Epic Games challenges Google and Apple, guest host Aminatou Sow on keeping the post office public, and Friend of Pivot Mary Trump on her uncle Donald

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott's out this week, and we have my very good friend of mine, Aminatu So, in the host seat.

She's the author of a new book, Big Friendship, and the co-host of a hit podcast, Call Your Girlfriend.

Hey, Amina.

Hi, Kara.

How's it going?

Good.

We just had a discussion about your name because I call you Amina all the time.

Sometimes

I have other names for you, but

we were talking about

Kamala Harris and the mispronunciation of names.

So, and I constantly mispronounce your entire name.

I mispronounce a lot of people's names, which I do almost constantly.

And I forget everyone's birthday.

I don't know when your birthday is.

I'm sorry.

April 8th.

Please remember this year.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay.

So let's talk about this concept because the Democratic National Convention is happening this week.

I want to talk about anything you're looking forward to seeing in the virtual convention and also what do you think of the pick.

But let's talk about this name thing, which was a controversy with Tucker Carlson,

who usually has does stupid things like this.

Listen, I think that calling people by their name is,

I love the phrase, call me by my name.

Calling people by their name is just common courtesy.

You know,

I have a name that white Americans try to tell me is hard to pronounce all the time.

It's literally all vowels.

If you can say Tchaikovsky, you can say my name.

If you can say Tchaikovsky, you can say Kamala Harris.

And so it is like a very condescending point, I think, like reminding people of color or people who have foreign origins that their names are hard to say.

It's really not that bad.

When I interviewed her, she was she was really.

She was really funny about it on our podcast.

Just like, well, tell me about it.

Tell me about it because it's become like a weird controversy with him.

He just can't.

And

again, for people who don't know, it's comma as in comma la, not kamala, or how else would you pronounce that?

I'm not sure of the difference.

I mean,

here it is.

It's not controversial, Kara.

It's just racist, point and, you know, like plain and simple.

It's, it's what I mean is I can't believe it's right.

Where it is, it's again, you know, it's like people who are like, don't tell me to wear a mask.

Don't tell me how to pronounce your name.

Don't tell me which pronouns you want to use.

Maybe just call people what they want you to call them and call them the correct name and we don't have to deal with that.

But I understand that.

But why do you think that is?

Why it is in the same genre of the masks or they and them and stuff like that.

Why, what is what is in that from your perspective?

I mean, I think that what's in it is a refusal to admit that all Americans do not look like Tucker Carlson.

All Americans have not looked like Tucker Carlson since day one of America.

So it really is just another way of asserting a kind of power and really being condescending towards people who are, you know, who don't look like him.

It's, it's not hard.

Her name is, her name is Kamala.

She's told us that since the beginning.

Why would you, you know, I'm like, we don't call him Takur.

I'm sure he wouldn't, you know, I have another name for him.

I mean, I try not to say his name, but it's just I use a different letter.

I changed

that.

That's fair, Kara.

But you know, I like people who do that stuff, I'm always, it always makes me laugh because you know how enraged he would be if you said his name wrong.

So it really is just a common courtesy.

Also, she's a United States senator.

Learn your senators' names.

Right.

So talk about this idea of her there, because these are the kind of things that are popular.

Birtherism, all kinds of stuff.

And

what do you think of the pick?

And, you know, there were so many good possibilities here.

There was

at least a dozen great possibilities.

I mean, the moment the Biden campaign said that they were going to pick a black woman, I think it like narrowed down the fields to, you know, who we were thinking about.

I cannot believe how they botched this rollout.

The rollout was

atrocious, Kara.

It was they, um, you know, for weeks on end, we we had this conversation about who it was going to be.

They kept vetting people in public and we kept having this, it's almost like we learned nothing from the 2016 election, having this conversation about like, can women be leaders?

Can black women be leaders?

Is this, is this okay?

And frankly, to me, I was like, they were letting all of these candidates they were vetting in public and just throwing under the bus,

which is a problem.

The pick is obviously historic.

I'm like, there's no matter what you think about her politics, no matter how you feel about Joe Biden as the candidate, this is a historic pick.

And, you know, I'm like, that's that.

Now, on a policy level, I have a lot of things that I would, you know, I would like for Kamala Harris to be, to be able to address in public, like her, her own, her own record, her own,

just how her own feelings have evolved around,

you know, the work that she has done as a prosecutor.

We're having this national conversation right now about defunding the police and how that is going to look.

And so how does she square that with the job that she has?

But I think that we, like a lot of things can be true.

It can be true that she is a historic pick.

It can be true that she is a very good pick.

That woman is more qualified than the current occupants of the White House.

I very much look forward to

my cat is more qualified.

I mean, fair, but you know what I mean?

I was like, I very much look forward forward to the debate with Pence.

I was like, that's going to be a great debate.

But at the same time, I think that, you know, it's okay to say, yes, I'm very excited about this pick from a historical perspective.

I'm excited about it from a management perspective.

But also, like, there are a lot of policy issues that I think should be addressed.

And, and I think that people get really nervous about wanting to criticize,

you know, like the Democrat candidate.

And I was like, of course we're going to criticize them.

It's the only way that we get them to be better.

So it's not, you know, debate is good and debate is healthy.

So two things can be

these conventions are going to go what, you know, how do you, how do you put that on display?

Because I think they're going to want to go for unity and we're not him.

I think that's really pretty much the I mean, I know, but talk about like fumbling the ball again.

I was looking at the format of these.

They like, you know, I was like, this was an opportunity to be digital first.

And I think that they are just trying to recreate the, you know, the thing and just put it on Zoom, essentially, which we all know is going to fail.

They are getting like 16, what is it?

it, 17 people are giving these like 60-second speeches.

We don't, who is that going to help?

Who's going to remember any of that?

Don't care.

So, if that's a display of unity, is everyone here gets like a one-minute participation trophy?

I don't really care for that.

But

interesting, what would you do?

What would you do?

And then we have to get the big stories.

What would you, how would you have?

I mean, I think I would have picked the stars.

I would have given AOC a bigger role.

I would have given Stacey Abrams a bigger role.

People who are not newcomers to politics.

Yeah, people who are good speakers, people who honestly like galvanize the people that are hesitant about voting for this ticket for for democrats so you know i was that this idea that like 17 people are going to speak for a minute is so ludicrous and it's such an old school weird concept so

what do you think of the republican plans it's just going to be trump trump trump i mean it is going to be trump i mean you know i'm like that's uh that's definitely what's working for them they're gonna be like trump trump trump trump trump make america great again say everyone's name wrong uh you know like make make fun of people wearing masks and then here we are you know it yeah, that works for some people.

Do they matter these things?

Are they going to matter?

Because, well, there's very little exposure to any of any of these, except for Trump, who's never, you can't turn him off.

Personally, Kara, I am excited about a world in which these things matter less and less.

You know, it's just pomp and circumstance.

We spend so much money on them.

And coronavirus this year means that they can't do business as usual.

And we're watching them try to do business as usual.

This kind of stuff, it should not matter to a voter that you could do a nice nice speech in five minutes.

It should not matter to a voter.

Your record should matter.

The, you know, your policy platform should matter and so many other things, not this weird prom that you're not going to be able to do that.

There is an element of showing yourself off or not.

But isn't that what all campaigns are?

They show themselves off for months or months on end.

This is just one more part of the horse race.

And frankly, I think that it is a waste of money and it is a waste of voters' time.

Well, at least none of us are in Milwaukee right now because you and I would be there.

We would be there right now.

I mean, we would having cheese.

Yeah.

You and I would be hiding somewhere at the back of a

conference room, like definitely having a cheese plate.

Definitely.

No, cheese curds.

Cheese, what do they have?

Anyway, we're going to get on to big stories.

Epic Games, the video maker behind Fortnite, is suing Apple and Google for banning the popular game from the app store.

Last week, Epic Games encourages players to pay the company directly rather than through the app, but that did not sit well with Google and Apple, who collect 30% on app transactions, usually for the first year, and then it does decline.

Hours after that request, Apple banned Fortnite from the App Store, and then Epic sued Apple in federal court for antitrust violations and started a massive public relations campaign to besmirch Apple company image.

Google also pulled the game off its app store and has been sued for their move as well.

And this comes just weeks after I wrote about, and we talked about Basecamp, which is another

sort of

the developers are really starting to push back.

What do you think about this?

I mean, I am secretly very excited about this because every, you know, every once in a while, a company comes that really tries to push back on this monopoly that Apple has in the App Store.

And I feel that Epic Games are the ones that have the deep enough pockets to carry this fight on for a little while, you know?

So I think that we're going to,

I think that we're going to, we're going to find out some things.

The app store is also not a fan of cryptocurrency.

You know, they're always blocking features in Coinbase.

They are, you know, I think that also being a centralized curation point for all applications on their hardware also means that they can enable bad, you know, bad governments to make decisions that I don't personally agree with.

So I don't know.

I'm excited for this fight to play out in public because I think that it pushes, it pushes Apple and really these, it pushes this platform to say like, you know, what they care about.

And the bottom line is that they want their cut, you know, they want their cut, but it's like, do you get to have your cake and eat it too?

Pretend you're Apple for a second.

Like, you've got, there are arguments there.

We're keeping the app store safer.

It's a better experience.

And not just Apple, that Google is in here too.

Google seems to always sort of put their head down and don't get as much flack as Facebook in the world.

But

they have a bigger platform, actually.

Apple's just, it spends a lot more time curating it.

How do they, how do you decide how to fix this from your perspective?

What's the fix?

Because you have to have an organized and

an app store where there's not malevolent software and that there's some controls and at the same time uh charging these fees without any kind of should it be like a utility or what how do you look at it i mean i you know same thing with podcasts look at what power do you have with your podcast

you and i feel i think that it should be a utility and i think that um you know apple feels very differently about it but i think that where they need to land is that their position is no longer tenable you know it's it is just untenable the more the more this goes on the more the position that they've staked out is, frankly, like a little bit hypocritical, if we're all honest.

It is also, um, it's also not fair.

They cannot keep having this monopoly on how all of this is distributed.

So I think that, you know, I hope that the come to Jesus that they're having is that either they need to make it more fair, and that will mean like including more voices, or they can keep doing this until someone with deep enough pockets will come and fight them on it.

Well, HD Epic has a lot of ownership by

Byte Dance.

I think it's Byte Dance.

No, no, it's the WeChat.

It's Tencent.

Tencent owns a big piece of Epic Games, excuse me.

And

at the same time, Google is expecting a lawsuit by the Justice Department this fall.

It's a really interesting time, and they were up on Capitol Hill.

You watch those hearings, correct?

Those hearings.

Those hearings are so painful to watch because,

you know,

the people who are in charge of making these laws don't even know how to attach pictures to emails.

and this is the you know I'm like that's the level that we're starting with and then the rest of us are like what about the VPN what are we gonna do about that so that's a that always distresses me greatly um that we there's you know they cannot get asked the questions that they're supposed to get asked because these people don't know what they're talking about but I don't know Kara all of this makes me a little bit nervous especially like with the the attitude that Silicon Valley has towards this current president because you know like clearly they're all trying to not make them upset they're all trying to curry some sort of favor which is normal all industries lobby like that is not what I'm knocking but it just it really makes me feel that they are they're in a position to make

to make like moral claims that they really can't you know well they kind of like the Trump administration because they leave them alone there's been no action now there was no action on the Obama administration either let's be clear it's not been I mean neither administration has done

but this is the thing that they this is the thing that they all love It's like the more, um, the more they're left alone and the more just like ignorant the lawmakers are, the more they get to do this stuff.

And every once in a while, they got to come in front of Congress and in bad suits and apologize.

Does that, I'm going to finish up, does that change in a Biden administration?

I mean, Kamala Harris has a lot of experience.

She's also very close to tech, but she has done some cases against them.

You have Elizabeth Warren.

She has, but you know, I think that like she's, she's definitely more.

This administration has a potential, I think, to do more, but I think that this administration, you know, Kamala's record on SESTA FOSTA is not something that I'm psyched about.

I was like, that was not, that's not great.

So, you know, dangerous that they're good enough that they can be dangerous, which is not great.

But I, you know, I just think that politically, this is something that is going to have to change.

Tech is shaping so much more of politics.

And so who is the politician?

Is it Elizabeth Warren or who is the politician you see?

I mean, I think that the more left the politicians are, the more they are understanding this.

So, you know, Warren, Bernie, I think we're like 100% on the money about what was going on.

I don't think the tech people are happy.

I don't think the tech people are happy with what, you know, like with what might come from there.

But I do think that the Democrats need to really put a stake in the ground about how this is going to work.

It's not technology is not some like cute industry that is, you know, like we just like laugh and have memes on.

It is literally running our lives and our elections in this case.

So.

Yeah, I think they're going to get away with it.

Anyway, Amina, we're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about the post office and the future of mail carrier privacy.

We'll be joined after that by author and Donald Trump's niece, Mary Trump, to talk about her new book.

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Okay, Amina, we're back.

Let's talk about the post office before Mary comes on.

The House Oversight Committee has called for an emergency hearing on mail delays and concerns that the president is interfering with post office operations, which she is.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, he's not very joyful, has been called to testify he's the former Republican National Convention finance chairman.

Over the past few days, DeJoy banned postal workers from making extra trips and crackdown on overtime hours.

The post office has removed hundreds of mail sorting machines.

Last week, the post office started removing public collection boxes in parts of california new york pennsylvania oregon and montana i mean this postal thing like i was in the post office and the postal people are like you have buy some stamps and support us and i was like okay well you know it was

talk about because here's the thing kara the post office is a public institution that has a really clear mandate like literally um from the constitution to enable universal low-cost access to information it is a beautiful thing that it costs the same amount of money to mail a letter from new york to Hawaii than it does from New York to New Jersey.

I think a thing that people forget is that the post office is not funded by taxes like at all.

The post office is funded by the revenue that they generate.

And the way that, you know, Amazon in particular has

really undercut that service is very dangerous.

And also Republican administrations for years, for decades really, have been gutting the post office in an effort to privatize it.

So I think that

remembering that they are not tax funded, I think is the first thing here.

So talk about the Amazon part.

Have they played?

How have they played?

Like they're getting these cheap rates that they get to build their business.

They are literally getting these.

So you're, that's a Trump message, you know.

It's a huge Trump message, but it was a message before Trump.

You know, privatizing the post office, making, you know, this like last mile carriage basically be insured by private companies is, that's great for Amazon.

And Amazon is a huge, uh, uh is obviously like a huge player in deliveries now you know i was i was talking to um i was talking to a teen about the post office thing and she was like you know the only mail that i get is amazon packages and i thought i was like oh that's really funny but also i am terrified and that is the reality of a lot of people's lives but the post office does more than deliver packages and so it want it's why it's important to to really protect them but i you know i'm just like jeff bezos cannot be the only person that is in charge of our mail privatizing the mail is dangerous for a lot, a lot, a lot of reasons.

And what about what the Trump administration is doing about with Louis DeJoy and what they're attempting to do here is take advantage of a situation which you seem to agree with at the same time needs to be protected?

I mean, yeah, you know, it's like part of the other part of what is going on with the post office is that

they were forced by Congress and past administration to fund all of their

to fund all of their retirement upfront, essentially, to simplify, to simplify what's going on.

It's why they're in in financial straits it's not because it was like badly administered it truly is like malfeasance from um from republicans and uh and the only reason that trump has installed these people there right now is in order to completely dismantle it from the inside and those are the reports that we're getting i have been really heartened to see the postal workers union message against this they were like nothing will stop your mail not rain not sleet not fascism i was like thank you this is

they were very political at the when i was at the post office they are very political kara the post office is one of our largest employers and also to be clear it is like a huge employer of um people in marginalized communities and so they are for for a lot of like black and brown people it is one kind of you know like government job that you can have that will ensure stability and i think that that should not be lost in this debate about why they're you know like why the administration is trying to like dismantle the post office from the inside and so before we get to Mary Job, what do you imagine, what should the post office look like then?

Because, you know, in this age when there's all kinds of other digital communications and we do have constitutionally protected privacy at the post office, what should it be?

Should it be?

I'm so glad that you're asking this.

The post office should still be a public institution like we have it.

And Elizabeth Warren had this plan that has been a plan that's been around in like left circles for a long time to restore banking at the post office.

If we millions and millions of Americans are completely underserved by the banking industry, the post office can do that, where it is a place where you can like cash your checks, you can like nothing fancy.

We're not talking like

the post office is hugely relevant in the digital age.

And the post office has an opportunity to fix another huge problem that we have.

We used to have postal banking in the 60s and 70s.

It was hugely successful and it was dismantled because

Republicans do not like the idea of the post office.

This was a proposal that Bernie Sanders wanted.

It is a proposal that Elizabeth Morin wanted.

We have like over 31,000 post offices in this country.

Imagine if all of them could serve Americans who were underbanked.

That's a great idea.

And what about Bezos?

What do we do about him?

Just charge him.

I mean, send Bezos to space.

I like this.

We are

tired.

What do we do?

I mean, charge him.

Kara, that man has more money than God.

What does he need like cheaper postal rates for and to dismantle another public institution that we have?

Charge them the fair amount.

It is not going to like cut into their business.

And frankly, it is, you know, it's just, it's another way for Silicon Valley to dismantle things that are like fundamentally important to American democracy and pretend that it's about efficiency.

And what do you imagine is going to happen with the face-off with the Trump administration?

I mean, we'll see.

I'm glad to see that the postal workers are energized.

The public seems that it's energized.

But honestly, what I want to see is that where other legislators like step up to the plate, we can't like do a go fund me for the post office.

That's ridiculous.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just bought stamps.

That's all.

Listen, I am frequently buying stamps.

I love them.

You can also, the post office shop is amazing.

You can buy art prints.

I have never gotten a letter from you.

Harry, you've gotten postcards from me.

That's not true.

Oh, you do.

You're right.

You send me postcards.

You're right.

You do.

I don't send you anything in the mail.

You love me.

I know.

I know.

Speaking of the unraveling, we have Mary Trump on the line.

She's a psychologist and author of the number one New York Times bestseller.

Let's just say that again, number one, Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man.

Welcome, Mary.

Thank you.

It's great to be here.

Thanks.

You've been really,

this book could not be better timed.

It's a really, I'm sure you timed it that way, but of course I did.

Yeah, of course you did.

But I want to talk a little bit about

Trump and Twitter a little bit, but I think first let's talk a little bit about how you see your uncle's mind right now and what you think of his strategy coming into the 2020 election.

Because it's, as you had predicted, it's becoming ever more unhinged, unless that's a calculated unhingement, I guess.

Yeah, it's really interesting to watch because it's actually both.

desperation and strategy.

You know, Donald doesn't employ strategy in the way most people mean.

It's not like he has this long-range plan and he knows exactly how to accomplish his ends.

On the other hand, though, he does know from a lifetime of experience that the best way for him to get what he wants is to create division and chaos.

And suddenly we find ourselves defending the post office against destruction.

Well,

what's interesting about it is when you talk about that, it's endless and exhausting.

Like the other day it was there, then it was Kanye West, and then there was something going on over here.

It's a constant mess, essentially, of just, I'm going to destroy this, and you're trying to pick it up over here.

And then we spend a lot of time not being exhausted by it which i assume is the goal

it is the goal and it is unfortunately effective which is why i had hoped after five years of this well actually it's been decades but let's putting in the context of elections and the administration uh i had hoped after five years of this the media would have gotten better at paying attention to the things that matter but apparently that's not been the case i mean what do you think it's going to look like if he if he doesn't win?

You know, like, what kind of fight are we, you know, like, do we think he's going to put up to stay in office?

It depends on two things.

The first thing is

if Joe Biden wins,

how big is his margin of victory?

If it's huge, like if it's so big that not even a traitor like Bill Barr can complain that it's illegitimate, I think it's pretty simple.

You know, Donald will be so narcissistically injured that he'll have to run away from that pain,

you know, especially if there's nothing he can do to spin it.

And, you know, he'll just claim that he's the greatest thing that's ever happened to this country and we don't deserve him.

So he's going to do something that really, really matters, like be a commentator on Fox News or build Trump Tower in Moscow or something.

If it's a close margin, and you know, if Joe Biden wins, but it's close,

Donald

would, would,

of course, not want to concede.

But what worries me more are the people around him, because there are a lot of people in his inner circle who are benefiting enormously from his administration, whether through, you know, sheer power like Bill Barr and Mitch McConnell, or, you know, because they're getting their agenda.

uh like mike pompeo who apparently wants to turn us into a theocracy um well so does bill barr or you know who are just benefiting financially, like probably my cousins.

So that's the scary part: a close margin and his clack convincing him that he really did win and he's got a fight.

All right.

Talk about that fight because one of the things that he does, and you've talked about lots of different parts of his

personality disorder, but one of them is the use of Twitter, which I called him like the greatest troll in history.

He's very good at it.

It's very much built for him.

Good.

I'm using good in a different way than this is great.

Yeah.

But he's good at it.

Talk a little bit about that because

how does that manifest?

When you have a narcissistic personality story and you combine it with Twitter, it works really well for him in terms of communicating.

And some people say it goes too far, but I think it works beautifully in a lot of ways, even if it divides people.

Well, first of all, it's great.

Twitter is not great at nuance.

So it's very difficult to do Twitter in a sophisticated way.

But it's a great blunt instrument.

And he has a very small vocabulary.

And he doesn't, his you know he doesn't speak in syntactically complex ways anyway so it's in that regard it's perfect for him because it's a very limited and blunt um

more than that i think you know he's he's a

the king of instant gratification so it it's very easy on filter uh on twitter to filter out negative comments.

So I imagine him just, you know, scrolling through his threads threads or his feed rather, and just looking at all the positive comments he's getting from, you know, people he would like never condescend to have dinner with.

You know, so I think it works on both of those levels.

And

it

gins up the bass.

It keeps them simmering.

And then he turns up the heat when he needs to.

So yeah, unfortunately.

It does suit him.

What about his personality sort of does work in social media and settings like this?

Is it is it because it seems to be satisfying to him and and again, I'm trying not to use words, but he it works he he's good at it.

It's he uses it in the negative in the purely negative way, but it's actually effective in a lot of ways.

Or do you find it not effective?

I think it is.

No, no, I find it effective.

And I think it's,

yes, he is good at it, but it's skill.

in the same way causing division is a skill.

It just comes to him naturally.

And it feeds his narcissism narcissism because it's, you know, on Twitter, you don't really have to have a conversation if you don't want to.

It's a one-way street.

You know,

he's pronouncing whatever he's pronouncing on Twitter.

He's retweeting whatever he's retweeting.

And the feedback just reflects his glory.

It's not like he's interacting with people.

He's just putting it out there for people to admire, which, you know, is a narcissist's dream.

You had said a little earlier that, you know, the media has not learned a lot of these lessons.

And I'm just curious if you could elaborate a little more about what you think the media is getting wrong when they're talking about it.

Yeah, and I mean, we can start with Twitter as well.

How many times has Donald violated the terms of service on Twitter?

Countless.

Countless times.

So it also appeals to his antisocial tendencies because it's just another instance in which he's allowed to get away with egregious behavior that most people would never be allowed to get away with.

In terms of the media at large and, you know, generally speaking, the mainstream media, they continue to allow themselves to be distracted.

The fact that we are still not talking about the kidnapping and incarceration of children, that's still happening as if it's some distant memory of what are you going to do about it.

Well, that's the whole thing with exhaustion.

It's this week, next week, you forget.

And that's the whole point.

Right.

And this happens.

Same thing with Flint, Michigan.

So the problem now is because

he's been allowed to get away with this for so long,

that the things he's doing to distract from the previous thing are also

awful and damaging in their own right.

So

now it's not like he's distracting from, I don't know, the Muslim ban by

sending some tweet that's creating controversy.

He's distracting from the Russian bounty on our soldiers

by destroying the post office.

I mean, one of the, you know, the thing I think that was the most insightful, but also so painful to read in your book is just how this affects the family dynamics.

You know, like granted, your family is very different, but I think that a lot of those dynamics are recognizable for people who have mental illness in the family.

And, you know, watching Trump just spew a lot of these conspiracy theories online, we are watching the rise of QAnon and so many families are devastated truly by the toll of these conspiracy theories.

I am just like wondering if you have any advice for people who are, you know, have someone like this in their family, even if they're not president.

Yeah, it's a great question.

Um, I

well, I think, first of all, you have to protect yourself, you know.

Um,

families tend to organize around the most dysfunctional person, and it can be extremely debilitating for the healthier people in the family.

So, but this is, this feels new, right?

Because

I think you're right in the sense that my family's no different from a lot of families who created somebody with Donald's pathologies.

You know, he wasn't born this way.

You know, it took a village to create this person.

So

it's not unique in that way.

What seems new to me is that in terms of our society at large, I used to be able to be friends with Republicans.

And now I mean, I lost all of my friends who were Republicans after this election.

So it's much harder because we're not talking about policy differences anymore.

We're talking about

fact versus fiction.

We're talking about uh kindness versus cruelty.

You know, it's not, it's just not, well, you know, I think that tariffs are good or I think tariffs are bad.

We're we're basically talking about things that can't be argued about with logic and

rationality.

So it's a very difficult question.

I don't have an answer really because

it's uh what continues to mystify me is that the 22 to 28 percent of our population, the so-called base, which always exists, you know, it's been there forever, which it's It's called my mother.

You know, I think one of the purposes of liberal democracy was to contain those people.

Up from 2016 to 2018, that 22% was represented by 100% of the federal government.

And now it's like 85%.

So they have an outsized role.

They have state-run media echoing their craziest conspiracy theories.

And, you know, more and more people are getting drawn in.

So, you know, at some point, we're going to have to look at how authoritarian personalities play into this.

We're going to have to talk about how the four decades long

project to render our electorate ignorant and suspicious of government will have to be reckoned with as well.

But it's really complicated.

One last question I have is around what do we do about it?

We have this situation where we're now all at home.

Social media is becoming a prevalent way people communicate and sort of disassociate from each other or allowed to be apart.

What do you, I'd love you to talk about solutions.

I mean, the, you know, you tell a very grim story of dysfunction, not just of your family, but of America, right?

You're talking about something else.

And again, as I was joking about my mom, but it's really, I, I find it hopeless.

I don't know what to say.

Like, there's nothing to say.

I just, I had my mom the other day and she was doing the Republican talking points on Kamala Harris.

And it was sort of like exactly, and I pointed it out and I sent her the exact words and she kept saying, that's my opinion.

That's how she says it.

I mean, I know it's my mom.

So how do you get out of it with all this influence?

I'd love you to talk a little bit about what could be done to fix that, or is it unfixable?

Well, I can't believe it's unfixable.

Because then why even bother fighting for this particular election?

But you're right to be in despair because, you know, we're in this place where people actually think science is a belief system and climate change is a matter of opinion.

No.

So

one's empirical and one's factual.

It's just

so it's, I don't think it's possible to meet people,

as I said before, on a rational, you know, that, but facts are looked at suspiciously because they're ours, right?

So everything becomes opinion.

Every position is equally valid.

It's impossible to have that argument.

So

what I would say is, you know, meet people at a point of their self-interest.

But honestly, I think for the time being,

we need to find community that sustains us and that keeps us hopeful because there's everything at stake in November.

And

right now, I'm more interested in focusing my energy on getting people to vote than changing anybody's mind because I'm not entirely sure that can happen in this environment, first of all.

Secondly, we can't have a successful democracy if half of the electorate doesn't vote.

And, you know, that's something, I mean,

gerrymandering and voter suppression aside, which are horrific.

but also can't be dealt with right now.

We need to get people who don't typically vote to vote.

Yeah.

One of the things that it does, the only thing that it gives, does gives me hope is, of course, you put everything in terms of yourself sometimes in your own experience, but the shift my mom made, and you're also gay,

on gay issues.

She was terrible until she wasn't.

And it was such a fascinating shift because she was terrible, like, and recalcitrant and had all kinds of opinions and facts that were inaccurate.

And then it just, the whole country just shifted.

It was really.

I never thought in my lifetime that there would be marriage equality, like to the point where I was like, it's not even that important, right?

Right.

Right.

You know, wow, that's incredible, right?

It was incredible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's the only way I think, wow, things do can shift rather dramatically.

I mean,

looking at that experience.

And I guess the only thing, again, because I don't think talking about facts is

useful at this point with people who actually believe QAnon conspiracies, you know, Pizzagate, it's quite, it's insane and disturbing.

But if we can talk about like the human condition on a personal level, like what I find astonishing, well, not astonishing.

I mean, I grew up in the family grew up in, so I shouldn't be astonished by this, but

the sudden societal disdain for kindness.

Wait a minute,

why do you think government's role is to be mean and bullying and cruel to people who are struggling?

And I guess I would just say,

is that what you want for your kids?

Like, imagine your child going to school and the teachers are

punitive and they're not allowed to have friends.

And they're not, I I mean, it's just, it,

we would never want that to happen for our children.

Why do we want it to happen for ourselves, you know?

But, you know, Donald unfortunately exemplifies the kindness's weakness end of the spectrum.

Amina, last question.

I mean, this is, I'm trying to not feel any despair.

I guess can you tell us a little more about what you are doing between now and November to ensure that, you know, our our democracy doesn't collapse and just things that other people can do.

I think that it's easy to sit at home and read Twitter and feel that there's nothing to do.

Oh, I never, never do that.

You're excellent at Twitter.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

You're very good at Twitter.

Thank you.

Hopefully.

Well, hopefully in a different way, but.

Yes, 100%.

No, look, it's been a really long three and a half years, and I have fallen into that trap many, many times.

And what's been really fascinating for me in the last couple of months is that despite, you know, getting to have interesting conversations with interesting, smart people, nothing in my life has changed because I'm still stuck in my house.

So it, I don't know.

I mean, I guess I just need to keep finding new

avenues in which to talk and to write.

And because, you know, the most important thing about writing this book for me was being able to make a difference in terms of obviously obviously the election and

helping to ensure the continuing existence of American democracy, but also, you know, gun control and climate change and,

you know, get people motivated in that way.

And

I think it's just

finding the right venues in which to meet people.

uh on their own terms and um

it's a little harder now it's complicated but you know, Joe Biden is our candidate.

And I think his choosing Kamala Harris was utterly necessary because

honestly, like if he had picked a white guy, I would have given up entirely.

So I think the fact that like finally we're making a tiny step in the right direction and we can start having that conversation as well

in a way that matters or, you know, in a way that's preferenced in in a way it hasn't been by virtue of the fact that our next vice president is going to be an African-American and Asian American woman.

So, you know, just hanging on to the positives and hang on, Amina.

Why don't you work on it?

Listen, I'm hanging on.

That's why community is so important.

And,

you know, it's a relay.

And if we need to tap out for a little bit and recharge, we have to have faith that there are other people continuing to do the work because it is exhausting and it's really unhealthy.

I've never been so unhealthy in my life.

Well, you know what?

You can work on a sequel, you know, my Stepford Cousins.

I'm looking forward to that.

You know,

I cannot wait to read that book.

Yes, yes, yes.

Cousins.

I want the cousins.

I don't really want to read any more about them.

I mean, come on.

Oh, here's why we need to read the cousins book.

We need to read the cousins books because the cousins will try to reintegrate society like they were not part of dismantling American democracy.

And if we don't do anything, because the prevailing forces of whiteness are also the forces of civility, we will let these people rejoin society.

And that is not acceptable to me.

So get typing.

Get typing.

Oh, I'm on it.

I am on it.

All right, good.

I really appreciate it.

I'm so heartened by how well this book is doing.

And it is, it's sold more than your uncle's, which is my favorite part.

Again, Mary Trump, in a way, is a psychologist and author.

I know.

And she wrote it herself.

You're an excellent writer.

She's a psychologist and author.

People forget that.

Many, many people can't write.

You certainly can.

She's a psychologist and author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man.

Mary Trump, thank you so much for coming on.

This was great.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

She's great.

She's great.

She's so great.

Why can't she be the one in her family that's the president?

You know, no.

We're not ready for a lesbian president to say, you know, I listen.

I am

so ready for

first of all.

This country is so foolish for not having lesbians as president.

Like only let lesbians be president.

We would not be in these messages.

Like I am.

That has been my argument the entire time.

But we do secretly run things.

Someone wanted to do a profile recently and they were like, I want to talk about the gay mafia.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

There is none.

There just is none.

There's none.

Like, was the profile about just how like mostly gay women are competent like members of society?

As if I like hang out with Rachel Maddow all the time.

Anyway, I do not.

All right, Amina, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Okay, Amina, you know the drill.

Who is winning and failing?

You get one of each, whatever you want.

Oh my gosh.

I mean, who is failing?

Ben Silberman at Pinterest is failing.

He just shouldn't have.

Oh, my God.

First of all, I can't believe that we're in a new round of these like intense sexism allegations.

But this is appalling.

Oh, my gosh.

What the women and the people of color at Pinterest are going through is awful, awful, awful, awful, awful.

Yeah.

And his quotes in my column were just people were, I think, juxtaposing them to the two cases.

And one is, one is a lawsuit of the COO, and the others have been complaining about persistent racial bias at the company.

But here's the thing, Karen.

This is a product that mostly serves women.

You would think you would not be addicted to women at your job where you make a product for women.

There you have it.

You know, and and it's interesting because one of the people told me, you know, he's not your typical sort of Silicon Valley bro kind of personality.

He's quite quiet and introverted.

And someone at the company who was there, who was suffering, a person of color there, said, you don't have to have a K-cup to be a bro.

You know what I mean?

It was an interesting,

it was interesting because I think he doesn't.

track on that thing, but it's the same exact idea of not a meeting after the meeting, not being in the meeting, not being aware.

And the most disturbing thing is when I pointed out to him during this interview, you know, he does a lot of sighing and he's, you know, very thoughtful kind of thing.

When I pointed out the page, the management page for Pinterest had three, he's, he's, he's Chinese and white and the two other white guys had only the three of them on the management page and nobody else.

And I said, do you see what this looks like?

I said, I've never seen it.

At least Google pretends they, you know, they put up.

all kinds of people, whoever they can grab, or they actually do have quite a diverse management stuff.

But it was really, he was, he didn't know it.

And the second later, they pulled it down and then put up another page

looked like the united colors of beneton i know but this is the thing if you don't even know that you're supposed to be pretending to care if you don't even know that then i cannot

exactly so all right that is what is your win then we want to go out on a on a

well who is winning um AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, always, always winning, but winning recently because she tweeted at Trump that she would like to compare her college transcript with his.

And I mean, no contest there.

Her, you know, her family did not buy her admission into university like his did.

She actually works very hard.

She understands the systems that like made her own success possible.

So, I too would like to see those transcripts side by side.

A tale of two Americans.

I would like to see those, except

she actually probably took her SATs.

Those are two good ones.

I like those.

You're right.

She's really quite something.

I'm excited for her 60 seconds at the Democrats.

I know.

I'm excited for her 60 seconds at the dance.

Let me just say she'll get a shit ton in 60s.

Can I also make a plug really quickly?

If you are on Instagram to follow AOC on Instagram, because her Instagram account is amazing.

This weekend, she tweeted about getting braces as an adult and about dental care in this country.

She is constantly demystifying how this like process of power is supposed to work.

And so if you're on Instagram or you have teens on Instagram, she is a very good follower.

Oh, yeah, my kids, like, I think they follow her, I don't know who knows, but um, but they are, um, uh, but that is a great one.

She's really good at all of the social media.

Speaking of someone who's the polar opposite, I wrote a column a while back about that they're there's they're they're both very good at what they do, but she's better because she speaks native internet, you know what I mean?

She really does, yeah, she knows how to use all the mediums.

I, she's not on TikTok yet, is she?

Is she active on TikTok?

I haven't looked in any case.

I just want to say,

me not

Sorry,

I'm going to get all of you with my kids.

Kara, you are, you're just white.

You're just white.

And it's fine.

We're going to work on it.

But like, I am, I am just like, as your friend for a long time, I am appalled by you.

I have to say that.

And I'm like, like, we'll talk about this in private, but I am loving you.

In any case, you have a wonderful book.

I'm going to mispronounce your author or co-author's name.

Anne Anne Friedman, not Friedman.

It's Feidman.

No, it isn't.

No, it isn't.

Ann Friedman.

Don't kill me.

Oh, you're killing me.

I did that with Karen Friedman once wrong, many times.

Anyway, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close is her book.

It is wonderful.

It's speaking of wonderful books.

Mary Trump's book is great, but your book is doing great too.

It was on the bestseller list, correct?

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Absolutely.

It was.

Same week as Mary Trump.

Look at this.

I know.

It's a great book.

And it's all about, and we'll talk about that on Thursday, too, along with Kim Kardashian and some other things.

Amina, thank you for coming on the show.

What kind of question are you looking for for listeners this week?

What topic are you interested in talking about?

I am really interested in talking about how we are all negotiating our boundaries when we are communicating with people about hanging out during COVID.

I know it's a big topic, but I am just like very curious how other people are doing this.

All right, that's a good question.

So what do you want?

They want you want them to to ask a question about this, how they're negotiating boundaries.

Yeah, like, how are you?

How are you telling people that you can't hang out?

How are you telling people, you know, like how the hang is going to happen?

How are you asking if they've had a COVID test?

Right.

Because it all seems like it should be very delicate, but I, you know,

we should learn how to talk about this.

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

Also, don't forget, if you can't get enough pivot, we're doing a live stream events for the month of August.

It's called Pivot School from New York Magazine and Vox Media Podcast Network.

One is this Wednesday with Dara Kosar Shahi and many others.

You can get tickets at pivotschooled.com.

Amina, thank you for coming on the show despite I will be able to pronounce your name perfectly.

Perfectly.

We'll see you on Thursday, Kara Swisher.

I'll see you on Thursday.

Anyway, today's show was produced by Rebecca Senanis.

Fernando Finite engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

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