Google's data breach, Facebook Portal, and Taylor Swift

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher, founder of Recode.

And I'm Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU.

Today, Kara, I'm bringing you Jared Kushner-like hidden genius.

You're in Florida today, is that right?

How's the weather?

You're expecting a storm, right?

Yeah, it's

fortunately we're on the East Coast, so it's really, it's not a big deal, but obviously our

good wishes go out to the folks in the panhandle.

Absolutely, absolutely.

It seems

a little scary than we thought.

This is part of, you know, it was interesting because there was a climate change report that President Trump completely ignored this week, but it seems like this is what it's been predicting, these kind of massive storms just happening one after the next.

And it's always the stuff you're not expecting, right?

Right.

I mean, the last thing got a ton of hype, nothing, and then this just kind of snuck up on us.

Well, it only takes one, Scott, in these storms.

I I don't mind if it gets hype and it is a letdown but in any case there's been a lot of storms across the tech and media landscape this week too I hate to make a horrible metaphor thing but there's been a lot of lot going on it's been another bad week for tech which is really kind of fascinating that it just can't cut a break on anything but it doesn't also deserve a break the first one obviously is the Google data breach of Google Plus it feels like every week these days there's a story about a data breach last week Facebook was under fire and continues to be under fire and this week it's Google so what do you think about this?

Google Plus, half a million people

hacked.

And by the way, Karen, remember how awesome Google Plus used to be?

No, I do not.

Yeah, neither does anyone else.

Right, right.

That's my big joke.

Right.

So like most scandal, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

Because when you think about 500,000 people, that is literally amateur hour in the world of Facebook at a couple zeros, and you're talking about the Facebook hack.

So it's not,

you know, it's not the hack itself.

The strange thing here

is that six months ago, it happened six months ago.

And this is, this is probably why they didn't show up for the Senate hearings.

Oh, really?

Because they didn't want to say that.

Think about it.

Yeah.

Well, what if someone had said to them, are you aware of any hacks?

Do they perjure themselves?

Or do they do they release that data in front of Congress, in front of national TV?

So I don't, you know, and a decent question for you or anyone else in the media that talks to these guys is the next time they speak to anyone from Google to ask them, are there any hacks you know about that we know?

Right, exactly.

I think, you know, people have been sort of making a joke about Google Plus, nobody used it.

And by the way, nobody used it.

They, you know, Google's been trying very hard to get into the social space for many years, a couple of years ago.

And, you know, they were essentially creating a social network for anti-social people and by antisocial people.

And they weren't successful.

They tried Orchid at first, if you remember Orchid, which was a guy who worked for Google, and it was popular in Brazil for a millisecond, and it may still be.

And then Google Plus, which was run by someone named Vic Gundotra, and again, it didn't work at all, and it couldn't keep up with Facebook.

They sort of had Facebook envy.

And then nobody used it because it was just a terrible social network.

It had circles that I never understood, if you recall it.

It was all these weird circles and different things like that because of Google, I guess, with the O's.

But what was really fascinating about it is everyone's like, oh, it's not used that much.

But, you know, 500,000 people still not them, Google not protecting your data really is the point, and then not telling you about these breaches to me is, again, the same problem that there is not a federal law that requires

immediate disclosure of these hacks, which I think was among the Internet Bill of Rights that I wrote about last week in the Times, that they have to immediately disclose these things.

They have to be required by law to do so.

And it looks as if we're headed that way, right?

You know, what's your sense of this regulation in California?

What have you heard?

I read somewhere that Representative Kahn actually showed you a draft of the legislation.

He did.

He did.

It's not legislation.

It's an Internet Bill of Rights.

And then you make and craft legislation out of it.

And, you know, there's all kinds, it's a whole grab bag of things from net neutrality to privacy to data protection to all kinds of things.

And one of them is disclose.

One of the Bill of Rights, I think it was number seven or eight, was the idea that you have to immediately disclose these hacks.

And that could be legislation by itself.

It's not going to be one big giant legislative.

mass.

It's going to be a series of them.

And I talked to Nancy Pelosi, who would be the Speaker of the House if the Democrats won.

but of course they may not have the Senate, so this may go nowhere.

But she was talking about the fact that they were going to craft some sort of legislation.

And until then, California and Europe

are the places where this is happening.

California has been super aggressive and has put in a private, has passed a privacy bill, has passed a diversity on board bill,

net neutrality.

So this is going to be

a really interesting time to see

what states are going to probably put into place things to control these companies.

Jr.: Do you worry, Kara, that inadvertently that this legislation or this type of regulation might, in fact, end up emboldening or empowering the companies it's meant to curb?

That really it hurts the middle guy or the mid-sized company that doesn't have an SGD credit of six or eight billion dollars to comply with this?

Yes, I do.

That's one of the big things.

That's one of the arguments of the big companies.

Don't do it because we have lawyers.

Like, I don't know if that's the good thing.

You know, I think it's got to be crafted in such a way to protect smaller companies.

And that's definitely the case.

They don't have the ability.

Like at GD, GD, you know, all the stuff in Europe,

it's problematic for small companies.

So it would hinder innovation.

And the argument from these big companies is this is going to hint, you know, China doesn't have to deal with these things.

Well, China's run by a president for life, so I guess it doesn't.

Like Facebook?

Yeah, like exactly.

Oh, my God.

Scott, you were waiting.

You were waiting for that one.

Look,

we'll have Xi for 20 years because of biology.

We're going to have the Zuck for 70 years.

You're right.

That's a fair point.

All right.

In any case, they've got to do something about this.

And there's got to be

real payment for what's going on here.

You know, it's going back to the Yahoo thing, the Equifax thing.

It's just, you know, you put your data online at great risk.

And these companies are making billions of dollars off you and they're not protecting your privacy.

And that's just pretty much the situation going on.

What was also interesting is you see big tech is now actually warming to the idea of federal regulation because of the transaction costs of dealing with a bunch of statewide.

Yeah.

Yeah, and then they can water it down because, you know, people in Washington.

But, you know, John Mark Warner been

issued some very strong statements.

We'll see where it goes.

And speaking of privacy, the Facebook portal this week, another product that is going to sort of be like Google Plus to me.

Joining the portal game, which is a word we don't use anymore.

It used to be Yahoo's portal and Excite was a portal and stuff like that.

And

they're retaking this name, this this

word up.

portal.

And

now they're creating this device.

So and it has Amazon in it.

What do you think of this?

Are you buying one?

I thought this was fascinating because, you know, I want a camera in my house controlled by Facebook, said no one ever.

And actually,

if you've looked at the product feedback, I think the product development folks at Facebook did a great job.

My gut here is that it's a great product.

I don't know if you've seen some of the automatic framing it does.

The notion, and it's a genius notion, of not having a video conference with someone, but feeling as if you're in the room with them.

Yeah.

Even little things like syncing music on both ends so you can enjoy music together.

I think this is a great product, but here's the problem.

It's from Mark Zuckerberg.

Yeah.

And the most telling thing about this product is it has a plastic lens cap.

There are 150 million iPhones sold every year.

No one's demanded a plastic lens cap on that.

There are 15 million cars sold each year, and most of them have a camera.

in the rear license plate.

No one's demanded a face, you know, a plastic lens cap there.

But Facebook comes out with something and basically the product development stuff, people said, you know what?

Nobody trusts you.

You've got to make it really obvious that people can protect themselves.

Mark has one on his camera at work.

I took a picture one.

A piece of tape.

He has a piece of tape.

Yeah.

And he has it there.

He also has it over the speaker, too.

So he's well aware of privacy issues,

which is interesting.

And I've talked to him about it before because I have one on my

computer too.

I don't have one on my phone.

I probably should.

But

it's a really interesting question question because I think you're right.

It's a beautiful product.

But there's a lot of issues.

I've seen reviews back and forth and that it's sort of of an old school where you stay in a kitchen and stay there while you're talking to people.

That's not really a use case necessarily.

So I think that'll matter more than anything else if people really want to sit in their kitchen and talk to people or be present, a telepresence, which has been bandied about by Silicon Cisco had a telepresence thing.

Everyone's tried this idea of telepresence and eventually it's a great idea where it'll seem like your parents are there or your cousin, whoever you want to talk to are right there when you're talking to them.

And that'll be interesting someday.

And this is a step towards it.

But I just don't see, it's sort of like the Facebook phone.

If you recall the Facebook phone, again, nobody wanted it ever.

Why do you have to have a Facebook phone versus just a phone that has Facebook on it?

So I think it's an interesting thing, but it's not, I can't imagine it's going to take off in any way whatsoever.

Kind of like the HP iPod.

Do you remember that?

I did not know there was.

I knew that there was a Zoom.

I remember the Zoom.

The Zoom was different.

That was a really awful device by Microsoft trying to copy the iPod.

But

there was an HP version, a branded version of the iPod.

And Carly Fiorina, who was the CEO at the time, touted it as innovation at HP.

And I was like, you just colored an iPod pod red with HP on it.

It was just odd.

So, you know, I don't know.

I just, I don't think this is a product anybody is waiting for, and especially right now, where we don't feel like Facebook has our privacy back in any way,

that we want anything, any device from theirs in the house.

I don't want the Amazon Amazon one in the house.

I don't want the Google one in the house at this point.

Oh,

the Amazon one is awesome.

It is awesome.

I have it.

I have it.

I just turn it off all the time.

I just turn it off all the time.

It is.

It is.

A couple of really interesting things that will happen here or won't happen.

One is if this thing gets any traction, then all the barking at the moon that we do, all the headline news about our concerns are overblown.

There's huge concerns.

It's not going to get traction.

I'm going to go out there with that.

It's not going to get traction.

Fair enough.

But if it does,

it means all of this privacy concern that we're upset upset about hasn't gained traction.

I think you're wrong.

I think people are very aware of it.

Regular people talk to me about it every day.

Like they answer.

So you speak to regular.

I talk to regular people all the time.

Thank you.

The other thing is

what I was really hoping would happen today is I was hoping Amazon would take a page out of Facebook in terms of what they've done to Snap and announce the exact same features in the next Amazon show.

Oh, that would be funny.

Right?

Just say, okay, we're learning from you, Facebook.

But Amazon, it's Yecho that's in there.

It's Amazon Alexa that's in there.

So you're not buying it, the portal, right?

Correct?

Oh, no,

I hate Facebook.

I mean, I'm even, you know, I take any of it accepted.

That's a hard no, then.

You know, other than ruining America, I'm on board with the company.

Yeah, okay.

Hard no.

I hope this is a big thud.

Yeah, okay, good.

Okay, good.

Well, good wishes towards you, Mark Zuckerberg.

Anyway, we're going to take a quick break.

When we get back, we'll be talking wins of this week.

So stay with us.

Every week on Pivot, we take a sharp, unfiltered look at the technology and media industries and highlight examples of winning leadership.

And when it comes to leading a successful business, time and time again, entrepreneurs and executives from across industries share this incredibly simple secret.

Turn to the experts for help.

That's why small and medium-sized businesses rely on TriNet for human resource solutions.

No matter what industry you're in, TriNet tailors strategies for your organization to grow with confidence.

Learn more about TriNet's industry tailored HR and how they can work with your business at TriNet.com.

At TriNet.com.

That's T-R-I-N-E-T.com.

Incredible starts here.

And we're back.

Okay,

wins of the week.

There's so many to think about.

I am going to go first.

I am going to go first on this one on Wins of the Week is this Taylor Swift.

I love Taylor Swift.

I'm not going to pretend I don't like Taylor Swift.

I'm not going to say, oh, she's annoying, but I sometimes I love Taylor Swift.

Everything about her cracks me up.

And this week, she went Instagrammed that millennials should vote.

And she was saying she backed

the Democratic candidate in Tennessee, where she's from.

And all of a sudden, everyone signed up to vote, which I thought was fantastic.

And so I'm really interested in this sort of Kanye-Taylor fight again, because Kanye's on the Trump side and Taylor now is on the other.

So it's the Tay, the Tay, yay, whatever, yay, whatever

fight.

And I really like that she did this.

I like that she used her power for good in this case.

Have you been to a Taylor Swift concert?

No, yes, I have.

That's not true.

I have seen her sing when I was in an iHeart radio thing, and she was absolutely fantastic.

She's a great performer.

In a word, awesome.

And not only that, it's a concert you can take your kids to.

Well, in any kids to.

My favorite part of the whole concert was when she finished her song and then she like took this long bow and then they weren't clapping enough and she put her hands up.

She's like, more clapping, please.

And it was, everyone did.

They went crazy.

And I loved her for that.

I thought, oh, man, I love this woman.

She's great.

So, so it was interesting to use the power of digital to do this.

And not many people can do this, but she certainly obviously showed that she could.

Yeah, and supposedly voter registration is up.

So it's having an impact.

Yeah, well, we'll see where it goes.

But it's interesting that she's done it.

A lot of these celebrities are stepping out politically much more.

So everybody is in that regard.

What is your win of the week?

Oh, hands down, biggest winner of the week.

Hands down, probably of the month.

Okay.

Nikki Haley.

Nikki Haley.

Why?

Why?

Tell me.

Oh, my gosh.

She's getting out of Dodge with her reputation intact.

And working in the Trump administration means, A, you're likely going to jail.

Uh-huh.

Or B,

your reputation is going to be severely tarnished.

She comes out.

She exits the administration with probably the best brand in politics.

Been able to lead the state that raised me and to serve a country I love so very much has really been a blessing and I want to thank you for that.

But I'm most excited.

Look at the two years.

Look at what has happened in two years with the United States on foreign policy.

Now the United States is respected.

Countries may not like what we do, but they respect what we do.

In my opinion, if you were to bet on anybody who will likely be president at some point, it's probably her.

Why is that?

That's your prediction.

That's a prediction along with your win of the week.

Why so?

Why so?

I think

she's the perfect blend of kind of gangster strong,

communicates leadership, strength.

And I think that brand mixed with the Republican

ideology and cocktail is a pretty good mix.

I think she's a player and a comer.

Oh, really?

Interesting.

Interesting.

See, I heard different things back and forth all week whether she was really good at politics.

You know, she did sort of effusively compliment them on the way up.

But then someone else who's here in Washington told me what she's going to do then is take pot shots from the sidelines.

So now she has permission to take sort of on certain issues like around women and other issues that are that would be strong for her.

I think it gives her permission to run in 2020 if things really come off the rails.

Oh, really?

Do you think they will?

Are you still on that game?

I don't think so.

Really?

I don't know.

They are.

I don't know.

These people are, they seem to survive.

So, speaking of being a total kiss ass, you know what the best thing I read this week was?

What?

The write-up of your interview with Anand, and I'm going to massacre his name, the author.

Yes, Anand, yes.

Yes, about Elise.

Oh, my gosh.

I thought that was fantastic.

Thank you.

Just the notion,

this guy is my new hero.

The notion that we basically at TED and Davos and the Aspen Institute invite all these arsonists, all these people who created these problems, because they're the ones that can fix them.

Yep.

And that these people need, these individuals, mostly tech billionaires, need to be more reflective about not only enjoying questions about what what can they do moving forward, but how did we get here and what was their role in that?

Right, right.

She compared it to a crime scene, which I thought was really fantastic.

They want to pretend the crime didn't take place.

Yeah, they show up and say, well, what's happened here is let's put this behind us and let's move on.

Let's talk about making sure this doesn't happen again.

How do you, as a winner, not insist on win-wins?

How do you actually get out of the way of the public trying to solve its problems in ways that may hurt you.

These people love to ask what they can do.

They never ask what they have done.

That's a really good word to credit.

How am I involved in this problem?

How have my work practices been involved in this?

How am I the product of a system of taxation and labor and all these other things that allowed me to make this fortune?

One of the things that I, when I'm thinking about is that they're also victimy.

You know, I've recently been pretty tough on them.

And they're like, you're so mean.

And I'm like, you're like a bunch of sore winners.

Like, sort of reminds me of the Trump.

You know, you win, like the Trump people won Kavanaugh kavanaugh and then they had to be mean i was like sore winners once again and i think tech people are the same way is they won on every account and then when you call them to task for a couple of things as anon did uh they get all tetchy well we'll take our money and go or like don't you appreciate us yeah you know which is like no we really don't appreciate you um but i agree he is he's a it's a great book um it's about the elites and it's it's it's well worth listening to the podcast but it's also well worth buying the book um and we'll see where we go from there

if they listen to what he has to say.

That'll happen.

Yeah,

they might.

I'm sure it's a moment of reflection.

Yeah, they get testy.

I am on the receiving end of testy phone calls from tech people all week long for some reason.

You know, like, oh, you.

What's been the worst one?

What's been the angry?

Take Angry Times Famous.

Who wins?

They're just so whiny.

I just don't, you know, you're so mean.

You're like, don't be so hard on us.

And I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to, I'm just not going to stop you.

Just the message they should have gotten is we have to fix something.

And the message they've gotten is, poor little me.

And that's, I'm not clear why that's the case.

It's the message, you know, what Anand was talking about is let's be reflective of our impact and figure out ways that maybe you should listen to people more.

And instead, it's, well, we're trying to help, like that kind of thing.

And it's just, it's, what's the, they're just all like, I just can't, I, I'm so now over it.

I just can't even, um,

I just can't, I can't, I, I just hang up.

I'm, I just hang up.

That's what I do.

I just hang up now.

I'm done.

I'm done.

I have to, I'm calling around a lot because of this murder of the Saudi journalist

by the Saudis, it looks like.

And from according to some of the investigation, some of the reporting, this Washington Post columnist, and there's a lot of money from Saudi Arabia within

from Saudi Arabia in Silicon Valley.

It's like a wash in Saudi money.

And like, I'm trying to get any of them to say anything.

And they're like, well, we really can't say anything.

And I'm like, you got to be kidding.

And now I realize, you know, they don't care.

Like, that's, you know, they don't care that they just take the money and this regime is possibly doing this.

Doesn't seem, I can't get anyone to comment.

Let's just say they can't get anyone to comment.

And what, what would you have them do?

Comment.

This is terrible.

And if they did this, we have to think hard about the investments these people are making in something, anything, anything that's human.

So anything human would be nice.

Sometimes a pulse.

Anyway, on that horrible note, we're going to take one more quick break and we'll be right back with some predictions.

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Welcome back to Pivot with Scott Galloway and myself Care Swisher.

So predictions.

Predictions, Scott.

You have to have some.

We have to have some every week.

We have to be, and you have to be right.

There you go.

You weren't right about this Facebook stock again, by the way.

Oh, my God.

I've been remarkably wrong.

Wrong.

I said that.

All of tech stocks are getting hit.

Yeah, I said Amazon was going to pass Apple.

I've just been hugely wrong.

All right.

So my prediction

trying to get back in your good graces, I think that some of these sniper retail concepts are going to be acquired in the short term.

Explain that.

Explain that.

Well, there's this, there's a couple trends in retail.

One is sort of this Ridland retail, these pop-up museums, you know, the Frozé Mansion, the Museum of Pizza, which really play on this trend in retail of scarcity.

And it's not that these museums are great.

It's that, one, they offer a giant Instagram moment, and two, you know, they're going away in 90 days, so everybody should go.

And I think that's largely indicative of sort of this Riddling generation and where retail needs to head fast fashion, creating a sense of retail.

The other kind of trend in retail is sniper retail, where you find a category with a fat and happy incumbent, whether it's Bauchen Loan or Labelux with.

Barbie Parker or the mattress industry, which was literally asleep, so to speak.

And you have Casper and then the luggage industry, which basically had Samsonite and Toomey and maybe Ramoa and with away.

So my predictions is that Casper and or Away gets acquired in the next three to six months.

That's interesting.

By whom?

So there's already been some reports that Walmart is sniffing around.

Walmart has figured out that the way to kind of push back on big tech is to grab the mic back.

And one of the best press releases that sort of says we get it is these acquisitions, whether it's Jet or Bonabos.

And I said that I thought JET was a ridiculous acquisition, $3.5 billion.

But the reality was it gave them the opportunity to say that their e-commerce was growing 40% to 60% year on year for four quarters in a row.

So if they can pick these things up as maybe

Amazon announced they were getting into mattresses, which means Casper's value got cut in half the next day.

in the same fashion that any industry's value gets cut anywhere between 10 and 40 percent when amazon just hints that they're going into it right so i think casper actually is probably a little more open to being acquired right now.

I think that would be the smartest thing they could do.

And there's a couple of them.

There's Purple, there's Casper, there's a whole bunch of them in this industry.

Thread and needle.

Thread and needle.

That's incredible.

All of them.

Yeah.

And they're all very interesting because I have to say it is a terrible experience, mattress buying.

And they did change it.

The question is, can they operate on their own or do they have to be part of a bigger organization?

But, you know, it's interesting because I had dinner recently with the CEO of Walmart, and he's quite aware of his need to do this.

He's quite aware of the importance and trying to figure out how they can compete, which is kind of odd to think about Walmart being on their back foot on anything, but they are for sure.

That is an excellent prediction.

I like that prediction.

That's a really good one.

I like that one.

I think you're right.

I think you're right.

Well, it's like Eisenhower said.

It's not plans are

worthless, but planning is invaluable.

I think predicting

is a lot of fun.

So I have a question for you on a prediction.

Sure.

Which of the big tech companies a year on from now has, looking back, has gotten beaten up the worst?

Oh, Facebook.

Facebook.

Yeah.

Both in terms of usage, not only regulation, but in terms of the actual underlying performance of the company?

Do you think this is starting to seep into the company?

I think so.

I think so.

I think they're really speaking on.

Yeah, I do.

I think.

I think a lot of people, they've shown blood, I guess.

Do you know what I mean?

Like

they're still enormous and they're still growing like crazy, but there's something off.

I think probably Facebook.

Yeah.

I would not say, you know, Google just has now finally been drawn into this and it hadn't been before, but between China and this

breach, you know, they had sort of skulked away from some of the responsibility here.

And I think they're but the two of them, I think.

I think Apple's just fine.

You know, it's just a question of creating great products or continuing to create great products there.

And

they certainly got dinged in this hacking thing, but they fought back pretty hard and so did Amazon against this Bloomberg story about there being

an errant chip in there in the boards that are having to do with their technology.

So

that was scary.

That was, but if true, you know, it's not, they've been pretty, pretty adamant that it's not true.

So that's an interesting thing developing.

We'll see where Apple goes from there on that issue.

So not a prediction, but a thesis, and I want you to respond to that.

All right.

The lack of self-control, the id on steroids, a weak board that is Tesla.

Stock gets cut in half from here, which I think makes it, I don't know, 20 or 30 billion market cash.

Yeah.

Apple steps in and buys it.

Yeah.

What do you think?

No.

No.

No.

Why?

I don't know.

I just can't see those guys.

I can see those guys getting in a room and going, I know them pretty well and being like, no, just we can't.

What about Google?

Get a jump on self-drive.

Yeah, maybe, but again, it's who's going to do it.

Like, is it Sundar?

They've got enough stuff going on that it is, it's sort of like who, sure, sure.

Google would be, Apple and Google would be the purchasers.

It's just like, would you take that on right now?

It's a level of exhaustion.

Talk about execution.

It's, you know, it's a lot.

It's a lot.

And the issue is, can we do it ourselves slower, but better kind of stuff?

So, you know, maybe one of the big car makers might, that's a lot of money for them.

They can't afford it.

Yeah.

That's a lot of money.

Because they're valued like archives.

I don't know.

I would question.

I would wonder what does it buy them besides a lot.

It's sort of like buying.

Remember when everyone thought everyone was going to buy Twitter?

I kept saying, no, it's too much.

There's just too much hair on that dog kind of thing.

And

I think that's the issue is the level of,

I just don't see it.

I just see, I just don't see it.

But, you know, it's a good idea.

It's a lot of, but it's a lot.

And it's also a lot of money.

Could they get it that way elsewhere without that?

And just make

Tesla one of these pioneers that either did or didn't make it.

Like, let it go.

Like, what does it buy you?

It's not a lot of money for Apple.

If the stock gets cut in half, it's a 20 billion, 50%

premium.

That's a 3% delay.

I can't think of one person who could run that there.

And I can't see him being comfortably within Apple.

And they're not that acquisitive.

They're not at all.

They're very controlled about what they do.

I can see them just going, I can see Tam going, no.

Like, I just see it, you know what I mean?

Like, no, let's just focus over here kind of thing.

And I think they pull back a little bit in their car stuff.

And Google has, you know, Google has let go a lot of really great people who work there.

You know, they've let people come and go.

So I wonder where the commitment to cars, it is.

But, you know what I mean?

Like, who's the driver of the commitment?

You know, Larry's over making hovercrafts.

Sergei, who knows where he is?

You know what I mean?

Like, Sundar has got his hands full.

So like, who, who's the person who's going to be that person?

Diane Green's busy with the cloud.

Like Susan's busy over at YouTube.

I wonder who would be the executive.

You know, that's all.

I think about the people and I can't think of any of them that would be any good at it.

But maybe.

Who knows?

Who knows?

I don't know.

Someone's going to win here.

It just is a question of who it is, and it's going to be a long time from now.

Anyway, Scott, I think we've covered a lot today.

Did we miss anything?

I think that's it.

I think we've covered a lot.

What was your least favorite thing or the thing you hated most about the Kavanaugh hearings?

Melania Trump and her appalling statement about hard evidence.

I literally don't even know what to say.

We need to show the evidence.

You cannot just say to somebody, I was

sexually assaulted and or you did that to me or because sometimes the media goes too far and um

the way they portray some stories it's it's not correct it's not right just when they're completely appalling she drops the most appalling thing and you know i think i you know it seems like the stockholm syndrome has really taken effect with her uh rather significantly um but do you think ivanka is going to be the new ambassador to your no i do not i think probably it's going to be dina powell that's when I know if she wants it.

And isn't Ivanka just her father if he drank water and had a better wig?

By the way.

I'm not going to be able to do that.

By the way.

She's not going to be the ambassador.

That is the new ambassador.

That is a line from my favorite comedian, Michelle Wolf, who is the next ex-Mrs.

Galloway.

She just doesn't know her yet.

She is my hero.

She's incredible.

Do you know her?

I didn't know.

Because

I think she wants to know me.

All right.

Okay, well, fine.

I saw her in a park.

Don't try and segregate her.

I'm going to stop it.

I'm going to stop this right now.

I was in Washington Square Park and I saw her with my boys, and I screamed, you're a genius, and she literally ran from me.

Oh, really?

See, that's a good, that is an excellent response.

So that means she has good judgment.

If I see her, I will tell her to stay away from you.

I'll give her a little picture to hold and say, this guy's a stalker.

It'll be good.

It'll be good.

Wait, so my least favorite thing about the Cabinet hearings, can I just go ahead?

That's what you wanted.

You didn't really want to know what I wanted.

No, no, no.

I listened to respond, not to learn, Kara.

So

Susan Collins and this whole notion of presumption of innocence.

presumption of innocence is this really important construct used in courts of law for a thousand years.

And it's used as a means to determine whether people get to join the 3 million people who are incarcerated.

It's not a construct of a job interview.

My kid's school is interviewing a headmaster.

And the notion that we wouldn't pick somebody because they'd say, well, we have to assume anything bad about them is not true unless it's proven.

Where did the presumption of innocence come in when we're trying to find out if someone should wear one of the the nine most important robes.

Well, they turned it into a court of law, didn't they?

That's what I'm saying.

That term should have never been injected into this whole page.

Well, that's because it's easy to understand by regular people, right?

Like, oh,

guilty and things like that.

Who you speak to?

I do all the time.

Anyway, it was great talking to you.

Stay safe in the hurricane.

Keep yourself safe.

Thanks very much.

Our show is produced by Rebecca Sinanis.

Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Thanks also to Eric Johnson.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media.

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