Biden's Future, Paramount Skydance Merger, and Guest Brian Derrick

25:41And then he went on Morning Joe, his favorite program and said, I'm not leaving. So what is that about? And then I want to talk about the money mostly. I think that our leaders are never doing something until they're doing it. And that's not uncommon in the political space. Right. when someone's in an office and they're looking at a higher office, for example, they'll say, oh, I'm going to finish my term. I'm going to finish my term. And then there's the campaign launch video. It's just how things are done. I will agree. I think that he's being maybe more aggressive on the I'm not going anywhere push campaign than I anticipated for this week.

26:20But the conversations that I'm having with sort of political operatives behind the scenes inside of Biden world, outside of Biden world, don't see how the path that we're on right now can be sustained through the convention. And so something's got to give and either a lot of people need to start falling in line enthusiastically or Biden will have to go back on what he's saying right now. Okay. So let's talk about how it works in terms of taking donations and directing the money. Because as Scott just said a second ago before you came on, money is where it's at. And he calls himself a porpoise.

26:56He will explain it to you of a donation. But you said the problem Oath is trying to solve is a tendency for donors to rage, donate into the abyss. There are a lot of villains in the political ecosystem that get people very angry and that generate this emotional response, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or somebody else. And in the last eight years, that has really turbocharged this grassroots donor environment where people see something happen on the news or hear about it on a podcast, on Twitter, and then immediately run and donate to try and get that person out of office, when really those funds could be much better used somewhere else, maybe just to keep that person out of power.

27:39And so what we set up with Oath is a free platform where people can go see what their donations are actually going to accomplish. We do objective analysis to say, where are dollars needed the most to advance the thing that you care about right now, whether that's repo rights or protecting democracy, and how can you direct it as strategically as possible without getting sort of the blowback of a thousand text messages and phone calls asking for more money. All right, Scott. So before you came on, I trifurcated donors into three buckets. And my sense is the thing that gets him out probably the most quickly, let's assume that he's totally defiant and doesn't, sees Nancy Speaker Pelosi at his door and just says, sorry, Nancy, I'm not interested in talking to anybody and says, you know, it's Obama on line one.

28:27And he says, I'm not interested. He just goes totally defiant. If the money tap gets shut off, it gets very hard for him to stay in the race. And loosely speaking, three buckets. And by the way, tell me if these are the wrong buckets, big donors, medium sized, small donor. My sense of the big donors is they're just taking a wait see attitude. They're not going to throw millions of dollars into an abyss and not understand if and who it's going to. My sense of the medium-sized donors, and this is anecdotal evidence and I'm one of them, is that we are an open revolt. We are not only signing letters and have stopped giving money to the Biden campaign, but are starting to give money and are ready and prepping to give money to other candidates.

29:06And then the small money donors are just getting inundated with desperate emails from the Biden campaign as they attempt to show some signs of life. Tell me where I got that wrong and what it means in terms of is the tap going to get, has it been shut off? I think that it has turned into a trickle for sure. A lot of donors are pulling back, at least at the presidential level. We've seen an increase in traffic to oath, tens of thousands of donors looking to give, but they're not looking to give to the Biden campaign. or similar, they're looking to give to down ballot races in these competitive states where maybe a progressive or exciting younger candidate could turn out people who might ultimately vote for the Democratic nominee for president, regardless of who that is.

30:00It's called a reverse coattails strategy. We're seeing a lot of enthusiasm there at the grassroots level. But I think that you're right, particularly in this mid-level tier, that people are looking for other options and they're looking to exert influence to to try to pressure Biden to exit the race and have a more viable candidate, somebody with a wider path to victory, take his place. There's also a partner that Oath is working with called Pass the Torch, which has set up a fund where you can give to whoever the nominee might be, so long as that person is a new candidate. It's literally just launching today, actually.

30:44But I think that all of these are examples of how people are still looking to advance their values. People are really concerned about the stakes of the election, but they want to do it in a strategic way. Right, but how concerned are you or will happen to down-ballot candidates if he stays in the race? Staying away from that, even if you're directing him in the right places, How concerned are you? You know, I know reverse coattails, but there is such a thing as coattails. Definitely very concerned. Well, yeah, I want to be clear, extremely concerned. I had my staff, which are mostly engineers and data analysts, prepare a memo last week that said the worst case scenario.

31:24And so if Biden loses in a landslide, right, we can imagine a debate performance similar to what happened a few weeks ago, another moment like that right before the election. If he loses in a landslide, what does that do to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House, state legislative races, state Supreme Courts? And it's devastating to look at. The stakes are incredibly high, of course, for the White House, but they're incredibly high up and down ballot when you have election deniers and far right extremists running to take over very important parts of our government all across the country. And so we can't afford to have a year like 2010 when Democrats fell asleep at the wheel in the midterms with Obama in office.

32:07Truly, we cannot sustain or our democracy may not be able to survive a result like that. And so that is why we're trying to focus people's attention on these races, that it's true that there's a down ballot effect. But even if we underperform at the top of the ticket for whatever reason, we can save some of these Supreme Court seats. We can save state legislative seats and a worse case scenario. One of the things that Biden people are saying is they raised all that money after the debate, the$28 million or whatever, on small donations. But who matters more? We've already seen some major donors, including Barry Diller and Netflix, Reed Hastings, Harry Emanuel publicly halting their support, Rick Caruso until there's a new Democratic nominee.

32:51Other big donors are going to support. There was one particular one that's supporting him, and some say they're shifting their funding to House and Senate races. A lot of people are saying that to me. Who's more important, these big whales or porpoises like Scott or what? What matters with the money here? You can't make it work entirely without both. You need both in order to put together the scale of campaign that is required to win in 2024. But I will say at the presidential level where Biden in hard side dollars is expected to spend over a billion dollars, a significant portion of that is coming in six figure checks to the Biden victory fund.

33:34And so the grassroots support is critical and also builds momentum and all of these signifiers of party strength and unity. Very important. But when it comes to how many offices you can open in the battleground states, how much time you can be up refuting attack ads and those kinds of things, a big chunk of that money does come from this middle tier that Scott's referring to and high dollar donors as well. Scott? What do you think? So what is the next, if you will, litmus test that publicly and privately sends a very strong signal around fundraising? Do they get daily reports, weekly reports? What publicly says, all right, now his donations have dried up?

34:28When do we see that? We will not see those figures until early August unless they choose to release some data beforehand. There's a quarterly report that we'll get on July 16th, but it'll mostly have the same information that we just got from the monthly report that we get about the national committees. It will be, I will say, as someone who's worked in campaign finance for most of my career, you can weave a lot of different narratives out of finance data about the strength of your campaign or how much you have versus your opponent. And Biden has raised so much money to date, a historic amount of funds, that he's not going to be shutting down campaign offices or laying people off.

35:22That is not sort of in the realm of possibility in the next six weeks. So he will not face a cash crunch before the convention. And if he leaves the convention as the nominee, the money taps, many of which I think they're making the calculation will turn on again because people will have nowhere else to go. But what do you see? You're in this community, right? Across your buddies that you talk to or meet with over a beer, I don't know where you live or coffee. I'm worried that saying someone drinks beer is somehow a hate crime now. Move along. What are you hearing in terms of it? Is it off 90 percent?

36:08Is it off 10 percent? Is it am I being alarmist? I would imagine it's literally just stopped. What are you hearing in terms of donations to Biden and to Democrats in general? What's going on out there? I'm hearing I'm part of multiple different donor collectives or donor groups that I either advise or am a member of that are having parallel conversations around how can we make a change here to match the crisis of the moment that we're in. And so either people are making the choice to withhold money entirely, which would allude to the sort of change that you're referring to. But I think that it's more common that they're changing the targeting.

36:59That, as you mentioned, Cara, that they're looking at Senate races and House races, that they're setting up new super PACs to support alternate candidates. And so there's still a lot of money moving. There's no real way for us to assess the damage being done directly to Biden's accounts and how much that has slowed. I can't estimate that. So in that vein, aside from what's going on at the top of that, what's the most important race no one's talking about? Where have you been pushed? Give us two examples or one example. There's many. I would say state Supreme Court races in Michigan and North Carolina, incredibly important this cycle.

37:42People often overlook state Supreme Courts, but they influence how maps are drawn, what voting rights we have, reproductive rights, gun legislation. All kinds of things are decided at that level. So I think that both of those will be really critical. And then I would also point to the state-led races happening in Arizona. Both chambers are currently controlled by Republicans, but could flip to Democrats with a strong, robust turnout campaign in Arizona. Even if we lose at the presidential level, the way that the districts are drawn, it's still possible that we could flip those chambers and reverse Arizona's abortion ban, which would be vitally important to, of course, millions of people living there.

38:30And then the last one I'll sneak in are the ballot measures. Big year for ballot measures. A dozen states putting reproductive rights on the ballot. Also anti-gerrymandering ballot measure in Ohio. In Missouri, there's one for a living wage. Lots of really great opportunities for direct democracy. When you think about what's happening now, I realize it's unprecedented, but everyone's like, you can't go into chaos. We have to stick with Joe. So, Ezra Klein made a very good argument. Risk-taking is okay. Do you think it's a good time to take a risk? And I assume the money will flow to whoever they decide if they take a risk and do it in a non-chaotic way, not ridiculously chaotic is what I'm talking about.

39:14But is that the worst thing to create chaos for the Democratic Party? Can you answer those critics that say that we can't do it now? It's too late? I think that the damage has been done in terms of chaos. And unfortunately, while I support him and have spent a lot of time talking about his successes, it was done by President Biden. He entered this chaos into the conversation with his debate performance. And so now all we can do is respond to it. I said right after the debate, it's going to be a very uncomfortable six weeks until the convention. And then after that, it will be settled one way or the other, whether it goes the way I hope it does or not.

39:54We only have a few weeks left of this potential chaos, but Joe Biden coming out every single day and saying he's staying in the race is not going to quiet it either. So I think that you can take the desire for a neutral peace out of the equation and just decide what you want to come out of the chaos. Do you want a new candidate to come out on the other side and the energy and sort of the historic nature that might come with that? Or do we want to stick to Biden and cross our fingers that we make it across the finish line in November? But either way, now through the convention is going to be a rocky couple of weeks with a lot of uncertainty and unanswered questions.

40:38Scott, last question. So we've been talking a lot about Biden. Do you have a sense for where Trump's fundraising is in contrast or compared to July of 2020? In a much stronger position. than 2020. I'd have to pull the exact numbers, but he has spent the last three months in back rooms with billionaires, and they have really stepped up. We saw Tim Mellon, who also is supporting RFK Jr., one of his largest donors, just write a$50 million check to a Trump super PAC. Absolutely huge amounts of money. He also met, as I'm sure you've talked about, with oil execs and asked them to raise him a billion dollars and said that he would make some policy changes to his platform in exchange.

41:32And so he really has leaned in to the billionaire club is amending his platform actively, things like flip-flopping on TikTok in order to appease them. And it is paying dividends. And we're seeing that in his dramatically accelerated fundraising post-conviction. But you brought up something. You mentioned RFK Jr. Just quickly, we'd be remiss not to ask, fundraising for RFK Jr. and what that says about the race. I think the RFK Jr.'s campaign has always been propped up by just a handful of people who have other interests in his candidacy continuing, whether that's his running mate, who's written millions at this point, maybe over 10 million in checks to his campaign, or whether it's billionaires who have their own interests in who they think he will take votes away from.

42:27But there are certainly no grassroots energy or grassroots donation campaign in order to fund and scale an RFK Jr. ticket. He would not even have the funds to make it on the ballot in many states without these million plus dollar checks that people have been writing to help them. Interesting. All right, Brian, this is really helpful. I think people should just calm the fuck down. That's our feeling. Just think logically about where the money should go, including these down ballot races you mentioned. But people can go to oath.vote to learn more and figure out what you are interested in voting for and that you can put money to use in ways that are probably more helpful going forward.

43:10Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Scott, that was helpful, don't you think? It's always good to have logical people on. Yeah, logical, calm people. Calm people, unlike us. What? When we come back, Paramount's merger with Skydance is finally happening. What a surprise. And Threads marks its first anniversary.

43:43You think you're in control of this? You're not. On October 10th. What are you? My world is coming to destroy yours. But I can help you. The war for our world begins in IMAX. Tron Aries. Rated PG-13. Maybe inappropriate for children under 13. Only in theaters October 10th. Get tickets now. There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kimmel. One big question I've got is why in 2025 are late night TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel's show still on TV? Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes.

44:32But what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, and that was James Ponowozik, the TV critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now. That's This Week on Channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts.

45:02Scott, we're back with the latest plot twist in the Paramount Skydance merger drama, of which you think is not important, but still is interesting. The deal is back on. A special committee of Paramount's board signed off on the Skydance merger on Sunday night, with the full board later endorsing it, according to Bloomberg. Paramount controlling shareholder Sherry Redstone has blessed the deal, saying it will, quote, fortify Paramount for the future, while ensuring that content remains king. Oh, Sherry, maybe an Archduke, perhaps. Under the latest agreement, Redstone will sell national amusements to Skydance for$2.4 billion.

45:34Skydance will then merge with Paramount, investing$8 billion. Skydance founder David Ellison becomes the chairman and CEO. Former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Schell will be president. The merger is subject to regulatory approval and also includes a go-shop period that gives Paramount 45 days to find a better offer. Oh, good God. So what thinks you very briefly? It's like when I go to a jazz bar, I pretend to be interested and just think, when is this going to end? I have the same feeling. Let's not go to a jazz bar together. Oh, my God. Same feeling. Oh, of course, I love jazz. Yeah, no. And by the way, I loved Hamilton.

46:12I thought that was fantastic. I did like Hamilton, but go ahead. Oh, well, we all did, Kara. No, I did. Yeah, of course. Of course, we all did. All right. Come on. Any thoughts? Look, Skydance and Partners, they'll invest eight, just to give you a sense of this,$8 billion in Paramount to acquire national amusements. NVIDIA gained almost 13 times that in market cap over the weekend. The media is obsessed with itself. It's got some iconic assets. But this is, Paramount's stock has declined, was off 4 % today and is down 21 % year to date. it they i don't even think unfortunately i think the fucking water torture continues here they have a 45 day go shop which good boards are supposed to do to see if there's a bigger better i wouldn't be surprised at this like yard sale price if someone that we haven't even mentioned pops up you see barry diller was wandering around for a little bit and then another is that right guy Yeah, another rich guy.

47:11I just wonder, though, like, okay, if Sherry has finally stopped hallucinating and is willing to do a deal for X price, I got to think there's a number of people saying, getting out their pencil and go, would we like to have these assets for 10 % more? I want you to make the very brief case of why you should have these, why these are good assets to have, even if they're meaningless compared to NVIDIA. Let's not make the NVIDIA comparison. Because they still produce iconic films that make money. And despite what everyone says about cable being a melting ice cube, it's a melting ice cube that still spins off a ton of free cash.

47:49These are still very good businesses. It's just that everybody wants them to be young again. And somebody with discipline is going to come in and consolidate these with the other cable channels and cut costs faster than the business declines. The business is in decline, but it won't go away as fast as people think. And if they take a private equity approach to managing this company, it's going to spin off a shit ton of cash. And at these prices, it's probably a good buy. Can do rather well. Yeah, that's a very good. Thank you for that. Moving to other big headlines. Boeing is going to plead guilty to a single criminal fraud charge tied to the deadly 737 MAX jet crashes that killed over 300 people.

48:29Under the pending deal with the DOJ, the company will pay a fine of$243 million. Agree to third-party compliance monitoring will avoid a high-profile trial. Relatives of the victims in the 2018 and 2019 crashes are calling it a sweetheart deal. I would agree with them, particularly in light of the Alaska Airlines midair incident earlier this year. The deal is accepted. The felony charge could complicate Boeing's many defense and space contracts with the U.S. government. It's usually rare for them to plead guilty. I think it should have gone to trial. I don't know. It seems troubling for Boeing and for everybody else.

49:05This is, I was thinking about, I was in Greece and then Turkey this weekend, and I made the trip plans a while ago. And I was sort of bummed out because when I was in Bodrum, Turkey, I thought the world really is bifurcating. I saw very few Americans and Western Europeans there. And I thought, we're polarizing. We're pulling apart from each other. And it's sad. And I think one of the things that brought more people together than probably possibly any technology other than the printing press or maybe the Internet is commercial jet technology. Because my parents came to Europe on a steamship, and now their son is flying all over the world and meeting new people and doing business all over the world.

49:43And I really do think that the commercial jet transportation brings people together as a huge boost for the economy. But it has to be something that is seen as bulletproof because the reality is our brain can't process that we're in a steel tube skirting along the surface of the atmosphere at eight tenths the speed of sound. And it's fucking terrifying unless you know, unless you know that the drive to the airport was about 40 times more dangerous. And so this has this has global implications. People have to feel a really solid sense of security globally when they get in a plane. So, you know, I love Boeing.

50:22I think it's a great company. It's done a lot for America. It's benefited from obviously huge defense spending, but it really is a quintessential American company. But commercial jet transportation has to have the most stringent standards across regulation and across our legal system and technology. So I'm pulling for Boeing, but these companies in no uncertain terms have to be hit hard if and whenever they cut corners because this is key to our – I would agree. And I think the government here is a real fail. The government fail of monitoring is really quite significant here. This is their job to keep – this is the one thing they absolutely have to keep safe.

51:04Another thing, we're going to have a little grab bag here. Apple is reportedly picking up an open AI board seat as part of its deal to put chat GPT on its devices. They're getting a lot. The head of the app store, Phil Schiller, will get an observer seat for free. According to Bloomberg, it means a non-voting role, but still influential. Microsoft got its non-voting board seat back in November following Sam Altman's ouster in return as CEO. Well, just like we said, they're getting what they want without having to because of their distribution. So just a general thing about governance. seen that say it's a non-voting.

51:36There's no such thing as a non-voting board seats because just a quick, it never comes. That's seen as succession where they went around the table and voted and they barely won. That never happens. I have never seen, I've been on a lot of boards. I've never seen anything come down to a vote where if it's clear you don't have unanimity, they get, they'll go to a proxy fight or there's a lot of meetings in the parking lot. It never comes down to a vote. And the reality is whoever has the Phil Schiller, other than Satya Nadella, who is also not in the room and Sam, he will have the biggest voice in the room.

52:13So this notion that it's just an observer seat, it's bullshit. They're in the room. And not only that, I don't like it, quite frankly, because I think Apple has too much sway and influence over the economics of the app ecosystem. And as a result, a lot of companies can't get out of the crib or can never get very far. And I just hate the idea of Apple being at the table of open AI and Spotify isn't. I mean, I just. Yeah, I agree. I don't think Microsoft or Apple should be on this board. I get that. And Microsoft is because of the investment. But boy, that's just not so much. I would agree with you.

52:51I would agree with you. Moving on from giant companies, one-year anniversary of Threads. The social media app launched on July 5th of last year as an alternative to X. Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads is now more than 175 million monthly active users from some perspective. The first$100 million jumped on in the first three months. The app does benefit from promotion within Instagram. Zuckerberg thinks Threads could be Meta's next billion-dollar app, according to The Verge, even though it's still a loss leader. I don't think it's that big a deal for them, do you? I don't know. You go on this, Cara.

53:26I like it. I have to say it's becoming really unpleasant right now, but I like it for a lot of reasons. It's a text version of Instagram, and I like text better. And there's a lot of videos. It's very pleasant. I keep thinking I'm going to get away from all of social media more and more because it's just not useful in any way except for me watching how to grow succulents or cook a really interesting dish from Laos. That's the kind of stuff I'm interested in now. But it's a waste of my time at this point, I think. So I don't know. I don't know. I think they need to put ads on it, I guess, if they want to make money.

54:05they said they deprioritized politics but it seems to be all politics right now so I don't know it's a hugely successful product launch I mean I was an investor in Post there was Mastodon there was immediately a bunch of competitors because they saw an opening around Twitter self-inflicted injury Zuckerberg came along and kind of owned now firmly owns the number two microblogging platform the thing that I think is kind of a shame I think staff is bigger, but go ahead. Is that considered microblogging or messaging? So, look, the thing that sort of saddens me about it is it seems to be coming as angry and as vile.

54:46The reason I left Twitter was, I don't mind if someone pushes back and says, you're wrong, and this is why you're wrong, and here's my evidence and argument, what do you think, and wants to engage in a dialogue, fine. I'm all over it. But a bunch of bots or people who feel that they can say things they would never say in person because they're on a digital platform. And it just creating, putting more flame on the fuels of divisiveness and polarization. When the reality is, the majority of the people, it's like we agree. Threads, first off, Threads is very, very, at least my following, it is very, very left.

55:26Yeah, very. And, okay, that's fine. But what I would say to these people is, I'm next to you firing at the enemy of fascism and gender apartheid and denying women bodily. We're allies. Yeah. And you fucking hate me and are screaming in my ear and cursing because you think I'm holding the rifle wrong. We're allies for God's sake. Stop it. I agree. And threads started out, I think, and I sense a sea change. I don't know, maybe I'm being overly dramatic or sensitive here. But it started out by saying, we're going to be just a little nicer to each other. This isn't Twitter. And it feels like it's becoming more Twitter-ish.

56:11Yeah, this Biden thing has centered around the bend. It makes me love LinkedIn even more. Honestly. Do you have so much time on LinkedIn? LinkedIn! LinkedIn, as my mother calls it. I love LinkedIn. All right, Scott. Well, good luck, Mark Zuckerberg. And I really liked your video of you waveboarding. It was stupid, but I liked it. Yeah, depress our teens, weaponize democracy, and teen harm. Bitch, you should never hold a flag. Oh, I know, the whole thing. All right, Scott, we're sounding so grumpy today. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small, from improving emergency response times to protecting against cyber attacks, local, state, and federal governments are innovating with Google AI.

56:56This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American Innovation.

57:08Okay, Scott, we're back. Let's hear some wins and fails. You go first today. Well, we've talked about our fail. Don't mistake your ally for your enemies. And this is a political party, not a suicide pact. And we all want the same thing, at least those of us who consider themselves proud progressives. This really is an existential moment. We can't have one in five women who want to terminate a pregnancy have to leave their state. We can't have essentially a mob boss running the country. We can't have someone who stirs our emotions against immigrants and demonizes people. But we can't have someone that foreign leaders think is an idiot and are willing to take advantage of him because he can't stay focused on anything.

57:54We can't have this slow kind of burn into fascism. And we're all united around that. And we all want that. So the notion that this shouldn't be open for debate and that somehow you are the enemy, if you even raise the prospect of an open primary or an open convention, excuse me. I mean, people have accused me of playing into their hands. No, we are playing into their hands when we start insulting each other and disliking each other, despite the fact we're each other's allies. And that is a larger metaphor for what is happening in America. Your Republican neighbor is not your enemy. You can have a civil conversation with them and you're going to find out you share more than you think.

58:38and it's happening. What is happening to America is now happening on social media. Social media absolutely fuels it. And I have seen it in spades over the last eight days where people I know and I like and I trust and I think are good people are just enraged that you bring this shit up. And it's like, come on, we're on the same side here. We're talking. Anyways, we need to, don't mistake your allies to your enemies. That's my fail. My win is, I had Admiral Stavridis on the Prop G pod, and he said something I thought was really moving. He said in the last two years, or last year and a half, two billion people have voted in elections.

59:17And he said, that's just such an incredible victory for democracy. And it's really interesting what has happened. And he's pointed out some interesting things, the kind of the incumbent parties in India and South Africa have both had their power severely checked. In France, they said the Democrats or the progressives there got their shit together and said, okay, hey, far left, why don't you get rid of your weaker candidates, consolidate around stronger candidates such that we can ensure that we don't have a hard move to the right. And they changed the complexion of everything. In the UK, really, they have won from the center.

59:57The Labor Party, I think the victory reflects that they rejected the far, far left and the far, far right. So So there's this nice leftward, moderate breeze coming over the Atlantic, I'm hoping, from Europe. In Mexico, they elected a woman, a Jew, who's a climate scientist. And I get a ton of hate. People are saying people have a lot of issues with her for a lot of different reasons. But still, it is a seminal moment for Mexico. And all of this is because people's voices around the world have been heard. And there's actually some very encouraging signs. So in sum, my win is 2 billion people voting.

1:00:40Yeah, I would agree. I think my win is we were just talking about donors and putting their money to use in smart ways. Reid Hoffman just made a multimillion dollar investment in the voting tech company Smartmatic, which is still in a lawsuit with Fox News, a$2.7 billion defamation suit and also suing Newsmax at the same time. I think Reed invested in Eugene Carroll's case. He backed that. He's funding the places that make sense. This will hurt Fox News quite badly. I think he's a very deft investor in smart ways. And he's very emotional about it. He doesn't call anyone a bedwetter. He just goes to work and does investments like this.

1:01:27I thought that was a really smart one when I saw it. I was like, oh, isn't he clever? And he'll probably get money back because I think they'll lose just the way Dominion won their case. I think Fox News will lose and he will do well with this investment. But he noted, let me say, there's been a, this is what he said. In a statement, he told the Washington Post, Smartmatic has built globe business by using technology to better engage citizens, regardless of party ideology, by making voting simple and trustworthy after Donald Trump lost in 2020. However, Smartmatic being the target of the defamatory campaign to overturn his defeat.

1:02:05I just think it's smart. I just really appreciate that quite a bit. And I just think it's the right thing to do. And I just appreciate it. It's just, and of course, the negative I think I share with Scott is, oh, the other positive is New York Times has a new game called Strands that I really like. Once again, Meredith Levy and go for it. It's a really fun game. Just go play it, try it, see if you like it. I love that they keep me engaged on that platform in lots of interesting, unusual ways. In any case, the negative is the same thing that Scott says, is you can have differences of opinion about the strategy of how to move forward and still be on the same team.

1:02:48But to call people bedwetters and try to shame them into not having concerns and lecture them on that they don't understand the stakes is really insulting. And it takes people away from you. It makes them unenthusiastic to support something. And it just it makes people turn things off rather than turn things on. You want people to be very excited. And the fact of the matter is Biden should be sweeping the floor with this guy because he's such a terrible person. And by the way, he's already moderating. He's already pushing for quieter expressions on abortion and gay rights and gay same sex marriage on the platforms.

1:03:27He knows that he has to moderate to the center. And so don't count Donald Trump out in his ability to seem calmer than he is. He's a terrible person. We do understand the threat he has. And, you know, you're literally shooting your own troops. And I don't know why that you think that's helpful. And shutting up is not going to make it go away. Anyway, I think that's it, Scott. That's it. That's the show. Scott and I agree on this. We're really irritated. Go Spain. Go Spain. Spain versus France tomorrow. Big game. Allianz. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind.

1:04:07Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. That's the show. We'll be back Friday for more. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Driscoll. Ernie and her Todd entered you in this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Bill Silverio. Nishat Karua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. 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 care.

1:04:42Have a great rest of the week.