Kara Swisher: Musk’s Cry for a Giant Hug

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is April twentieth two thousand twenty three. And for some bizarre reason, little blue check mark on my Twitter. It’s going soon.

Can you explain this to me? I mean, by the way, we’re joined by Kara Swisher, journalist. Legendary host of the podcast on with Kara Swisher, cohost of the podcast pivot. So no pressure on me to be interviewing a professional legendary podcast host.

You do very well, Charlie. You can do very well. So

what’s with the blue check mark? Why isn’t it gone? What’s going on?

I don’t know. I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know is a is a technical answer. I think, you know, it’s a very difficult thing to do technically with Twitter and especially when they have such a much smaller tech yeah.

It is. It can really iterate through the system and not a good way. And so It’s been explained to me by more tactical people than myself, and I’m not that technical. When you create these big changes on a platform like Twitter, which is already a problematic platform start with, you’re gonna see a lot of possible shutdowns, things happening. And so they have to do it.

The only one they took off was The New York Times because they said they weren’t gonna pay, and that was they just hand took it off. And so I think there’s a real difficulty in figuring out who paid, who didn’t, who to take off, who not, and there’s nothing I

did not pay. I do not want anyone to be under I bet see, that’s what I’m concerned about. If it’s up there, are people gonna think you paid? No. I

don’t think anyone’s paying attention, but Elon Musk can some people in the press. You know what I mean? Like, honestly, who cares? I was given it many, many years ago without I didn’t even know it was suddenly appeared there. You know, they they needed to have people there to look legitimate.

And so that’s what it was used for. It was never of any particular benefit to me. I’m also not paying, have never paid. You know, it’s just his little weirdness. I don’t understand it.

It’s weird, whatever.

Now that you mentioned it, if you are one of those people that actually care about having a blue check mark, you need to reexamine your life choices. This is one of those moments that back and have a moment of Zen, maybe read a stoic philosopher or something. It’s just there’s something wrong.

Yeah. Although, it does say who someone is. These ones that have been verified for years, it does confuse things. I think William Shatner actually is correct. There could be a he likes the platform.

He uses it. He doesn’t like a lot of stuff he loves doing, but Nonetheless, it protects him to and users to know that it’s him that is talking. And so if they’re already verified, why bother? It just doesn’t make any sense and it’s possible technical snafus are going to happen. And mostly he’s doing it to attract attention and piss off journalists, but whatever, you know, most of them don’t care from my perspective.

So I wanna

spend some time talking about Elon Musk. I wanna talk about Twitter. I wanna talk about Rhonda Sanders. I wanna talk about Fox. I wanna talk about this.

Podcast thing with you. But we have to start with this because you and I are having this conversation on Thursday morning. And among the the many shambolic things that Elon Musk is involved in one of the best things that he has done. It has been SpaceX. This is one of the good things.

This is one of the successful things. This is — Mhmm. — this is

the — The galaxy line. —

planet b striding visionary of the future. And he just launched this giant rocket this morning, which blew up after four minutes. I admire — Mhmm. — the pioneering — Mhmm. — and the engineering involved in this.

But it feels I’m tempted by the metaphor. I’m sorry. I’m just tempted by — Yeah. — a metaphor — Yeah. — April twentieth.

Elon Musk’s biggest freaking rocket ever blows up.

Yeah. It’s an interesting this is a super complex rocket and has a lot of engines from what I’m not space expert again also, but it’s incredibly complex things. And people have tried previous versions of this that also same thing happen. And so he really did, you know, he pushed down expectations of this that it’s gonna take several tries. He also likes the drama of it too, like, oh, oh, no.

And no. Yes. It’s kind of thing. But it fails to reach orbit, which is what it’s trying to do, these test things. And they need to get to speeds fast enough to do that.

It still remains the most important company in the sector. StarLink is very critical to Ukraine, which also creates problems that a single person —

Mhmm.

— is dominating communications in a critical war. But the stuff he’s doing not just around this, but also these rockets — Mhmm. — these Falcon Nine rockets, which have been working very well. What didn’t happen is it didn’t explode right there on the ground. And that would have been a real problem because then they would have not been able to do it for a while.

So they can do another rocket and try it again. And there’s several others that they built already. And so that was critical. Right. What is harder is that they’re trying to use spaceship for some moon missions.

And creating moon bases and things like that. So it’s the move to people living in space. Getting them to go to the moon is really important to stay there. But, you know, this is typical in rocketry. This happens all the time.

And the the level of complexity here is massive.

So here’s the puzzle of Elon Musk. Because he he does some things very well, and then he does Twitter. I mean and you just wrote about this recently, you know, for Time Magazine. I mean, his his tenure at Twitter has been just one snafu, an embarrassment after another. So I guess, I’m trying to disaggregate this.

The —

Yeah. Yeah. — Elon

Musk who appears to be a prisoner of his own narcissism over on Twitter and yet SpaceX. So We know what his involvement is with Twitter, which appears to be sucking up about eighty percent of his brain — Right. — these days. So what does that mean about space? Is SpaceX Is it Elon or is there a little bit of separation?

Should we be concerned that the same kind of of show embolic management is going to affect and maybe tank Tesla and SpaceX? Or how does that work?

Well, they’re not unrelated. I mean, they have other people going shot wells running SpaceX. There’s another executive more focused on Tesla, which has more challenges because there’s all kinds of competitors now. There’s not really a competitor’s SpaceX right now. What I think he’s doing at Twitter is a little bit what’s happening at SpaceX, which, you know, when they first started doing these Falcon Nine, rockets.

There was all kinds of problems. And then they kept tweaking things. And now, there’s not a real problem. Right? I think that’s what he thinks he’s doing at Twitter, which is and quite publicly, which is tweaking it, trying it, tweaking it, trying it.

Of course, nothing blows up, but it does blow up. Right? Things blow up publicly. And so I think he’s doing in real time what he does at the other companies, but no one is paying attention. At them and because Twitter’s a media organization, he’s doing things that are, like, writing obnoxious things or attacking people or making claims that just aren’t true.

So it has a very different feel of what they’re doing, but it’s always tweaking. Tweaking is what he’s doing. And he likes to publicly tweak people for his own amusement. And so it’s not unlike what you do when you make software. You know, what they’re doing with SpaceX is important and at the same time puts enormous power in the hands of one person.

Including for just NASA but in Ukraine and eventually in Taiwan, it will be really important. You’re just not seeing the tweaking and it’s not quite as prone to stentery, which he loves stunts, and that’s what’s happening there. Let’s

talk about that because you have had a long and complex relationship with Elon, Zolanta, but you and Elon. By the way, you discussed this on one of the episodes of on with Cara Swisher back in November that you’ve been covering Twitter from the beginning. When it was called audio? Audio.

Yes. It was. Yeah. Yeah. It was a podcast company.

One of the guys who founded it was a podcast client air, really technology.

Yeah. Well, and you were a Twitter fan. Mhmm. You loved it. It was your hobby.

You have, you know, one point four million followers. You’re kind of a professional Twitter. Yeah. And I think the last time you and I spoke, you were willing to cut Elon some some Slack little bit said you were willing to defend Musk even when he behaved badly because he was this visionary. So just talk to me about since then because you describe him now that that he’s become kind of a troll that Twitter has become nonstop grievance platform.

He wastes too much of his time fiddling on his toxic violin while it burns. His roots get You close by calling him the opposite of progress. So this has turned out worse than you were expecting.

You know, the level of radicalization, I don’t know what to call it. The incessant need for attention really. It’s become a giant hug me. Twitter for him. Like, hug me, I’m in pain.

He talked about it on the Tucker Carlson thing. It’s been very painful. For him. And so given someone who could do these astonishing things at SpaceX and Tesla, you’d imagine they would be and someone who was very politically, I would say, centrist had voted for, I think Biden had voted for Obama.

Yeah.

But is also open he was always open to other politics and friendly with a lot of people. Mhmm.

It was

sort of a surprise to go so red pill. Right? And so ridiculous and just tweaking people and being obnoxious to people. I’m like, how big is the yawning mob of your insecurity? And

Pretty big.

Yeah. I guess. And I think I was sort of, like, when you had all these accomplishments, is nothing gonna fill this empty hole inside of you? I don’t know. I just I mean, I’m not a psychologist.

And, you know, a lot of people say there’s a method to madness here. I don’t know if there is. I think we’re just watching therapy in real time that’s not working very well, essentially. And it’s you’ve seen it before with Trump and others. It’s this yawning maw of emptiness that can’t get filled.

There’s also this red pilling that’s going on that sometimes I think I understand and then other times I don’t need this vortex that takes people who are, you know, perhaps reasonable appear to be intelligent, and it sucks them into these extreme strange corners of of our politics. So — Mhmm. — what is going on because my sense was that he was eccentric. He was kind of funny. He was a tool.

He was like to tweak people. And then everything seemed to accelerate when he’s listening to cat Turd and now he is really embracing the far right. That feels like it happened in a relatively short period of time. Do you watch this guy? You know this guy?

I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happened. I don’t you know, I’ve seen this happen to a number of people. Not like an unusual thing. It just happens he’s the richest man in the world doing it, and he has other really critical companies like SpaceX and Tesla.

At the same time. So it’s not just a clownish personality. He has real power, probably above almost anyone on the planet, I would say, at this moment. Really interesting. A lot of people, like, why are you giving a moxie job?

Like, do you know how important this guy is? Like, in real terms for geopolitics for what’s happening with electric cars at this moment. I don’t think he’s gonna hold on to that lead, by the way. But he’s way ahead. He’s certainly way ahead.

He was very prescient about that stuff took a lot of risk. The only thing I think of is he loves drama and he loves attention. And so it becomes intoxicating when people are licking you up and down all day. Doesn’t

he want respectability and trust? He doesn’t care about that at all.

No. He no. He’s

gone from being times man of the year. Kind of a punchline. Mhmm. And yet, here’s a guy who is very, very powerful. He gets lots of subsidies from the government.

I wanna come back to all of that.

Yes, he does. I would call him government funded. Yeah. And

if he is insecure so much of what’s happened to him seems completely self inflicted.

Yes. Yes. At least in Twitter. And I think know, you could argue that Twitter is important to his other businesses and around the globe. We’re only thinking in the US and being offended by whatever stupid thing he tweeted yesterday.

Kinda thing is. What I don’t even remember what it is anymore. Twitter has a lot of influence around the globe, so it could help as other businesses. Maybe we don’t realize that I I’m paying a lot of attention to that. Is what power gives him.

Two things I think he’s aiming at here, and I I think people aren’t paying attention. One is media hegemony. Right? Like, what’s the next Fox News? What’s the next propaganda platform?

Right? You know, now we know that to be a propaganda platform, of course, which we thought anyway. But I think he’s sort of thinking about how important media is to influence. And so that’s the play here. If I was just being a cold, like, okay, aside from crazy, he wants media, hegemony, essentially, or or he wants to be in charge of the discussion of what’s happening.

And that that could work because Twitter is a super small company from a business point of view, and it’s smaller still under his leadership. But it still has an outsized noisy role in news and with politicians and media. And then the second thing is that he’s trying to go into the payments area. Which is his origins where he started. He wasn’t a PayPal founder.

He had a company called X dot com. X now owns Twitter, by the way. And it was a real failure on his part because he sold into it. But then, of course, PayPal sold. He sold it at the right time.

He made some money to do this. It all worked out for him. But he’s always been super interested in the power of finance and control

of

that with people. So having media power and financial power And now he has he has military power in some weird way. Think about that. Like, think about that.

The word that comes to mind though is also Miglomania — Yeah. — you gave an interview to the BBC where you’re talking about Musk, you know, saying, hey, you know, he made mistakes and how he fired people who were loyal to him. He paid way too much for the company. Yeah. But you said for Silicon Valley people, it’s never their fault.

Never. No. And there does seem to be For all the other explanations here, you do have a a certain kind of Silicon Valley megalomaniya times ten with him or is it not time? Ten, or is he just Yeah.

Well, I think a lot of people would like to be like him. Right? Like, oh, he did that? Oh, we did that. That’s you know, maybe we should do that.

All of them are sort of bound by shame. Right? What if you could operate without any shame? Well, it’s very powerful. You know, again, it calls to mind someone else.

A media person who then shifted it into politics. Donald Trump, it’s if you have no shame, you can go very far if you continue, if you stick to it.

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Late last year, Musk stopped talking to you. You tweeted about SpaceX StarLink satellite service in Ukraine, he emailed you that you were an asshole. Yeah. And so you haven’t talked since soon?

I was supporting him in that one.

He broke off with you and No. He’s

done it before. You

think maybe he was irritated at you for saying that he shouldn’t be homophobic and transphobic, like when he made fun of the Paul Pelosi attack and act like freaking child? Yeah.

That was later. That came after that. I was supporting what I thought he should be paid. He was a defense contractor, you know, important one. In Ukraine.

And so when he was talking, he had given it quite generously to the Ukrainians, but at some point it cost money. And then he started to be like, wait a minute. I’m in the middle of a war. I don’t want the war to happen. And then, you know, you have an individual making decisions like this.

And I was quoting from an article talking about that wrinkle. And I thought he should be paid. I thought if you’re gonna do this stuff, he should be paid by the defense department, but he shouldn’t have say over what happens. So it was in a unique position, and he got mad because I retweeted. And he thought maybe he thought I wasn’t on his side.

I don’t know. But the Paul Pelosi thing happened after, and that was just heinous. It was heinous and rude, and then you know, he’s done it since he did it around a murder in San Francisco. He blamed the homeless people. You know, he keeps it’s the same thing.

He has no information. He tweets he’s like, he doesn’t even say my bad. He just does it. And so, you know, he used it to attack San Francisco in the issues. Of course, they’re massive or in San Francisco.

There are many cities including cities in Kentucky and Florida, you know, like, not just cities or more dangerous parts of this country and not where you think they are, and there are a lot of them in red states. By the way. But San Francisco has become a symbol, but were better or worse. And so he was blaming that and sort of demonizing homeless people, and then it turned out to be a very a sad and tragic situation between people who knew each other. He

seemed to have become addicted to any of the cattered like memes. I don’t know if they captured anything to do with this. I just wanted to say captured again. Yeah. He seems to be addicted to this.

He

likes jokes and stupid jokes and poop jokes. And I

get the stupid joke. They get the inner twelve year old stuff. It’s it’s the when you go after the cat and Pelosi stuff, you’re in a whole new category.

Yeah. It’s and, you know, he’s got family members who have trans and it’s really kind of sad. I don’t even understand it. I mean, it’s just

sad. It’s cruel for someone who’s so powerful to punch down so frequently. Do you have any thoughts on that that he actually has family members who are and is this encouraging his radicalization? I have

no idea. The only thing I can think of when someone that powerful punch is down so frequently, and it’s real punching down. It really is, is they think they’re small. They perceive themselves as small. And so There’s something happened, and, you know, I’ll be eager to read, multiples since the book, but he talked about it with me on a podcast.

You know, he had some parental issues with his dad, a lot of bullying in school. There’s a lot of background that he was quite bullied when he was a kid. Now again, lots of you been bullied and do not end up behaving like this. But, you know, there’s someone who must feel small if they have to attack people. Unneath them.

That’s always seems to be the case. So let’s

talk about this weird episode where we tag NPR state affiliated media been labeled as government funded media. NPR stepped away. PBS is stepped away. You made a great point on Secret Podcast, you know.

CBC has stepped away too.

That’s right. Canadian Broadband. You pointed out, Elon Musk is government funded. The electric cars get enormous subsidy. He controls fifty percent of the electric car market.

He got an original loan for Tesla. He’s benefited from SpaceX. He is government funded, and it’s just ridiculous. He is the most government funded. Isn’t it ironic?

Isn’t it ironic? I don’t know what to say. Like, it’s just

again, he wants to tweak them. He wants to get it. It immediately gets attention. And so again, returned to yawning empty maw at the center of his personality. And

when you’re the emperor, the emperor, you don’t have to be consistent forever you’re sorry.

Yeah. It’s kind of sad if you would you think about it, but the irony is rich, and of course he doesn’t point that out, or or when he makes mistakes, you know, oh, I guess that was all wrong. What’s interesting is something like NPR gets very little of its funding from the government. He probably on a case by case basis, he would be more of a government funded institution than it is. And so it’s just a way to tweak at them.

They maybe they wrote something sideways about one of his cars once and now he’s getting the back day. He has a long memory and that kind of stuff. So who knows? I mean, he pays attention to an awful lot of things that really. Most people would just let go by.

Among the things he’s paying attention to is the development of AI tools. He was one of the signatures of that letter from a thousand plus technology leaders

— Mhmm. — research is

calling for a pause. And and he he talked about this with Tucker Carlson explaining how dangerous AI is. But once again, the irony, Musk himself is investing in the growth of the technology through his own startup. So what — Yeah. — how do we what’s going on with Elan musk

We think he’s a hip Hippocrit. Of course, it’s

bullshit. It’s bullshit. It’s

bullshit. It’s so much you know, let me just be clear. I’ve done lots of interviews him and a lot of public ones, and he’s been talking about this you for years. I talked to him a lot about OpenAI many years ago when he was one of his principal funders, one of his early funders. And, I mean, far back is two thousand eighteen seventeen.

Whenever, very early he and I had extensive talks about the dangers and he was one of the first him and Steven Hawking were the two who are really talking about the dangers of AI. Mhmm. And good to bring it up, by the way. Good to bring it up. In this case, he’s really disingenuous.

He got sidelined at OpenAI, and he didn’t like the decision that Sam Altman made. So what does he do? We attack Sam Altman who’s the person who’s been running OpenAI. He attacks the whole process, and then he sides with good debates going on about these issues, and they should be. It’s good that people are debating them.

But he’s got economic interests that are completely opposite to that. And slowing down would be a very good thing for him. Interest first in there are correct things. Big companies shouldn’t be in control of all this stuff, private companies. There should be a bigger government involvement here at least because it’s so critical we saw what happened with the original Internet that the government owned and then got out to the wild.

So he’s correct on a lot of things, but of course, he has economic self interest happening on the other side. And he’ll and he cloaks it in. I wanna do truth GPT, which is like GPT is liberal. And, of course, that plays to the Tucker Carlson audience. And Obviously, we know from Tucker Carlson emails what he says publicly and privately are very different.

And so same thing with Elon. Well, I

don’t wanna go down this particular rabbit hole, but how worried are you about AI on a scale of one to one hundred, one hundred being the machines will kill us all. It will be nuclear winter, zero being its it’s gonna be Google. What what where are you? That

was a very good movie. That was a very good movie. I love the Terminator movies. They were terrific. I just thought so.

You know, I think there are issues around who controls this and whether they’re private companies or the governments involved and what the regulatory scheme work is. That’s one thing. Two, I do think that there is a lot of benefits from this. Just like the Internet on a net basis has been positive even though there’s a lot of negativity around it, obviously. You know, eraticalization of people, misinformation, use of bad actors.

I think what I’m most worried about, you know, and then there’s the jobs issue. We’ll change jobs. Every single technology changes jobs. So I’m not I don’t think this more than others is gonna — Yeah. — you know, the cotton gin, the this, the that, the everything.

Like, there’s always some tech technology coming along cars or technology changed everything. They didn’t stop the process of cars. Right? And by the way, a net basis cars have been good. Right?

Except they’re not, except they’re not for lots of reasons. But

the cars in the cotton gin do not become self aware and wanted to destroy humanity as we know it. You

know what’s the problem with this is? Let me get the one thing that’s the problem with this technology is humans. Humans that will take it and use it from nefarious. Always it’s humans that cause the problems.

That’s not really sure. Whether

they’re asking questions, no. And so, therefore, you wanna look at human history, that’s where I would look before I would look at the technology. It’s not sentient. It’s not gonna suddenly go. It

is not gonna become

Humans. No. For a while, Elon was actually talking like that it might just kill us, you know, and we need a chip in our brain. He has another company called NeuroLINK that he’s testing different things out. Still, just aspirational.

There’s nothing there there yet. But I think it’s really more. This technology doesn’t care for us one way or the other. And Elon actually compared it to we’re like house cats. But I do think that it will replace a lot of stuff we’re doing that’s wrote, and that’s a good thing.

But it doesn’t wanna do anything. It does what it’s told. And there’s not a moment where they’re gonna go, you humans are a pain in my ass. I’m gonna blow you all up. It doesn’t care.

It just doesn’t care. It’s humans that’ll be the problem with this thing. Are you

a fan of Blade Runner, the Blade Runner movies?

Yeah. Yeah. A little I like Terminator more. But, yes, Same thing. There’s a new series called missus Davis on Paramount about a about an algorithm that’s helpful to people and then she’s trying to kill it and you know, that’s an old story.

One

last question on Twitter, because I wanna get to Ron DeSantis and Fox. Sure. Is is Elon Musk killing Twitter? Or or what will Twitter look like a year from now? Because he does seem to be succeeding in driving people away.

What do you think?

Yes. Yes. It’s a less good business. Right now. And maybe if he comes up with some payment scheme that people wanna sign up for, maybe certainly has opportunity there.

There’s a I’ve always thought Twitter is a huge tuning that’s been blown over and over again by his management. You know, maybe it’ll be smaller. It’s definitely smaller. It’s half the size of Snapchat now. In terms of revenue.

Maybe he’ll come up with another business. Maybe he’s done it before, but doesn’t mean rockets and cars are very different than this. Media, media is hard. So I don’t know. I think it’ll just keep bumping along him screaming.

That’s going, oh my god. Can you believe he said that? It’s a less good place to be. And eventually, someone will come up with something that’s better. There’s not a lot of innovation going on there.

That’s really the problem with it. It’s just a lot of noise. And so I’d like to see some innovation from someone who calls themselves the most innovative person on earth. There hasn’t been anything he’s done that wasn’t already in the closet there at Twitter, so we’ll see.

Okay. Let let’s switch to a little bit of politics. Ron DeSantis, you were on Twitter yesterday calling out DeSantis for extending the don’t say gay bill to twelfth grade. Yeah. And what’s interesting about this is so many of his supporters and fanboys had absolutely insisted that, no, this is not Don’t Take A.

Because it’s just —

Yeah. —

young kids who grade three. And I know that Tim Miller, my colleague, him. Just got beaten up about this. This is not don’t say gay. It’s just for really young children.

Did you get all this? And now, they’re basically saying, I guess, screw that defense, we’re going all the way to twelfth grade.

That’s correct. Oh, that’s what they were doing. I did the same thing. I had an event in Florida I pulled out. I’m like, I know where you’re going with this.

And I got attacked by DeSantis people direct people Bulwark for them. It’s called me a groomer or whatever. Mhmm. And I was like, I know what you’re doing, but I called them a bunch of communists because they wanna tell me what do with my business. But they were trying to insert government into a punitive place against a business.

Right? And so which is what they’re doing at Disney, and which seems rather democrat of them to do you know what I mean, if you wanna insult Democrats, which people have done over the years too much metaling. And so sometimes justified, sometimes good that they meddled, and sometimes not. So when I did that, I got totally attacked by DeSantis. People.

And I’m like, I know exactly where you’re going. This is not about third grade. It’s not about families. In fact, your anti family compared to the people you think you’re in it. They’re playing in on this, you know, they’ve correctly identified people who talk about parental rights, which parents have, by the way, they just do And by the way, they do mostly have most of the rights kind of stuff and certain things.

It’s a thing. You know, we can argue over as a society. But, you know, I knew that this is just where they were headed they were they’ve been mad forever about gay marriage and adoption. And so they found a way in through trans, by attacking trans people relentlessly and pointlessly and and creely. And this this is the next step over for that.

So

what is the directional arrow here? They

wanna overturn gay marriage. Okay.

So you think that’s where they’re going? Yeah.

I don’t I have no question. Or taking back the strides gay people have made for visibility. And normal visibility of as citizens, you know? And it’s so confusing and ridiculous and such a virtuous signal to a very small group of people. Most people would be like, what are you doing?

Like, what this is gross? And are used to now, gay families and everything else. And so, you know, they’re attacking a whole group of people and they’re just using the leverage to continue, to claw back their retrograde visions of a society.

So what strikes me about this is that rather than simply take the win. Okay. See you you win on these issues. Instead of taking the wind and moving on. There seems to be this relentless pressure.

No, you must keep going further. So Hernandez, for example, you know, having passed that bill could have, you know, just, you know, planted the flags, spiked the football, and ignored all the criticism. He didn’t need to go to war with Disney. Right. Having done this, he could have said, okay, we’ve done it for really young kid, you know, come at me and explain why our first grader should learn about all of this, and that’s a defensible position.

Mhmm. Instead, there does appear to be this relentless pressure. No. Let’s go for the next thing while we can it does feel as if there is this. And I’m I’m sorry to use the old cliche about, you know, the absolute power corrupting, absolutely.

But in these states where they have the super majorities, it seems that there is this absolute impulse — Yeah.

— to

go as far and fast as possible even if it makes no political sense. Well,

because they know they have to grab it now. It’s gonna be taken back from them every eye. Eventually. But, you know, they gotta grab it now with that they’re empowered. So that’s why the right has always been focused like this.

It’s not a new thing for the right like, let’s grab all we can now and take stuff back that we got, and then hopefully, it’ll stay in place for at least a while. Right? So I think this is such a known course error from him, several of them, not just these bills, which I consider, anti family bills. You know, he’s aiming at people that people aren’t mad at, people aren’t mad at Disney, that people aren’t mad at Anheuser Busch, They’re not, you know, just one after the other. I think everyone’s confused about this new floor.

It’s the board of education that’s doing this, but it’s all DeSantis appointees. It seems like they’re unforced areas. When Donald Trump is the voice of reason, you know, same thing on abortion with six weeks going far doing it in the dead of night, Trump is like, that’s too much. Whoa. What are you doing to the gays?

What are you doing to Disney? Like, if you have to all Trump, the voice of reason in the Republican Party, you know something’s off. It shows that he’s not ready for prime time for sure. It

also shows, you know, how he just hasn’t quite figured out how to be authentically a Maga lizard person. I did my newsletter today on his lizard person. That, you know, and that I’ve said this on several podcast now that, you know, a guy from Yale and Harvard has to, you know, convince — Yeah. — you know, the magic job. Like, Hello, fellow lizard people.

I am just like you, and I think you want me to do this. And so he does it in an incredibly inept way. I

said this months ago when he was surging. I was like, he’s Charlie Sykes. He’s utterly Charlie Sykes. And — Yeah. — people like a funny person, they they like a tall person.

I hate to say that, but if you look at presidents, they’re all tall. He seems like a small man in in many, many ways physically. And I don’t usually comment on people’s physicists. In fact, the matter is presidents are all tall, like, if you just look at it. I know that’s weird, but it’s so actually, actually, they just are mostly recent decades.

But more to the point, he seems like a small man mentally. Right? Like, even though he’s super and harmless. Ch harmless. Ch harmless is what I say.

He’s just that he just seems like, oh, my god. When he was doing the whole Disney press conference, He’s just in irritating. I recently compared him on one of my podcasts. I said remember people said that Elizabeth Warren felt like your ex wife, you know, I know it’s a me I’m not just means, like, the things to say, but he feels like your ex husband that you just can’t get away from. Like, oh my god, that, you know, ugh.

And the guy at the table You’re like, oh, that’s that her ex husband, no one wants to talk to him. That’s what he feels like. Well,

I think he made the calculation that this is the age of the asshole, and and therefore, you know, the more performative ass tollary you can do. Go ahead. But the problem is that that he is a jerk and he has a lousy personality and he’s paying a huge price for it. I mean, he’s stories that you’re getting about the, you know, Florida congressman who are not endorsing him. They’re saying he never called his mic out to us.

He doesn’t like talking to people. He doesn’t like, you know, he doesn’t do retail politics he is absolutely Charlie Sykes. And believe it or not, that actually matters. And the thing about Trump, he’s looking at Trump trying to imitate him and he figures, you know, I’m going to be your retribution. I’m going to be a jerk.

I’m going to bully people. I will insult people. Except the thing about Trump is that Trump had enough buffoonery to sort of leaven — Yeah. — the cruelty and the lies. He was able to be a little bit entertaining.

And he also understands something about interpersonal relationships. I can’t believe I’m saying anything positive. No,

he does. People like him. None

of which, DeSantis, gets. Yeah.

Even people who don’t like them say, oh, Trump’s entertained. I don’t want it to make it all Trump. I think he is curdled rather significantly, but Ron doesn’t want his start Kurdle. Yeah. And so he’s Scott Walker of this era, I I think.

Also, a a Charlie Sykes person. Sorry. That

hurts being from Wisconsin. And I think what happened is that he was exposed on the national stage. This feels very similar to me watching Ron DeSantis as to what happened, how the the on paper expectations versus the reality of the real guy. I mean, I don’t know if I have told you this story. I mean, I remember when Walker was giving his speech.

I know. Person known Walker for many many years. He gave a speech in Iowa — Mhmm. — and people were like, oh, that’s fantastic. This guy is great.

He’s the front runner. What do you think? And I say, well, you know, call me back and let me know what you think the twenty fifth time you’ve heard that speech because that’s the speech. That’s the only one he’s got. Right.

So Yeah.

Yeah. He doesn’t move. And you have to shift in this media environment. It’s a it’s a social media

environment. And

he seems like Troll. And if you want a Troll, go to the original, the OG Troll, which is Trump. Like, really? And I see what he’s doing. He’s trying to go right of Trump, but It doesn’t work.

There’s no space. Speaking of a big man, he’s a big man in the Trolls space, so you have to really I don’t know where you go. Alright.

Let’s talk Fox Dominion. I’m going back and forth on this. I know there’s an interesting debate people who are saying, you know, this is the beginning, this was massive accountability, the price of lies, versus those of us were saying, come on. We were kind of hoping for the six week festival of shot in Freud. And there was no apology.

There was no correction. Where do you come down

on all of

that? And sort of glass half full glass half empty. You

know what? I’m sorry, you don’t get your entertainment people, but it was a very good business decision on behalf of Dominion. They would have gone through appeals. They wouldn’t have gotten as much money. They might have lost an appeals court.

Fox was not letting go of this. Fox had a reputational disaster on his hands, including putting Rupert Murdoch on the stand. And as sharp attack as that guy is, I I always used to joke I’ll never turn my back on him if he’s a hundred and three. I just wouldn’t just whack back out of a room because you never know what he’s gonna do. He’s still, you know, older, he would have issues on the stand.

There’s all kinds of emails to shove in his face that he’s lying about things. Same thing with Carlson with all of them. You know, God forbid getting LewDobs on the stand. That would have been just a meltdown of all massive proportions in Maria Bartle roman. Laura Ingram, just not good for the brand.

Right? It’s very obvious why Fox needed to stop this. So

why didn’t they read out a check for one

point six billion then? It was too much. The and Dominion had backed away from that number, and it was an impact on the loss of business. They backed away from that anyway. They were already showing indications.

They were not gonna get that amount of money. Look, Dominion is was worth eighty million dollars a couple years ago when this group, I think, Staple Street Capital. Invested in it, and they paid thirty eight million dollars or seventy six percent of this company or something like that, even before that. And so this is a massive windfall. Like, it’s crazy amounts of money.

All the stuff got out. All the stuff. All the shitty emails got out. Okay. So everybody knows.

Right? So that’s good for them. The money is massive. It’s a massive amount of money that they will get directly along with their lawyers. It’s a good deal all around, and I know that sense terrible, but it’s already out there.

And by the way, there’s more coming. Smartmatic is right behind it with Fox. Obviously, Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell, and Mike Lindell will be in litigation for the rest of their lives. Lives. And then you have other shareholders of Fox who there’s sixty percent of that company is owned by other people.

They’re not gonna love all these payouts. This is not the only payouts. Fox is gonna have to make. But Rupert has a history of paying out whether it was a ninety million dollars around the sexual harassment related to Roger Ailes, whether it was the money they gave Gretchen Carlson. I think that was twenty million or thirty million.

And then the hundred and thirty nine million they did around phone hacking. Rupert pays, people offers bad behavior, and it’s it’s in keeping with his his business. He knows. He knows. He’s a smart guy.

What does it do for the culture of disinformation? The we’ve had the lawsuits against Alex Jones. We’ve had this lawsuit. Is it going to change the environment where people go? You know, I was going to, you know, pedal these lies, these conspiracy theories, but no.

Perhaps I had to think twice about it. Does it change this? Does it change the incentive structure? No. In a positive way.

Why not?

No. I would say, overall, no. Well, for a lot of small companies, they can’t afford to do that. I think Olin is also subject to Dominion and Smartmatic, I think. But Dominion for sure.

They’re gonna be out of business. They can’t pay these things off, you know. They’ll be out of business. That’ll that’s good for Fox, FYI. And they aren’t gonna be able afford this.

For Fox, it definitely they’re not gonna be quite as in your face. Although, they just had a a lovely thing on the fact that climate change doesn’t exist. So whatever, you know, or they’ll continue along the sides. I think they’ll be very careful in their emails from now on as they should have been in the first place. I was sort of

They’ll be careful

about their target targets. Yes. Yeah. They

can attack Liberals, but they’re not gonna go after a deep pocketed private company. You

noticed they’re not really attacking Disney here. You know what I mean? They’re not gonna that’s where all their bread is buttered with advertisers. What we know now, which we thought, but now we have proof, is that it’s a propaganda organization interested in making money. It is an entertainment company.

That’s what it is. The people who watch it don’t care. Their ratings are doing great. The people who watch it want their little entertainment, and that’s what they’re gonna get. They’ll just do it in a different way that’s not quite as stupid.

This is the problem. And I know that it’s cynical, but I I think that it’s very real people say, well, what would happen if the Fox audience learned all of this. What if they learned that they were saying one thing in public, one thing in fact, they don’t care because they want what they want. The heart wants what it wants. They want to hear certain things — Right.

— we have a culture in which people think of media outlets as their safe spaces as the place that’s serves them. Right? That does not challenge them. Yeah. And and that’s not simply fun also.

That that’s right. It is on all sides. I mean — No. — news speaking of which. No.

I’m I’m a contributor to MSNBC, so I’m I’m the Tiptoe over here. So do you you had Jensaki on your podcast? And I thought it was just are you kind of pressed or she’s got a new show? And she said, you asked her, what do you ever have Republicans on your show? So how did that go?

Well, I got yelled at by Keith Oberman, but what that’s sort of par for the course. Like, I don’t care. Like, Sorry, Keith. I’m gonna ask the question.

Oh, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Why did he yell at you for asking?

Oh, because

he’s like, how dare she ask? Why should they have these bunch of Lias? Like, come on. Really, like, is that where

we’re at? That’s the culture is that is that we don’t have Republicans because no one who’s not us has any thing interesting to say or that we should engage with in any way.

There there are reasonable Republicans. There are people you can like, I’m talking to you. I’m not I doubt we agree on a lot of things. But more for her coming from the Biden administration, it’s a very successful show. It’s turned out really well.

She’s speaking of charming, completely she’s a charming media personality. And people like listening and watching her, very successful show out of the gate. I think that she needs to show that she can mix with everybody. That’s all. You know, George Stefanopoulos doesn’t.

Yeah. So I think it’s really important given how close she’s affiliated with the current administration, Stefanopoulos goes back to the Clinton administration, you have to really show that you can gauge with a lot of people. That’s all that’s all I was asking, you know, that she should have some and debate them. And that’s would be good for her for media brand and for the show, and it would be interesting. Thank

you, basically, said I’m new around here. Give me a chance. Right?

Yeah. I think she’s asked I think they’re nervous about going on or

show. That

would be my guess. I know this from I try to book a lot of conservatives and a lot of them are like no way. And

some people to do their homework. I’m always amazed when when certain people go and say Mehdi Hasan show and it’s like, have you ever watched how he needs to know? Do you know what you’re getting into? So Who’s your favorite guess? What was your best podcast?

Mine? Yes.

All of them? All of them. Is this

like asking you to choose your favorite trial?

Yeah. And I just choose I like the last one I did. I did Larry Summers as today. And that was interesting. We went back and forth on a bunch of things yesterday.

I interviewed Evan Spiegel tomorrow, interviewing Ron Klein. I’ve I did one with Maggie Smith, who was a he’s just a poet, who’s book is on the best seller list right now. She’s amazing. I like people who I’m curious about, you know, ranging from, oh, gosh, who I mean, obviously Steve Jobs interviews were probably among the finest. I think the the most important one was the Gates and Jobs interview historically speaking.

That was a a home run-in terms of getting them together. In getting a really great interview about both of them are the two titans of technology of the modern era. And, you know, obviously Steve Jobs is dead now. So this is the historically important to have done this interview. So I think any of the Steve Jobs interviews I loved, I think they’re really Will Saletan the test of time.

I think the Zuckerberg interviews where I pressed him quite a bit early on. We’re great. I think the musk interviews are really good. If you go and watch them, we talk a lot about these issues today, and you see flashes of what’s coming with him, like, that he turned he was about ninety percent pretty normal and ten percent kind of an asshole, and now it’s flipped rather significantly. And so I like all those.

Of course, you know, it’s these all white men. Like, I’m like the specialist in white men interviews. But this is what the way the business is. This is text. I don’t know what say on that.

I thought some of my Hillary Clinton interviews were really quite good, and we had some testy back and forth too. So

This is what I love Secret Podcast. Is the opportunity to sit and have long form in-depth conversations with really interesting people. And In terms of what’s happened with podcast, I think that the guests now understand, particularly if if you have somebody who goes on cable television and has to speak, you know, in two minute sound bites or anything. Wow. The ability to express a thought, to think something through, to express it, to go in-depth.

Right. My sense is that both the audience and the guests really kind of appreciate that. I

would If you don’t

find it anywhere else, really. I’m I’m not trying to diss anyone else. I’m just trying to think where do you have, you know, interesting conversations that are unpredictable that last forty, fifty, sixty minutes long? Yeah.

You move off talking points. You have to immediately stop talking. It’s only, like, ten minutes of talking points. And you can actually even say it. And I think people feel I think very smart people has always been my when I started podcast, someone was like, it’s gotta be shorter care.

I’m like, no, it doesn’t have to be longer. Like, that it doesn’t have to be shorter. And so

You get past the talking point. And

you also get insights into people you hadn’t thought of. I I was just thinking, last night, I did her with Monica Lewinsky, who I had interviewed. I didn’t know her before I didn’t interview with

her. And — Okay. — I

have to say that interview was resonant because I think it was very touching is really interesting. Talking about someone whose life was, you know, we forget she was a very young girl when this all happened and it was a terrible you know, situation around power and dynamics that we’re still talking about today. And, you know, she’s sort of reinvented herself doing these really great documentaries. She’s turned out to be a very thoughtful and graceful, but talk about someone who could have dropped a dime on anyone and she never did. Right?

Talk about the graceful

We’re have descended into bitterness.

Yes. Not at all. She has not. She is absolutely not. And so that interview was really great, especially the last question I asked, which I didn’t expect to ask.

And we talked about it last night, was she goes, well, you know, I could have been something else. And I said, a good new view of Ben. And she started to describe a life she’d never lived. Right? And I thought I was teary.

It was like, wow. You know? And again, of course, she has responsibility blah, blah, blah, but she was kid. She was a kid, like, in many ways, I have a son who’s older than she was at the time. And I I love that interview because it had not been for the length of time and the discussion that went on for a while, you wouldn’t have gotten to that moment of revelation.

And I think people rethought her. Like, oh, wait a minute. What I think in the media that’s played at me is these cartoonish characters, maybe there’s a little more little complexity here. And that’s what I like about podcasts. And

also you have the ability to think in real time. I don’t know whether you’ve ever changed your mind in the middle of a podcast, but this is something that you can’t do in another medium. In another medium — Mhmm. — you need to have what your agenda is and stick to that agenda. I think one of the things about the podcast is — Mhmm.

— one of your podcast is called Pivot. Is that you can pivot right in the middle and go, okay, you know what? I I this is a completely different point of view, or let’s go off on a different tangent that I wasn’t planning on talking about? I

hadn’t thought of that.

No. I mean, I was not expecting to talk with you about Monica Lewinsky.

What’s interesting is Scott today, you know, with this new floored education thing moving essentially to twelfth grade, which is some twelfth grade to eighteen. May I have an eighteen year old twelfth grader? And Scott had been like, oh, no. They’re just doing this one bill, you know, months ago. When they did, I’m like, no.

And I forced this out of Florida. I don’t he agreed with me, and he was very supportive. But goes, oh my god, you were totally right. That’s because months ago, I had said, oh, no. It’s a much bigger deal.

A year ago, I was like, they’re moving to everybody in school. Just so you know. And he’s like, that’s ridiculous. It’s only for third grade, this and that. And I was like, no, no.

It’s a larger thing. Today, he’s like, oh my god. I I had thought you were wrong, and now you’re right. We had a great discussion about it. And and he’s done the same to me, like, on me, to lots of issues I hadn’t thought about.

I’ve shifted my perspective, and that’s important. This

is funny because I’m gonna have the exact opposite conversation with Tim Miller on our podcast tomorrow because I was the one was wrong, and he was the one who was right. So I’m going to be left

with another

one to say, okay. So I really did think that you got out over your skis on all of

this — Yeah. — but wow. They hate the gays. They hate the any gay person knows this. And

this is why I asked about what the directional arrow is because if they’re willing to go, this direction They’re not done. Now in all of these issues, there’s not a point that they go, okay, we’ve won this. Okay. We can let’s celebrate. Let’s pack up.

It’s no Okay. So we’re here. We need to now go take the next hedge row. Well, what is the next hedge? What is this agenda?

And at this point, Well, I’m, you know, willing to, you know, I guess, my default position would be to say, oh, no. Yeah. You’re not gonna go?

Yes. They will. Say, well, you know, it’s so funny because I actually

hadn’t thought of that until you mentioned it. I mean, that they are serious about it. Well,

a lot of them are self hating in a way that allegedly all these reports have very serious republicans who were closeted and isn’t that? And so there’s an element of that in it. I remember early on when I was at George Chen University, young Americans for freedom was Terry Dolan was there, the same time I was. And this is a group of very right wing students. At the time, which is unusual.

It was sort of the dawn of that age, if you recall. And it was a really interesting group, but all of them were closeted gay people. And they were anti gay. And I was always, as you know, eighteen, nineteen years old, I was like, look at that. That was interesting.

Right? What’s happening there in terms of speaking, getting back to in security and self hatred. It was really interesting to watch. And so there’s that element. There’s also the religious elements that are, you know, most people are across all of the political spectrums are very reasonable around issues around gay that has changed and shifted and everyone’s seen families and they’ve seen how it works fine and it doesn’t take down society.

Mhmm. But the ones that stay off to the edge are still steaming. About this. You know, this weekend I went, my aunt died a couple months ago and they did a memorial service for her in West Virginia where my father came from and she’s buried there. My father’s buried there.

And so I went and I’m always like, oh, what’s Virginia? Like, you know what I mean? Like, they were very anti gay when I was coming out to some of the people there. And very religious, but very not kind, I would say, in general towards gay people. And not everyone, my aunt was wonderful and others were in my family.

But I was at a a place where they were very friendly to me. They’re like, we’re friendly or the new city people here. And West Virginia. And I’m not gonna do West Virginia accent. They’re like, we’re from there.

And I almost wanted to say, well, stop beating up on trans people then. Like, I’d rather have you be rude like New Yorkers and not kick people who are down. Like, please, like, I could take a little less friendly and a little more kindness. And not lack of cruelty. And it was kind of funny to think about.

But so I think a lot of the people, they they mask their whatever it happens to be religion or world culture and just cruelty towards people who did nothing to them. And so I don’t think there’s anything they won’t do to pull it back.

A lot of this is not straight line. It is looping. And you and you mentioned the issue of of trans because my experience was that it’s an evolution and it’s, you know, it’s uneven, but the robotic acceptance, live and let live tolerance, acceptance of gay marriage, not that controversial, kind of disappearing off the radar screen, for a couple of years. And then the trans issue came up. And it feels like the trans issue is this sort of, you know, flanking maneuver or looping around the fires all of this up, but they couldn’t go directly at gay marriage.

So they’re coming around. And then having fired it up — Mhmm. — it’s like it becomes paired with gay marriage? Am I being clear or unclear here? Yeah.

I think that’s the next step. Next step. The next step. You know, look at the attacks on Pete Buttigieg. Like, you don’t have to agree with him on him being a transportation secretary, etcetera.

But, you know, I know his husband a little bit. The attacks they get are just demented. We can discuss the train stuff all you want. Like, he’s responsible for it, whether he calls it or not, that’s another issue. But he’s Transportation Secretary, you can absolutely hold him responsible at this moment because that he has the job.

But the kind of personal attacks that he got was just like, you know, he took parental leave? Like, really? Is this really a big issue? Is this, like, what’s wrong with Better fathers? I’m sorry.

Mhmm. I feel like Better fathers is a good thing for society. And so this sort of plays into a trope that many people have about men and women and things like that. And anything that changes or questions it bothers them. And Honestly, I’ll tell you kids do not care.

No. When you

talk to young people, this is all such bullshit to them, right or left. Although some on on both sides are a little too much. And I don’t want to both sides of it, but they are. Like, it just — Mhmm. — in certain ways.

But it most kids and, you know, my kids are, like, what are we wasting our time on when we have, like, climate issues. We’ve got poverty issues. We’ve got homeless issues. We’ve got, you know, things in Ukraine, real problems. And that’s where I think, you know, you see that on social media, a lot of that, which is great.

That hardens me. My son’s taken all the social media apps off his phone, by the way. He thinks you should call people, which is kind of funny. I mean, from parents who are very techie. But I think I I really believe in young people Will Saletan it out better than our stupid wars with each other.

Well, and this is also how social media is is really destroying the right because, you know, they’ve created this for medically sealed bubble where all of this stuff makes perfect sense. And and yet if you step outside of it, you almost need like a Rosetta Stone. What are you talking about? What is this issue? Why am I supposed to do

this over Bud Light? Don’t you know?

What are these things. And I don’t think they realize, you know, the way this plays. Kara Swisher, thank you so much for all your time.

No problem. It’s a pleasure coming on your podcast. It

is a pleasure to listen to your podcast. It

got good reviews last time. People like when people disagree. Responding. They do. They do.

Well, and we agree most of the time.

We’ll see. I bet we don’t on something.

Your podcast is on with Kara Swisher and you are a cohost of the podcast. Pivot. Thank you so much. Well, we will do this again. Fantastic.

You’re

coming on my podcast next. We’ll just keep trading podcasts. I

would love to do that. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’ll be back tomorrow and we will do this all over again. Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

Dissecting politics with exclusive interviews, commentary and humor, useful idiots. With Katie Halper and Aaron Mate. Check out this story that comes via wedding planner, Georgia Mitchell. I’d say that’s a deal breaker. If you were to catch a partner being breastfed by their mother, the thing is that she’s here in the second hand, so

we really did

responsible journalist in you, Erin. It’s just an allegation. Yeah.

None of my sources have confirmed this story. Right. So

Terrible if true. And definitely a deal breaker.

Useful idiots. Wherever you listen.