Apple's Vision Pro, Chris Licht Outlook, and Friend of Pivot Ben Terris

23:43Anyway, enjoy yourself with your outfit on tonight and we'll move on from there. Anyway, let's get to our first big story.

23:55New T-Dales on the turmoil inside CNN, a 15 ,000 word Atlantic profile. It was a beautifully written piece by Tim Alberta. It was very fair of CNN's CEO. Chris Lick portrays him as isolated stress at odds with his employees, prone to quoting, saying things stupid in quotes. It's the latest black eye for Licht following a year of low ratings, talent issues and fervor around the Trump town hall. The profile depicts Licht as a little paranoid. He may have reason to worry. And this week, CNN announced David Levy to join the company as chief operating officer. He's a close confidant of David Zaslav.

24:30I know David. It's not a good sign for Chris for this to happen. And they were calling him bringing in the pain sponge, making the reference to succession and Tom Womganz. This is something. This was some piece. And then today he got up in front of people and apologized and was properly humble, I think, saying he became the center of the action and he should not have been doing so many chit-chats. And he did one with me as focused on results and their world, which he's been doing, apparently spends a lot of time. I think the most, there were so many devastating quotes in this thing. One was with his trainer where he was, I think he was trying to make a joke.

25:08He's a super awkward guy saying, lifting something and said, I bet Jeff Zucker couldn't do this, which was his predecessor. Probably shouldn't have mentioned Jeff Zucker's name ever. What do you think? Profits are down. That's the most important issue. 750 million down from a billion during the Zucker days. Ratings down considerably. terribly the nikki haley one uh didn't make much news although i thought jake tapper did a pretty good job at it trump town hall didn't move the needles uh only brought in three million viewers i don't know what do you think well so market dynamics will always trump individual performance and if you look at cable news right now whether it's fox whether it's cnn there's no profiles on how great people are because everything sucks i mean yeah across the board yeah okay Okay.

25:52CNN's viewership dropped 60 % in March alone. So that's down, I think, 25 % year on year. Primetime, they're only getting 473 ,000 viewers. And so there's just no getting about it. They're the slowest tortoise. Everyone's doing terribly here. The context and the atmospherics here are such that it makes for really easy hit pieces. And I don't think this was a hit piece. This was not a hit piece. I don't think this was a hit piece, but it definitely really tore him apart. And I've spent a little bit of time with Jeff Zucker. I think he's incredibly impressive. I think that I would argue Jeff Zucker right now is probably the most reliable media executive who can create hundreds of millions in EBITDA in a difficult environment that isn't working for a media company.

26:44Yeah, it is kind of amazing. And but having said that, I've spoken with Chris and he's the guy, he didn't fire me directly, but technically I don't even know it was his decision. But, you know, when my programmer CNN Plus got unplugged, but I found Chris to be a thoughtful, you know, decent guy. He explained to me a strategy and a strategy made sense to me. But what I worry about is that I just hope and I've always thought there's I've always saying there's opportunity in the middle. And whatever that opportunity is, CNN is not seeing it. Either they're not executing against it or it's just not working.

27:22Well, it's a bad business and he's got a bad morale and he's been at the center of it. He said off the cuff things. I agree. I think he can be very thoughtful. Although several times relatively recently, he's done things that I'm like, can you stop talking? He needs to stop talking, you know, when he did the Don Lemon firing. And I think media reporters have decided to feast on this guy. And by the way, he kind of deserves it. So it's not even like I feel particularly bad for him. He's a big boy. To embed a reporter of such quality in that organization for a year, I don't even know why he thought that was a good idea.

28:04I just don't know. There was no upside to that. And he talks too much about himself and his ideas versus the company. So when the New York Times called and said, Scott, we want to do a profile on you, and I gave them full access, you would have counseled me not to do it? Not for a year. This was a year. This guy was like following me for two or three months. Oh, really? Well, I think that's different. I think that's different. I think CNN has such attention brought to it that it's almost impossible not to fail, especially he seems to have lack of self-awareness. That's really what it was, right?

28:38He doesn't know that people. I get more calls from CNN people unhappy, and I don't even get it why I do. And I think that he's leaving from someone who was beloved, beloved. I'll tell you why they're unhappy. I remember going to the airport, and I got a cab. This is back in L.A. in the 90s when you took a cab to the airport. It felt like Apollo 13 reentering the atmosphere when it went over 40 miles an hour, and it was like$110 to get to the airport. This is before Uber. and the driver immediately just started griping and complaining about dirty politics. He used to be a pilot and he flew like Constellations, which were a prop plane and like the future just outsourced him.

29:21Cable television is you're literally, these guys, they don't recognize it. When you talk to these anchors, they're pilots for a 747. So they have a lot of prestige, but it's for Pan Am Airlines in the eighties and their days are numbered. I don't even watch live TV anymore. I don't, you know, what's interesting, Kara, I don't know if you, same way. And I realize this is pulse marketing, but I find the same is true of the young people in my company. I don't even turn on my TV. The only time my TV goes on in my household is for my kids playing FIFA. We don't even turn on the TV. Yeah, I definitely watch most things streaming.

29:56I watch most things streaming. I do watch Stephanie's show. I do, because I like news at the end of the day. And I think she does a very fair job of it. So I tend to watch that one, But I'll watch clips of her on my computer. I don't. Yeah. They're high prestige and they're angry. They're angry that they're no longer like the stars and getting ladies leave because they had a pilot's uniform that said Pan Am on it. The bottom line is that this industry is in massive structural decline. Yeah. You know, and still it's still relevant. I think these are still relevant politically. I think, again, getting back to this piece, he just shouldn't have had.

30:29one of the things that happened, he argued that CNN should be home for the absolute truth. But in the Trump Town Hall, one of the— Who's truth, white man? Yeah, who's truth, white man? During the Trump Town Hall, one of the lieutenants phoned the control room to remove a chyron about the phrase sexual assault. He denied there any deal to put pro-Trump pundits on after the panel, after that terrible disaster. And then when asked if his lieutenants made a deal without his knowledge, he says anything's possible. It was just like, oh, stop talking. I just kept thinking, oh, stop talking, please stop talking.

30:59You know what I mean? Like, and I got an interview with him and I thought, good for me, not good for Chris Ligt at the time. Memo to anyone who gets a call from Kara. Yeah, no, some people, yes, that's good. Like, yeah, I think, but in this case, I was like, you need to do something before you talk about doing something, especially without a knowledge of, with the knowledge that this Jeff Zucker is so well liked. I mean, it just, he just didn't seem to, read the room is what I kept thinking about this guy. And in this case, it's really bad. We'll see. We'll see if he stays. You're right. I don't know if it matters that much.

31:29Interestingly, Chuck Todd is leaving Meet the Press. Chuck Todd. Chuck Todd at the end of the summer after nearly 10 years on the job. Kristen Welker, who we both think have great regard for it, NBC's chief Washington correspondent, will take the role. You know, we'll see. Again, another Sunday news shows. Wow. Meet the Press is the longest running one, but that might be like being the oldest wagon train. So I don't know. My first response is I love Margaret Brennan. I think she's, I just think she's so good. CBS. I think she does a great job of just, the story's never about her. She just asks very pointed, smart.

32:05She's the definition of forceful yet dignified, which is, I think, what you want in a Sunday morning house. I think Chuck Todd does a great job. I think the guy before him, David Gregory, I think Meet the Press has always had really, I love Tim Russert. I think they do a really good job of producing really good, and I think he's had a great 10-year run. I hope he feels good about himself. I think he did a great job, and I hope he goes on to, you know, great things. I love Meet the Press. I think it's a fantastic show. So you do watch that show. You don't or you don't? Yeah, but I watch it online.

32:35Online. I watch it on my computer late at night. Late at night, right later, yeah. It's interesting to figure out. Yeah, I don't think they're – they used to be so relevant, so, so relevant immediately, and I don't think they run the cycle anymore. I think it's hard. All this TV stuff is super – it's kind of good that you're not on CNN Plu right now, I would say. It would be a suck up of your time and I'd probably have a hard time getting your attention. Well, you realize Chris Licht having a conversation with me probably means he's going to be fired in the next 90 days. I am literally typhoid Mary when it comes to anyone in television.

33:05That is true. Don't get near me. Don't get near you. Don't get near me. Don't get near you. Anyway, we'll see. Chris, sorry. Sorry, but really stop talking. Really. I can't believe I'm saying this to some of us. Stop talking. Let's see. Let's see if you make it. I don't know what you know. You might be presiding over Pan Am, as Scott says. And by the way, for those young people, that was a very sexy airline back in the day, but no longer. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, tech companies are gearing up for 2024, but they've learned their lessons. No, probably not. Also, we'll speak to a friend of Pivot, Ben Terrace, about the strange personalities of Washington's elite.

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36:01Scott, we're back as Chris Christie and Mike Pence prepare to jump into the race. Tech companies are hurrying to get their election policies straight. This week, Instagram reinstated the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who's launched a long shot campaign to primary President Biden. Kennedy's Instagram account has been suspended since 2021 for spreading misinformation about COVID vaccines. And so is his organization. Meanwhile, Elon Musk says he'll host Kennedy in a live audio chat, like the one with Ron DeSantis. Twitter's former CEO, Jack Dorsey, thoughts that's a good idea. There's all kinds of things happening.

36:32You know, they're all sort of loosening up their rules. And then today, our friend Alex Stamos just posted that child online abuse is really problematic on Twitter. And of course, they've been cut off like other academics to study it. So Facebook had made rule changes after Trump's tweets broke the rules. And then so they're going back to where they were. They're going back to where they were, essentially. They're just letting them back on and hoping for the best. Well, no, they'll pretend, they'll backfill reasons for why they're going to put candidates on such that they can collect money from there.

37:04I mean, RFK Jr. will raise somewhere between$50 million and a billion dollars, and 110 % of it will go to media. So what do you know? They're going to find excuses to let them back on their platforms. I don't, you know, to me, vaccine denial is, I just find it, I understand the dissenters' voice is really important. To me, there's just so much data around this. I have trouble. For me, it's disqualifying. I think that misinformation that he spread, the only thing that RFK's candidacy shows me is there's such a vacuum and a void and a need for an alternative on the left to battle test the Democratic.

37:48you know, who should be the Democratic nominee, because I think he is woefully underqualified. And but because because everyone's falling in line behind Biden, and I understand that there's just this huge void of anyone credible to to present an alternative. But him going back on, they'll say anything, come up with any rationale for why someone with a big checkbook should be allowed back. Remember, all of a sudden, Jack Dorsey grew a pair 11 days before Biden's inauguration to kick Trump off the platform. Oh, Trump's no longer spending money on media. We have found a backbone. Anyway, your thoughts?

38:25You know, I just think they're just, they just don't want to bother anymore. They just don't care. They don't care. I mean, this APA cutoff for academic groups on Twitter, which is not a surprise. It happened May 31st. You know, it'll be hard for groups that are studying abuse on, say, Twitter or anywhere else to especially Twitter in the election cycle. Twitter, two people just left, two major people, Ella Irwin and another executive left Twitter who was in charge of this. This means all these countries will be able to run rampant on these platforms. And I think Facebook has cut its team, but it's still there.

39:03And then something that people don't realize is Republicans in Congress, I just was sent a note by someone, are trying to intimidate any academic or NGO groups from studying election disinformation. Subpoenas all over the place from a lot of things, including going after students. I think it's, they're going to, the Republicans are trying to shut down any serious election misinformation studying by academics. And these platforms are letting these platforms become rife with this kind of abuse. So I don't know if they matter anymore, like cable news, like maybe it doesn't matter. What do you think?

39:35I've said it. I think the biggest threat of AI over the last 12 months, I guess it's 18 months, will be generative AI tested, manicured, bulletproofed, leveraged misinformation that these platforms will wring their hands and pretend to be concerned and not do anything about because they're going to make so much money. Can you imagine how much money is going to be spent online by various parties and entities leading up to the election? Yes. Yes, it's going to be a disaster. It's going to be an absolute, like I said, I don't think we need an AI pause. I think we need a social media pause on election information 90 days before the election.

40:20I think that would really, really help. And also, just to be very transparent, you and I are going to Cannes. Every year I go, I speak to this group of like hundreds of CMOs from the biggest organizations in the world. The only question I know I will get is, what would your advice be to CMOs around how to build their brands, right? And my only piece of advice right now that I'm certain of is the worst place you could advertise would be Twitter. You're advertising on a platform that is subscale, shows no ROI, but you risk being shamed and insulted by the CEO or the old CEO if you stop advertising.

40:56And you might be next to really objectionable, awful. You said something. You got into it with someone and a person with a huge following, huge following. Yeah. Called you the C word. Yep. And I'm like, OK, Unilever, do you really want to be next to that shit? And by the way, the person you were in the argument with didn't say didn't weigh in and say, hey, tone it down. That's the platform you want to advertise. Yeah, I think the sexual abuse stuff is really I mean, I apparently Linda's starting in a couple of days. Linda Yaccarino, although I assume she got out of their contract issues. Best of luck.

41:32Like this child sexual abuse stuff material is very serious and they have nobody working there anymore. I don't know what I think she's look again, very well liked people will give her the benefit of the doubt. But first of all, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work right as a platform and being next to anything. They've taken every single possible way to protect advertisers. Let's take this away from a societal way. This is a bad place for advertisers for right now. And if you have all this stuff going on of trying to stop these people from studying very significant issues like child sexual abuse.

42:07Wow, that's not really I don't know what I would. They have asked her, they've given her a very prestigious position. They've said, we want you to captain a huge prestigious vessel here. The problem is it's the Titanic after it hit an iceberg called Elon Musk. And this is nothing. The best you can hope for is to be seen as someone who couldn't overcome these odds. Because their year-on-year advertising revenues are down 59%, something people don't talk about because he creates so many sideshows. I challenge anybody to name a company that does over a billion dollars in revenue that has ever seen a 60 % year-on-year decline in revenues.

42:48Yeah. He's saying they weren't, but now these documents show they are. And these people are trying to keep them away from white supremacists. And now all the people have left. The people who left this week was over this trans video, what is a woman that Elon then promoted. Of course. Of course. Name any company. I can't name any billion-dollar-plus company that has seen a destruction in their business revenues at the hands of new leadership like Elon Musk. And then they cheer him on. That's my whole – good job. You're just not privy to his unfolding genius. Okay, still waiting. Linda, we wish you luck if you're starting this week.

43:28Come and visit us in Cannes. We're happy to put you on stage and we can talk about this. As we've said, we've invited her many times. I think you're right. Let's just focus on the business story. 59 % ad sales down. All these companies have gotten, have gutted these election observers or the people that work on this. Twitter's gotten rid of them completely. Facebook has significantly less people. They've just given up. They've given up and AI is here. Yay for democracy. Yay for democracy. This is crazy. It's just, they just decided to give up. They've just decided to give up. There's a certain purity if they just came out and said, you know, we don't care.

44:03We don't care. Well, they do say that. I'm not going to publish a book on gender balance. I'm not going to hire former British politicians to say we're proud of the progress. Just say, you know, we don't care. We're a for-profit. It's your job to regulate us. Until then, we're going to pour mercury into the river and we're going to sell talcum powder that gives people cancer or painkillers that addicts people. That's our job. We're a for-profit company. I don't care. People, they don't care. They don't care about your safety. Honey badger just don't give a shit. I think that would be more honest.

44:31That is correct. We wish they would say that. It's not our job. Oh, well, we'll just let all things fly. And guess what? You're going to continue to spend money despite the fact that we're literally ripping at the fabric of democracy because you guys in Washington can't get your act together. Speaking of which, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

44:53Benjamin Terrace is a staff writer for The Washington Post, one of my favorite writers there. I have many favorite writers there. And the author of The Big Break, The Gamblers, Party Animals, and True Believers Trying to win in Washington while America loses its mind. Welcome, Ben. We were just talking about some of the stuff going on on Twitter, the ad sales down, them cutting off some people looking into election misinformation. A lot of the others have cut back on it. So America is losing its mind at the behest of some of these tech companies. But I'd love you to focus in on the Washington part of it, because it doesn't seem like Washington does much about it.

45:26So let's talk a little bit about what you think has happened? Because you have the, it's called the big break. Explain that for people. Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me on. I have a book coming out called the big break. And the idea is that Washington has gone through a big break, right? The country has gone through a big break. That's sort of the Donald Trump years. And also there's a whole bunch of people who are trying to take advantage of this, this new frontier of Washington that's gone through this, you know, this moment, and they're searching for their own big breaks, right?

45:58And I think that the thing that I've found in reporting on this for two years is that people are just trying to figure it out. And the place is broken, the people are broken, the politics is broken, confidence is broken, relationships are breaking. It's a place that's just not really, you know, set up for this moment. And this moment meaning that Trump has broken everything, although maybe it was just destined to break. Maybe it was that brittle that someone came along and this is who he is. You know, what we is may be who we are in a lot of ways, people think. Yeah. I mean, first of all, Washington was not in good shape before Donald Trump.

46:33That's what allowed him to become president, right? There's a lot of things that he revealed to be true about Washington, not just that he changed the place. He definitely did change it, but there's a lot of things that were true even before he came, you know, ideological malleability, a bubble atmosphere, you know, showmanship, and all these things kind of allowed Trump to succeed. But he, you know, made it worse, right? It's the same thing, but more in a lot of ways. And I just think that, you know, he is back, you know, possibly returning to Washington, and the place is just really not prepared.

47:11It's not like they have set up a bunch of safeguards that's going to make it so it's a lot different this time around. Right. And also it's bathed in a sauce of social media, too, because you can't leave that part of it out, like the idea of constant, persistent news, much of which is untrue. Of course. I mean, Donald Trump takes advantage of that, right? In 2016, when he was running, there was a lot of talk about how he sucked all the oxygen out of the room. And part of that was because the press really did want to hold him accountable. They wanted to show all the things that he was doing that were norm-breaking and racist.

47:45And, you know, there was a real need to cover him. But he also took advantage of that, right? If he was the only person being talked about, then he could continue being talked about forever and he could kind of glide into the White House. And I think a lot of people in Washington have learned that lesson, right? You look around at the people who are in power now and rising to power, and you can kind to see a little Trumpiness, right, about the way that they use social media to always be in the conversation. Folks who normally wouldn't be considered, you know, serious legislators or serious players in Washington suddenly are.

48:19And it's because they're following a playbook that at least worked for Donald Trump to a degree. And I think a lot of people think it's going to work for them as well. Yeah, nice to meet you, Ben. The thing that really caught me in the intro was the partying in D.C. Can you talk about how, in your view, partying has changed in D.C.? Like, where, what, and who? How has it changed? And he'd like to go to some. I'm not sure you would. I mean... Yeah, and how to, if it's any good. Actually, it sounds pretty lame. I would guess it's the lamest partying in the world, but I don't know. So illuminate us.

48:56Yeah, I mean, for me, it's not fun, right? I mean, going to Washington parties feels like work in a way. But so the book that I have does start with parties because parties are an important part of Washington. There's a lot of soft power is what people like to talk about. It's where you make connections. It's where you talk yourself up. It's where you talk up policy proposals or you try to eventually fundraise from the people that you're around. And so to start this book, which is about the post-Trump Washington, possibly the pre-Trump Washington, trying to figure out what's changed about it and what remains the same.

49:29I go to two parties to kind of begin this journey. One is a Christmas party for a progressive named Leah Hunt Hendricks, who is the granddaughter of H.L. Hunt, who was the richest man in the world when he died, an oil tycoon. But she's this progressive fundraiser trying to kind of unwind a lot of the populist and right-wing policies that her grandfather cared about. And the other party I went to, to get the complete opposite view of Washington, was at Matt and Mercedes Schlapp's house. They live in the largest - The Schlapps, yeah. They live in the largest house on Mansion Drive in Virginia, a house they were able to purchase because they were Trump loyalists who leaned way, way in to supporting Trump.

50:12And Matt's lobbying shop skyrocketed because he was a Trump insider. And the important part of that for me was to kind of get a sense of how people were acting in Washington in this moment. Trump was gone, but he was maybe on the rise. Biden was trying to make things normal again, but clearly nothing is ever going to be normal again, right? The new normal in Washington is not normal. And so, yeah, it's weird. It's really weird. And I wanted to get a sense of, you know, how these players were taking advantage of this new moment, taking advantage of it for themselves, whether that's financial, you know, how are we going to make a living now that Donald Trump is gone?

50:53Or ideologically, right? If you care about the direction of the country, and a lot of people, especially at the, you know, the progressive party really had policy proposals that they wanted to, you know, to get out there before Donald Trump came back or Republicans came back to power. How do you talk about these things at parties? And, you know, the moods were very different. Progressives were in power, but they just felt down, like something bad was about to happen. Republicans were out of power, but there was a real cynical thing going on there where they felt like, look, the stock is low on us.

51:25It's time to buy because we're about to go on the rise. The schlaps are a very strange couple that pops up in Washington from time to time. There's always a schlap. What party is more fun and has better alcohol and hotter looking people? Republicans. Yeah, the Republican Party was a party, right? It had the liquor was flowing. People were smiling. People were slapping each other on the backs. Look, I did not have a fun time there. I felt very uncomfortable. But the people who were there were having a blast for sure. And, you know, Matt and Mercy, they were an important couple. And Mercy is his wife, Mercedes, were an important couple for me to look at because because I was trying to figure out how Washington became what it is today, right?

52:04And they were Bush White House establishment Republican types. I mean, Matt even looks like the ideal version of a Washington lobbyist, you know, kind of a bigger guy, white hair, pearly white teeth. People used to call him like the nice Republican in Washington. And now he's this Trump diehard loyalist who all he wants to do is fight, fight, fight. And to be able to figure out how he got from one kind of establishment figure to what this new establishment looks like, I felt like, okay, well, if I can explain him, I can kind of explain the party. Yeah. We would also be remiss is that he's under legal peril because he allegedly grabbed a guy's junk.

52:45Exactly. And that's partly what makes him representative of the Republican Party, right? He was a guy who came to Trump's defense before almost anyone during the Access Hollywood tape. And, you know, he and then he allegedly groped somebody himself. And one of the first people to come to his defense is Donald Trump. It's like the party respects loyalty, even when the worst, grossest, you know, allegedly worst things are happening. One of the other things you wrote about, I think you were talking about gamblers, was this character on the Democratic side, Sean McElwee and his gambling habit. And he He was sort of the strategist du jour for a minute there, for a hot minute.

53:26And he bet on races, including against his own clients. Is that correct? Yeah, he was sort of a Pete Rose of politics, if you will. You know, hotshot Democratic pollster, getting really big clients. He worked for the Fetterman campaign, which, you know, there was no bigger race in 2022 than Fetterman. His polls were getting tweeted out by the White House. He was becoming a real player in Washington. And one of the things he did kind of openly was bet on politics, on congressional races, on whether policies would pass. He had bets with friends about, you know, whether a senator who had a stroke would be back in time for a certain vote, that kind of thing.

54:08He would bet on everything. And for me, I was surprised that he did it. I was also surprised that he did it openly. He talked about this with people. It was not a secret. It was sort of like Trump, you know, if you do your scandal out in the open, people aren't sure if it's a scandal the same way as if it gets uncovered. But, you know, Sean, between the betting and his connections to Sam Bankman Freed and the way that he rubbed people the wrong way, his story was a very dramatic story in this book of a guy on the rise and what happens when you end up on the wrong side of too many stories. Yeah, a lot of stories.

54:40The other one, and then I'll let Scott ask the last question, is Frank Luntz, who I've interviewed as a Republican pollster. Very contract with America was Frank Luntz. A lot of what's happened now, and he even talks about it, is due to a lot of stuff Frank Luntz did way back in the day with Newt Gingrich. He's sort of since become an anti-Trumper. Talk about him, because he's sort of trying to, he often is trying to be the reasonable person in the room these days, which I cannot, you know, Frank Luntz would not be the person I would have thought of as the reasonable person in the room. In most cases back then, at least.

55:16Yeah. So I met up with Frank Luntz as he was moving out of a house in Virginia that he lived in for a long time. You know, he was kind of the center of Republican politics in the 90s, like you mentioned. And this house was this kind of crazy situation. It was decorated almost as if he was like an overgrown child. He had cabinets in his kitchen were full of baseball cards. And he had a Terminator statue that was in the yard. And he had the original Bob's Big Boy Burger mascot, you know, kind of guarding his pool. But he was moving out. And the reason was, he said, is because he was kind of done with this part of his life.

55:55He told me that Donald Trump nearly killed him. that he hated Donald Trump so much that it gave him a stroke and he ended up in the hospital and he has to take all sorts of medicine, which weirdly is administered sometimes by his best friend, Kevin McCarthy, which is an odd detail that he let me know. He's lived with him. Yep, they lived together for a while. And they may still, Frank wouldn't say one way or the other. But what was interesting to me about him is he was a guy who is partially responsible for this moment we're in. I mean, he worked for Rudy Giuliani. He worked with Gingrich, as he mentioned.

56:30He was a kind of a word guru type who could help Republicans get elected by saying the right words, calling, you know, the estate tax the death tax so people would think it was bad. He was a death tax guy. Yeah. And I really kind of wanted to press him on, okay, I know you feel bad about this current state of American politics, but do you feel any responsibility for it yourself? And he wouldn't take the blame, right? I mean, it's hard to do, I suppose, but he wouldn't take the blame. But he was saying that he's now trying to do everything he can to, you know, make things better. He worked for the Biden White House trying to get Republicans to get COVID vaccines.

57:07But, you know, ultimately, the work that he's done has gotten us to this moment. Yeah, he's trying to say everything's normal. Like, he reminds me of the guy in Animal House where he's like, remain calm. Everything's normal sometimes. He and I argue about this because I was like, you're dealing with bad people and you're thinking it's going to be okay. And by the way, you created the bad people. And I'm sorry they grew up so badly, but you're their dad. Well, one of the reasons I decided to write this book in the first place was because when Biden became president, there was this idea that we could return to normal.

57:42I mean, people thought that. People were like, oh, things could go back to normal. And so Frank Luntz is not alone in this kind of quest to make things seem normal or move towards normal. But when I looked around, and I've covered Washington for 10 years, 12 years, I looked around and I was like, I just don't see it. I don't see how this can go back to normal. Just curious, you spend a lot of time with these folks. To the extent you're comfortable revealing this, what individuals really surprised you to the upside in terms of their character and made you feel better about America? Well, you know, the job I have is an interesting one because, you know, everyone in the country can look around and know that things are broken, but not everybody has the ability like I do to kind of go and figure out why to get into these back rooms, to get to know people who wouldn't otherwise talk to me, but I'm a journalist trying to get to understand them.

58:38And so I think a lot of people that I spoke to in this book are complicated. And if you take the good stuff that they're trying to do, you can see, okay, maybe there is, you know, a path to, you know, fixing things if you just look at the good parts. But to me, I think the part of Washington that gave me some hope, even though, you know, it's dark times, was talking to some of the workers on Capitol Hill. A lot of young people. You mean the staff? The staff. A lot of young people come to Washington because they actually want to do things. They actually want to make change. You think that Washington is only filled with cynical people who want influence and power.

59:18Sure, there's a lot of people like that. But there's also people who go into work every day, work long hours, and are desperately trying to change things. And a lot of the people I talked to in this book, which the people that I think make this book special in a way, are those folks. I mean, there's a lot of Washington books that come out, but not a lot that focus on what at least one person called the subaltern of Washington, the kind of people who are not right next to all the power, don't have all the power themselves, but help make the place run. Yeah, I would say that too. So do you have hope?

59:51Do you have hope? Because this is a crackpot group of people, I have to tell you, in your book. It's like, all your stories are like that. I'm like, oh, God, these crazy fucking people. And they're in positions of power. It's not like, oh, look at Marjorie Taylor Greene doing her whack job, whatever she does every day. But real influence. Do they or not? Because you just saw this deal getting struck, the debt ceiling deal, which seemed rather rational, like rather like cooperative and compromising and this and that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, that deal, I wouldn't use that deal to say, look, things are back to normal.

1:00:27I mean, yeah, it's great that we didn't have, you know, economic collapse in the country, but that is a pretty low bar. Just barely being able to avert disaster is like it's good. It's better than hitting disaster, but I wouldn't say Washington is fixed because of it. But I do have some hope, sure. I mean, look, the country's been through lots of terrible times. I don't know if we're going to be at a hopeful time in the next few months or few years, but there are a lot of smart people that come to Washington and continue coming to Washington and have decided to stick around Washington despite this.

1:00:59And yeah, I have hope that those are the people who end up ultimately finding their way to influence. All right. It's a very good, it's a really good read, this book, Ben Terrace's book, The Big Break, The Gamblers, Party Animals, and True Believers Trying to Win Washington While America Loses Its Mind. How about they lose and we win? How about that would be great? It's out today. Thank you, Ben. Thanks, Ben. Thanks so much for having me. I like him very much. Let's adopt that guy. I know. Isn't he nice? There's a bunch of reporters at The Washington Post that are, I think, Ruby Kramer, there's a whole bunch doing really thoughtful things across the country on real people.

1:01:33And I just think he's one of them. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:03:16No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

1:03:54Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first. Well, I watched the first half. I went to sleep because it was late here, but I watched the first half of the town hall with, do you call her Ambassador Haley or Governor Haley? Whatever. And so my win is, I thought the town hall was actually pretty good. And I thought Jake Tapper, he got some shit for not interjecting or pushing back. But I think actually probably the way to handle a town hall is just to let them run and be more of a facilitator and let people ask questions and then let people judge themselves what they thought. And I thought it was actually a really good town hall.

1:04:31I actually, I don't agree with a lot of her policies, but I thought she was forceful and eloquent. She was very rehearsed. She's not catching fire, though. It's interesting. So, and my win is also, I thought she was very eloquent. And the smartest thing, and granted, I have a bias here because it supports something I feel very strongly about. But she's differentiating herself from the other Republican candidates in terms of her stance on Ukraine. And she just eloquently pointed out that this isn't just about Ukraine. This is about the West. And this is about sending a signal to China to not invade Taiwan.

1:05:03This is about sending a signal to North Korea that if they fuck with anyone around them, we're going to push back. This really is a statement on whether or not the West, when it's unified and puts the full faith and credit and resources and creativity and belief in democracy and our weapons and our fighting forces, when we all finally come together, what happens? This is going to send this is going to be this is kind of the defining moment, I think, for the West in a long time. It's not interest rates. It's not inflation. It's not who the president is. I think this will set the signal and tone for whether we decide that murderous autocrats can run roughshod over borders and free nations.

1:05:42And she said that forcefully, and I thought she was very good. I think that was a win. So my win was what she said about Ukraine and the town hall. My loss was she claimed she went on this rant that allowing this anti-trans rant, basically saying that it's no wonder that one in three girls are depressed when they have risk having a trans person in their in their locker room. And then she said, it's no wonder that the teen girls are depressed. There is absolutely no evidence, no data to support the notion that the existence of trans kids or your involvement with a trans kid on any level creates depression among girls.

1:06:21What there is evidence of, half of trans and non-binary kids have considered suicide in the past year. One in four LGBTQ teens attempted suicide in the first half of 2021. Think about that. If you know, if there's 100 LGBTQ kids out of high school, 24 attempted suicide in the first half of 2021, according to the CDC, because they feel persecuted and unwelcome. When their leaders say these, when people demonize marginalized groups like this, it is the mother of all pivots, which shows that she's mocking a serious issue. She has no understanding of the issue and cements this basic go-to from the GOP where they decide to demonize and go after marginalized groups.

1:07:10Teen depression is a function of a lot of things, mostly social, going on, mobile. Parents, as parents, we have to take some responsibility. The concierge or bulldozer parenting we engage in does not prepare them for the harshness and the disappointment that at some point they will face. But nowhere on that list is a trans kid showing up at your swim meet or in the locker room. No one has been able to remotely correlate that with teen depression. And I thought that was a very disappointing moment. I would agree. I don't know why she's going for that. I just I was shocked. I was sort of like. Because the Republicans love it.

1:07:45The far right, the crazies love it. It's like ridiculous. It was like, oh my God, teen girls is such an important issue. Are you kidding me? Like literally, there's like a half a dozen issues of this. So all teen girls are depressed about this. You know, teen girls are depressed about sexualized content in media around men who assault them, like mostly cis men, almost all, and social media and everything else. I just, I agree with you. I would 100%. I think this report about Twitter missing all these images of child sexual abuse and researchers not being allowed on these platforms. I mean, first of all, with AI and other countries attacking us in election misinformation, that's bad enough.

1:08:32This is just not having stringent detection systems for child sexual abuse on these platforms. I just I don't even know what to say. I don't, it's, I just, I don't know what to say. It's such a fail. It's such, not just, and across the board, these social media companies, as AI is going to flood campaigns with fake videos, you know, flood 2024, just that they're giving up is such a, like, not a surprise in any way, but I'm still like, are you kidding me? You're kidding me. You're going to get worse. And so that would be, that would be a fail for me. There's just news today that this is a positive thing.

1:09:12I do think it's not positive. Spotify's cutting jobs across podcasting. They made too big a bet. I think it's sad for all the people who they've laid off 600 employees this year at Spotify. Podcasting division's getting gutted, really, essentially. But I thought they overhired, and it was bad for the business because it's a great business, right? Like, they overpaid. Like, it reminds me of many years ago when that happened in content. So I do think, you know, as things start to equalize in terms of economics, it's a good thing, although I feel terrible for all the people who lost their jobs in its podcasting division because they put out some very good podcasts at the same time.

1:09:50But there's a need for everything to equalize from an economic point of view. But on that point, and this podcast shall remain nameless, but a top 50 podcasts, I've gotten to know the co-host pretty well. And they called and asked about their deal and renegotiating their deal. And they told me their deal. And when they struck it, and I'm like, and then they said, what's your advice? I'm like, my advice is to save money. You have a non-economic. People will, people never feel overcompensated. They never feel, they never feel over. They feel like fairly compensated. When you feel fairly compensated, it usually means you're probably being overcompensated relative to the market.

1:10:31And when I heard their deal, I'm like, let me guess. You struck this with Spotify two years ago with an executive who was given a checkbook and, quite frankly, was drunk. And I said, just be clear. I don't think you'll ever replicate anything. I've seen your numbers. You've told me your revenues. You will not replicate this deal in a million years. I'm like, just do the math. They paid a multiple of revenues for you. How do they get that back? And the market is doing what it's supposed to do. And unfortunately, podcasting, you want to talk about, we talk a lot about income inequality. The inequality across these passion fields, less than 1 % of podcasters make more than 99 % of the revenue.

1:11:16The 0.0001 % make enough money to even pay to make it profitable, to make it a living. It's really podcasting more than I think probably, I would argue almost any other field, maybe with the exception of professional sports, where, you know, there's your odds are just like almost impossible. In podcasting, it is really inequality gone crazy. And I don't know if there's a solution here. But if you're making if you're one of those people at Spotify that struck a deal for millions of dollars, enjoy it, my brothers and sisters. It may not. It may not be there at the end of your contract. But I think it's actually healthy for the system.

1:11:55Ultimately, It does remind me of the old days when they started coming at my reporters at Recode for such crazy salaries. And I think I've told the story before, but they offered one of my reporters like an insane salary. And they came to me and said, do you want to meet this? And I said, I don't even want to pay you your current salary. I think you're overpaid. It was crazy. And I think it was bad for business. It was bad for everybody. It made us all like non-economics. I never did, but I thought it was bad for the people who lost their jobs, but good for, like, everyone gets sensible about the economics of their business and stuff like that.

1:12:30So we'll see. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. and Ernie and her top engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Severio. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

1:13:04Cara, I will see you on, when do we record? I'll see you on Thursday.

1:13:15Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

1:13:43No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. and the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

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