Zuck's Masculine Energy, Bannon vs. Musk, and Wildfires Misinformation

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Speaker 1 Support for this show comes from OnePassword. If you're an IT or security pro, managing devices, identities, and applications can feel overwhelming and risky.

Speaker 1 Trellica by OnePassword helps conquer SaaS sprawl and shadow IT by discovering every app your team uses, managed or not. Take the first step to better security for your team.

Speaker 1 Learn more at one password.com/slash podcast offer. That's one password.com/slash podcast offer.
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Speaker 3 When we clean up nice room and orgy, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 3 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Karis Fisher, and I just got back from a lovely weekend at Scott's apartment where I threw a party. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's why Riverdale is playing on loop.

Speaker 2 I love those stereotypes. Oh, stop it.
I love those stereotypes.

Speaker 3 I had Jihan there. I had a whole bunch of friends there.
It was really fun. It was lovely.

Speaker 2 I heard you set up some people and like all good lesbians on their first date.

Speaker 3 They came over. Straight people.

Speaker 2 Hugged and cried for three hours and then decided to never see each other again.

Speaker 3 No lesbians. Just me and my wife were the only lesbians in attendance.
And Jihan was the gay man. I had a full

Speaker 3 here before canopy of sexual interests interesting interesting anyway thank you so much the kids loved it they love on your climbing they love the whole thing we had a nice time went to see gypsy which was great in new york gypsy what is that it's a musical with auditor mcdonald it's an enormous hit on broadway god broadway i love broadway

Speaker 3 you got to go to broadway sometime auditor mcdonald is a very

Speaker 3 um she was she's a she's like the she's the patty lupone of this time she's just amazing uh and she was great And Gypsy's about a narcissistic, toxic mother

Speaker 3 and a daughter she turns into a stripper. Yeah, it's about strippers.
Yeah. Oh, there you go.
There you go. Fan dancing, things like that.
It was great. It was great.
How was your weekend?

Speaker 3 You went, you escaped to the warm, correct?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I had a speaking gig in Boca. So I went and I went down to South Beach and stayed the Faena.
And I went out with my friend Pablo Doritas to this hot new restaurant called Sparrow Italia.

Speaker 2 I had a Kara Swisher moment. People came up and were really nice to me and I was a little fucked up.
So I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 3 I actually liked people when I'm driving. Did they call you Kara Swisher? Is that what happened?

Speaker 2 No, people generally say the following. They're like, they say to me, oh, they're like, we like Kara more, but we like you.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And people always say the same thing. Always say the same thing to me.

Speaker 3 You seem shorter on podcasts.

Speaker 2 I really do register it as a compliment. People always say, I'm not exaggerating probably.
a third to 50% of the time. I don't always agree with what you say, but you make me think.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, thank thank you. That's the point.

Speaker 3 That's good. Yeah.
Oh, that's nice. I get, you are my inspiration, or you are my wife's inspiration, or you are my husband's inspiration.
That's what I get.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's nice. So more importantly, what does a lesbian bring to a second date?

Speaker 3 You haul, right? The first. Oh, that's good.
Good. You got that.
Very good. Everyone.
That's like the oldest lesbian jokes.

Speaker 2 Go with your bad gay jokes. Okay.
All right. What does a gay man bring to a second date?

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 2 Wait, there's a second date?

Speaker 3 Oh, that's good. Okay.
I do. I wasn't getting that one.
All right.

Speaker 2 So back to me and my weekend. I went to Houston for a hot minute to speak, and you know, I went busted into my busted into my rap.
Unfortunately, the timing wasn't very good there.

Speaker 2 At the end, they asked me about young men, and I got all emotional.

Speaker 2 And I said that men need to get involved in young men's life, and that Michael Jackson and the Catholic Church have fucked it up for all of us and created suspicion around men getting involved.

Speaker 2 And this is a Texas audience, so the whole audience.

Speaker 2 And then unfortunately, a programming note up next was the Young Boys Choir.

Speaker 2 And it was just like, oh, God, that didn't go well.

Speaker 3 Oh, no, Scott.

Speaker 3 Dredging up pedophilia.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was just a wrong moment to talk about pedophilia.

Speaker 3 Oh, God.

Speaker 3 No touching.

Speaker 3 No touching allowed. Oh, my God.
Yeah, you're getting emotional at this time. We're going to talk a lot about that today.

Speaker 3 By the way, I am, in fact, going to Miami this weekend to get away from the inauguration, which is coming here this weekend.

Speaker 2 I can also tell you here, there's a lesbian's favorite chocolate in the freezer.

Speaker 3 What? Klondike's.

Speaker 3 That's good.

Speaker 2 That's good. It's so bad it's good.

Speaker 3 And I think you know what I mean. I don't think it's good.
I think you know what I mean. By the way, I threw out some of your grotesque food that you just left.
Oh, feel free. Threw it up.
I did.

Speaker 3 I was like, oh, he's such a man.

Speaker 2 Take charge of my life. I don't know.

Speaker 3 I just to say I cleaned up your refrigerator. I do that to everybody's refrigerator, but it looked like it was going to turn.

Speaker 2 When people make doctor's appointments for me or plan my, take over my life.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And Amanda was like, should you be cleaning this refrigerator? And I said, I have to.
It's a must. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 We didn't take any of your clothes, clothes, although Amanda commented, if you're just starting to shed things, just leave a pile for us. We admired some of your clothing that was strewn about.

Speaker 2 It's so funny. My son will not let me spend money on clothes for him, but I love Persian clothes.
And I, no joke, was pushing about two-thirds of my clothes out. And I left them.

Speaker 2 And all of a sudden, my son started showing up in Brunello Cuccinelli, like odd colors that I don't like. And he looks so good.
And it's such a nice moment. My son is now wearing my clothes.

Speaker 2 And granted, they look baggy on him, but it looks so, it's such a nice moment. I'm really enjoying it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, Alex Swisher likes to wear nice things if you have any money to get him.

Speaker 2 Anyway, Alex is too big.

Speaker 3 Oh, he's actually,

Speaker 3 well, no, I guess you're right. He's too tall.
He's not that different from your build, is he? He kind of has your build. Just more muscles, obviously.
M L. Your L.
Okay. All right.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 We're talking about men right now because we've got to get to that today, including Mark Zuckerberg mansplaining masculine energy, how misinformation about the LA fires is creating more problems on not just on X.

Speaker 3 It's now brought to you by Facebook. So we have a lot to talk about, Masculine.
This is a masculine show. We're going to do a masculine show.

Speaker 3 We have no young boys' choirs. But first, as we tape on Monday, the Supreme Court seems to be leaning towards upholding the TikTok ban.

Speaker 3 They heard oral arguments on Friday with justices seeming more skeptical of TikTok's arguments that the First Amendment banned Congress from enacting the law. Some takeaways.

Speaker 3 The justices pointed out that ByteDance, a Chinese company, does not have First Amendment rights. Justice Brown Jackson said she saw the law as less about speech than association.

Speaker 3 I thought this was really smart. She's so smart.
Like barring Americans from associating with foreign terrorist groups for national security reasons. Justices Kagan and Gorsuch

Speaker 3 together suggest that everyone knows China is behind TikTok and expressed interest in less heavy-handed approach, like a warning label, which was interesting.

Speaker 3 But it seemed like it was all over the place. This was not a partisan thing in any way, which is exactly what the issue is in Congress, too.
It's surprising people are for it and against it.

Speaker 3 I think they're supposed to rule on Wednesday, I understand.

Speaker 3 So any prediction?

Speaker 2 It's definitely, they're definitely not getting a hall pass here. Something's going to happen.
It's just a question of what, whether they fully uphold the divestiture.

Speaker 2 In my opinion, a warning label is almost ridiculous. It's like those things that ask you if you accept cookies or whatever.
I just don't. I don't think that's going to happen.

Speaker 2 I wonder if there's some kind of back dealings around some sort of investment or governance, or American investors invest just enough such that there's enough governance that would satisfy the White House.

Speaker 2 There's been some conjecture that Trump wouldn't necessarily need to enforce it.

Speaker 3 Well, here's the thing. I've heard of this thing.
I don't remember the answer in that case, but he could not enforce it.

Speaker 3 But that doesn't mean Apple and Google won't do it anyway, because I think over Trump,

Speaker 3 they would take. the Supreme Court's side.
I don't think they need to be instructed by if Trump says don't do it, he can't say that, right?

Speaker 3 he has more limited things than you think this is a law passed by Congress and I think the Supreme Court tends to respect those especially around national security issues and so I'm I'm going with they're going to say do it and they're not going to delay it they're not going to let Trump get his dirty myths around it

Speaker 3 even though he will have his dirty myths around it because it's the question of where it sells to and that could be and his administration through all kinds of different organizations that look at these things.

Speaker 3 And they've been, and he's been through this this before the previous time. He was doing the executive order and was trying to do that Microsoft Walmart.
Do you remember that deal?

Speaker 3 It's Microsoft Walmart, Ellison. There was a whole really odd group of people.
But I, you know, I think he's going to try to advantage Musk and Ellison.

Speaker 3 But then you see Mark Zuckerberg coming in because he doesn't particularly want Musk to have an advantage here.

Speaker 3 This is good for Facebook if TikTok suffers. Like there's all kinds of stuff.
And he was just down in Palm Beach. Mark went went again.
We'll talk about him in a second.

Speaker 3 But so I think it'll be interesting. And then there's a couple of the bidders I've talked to.

Speaker 3 And one of them, who I consider one of the smarter ones, or among the different names, there's about six different names. They were like, you're not, there's no sale here.

Speaker 3 There's nothing going to happen. The Chinese won't let it happen.

Speaker 3 Then there's the whole Chinese reaction to it when it's, when it's finally passing what the Chinese will do, because most people feel without the algorithm, it's, it's just a brand.

Speaker 2 That's the secret sauce. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The data that I ran across that kind of gave me a different view on this or, I don't know, enhanced my view is that

Speaker 2 so TikTok has 170 million American users. That's staggering, right?

Speaker 2 And the people not using it don't matter in the sense it's probably seniors or people without phones that just don't buy shit. Advertisers don't care about those people.

Speaker 2 But the thing that was also equally surprising is what percentage of

Speaker 2 TikTok's global revenue would you guess is generated in the U.S.?

Speaker 3 Probably a small amount.

Speaker 2 It's very good. You have very good instincts.
It's one-fifth. I would have guessed it was like 30% to 50%.
It's 20%.

Speaker 2 So while

Speaker 2 that is significant, I'm not sure. I think their attitude is, yeah, we love this market.

Speaker 2 It may be our biggest market, but we're fine without it because TikTok is growing 23% a year, meaning if they lose it, and they won't lose all of it, because young people will find workarounds.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 try and take TikTok off your kid's phone and then find out how many ways there is to get TikTok without you knowing.

Speaker 3 I'm going to get it over the top.

Speaker 3 IP and all kinds of shit, right? I do think Apple and Google will go with whatever the Supreme Court says. And so that will hinder a lot of people, like the regular, like not everybody.

Speaker 3 And of course, there's the creators who are up in arms because they make some good living off of TikTok. And if you recall, TikTok did those ads.

Speaker 4 There is no doubt that I would not have found the success that I have today without TikTok.

Speaker 4 TikTok TikTok has made me a better teacher. It's helped me to connect with people far beyond my classroom.

Speaker 4 Think about the 5 million small business owners that rely on TikTok to provide for their families.

Speaker 3 Did you see those ads?

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I wonder if there's going to be, I think it's going to, I think there's going to be a lot of unintended consequences here if it gets banned.

Speaker 2 For example, just as there's ghost guns to try and evade any sort of regulatory enforcement, I wouldn't be surprised if we see the emergence of some sort of like ghost

Speaker 2 dumb phones that just are single purpose to access TikTok.

Speaker 2 I have seen some kids that are,

Speaker 2 I mean, if you won't give them opiates via OxyContin through your doctor, they hit the street and they find it. And I don't, I really do think, I don't think I'm in any extremist here.

Speaker 2 I think TikTok has some opiate-like, heroin-like attributes.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you go right to heroin with them. You're like, pot, weed, heroin.

Speaker 2 I told you, I'm already planning out my death. I'm going to play those Apple Memories.
I'm going to have Tom Petty. I'm doing it in my home in Del Rey on the beach.

Speaker 2 I'm going to have a very curated group of people come visit me.

Speaker 3 Breath work.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to just ramp up the opium and I'm going to live my life again, except under the influence of heroin. It's going to be wonderful.

Speaker 3 Oh, wow. I'm really excited for that.
I'm so excited for that.

Speaker 2 I want my exit to be glorious and I don't want to come back.

Speaker 3 Can I just tell you, I'm going to do an interpretive dance of our relationship for you.

Speaker 3 When you on heroin. Traumatizer.
It'll be so beautiful. That's so

Speaker 3 dramatizer. I will dance for you.

Speaker 2 I shall.

Speaker 3 On heroin, it will become a lot better. I'm a terrible dancer.
Anyway, we'll see what happens. I feel like they're going to go with the ban, and I don't think they're going to delay it.

Speaker 3 And I think that Trump will try to manipulate it. That's really,

Speaker 3 and then we'll see.

Speaker 2 It was a really good conversation, though.

Speaker 2 It was, I really, these are, regardless of what you think about their politics, with the exception of Thomas and maybe a little Lito, because he's so fucking weird. These are very intelligent people.

Speaker 2 It made me actually feel pretty good to be American to listen to the discourse.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was good. It was good.
And they were all different and smart on a lot of things. And there was some little joking about TikTok, a little joking from the Supreme Court, little digital joke.

Speaker 3 And I thought it was good. It looked like, you know, just as with not letting Trump off the hook in New York, I think.
Roberts is taking a little more control over things. Seems like it.

Speaker 3 And it looks like Amy Coney Barrett's the swinger, kind of, so to speak.

Speaker 3 You know, she, oh yeah, she went against Trump on this vote and everyone's after her. And speaking of after her, one of the people after her, Steve Bannon, really said she was a traitor, essentially,

Speaker 3 in the Trump decision around the New York case. He didn't get any time, guys.

Speaker 2 Do you mean ex-con, Steve Bannon?

Speaker 3 Yes, yes, ex-con. Now, and now felon, Donald Trump, FOTUS is the word.

Speaker 3 But it's great.

Speaker 2 If they're both on Air Force One, we get to call it Con Air One.

Speaker 3 Yes, that's right, exactly. Conair.
But Steve Bannon is interestingly fighting, has upped his fight with Elon Musk. And he said he'll have Elon Musk, quote, run out by inauguration day.

Speaker 3 I don't know what that means. That's like next week, Steve.
So get on it.

Speaker 3 The contempt stems from the division in MAGA circles. It's quite profound.

Speaker 3 Last month over H-1B visas, which Musk has been for, Bannon said he will do anything to keep Musk out and said he should go back to South Africa. He named David Sachs and Peter Thiel, all

Speaker 3 from South Africa, as problematic and racist. He was accusing them of being racist.

Speaker 3 It was sort of weird. It was such a weird thing.

Speaker 3 Populism versus racism.

Speaker 2 Steel and Sachs are from South Africa.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I feel like there's a conspiracy theory. I'm with Bannon on this one.
No, I'm not. I'm never with Bannon.

Speaker 2 What they were born there?

Speaker 3 Those guys have been here for a while. I know, I know.
They're Americans. They're Americans.

Speaker 2 I was just in South Africa, and it did not strike me as the most racist place on earth.

Speaker 3 I understand. It used to be for sure.

Speaker 3 So, in any case,

Speaker 3 he is attacking them. So, you know, there's a team Steve or Team Elon.
How about none of the above? But it's a really interesting fight.

Speaker 3 And he doesn't want him to have privileges to get onto the campus, the White House campus, to get this blue pass, it's called, thoughts. I mean, who's going to win this fight?

Speaker 2 Probably Elon. Well, this is like when Iran and Iraq were at war.
I was praying for the bullets.

Speaker 2 This is.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. That's funny.
Yeah. Wrong, but funny.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think it's fantastic.

Speaker 2 I want to funnel ammunition to whatever side is losing in the short run and just keep that conflict going as long as possible. So I don't,

Speaker 2 you know, I don't, look, I think Steve Bannon is

Speaker 2 in many ways. I mean, here's the problem.
I don't think Elon Musk is as fucked up in the head as Steve Bannon, but Elon Musk is more powerful.

Speaker 2 So I think this is Steve Bannon trying to be relevant. And he sees, he recognizes, my understanding of people who know Steve Bannon say the guy is brilliant, that he's he's one of the most people.

Speaker 3 I would agree.

Speaker 2 Say that he's one of the most well-read people that they have ever met.

Speaker 2 And I think he recognizes it doesn't matter why you're in the news as long as you're in the news.

Speaker 2 And he's picked the highest profile person in the world and is going after him.

Speaker 2 And I'm just here for it. It's as if like it's like the Tyson Jake Paul fight if Tyson had been 20 years younger.
I just I think it's going to be a great battle and really interesting.

Speaker 2 And at the end of the day, I just think Elon Musk wins here. I think that he has such adulation, idolatry, and he has more money than Bannon.

Speaker 2 And I think that generally speaking, in a capitalist society that's gone full oligarch, full kleptocracy, the good money in a political campaign on an issue is just who has the most money.

Speaker 2 And Musk has more money, and he'll start weaponizing Twitter and his 220 million followers against Bannon. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 3 He hasn't gone after Bannon that much. He goes after any one person on any day at any time, like ridiculously with hammer and tongs.
He hasn't really attacked Steve Bannon.

Speaker 3 There's more, it's more than Bannon. There's a Charlie Kirk.
All the MAGA crowd is sort of anti-Elon, which is interesting. And

Speaker 3 I would wonder what J.D. Vance thinks right about now.
He said something counter to Trump the other day on Sunday.

Speaker 2 Oh, J.D. Vance, I mean, come on.

Speaker 3 He's like the wife that got shoved aside, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I remember my best friend, not my best friend, but one of my close friends of mine when I was young, he was married and for important events, he used to show up with his mistress. What?

Speaker 2 Yeah, he used to bring his mistress to important events with his wife. Yeah.
And that's what this, that's how J.D. Vance must feel right now.
I mean, J.D.

Speaker 2 Vance is, for all intents and purposes, not the vice president. Right.
Elon Musk is. Right.

Speaker 2 And he must think, fuck, I had to go debate walls and I had to put up with all these people, you know, and this guy's no vice president.

Speaker 3 Talking about the couch fucking and the, and the cat lady and everything. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I would imagine that.

Speaker 3 Don't forget couch fucking everybody. Go ahead.

Speaker 2 I would imagine that J.D. Vance, when he sees Bannon, is high-fiving him.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.
It's interesting. You know, he's calling Musk truly evil, which is incredible.

Speaker 2 Didn't, didn't Elon Musk call you truly evil?

Speaker 3 No. Yoel Roth was evil.
I had a heart seething with hate. Okay.
Let's try to keep that. Heart seething with hate.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's that smell around my apartment. It's heart.
It's smoldering. It's smoldering cardiac organs.

Speaker 3 I enjoyed seething bagels at your house.

Speaker 3 No, he goes, he is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down, which is fascinating.
I'm like, what's happening here? It's like, and this is a quote.

Speaker 3 He should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all, what goes on in the United States?

Speaker 3 He said Musk had the maturity of a little boy, which I'm kind of for him on that one. I would agree.
But it's just interesting.

Speaker 3 It's not just Laura Lumaire and him, it's a whole panoply of MAGA people who don't think he's loyal to MAGA, that he's

Speaker 3 opportunist. Oh, MAGA, we're so sorry.
We told you. We warned you.

Speaker 3 We warned you. Anyway, there you have it.
We do think Elon's going to beat him, though. So there we have it.
But Bannon, never count that guy out.

Speaker 3 He's such a like, I call him, you know, the unmade bed, but he's really a toxic unmade bed. And so he has his, he has his skills.

Speaker 3 But exactly, let's root. Let's let's root for neither of them.

Speaker 3 Okay, let's get to our first big story.

Speaker 3 Firefighters continue to battle Los Angeles wildfires, which have killed at least 24 people and destroyed entire neighborhoods.

Speaker 3 High winds are expected to pick up again through the middle of the week, which won't help containment efforts, so that they're getting a handle on quite a bit of it.

Speaker 3 Also, not helping the onslaught of misinformation about the fires, including false claims of Governor Gavin Newsom's policies, Alex Jones' conspiracy theories, and a circulation of so much AI crap.

Speaker 3 It is, it still is a government disaster in terms of fire management. It always is.

Speaker 3 But this is a decades-long problem in California around overbuilding, around climate issues, about not building the right stuff there. It's, you know, they're very stringent on earthquake building.

Speaker 3 I have did that myself, not so much with wildfires. I didn't have to do anything when I was doing a renovation around wildfires, but I certainly had to do a lot around earthquakes.

Speaker 3 I just, you know, X was successful. Meta just got rid of fact checkers.
These, everyone's having to, like, even the head of HHS said you cannot beat social media outrage and falsehoods anymore.

Speaker 3 And so it's one of the things they're worried about. And of course, at the very top is Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 There's been threats about withholding aid from California unless they get in line, which I honestly, California gives more than it takes from this country. It's repulsive.

Speaker 3 You don't do that to any part of this country when there's a crisis.

Speaker 3 Thoughts? Top line thoughts, Scott Galloway?

Speaker 2 There used to be, it seems like the time to blame has gotten shorter and shorter.

Speaker 2 And I thought the most repugnant one was, and there's been more repugnant statements, but Greg Gutfield on the five and Jess Tarloff got back in his face called

Speaker 2 the head of the fire department a DEI hire.

Speaker 2 And then Musk went in and said DEI equals die.

Speaker 2 The only thing that this

Speaker 2 The only thing that this fire captain would say about DEI or indicate is this woman is so infinitely qualified that the question is, why did it take so long for someone like that to ascend to a position of power?

Speaker 2 And to immediately kind of politicize this and to force the governor to have to put up a website and take time away from actually saving property and lives,

Speaker 2 to create a site to dispel and push back on misinformation in the midst of this crisis.

Speaker 3 And then he got attacked for that. He went on Pod Saves America and a couple of things to talk about that, to dispel things.

Speaker 2 And then like, how dare he be be on podcast i was like he's dispelling misinformation you start it like it was it was nuts and the mayor deservedly or not she's out it just was really unfortunate timing for her to be in ghana it just and she didn't handle herself well she's out uh but the governor and the people there i think 13 000 firefighters something unbelievable

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 3 and i always feel like we're outgun because on the left there's been some people saying well it's clearly climate change but they've been a little bit more measured because they're like we don't know and the thing about LA is like okay so we don't know we're more measured and the right just goes fucking crazy and dominates the media cycle with saying DEI is die right or all kinds of manners of conspiracy theories there's like 90 of them it's really crazy I know and some people are we normal people who are right now emotionally bereft are buying some of it right they're getting to people at their worst And when they're in houses, they're vulnerable and then filling them full of bile and anger does nothing to help the situation.

Speaker 3 It's really,

Speaker 3 I've had some friends who said this and this. I was like, no, that's not true.
I mean, the one thing that seems true is these power lines were not shut off quickly enough during what it was terrible.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 they don't have the newest power lines that don't bend and break. These are something we can now go and say, we need to fix this.
We need to fix this. but to to be you know

Speaker 3 one of the other things is that the reason it took so long is because california is more stringent on certain plants and things and so it takes longer maybe we need to fix that right but you can't blame it for nature which these winds are aston from friends of mine say it's just they were the strongest winds they've ever seen However, they got there.

Speaker 3 Climate change, historically, they've been, those winds, if you've ever been in them, are insane.

Speaker 3 There's been a lot more wind in San Francisco lately, like by the way, disturbing amounts of winds. A tree fell on my house.
Never in 25 years has that happened.

Speaker 3 And it wasn't even a Santa Ana wind, which are really kind of whipsawing. So I just don't know what you would do if you were a public official.

Speaker 2 Look, California actually has a really robust,

Speaker 2 well-invested, well-resourced fire response apparatus. Probably the strongest in the nation.

Speaker 2 They're not stupid. But I mean,

Speaker 2 unfortunately, this problem is very nuanced. Los Angeles,

Speaker 2 I mean, to a certain extent, Los Angeles is an accident and a crazy idea that shouldn't have happened. There's earthquakes there.
There's massive droughts there.

Speaker 2 In Portugal, there's this canyon that is off the coast, and it's famous because of all the incredible surfers who ride the biggest wave in history. It's called Mazare.

Speaker 2 Where the ocean turns into this canyon and then pops up into kind of a weird cliffs on both sides shoots.

Speaker 2 So when this tide comes in, it creates these unprecedented water masses that result in 100-foot waves.

Speaker 2 In LA, you have, quite frankly, this inhospitable environment with a ton of people living in a desert beneath this very strange anomaly where there's a lot of high-pressure and low-pressure systems.

Speaker 2 And when they align just correctly, the high-pressure winds go chasing the low pressure, creating a windstorm that gets shot through a narrow

Speaker 2 narrow craters of passages in form of the mountains and basically creates the mother of all hot air dryers on high. On high with shooting a 60 or an 80 mile an hour hot wind over the city.

Speaker 2 So literally a match can fly hundreds of yards. I did some research here and I thought, okay, is this the straw that breaks the camel's back?

Speaker 2 And people, my friend who lost lost his home in the Palisades has said he got the check the next day and he's done. He's like, he's not going to rebuild.

Speaker 2 However, the data shows that most people stay because here's the thing about L.A.,

Speaker 2 it's fucking magical. It's the, you get up, it's, you get up in February and it's 62 degrees and dry with a light breeze and you think, oh, it's a Saturday.
Maybe we'll go to Zuma Beach.

Speaker 2 Oh, I know I'm going to go see the L.A. Philharmonic play Pink Floyd songs at the Hollywood Bowl.
I know

Speaker 2 I'm going to go see a movie premiere in Century City. I know I'm going to have an Uber driver that's ridiculously fucking hot because he just got a callback for season four of Fallout.
I mean,

Speaker 2 the collision of Mexican culture, the entertainment industry, the weather.

Speaker 3 Can I ask a question? One of the things that is.

Speaker 3 So much wonder, and by some of it, it's been like this, this reel in that I used to go take the kids to all the time is gone. All these burned down, all these amazing places have burned down.

Speaker 3 And let me just tell you, for those who've never been to Pacific Paltes and parts of Pasadena, they're Altadena, they're such beautiful places.

Speaker 3 Some of these houses, it makes

Speaker 3 the Will Rogers estate, so beautiful, as I said, is so beautiful.

Speaker 3 What would you take, Scott? I was asking this to Amanda and everyone at the brunch this weekend. What would you take if you had two hours or an hour?

Speaker 2 It's funny you said that. I've always said the same thing: photos and my computer.
That's it.

Speaker 2 I don't know what else.

Speaker 2 I'm actually pretty healthy that way. I'm not very attracted or attached to things.
I'd want photos. I'd want my computer just for practical reasons.

Speaker 2 But I don't, there's nothing in my life, as evidenced by the fact I'm not exaggerating, twice as much. Pick dogs, obviously.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 obviously get the hounds out.

Speaker 2 But what I've been doing is I've been calling, I want to move to a couple of things around solutions.

Speaker 2 I mean, one of the things that we're going to have the opportunity to rethink is quite frankly, a lot of these homes are tinderboxes.

Speaker 2 On the East Coast, we build with cement or we build with different materials. They build with wood and other things that quite frankly are just probably don't make sense.

Speaker 2 The insurance industry and the relationship between insurance and home value.

Speaker 3 So can I put these facts in for you before you get to that, the insurance?

Speaker 3 Because another crisis involves insurance. JP Morgan estimates the total L.A.
County losses could be close to $50 billion, while losses insurers will have to pay could top to $20 billion.

Speaker 3 California has seen major insurers pull back on coverage in recent years due to what one company called rapidly growing catastrophe exposure. That's happening in many states, including Florida, too.

Speaker 3 Most, many of these people, their houses are their savings, their equity. So talk a little bit about insurance here.

Speaker 2 Well, okay, so you've heard my rant on insurance. I think insurance is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

Speaker 2 So if you're wealthy and you can absorb a hit, I have a bunch of rental properties in Florida. I don't insure them because I could afford to lose them.

Speaker 2 Now, what's happened in California is the insurance companies, which are private companies and their job is to return profits to their shareholders, did the math. They're very smart.

Speaker 2 Basically, an insurance company does nothing but try and predict the future. And now with AI, I think they can predict it and calibrate it to a much...

Speaker 2 you know, a much greater confidence interval. And about two, three years ago, they said, this makes no fucking sense.
This place is a tinderbox.

Speaker 2 And California, and you could argue this is over-regulation, has put in place in certain areas with certain types of insurance, price caps saying you can't escalate faster than this.

Speaker 3 So the insurance company said, okay, girlfriend, we're out.

Speaker 2 And you had a massive number, like hundreds of thousands of homes that got a letter saying, we've canceled your insurance.

Speaker 2 This no longer makes any sense for us on a risk-adjusted basis, given you live in a high-propensity fire zone. So we're out.

Speaker 2 So California had to institute a program where they would back certain insurance policies. Now, effectively what that is, it's a transfer of wealth from California taxpayers to homeowners.

Speaker 2 Because as someone who lives near the beach in Florida and is subject to climate change, whatever you want to call it, the reality is I should either pay for those risks or I should move or my home prices should go down.

Speaker 2 And so there isn't, you know, when things change, I'm not sure you have a birthright to live in a certain city.

Speaker 2 This is going to inspire a very interesting conversation around property values, the rights to live somewhere, and insurance, and climate change, and risk. I'm actually quite hopeful.

Speaker 2 And let me just go back to patting our government officials on the back.

Speaker 2 A surface area greater than Boston or San Francisco was torched. That's how big this fire was.
And to date, it has claimed 11 lives.

Speaker 3 24. And more.
There's more to come. But they haven't found everybody.

Speaker 2 I would imagine in L.A. County, I don't know how many traffic deaths there are every weekend, but my point is

Speaker 3 incredible so many people didn't die. That's not.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's a tragedy for those families. That is remarkable.

Speaker 2 The government's job is to

Speaker 2 save people and property in a crisis like that in this order.

Speaker 2 So the primary objective when you have a natural disaster like this is to save people's lives. And they get an A fucking plus here.

Speaker 2 Not that many people lost their lives.

Speaker 3 I have to say the pylon is so disturbing in every way. It's like, can you please stop, you people? There's not a moment they don't, everything is DEI when there was a plane crash.
Oh, it was DEI.

Speaker 3 There's not a disaster. And let me just say to people like Elon Musk, you don't have any fucking solutions.
You just have a lot of friggin complaints, right?

Speaker 3 And it's not like you immediately go to your same grab bag of hate that really doesn't matter here.

Speaker 3 And you're taking advantage of people who have, who, who have a propensity to be very upset and look for blame when what they need is help from people like Jose Andres and the governor and everybody else.

Speaker 3 So shut the fuck up, some of them. Anyway, that goes to me about sort of manliness.

Speaker 2 But it moves to solutions, and this is an opportunity for virtue signaling, my favorite thing. Stephen Leder said something, Rabbi Stephen Leder said something that really hit hard to me.

Speaker 2 He said, calling people and asking if you can help is not helpful.

Speaker 2 Because people are in this state

Speaker 2 don't want to be victims. They don't want to think about how you can help me.
You don't call and ask how to help. You just help.

Speaker 2 And one of the things I've really struggled with, and it really, it struck me this time, is I was really curious if UCLA was being affected. And I typed in UCLA evacuation question mark.

Speaker 2 And the first thing that came up from the fucking Google algorithm was this TikTok from some sophomore there calling UCLA the University of California that doesn't care.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, that's my news on UCLA. Some 19-year-old in his dorm room doing an angry TikTok.

Speaker 2 So I've been using news, not noise. Jessica Yellen, who I find is pretty measured.
I've been looking at, I've been following Anderson Cooper, who I think does his own.

Speaker 3 He's done a great job here, I have to say.

Speaker 2 But I got to be honest, I'm having trouble. I'm just skeptical and distrusting distrusting of everything I see.
So I'm moving to action. I like Jessica Yellen.
She needs more resources.

Speaker 2 I like NewsNot Oise. It's 100 bucks.
I went and bought 50 subscriptions. I am the most, I am the biggest GoFundMe slut in the world, bro.

Speaker 3 Oh, I like that. That's nice.

Speaker 2 And I realize, I realize I'm virtue signaling, but I also believe the... Many administrators and nonprofits are nothing but attempts to get bored people jobs and tax money getting to people.
Right.

Speaker 3 Or just show up like Jose Andres with the food and everything else. Just help.

Speaker 3 Just start. Just for news, not noise, their tagline is we give you information, not a panic attack, which I thought was kind of good.

Speaker 3 I do, I will say, let me just say, aside from crazy Patrick Soon Shong, who's the thirstiest publisher in American history,

Speaker 3 who's weird and being saying nasty shit, his reporters,

Speaker 3 the reporters he employs, they're not his reporters, they fucking hate him, are doing an astonishing job in Los Angeles. The local stations are doing an astonishing.

Speaker 3 I've done a lot of watching on the internet. Great job.
A lot of information, a lot of this, this one tracker that they use, the watch app, has been like a godsend to people.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of helpful stuff online. And I have to say, the Washington Post has done a great job.
The New York Times has done, the Wall Street Journal has done a spectacular job.

Speaker 3 And so the coverage has been helpful, informational.

Speaker 3 You know, they have to cover the misinformation angle of it, but I have to say,

Speaker 3 good job. Firefighters, number one.
And you, of course, showed pictures of of the flyers who are flying over Los Angeles, dropping water, which are astonishing, beautiful, and also so spectacular.

Speaker 3 And it is about manliness. I'm sure there are some women flying those planes, by the way.
But let's go on a quick break because we're going to talk about that: what it is to be a man.

Speaker 3 And the people who are bitching and moaning are not men, let's just say. When we get back, Mark Zuckerberg explains why masculine energy is the future.

Speaker 3 Well, his kind, not, but we'll see what Scott has to say about this when we get back.

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Speaker 3 Scott, we're back. Mark Zuckerberg's MAGA makeover continues with a return

Speaker 3 visit to Mar-a-Lago last week and an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast, possibly the most embarrassing one I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 Over the course of a three-hour chat with Rogan, Zuckerberg bashed his own company's fact-checking process, the Biden administration's push for content moderation in Apple for lack of innovation.

Speaker 3 Amidst the news that Meta ended its DEI efforts, Zuckerberg lamented the rise of culturally neutered companies. Let's listen to him explain why masculine energy is so important.

Speaker 6 You know, I grew up, I have three sisters, no brothers.

Speaker 6 I have three daughters, no sons. So I'm like surrounded by girls and women like my whole life.
And it's like, I think,

Speaker 6 I don't know, there's just something,

Speaker 6 the kind of masculine energy, I think, is good. And obviously, you know, society has plenty of that.

Speaker 6 But I think corporate culture was really like trying to get away from it.

Speaker 3 And I do think that there's just something, it's like, I don't know,

Speaker 6 all these forms of energy are good. And I think having a culture that like celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive.

Speaker 3 It sounds like this guy has divorce vibes to me. I don't know if that's what all over the, like, what is he just looking how he juxtaposed them.

Speaker 3 I have three sisters, no brothers, three daughters, no sons. And then he doesn't say, this is great.
He says, and you know, we kind of need masculine energy again.

Speaker 3 It sounds like he feels like a fucking Ken doll or something's happened here. And that makes no sense.
I had forgotten what a bad thinker he was until I listened to this interview.

Speaker 3 I've interviewed him many times.

Speaker 3 As he's, I'm interviewing him most of the time. I'm thinking, this guy has no intellectual heft in any way or an ability to think through a clear thought now.
And he certainly doesn't anymore.

Speaker 3 So this was one big,

Speaker 3 I don't know, you know, pus ball of you need some therapy, dude. That's all I kept thinking when I was listening to it.
But Scott, have you been talking to Mark about masculine energy?

Speaker 3 And what would you say?

Speaker 2 First off, anyone who's seen Mark Zuckerberg's new wardrobe realize he's not bringing masculine energy. He's bringing...
Chechen Molly dealer. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 That's Jimmy Kimmel.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And that's the best description of

Speaker 2 his his look and feel. For the most part, look, I think masculinity and femininity are wonderful things.

Speaker 2 They're societal constructs that can help be great guideposts and aspirational behaviors for both men and women, not sequestered to either sex.

Speaker 2 But I'm not sure that it plays a role. I don't think companies should be gendered.

Speaker 2 I don't think it's a productive conversation.

Speaker 3 Shot, they're neutered. Oh, my God.
Fuck you, Lark. Go ahead.
Sorry.

Speaker 2 Here's on a very basic level.

Speaker 2 Masculinity means you're a protector, a provider, and a procreator, in my view. And let's just go to protection.
You add surplus value. You register complaints.
You give notice to people's lives.

Speaker 2 You attempt to help people more than the help you're getting. Without credit, you're willing to take risks.
You're willing to be aggressive.

Speaker 2 Your operating system, your default system, is that you protect people.

Speaker 2 And right now, Elon, Mark Zuckerberg,

Speaker 2 the most favorable thing you could say about him is he's bringing kind of pragmatic billionaire energy to his company.

Speaker 2 He's being very pragmatic around kissing the ass of Donald Trump, figuring out a way to spend moderationist censorship so he can get rid of it, take $5 billion that he was spending on moderation, put it all to the bottom line, which will increase his net worth by $15 to $20 billion.

Speaker 2 It has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity.

Speaker 2 Masculine energy, if you want to see masculine energy, look at the aerial firefighters who are former military, former civilian pilots or civilian pilots. They get in retrofitted DC-10s.

Speaker 2 They risk their lives. They bring incredible skill, risk, aggressiveness in the service of others.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he doesn't, he misses that part.

Speaker 2 Without the expectation of economic gain, or recognition. We don't know who these guys are.
Or women.

Speaker 3 Let's just say.

Speaker 2 It's probably a lot lot of women. I'm going to go out a limb here.
It's probably a lot of women handling a lot of the infrastructure and navigation.

Speaker 3 Sure. Well, look at Lauren Sanchez can fly a mean helicopter, right? I mean,

Speaker 2 but let's just talk about reality. I bet it's 98% plus male pilots, because here's the bottom line.
The majority of men,

Speaker 2 the majority of aerial flight training in the military has been sequestered to men, unfairly or fairly. Probably true.

Speaker 2 And quite frankly, and I'll go out on a limb here, such a you're, such a Twitter can get mad at me, men are more risk-aggressive, and in military situations that masculine energy that big dick energy really pays off because men but you're talking are more risk aggressive service of others i want you to take apart what how he said it the way he put together the women in his life without any praise and then sort of had this sort of you know this like

Speaker 3 shitty little stew of other things around companies with jet word he used neutered like everything is about the dick for this guy and i kept thinking small dick that's what i kept thinking the whole time who would talk like this

Speaker 3 who has girl daughters? Women can be aggressive. Welcome to me.
Mark Zuckerberg, just for everyone knows, ran away from me at most encounters we've had. Run, physically runs away from me.

Speaker 3 Like, he has no masculine of what he's talking about, but whatever. I mean, I do, I am aggressive, but that's another story.

Speaker 2 The base,

Speaker 2 you can't have

Speaker 2 true, in my opinion, masculine energy without having a great deal of femininity surrounding yourself.

Speaker 2 I thought Wall's best line in the debate was his advice to young men, men, was to surround yourself with smart women and listen to them. Because the things that make up masculinity surplus value,

Speaker 2 you create more tax revenue than you absorb. You listen to people complain more than you complain.
You're in amazing fucking physical shape.

Speaker 3 Why?

Speaker 2 So you can protect people.

Speaker 2 It all stems from wanting to protect people in your life.

Speaker 2 And also the thing that complements it, the thing that makes it true masculinity is being around, surrounded by smart people who create nuance, who create concern, who create care, and who create nurturing, usually women.

Speaker 2 The most masculine men in the world had very strong feminine influence. The most masculine men in the world have really wonderful relationships with their mother.
It's the first person

Speaker 2 they decide they would put themselves in harm's way to protect.

Speaker 3 All right. Can I put a little note in here? I think feminine energy is protective Like, I can't think of a stronger energy than a mother's energy, for example, for Mike.
I would kill people.

Speaker 3 I'd fucking get, I kill people.

Speaker 2 So when you're an assman, if you approach a bear, you're just like, make sure it doesn't have cubs around you. Right, exactly.

Speaker 3 So I don't, the fact that he's defining this by masculine and female, I don't even know what he's talking about.

Speaker 3 It has no role. It's like, are you a good person and a strong protector of people, male or female, Mark? There's no such thing.
It sounds like he just literally has been such a beta his whole life.

Speaker 3 And let me tell you, Mark Zuckerberg is a beta, no matter how you slice it, who wants to be an alpha. I'm an alpha, Mark.
You're a beta. Just so you know, that's how it's going for you.

Speaker 3 But you have to clothe yourself and you have to do your fighting and you have to shoot, you know, buffalo and you got to cook meat. This is all such bullshit cosplaying about what a man is.

Speaker 3 It's, it's now become, you are, what's interesting is someone said, I'm so glad we're back to hating Mark Zuckerberg. I do not hate him.
I find him pathetic. That's absolutely absolutely true.

Speaker 3 But it's just, I don't even understand how someone could just, it feels like the midlife crisis of, like I thought Jeff Bezos was having one.

Speaker 3 This guy is in the middle of something that's personal and has nothing to do with it. But it has implications that are larger.
And let me go into this.

Speaker 3 We're learning about some of the new guidelines or lack thereof. Thank you, Joel Kaplan.
I'm not going to call you a piece of shit, but that's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 3 With this hateful conduct policy, statements that are permitted, including saying gays aren't normal and trans people aren't real. they're mentally ill, calling trans people it.

Speaker 3 Meta-employees are voicing their concerns about these moderation changes. One employee described it as total chaos internally.
Another,

Speaker 3 dozens of people, one of whom I'm going to have on,

Speaker 3 said they're incandescently angry about what the need to do this is.

Speaker 3 I don't think Mark will change. He's gotten permission from his new Igor, Joel Kaplan, to do so.

Speaker 3 They're not only getting rid of DEI, that is a debate to have. Amazon, McDonald's, and others are pulling back.

Speaker 3 But at the same time, Apple's board, however, is recommending that voters vote no on the shareholder proposal to eliminate companies' DEI programs.

Speaker 3 They've said this is an important part of our culture. Costco is also pushing back against the anti-DEA, DEI efforts.

Speaker 3 I'm going to play something that I did in an interview with Laverne Cox, activist and actor.

Speaker 2 I've been advising that I have, I know I have very close friends who have trans kids. If your child can be stealth I would say be stealth

Speaker 6 I would say that because it's just too unsafe I don't want

Speaker 2 I don't want us to be killed I don't want us to be murdered I don't want parents to be taken away from their kids if you can live stealth it's safety stealth has always been about safety

Speaker 3 That was highly depressing to me because I used to live in stealth and it's a terrible place to be. But I'd love your thoughts on what's happening here within this company in particular in that.

Speaker 3 And then of course attacking Apple.

Speaker 3 No, at Facebook, all of them at once moving in all these areas that are not welcomed by a lot of people and is the minimum they can do to be, have some safety on their platform without letting people not be people.

Speaker 3 But the only thing they targeted was LGBTQ stuff, pretty much.

Speaker 2 I have less sympathy for the employees because get another fucking job.

Speaker 3 I just, okay.

Speaker 2 If you're that outraged, if you really feel you're working for a company that is targeting you based on your gender or sexual orientation and you are probably one of the most skilled employable people in the world stop your fucking virtue signaling and go get another job all right okay what about why they're doing this at meta right now well we know why they're doing it this is a guy who would his mother for a nickel oh wow this is

Speaker 2 this is pretty

Speaker 2 Okay, when I needed to be in the good graces of the Trump and the Biden administration and not have any regulation, I announced a moderating team, moderation, billions of investment in moderation.

Speaker 2 And then when the new Trump administration comes in and is very much says calls moderation censorship, and I need to kiss his ass, I put his friend on the board, and I start calling moderation censorship.

Speaker 2 Mark Zuckerberg, I'll give it to him for this. He is totally predictable.
He is all about shareholder value. And quite frankly, and I hate to say this, he's doing his job.
We're not doing ours.

Speaker 2 To have some semblance of a democracy that is based on information, that has fact-checking, that pursues truth without favor, instead of allowing monopolies to develop such that two-thirds of our information comes from a misinformation Lollapalooza.

Speaker 2 One of the core tenets of America is you get to love who you want to love. You get to live the life you want to lead.
Does that mean we should have people born as males in girls' sports?

Speaker 2 I don't think so. But does it mean you should have a media platform where two-thirds of America get their news, be able to disparage them and create conspiracy theory that puts them in physical harm?

Speaker 2 That's about as anti-masculine, much less anti-American, as you can imagine. So

Speaker 2 I can predict everything Mark Zuckerberg's going to do. What gets the share price from $712 to $712.01?

Speaker 2 And the reason we have an operating system called capitalism is such that there are individuals that are like that. Full body contact, lie, cheat to get more shareholder value.

Speaker 2 We actually need some of that. What we also need is a regulatory body that says, no, you can't pour mercury into the river to get a cost advantage.

Speaker 2 And no, you can't spread hate, even though it's a fantastic business model.

Speaker 2 I don't even fault Zuckerberg. Yeah,

Speaker 2 I don't like the man. I think he's a terrible role model for young people.
But

Speaker 2 we're the ones at fault here.

Speaker 2 We have let this monster evolve in our midst because it makes a lot of money and because the Senate minority leader, Charles Schumer, Daughter, used to work at Meta and because they probably help us track down and kill spies and because they create a ton of money for shareholders and because they weaponize femininity in the form of Cheryl Sandberg to pretend she gives a flying fuck about gender in the workplace such that they think, oh, they're such nice people and they just need to do better.

Speaker 3 And they're proud of their progress.

Speaker 2 You can't have capitalism unless there is an operating system that keeps this in check and taxes people such that we can reinvest in the greatest innovation in history in the middle class and control the emissions and control the pesticides.

Speaker 3 Can I get away, Justin, shareholder? What do you think is happening to these men? They're not just shareholder. There's something else happening.

Speaker 2 I can't fucking figure it out.

Speaker 3 I can tell you a dozen people who were utterly normal who send me crazy shit about trans people, about vaccines, about all these people who are completely normal. And now it's beyond shareholder.

Speaker 3 It's something else.

Speaker 2 Should the first executive action of President Biden be around trans athletes and wait three years for any policy on immigration? No.

Speaker 2 The Democrats have invited this bullshit by being hyper-focused on niche issues that don't affect that many people instead of just saying we have laws to protect them or we're going to enforce the laws.

Speaker 2 At the same time, the far right deciding to find this small group of people and demonize them and terrorize them. That, I mean, one is stupid.

Speaker 2 What the far left have done has been tone deaf and politically stupid. What the far right has done is just inhuman.
It's just not, you don't treat people that way.

Speaker 3 But why have all these all tech, all altech, like except if they work for W, the Worldwide Wrestling Organization or something like that, something has happened to so many of them, and their love of conspiracy theories.

Speaker 3 It's like they, they've, they've smoked their own dope a little too long and it's laced with fentanyl or something.

Speaker 2 I think there's still people,

Speaker 2 there's Mark Benioff, there's Brian Chesky is offering places for people to stay.

Speaker 3 There's something at the top here of these, you know, this Troy.

Speaker 2 It's the loudest ones.

Speaker 2 I don't think it's most of them.

Speaker 3 I think it's the loudest ones. All right.
I've heard that.

Speaker 2 And I don't even think Bezos has embraced conspiracy theory. What I just just don't get, I just don't get

Speaker 2 is I have 1%,

Speaker 2 0.1% of the wealth of these guys.

Speaker 2 And I have enough money that I can live an amazing life and like try and finally after 45 years of being an uber capitalist and focusing on three things, me, me, and fucking me, I can start actually like being a real man.

Speaker 3 You are a real man.

Speaker 2 Like, where are the men here?

Speaker 2 Why would you aggregate $110 billion if you couldn't say, no, I'm not going to give money to your inaugural campaign?

Speaker 2 You want to put me in jail?

Speaker 3 Try it, boss.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 2 You want me to let unfettered hate on my platform? No, I don't do that. I protect people.
I have a pair of fucking testicles. I protect people.

Speaker 2 I don't get it.

Speaker 3 What I don't get, and this is the one part, and this is a personal message for me, is

Speaker 3 all of you have children. And Mark, you have three daughters.
You are not a good parent right now to your daughters. What you're doing is irreprehensible to your children.
And I hope

Speaker 3 you're going to regret what you're doing right now and the words that are coming out of your mouth for reasons. I don't know.
Get off social media, get off of interviews.

Speaker 3 Everything you say seems stupider and stupider. And

Speaker 3 it's shameful what you're doing, especially. You know, if you had sons, I think it's shameful, but it's particularly shameful when you have three daughters.
It It just is. I just, I can't even begin.

Speaker 3 And Elon must forget it, how he talks about trans people as a trans daughter. Just

Speaker 3 focus on your families, maybe a little more, and less on your, on your gold chains and your haircuts and whatever the fuck else you want to do. Anyway, we'll take one more quick break.

Speaker 3 We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Speaker 3 Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like to go first?

Speaker 2 Sure, I'll go first. I just have a win.
My win is the aerial firefighters.

Speaker 2 This is these pilots risk their lives flying at low altitudes in smoky, turbulent conditions, often in mountainous terrain to help protect communities and natural resources.

Speaker 2 Their work here is both highly skilled and incredibly dangerous. You want to talk about masculine energy?

Speaker 2 Incredibly skilled, highly dangerous work in the service of others without any expectation of recognition. They have air tankers, retrofitted DC-10s.
I love those converted airliners.

Speaker 2 I used to go look at those at LAX with my father when I was a kid. C-130 Hercules, Bombardier CL-415s, which are amphibious water scoopers.
Those things are beautiful the way they

Speaker 2 hover, they skim across the water. Helicopter pilots in the Sikorsky S-70 Firehawks or Bell 212s.
Where there probably are more female pilots is in the spotter and

Speaker 2 lead planes that help identify and spot the exact location for the retardants to be expectorated.

Speaker 2 The wildfire operations coordinators, there's a ton of people figuring out how to make this successful and load the retardants and use AI and incredibly complex navigation systems.

Speaker 2 Can you imagine how dangerous it is to have all of these aircraft in and around LA flying at 200 miles an hour? It's amazing they haven't hit each other. Most of them have a military background.

Speaker 2 Many aerial firefighter pilots are former military aviators, particularly from the Air Force or Navy, given their experience with large aircraft and challenging conditions.

Speaker 2 A lot have civilian experience. Others come from civilian aviation backgrounds with additional specialized training and low-altitude, high-stress flight operations.

Speaker 3 May I interject? There's a movie that you will like, Scott. It's called Always, and it's with Richard Dreyfus and Holly Hunter, along with Audrey Hepburn.

Speaker 3 And it's a 1989 film about an aerial firefighter who risks his life in fighting forest fires. And

Speaker 3 you should watch it. He does not make it, but it's all about that.
And it's a wonderful movie. John Goodman's in it.
I think you would, you need to watch that tonight if you can.

Speaker 3 It's called Always, 1989. I love this movie.
It's a wonderful movie.

Speaker 3 And it's about just this topic. And there's a lot of technical stuff in it about aerial firefighting, which is really

Speaker 3 incredibly hard, astonishingly risk-taking, and for the service of others, as you said.

Speaker 2 And then they require specific certification.

Speaker 2 The pilots must meet strict Federal Aviation Administration or the FAA or equivalent regulatory standards and complete training for water, retardant drops, fire behavior.

Speaker 3 Yep. They test it.
Emergency maneuvers.

Speaker 2 And I'm telling you, my prediction, I'll go to a prediction, the Pacific Palisades in five years is going to be one of the nicest neighborhoods in America. America.

Speaker 2 When they rebuild, I mean, A, it's a gorgeous, I used to go to Palisades High School when I was at uni for basketball games. The Palisades is spectacular.

Speaker 3 Spectacular.

Speaker 2 And when you have the ability, this is an opportunity for Los Angeles to not only rethink what happened.

Speaker 3 And be mixed use would be great because there were mobile homes and middle-class homes and really rich homes there. That was what I found really.
I mean, they all prices went up for all of them.

Speaker 3 But boy, was that a mixed environment. Didn't you find that? That was always surprising to me.

Speaker 2 Anyways, my win are the aerial, the brave aerial firefighters and the support staff. They are really doing just outstanding work.
And it's also,

Speaker 2 it's just such a, when you think about what is great about our species, our ability to cooperate, our technology, and in the face of all that technology and prosperity, there are a lot of people who still decide to take very aggressive risks.

Speaker 2 They could use that certification to fly 787s between here and New York and make a good living. And instead, they get in a fucking plane and hover

Speaker 2 at 240 miles an hour at an altitude of 10 feet, expectorate this shit in an exact area, and then pull up with about a one-second margin of error, and nobody even meets these people.

Speaker 2 No one has any idea. Anyways, that's my win.

Speaker 3 Can you please watch this movie? It's all about how they do it and how they do drops and how they train drops. And it's really, I know so much about Aero Firefighting from this movie.

Speaker 3 You will love it and you will cry at the end like a little, little, little lady.

Speaker 3 Well, like a little man, because men cry, everybody. Masculine energy is about crying, too.

Speaker 3 My win.

Speaker 3 is the Justice Department has released a report correcting the flawed record on the Tulsa race massacre of 1921.

Speaker 3 I am so thrilled they did it before Trump got in office because he would have quashed it.

Speaker 3 Confirming it was not just mob violence, but a coordinated military style attack to ruin what was one of the wealthiest black communities in the U.S. I read read the whole report.

Speaker 3 This is the topic. This

Speaker 3 incident was so hidden for so long, and it's gotten a lot of press in the recent years. And there's been some cases about reparations and everything else.
But what happened here was heinous.

Speaker 3 This was a thriving, economically smart, fast-forward,

Speaker 3 wealthiest black communities in the U.S. that they decimated.
And I'll tell you, the pictures look, they burnt it down. They burnt it down.
And it was over an

Speaker 3 unclear situation between a black man and a white woman. And obviously, which is all these things start like that.
But I recommend reading it.

Speaker 3 And I commend the Justice Department for releasing the report, especially now

Speaker 3 before that. So that's, you know, my win.

Speaker 3 I think my fail is these billionaires. And they're, you know what?

Speaker 3 You have the most money of anyone in the history of the planet, and you're miserable people, and you don't bring anything but misery on people. You do not help people

Speaker 3 stop, you know, peacocking around.

Speaker 3 You are tiny, small men right now. And you couldn't be smaller.
And you have the opportunity

Speaker 3 when Elon Musk attacked Mackenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, for being a danger or Melinda Gates for being a danger. That's what they do.
You know what Mackenzie Scott did? She doubled her giving.

Speaker 3 She gibbled.

Speaker 3 That's what masculine energy is, or whatever they want to call it.

Speaker 2 And by the way, that is masculine energy.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's correct.

Speaker 2 And I always feel as if I need an asterisk here.

Speaker 2 A lot of men, including myself and my closest friends, demonstrate wonderful femininity, nurturing, more thoughtful, more measured, more protected.

Speaker 2 And a lot of women demonstrate fantastic masculine energy.

Speaker 2 The only kind of caveat I would put to what you're saying is there are a lot of billionaires in LA and in tech who are trying to do the right thing.

Speaker 2 Right away, Brian Chesky came out with a program that said, if you need a place to live, go on our platform or a place to stay and we're going to help you.

Speaker 3 Yep, for free. He did it before.
He did that before in many other cases.

Speaker 2 It's the opportunists. And opportunists go up and down the income stack.
But when you start saying DEI is a die or asking the governor to resign because he's a threat to your vice president in 2028

Speaker 2 and creating conspiracy theory and letting conspiracy run amok. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to weaponize or take over your affairs.

Speaker 3 You can take it. Let me just say, you know what you should do, Mark? Get off fucking Joe Rogan and write a check.
Just write a check. 100%

Speaker 3 shit. Just write a check.
Shut up. We don't need any more of your outfits or your chains.
Write a check.

Speaker 3 Keep your mouth shut and stop being such an endless pathetic, whatever you happen to be. Write a check.
That's what we want from you. And that's all we want.
Otherwise, keep it to yourself.

Speaker 3 Go get a therapist and apologize to your daughters

Speaker 3 as soon as possible. Anyway, that's the show.
We'll be back on Friday for more. The indignant podcast, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 I know, but let me just tell you, I am, because I have masculine fucking energy and I don't like people taking it to me. I agree.
Which one of us has more masculine

Speaker 3 energy? You are all right.

Speaker 2 That's an easy one. It's the woman who stayed here all weekend.
It was the squatter here. Literally.
I see brood aftershave and like armpit hair everywhere in my bathroom right now.

Speaker 3 Scott will cry at the drop of a fucking hat, and I do not. So, let's just say we know of what we speak here, and we represent it.

Speaker 3 And those of us with masculine energy would like you all to shut the phone up. That's what I would say.
Read us out.

Speaker 2 Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Margus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Ms. Severio, and Dan Shulan.

Speaker 2 Nishak Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 2 You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Speaker 2 My big unlock this week was recognizing calling and asking if you can help. It's not the right thing to do.
It's just helping, just doing it. Send money.

Speaker 2 Here's the picture of the room that I want you to come stay at out of harm's way. I am taking your kids.
Drop off food. Don't ask to help.
Just help.