Facebook readies the ship, Robinhood looting, Katy Tur on election night and Ant Group

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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 Leslie Stahl.

You wish you were Leslie Stahl.

I do wish I was Leslie Stahl.

Do you want me to introduce you to Leslie Stahl?

You know, I have a story about Leslie Stahl, Mark.

Go ahead.

Benioff invited me to this celebration of Time's Man of the Year.

And that's when I realized he had purchased Time magazine.

And it was Andrew Rosorkin, Leslie Stahl, all these kind of, I don't know, icons of journalism and me.

And I literally, I got there and I looked around, and then they had one of those Placeo Nomingo, or I forget who, the, the blind, who's the blind singer?

Who's the one who's got it?

They all have amazing voices.

Yeah, that guy, yeah, okay.

And his son, who also has an amazing voice.

Uh-huh.

And I'm sitting around this table in a midtown thing.

I'm like, I, for a moment, I literally thought, okay, there's a, yeah, there's an Australian rules football player named Scott Galloway.

And for a moment, I looked around and I thought, did they mean to invite the rugby players?

Because I could not figure out how I ended up in this room.

But anyways, Leslie Stahl was there, and she seemed very lovely and very smart.

She used to to come to the code conference quite a bit.

She had a big interest in tech for a while.

She was great during that, by the way.

I hope everybody saw that because that was quite a back and forth that she had.

She was trying her level best to deal with baby Huey, but it was

crazy.

I was like, Can you stop talking about your victimization?

Did you watch the whole thing, though?

I'm curious.

I did.

How would you stack rank or what were your impressions of all four of them?

I thought Pence was like, you know,

the weird robotic penis that he is.

I don't know how else to explain it.

You got to admit, though, I mean, you're one of the things I like about you is that you're able to take, you are able to separate the person from the ideology.

As a politician, he is very good.

He is in the old style, in the way that, like, he has no old style.

No, I don't think Reagan.

Reagan was charismatic and delightful.

Whether, like, I can't, stuff on his aids, I want to literally,

it's horrible how he behaved.

But he is a charismatic and

really

attractive candidate.

Pence has leaves no emotion.

You don't go, oh, that guy, I love that guy.

He just has no, you have no affect to him except that he's a suck up now.

That's that, that's.

Look at the hand he's been dealt.

I mean,

he gets on there and he manages to kind of pivot away, not answer the question, but try to answer it.

He is, he is, I mean, I don't, I forget the spokesperson's name.

I forget her name.

You can't be.

Oh, Kaylee.

Yeah, I can't.

I think she's fantastic.

I think she's very talented, even though she makes it a lot better.

She did a little sharp thing at Leslie.

Did you say, oh, the president gave you enough time?

I've had that happen to me with so many PR people.

You know, so-and-so gave you enough time.

So, Pence, okay, so Pence, I interrupted you.

What did you think of Biden?

What did you think of him?

Biden was fine, was very like Uncle Joe and sharper than sharper than usual.

I think he's fine.

I think he's fine.

He's been in politics forever.

He's like a comfortable sweater.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, he's fine.

And he was actually, he seems more lively than ever and more engaged so that's great um and he is he's in he's invigorated which is good and senator senator i think she's i think she's sharp as a tack i think she will be subject to um

hatefulness because she's a woman of color and she's smart and she she's in your face yeah uh sometimes she uh She goes a little light when she shouldn't because she's so she tries to play down how incredibly sharp and intelligent she is sometimes.

I thought Senator Harris in the 16 minutes interview, I actually thought she came across as the least credible, quite frankly.

I thought she came across as, gosh, I'm so excited to be on the ticket.

And she was laughing too much.

She seemed nervous.

She has that tick.

She has a tick of laughing.

I think she'll, I think she'll, once she gets more comfortable, she's been in public like a lot of time, but not on this level.

And so, even though Senator from California is a big deal, I think she's moved through the system through

the city lawyer to San Francisco,

to the attorney general, to this, to that.

And so, I think she'll be more comfortable when she's well she's it's she's new she's early she needs some some marinating you know kind of she's not used to 60 minutes interviews on the as the vp so there's a lot of appealing things about her i think people will there's a going to be

a turn for her there's going to be a turn for her she's either going to be uh with all women politicians it's either i really like her or you get into the elizabeth warren hillary clinton zone where people have to like dislike you for no good reason other than you're a sharp and smart woman um but we'll see we'll see i thought trump was the worst.

He seemed like a big giant baby and wouldn't talk about policy.

The man is like impossible to talk about policy.

And I think he, of all of them, is the most charismatic.

So that's because he sort of wastes his time on his weird little petty grievances when he has a lot of political gifts that he doesn't.

avail himself to.

He's like, so

I was just saying, I just interviewed Sarah Cooper, who does these impressions of him.

And she thinks he's not funny because

he's inadvertently funny, but he doesn't, he's unaware of his ridiculousness the way most comics are.

Anyway,

I thought he looked terrible.

I don't know if it matters, but he looked as usual.

It's the same stuff we all know, this kind of stuff.

There was a brutal takedown that was contrasting his kind of spray-tan face and his hands.

Yeah.

Just talking about how this is kind of really

the kind of illusion in the chasm between

how the country is actually doing and who he really is.

Yeah, it's all illusion.

Yeah,

it was brutal.

I don't usually like like talking about people's looks, but in his case,

that spray tan is about a lot of things.

Yeah,

you invite that kind of scrutiny when you well, it's about it's it's metaphorical in a way that's significant and very clear.

Like I'm sorry.

Like there's a story.

Let me just there's a story today in the, I think at the Washington Post about what happened with Carrier, the air conditioning.

And, you know, this guy was like, you know, all he does is press releases and then he leaves and nothing ever happens.

It shows how this town has lost all these jobs.

So it's all press release.

It's all spray tan.

It's all

which is like

it's not uncommon, but it's taken to a ridiculous extreme in this administration.

Speaking of which, I'd love to know what you think about TikTok.

You know, that was all noise, noise, noise.

And now it's, you know, it's working its way through

where it's going.

It's got till mid-November before anything really has to happen.

And there's all kinds of lawsuits waiting.

So it may even be delayed past that.

But how do you think Biden is going to deal with this soap opera if he's elected?

I think Trump still has time in office to deal with it, obviously.

Trevor Burrus I think he recognizes he has no domain expertise here, and I'm not even sure the vice president does.

And he'll do what

I think there's going to be a lot of quote-unquote bipartisan commissions

coming out of his inauguration if he wins.

And that is they'll look at it and they'll decide, all right, if we're going to ban TikTok, which might make sense, it needs to be under the auspices of a ban against Chinese Internet companies in response to their banning all American

companies.

The systemic thing.

It needs to be policy.

It can't be governing by

140 characters.

But again, what this looks like is, and I think we were pretty cogent here, we said this is nothing but a distraction, an attempt to look tough.

It's not sustainable.

It's not legally viable.

And just the amount of time that Microsoft and what looks like Oracle wasted on this, it weakens us.

It weakens us.

One of the things, it's always struck me.

I have a lot of friends who came here who are immigrants who've been been extraordinarily successful in the alternative investments world.

They're hedge fund managers.

And the thing that they always impressed on me that I think I've taken for granted

as an American is that they said one of the things they just love about it here,

and from a lifestyle standpoint, from a family standpoint, the draw to go back to El Salvador or Spain or wherever they're from is really

strong.

But they said the rule of law is just so powerful here that if you know, the notion in a lot of these countries,

you can be hugely successful and there's always a non-zero probability that a government or a populist movement is going to or a bad actor could take everything away yeah and that the rule of law here and the protection and respect for private property is a is a real draw for people around the world and we're demonstrating it now by saying okay maybe tick tock shouldn't be here maybe it is a threat but if we don't have laws we can consistently apply to this we're not going to do it and that And these one-offs are really dangerous.

The same thing with Carrier, the same thing with all these things.

You cannot make policy by having like, let's get one company to do one thing.

It has to be a systemic policy.

And

I'm the same way on this internet stuff.

I'm like, we need, we cannot have one-off.

lawsuits.

We have to have a systemic look.

I welcome the bipartisan commission.

Speaking of which, speaking of things that have to be bipartisan at least, let's talk about the big stories.

Facebook is prepping for post-election unrest using the same tools for what it calls, quote, at-risk countries.

We're now an at-risk country.

The emergency measures would slow the spread of viral content and lower the bar for suppressing inflammatory posts.

These measures have been used before in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

That's where we are right now.

After the UN accused Facebook of fueling their Hinga genocide, whoa.

Like, I'm glad they're doing this, but boy, they caused it.

They're like trying to put out a fire they caused.

And you saw some videos this weekend of Trump, pro-Trump people, and anti-Trump people fighting in ways that were their guns and things like that.

There's all kinds of stuff.

So, you know, this leaping into the physical is very,

you know, the Tinder is there.

So, what do you think about this?

Well, I think it's 11 a.m.

the Sunday after the rager you had as a senior in high school, and there's blow everywhere, and a donkey, and

the dog.

The donkey get in there.

Your dog has been lit on fire.

Uh-huh.

And

everything is literally destroyed.

And your parents sent you a text saying they decided to come home early.

And you are scrambling to clean up the mess

and what has gone on here.

Because they recognize

the parents may be on their way home.

Biden-Harris up by 10 points.

Right.

And this election.

I mean, here's ⁇ so this kind of goes into

the New York Ad Observatory has been collecting publicly available data on the platform showing what political ads are running.

Is this everyone?

No, this is NYU.

Okay.

NYU ad advocates.

I know they're in a fight with them.

They're in a fight with them.

And Facebook has said, this violates our terms of service, and we're going to take further action if you don't stop doing it.

You explain that at NYU people are such activists of the New York Times.

Well, it's actually a PhD student at Tandon, and it's pretty benign.

It's, okay, this is the ads they're running in Pennsylvania.

This is who's paying for the ads.

And Facebook has said, no, no, no, it violates our terms of service, and I'm going to shut you down.

And this is the reality is any data you can scrape from a

public platform is almost always

kind of free reign for academics.

And not only that, academics oftentimes have access to data.

Companies provide academics with data that the public doesn't have access to.

So this is just not unusual at all.

It's nonsense.

And what it says is that

Facebook recognizes that this academic is probably going to find out that, yeah, people were leveraging our data and our tools to suppress the vote, or that people were leveraging our tools and our technology to spread misinformation.

And we'd rather that be as opaque as possible and to roll out as slowly as possible.

So this is,

anyways, it is Sunday morning at 11.

They are freaked out.

The parents might be coming home because the parents are up by 10 points.

And now in an election, if we find out, if we find out, and we're going to, that they fucked with what is the most important or seminal moments in a free society for the second time in a row.

Yeah.

And maybe they didn't promote it.

Maybe it wasn't their intention.

Maybe they would have rather it didn't happen.

But they traded off security for letting people do it or they traded off revenues for allowing it to happen.

There's going to be hell to pay.

When dad and mom get home, it is going to be ugly.

And you know what?

Except, you know, except if it leads to Trump's, because Trump will do nothing with this, this company is his, his, his, his age.

That's my point.

They're hoping.

I genuinely believe that a lot of senior executives who worry about, not only worry about

their share price, but I think are starting to probably believe, wow, I personally could probably get in a lot of hot water here, are really hoping for a Trump reelection.

I think Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg have more writing on Trump's reelection than almost anyone other than maybe Putin and

Boris or Rachel Madden.

We'll see.

We'll see.

So, yeah, I know a lot of people will do.

Well, I think people are exhausted by this, but why wait until after the election to create these measures?

Well, that's exactly the right question, Kara.

Why aren't these measures a part of their policy?

Why are these even measures?

Why isn't this just policy?

They're talking about reducing the virality of inflammatory content.

Well, that sounds like a reasonable policy for any media company, period, not pre-post or election.

Why is it something we're only contemplating?

Should there be a mute button for someone like if it's Trump starts to put out stuff that's just inaccurate?

So

this gets into the whole notion of censorship.

And in my view,

in my view, in my view, and let me be clear.

I think they're a media company.

I think media companies have biases.

I think media companies are allowed to edit people.

Their terms of service, if they had...

If they had any reverence or allegiance or fidelity to their terms of service, both platforms would have shut his account off or down or kicked it off.

And they didn't because

he alone is probably generating several billion ads served.

The conversation he inspires, the catalog, the rage, the dialogue, the clicks, the Chabani and Nissan ads is just worth a ton of money to them.

Yep.

What do you think?

I think they are culpable here if they don't do the right thing.

And I don't know what I would do.

I think they've backed themselves in a corner where they have to censor now.

Or if they don't, there is damage.

It's just they've put themselves into the worst.

They have not gotten people used to the idea of who they are and that they are a private company that can do these things.

And so everybody now thinks it's the public square.

And they've allowed that to happen.

They've put no strictures in place.

They haven't made clear that this is their platform and this is how people are going to behave on it.

And now they're paying the price and they will pay the price.

If there is a

close election and Trump starts to mess with it, I wouldn't want to be that person to make that decision, but they're going to have to.

But

you used a keyword that I don't know what I would do.

You You used the word censoring.

And I would argue that I don't think it's censoring.

That's right.

I think that's what it's got that in the mind.

I don't think it's censoring.

It's stopping someone from lying.

It's very when Leslie Stahl in her 60 Minutes interview says she stopped him.

This is 60 Minutes.

We can't put statements on the air that we can't verify.

And I know we won't be able to verify that.

And when more when Facebook shuts down content, we can't verify it.

It's not censoring.

It's taking responsibility for being a media company where two-thirds of America get their ownership.

They don't have reporters is how they get out of it.

But one of the things that I thought that Leslie Sahel, beyond the we can't verify, I think, I think when she said, when he said they had tried to steal the election, she said, no.

And he said, they tried.

You go look at the papers.

Go get the, I was like, what papers?

Like, I would have been like, what freaking papers are you talking about?

Yeah.

You know, and she goes, no.

And he said, and then he kept saying again, she goes, no, that is inaccurate.

Like, that is how you do it.

Like, that is all.

No one's going, Leslie Stahl censored him.

He's just saying, no, that is inaccurate.

That's right.

You just, it came out of your mouth, but guess what?

It's a lie.

So it's, it's difficult.

Anyway, we're going to, speaking of damage, let's go on a quick break and to talk about the issues with the Robinhood app, which is something that Scott has talked quite a lot about.

And we have a friend of Pivot, Katie Tur, to help us lead us through next week's election.

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Welcome back.

Robinhood users are saying their accounts are being hacked and looted.

They have no way to report the thefts.

Bloomberg reported that users have been targeted by cyber criminals without any way to hold the Robinhood app accountable or track their funds, you know, like do their job.

These users have to contact the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority with limited success.

Robin Hood said they've doubled their customer service team this year, which they had talked about before with me and other people, but clearly does not help users from being looted.

Oh, Scott.

Tell me.

Well, first off, notice how they said doubled their customer service team, but they didn't put any numbers on it.

They've gone from four to eight people.

So

no, it's the hundreds.

I do know that, but go ahead.

Okay, so the social dilemma kind of really depicts this really well.

And that is when the product is free, you are the product.

And what we have

in our

surveillance capitalism society is incrementally they say, we'll give you something for free and we'll start taking data from you.

And even if you don't provide us with permission, we'll start monetizing that data.

You're the cow.

You're not the customer.

You're the product.

And we're going to milk the shit out of you and find people who are willing to pay more and more for this milk, which is a data set which we continually enhance.

And the order flow that Robinhood gets from its quote-unquote product, that's you, the consumer at Robinhood, gets a greater, gets more money.

They're able to sell that order flow for more money than any other brokerage.

Why?

It's either that, A, they're able, the people who take that order flow can either create a greater spread and sell Robinhood Traders stocks at a worse price, or

that's the dumb money.

And traders like to know what the dumb money is doing so they can take the other side of that trade but be clear you are the product not the customer and then and then they're like we don't want anything to get in the way of this blitz scale including including getting to a point and this happens several times and you sent me the articles on this

you get an alert on Robinhood this happened

Your Moderna stock has been sold, a trade confirmation.

It's been sold.

And you're like, wait, I didn't sell it.

And then it says, you get another alert saying, we are about to transfer the funds, the proceeds of your Moderna sale out of your account.

And you're like, oh my God, someone has hacked my account, is stealing from me, and is about to transfer it out.

And then you're like, okay, I caught them.

You try and call Robinhood, but they don't have a 800 number.

They don't have a customer service number.

Why?

That would get in the way of scaling.

Any banks?

And they immediately shut.

a credit card company.

You get an alert before something happens.

Everybody.

And these people start calling desperately anyone, emailing on a LinkedIn employee.

And you know what they get it?

They get an email back saying, this is a serious issue.

Someone will be back to you within a few weeks.

And some of these people literally lost or were worried they were going to lose their life savings.

I have traded.

So, Scott, shouldn't that be the very bottom amount of work that Robinhood should do for its customers?

When you're dealing with people's livelihoods, when you're dealing with money, the notion I've traded on

Schwab, Goldman's trading platform, Northern Trust, TD Ameritrade.

The idea that I would register and notice that funds had been, that there was illegal activity in my account and funds were about to be stolen out of my account, the idea that I wouldn't be able to immediately get somebody on the phone and that they would immediately take action is absolutely unheard of.

It is.

All Robinhood users, you should know you're the product, you're not the customer.

And then the language that Robinhood put out was very telling.

They said a limited number of our accounts where the passwords were stolen because the passwords were hacked outside.

And they said this wasn't a breach.

In other words, if Walmart is broken into and something bad, it's not our fault if the key used to get into the store was copied somewhere else.

They are taking a page out of Facebook's playbook.

Slow roll, deny, obfuscation, don't take responsibility.

You're not the consumer.

You're the product.

And quite frankly, we're going to start parsing you out and selling you to other people.

Robin Hood's focus on blitz scaling, their inability or their willingness to totally

abuse

their product, who right now is their consumer set, has reached a new high.

And here's the question we all face and regulators and the SEC face, and that is, if we could go back in time before Facebook really started levying a ton of damage on the Commonwealth, would we stop them?

Well, guess what we can?

Because Robinhood and their CEOs, they're a fucking menace.

And we have the opportunity.

We have the opportunity to shut that shit down early before it becomes out of control.

This is the opportunity to move in now.

Well, what's good here, what's good here, and we're going to get to Katie Kerr in a second, is that this is an area that there is much more attention.

paid because it's finance, because it's people's bank accounts.

So I think you will see some action by the SEC and other organizations.

I do.

I do think.

With Facebook, you don't know know who is in charge of this.

And of course, the FTC punted on these things.

But I feel like you have a point of view on this, Scott.

So we'll see where it goes.

This is a test for the SEC.

Is the SEC exists to protect management or to protect investors?

This is a test for them.

All right.

It's a test.

It's a test.

And they have failed so far, according to Scott Galloway.

Speaking of tests, we have an election coming up.

And we have Katie Turr.

We have Katie Tur, MSNBC anchor, NBC news correspondent, and New York Times best-selling author.

Yep.

Katie, welcome to Pivot.

Scott is

extraordinarily excited just because you're aware of this.

So my first question.

My first question.

Who does not love Katie Tour?

Katie, who does not love Katie Tour?

Oh, gosh.

My son doesn't love me as much as he loves his dad right now.

I am the second favorite person in the household.

So this is Key.

I know, before Kara starts her whole substantive interview thing, Katie, you literally play.

Just so you know, all my questions are just an excuse for me to talk about me.

So let's get going.

So Katie Tour plays the same role in my life as Goodfellas, the 1990 crime drama.

Whenever I am browsing on live TV, which I still do because I'm 108, if I see Goodfellas or Katie Tour, I stop and I just watch.

You are so substantive and you bring so much humanity to important stories.

Katie Tour and Goodfellas.

All right.

Now I'm going to

ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster.

You are a gangster.

You are a gangster.

All right.

That's my favorite line.

Gangster, Joe Pesci.

Listen, listen to me.

Let's talk about the key differences that you see between the weeks leading up to the 2016 election and 2020 election.

I'm sorry, I'm not effusively complimenting you, but I think you're an excellent reporter.

So talk to me about how you look at it because you covered, you know, you've covered both elections.

So this is, it's diametrically

different than 2016.

Donald Trump isn't running as an outsider any longer, although he's trying to.

He is an incumbent.

He's had four years behind him.

He's got a record to run on.

And there are those in his orbit who say he should run on the specifics of his record that they like.

But then there are a lot of people who have been watching him for four years and may have thought that he would have

pivoted to be a more presidential leader once he got into the White House and realized very quickly that that didn't happen.

And might be looking at the last four years and thinking, I don't really like him so much.

There are others who say, hey, listen, the coronavirus has been a complete and utter disaster and I'm really tired of,

you know, living inside my basement.

Or

I'm really tired of going to the market and having to fight with people about wearing masks when I think they should wear them and the president should show some leadership on this.

Or people who look outside and say, oh my God, look at all this racial unrest.

This is a problem that we need to address, not just pretend it doesn't exist.

Or people who want to have Thanksgiving dinner with their family without somebody storming out because of politics.

So there's a lot going on right now that he wasn't dealing with in 2016.

I'm not saying he's going to lose, but I am saying it does dramatically change the landscape.

How is covering it different?

Obviously, there's the COVID issues, but

what is the tonality?

Because before it was sort of this insurgent campaign, there was a little more more humor around it, despite all the ugliness that he brought to bear.

There was more, you know,

what do we have to lose with this guy?

It's really difficult to cover him because when he opens his mouth, the majority of what he says isn't true.

And you can't spend all of your time picking through it because an hour would go by and you wouldn't have covered anything.

So you have to, as a journalist, pick and choose what you are going to focus on.

And covering the lead up to this election, obviously, is so much different because I'm not out on the road as I normally would have been.

Which you were, yeah.

Which I was, and I had a real sense of where the voters' heads were at.

Now it's you've got to focus on what is the biggest issue at hand, which is the coronavirus.

And choosing to cover that over

whatever Donald Trump may have said at a gaggle or whatever he may have tweeted, I so infrequently talk about his tweets now because most of the time,

the vast majority of time, they just don't matter.

Whereas in 2016,

because he was so unpredictable, we felt like we were following the bouncing ball a lot.

Right now, you ignore the ball and you focus on the target, which is right now the coronavirus.

Scott?

Yeah, just a couple of things seem different.

I'm curious what your take is, if they're really having an impact.

The first is it just seems like the President and the Vice President are at this point super spreaders.

And they haven't we haven't seen that level of super spread from either Biden or Harris.

I'm curious if you think when you're out there talking to people, if they see

kind of the different approach

or the different results as leadership or symptom of incompetence.

The campaign's

registry or, I don't know, interaction with coronavirus, how has that impacted voters' sense of what is going on between the two campaigns?

Well, I mean, it depends on who you're talking to, frankly.

Because if you're talking to the majority of people here in New York,

their sense is that Donald Trump is a public health danger from the way that he's behaving, you know, by holding these rallies where there's no social distancing and no masks, by himself not modeling the behavior that his own health experts and officials are advocating by making fun of Joe Biden, all of these things, by having an outbreak at the White House, by having a second outbreak at the White House and not going to the hospital and getting treated and coming out and not taking it seriously.

That was, you know, that was the worst fear for a lot of people was that he was going to go in, be fine, come out and say it's not a big deal and

give motivation and give a talking point

to the people who don't want to take it seriously.

But then I talk to others who are

more in Donald Trump's camp and they'll say, well, I wish he took it more seriously, but they'll have excuses for it.

There's nothing he could have done

better than this.

It was a virus that was out of control from the start.

That's their new thing, correct?

That's their new.

There's nothing anybody could have done.

There's nothing anybody could have done.

He saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

You can't fault him for this.

They had a plan, and they executed it.

I see.

So when you think about where we are right now, we're a week away.

How are you preparing in the days up to the election?

And how are you thinking of the days after?

As someone who has a show and you're obviously going to have to be, you were talking about the idea of not following the bouncing ball.

There's going to be balls everywhere here.

And it's going to be all over the place.

So how are you preparing, you know, as you're watching early voting and the early takeaways that's already started, nobody knows, but it doesn't stop them from reporting on it.

So talk about how you think about how the media should do it.

And then talk about how social media platforms should do it, because I think cable and they sort of work in tandem together in a weird way.

So I just got a text message from my producer saying that I'm locked in our A1 lead, so I got to get out of it.

I just did.

I don't even know what you just said there, but it sounded very impressive.

It was cool.

It sounded very impressive.

It's the open of the show.

It's the first read of the show.

And we spent a lot of time on the first read because that is the framing for the entire day's coverage.

Sure.

And what I have been doing, and what we have been doing specifically in the last few weeks, is we have been framing it as

two stories coming to a head, which is that we are coming down to the wire on election day.

People are voting in numbers that we have not seen before.

Millions of people deciding it is too risky to take a risk.

I'm going to mail my ballot in early.

I am going to show up in person.

While at the same time,

hundreds, if not more than a thousand Americans are dying every single day.

There are new hotspots popping up every single day.

Hospitals, again, are running out of ICU beds.

You've got the crisis of the coronavirus, which is whipping itself up again, and you have the election.

And those two things are intertwined.

You can't separate them.

So we focus on those in the beginning and we try to give you a sense of where the race and the country stands.

And that's how you don't follow the bouncing ball.

And oftentimes the bouncing ball stories kind of

fit into the larger story of both the election and the coronavirus.

Donald Trump's going after mail-in ballots because he says it's fraud.

Well, there are mail-in ballots because of the pandemic and people don't necessarily feel safe in going and voting.

On the question of social media, social media is so, as you know, and we talk about this on my show, it's difficult.

I think that it has

made the ability to get the truth out almost impossible in some scenarios.

I mean,

the ability for people to be misinformed or disinformed on social media, and it's not just social media, it's some cable news outlets,

is profound.

And

I am always overcome

and scared when I talk to people who are spouting off

conspiracy theories or just wildly incorrect information that has no basis in reality.

So you talked to my mother this morning, then well, I come across these people a lot.

I mean, you can find them in New York.

You can find them outside of Trump rallies in Pennsylvania.

You can talk to them online.

I get emails from people saying these things.

But I mean, the majority of it is coming from the right.

But there is a problem coming from the left as well,

where I will get friends who will text me something they saw on Twitter or Facebook and say, what about this?

And I'll say, oh my God, where are you getting that from?

And it's like just some unknown website.

Well, I heard it and I, you know, it feels right to me.

And you say, well, okay, but you can't, you you can't trust me.

What do you do as a broadcaster, as a reporter?

What is your responsibility, especially if this gets very close and ugly?

How are you thinking about that?

I think you have to be very clear with what's at stake, but also with

the expectations.

We might not have a winner on election night.

We probably won't have a winner on election night.

We might have one in the days after, but maybe not.

It might be weeks after.

Prepare yourself

for there to be a delay.

And also know that there are going to be people out there, nefarious actors, who are going to try and manipulate your opinion about what is happening.

And arm yourself with accurate information.

How do you find accurate information?

Well, if you see something online and it piques your interest, Google it.

Try to find it backed up at the New York Times or the Washington Post or USA Today or NBC News or CNN or CBS, whatever.

Find another reliable news source that backs up the information you just read.

And if you can't find it,

I don't trust it.

Push it away and wait until that gets confirmed somewhere else.

That's a level of media literacy that not many people have.

They don't really understand

early voting.

You would think that we would actually have more insight into what's going to happen here than any previous election because we're coming up on about 50 million people have already voted.

Is that right?

Well,

and I get the sense that we have been the progressives on the left, we were hit so hard by this car in 2016 that we don't want to say out loud anything positive.

We don't want to jinx any of it.

But what, if anything, have you seen or do you take away or what thesis do you have

around early voting?

Like, what are the signals telling you?

60 million.

It just hit 60 million.

60 million.

So

the early vote is indicative of enthusiasm, and I think it's indicative of how many people felt

surprised and maybe waylaid by the 2016 election.

So I think that what you're seeing is a lot of enthusiasm from people who do not like Donald Trump, want to see him out of office, don't want to take a risk on it, and are getting out there very early.

What I think is most interesting are the number of people who voted this time that did not vote in 2016.

That's going to be what sways this election.

It's not going to be Donald Trump taking some Democrats or Joe Biden taking some Republicans.

It's going to be the millions of people who didn't show up.

There were 4.4 million Obama 2012 voters who didn't show up in 2016.

4.4 million.

That's a lot of people.

If just a handful of those in a couple of key spaces, key counties, show up and vote and vote for Joe Biden.

Also, they're young people, they're African-American men,

and people who just didn't think that their vote mattered, assumed Hillary Clinton was going to win.

If they show up, then the election is going to be completely different.

Yeah.

So, let me ask just two more questions, and maybe Scott has one more.

Is when you're when you're broadcasting like this, and you were on the road,

you were a reporter for the last election.

When you think about you broadcasting, you're in a basement, you're broadcasting in a basement.

How do you think about

your job differently now, this election versus last election?

Because you also, you have to now have a Twitter,

you know, status and what you're doing here.

Talk about sort of that, the difference of what you were doing, because you wrote a whole book on being on the campaign trail.

So it's been really humbling being in the basement and not being out there.

So I have come

to focus on and rely on the reporting of my colleagues who are out there talking to people every day and know that they probably have a better pulse on anything than I certainly do sitting here, or that many of the talking heads that we have who are experts and very intelligent than they do coming on because a lot of their

political education and knowledge spans decades back and it might not be necessarily relevant today anymore.

I want you to get rid of all the punches.

I just want you to have reporters, honestly.

I love the reporters.

And we have people in the field and we have you know, this county-to-county project that Meet the Press launched that we have a couple reporters doing, including a girl named Dasha Burns.

And she's going to these counties and she's talking to voters in these

swing places that are either not changing their mind or changing their mind.

You know, they're the people who will potentially make the difference in this election.

So for me, it's relying on that information.

It's calling old contacts from 2016 and getting a sense of where they are.

But it's also knowing that the smartest thing that I can say right now is, I don't know.

Ha, that's unusual

from a reporter.

Yeah, I'm more curious, or curious about your view on your industry.

You're a rigorous journalist.

You're ascending.

Your career is ascending.

And

so you're a pilot on a 747.

You have the premier seat in what you do.

But you're in the cable bundle, which is like Pan Am Airlines in the 70s.

It just,

it just, it doesn't look good long term.

And I'm curious what you think is going to happen.

So far, politics are largely, politics and sports are still kind of the last firewalls of ad-supported media.

As you think about your own career and the industry, do you think over time I need to get to subscription media?

Do you think that, okay, I need to develop different channels of communication and develop my own direct channels?

Like, how are you, how do you view the industry and the kind of the ice cube that is the cable industry right now and think about your own career management so i i think that's a really important question it's also a tough one i think that the media industry is um

facing some some giant obstacles the biggest one that's going to cross any platform that you might live on is trust and confidence and we've had that

plummet now for decades it's risen a little bit since donald trump came into office but it's very partisan it depends on whether you're a democrat or a Republican.

I think our most important task right now is finding a way to build back that trust, and that's going to include some media literacy.

So that's getting out there and explaining what we do and how we do it.

Secondary to that is finding the medium that will reach the broadest audience.

I think you can silo yourself and reach a segment of the population, but I'm not sure.

if that's going to do anybody any good.

Right now,

the broadest audience is on broadcast news, but they're in dire straits.

Cable has seen some growth, but who knows what might happen after this election and if politics aren't as interesting as they have been or as unpredictable and

boring Biden is not good for your business.

Well, I mean, I don't know.

I think there's a lot going on

post this election that

only because I think you train the audience for constant entertainment.

But I do think that there is a lot at stake here between,

but And there will be a lot to cover with what Congress does, especially on the issue of climate change, which we don't cover enough.

I'm excited to get past this election and start focusing more on climate change, which I think is a broad issue that affects absolutely everybody and has more bipartisan appeal than you may see in the numbers.

Anyway, so when I think about my career and my future,

I hold on to where I am right now.

And then I find, my husband and I talk about this all the time.

We find, we talk about whether there is another outlet, and digital obviously is the next step in that direction, but finding a way where

a place where digital can still reach the American voter.

But wait,

I want the question to be more pointed.

Play production executive, it can't be on Comcast, so we'll just give you a hall pass there so you don't have to answer an uncomfortable question.

But if if it's not Comcast and there was going to be a 30-minute program of content, of rigorous content for rigorous journalists covering politics and society, what platform would you want that 30-minute program to be on?

That is a really difficult question.

I want to say it's on a social media platform because that has the most reach.

But I also, I mean,

my first thought would go to like having a rigorous or a 30-minute

show that lived on a platform that

had as much reach as Twitter does.

But the problem with Twitter is that

people don't have the

attention span

for anything more than 285 characters, whatever the number is now.

And it's Twitchy exactly.

So I think.

I've stumped Katie Torre, Tara.

I mean, do I get a prize?

I'm going to ask you the last question.

Do I get a coffee?

We have a show to you.

What's the prize here?

No.

No.

Oh, well, I don't know.

Do I drink coffee?

I'm like, Tad.

I love Brian.

Tad.

Tad.

So

listen,

last thing you're going to do for this week, what are you prepping to do?

How are you thinking about the election day?

What are you doing?

On election day,

I am going to try and sleep between 6 and 10 p.m., which seems odd because that's the prime hour.

But I am anchoring with Eamon the overnight shift from 2 a.m.

to 6 a.m.

Oh man, I'll be watching.

Which, which actually, which sounds really brutal, but because this is such an unpredictable election, it could be some really, it could be a really interesting time.

So I'm going to try and figure out how to fall asleep.

Are you doing it from the basement?

Are you all getting together?

Is NBC?

That's a good question.

I've asked that question and I've not gotten a clear answer.

Yeah, it should be answered.

I'm shaking here.

I have a sinus infection.

So I think it'll probably depend on whether I am all better.

By the way, as a pilot, that's what's called the Sacramento-to-Lubbock route, 2 a.m.

to 6 a.m.

That's not a great route.

You are so New York to London.

Who do we speak to?

Who do we speak to?

I don't know.

I'm sure you know who you are.

No, they need Brian on for the main part so he could make all those little like, you know, like cows.

Well, this is what's interesting about becoming an anchor.

So when you're a reporter, you know, you can be on top of your game and you can be like the one out front and be the star in your position.

But once you get to what is the promotion, which is the anchor gig, you're back down to the bottom of the flagpole again.

Yeah.

Bottom of the totem pole.

Got to work your way back up.

There you go.

2 a.m.

We can't wait.

We will be watching you at 2 a.m.

because you know we are, there's still everyone's going to be on the show all night.

It's going to be primed out somewhere.

Yeah, exactly.

Hey, Scott, if you come up with a good place for me to go take my 30-minute show, you tell me.

We just know not quickly.

We are going to get back to you on the rest of the day.

Careful what you asked for.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Oh, a podcast with Scott.

Don't, please don't do it.

I, I urge you not to.

Anyway, Katie, thank you so much.

We really appreciate it and good luck with your show today.

Thanks a lot.

Bye.

Bye.

Okay, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

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off.

Okay, Scott, isn't Katie Tour the best?

Yeah, I think she's wonderful.

I have, you know, I have fake friends because I'm sort of living in my own world, and I've decided my new fake friends are Katie and Brian Williams.

I like him all.

I like that whole MSNBC.

Yeah, I like them.

I like to watch them.

I always am like, I've got to watch my Katie.

They both sound like nice people.

Yeah, I would like, one of the things she was talking about is I would like a return to less punditry and more reporters on just like I prefer reporters, you know, with points of view who actually know what they're talking about.

And I think cable, if they're going to try to revive themselves, they just do reporting like and tell stories.

I think that would be a lot of fun.

There's a very unhealthy tension in our society where it used to be, you know, there's a tension between fact and novelty.

And you remember the old 70s, Jerry Dumphy, where you'd have 27 minutes of fact and then three minutes of novelty or opinion?

It's totally flipped.

And MSNBC, quite frankly, is guilty of it, is as guilty of it because there's more money in it.

But at some point,

at some point, there'll be a market to go back.

I actually think that's why a lot of these traditional media outlets, the Washington Post and the New York Times, are thriving.

New York Times, by the way, is thriving.

It's important.

It's because they're about just the facts.

Stories.

The truth.

Whether it's a kooky story or it's just good storytelling.

Good storytelling.

Okay, Scott, wins and fails.

What's your wins and fails?

Sure.

So my win is the largest IPO in history in terms of proceeds and financial, $34 billion.

I think the average person.

Jack Ma.

That's right.

It's basically the payment.

division of Alibaba.

But if you think about, I mean, this thing is part square, part Tinder, part quick and loan, part Venmo, part PayPal.

That is an average.

And 700 million people on the thing.

And and they went public.

They raised

$33 billion just edging out Saudi Aramco to be the biggest IPO in history.

And when you think about that, the average IPO, I think the proceeds are, you know, $100 to $300 million.

So this IPO is literally 100 to 300x greater

than typical IPOs.

So they dominate.

Imagine, I mean, they dominate.

They make Amazon look like a niche player or square.

They have just taken, you know, you really, they've really consolidated the market and they're about, I think it's like 30 or 34 billion in top-line revenues and 10 billion in EBITDA.

It's just, this thing is just a juggernaut.

Their challenge will be to see if they can expand

beyond national borders.

Chinese companies, they're kind of their Achilles helis.

They're not great at

global branding.

But it is, it's just a, it's arguably one of the most, I would say other than Shopify, it's probably the most impressive company of the last 10 years.

But because we're such narcissists and we think we've invented innovation, we don't, we don't cover these companies.

Jack Ma is a fascinating entrepreneur.

I've interviewed him many times, and I actually went to China to visit on his day, the sales day that they have.

I forget what it's called.

And he invited me there.

What Alibaba has done is really fascinating.

And for people who immediately think the Chinese steal everything or they're intellectual property thieves, maybe absolutely true.

The fact of the matter is, this company is so innovative.

And visiting their,

I visited all their headquarters and stuff like that.

It was really interesting.

And I think their Achilles is China, like the Chinese government and the linkages that they are, they have to endure it.

But this guy is a real entrepreneur, like in terms of fascinating ways to pivot.

He really does.

This is a really interesting thing.

And the question is, can they,

they can go all over the globe, but can they make a dent in the U.S., which Alibaba has not done except for, you know, people use it to move goods between China and the U.S.

So interesting.

And he's also sidled up to Trump.

He did try right at the beginning of the administration.

So it's an interesting question of how you deal with this company because it is a giant financial tech company and one of the most important ones.

Good win.

Good win.

Win?

No, I do not have a win.

Well, the win is this early voting, I think.

I have to say, it's really interesting.

Someday I wish people would be able to vote on their phones, but I recognize all the

worries about it and everything else.

If they're worried about mail-in voting, and we've been mailing things for hundreds of years or whatever there's going to be an issue with it but I do I am heartened by people physically showing up at these things I mean to me long lines are voter suppression because you have to wait in long long lines but people are distanced so I'm sort of trying to figure out if they're really long lines or it's just there's now six feet between people

but I do think that there's

it is lovely to see all those people like right now I guess another I forget New York opened early voting whatever and and DC opens it tomorrow the enormous lines that people are waiting in and to in order to cast their vote physically, I think is really very heartening.

No matter how this election turns out, people care about what's going to happen and they're acting.

And I do think Americans don't take their vote for granted so much.

And I think it's something I've drilled into my children.

My son voted, which he was very excited to do so for the first time.

And I just feel like it's your

duty to do so.

I don't think I've missed an election.

Katie highlighted something we don't want to say out loud.

I canvassed for Hillary in 2016, and I bring that up because it makes me, it's total virtue signaling.

So I mention it kind of every six months to people.

But

when I went into,

I was out in a middle to lower income neighborhood just west of where I live in Florida.

And I would go into households.

So if I'd knocked on the door and it was an African-American household, they'd invite me in, super nice, super grateful.

And I'd ask them where their polling place was and they wouldn't know.

I'm like, they're not voting.

They're not voting.

And then I'd get to a white household and they'd slam the door on my face.

And I thought, he's going to win because

take passion, take passion over

the apathy I was registering for Democrats.

And what I see, and again, we're scared to say it out loud.

What I see with this early voting in those lines is I see passion and anger.

And that passion and anger right now is the rocket fuel, or what I'm hoping is the rocket fuel for

a change.

But I think it's hard not to interpret this as a good thing

for Biden and Harris.

I think it is.

So how do you feel then about the

rallies then?

Because that's passion.

It's misguided.

It feels like misguided.

I mean, only look, they can have the rallies all they want if it wasn't a health crisis, but it really is.

That's what makes it disgusting, actually, those rallies is the health crisis part of it.

If it wasn't, how do you look at those?

They pretend there's no COVID and you have these, but actually there is COVID and they're still doing these and they attracting large numbers.

How do you look at that?

Because that's my fail.

I'm like, what are you doing?

I think his rallies are a lot of fun.

If

they're a chance to

turn out and hear this kind of outrageous,

you know, provocative, charismatic.

I mean, they're an event.

They really are.

Whereas most politicians are so scared to say anything, it ends up, you know, they kind of, the content just isn't that great at these things.

And his are a lot of fun.

I believe, and again, it might be confirmation bias, that these are constant reminders that this is not a responsible administration.

These are constant reminders that this administration prioritizes their own key ratings and awareness over the health of the Commonwealth.

I think they may rally his base, but I think moderates look at these things and go, you know, boss, is that really a good idea?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

His campaign has been

entertainment

One of the things that Livia Nuzzi, who writes for New York Magazine, who's terrific, she just put out another story today.

She was noting in one of her very funny, she's done a lot of Instagram posts.

She's had to go to these rallies, is that they stream out when he starts talking.

So she goes, She's decided it's just entertainment for them.

They just want to say, like, looking at the Grand Canyon.

Look, I went and saw the Grand Canyon and now I check my box.

And I actually, the first time, I was like, you know, that's exactly what I think has happened here.

They're not listening to anything he's saying because he's almost not talking.

He never talks about policy.

He just makes a lot of bad and juvenile toilet jokes, essentially, and insults.

You know, he's like Don Rickles of politics, essentially.

But they leave because they just wanted to say they were there and they enjoy, which is really a fascinating way to look at it.

So, what is your fail?

Oh, my fail again is just Robin Hood.

The notion that a consumer platform that is dealing with people's livelihood,

potentially theft,

is going on.

The consumer who's having their funds stolen finds out before Robinhood tries to alert Robinhood and a Robin and there's no one there.

It would be like calling the police, whose job is to protect you in the midst of a home invasion or someone stealing from you, like, oh my gosh, they're in my house and they're stealing my money.

And you would get a hold, you'd go on if you called 911 and you were on hold for three weeks.

And it just, and then their response was so

they tried to blame the consumer because of passwords that were obtained outside the network.

Your fault, your fault.

So let's be clear, Robinhood product, i.e.

its consumers.

You could find out today that your stock has been sold when you didn't sell it and that that money, your money is being transferred out.

And the response will be an email saying we'll get back to you in three weeks.

What could go wrong?

Well done, Robinhood.

Well done.

Anyways, that's my thing.

I think my feel is, and it's actually when there's a piece by Rich Lowry in the,

I think he's read for the National Review.

He's a well-known writer.

And he calls it the only middle finger.

And he talks about that conservatives will ditch any principle they purport to hold if it means sticking it to those.

The National Review guy?

That guy?

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I think he wrote a really interesting thing.

It is true.

It's about screw you.

And I'm so sorry that that is how people feel, that this is anything to do the middle finger to the man.

I think at the heart of Trumpism is that, is the is the sad fuck you to people they don't like and I get why there's anger.

I get why there's like they've been treated shabbily by a lot of people

at the same time.

Yes.

Just so angry at government, so angry at everything.

At limousine liberals.

Right.

It's their state in life that which was is not it's not the fault of limousine liberals that they're where they are.

It's not

the inability to know it's come on come on like like at some point

this is a group of people that talks about standing on their own two feet.

They should stand on their own two feet.

Like, it's fine.

But I do feel sorry that this is where it goes to,

is having to put a middle finger to everybody.

And it would be nice if there was some way to

stop that, this dysfunction that occurs.

Maybe there isn't.

Maybe it is our country.

There's the elite, and then there's the ones who have to say fuck you to the elite, because neither of them is working.

And so I would like to, I recommend that you read that story because I think he's saying the quiet part out loud, which is

a middle thing.

It's a different form.

I mean, it's maybe an uglier form of what Obama was saying.

Obama was about change.

And to a certain extent, Trump represented the mother of all change.

And these are people who had been, felt like they'd just been lied to over and over and over.

And they said, whatever's going on here, we just want radical change.

And to be fair, Donald Trump represented, on a lot of dimensions, more change than any politician previously.

So

we think of it as being something sinister and ugly.

The reality is they wanted the same thing that we wanted when we voted for Obama.

We wanted change or they wanted to.

Yes, but it is sinister and ugly because it's about petty grief.

Oh, yeah, and it's about mocking the disabled.

That was

exactly.

It's petty and cruel and pointless and not about policy that would change, it would actually change people's lives.

So it's easier to say.

I was reminding of, and I'll finish up on this, is my son, when I, I think I told you this that there was an election at my college when I was in college where there was a people that lots of, you know, the people who run for student body president are just usually those kind of people, you know what I mean?

Like, they were super earnest and irritating, and lots of like things that you feel about people that run in college for student body president.

And these two guys ran on the like, fuck you party, essentially.

Like, we're going to have beer bongs and we're going to do this and we're not going to run government.

And, and everybody voted for them and they won.

Like, everyone's like, yeah, fuck the man.

Like, you know, that kind of thing.

And, and they won overwhelmingly over a lot of really qualified people.

And everyone was like, ha ha, we showed them.

And then, like, everything fell apart.

People didn't get their, you know, didn't get their things that students expect.

There was no representation.

Groups didn't get funded.

Things didn't happen.

And I remember going, oh, you won.

You sure did win.

Like, you got nothing.

Did you ever run for office?

That's that's my way of wanting you to ask me.

So, but you go first.

Did you ever run for office?

Did you run for?

I didn't.

I never ran for a while.

I ran for junior class president in high school.

I ran for

senior class president in high school.

I I ran for student body president.

Yeah.

Lost them all.

Lost them all.

And one of the key.

Why did you run?

Because I think one of the what is that movie, Election Tracy, what was it?

Brace Witherspoon and Matthew Broder.

That's a fantastic film.

And I tell my kids, my son just ran for seventh grade president and lost.

And I said, the key to one of the modest or one of the reasons I feel like I'm honestly successful is that when you run for something and you lose, you realize it's not the end of the world.

And then you get back up and you run again and you you lose again.

That means at some point, at some point, you're going to win.

How much did you lose for?

Oh, a lot.

Oh, really?

Actually, no, I think I get it.

I don't know.

Look, you miss every shot you don't take.

The key to success is your resilience over your failure.

That's it.

That's the ratio.

Show me anybody who has had serious disappointment and losses.

Sweet little skin.

You're not sweet.

A young Scott with hair losing the election.

And a skateboard.

Oh, my God.

It's killing me.

You lost the elections.

Three elections.

That's a lot.

It might have been four.

I think I ran for sophomore class president, too.

Yeah, it was more than that.

Oh, just was always president

for treasure.

Handcut from the basketball team.

Oh, my God.

But I had really bad acne, which helped my security and confidence.

You'll be happy to know I had a very happy home.

Of course you did.

I went out with the star football player.

I was a really good student.

Yeah, but there was a glitch in the matrix.

I should really be enjoying this, making out with the football player, but you know.

I will, yes, obviously.

I wanted to be a gay, but still, it was, he was really nice.

I talked to him not recently, but I, he's a great guy.

He was great.

He was great.

I'm just telling you.

Not me.

Good high school.

Not me.

I was the yearbook editor.

Of course, you were.

I was.

Of course, you were.

Yeah.

There you are.

I was in charge of everyone's future failures.

And the one sense to sum up their future.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

Oh, I'll have some good stories about that.

Anyway, I stopped people from doing.

I kept going, 40 years from now, you're not going to want that quote, that particular Led Zeppelin quote right there.

This person was

amount to anything.

Next.

This person.

You could tell, right?

Exactly.

I had that sense even back then.

Okay, Scott, what questions do you want people to answer from later this week?

I want you to stop asking me that.

I want

to ask this without anything.

I like the random stuff.

Don't get mad at me.

It's in the screen.

What do you want from me?

Random.

We would like random stuff, not a bad stuff.

I would like, would you like online voting on your phone?

Okay, email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show.

Scott just wants you to ask about whatever the hell you want.

Scott, read us out.

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sonanis.

Fernando Finite engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and 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 frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you liked our show, please recommend it.

To a friend, Kara, you know what they did on that flight?

That flight,

the terrible flight that ended up crashing in a Pennsylvania field after being hijacked on 9-11, you know when they had, they called their loved ones and they called their loved ones and they found out that their death was imminent and the first thing that people registered or academics looking at it was they called to just tell people they love them, not to settle scores.

But the second thing, when they found out that they were probably headed towards

their imminent demise.

This is dark, Scott.

Okay, they had decided, okay, 300 people in the back of the plane, do we just hope things work out or do we crash through the door, the cockpit door with a meal card?

And how did they decide one of the most difficult, probably the most difficult decision in their life?

You know how they decided?

They voted.

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

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

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

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly and is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

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

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