administration that's not in our face every two weeks, every two weeks.

Competent, but boring.

We might hear about our president every two weeks instead of every two hours.

And that'll be wonderful for us emotionally.

It'll be wonderful for the country.

It's going to be awful for linear TV and the cable bundle.

Yeah, you're not like waiting to see what's next.

And you don't want to get, you're not as obsessed with getting Rachel Maddow's take on the latest outrage today because there is no latest outrage.

So the notion.

So what do you do?

What do you do?

I want you to be like, you're at Fox.

They bring you in and they're like, Scott, I don't, Galloway, what do we do?

Well, you know, they have, they have brought me in.

But anyways,

I mean, and also generally, I found generally nice and very smart people.

But anyways,

okay, look, this is where the whole world, the whole world is bifurcating into Android and iOS.

And this is what's going to happen.

Fox is going to double down on the crazy and the masses that are angry because there's money in it.

They need to buy pillows.

They need to buy investment trading schemes.

This guy's going to be sued.

It's going to be called Dominion Systems.

They need to buy

remedies for Russell's Leg Syndrome.

They need to call personal injury attorneys.

There is a market for that.

CNN is going to go iOS and is either going to be acquired by a company like Twitter, if Twitter gets its head out of its ass and decides they need to launch their own vertical content instead of chasing Google and Facebook.

You're going to have CNN go iOS and go into some sort of pay model.

And Fox is going to become the Android free, but we molest your privacy lie to you and tucker carlson is going to become the leading candidate on the right for president yeah right so but what do you do if you're if your ratings are going down and you're you you do you are getting uh slammed in terms of viewer you know being part of the client either the covid problem which i think they had to pay seth rich obviously on the seth rich issue where they had to pay the family for their lies and you know there's going to be more around election fraud, I think.

So what do you, what do you do?

What do you, you just go crazy or you go, because I think own is going to be in trouble too, all these things, because people can't stand, I don't think they can stand the craziness for most people for that long.

So what, what do you do if you're own or newsmax or whoever?

So I want to be clear.

I'm not saying what is the right thing to do.

I'm talking sure purely, which is what I used to do as a consultant,

think about putting myself in the shoes of a shareholder.

If I'm a shareholder of Fox,

if they're just economic animals, which I believe they are, and they're willing to tear the fabric of our society for shareholder value, you just simply put, you just continue to lean into it.

Because I think the smaller crazy guys aren't as smart and aren't as legally

and there's no Trump, really.

Yeah, and they're not, the, the other crazy guys don't have the resources.

They do not have the quality of personnel.

And they, quite frankly, don't have the billions of dollars and lawyers to serve as Kevlar.

So Parlo, I don't want to say Parlo is an easy target, but when you go crazier and you don't have the resources and connections and user base of the Fox, you're just more vulnerable.

So rumors of Fox's death have been greatly exaggerated or Fox News's death.

And not only that, and it's not good for society, but when CNN goes more truth, look, the truth is boring.

Novelty is more interesting.

Conspiracy theory is a lot more interesting.

I got to say, CNN's got a cleanup sector.

Some of their nighttime anchors are just, I'm like, stop it.

Stop it.

Like, I'd like to have the same flavor.

I think you're definitely not, I'm not going to tune in every night.

I've noticed my shifting on

Twitter.

I'm not tuning in all the time.

It's an interesting thing.

Like, you don't need to worry, essentially.

You don't have to see what crazy shit is going on.

And I think that's both an addiction and an emotional,

like, not a good thing emotionally for people.

So I think it'll be interesting to see.

I do think that

what's interesting about Fox, obviously it's being run by Lachlan Murdoch and now Rupert's back, even though he's 117 years old,

is that when he dies,

the other kids get control, not Lachlan.

So that'll be interesting.

It'll be James and his sister, Liz, and their other sister, Prudence, and they have control of the company.

Yeah, but one of them is a progressive and has publicly said he's horrified, isn't it?

He's horrified at the content.

All of them are.

Is that true?

I think there's going to be a really interesting situation when he dies.

That's my.

Yeah, but people have a tendency to value money over ideology.

And when you're talking about

they'll probably end up up selling it.

I don't think the kids are yeah, they'll sell it.

They'll sell it off.

I'm just saying it's not going to be,

this isn't going to go on for too much longer in terms of, I mean, although Rupert Murdock's mother died at 106 or something like that.

So who knows?

Yeah.

Wow.

We'll see.

But that's going to be an interesting moment.

I'll tell you that.

That's going to be, you know.

But you bring up something that I think is important.

And that is, look, I think MSNBC

You know, I'm a progressive, so I didn't find their content as offensive, but it was a similar spice dish in terms of spending, okay, let's spend

three hours

tearing down,

tearing down the president and exaggerating.

It wasn't as bad, but it was bad because the business model is just much better around novelty and exaggeration and inflammation.

And I think this is not only an opportunity for them, but I'm trying to take this opportunity to heart.

I've decided I am not going to get back in people's face as much on Twitter.

I am not going to respond as aggressively.

I'm going to try to be more thoughtful around.

Yeah, okay,

say more.

I don't understand what I don't understand that point, but say more.

First, I'm going to investigate if they're bought.

I find 90% of the people that really say something inflammatory on Twitter or Facebook.

Actually, I don't go on Facebook, are not actually a real person.

But I think it's an opportunity for everybody to say, all right, if you think of yourself as being bipartisan and reasonable, then be bipartisan and reasonable.

Oh, Scott, you're going to ruin our show if you want to be real.

They open the patient up and there's cancer everywhere.

Cancer mail.

There's cancer everywhere.

Listen, speaking of which, moving on, let's take a listener mail question.

You got, you've got.

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

You got mail.

Hi, Kara and Scott.

This is Kristen in Sacramento.

We've reached a dangerous point where a large part of the U.S.

population ardently believes in conspiracy theories and ignores science, fact, and rational thought.

What changes, if any, could be made to our educational system from kindergarten to university to teach critical thinking and counter these undemocratic forces?

Thank you, Christian from Sacramento.

That is a very smart question, I have to say.

Let me just begin, and then Scott can talk about the educational system.

I think these people believe this stuff before.

Conspiracy theories have gone on since the beginning of time.

What's happened is they've become weaponized and amplified through online.

And

where people usually got news, they're getting

a bad information diet.

And And so they believe it more because of where it's coming over, either through Fox News or Own or Newsmax and then online.

So I think this has already been there forever.

And it was not like people didn't believe in the moon landing.

They didn't believe in the Earth was flat.

This is humanity.

And unfortunately, it's been given amplification tools to do so.

How to fix it, Scott?

I'm going to leave that to you.

I don't know if I have a silver bullet.

I turn to, like I've said, I think Mark Zuckerberg is what you get when you replace civics with computer science i think civics and more more importantly history and science are really important and that is i was studying with my or helping my son study for a history test and you know i said okay who's the european explorer that that first saw the pacific ocean and once they saw there was a pacific ocean and they had a credible uh individual that they trusted, they redrew the maps and that was the new starting point.

And we have to, I think, teach our children that throughout history, the most important advances in our society is because we get to a point where there is a new base called truth that is evidence-based and data-based and science-based.

And we all come together as a society around a set of values and a set of truths.

And if we don't come together around a set of truths and work from that base, we don't have a country.

We don't have a society.

And

I think we've lost fidelity to that.

And that is we've let people say, okay, if I deny a truth or I put out a falsehood, if it's out there enough with these amplification algorithms that eventually it seems less outrageous or less false or more true.

And there has to be

a truth and there has to be training at a very young age that says the most wonderful things in our society are a function of we continually build on this base of science and data and truth.

And at some point.

How do you stop the flood though?

I mean it really is a flood now and it is over stuff that used to be delivery of really decent news or news that was not this bad.

Accountability.

We can't have unity unless we have accountability.

Otherwise, we're not unifying around anything that's real.

It's squishing it.

It's amorphous.

And one of the things we need to unify around is that there is a truth.

And when a senator refuses to certify a legitimate election, when the CEO of Twitter refuses to do away with a Trump account for 449 of 416 days of his tenure and then finds out within 48 hours, or we find out within 48 hours of eliminating accounts, 72% of the misinformation goes away, and they clearly knew that.

We need to hold these people accountable and teach people that there is a truth, and there are ramifications for intentionally ignoring that truth for your own economic benefit.

But where do you do that in the educational?

So she's asking specifically, where do you do it in high school?

I think it's history.

I think there are a lot of very interesting lessons about dark points in history, about people who have weaponized the truth using the media,

and also to link the truth around truth, a truth that is evidence-based, peer-reviewed.

We have, I mean, I work with 190 faculty and 99% of the research they put out has what I'd call no commercial relevance because we've decided in a modern society,

the pursuit of truth that is evidence-based, double-blind, peer-reviewed is the base from which we build a society.

And

we need to inculcate our youngest people in that once we get to a truth, once 62 judges have rejected any allegations of election interference, that is our truth, Senators Cruz and Hawley.

That is our truth.

The whole argument is they didn't get to hear the evidence because they didn't have standing.

They kept pushing on that, just so you know.

I listened to a lot of their craziness.

So here's the problem, I think, is that we don't,

that

Bannon got pardoned, that Brad Parcial is still out there.

They know they have been able to manipulate this stuff.

And now I think they're off getting new versions of that.

And that's what I'm worried about.

And who do they affiliate with?

You know, I think they've used Trump up like an old paper bag, essentially, and they're going to toss him.

And well, they'll use him until they need to, and they'll prey on his many, many weaknesses, including narcissism and et cetera.

But they are going to figure out new ways to misinform.

And

that's where I want to be sort of ahead of the game here: what are they up to now?

What are they moving in on now?

What are the abuses,

the tools they're going to take advantage of and the abuses they're going to perpetrate doing that?

And that, I think they stay ahead of us so quickly in terms of us trying to teach people civics or ethics in school.

But you're right, these companies are where this starts.

These companies have to not tolerate this happening again and again and again.

And they do.

They tolerate it.

And they're doing it maybe out of some laudable idea around first free speech, but it's really not.

You know, the Peter Thiels are in charge here, not the

magic.

I'm more hopeful than that.

The algorithms of amplification are weapons.

And we have mostly, mostly dealt with how to regulate and punish people who abuse weapons.

And over the medium and long term, we have to have an appreciation for education and history and science and truth.

In the short term, absolutely, absolutely, the the thing that would have the most impact,

the most impact is a big tech executive does a perp walk.

You keep wanting a tech.

This is never, I know this is your dream fever sequence, but they're never going to take it.

We have put people in prison for so much less.

Aunt Becky, she's out now.

If we put Aunt Becky in prison for sending $50,000 to a tennis coach, we should arrest, we should arrest somebody who has knowingly, knowingly aggravated, inflamed, and used their infrastructure for the coordination of sedition.

And that has happened across these platforms knowingly.

Somebody needs to do a perkwalk.

And it was outrageous when I said these companies were going to be broken up three years ago.

It was outrageous when I said Sheryl Sandberg was in the next coming of Christ.

You watch.

It may not happen.

She's supposedly reaching out to Democratic people, just FYI.

Yay.

I just want you to be prepared for her re-entry into the political scene.

It may happen on European soil.

It may not be the individual,

the most famous individual.

The most effective thing we could do in the short term across any of this comes down to one word, accountability.

The only way we unify is we need to unify around a set of values.

And these values

have been torn apart, and there needs to be accountability.

I just think they throw someone to the line.

Like, I don't feel badly about the barler guy, but I think he's a scapegoat.

I mean, I gave them a scapegoat.

I mean, I think that's a heat shield, right?

He's a heat shield.

Yeah, I think I gave him a heat shield by doing that.

Anyway, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

Thank you, Kristen from Sacramento.

Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me.

We resolve queries fast.

We work 24-7 and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic.

We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve.

Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI.

No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration.

Visit Sierra.ai to learn more.

Support for this show is brought to you by CVS CareMark.

CVS CareMark plays an important role in the healthcare ecosystem and provides unmatched value to those they serve.

They do this by effectively managing costs and providing the right access and personalized support.

The care, empathy, and knowledge that CVS CareMark provides its customers is proven time and time again with their 94% customer satisfaction rating.

Go to cmk.co slash stories to learn how we help you provide the affordability, support, and access your members need.

Okay, Scott, it's the end of an era.

We start a new one.

Besides your perp walk situation, give us a hopeful prediction.

You don't have to give us a non-hopeful one.

Well, I am hopeful, Kara.

And I think that there's enormous opportunity that once we enlist,

you know, the reason we won World War II,

people like to think

and our young men and women were demonstrated exceptional bravery and creativity.

But quite frankly, we overwhelm them with gasoline and production and just brute force.

And

the engine of capitalism, young people are embracing socialism.

They're They're wrong to do that.

The friction and prosperity of capitalism, the full body contact friction, and also the recognition that we'll be winners and losers creates a level of prosperity that we then, through empathy and redistribution of income and social programs such that seniors don't starve, such that people

are not food insecure, creates more prosperity,

more mobility, and wash, rinse, and repeat.

Capitalism works.

And when we finally have the opportunity to put a full-throated capitalist response to this virus, if we just get to, if we get to 100 million vaccinations, which is approximately a third of the population, if it's targeted at our most vulnerable and the people who have the most contact with other people as a function of their profession, we could probably

take

fatalities down 80%.

And I don't want to say that as a means of providing cold comfort that this war is over, but I would argue that the war has begun.

We have a fantastic weapon.

We have been given a P-51 Mustang.

I don't want to say we've learned how to split the atom because that sounds a little macabre, but we have been given a fantastic gift.

I think the Trump administration deserves some credit for that.

I think you have to give the science,

the pharmaceutical companies, the CDC, and to a certain extent, the Trump administration.

But we have a fantastic weapon.

And now when we put a full-throated capitalist response behind it, the greatest engine of productivity and prosperity in history behind it, I think in three, in 90, 90 days, 120 days, we could see a dramatic crisis.

100 million in the arms.

That's what they say.

And the key is that it's in the right 100 million arms.

You know what?

I want Jeff Bezos to show up at my house and give me my

HIPAA compliant.

No, I want him.

I want him in particular to come in and get it.

I think he's sticking himself every week with something called testosterone.

Jesus, have you seen how jacked that guy is?

My God.

Yes, said the man who like jacks himself.

That's right.

Hello, ladies.

Gun shows in town.

Yeah, no, it's showing me his audience.

It's really disappointing on many levels.

That's right.

I'm going to do a thing.

Speaking of working out, Peloton will be in the White House.

You see that silly story in the Times.

I like, I love

that story was silly.

He has one.

And they were like going on about the digital problems with it because it's a connected device.

But Peloton has been in the White House, according to my sources.

And I think it was Michelle Obama who had one.

I think Michelle Obama had one.

And they can unconnect it and then just put a computer full of all the classes right there.

So the, the and bring a new bunch of classes in every couple of weeks, I guess.

It's very easy to bring a Peloton.

It was such a ridiculous, oh my God.

But I'm glad, frankly, he's working out.

Like, God, we have a president who actually I heard Melania had one and she hung her Christian Lou Boutons on them.

Okay, that is

pretty much

she

was that outfit change of hers.

I was like, I really can't stand you, lady, but well played.

Like she put on the Gucci.

She like was wearing all black.

She was, she went from Amanda said black widow to like Gucci Palm Beach lady in like 14 seconds.

Let me ask you that picture.

I'm just curious to get your take.

That outfit was like, seriously, I was like black, all black.

Like, she looked great, even though kind of

in that kind of cheap, cheap way.

What she has, and then she put it on the Gucci, but it's not cheap, the expensive cheap.

Give me a sense.

Yeah.

Two, four years out.

What is Melania's legacy?

Nothing.

She's just a nice.

Zero?

I'm sorry.

Zero.

She's a selfish, rich lady.

I don't know what else to say.

I hope her kid turns out well, I guess.

I think she seems like a very good mother.

But her values are just even just reading that Stephanie Wilcoat, just the tapes.

She's just a type.

Yeah.

If you ever are really rich people, that's what a lot of those ladies are like.

That I have been around a lot of those ladies.

And she's just like them all.

I think that's bias.

I think that's a cartoon of rich people.

I think a lot of rich people got rich because people, because they're good people.

I get it, but not her.

Yeah, no, I 100% agree with that.

She's a class of Florida lady that you have met, and she is the top level of that.

We're talking about Ivanka, right?

Oh, wait, no, Melania.

Melania, sorry.

I know, Ivanka.

That'll be the interesting thing.

She's thinking of government

Florida.

Whatever.

I got to admit it.

I would enjoy that.

I'm thinking of writing her check just as a point of light to push her into the race.

I would enjoy that.

I just, I just,

you know, Melania is, I get, I totally, she's garden variety, rich late, you know, that kind of lady, bought rich lady.

Ivanka, I don't even begin to understand and unpack that.

Try something new.

That was her advice to people struggling.

It's like, I'd like to see her real personality.

I'd like to, I'm like, let me see what you're actually, I mean, she's mean and she's, she seems mean to me underneath.

And I don't know.

I just would like to see the real Ivanka.

Yeah.

Ivanka.

She reminds me of a couple people I covered in Silicon Valley.

Can you get her on?

Were they?

Would she ever come on sweat?

Would she ever come on pivot?

You know, Jared is in my class.

I mean, we're all friends, but we're friendly.

I wonder when he

difficult person to interview.

Let me get your advice and then we'll go.

I there's a couple people like a Josh Hawley who I was thinking of interviewing for his book about tech and stuff like that.

I don't know whether I really want to have them on because the constant lies that you just sit there.

So, you know, Bill Mayer had

Kelly and Conway on.

You know, someone pointed out, and this is correct, is he blocked 25% of her lies, but then the 75%

got through.

Well, Bill and her have been friends for decades.

Okay, fine.

But nonetheless,

whatever.

If you have any of those people on, I don't want to, I am not going to be able to block every stupid lie.

Like in the case of the parlor executive, no one knew what he was thinking.

And so I got his, but we know what Josh Hosley thinks.

He's also seditious, as far as I'm concerned.

And so, you know, I'm just using his an example.

It's like, I don't, like Erna Vonk or any of those people, which I'm not interested right now, but

you spend your whole time blocking lies and you, you can't block them all.

You know what I mean?

It's like slapshot, slapshot, lie, lie, lie.

And so I don't think that's helpful.

And if I do well and get like 60% of them, everyone compliments me for blocking lies.

And I don't think that's a very big,

I don't think that's a very big talent.

I think it's just what it is.

What do you think?

So I think with Kellyanne Conway, we should just stop giving her oxygen.

I saw this this TikTok of these screeds she goes on against her daughter.

And I thought, A, that's an invasion of privacy.

And B, I'm just,

let's just stop giving her.

Let's just stop giving her oxygen.

I think you are a reasonably good interviewer.

And so, look, I think a journalist such as yourself, who's informed and not afraid to push back on a senator who's trying to position himself as a presidential candidate and also sees himself as someone who's thoughtful about tech, I think that can be productive.

And so,

yeah, I think there's a difference between giving oxygen to Kellyanne Conway and to Senator Josh Hawley because he is elected by the people.

He is a viable candidate for president.

And he's, in my opinion,

guilty of sedition.

And I think you will have the ability and you have the backbone and quite frankly, the balls to say, a lot of people would argue that you understand these cases were sent down.

Aren't you guilty of sedition?

Your turn.

I mean, I don't.

So, yeah, I think that I think

a lot of people like that, and I'm like,

yeah, but sometimes like journalists love to get these slap masks and then they go, ooh, what a winner.

And I'm like, nothing's been won there.

Nothing's been illuminated.

You're just slapping down lies.

And so I don't, and they get kudos for it.

Like, oh, good job slapping down Trump's lies.

I'm like, why?

Why?

We knew he was a liar.

Like, why is that anyway?

Yeah, but just one last thing.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.

Says Amanda Gorman.

Says Amanda Gorman.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

I'm going to talk.

You know who I want to talk to?

Amanda Gorman.

I want to talk to Amanda Gorman.

I want to talk to people like that.

Anyway, Scott, as usual, this was fascinating because we are so fascinated.

And why are we so fascinating, Kara?

Because it's because being American is more than a pride we inherit, Kara.

It's more than a pride we inherit.

Oh my God, gangster.

I love this.

Okay, but we're not, let me just say, even though MSNBC and Fox have problems, we don't because there's always trouble in business bill so we are always there to give you insight what happens to us when trump is gone have we contemplated that

no we don't talk about it we talk about a lot of things oh we've got lots of places to go my friends places we shall go there's always a we work around the corner

there is always a we work around the corner that's right okay that's the show uh go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the podcast the link is also in our show notes scott read today's show was produced by rebecca sonanas our show was engineered by Ernie Indritod.

Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burroughs.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android listener, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend.

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

We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech: a nation not broken, but unfinished, Kara.

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.

Support for this show comes from Pure Leaf Iced Tea.

When you find yourself in the afternoon slump, you need the right thing to make you bounce back.

You need Pure Leaf Iced Tea.

It's real brewed tea made in a variety of bold flavors with just the right amount of naturally occurring caffeine.

You're left feeling refreshed and revitalized, so you can be ready to take on what's next.

The next time you need to hit the reset button, grab a Pure Leaf Iced Tea.

Time for a tea break?

Time for a pure leaf.