Hunter Biden Pardon, Kash Patel for FBI Director, and Guest Lauren Greenfield

24:26This New Yorker piece is a damning whistleblower report on his previous behavior running two organizations where he drank too much, he abused women, sexual harassment, a bunch of lying, misspending, mismanagement. This story is quite, has got it all by Jane Mayer. And it's based on, well, it's a devastating, very well-reported piece about how bad a manager he was. It may have been a bad period of his life, but boy, was it bad. The New York Times also had the 2018 email from Hegseth's mother calling her son an abuser of women. That email was something else. She told the Times she'd written the messages in anger and had apologized for it.

25:06But boy, did it have a ring of truth at the time. I guess it was during the same time period. What do you think? I thought the mother thing I had mixed feelings on, the New Yorker piece, I do not. It's really, he's a bad, bad, bad manager. And again, he could be going through a difficult period. But this, as you recall, John Tower, the womanizing and the sexual and the drinking was a big issue and sort of scuttled his nomination. This guy's entirely unqualified for this job. Both of them are. So what do you think about that? I remember an era where you couldn't be on the Supreme Court. if you'd been a Playboy bunny waitress at some point in your life.

25:43I mean, you want to talk about just a digression. You know, first off, Patel, he says that he wants to prosecute and put in prison, you know, people who weren't supportive of Trump. He's called, and at the same time, he's found time to write kids' books about Trump. This is an odd. King don't. This is an odd person. They're very strange. And then Director Wray is an outstanding individual. This is someone, I am so impressed by this guy. Every time he gets in front of Congress, it's one of those rare moments where you can't tell if he's a Republican or he's a Democrat. He's just trying to do his goddamn job.

26:19Yeah, he was nominated by Trump, everybody, once again. Let's just be clear. And by the way, in my opinion, reflected well on Trump. And everyone in those panels, they actually have a productive session because they realize this guy is loyal to the flag, first and foremost. Okay, so I'll go to Hegseth. As a mother and as the son of a single mother, I read that letter and I found it deeply rattling. One, I was sad and I didn't know how comfortable I felt about it being made public. A letter, a communication, an emotional letter between a mother and a son, I do feel like it should be confidential.

26:57But the fact that it's out and the fact that a mother felt compelled to write that to her son. Jesus Christ. Did it have a ring of truth? It absolutely did. It was beautifully written. It wasn't emotional. It actually was, my son sucks, right? Yeah, it pains me to say this. Right. It rattled me beyond belief. I thought, I would write that letter if my son behaved like that, but I would feel sick to my fucking stomach for doing it. But I would have written that letter if my son behaved like this. I can't imagine getting that letter from my mother. I just, I can't imagine, like, it would just, it would devastate me so much that it would just, I can't imagine writing it.

27:38I can't imagine reading it. And, you know, like, Peter Hegseth, by the way, an outstanding soldier, deserves the bronze stars he was given. He should not be in the running for this position. Did you read the New Yorker piece? It was disturbing. Yeah, the ending is really chilling. And the attempts to try to attack, there's like dozens of people making these allegations. And they're all conservative, every one of them. And, you know, they're trying to like say this person had created fake rape allegations, this woman who accused him of raping her. And then, of course, the reporter went to the police and they said, no, absolutely not.

28:22She has not. Like they lie about the people. They're so aggressive still. It's disturbing that they're trying to shut down a dozen people who are, by the way, are not Democrats. These are Republicans making these allegations, very conservative Republicans. Republicans. He sounds like a drunk and should get some help, by the way. He sounds like a sexual harasser of women when he is drunk. He's falling down drunk and all the rich people got him out of his jobs. They fired him. They fired this guy. As good a career he had in the military, they saw the need to fire him. Now, he may have come back from Iraq with all kinds of troubles and he drowned them in alcohol.

29:02He should get some help and he behaved incredibly badly and he's incompetent in it running. He couldn't run a small organization. He cannot run and make decisions about nuclear war for us. I'm sorry. And the mother thing, at first, when I read the two in combination, it's devastating, just devastating. He's incompetent. What's so disappointing is it appears to me that Trump and his advisors have decided we need to be adults and have a certain screen, a pretty fine screen around people and senior appointments that impact the economy. And yet they seem to have thrown in the towel on issues related to our military or defense or security apparatus.

29:45I feel like the most frightening potential nominee right now is Representative Gabbard. I cannot believe that you are going to send a message. There are agents, there are CIA officers who have spent their entire lives and have put themselves in incredible danger every day. And there's only two people to know their identities if they're deep, and that is their case officer and potentially the head of the Central Intelligence Agency or perhaps someone who's heading the entire security apparatus. And do you really believe that Representative Gabbard might not believe at some point to forward your names and your identity to these people?

30:23Because under some sort of... Yeah, I know. I would be like, okay, folks, it is time for me. It is time for you to bring me back and give me my retirement. Because I believe that one of the things, I believe this is true of Director Wray. I believe this was true of George Bush when he was running the CIA. I think these case officers, quite frankly, these spies and these assets and these FBI officers or agents, they have to believe that this person would die for me. That this person would put himself or herself in harm's way before letting me be in harm. And I think all of those people met that qualification.

31:02They were deathly concerned about their safety. They put the safety of these people ahead of others. And I don't believe that is true of Representative Gabbard. In addition, you want to talk about real harm to our national security. No one nation can fight the rest of the world on its own. And this level of arrogance that we have enjoyed because of our prosperity and this America first kind of macho has given us the impression that we don't need the cooperation of our allies to prevent terrorism, to present theft of our intellectual property. And guess what? The European economy is just as big as ours.

31:41And the Mossad, MI6, guess what? The French secret service, they are very good at what they do. and on really sensitive issues around bioweapons, around terrorism, we cooperate, we coordinate, and we share information. Because guess what? We have mutual shared interests. In addition to that, we trust each other. Do you think these folks are going to share information with these folks? No. I think all three of them, I got to say, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, and Tulsi Gabbard are— and by the way, one of the things I did when I was looking at them was find the other people that were in line. Every one of them was acceptable.

32:15Like, they're not my favorites, but they were certainly competent. Like, the other names being bandied about, they were fine. They're just Republicans, and they're a little more conservative than I care to have. You know, a little more aggressive, a little less, a little too America first for me, a couple of them. But, you know, nobody, not having allies, anti-ally. Okay, I see it. That's a point of view. These people, one is absolutely incompetent and has a real problem with women in a creepy, creepy way. and has a drinking problem, which he may or may not have taken in hand. I have no idea. And can't run anything, by the way.

32:51It's just a good, he's a good soldier. Otherwise, no thank you. The second one is insane. Kash Patel seems insane. And the other one is, feels like a Russian asset. Like, it's like, and the fact that he had good people and picked these guys, and then also Matt Gaetz, who they managed to get rid of, is just such a ridiculous, it's ridiculous. It's really kind of like it's going to take up his whole he's going to have to fire Chris Ray, just so you know. And then that'll be chaos. Well, he'll never get anything done because the chaos will ensue because they'll spend all their time doing chaos versus doing anything.

33:27He said nobody when they were voting for him to get the price of eggs down voted for this lunacy. I'm sorry they didn't. And that's it's an opportunity lost. Hagsath is a terrible role model for young men. He creates, he cements, or he's emboldening this notion that it's no longer a bug, it's a feature to be a little bit rapey. We can't normalize this. Let's kill all the Muslims? Did you see that part? Let's kill all the Muslims. We can't normalize this. What's even worse than being a poor role model and not being qualified, a different level, in my opinion, of threat is Patel, who has called for using the power of the Bureau and the Justice Department to prosecute journalists.

34:11Open quote, we're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out, he said during an appearance on Stephen Bannon's podcast. The fact that this guy is being considered is so—the fact that, as you described it perfectly, I don't think—well, I'll take that back. It's not fair to call her a Russian asset. She's a Russian sympathizer. She provides comfort and aid to the enemy, and she will absolutely frighten the shit out of our own assets and our own allies. So I don't understand why he's not bringing the same level of maturity to our security apparatus and our defense apparatus that he's brought to the economic appointments.

34:49It just doesn't make any sense to me. I think he just gets – something happens late at night with him. Maybe he's taking ketamine with Elon or something. Anyway, we'll see what happens here, but it's disturbing. I would recommend reading The Mother's Letter is Disturbing, along with the story from The New Yorker for Hegseth, that's for sure. And I'm looking forward to the Kash Patel story, which is going to be just worse, I think, in a different way, and the Tulsi Gabbard stories. Anyway, journalists are doing a great job with these things, and I thought it was a very fair story on Pete Hegseth.

35:16It really was. So, you know, whatever. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Elon targets OpenAI and Sam Altman yet again. and we'll speak with Lauren Greenfield about what she learned about teens and social media in our new docuseries, Social Studies.

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37:16Scott, we're back. Elon Musk's feud with OpenAI is heating up, with Elon trying to stop OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company. The new filing says OpenAI's path from nonprofit to for-profit has been full of anti-competitive practices and flagrant breaches of its charitable mission. OpenAI spokesperson says the suit is without merit and Elon is recycling the same baseless complaints. He had pulled the case and then put it back. I think he had some meeting with Sam Altman at some event around a fire and there was a hug, et cetera. And now it's back. He's, I don't know. No, this is kind of ridiculous.

37:51Elon does everything through lawsuits. It doesn't matter who it is. He does lawsuits on every topic. I think this is anti-competitive. I think there's plenty of competition in this area. And to claim OpenAI is this giant behemoth seems over and overstepping on Elon's part. He has so much control right now with Trump, and he probably will be a big name in selecting the AI. They're going to have an AI guru for the government or whatever. I just think he's got enough power and I'm not sure what he's doing here. It's just a nuisance lawsuit meant to distract them. Maybe they get an injunction, maybe try to slow open AI down until, I think any lawyer with assault has said to him, you have no shot here.

38:32But he's like, well, maybe we can slow them down, nuisance lawsuits, distract them. Maybe we get some key people to have to, you know, subpoena, give testimony, just anything to slow them down while we try to catch up. So where, you know, just a little off topic here, where I think Musk has really, like, really lost his shit is him accusing Trump whistleblower Alexander Vindman of treason and saying that he should be locked up. You don't accuse veterans of treason without any evidence. This is a guy who was a lieutenant colonel. Vindman served in the military for over 22 years. He worked as a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council and later testified in Trump's 2019 impeachment hearings.

39:16Vindman was also a public critic of Musk. I just, you know, treason? You're accusing these folks of treason? The guy, Musk, this is your punishment. You are going to have to spend the holidays with Trump instead of your children. And that's what's happened. And that picture of literally the lamest Thanksgiving in history where Musk is there instead of with his family, that's what happens in my view. I think his mother was there, but she's such a hanger-on or a feral hanger-on. But go ahead. I've always admired his mother. But anyways. I do not. No? I know her, so I'm going to go be the winner.

39:55You know, I'll defer to your judgment. You know, when someone serves in uniform for 22 years, you don't accuse them of treason. They're the opposite of treasonous. Anyways, it's like this guy is, I don't get it, Kara. I don't get it. I don't understand what's going on. I know. He loves to sue. He has so much power and it's not enough. Like there is so much competition in AI right now between all the, even though they're the big companies and we don't prefer that. We'd like a lot more startups and things like that. This is just, literally, he's just trying to do, besides being in, you know, polluting an area so he could get this thing he's trying to create going, he doesn't care what he does.

40:40You know, whether it's stuff at Tesla where he flouts the laws, this is a very similar situation, is he can't win by just winning. And so he has to win by being anti-competitive. And given he's going to have power over a lot of, like, Trump is going to favor him in the AI race. That's the worry, is that he's going to have an undue influence, which is nothing about actual competition or innovation and is everything about influence and power. Tells you all I need to know about the situation. The only meltdown I'm going to enjoy more than the meltdown of a football club, which we'll get to in our wins and fails, is the meltdown between Musk and Trump that is definitely going to happen.

41:21He's still at the place. It's lasted longer. longer. That Thanksgiving photo was depressing. Wasn't it sad? The food looked sad, too. I was like, could you not do better here if you're paying? And then them dancing to, oh, the music. Oh, ow. I did this Thanksgiving for friends, and one of the folks there is this really impressive guy I've known for a long time. Do you know Matthew Bishop? He was the, I believe, the U.S. editor for The Economist. Yeah, great guy. And we did this roundtable thing, and we were talking about something. Inevitably, Trump came up, and I wish Leslie Jones had been there to tell everyone to shut the fuck up.

41:54That was a great video. But Matthew Bishop, he just said very kind of solemnly, he said, you know, character used to matter. And it's just, that just kind of summarized it. The character used to matter. And he also said something else that I found really fascinating. He said around the military, he said it's such a shame around some of these appointments around Secretary of Defense because he said, this really struck me, that the U.S. military is the best organization of the last century in terms of what it's accomplished, in terms of its integrity, in terms of its sacrifice, in terms of its resources.

42:26It is the most impressive organization in the world over the last century. And that struck me as so insightful. I never thought of that before. And if you think about it, what company, what organization has been more impressive than the U.S. military on balance over the last century? I thought that was really interesting. Vivek, Yamaswani, this is where I think they might, both Elon and Vivek are going after a defense budget, which is, I think all of them should be looked at. By the way, I don't disagree that overspending is a problem and they should always be audited, etc. But they're going right for the military in that regard, just so you know.

42:58I think that might be a big Trump fight going on forward. That's my feeling. That'll be hard to get. Anyways, different talk show. I agree. Absolutely. But you're right. It's really, you know, I did like one last thing is the Canadian general lady who like clapped back at Pete Hickseth saying women shouldn't be in the military. I love that. She looked like I would get out of her way in any day of the week and twice on Sunday. You know, it is. You can reform something without ruining it. There's also lots of things they need to fix, like sexism and stuff like that. But definitely, it's an organization that has distinguished itself.

43:37Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. it.

43:46Lauren Greenfield is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker and the creator, executive producer, and director of Social Studies, a documentary series that delves into the lives of the first generation raised on social media. Welcome, Lauren. I have to say I loved this docuseries. I love it. It's amazing. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. I feel bad because I refuse to watch Euphoria, and now I feel like I've watched Euphoria, And unfortunately, you know, I was like, no, I have lots of kids. I cannot watch this. So tell us about it, because this is something we just were recently just earlier talking about the Australia ban and about across social media for young people.

44:24So tell us about social studies and what made you decide to make this docuseries, because it's been in the ether, this idea that this stuff is bad for kids. But talk a little bit about it. Yeah, well, I started filming right after COVID. So it was kind of like the perfect natural experiment after kids had so much time where they had really increased their social media use. So we started filming in the fall of 2021. And I had been looking at how media affects kids and youth culture and girl culture and body image with girls over the last 30 years. and had really looked at kind of how there's an early loss of innocence and how values of fame and materialism and celebrity are amplified with the media.

45:10And you're talking about like Cosmo, like thin thighs in 30 days or your man doesn't love you, that kind of stuff, all that. Well, I did a book called Fast Forward, which was about kids in LA in the 90s and looking at kind of the early loss of innocence there and wanted to go back and see how they were affected now by social media. As a mother of teens at the time, my kids were 14 and 20, and I saw how there was a kind of generational shift between the two boys. And so when I went back to make this series, I did a kind of social experiment where the kids who were participating agreed to allow me into their phones.

45:51And so we were doing contemporaneous screen recordings, capturing what was in their phones. I really felt like we had feelings about what might be going on, but we needed to actually see the specifics. And so social studies is a character-driven series where we follow kids in their lives, understanding how social media is affected. What's happening. Right. And you say the teens are the experts. Obviously, they are. Rather than the adults, this is not a new, fresh thing. But talk about the importance of trusting them to tell their stories. Because, you know, most parents, I happen, my ex-wife was the chief technology officer in the United States, and I'm good at tech.

46:30So we were good at that, right? But most parents aren't the experts, and the teens really do. You know, my son's always saying, don't do it this way, do it this way. He's so facile with it. He's 22, and my other one's 19. So talk about the importance of trusting them to tell their stories, because they really do know what's going on. They know what's going on, but we also get the benefit of their lived experience. They're on the front lines, so they're the experts, but they're also the subjects. And so we see in the series multiple perspectives because we see them kind of having interviews and also speaking to their peers, deconstructing exactly what's happening and sounding so wise about how social media is affecting them.

47:13On the other hand, we see them living their lives and being affected by peer pressure and college pressure and eating disorders and depression and dynamics of social groups and kind of all of the things that they can kind of break down. So I think one of the things that's unusual is that the knowledge about this, the wisdom about it, doesn't give them immunity. And so they're kind of from the front lines saying this is a roadmap. Right, because they know, right? Scott? Nice to meet you, Lauren. Thanks for your good work. Two questions. One, what do you think are the biggest misconceptions that parents have about social media relative to the actual lived experience of teens?

47:58And two, what social media platform do you think is more harmful than people think? That's a really good question. I think TikTok is really, really harmful because it's so addictive. And I think that what I saw as the scariest part was, my first film was about eating disorders. That came out in 2006. And at that time, one in seven girls had an eating disorder. and there are certain kind of personalities and histories that give you more of a chance of getting that. I think what I saw with TikTok and in the current time is that the triggers are so ubiquitous that if you have any kind of interest in, for example, something as innocuous as a diet, the algorithm will take you by the hand and in very short order take you down a path So you can learn how to have more and more dangerous behavior, whether it's eating disorder or suicidal ideation or racism or kind of any variety of things.

49:04So I think the addictive quality of TikTok and then also where it takes you for engagement is really dangerous. And just the first question, what do you think parents get wrong about the actual experience versus our perception of it? Well, my experience in showing the show and also in teenagers watching it is that neither of them actually knows already. Like, even though kids and we hear them in the show talking about what's happening, it was such a revelation for them to hear other kids being affected by it. So I find that parents are actually shocked by what's in the show and kids are kind of feel relieved or seen by it from it.

49:51And I think for parents, I think the biggest thing is just not knowing how much kids depend on it, but also how dangerous it is. Like Jonathan says, it's a lifeline, but it's also a loaded gun. And I think one of the mistakes that parents make, and I made this myself with my kids, is assuming that they have agency over it and kind of getting into a battle with them over screen time, like asking them to go off of it. Yeah, that it's not addictive because you yourself are addictive as an adult, right? That's the one thing for some reason parents don't see. They themselves have an addiction. Exactly.

50:28And so I think just saying, you know, expecting it, putting the onus on the kids is not right. Even putting the onus on the parents, I think, is not right. Like these, I feel like people ask me, should we be on? Should we be off? It's too punitive to have them be off. It's too dangerous to have them be on. I don't think it's a binary. Like these algorithms are engineered intentionally. And that's what the kids are calling out. They don't have to be this way. Well, two things. You notice the onus on the parent. I'm always, whenever the social media sites were doing this, I'm like, this is all on the parents.

51:01Like you're all, you're doing it. And one of the, this was a character, this Jonathan, in the show said it is a lifeline, but also a loaded gun, which was very striking and actually quite wise to talk about it because it's necessary. These kids need it. And Scott talks about this a lot. You can't, it's part of your social life, right? When you think about that, when it's necessary addictive and you can't not use it, like that kind of thing. And it's also interesting, right? It's also has some good qualities to it. What do you understand about where it's going? Because it doesn't seem like there's any fix, given the parents themselves are also addicted and perpetually online.

51:43Well, I think that, you know, when Jonathan says it's our lifeline, but it's a loaded gun, both are necessary. So I think that the current paradigm is not working. I think that basically we need regulation. We need the algorithms to be changed. We need the tech companies to be accountable. What social studies does is it kind of tells you how kids are being affected in the specifics. And I think one of the things in the short term that parents can do is talk to their kids about it. I have heard parents say, I'm afraid to watch the show. Even in the show, Sydney's mom, Sydney's a girl who posts very provocative pictures and sexy pictures of herself online and gets a lot of feedback by boys and men.

52:33And her mom in the show says, I don't know if I want to see what's on her TikTok. I think that's a common thing from parents that they don't want to fully know. And I think that's one important thing is that this is a kind of secretive world. And that's what the show is meant to do is kind of break that open. And I think kids want to have those conversations. Yeah, they, you know, they also don't. They don't absolutely know. There was a friend of mine whose daughter was sending very provocative kicks to my son. And my son showed them to me. He's like, Mom, can you believe this? And I didn't know what to do because the person was like, oh, my daughter loves being online.

53:11And I'm like, you don't know what she's doing, do you? Like, it was kind of, I didn't know what to do, right? Was it my goal to say, hey, your daughter's sending real disturbing pictures to my son or not? Like, that was one of the things, right? And I happen to have kids that show me these things versus kids that don't, right? Who might not. Anyway, it was really a problematic thing. And Scott asked, like, what's the thing that parents don't know? I think one of the things is how common this is. Like, in the, we have groups in the show and they do silent clapping when they identify with what other kids are saying.

53:48And that happens so often. I ask the kids, like, how many have been sent a nude or sent a nude? Almost all the kids' hands goes up. How many have dealt with an eating disorder or disordered eating? So many of the kids' hands go up. When did you first see pornography? Third grade. You know, I think pornography as the new sex ed is one of the things that's addressed in the show. And I think parents just don't realize that their own kids are seeing all of this material and also how traumatic it is for them that they really want to both talk about it and also have a place to process it. Yeah, my son didn't want that picture.

54:35Oddly, you know, he was like, he was far too young and He didn't know what to do with it, right? Which was why I think he showed it to me. But Scott? I don't know if you've done much research around. There's a real dearth of academic peer-reviewed research around pornography because professors aren't in a hurry to be known as the porn professor. I would argue it's the biggest industry in the world that has the relative to the amount of actual research on it. And one of my fears amongst young men is that, quite frankly, it reduces their desire to go make their own porn. And that is it creates unreasonable expectations around what sex is.

55:14And quite frankly, they're like, why would I go through the humiliation of trying to engage in a romantic and a sexual relationship when I just have this low entry, easy access, low risk thing called porn? And then that goes into character AI. and I apologize for the word salad here. Something I find so frightening right now, and I don't know if you've looked at this at all, is these new characters, AI characters, where they start to have relationships with young people, especially young men who seem to have trouble attaching to other people. Have you done any research or have any thoughts on the emergence of these AI girlfriends, if you will?

55:54I have not. I have not. I read the story about the teen who committed suicide after the AI bot relationship, and that was just completely horrifying. But I haven't done any research on that. What I did find is that by the end of the year, what the kids articulated is they want to have face-to-face connection with each other. In a way, that was the hope that came out of the series, is at the end, they're saying, we would like a place to interact, connect without phones. And I think for me, it was shocking that that seemed like a novel idea. But I think that, I mean, what I did find vis-a-vis pornography is that every kid was exposed to it, that it does create really unrealistic expectations and standards for both girls and boys.

56:45One of the scary things was seeing that the trend that everybody was talking about was BDSM for teenagers. And it was almost like a comedy moment when one girl says, and teenagers don't even know how to choke properly. They're just teenagers. And that wasn't just pornography. That's on TikTok. So I think that, and one girl talked about being in an abusive relationship as her first relationship and not knowing that it was abusive because of what she had seen as normative on pornography. And we hear stories about assault and violence against girls, and we can see this being mirrored in pornography.

57:33So I think that in a way, what I was looking at was more probably like common and mainstream than having a relationship with a bot, but you can see how dangerous the influences are. And also just how it kind of takes away from the joy and romance and puppy love of being a kid. We also see relationships being about fame. One girl, Ellie, has a puppy love relationship in middle school with a child actor, and then she becomes famous accidentally. And we see kind of relationships be means to popularity. One of the things, I'm actually interviewing the mother of that child later today who killed himself.

58:20One of the things that's really disturbing to me is that they want to get off, but they can't. And I remember when I was younger, and I'm sure Scott remembers, any little bit of prurient thing you could find, you read, right? But you only got a tiny little taste of it, right? Like some, I don't know, some weird sexual thing when you were Yeah, your dad's Playboy in the garage that you found, right? Right, but you only got little tastes of it. Like, it was enough, and then it was a little scary at the same time, and it was scary to access it. And now it comes flooding at you in an addictive manner, which is a very different thing.

58:52So one is that it's so available, and it's so not—there's no price for it, right? There's no—you're not going to get in trouble or anything else. But what—and I do think kids do want to get off of these things. Both my kids took their social media off their phones because it made them feel bad, including the dating sites, by the way, because I think those made them feel bad at the same time when they get a little older. What do you think is the best solution for disruption of getting it out? I think in some ways my kids would prefer not to have had it. I feel like that's their tone towards it.

59:29And right now they mostly watch TV on it. That's what they do now. But what do you think the solution to get them off of it? Even though they talk about wanting to, they don't get off of it, right? I mean, I agree. A lot of them said they would have preferred to be in the generation of their parents before it exists. And yet it's a kind of necessary evil in their generation. Like Cooper and Stella are talking at the end and say, like, do we exist if we're not online? Like, that's the current existential question for young people. I think it's very hard to go off as an individual. We see Ivy go off in the show and eventually get back on.

1:00:07It's a real kind of statement of saying, I'm going to be outside of the social life. And I think that being a teenager is about being in the social life, trying to find yourself socially, having friends, being accepted. And so I think that as a next step, like really we need collective action. It's very hard to do this individually. When they are in our group without phones, when they talk about going to camp without phones, they love that. In the schools that have banned phones this year, it might have been a big shock in the beginning, but the kids love it. Ironically, a lot of the kind of phones coming back in schools in the past has come from parents wanting to know where their kids are.

1:00:53And I think parents being okay with not being in touch with your kids at every moment will be helpful. But having phones that are not smartphones, you know, is great. Like they can text, they can talk, but not being on the social media apps. It doesn't mean we can never have the social media apps. Like you said, there are positive things about it. But the current algorithms are not made for kids' well-being. actually we know they're made for kids' harm or indifferent to kids' harm. They don't care. They don't care. Scott, last question? Do you think social media should be age-gated? Absolutely.

1:01:32I really support what Australia is doing, and I think it should be. I just want to say, like, for this generation, which Sydney in the film calls the guinea pig generation, they have already been exposed to trauma. So I hope that parents will watch the show with their kids. We have a parent guide and an educational curriculum at learner.org slash social studies. It's free for schools. Schools should use the curriculum, develop media literacy. This is coming from the kids, but they can't do it on their own. Right. And any argument about that they should be able to talk, free speech arguments that people make?

1:02:11Do you buy any of it? No, I'm a journalist. I totally believe in free speech. But I think what we have is a situation where capitalism is making it so that there's too much of a profit incentive for engagement, which often means the most prurient, the most outrageous, the most dangerous, especially when it comes to kids' brains. So I think that's exploitation of vulnerability, even in the teenage brain, that is an unfair match. Anyway, this amazing series. Thank you, Lauren. You can watch Social Studies on Hulu and Disney Plus, and you can find a link to the educational curriculum in the show notes.

1:02:51And we really appreciate you. Everybody should go and watch it. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Lauren. Nice meeting you. All right, Scott. That was, you know, it's the same story. I feel like we repeat ourselves over and over again on a critically important topic. I don't know what to do. But anyway, we'll keep talking about it so people will change. Anyway, we'll be back for wins and fails.

1:03:37If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes. But 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.

1:04:13Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I think I shall go first. I shall go first. Here's the win. Moana 2. Oh, my God. The money it's making. I liked it. I liked it. I think the music wasn't as good. Lin-Manuel Miranda's music was so good in the first one. the reason why I believe it started off as a TV series and it was and Bob Iger made a call to make it a movie which was a hugely fantastic call for this guy like he has made some big calls inside and out two is is the top move the three top movies Moana inside and out two and Deadpool and Wolverine all Disney movies this guy is doing a good job with the movies at Disney right now but I got to tell you it was beautifully done it my kids loved it and and let me just say it's except for the music, which is not as good.

1:05:01And it's killing it at the box office, more to the point. It's like closing in on$300 million in five days, which is amazing to go along with Wicked and Gladiator is sort of pulling up the rear in that$100 million domestically or something like that. I think Wicked is almost close to$250 or$300 million. Anyway, great movie, Moana, winner. Winner, winner, chicken dinner for Bob Iger. My fail is Pete Hegseth. I would agree with you on Ketel's Gabbard, and Kash Patel frightens me and is weird. But this guy, the Secretary of Defense, is one of the most important jobs in any administration. And our lives depend on someone being competent.

1:05:41And this guy is obviously an alcoholic, is incompetent at management, is a creepy sexual predator, very clearly. His mom thinks so. Whether she takes it back or not, you know she thought that. And I think they should absolutely send this guy out and get a competent person in one of the most important jobs. This isn't game. I get Trump wants to kill the deep state, but this is frigging ridiculous and chaotic and dangerous in that regard. Scott, your turn. So, look, my fail is I think the president sets such a big tone and there's so many people. Nothing's by accident with the president. And President Biden walked out with a book called The Hundred Years' War on Palestine.

1:06:27I think that's a fail. And I think it's an exceptionally unbalanced book. It's written by a guy who is an advisor to Yasser Arafat and the former chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The book portrays the conflict as a colonial war raged against the indigenous Palestinian population without acknowledging that Jewish people also have indigenous roots in the territory. And I just don't think that was a productive thing for the president to do in his final months. And it was clearly, I can't imagine this was by accident. And I'm trying to figure out what message he's trying to send.

1:07:05Well, does he have a real – I mean, there is the ceasefire, right, which is holding. And does it really matter what he reads now? I don't know. Well, I think the president holding a book as he walks out, they know it's going to be photographed. Anyways, it's a longer conversation. But anyways, I felt that if you look at this book and you look at how it portrays the, you know, the obviously decades-long conflict here, I just think it does not send a very balanced or empathetic message to many of us who feel—I can't figure out strategically what he was trying to communicate holding that book. I don't think it's a balanced book.

1:07:46I think there are better books that would attempt to, you know, provide, if you will, a quote-unquote balanced vision of what's happened there. And I don't think this is one of them. And I'm trying to figure out what kind of message he was trying to say there in his last couple months of presidency. But anyways, that's my fail. My win is the—and I can't believe you sent me a story on sports, which just blows my mind. I know! I didn't understand it. I can't—this was a huge weekend. We've had a huge couple weekends in the Galloway household. We are so much, and I hate to admit this, we are reveling in the epic, monstrous, unprecedented meltdown of Man City.

1:08:28You don't like that. A football club. I didn't know. Oh, my God. Everybody hates Man City. Okay. Man City, every year. Every year, Arsenal, you know, Liverpool, Chelsea, X, Y, and Z. We all think there's a shot we're going to win. The Premier Club and then Man City wins. They are so dominant. They are so good. And the last few games, they lost 2-0 to Liverpool, who probably deserves it. I can't believe you're saying nil and zed now because you're from London. But go ahead. Go ahead. Hey, stop it or you'll end up in the boot. In the boot. So that's my only, that's my big British. I hear that. You did it in a Scottish accent, but continue.

1:09:09Britishness, yeah. I sound like some Indian kid on meth when I try and do my Scottish accent now. Anyways, but last weekend, my son is a Spurs supporter. Tottenham beat Man City 4-0 at Man City. At, at, was it Emirates or Etihad? Anyways, whatever, Middle East airline. This is, I can't tell you how much joy this is bringing to UK households. The epic fail of Man City. That is my win. So it's like the Dallas Cowboys losing, right? Remember in the day when they were kind of douche nozzles over at the Dallas Cowboys and when they lost, people were happy. It's a super interesting point because if you look at the most successful, arguably the most successful league in the world is the NFL.

1:09:54And the NFL has a similar but actually more elegant vision of what UK Premier League soccer has. And that is it has relegation and promotion. That is the bottom three teams go down a league. The top three teams go up a league. And what the NFL has done, which is so visionary, is that the draft favors the worst team. The teams that come to do the worst get the top draft. So get this, in the last five years, about 95, 97 % of NFL teams have made the playoffs, which does the following. It keeps fans engaged around the league. And the problem is right now with the NBA and with Major League Baseball, the owners of the franchises like the New York Yankees, there's no fucking way they're going to let the Cincinnati Reds rebuild.

1:10:39But the NFL under, quite frankly, what's been excellent leadership, what's his name? Roger Goodell, I think. Yeah, Roger Goodell. But they have, similar to the Premier League, they have a promotion and relegation that keeps even more so in the NFL. Keeps it fresh. Every team's got a shot. Every team's got a shot. This might, when you say this might be our year, it might be. So you're excited now that this team is getting its head handed to them. Well, I keep waiting for Arsenal because the manager is a dad of my school. He seems like a lovely guy. And I think Bukaya Saka is just a joy to watch.

1:11:17But my son's like Chelsea and Tottenham. I can't tell you. The one thing we have come together on is Man City losing. Oh, well, good. I'm glad to provide that. It's been so exciting. I read it. I'm like, I think this is his team or maybe he doesn't like it. I didn't know which one it was. I couldn't believe you forwarded me that. I mean, how does Kara Swisher know about Man City's epic meltdown? Because I knew you mentioned it, and I vaguely listened to some of your foot soccer, whatever you want to call it. I can't stand Holland either. He's so good, and he's so good. Oh, ah, ah, ah. I love those people.

1:11:48All I know is I'm glad the Jets lost, and I don't even follow it because Aaron Rodgers is a jerk. You would love Masayoshi Son. You would love Bukaya Saka. They're both wonderful men. Masayoshi Son runs—wait a second. Isn't that the internet guy? Is that another person? No, no, it's not Sodbank. No, San, S-O-N, he's the best South Korean player. He's the striker for the Spurs, and he's just this lovely, gentle man. He's like a great example for young men. Anyways. Okay. They've also got the nice stadium. Actually, you know what? You don't even need to come. Send your boys. I'll take them to a Premier League game.

1:12:21It's the best sporting event in the world. You know what they do at Premier League games? The losing side, the losing fans, everyone stays after the game, and they clap for their team and they stick around, convinced it's the last place that men can show emotion, where they high-five each other and hug. There is nothing, I'm not into sports at all. I go to a Premier League game probably every other weekend. All right, I will send my sons to you to do this. You know where we are going? I have accepted on your behalf. So I read that in that whole area, in the sports area, and I was reading it, Egan Durbin, you know, from Silver Lake, who I've known for a million years, who I've always liked.

1:12:58Was he chairman of Twitter at one point or something? or he was on the board of Twitter? He might have been. He might have been. But in any case, I've always liked him. He's a very smart guy. He and his wife, Abby, are investing in bull riding, like making it a thing. All these really rich people are looking for different sports areas to invest in, and they happen to like bull riding. Professional bull riding? PBR? Professional bull riding. I think it's owned by WME, isn't it? No, I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, he's making invest. Maybe he is because he's close to those guys. But I wrote him.

1:13:28I'm like, bull riding? He goes, you want to come? I'm like, we're coming. We're coming to bull riding. I saw it once and I loved it. Tell me you're a lesbian without telling me you're a lesbian. I know. He's like, how do you like bull riding? And I said, I'm a lesbian. Nothing is safe. And I know people get hurt and everything else. I know there's damage. I don't care. I loved it when I saw it. I saw it in one of those states where they have it. You know how they get those bulls out angry. What? Anyway, no. They basically put a rope around their nuts and then they singe it right before they open that gate.

1:13:58Anyways. Do you know what? I'm thinking of doing that for you sometimes. That's a great idea. You never know. That's called a Tuesday night, and I'll pay you for it. I will pay you for it. Well, I'm glad your blood pressure is down, but I will try to bring it back up. Anyway, we're going bull riding also. Well, I'm glad for you in whatever soccer situation you have going. Anyway, that's the show. 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. I also want to mention on my latest episode of On with Kara Swisher, I'm talking to Nathan Mirvold, the founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures and former CTO of Microsoft.

1:14:33He's a really funny thinker about everything. We discussed all sorts of things, including tech leaders taking to social media. This is my favorite response. Let's listen. Have you been surprised by the shift of some tech people into this area? I am surprised at how people who have the skills and abilities to actually do something and who got where they are by lots of careful, reasoned, logical, rational thinking have become buffoons online saying things primarily for its shock value, entertainment value, in a way that, look, Kara, let's make a little pact here. If I ever do that, come and stop me.

1:15:21I will. I tried with a number of them. It didn't work. It didn't work. Anyway, I like Nathan. He's always really funny. He seems thoughtful. By the way, just some quick breaking news here. We talked about, what did we say was the worst managed company over the last 20 years? And their CEO was on the green mile. Do you remember this? No, tell me. I forgot. The CEO of Intel was fired today. Oh, wow. Well, deserved probably right. You watch. We're going to see a private equity shop come in. And also, just to tease the next episode, Daddy might be part of an owner group to buy a football club and we're all going to go.

1:16:00Oh, you mean a football? Football or soccer? The real football. Okay. Oh, real football. The real football. Okay. By the way, this is not, it is not Man City or a Premier League team. It's what a podcaster can afford. But still, it's going to get me like good seats and a shirt and we're all going to go. It's going to be a ton of fun. Okay, good. It's a teen girls team, something like that. I don't know what. That sounds pretty good. Bend it like Beckham. Bend it like Beckham. Did you see that movie? Go watch that movie again. That was Keira Knightley's first film. Probably her best film. That's pretty low bar.

1:16:34I'm not sure. I'm not a huge fan of Keira Knightley. Bend it like Beckham, Scott Galloway. Okay, I'm excited for that. I'm excited to be a sports owner. You've always wanted to do that. Always. I support it. The midlife crisis continues. The Arrested Adolescence Tour. New dates announced. Oh, fantastic. Okay. All right, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertied engineered this episode. Thanks to also to two bros, Ms. Severio, Dan Shulon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishat Karua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

1:17:08Make sure you subscribe to the new show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you 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. Man City. Oh no! Oh no!