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

Author: New York Magazine
Duration: 01:21:34

Episode Shownotes

Kara and Scott discuss the Hunter Biden pardon, and its repercussions for President Biden. Then, President-elect Donald Trump selects Kash Patel to run the FBI, and new reports raise questions and concerns about Pete Hegseth. Plus, Elon Musk takes aim at Sam Altman and OpenAI, yet again. Our Friend of

Pivot is filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, whose new docuseries, "Social Studies," provides an inside look at teens and social media. Lauren explains what parents don't know about their kids' social media usage. Watch "Social Studies" here. You can find the "Social Studies" curriculum and parents guide here. Follow Lauren at @lgreen66. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of 'Pivot,' Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss President Biden's recent pardon of Hunter Biden and its implications on the administration's accountability. They also analyze Kash Patel's controversial nomination as FBI Director amid concerns over his character and qualifications, contrasting it with the problematic history of Pete Hegseth. The conversation extends to Australia’s new social media regulations for minors, the influences of social media on youth, and culminates with insights from filmmaker Lauren Greenfield about her docuseries 'Social Studies,' which examines social media's impact on teenagers and the disconnect between parents and their children regarding online experiences.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Hunter Biden Pardon, Kash Patel for FBI Director, and Guest Lauren Greenfield) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_02
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00:01:17 Speaker_02
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00:01:58 Speaker_09
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher.

00:02:06 Speaker_02
And I'm Scott Galloway.

00:02:07 Speaker_09
Where are you, Scott? I don't recognize this background.

00:02:10 Speaker_02
I'm back in London, but we're in the midst of moving, so I get kicked out of my studio. We're moving back into our place in Marlebone, which has been undergoing a renovation.

00:02:21 Speaker_02
By the way, renovations always come in under budget and much quicker than you'd expect. It's been a really good experience.

00:02:29 Speaker_09
Actually, you know, I'm doing a renovation, actually has been. I've had really amazing experience. We're moving back in January. It's beautiful. The house is beautiful.

00:02:40 Speaker_01
I don't believe you.

00:02:41 Speaker_09
I'm telling you, I have the best feel. Actually, they turn out to be fans of Pivot, which is interesting, this group I'm using called Four Brothers. They're great. Are you excited to move back into your new house? We're both doing renovations.

00:02:52 Speaker_09
How interesting.

00:02:53 Speaker_02
Yeah, I am. I screwed up. I'm in the suburbs, and it's so dark and cloudy that I don't leave the house.

00:02:59 Speaker_02
And the thing I love about our place in Marlabone is it's near Marlabone High Street, and I go to this great restaurant called Granger's, and I get coffee there. And every day I make an appointment

00:03:09 Speaker_02
and it gets me out of the house, which is important for me, because I've started growing my nails long and peeing in jars.

00:03:16 Speaker_09
I can tell.

00:03:17 Speaker_02
Yeah. It's important that I get out of the house. Where are you?

00:03:21 Speaker_09
I'm in D.C. again. We were in Boston for Thanksgiving. How did you have a nice Thanksgiving?

00:03:26 Speaker_02
Yeah, we didn't really do a lot. Beata and Nolan were in Africa on this kind of cool little charity thing. And my son's in boarding school. I was actually in Brazil. So we did a quote-unquote Thanksgiving for friends.

00:03:40 Speaker_02
We went to our friends Patrick and Tatum's place. There was a bunch of people there you would know, a bunch of fancy people, and it was really nice.

00:03:51 Speaker_02
Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday, so I'm kind of bummed we didn't really get to celebrate it that much. What did you do? Oh, you were in Boston with Amanda's family?

00:03:57 Speaker_09
We had a beautiful, the Katz's have all these, it's a very classic Thanksgiving. And Anne Katz, who's a big fan of ours, cooks an amazing pie, there's a lot of pies happening. There is a lot of, she baked me a pumpkin pie.

00:04:13 Speaker_09
She doesn't usually do a pumpkin because I like it. It was delicious. They do turkey, sides, all kinds of stuff. And all the cats show up, all the various cats and brothers and sisters-in-laws and this and that.

00:04:27 Speaker_09
And so it's quite a, and they have a beautiful house in Brookline in Boston, so it was nice.

00:04:32 Speaker_02
Okay, let's bring this back to me. So I have a public service announcement. This is not medical advice, this is just reporting on something that has happened to me.

00:04:42 Speaker_02
I've always been one of those people, mostly because of genetics, and I work out a lot, but whenever I get a physical, they're always like, wow, this is amazing, your good numbers are high, your bad numbers are low.

00:04:53 Speaker_02
And for the first time, about three months ago, they took my blood pressure and they're like, oh, it's a little bit high. And I'm like, can you do it again? And it was like 143 over, I forget. What? Yeah, I have elevated, I have high blood pressure.

00:05:09 Speaker_02
And I said, are you sure? And then my doctor came back a week later, did it again, 142. So, I qualify as having high blood pressure. I have never had anything like that. So, over the last three months, I've done a few things. I've done NAD treatment.

00:05:27 Speaker_02
which is basically cellular repair. I do the hardcore one. I do the infusions. I did them every week for four weeks, and now I'm doing it once a month. It's not easy. It's expensive, and quite frankly, it's a little bit uncomfortable.

00:05:38 Speaker_02
And I've tracked my alcohol consumption. I'm not willing to give up alcohol because I love it, but I've gone from eight to 12 drinks a week to four to six. I cut it in half. I've tried to cut out all sweets. That's a lot of drinks. Okay.

00:05:51 Speaker_02
Thank you, Dr. Swisher. Thank you, Captain Fucking Obvious. And you know what? There's a term for that much alcohol, worth it. Anyway.

00:06:00 Speaker_06
Okay.

00:06:02 Speaker_02
And then I also, an easy fix, I did a decent amount of research on it. I cut out all soda, a lot of sugar in soda. Anyways, as of yesterday, my blood pressure has dropped consistently to 132.

00:06:16 Speaker_02
So I've taken 10 points off my blood pressure in 11 weeks with those.

00:06:19 Speaker_09
You gotta get down still.

00:06:21 Speaker_02
With those, that's actually okay. I've been told that's actually okay.

00:06:25 Speaker_02
Anyways, my point is, what I'm saying here is that if you do have high blood pressure, then I'm not saying this works for you, speak to your doctor, but these few things I did, which quite frankly just weren't that difficult, I don't eat as much sweets.

00:06:39 Speaker_02
At night, I like to take an edible sometimes and I just start raiding the chocolate cabinet Whenever I drink, I would drink with a ginger ale. I don't do that.

00:06:47 Speaker_02
I'm just getting, and I've cut my alcohol intake in half, this NAD treatment, and it's taken my blood pressure down pretty significantly. Anyway, so that's my public service announcement.

00:06:56 Speaker_09
Well, good. That's really good. I have another suggestion if you don't mind. I can't wait. I do. I have very low blood pressure, just so you know. I have extraordinarily low, almost too low.

00:07:07 Speaker_02
And is your doctor a fan of the show?

00:07:09 Speaker_09
No, but I happen to. I've always had it, but I don't drink, I don't smoke. So one of the things that I was talking, a friend of mine from San Francisco is visiting, and he's one of these long-distance cold water swimmers.

00:07:22 Speaker_09
You know, the plungers, the ones that go in at 40 to 50 degrees. And he has gotten his resting heart rate down to 50. Incredible. So he's so fit now from doing cold water swims. I just might suggest it to you. Jump in the Thames.

00:07:39 Speaker_02
So I'm not, I'm not exaggerating. I'd rather die 10 years early than I did a cold plunge at the Stanley Ranch you're going to.

00:07:46 Speaker_06
Yeah.

00:07:46 Speaker_02
Yeah. That's torture. It is literally torture. And so I would rather be on statins and take warm showers every day. I find cold plunge one of those things that rich yuppies do to torture themselves so they think they're doing something to themselves.

00:08:00 Speaker_02
I don't buy the cold plunge.

00:08:01 Speaker_09
I'm working on my new book, actually, cold weather stuff, not cold plunge, all this cold, the coldness is really interesting. There's all sorts of interesting research around bringing your body temperature down. Cold? Cold. I'm just telling you. I know.

00:08:14 Speaker_01
I don't like to be cold. Daddy doesn't like to be cold.

00:08:17 Speaker_09
I know, but I don't either, but I'm going to do one because I'm, for this book, I'm going to, maybe you can come with me. But the cold water is really interesting. I've been doing a lot of research on it. Anyway.

00:08:27 Speaker_09
I know, me too, me too, but there's all these indications that it's quite good for you. And I don't like a lot of that stuff, but this one is one that I think is super interesting.

00:08:36 Speaker_09
Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the damning new report about Pete Hegseth and Australia's new social media law. Plus, our friend of Pivot is filmmaker Lauren Greenfield.

00:08:48 Speaker_09
Lauren has a new docuseries, Social Studies, where she provides an up-and-close and frightening look at teens and social media. It's like Euphoria, but real, which is disturbing. It's a really good series. We wanted to talk to her about it.

00:09:00 Speaker_09
But first, President Biden has signed a presidential pardon for his son, Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was convicted of felony gun charges and pled guilty to felony tax charges. He was set to appear at a sentencing hearing later this month.

00:09:13 Speaker_09
President-elect Trump responded by suggesting January 6th rioters should be pardoned. He didn't quite object to it. He shouldn't. He pardoned enough crazy people and, in fact, gave them ambassadorship.

00:09:22 Speaker_09
So what do you think of the move, just briefly, regardless of the circumstances? Is it set a bad precedent, even though Trump is pretty free with the pardons?

00:09:29 Speaker_02
Well, we're becoming that nation, and that is, there's sort of no shame or there's no attempt by the people we look to to set the cue for America, which sets the cue kind of tone for the rest of the world.

00:09:41 Speaker_02
And that is, all right, this guy pardons his son-in-law's dad, who had committed crimes and then makes him ambassador to France, which, by the way, the American embassy in Paris is the most beautiful residence in the world.

00:09:56 Speaker_02
And so I don't like this race to the bottom. I believe if Harris had won, he wouldn't have done it. But I think his attitude is the following. And here's the flip side. If I were President Biden,

00:10:06 Speaker_02
and I were an 82-year-old man with a son who struggles with addiction, who I love immensely, I would have done the exact same thing.

00:10:13 Speaker_02
Because it's like, okay, it doesn't seem as if the American public is giving anyone any credibility or votes based on character anymore. Yeah, I would agree.

00:10:25 Speaker_02
I think his general attitude is, okay, if they can do it and it not only doesn't seem to hurt them, it seems to help them, why on earth, as I play the back nine or the back one hole of my life, why on earth wouldn't I pardon myself?

00:10:41 Speaker_02
I would have done the exact same thing.

00:10:43 Speaker_09
Well, I think it's interesting because a lot of people it's really interesting to watch Republicans attack him, given Trump's record on this thing. And then I know I'm sort of like, stop, hush, hush, people. I felt bad about it at the same time.

00:10:56 Speaker_09
I think moving it behind us for some reason, the Hunter Biden thing just illuminates and it drives the right wing. It's like Hillary Clinton's emails. I'd like it to go away. And I think if this moves it towards going away,

00:11:11 Speaker_09
I thought the prosecution was an overdone one and most lawyers will tell you what they charged him with. He's a very troubled young, I mean older man now. And I just feel like they wouldn't have probably done it. They were using him as a punching bag.

00:11:26 Speaker_09
I don't know. The question is, will he pardon Fauci? Although Fauci hasn't done anything, right? Or give him a blanket pardon. Do you think Fauci's gonna need to be pardoned? Well, I think they've threatened to go after him. And so has Elon Musk.

00:11:37 Speaker_09
They all have. Jail him, jail him, jail him. So, that's the question. Or Jack Smith, or other people. And that's, I think... That starts to get into really funny territory.

00:11:46 Speaker_09
At the same time, I think they've used Fauci as a punching bag and to make their points, they will continue. I think they would have continued to plague Hunter Biden. So I'm okay with this one. I don't know. I just, it's gross.

00:11:59 Speaker_09
I think if, you know, Trump's done 10 of these and then rewarded them even further. So, I'm kind of like, whatever, it's Hunter Biden, it's fine. Let's move along.

00:12:09 Speaker_02
I think it's going to come and go.

00:12:10 Speaker_09
Yeah, come and go.

00:12:11 Speaker_02
But also, I think, I've said this before, I think the Alvin Bragg New York case against Trump was politically motivated. I think every case against Hunter Biden is politically motivated.

00:12:19 Speaker_02
They were both a waste of prosecutorial resources that wouldn't have been allocated. towards the prosecution had these individuals not been political figures.

00:12:27 Speaker_09
The brag one, but not necessarily the documents one or the insurrection one?

00:12:32 Speaker_02
Oh, no, I think the nuclear secrets one. I've always thought, I've thought that New York and the fact that we are not mendacious fucks and not that strategic like McConnell,

00:12:44 Speaker_02
We wait too long to bring cases such that they can play slow ball, and we dilute the veracity of the legitimate cases with bullshit cases around paying off a porn star. So I think this is what I want, Cara.

00:12:59 Speaker_02
I want more mendacious fucks running our party. I want Schumer out. I want Nadler out. We need more Mitch McConnells. We need more strategic motherfuckers who are totally unashamed

00:13:11 Speaker_02
who take their punches regardless of what goes over well at the country club or who they can say to their dad. Well, we stand on the moral high ground. Well, what's that getting us, boss?

00:13:21 Speaker_09
Yeah, or just older, just older. We need new fresh blood. I mean, there's there's a move to remove Jerry Naylor from. But in Raskin, that guy's smart. Yeah, that's guess who's behind it. Guess who's behind it? Nancy Pelosi, apparently.

00:13:34 Speaker_02
Well, she's got some of the Machiavellian thing, but it's time for her to exit the stage, too.

00:13:39 Speaker_09
I think she is, but she's trying to get him in there.

00:13:41 Speaker_02
Who's that? Who's that dude? Moskowitz, Representative Moskowitz, who, after 14 months of the ridiculous impeachment hearings, called a motion to impeach President Biden, calling everyone's bluff.

00:13:52 Speaker_02
Do you remember he said, all right, we've been doing this for 15 months, but I move that we impeach. that we recommend an impeachment of President Biden. And every Republican in the room looked like they'd just been caught masturbating.

00:14:04 Speaker_02
They didn't know how to respond because they knew this was all bullshit, just trying to get moments on TikTok or Fox. We need some more people who are quicker on the feed. Senator Schumer?

00:14:13 Speaker_06
Fucking yawn.

00:14:15 Speaker_02
I mean, we always get played. Everyone hates McConnell. Why? Because he's smarter. than the people running the Democratic Party. We need a ton. We need to shed our skin.

00:14:28 Speaker_02
And my biggest fear is that we're going to fit the definition of crazy and believe if we continue to do the same thing, we'll get a different outcome.

00:14:34 Speaker_02
And all of this bullshit about how we need to go farther left and if we just need to double down and we weren't progressive enough, we need new leadership and we need to do similar to what we did in the early 90s, pick some centrist candidates who talk about real issues.

00:14:47 Speaker_02
Anyways, I'm going off track.

00:14:49 Speaker_09
Well, at the same time, Scott, I know you're headed this way. There's not a bad argument for Bernie either, because a lot of these people were Bernie bros. I mean, I'm saying there's several directions.

00:14:59 Speaker_02
But I don't think Bernie plays identity politics on trans issues. Bernie's more about, in my opinion, and this really resonates with people, he talks about income inequality. I've always thought that's Bernie's issue, so absolutely.

00:15:14 Speaker_09
But he's considered progressive, just so you know. Anyway, let's move on. Australia has banned social media for children under 16.

00:15:20 Speaker_09
The law requires social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent anyone under 16 from having an account or face fines of up to $32 million. There are no punishments for underage users and their parents.

00:15:32 Speaker_09
Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and X will be included, but YouTube and messaging apps will not. I'm not sure why YouTube won't.

00:15:38 Speaker_09
There's a lot of controversy around it, whether it's too broad, et cetera, et cetera, same old, same old, same old, and whether it will be effective. But it was a big move. It was a big move.

00:15:48 Speaker_09
And the word reasonable steps, I think people were like, what does that mean precisely? And how can you do it? I think the fines are interesting. There's legal questions, et cetera, et cetera. But thoughts?

00:16:00 Speaker_02
So the Port Arthur, I think it was the Port Arthur Massacre in Australia. There was a mass shooting in 1996. 35 people were killed.

00:16:08 Speaker_02
23 wounded, and I believe in fairly short order, the leadership in Australia got together and said, all right, what are the upsides of having assault weapons? What are the downsides? Let's ban them.

00:16:19 Speaker_02
And I don't believe Australia has had any or a small number of mass shootings since then. In Scotland, there was a Dunblane massacre also in 1996. The Australian people just seem to be remarkably sensible.

00:16:32 Speaker_02
And I don't doubt there are some downsides to banning social media for people under the age of 16. There's a very solid argument that it's been a place where LGBTQ youth can find each other and support each other.

00:16:43 Speaker_02
The upsides dramatically overwhelm the downside. I think this is wonderful. I hope it inspires a lot of people in the rest of the world. And the thing I take from this is so much pride

00:16:58 Speaker_02
My colleague at NYU, Jonathan Haidt, if you want to go into academia or you don't think doing a really well-researched book can change the world, it can.

00:17:09 Speaker_02
I think a lot of this is a direct result of Professor Haidt's work around the anxious generation. But I think this is fantastic. No legislation is ever so elegant, it won't find detractors, it won't have downsides.

00:17:24 Speaker_09
I think the issue is enforcement. It's how do you enforce it, right? I think that's the question. I think, to me, it's a flag in the sand, right? It's like, we're doing it. We're doing it. It's the first in the world, you know what I mean?

00:17:37 Speaker_09
It's really astonishing. It's the first in the world of substance. And, you know, what's interesting about it is that they Will these social media sites abandon these areas?

00:17:49 Speaker_09
And obviously, one of the legislators said, we know some kids will find workarounds that we're sending a message to social media companies to clean up their act. I think that's the most important thing.

00:17:58 Speaker_09
It's kind of like the Microsoft trial, sending a message, right? This means a lot to us. And I think nobody's getting forced to provide government identification. as part of it because of privacy issues.

00:18:14 Speaker_09
There was opposition from conservatives about the privacy rights. And, you know, I think France had a parental consent for social media thing. It wasn't quite as large as this. They've been pushing for similar measures across the European Union.

00:18:32 Speaker_09
Florida passed a ban for users under 14, but it has, you know, there's constitutional challenges around that here in this country. they don't have that issue in Australia, right? And that was more a little hand-waving.

00:18:45 Speaker_09
It has to be a national bill that will meet constitutional muster. But I do think a line in the sand's okay. I think it's actually saying something really significant about what a country's values are, right? I mean, I think you feel the same way.

00:19:03 Speaker_02
Look, one of the most important things in professional progress is the same thing around legislation or addressing the externalities of these things, and that is a start. And you referenced, so in France, users under 15 need parental consent.

00:19:18 Speaker_02
In Germany, users 13 to 16 need parental consent. In Italy, users 14 and under need parental consent. This is a start. I think an outright ban, no phones in schools. I would like to see no smartphone under the age of 14.

00:19:31 Speaker_02
There's just too many temptations for kids. We basically have been putting teenagers' pockets, as their brain gets wired, a Dopa bag they can squeeze whenever they're a tiny bit bored with a casino, a porn site.

00:19:45 Speaker_02
And I think we're literally producing tens of millions of addicts and sending them into the world where they're gonna need Dopa and they're gonna find it in a lot of different places.

00:19:52 Speaker_02
And collective banning is the only way to do it because if you don't ban it collectively across the entire age group, the ones who aren't on it when most of their friends are on it are actually more depressed.

00:20:04 Speaker_02
So I just, I think the leadership in Australia here has shown a lot of common sense. Kudos to them. I hope it starts something that breaks out all over the world. I think it's wonderful. So good day, mate. I come from a land down under.

00:20:19 Speaker_02
I'm going to listen to In Excess all night tonight.

00:20:22 Speaker_09
You say shrimp on the barbie, I'll have to stop you.

00:20:25 Speaker_02
Anyways, I'm a huge fan of this. Kudos to them. And like I said, I think a lot of this has been inspired by my colleague, Jonathan Haidt.

00:20:33 Speaker_09
Yeah, well, this was actually in the works for many, many years. But one of the things that Julie Inman Grant, who's Australia's e-safety commissioner, they have one. She was noting about enforcement, which I think she's right.

00:20:43 Speaker_09
They've got financial resources, technologies, and some of the best brainpower. If they can target you for advertising, they can use the same technology and know how to identify and verify the age of a child. They certainly could. They don't want to.

00:20:54 Speaker_09
They don't want to pay for it. Anyway, kudos to Australia. We'll go down.

00:20:58 Speaker_02
Let me get this, they can make $11 billion targeting people under the age of 18 so effectively with ads, but they can't figure out if you're under that age?

00:21:06 Speaker_09
Right, exactly. Yeah, this happens all the time. All right, lastly, the FTC has opened an investigation into whether Microsoft has violated antitrust laws. Lina Khan has thrown a bomb on her last moments in office. Probably she will be replaced.

00:21:19 Speaker_09
The company has reportedly received a request for information on its cloud computing, AI, and cybersecurity products. The news comes just weeks left in the Biden administration. Probably they'll replace Lina Khan. You never know, because J.D.

00:21:32 Speaker_09
Vance likes her. Should Microsoft be concerned will be the off the hook. It's very unclear, but boy, I like that Lena Kahn's going down, like throwing some steamers or whatever they call them. Anyway, what do you think?

00:21:46 Speaker_02
I think it's great. And I think a lot of time, I think that one, I think there's actually, I'm taking me under. I think there's a chance that they'll keep her there and we'll see. But even if she leaves, the fact that that's there,

00:22:01 Speaker_02
I think the next person might go, you know what, let's keep this for a bit, see where it goes. So, and look, I've said this for a long time, the biggest tax cut in history would be if China and the US kissed and made up right now.

00:22:14 Speaker_02
The second biggest tax cut would be if we enforce antitrust across these companies which are just charging onerous rents on parents, small businesses, big businesses. So anything involving antitrust, around these folks, I'm a fan of.

00:22:31 Speaker_09
You think they'll keep her. I wonder if they'll keep her. I haven't heard names floated. Maybe I'm not paying attention.

00:22:37 Speaker_02
And he hasn't made any bold, weird, aggressive statements about her.

00:22:42 Speaker_09
Right. No, he hasn't.

00:22:44 Speaker_02
Right. And he keeps going after them.

00:22:47 Speaker_09
Jeff Bezos would lose his mind. Elon would like it, too.

00:22:51 Speaker_02
Think about this, though. If you're him and you're playing poker, but if you're Trump and you want to have leverage over these people,

00:22:56 Speaker_02
you have something that gets right to the line in terms of being broke up and then calls them and says, I want X, Y, and Z and I'll make this go away. I mean, not that that's ethical, but my attitude is she's the Marines.

00:23:07 Speaker_02
She's in there first doing the hard work.

00:23:09 Speaker_09
She seems to have gotten her feet under her, as they say. She had a little bit of a rough start, right? So interesting.

00:23:16 Speaker_02
Yeah, she did. But look, these companies, America is now 50% of the world's market capitalization. It's companies, just 10 companies control almost a third of the total market cap.

00:23:26 Speaker_02
And the rents they're extracting from potential employees, the tax avoidance, the lack of innovation. How is Google different than it was 10 years ago? We don't know what we're missing. We don't know what we don't know.

00:23:41 Speaker_09
Their search share has declined rather precipitously. The market is taking care of some of this. I think their argument, that decision is going to be written by the judge. soon, that decision. Then they have a second case coming up.

00:23:54 Speaker_09
I think they should keep Lena Kahn. You know the conservative, you know that word, conservative, there's a whole bunch of them. They like her. We'll see if the tech people, but I would say if Elon has a part of it, he'll advise to keep her too.

00:24:08 Speaker_09
Anyway, let's get to our first big story. President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the FBI is former national security official Kash Patel. What a strange man he is.

00:24:24 Speaker_09
Patel is a Trump loyalist who's vowed to come after Trump's enemies, including people in the media. A number of high-level Senate Republicans have already indicated their willingness to get behind the choice, but others, not so much.

00:24:36 Speaker_09
It's a real mixed bag on this guy. By the way, he has to fire Chris Wray, who was appointed by Trump to a 10-year term, so Chris Wray shouldn't be out of office until 2027. It's alarming a lot of people.

00:24:49 Speaker_09
At the same time, the Pete Hegs nomination is still raising big questions. This New Yorker piece is a damning whistleblower report on his previous behavior at running two organizations where he drank too much, he abused women.

00:25:03 Speaker_09
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.

00:25:19 Speaker_09
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.

00:25:30 Speaker_09
She told the Times she had written the messages in anger and had apologized for it, but boy did it have a ring of truth at the time. I guess it was during the same time period. What do you think?

00:25:40 Speaker_09
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.

00:25:53 Speaker_09
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?

00:26:02 Speaker_02
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. I mean, you don't talk about just a digression.

00:26:14 Speaker_02
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.

00:26:27 Speaker_02
This is an odd, this is an odd person. And then Director Wray is an outstanding individual. This is someone, I am so impressed by this guy.

00:26:38 Speaker_02
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.

00:26:46 Speaker_09
Yeah, he was nominated by Trump, everybody, once again, let's just be clear.

00:26:50 Speaker_02
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.

00:27:04 Speaker_02
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.

00:27:19 Speaker_02
A letter, a communication, an emotional letter between a mother and a son, I do feel like it should be confidential, but the fact that it's out, and the fact that a mother felt compelled to write that to her son, Jesus Christ.

00:27:34 Speaker_09
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?

00:27:42 Speaker_02
Yeah, it pains me to say this,

00:27:45 Speaker_09
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.

00:27:55 Speaker_02
I can't imagine getting that letter from my mother. I can't imagine writing it. I can't imagine reading it. You know, like, Peter Hegsteth, by the way, an outstanding soldier, deserves the bronze stars he was given.

00:28:17 Speaker_02
He should not be in the running for this position.

00:28:20 Speaker_09
Did you read the New Yorker piece? It was disturbing.

00:28:23 Speaker_02
Yeah, the ending is really chilling.

00:28:25 Speaker_09
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 they're trying to say this person had created fake rape.

00:28:41 Speaker_09
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. She has not. They lie about the people. They're so aggressive still.

00:28:55 Speaker_09
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. He sounds like a drunk and should get some help, by the way.

00:29:11 Speaker_09
He sounds like a sexual harasser 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.

00:29:25 Speaker_09
Now, he may have come back from Iraq with all kinds of troubles, and he drowned them in alcohol. he should get some help and he behaved incredibly badly and he's incompetent at running. He couldn't run a small organization.

00:29:39 Speaker_09
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.

00:29:51 Speaker_02
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 in senior appointments that impact the economy.

00:30:06 Speaker_02
And yet they seem to have thrown in the towel on issues related to our military or defense or security apparatus. I feel like the most frightening potential nominee right now is Representative Gabbard.

00:30:19 Speaker_02
I cannot believe that you are gonna 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.

00:30:29 Speaker_02
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.

00:30:43 Speaker_02
And do you really believe that Representative Gabbard might not believe at some point

00:30:48 Speaker_02
to forward your names and your identity to these people because under some sort of... 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.

00:31:01 Speaker_02
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.

00:31:09 Speaker_02
I think these case officers, quite frankly, these spies and these assets and these FBI officers or agents,

00:31:18 Speaker_02
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. They were deathly concerned about their safety.

00:31:34 Speaker_02
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.

00:31:50 Speaker_02
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.

00:32:05 Speaker_02
And guess what? The European economy is just as big as ours. And the Mossad, MI6, guess what? The French secret service, they are very good at what they do.

00:32:14 Speaker_02
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.

00:32:27 Speaker_02
Do you think these folks are going to share information with these folks?

00:32:30 Speaker_09
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.

00:32:43 Speaker_09
Like, 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.

00:32:53 Speaker_09
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 a,

00:33:07 Speaker_09
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. He's a good soldier. Otherwise, no thank you.

00:33:22 Speaker_09
The second one is insane. Kash Patel seems insane. And the other one feels like a Russian asset. And the fact that he had good people,

00:33:32 Speaker_09
and pick these guys, and then also Matt Gaetz, who they managed to get rid of, is just such a ridiculous, it's ridiculous.

00:33:40 Speaker_09
It's really kind of, like, it's going to take up his whole, he's going to have to fire Chris Wray, just so you know, and then that'll, the chaos will, he'll never get anything done because the chaos will ensue, because they'll spend all their time doing chaos versus

00:33:54 Speaker_09
doing anything," he 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 it's an opportunity lost.

00:34:03 Speaker_02
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.

00:34:18 Speaker_09
Let's kill all the Muslims. Did you see that part? Let's kill all the Muslims.

00:34:21 Speaker_02
We can't normalize this.

00:34:23 Speaker_02
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.

00:34:38 Speaker_02
Open 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 Steve Bannon's podcast.

00:34:49 Speaker_02
The fact that this guy has been considered is so, the fact that, as you described her 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.

00:35:01 Speaker_02
She provides comfort and aid to the enemy, and she will absolutely frighten the shit out of our own assets and our own allies.

00:35:08 Speaker_02
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. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

00:35:19 Speaker_09
I think he just gets something happens late at night with him. Maybe he's taking ketamine. Elon or something. Anyway, we'll see what happens here, but it's disturbing. I would recommend reading The Mother's Letter.

00:35:28 Speaker_09
It's 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.

00:35:39 Speaker_09
Anyway, journalists are doing a great job with these things, and I thought it was a very fair story on Pete Hegseth. It really was. So, you know. Whatever. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

00:35:48 Speaker_09
When we come back, Elon targets open AI 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. Support for Pivot comes from Delete.me.

00:36:05 Speaker_09
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00:38:11 Speaker_09
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00:39:17 Speaker_09
Elon Musk's feud with OpenAI is heating up with Elon trying to stop OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company.

00:39:23 Speaker_09
The new filing says OpenAI's path from non-profit to for-profit has been full of anti-competitive practices and flagrant breaches of its charitable mission.

00:39:31 Speaker_09
OpenAI's 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.

00:39:40 Speaker_09
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, this is kind of ridiculous. Elon does everything through lawsuits.

00:39:54 Speaker_09
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 an overstepping on Elon's part.

00:40:08 Speaker_09
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.

00:40:21 Speaker_02
It's just a nuisance lawsuit meant to distract them. Maybe they get an injunction, maybe tries to slow open AI down until... I think any lawyer with assault has said to him, you have no shot here, but he's like, well, maybe

00:40:33 Speaker_02
We can slow them down, nuisance lawsuits, distract them. Maybe we get some key people to have to subpoena, give testimony, just anything to slow them down while we try to catch up.

00:40:46 Speaker_02
Just a little off topic here, where I think Musk has 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.

00:41:03 Speaker_02
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.

00:41:15 Speaker_02
Vindman was also a public critic of Musk. I just, you don't, treason? You're accusing these folks of treason? The guy, Musk, this is your punishment. You are gonna have to spend the holidays with Trump instead of your children. And that's what's happened.

00:41:31 Speaker_02
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.

00:41:42 Speaker_09
I think his mother was there, but she's such a hanger-on or a feral hanger-on, but go ahead.

00:41:47 Speaker_02
I've always admired his mother, but anyways. I do not. No.

00:41:52 Speaker_09
I know her, so I'm going to go with the winner.

00:41:55 Speaker_02
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.

00:42:13 Speaker_02
I don't understand what's going on. I know.

00:42:15 Speaker_09
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 companies, even though they're the big companies and we don't prefer that. We'd like a lot more startups and things like that.

00:42:28 Speaker_09
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, you know, whether it's

00:42:41 Speaker_09
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.

00:42:50 Speaker_09
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.

00:43:05 Speaker_09
Tells you all I need to know about the situation.

00:43:07 Speaker_02
The only meltdown I'm going to enjoy more than the meltdown of a football club, which we'll get to on our wins and fails, is the meltdown between Musk and Trump that is definitely going to happen.

00:43:21 Speaker_09
He's still at the place. It's lasted longer. That Thanksgiving was depressing. Wasn't it sad? The food looks sad, too. I was like, could you not do better here if you're paying? And then them dancing to, oh, the music.

00:43:34 Speaker_02
Oh, ow. I do 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. Senator for The Economist.

00:43:44 Speaker_08
Yeah, great guy.

00:43:45 Speaker_02
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.

00:43:54 Speaker_09
That was a great video.

00:43:55 Speaker_02
But Matthew Bishop, he just said very kind of solemnly, he said, you know, character used to matter. And that just kind of summarized it. The character used to matter. And he also said something else that I found really fascinating.

00:44:09 Speaker_02
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 US 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.

00:44:26 Speaker_02
It 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.

00:44:38 Speaker_02
military on balance over the last century? I thought that was really interesting.

00:44:41 Speaker_09
Vivek, Amritsani, this is where I think they might, both Elon and Vivek are going after defense budget, which is, I think all of them should be looked at.

00:44:50 Speaker_09
By the way, I don't disagree that overspending is a problem and it should always be audited, et cetera, but they're going right for the military in that regard, just so you know.

00:44:58 Speaker_09
I think that might be a big Trump fight going on forward, that's my feeling.

00:45:03 Speaker_01
That'll be hard to get through. Anyways, different talk show. Yeah, I agree.

00:45:07 Speaker_09
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 Hegseth saying women shouldn't be in the military. I love that.

00:45:17 Speaker_09
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 don't, You can reform something without ruining it.

00:45:30 Speaker_09
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. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

00:45:46 Speaker_09
Lauren 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.

00:45:58 Speaker_09
I have to say I loved I love this docuseries. I love it. It's amazing.

00:46:02 Speaker_00
Oh, thank you.

00:46:03 Speaker_09
Thank you for having me. I feel bad because I refused to watch Euphoria and now I feel like I've watched Euphoria. Unfortunately, I was like, no, I have lots of kids. I cannot watch this.

00:46:14 Speaker_09
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. So tell us about social studies and what made you decide to make this docuseries?

00:46:29 Speaker_09
Because it's been in the ether, this idea that this stuff is bad for kids, but talk a little bit about it.

00:46:35 Speaker_00
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.

00:46:46 Speaker_00
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.

00:46:58 Speaker_00
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.

00:47:09 Speaker_09
And you're talking about like Cosmo, like thin thighs and 30 days or your man doesn't love you, that kind of stuff, all that.

00:47:16 Speaker_00
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.

00:47:28 Speaker_00
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

00:47:41 Speaker_00
series, I did a kind of social experiment where the kids who were participating agreed to allow me into their phones. And so we were doing contemporaneous screen recordings, capturing what was in their phones. I really felt like

00:47:58 Speaker_00
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 affecting them.

00:48:15 Speaker_09
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.

00:48:23 Speaker_09
Because most parents, I happened, my ex-wife was the chief technology officer in the United States, and I'm good at tech. So we were good at that, right? But most parents aren't the experts, and the teens really do.

00:48:36 Speaker_09
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 importance of trusting them to tell their stories, because they really do know what's going on.

00:48:47 Speaker_00
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.

00:48:57 Speaker_00
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.

00:49:13 Speaker_00
On 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.

00:49:31 Speaker_00
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?

00:49:47 Speaker_02
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?

00:49:58 Speaker_02
And two, what social media platform do you think is more harmful than people think?

00:50:04 Speaker_00
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.

00:50:20 Speaker_00
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.

00:50:34 Speaker_00
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

00:50:55 Speaker_00
have more and more dangerous behavior, whether it's eating disorder or suicidal ideation or racism or kind of any variety of things. So I think the addictive quality of TikTok and then also where it takes you for engagement is really dangerous.

00:51:14 Speaker_02
And just the first question, what do you think parents get wrong about the actual experience versus our perception of it?

00:51:21 Speaker_00
Well, my experience in showing the show, and also in teenagers watching it, is that neither of them actually knows already.

00:51:30 Speaker_00
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

00:51:48 Speaker_00
feel relieved or seen by it, from it. And 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.

00:52:08 Speaker_00
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.

00:52:19 Speaker_09
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.

00:52:27 Speaker_00
Exactly. And 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. I feel like people ask me, should we be on? Should we be off?

00:52:41 Speaker_00
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. These algorithms are engineered intentionally, and that's what the kids are calling out. They don't have to be this way.

00:52:54 Speaker_09
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. Like you're all, you're doing it.

00:53:02 Speaker_09
And one of the, this was a character, this Jonathan in your, 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.

00:53:14 Speaker_09
And Scott talks about this a lot. You can't, it's part of your social life, right? What, 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?

00:53:29 Speaker_09
It 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.

00:53:43 Speaker_00
Well, 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.

00:54:00 Speaker_00
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.

00:54:16 Speaker_00
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 and

00:54:34 Speaker_00
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.

00:54:46 Speaker_00
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.

00:54:57 Speaker_09
Yeah, they, you know, they also don't they don't actually know there was a friend of mine whose daughter was sending their 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.

00:55:08 Speaker_09
Because the person was like, Oh, my daughter loves being online. And I'm like, you don't know what she's doing, do you? And 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?

00:55:23 Speaker_09
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.

00:55:31 Speaker_00
Anyway, it was really a problematic thing. And Scott asked, what's the thing that parents don't know? I think one of the things is how common this is.

00:55:41 Speaker_00
We have groups in the show, and they do silent clapping when they identify with what other kids are saying, and 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.

00:55:58 Speaker_00
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.

00:56:18 Speaker_00
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.

00:56:33 Speaker_09
Yeah, my son didn't want that picture. Oddly, 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?

00:56:43 Speaker_02
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.

00:56:55 Speaker_02
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.

00:57:11 Speaker_02
And that is it creates unreasonable expectations around what sex is.

00:57:14 Speaker_02
And 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.

00:57:28 Speaker_02
And I apologize for the word salad here.

00:57:30 Speaker_02
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.

00:57:47 Speaker_02
Have you done any research or have any thoughts on the emergence of these AI girlfriends, if you will?

00:57:54 Speaker_00
I 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

00:58:09 Speaker_00
By the end of the year, what the kids articulated is they want to have face-to-face connection with each other.

00:58:16 Speaker_00
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,

00:58:33 Speaker_00
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.

00:58:45 Speaker_00
One of the scary things was seeing that the trend that everybody was talking about was BDSM for teenagers. And it was almost like almost like a comedy moment when one girl says, and teenagers don't even know how to choke properly.

00:59:03 Speaker_00
Like they're just teenagers. And so I think, and that wasn't just pornography, that's on TikTok. So I think that, you know, and one girl talked about being in abusive relationship as her first relationship and not knowing

00:59:20 Speaker_00
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.

00:59:33 Speaker_00
So 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

00:59:48 Speaker_00
how it 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

01:00:08 Speaker_00
accidentally, and we see kind of relationships be means to popularity.

01:00:14 Speaker_09
One of the things, I'm actually interviewing the mother of that child later today, who killed himself. One of the things that's really disturbing to me is that they want to get off, but they can't.

01:00:26 Speaker_09
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

01:00:35 Speaker_09
I don't know, some weird sexual thing when you were in between.

01:00:38 Speaker_01
Yeah, your dad's playboy in the garage that you found, right?

01:00:41 Speaker_09
Right, right. But you only got little tastes of it, like, and 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.

01:00:52 Speaker_09
So 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 gonna get in trouble or anything else. But what, and I do think kids do want to get off of these things.

01:01:05 Speaker_09
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.

01:01:15 Speaker_09
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. And right now they mostly watch TV on it. That's what they do now.

01:01:32 Speaker_09
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?

01:01:40 Speaker_00
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.

01:01:49 Speaker_00
Like Cooper and Stell 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.

01:02:03 Speaker_00
We see Ivy go off in the show and eventually get back on. It's a real statement of saying, I'm going to be outside of the social life.

01:02:13 Speaker_00
I think that being a teenager is about being in the social life, trying to find yourself socially, having friends, being accepted. I think that as a next step, like really we need collective action. It's very hard to do this individually.

01:02:33 Speaker_00
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've been a big shock in the beginning, but the kids love it.

01:02:46 Speaker_00
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. And I think parents being okay with

01:02:57 Speaker_00
Not being in touch with your kids at every moment will be helpful, but having phones that are not smartphones is great. 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.

01:03:14 Speaker_00
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.

01:03:26 Speaker_09
They don't care. They don't care. Scott, last question.

01:03:29 Speaker_02
Do you think social media should be educated?

01:03:31 Speaker_00
Absolutely. I 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

01:03:47 Speaker_00
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.

01:04:02 Speaker_00
This is coming from the kids, but they can't do it on their own.

01:04:05 Speaker_09
Right. And any argument about that they should be able to talk, free speech arguments that people make, do you buy any of it?

01:04:12 Speaker_00
No, I'm a journalist. I totally believe in free speech.

01:04:15 Speaker_00
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.

01:04:31 Speaker_00
So I think that's exploitation of vulnerability even in the teenage brain that is an unfair match.

01:04:42 Speaker_09
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. And we really appreciate you. Everybody should go and watch it.

01:04:54 Speaker_09
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Lauren.

01:04:56 Speaker_02
Nice meeting you.

01:04:57 Speaker_09
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.

01:05:08 Speaker_09
Anyway, we'll be back for wins and fails. Support for Pivot comes from NetSuite. Planning for the future in business is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without the box. There's a lot of pieces, but no clear big picture.

01:05:26 Speaker_09
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01:06:02 Speaker_09
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01:06:20 Speaker_09
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01:07:44 Speaker_09
Support for Pivot comes from The Washington Post. If you're a regular listener of this podcast, then it's safe to say that you care about what's going on in this world. And of course, listening to Scott Galloway and I is great.

01:07:55 Speaker_09
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01:08:17 Speaker_09
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Once again, that's washingtonpost.com slash pivot to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I think I shall go first. I shall go first. Here's the win. Moana 2.

01:09:09 Speaker_09
Oh my God, the money it's making. 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 Bob Iger made the call to make it a movie.

01:09:24 Speaker_09
which was a hugely fantastic call for this guy. Like he has made some big calls. Inside and Out 2 is the top, the three top movies, Moana, Inside and Out 2, and Deadpool and Wolverine, all Disney movies.

01:09:37 Speaker_09
This guy is doing a good job with the movies at Disney right now. But I got to tell you, it was beautifully done. My kids loved it.

01:09:45 Speaker_09
And let me just say, it's, except for the music, which is not as good, and it's killing it at the box office, more to the point. It's like,

01:09:54 Speaker_09
closing in on $300 million in five days, which is amazing, to go along with Wicked and Gladiators 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.

01:10:07 Speaker_09
Anyway, great movie, Moana, winner, winner, winner, chicken dinner for Bob Iger. My fail is Pete Hegseth. I know, I would agree with you on Ketelzi Gabbard and Kash Patel frightens me and is weird.

01:10:20 Speaker_09
But this guy, the Secretary of Defense is one of the most important jobs in any administration. Our lives depend on someone being competent.

01:10:30 Speaker_09
And 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.

01:10:44 Speaker_09
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.

01:11:01 Speaker_09
Scott, your turn.

01:11:03 Speaker_02
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 100 Years War on Palestine. I think that's a fail.

01:11:18 Speaker_02
And I think it's an exceptionally unbalanced book. It's written by a guy who was an advisor to Yasser Arafat and the former chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

01:11:30 Speaker_02
The book portrays the conflict as a colonial war raged against the indigenous Palestinian population without acknowledging the Jewish people also have indigenous roots in the territory.

01:11:41 Speaker_02
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.

01:11:54 Speaker_09
Well, does he have a real aim? I mean, there is the ceasefire, right, which is holding. And does it really matter what he reads now? I don't know.

01:12:01 Speaker_02
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.

01:12:12 Speaker_02
Anyways, I felt that if you look at this book and you look at how it portrays 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.

01:12:34 Speaker_02
I don't think it's a balanced book. I 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.

01:12:45 Speaker_02
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.

01:12:57 Speaker_09
I know, I didn't understand.

01:12:59 Speaker_02
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, a football club. You don't like that.

01:13:18 Speaker_02
I didn't know. Oh my God, everybody hates Man City. Man City every year, every year, Arsenal. You know, Liverpool, Chelsea, X, Y, and Zed. We all think there's a shot we're going to win. The Premier Club and then Man City wins. They are so dominant.

01:13:36 Speaker_02
They are so good. And the last few games, they lost 2-0. to Liverpool who probably deserves it.

01:13:43 Speaker_09
I can't believe you're saying nil and zed now because you're from London, but go ahead. Go ahead.

01:13:47 Speaker_02
Hey, stop it or you'll end up in the boot. That's my big British... I hear that. You did it in a Scottish accent, but continue. I sound like some Indian kid on meth when I try and do my Scottish accent now. Anyways,

01:14:03 Speaker_02
But last weekend, my son is a Spurs supporter. Tottenham beat Man City 4-0 at Man City at, was it Emirates or Etihad? Anyways, whatever, Middle East Airlines. I can't tell you how much joy this is bringing to UK households. The epic fail of Man City.

01:14:26 Speaker_02
That is my win.

01:14:27 Speaker_09
So it's like the Dallas Cowboys losing, right? Remember the day when they were kind of douche nozzles over at the Dallas Cowboys and when they lost, people were happy.

01:14:34 Speaker_02
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.

01:14:43 Speaker_02
And 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.

01:14:55 Speaker_02
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.

01:15:05 Speaker_02
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.

01:15:16 Speaker_02
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 gonna let the Cincinnati Reds rebuild.

01:15:28 Speaker_02
But 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.

01:15:43 Speaker_09
It keeps it fresh.

01:15:44 Speaker_02
It's so dominant. Every team's got a shot. Every team's got a shot. When you say this might be our year, it might be.

01:15:53 Speaker_09
So you're excited now that this team is getting its head handed to them.

01:15:57 Speaker_02
Well, I keep waiting for Arsenal because the manager is a dad at my school. He seems like a lovely guy, and I think Bukaya Saka is just a joy to watch. But my sons like Chelsea and Tottenham. I can't tell you.

01:16:09 Speaker_02
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.

01:16:15 Speaker_09
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, honestly.

01:16:20 Speaker_02
I couldn't believe you forwarded me that. I mean, how does Kara Swisher know about Man City's epic meltdown?

01:16:26 Speaker_09
Because you mention it and I vaguely listen to some of your foot soccer, whatever you want to call it.

01:16:32 Speaker_02
I can't stand Holland either. He's so good and he's so classy.

01:16:35 Speaker_09
I love those people. All I know is I'm glad the Jets lost and I don't even follow it because Aaron Rodgers is a jerk.

01:16:42 Speaker_02
You would love Masayoshi San. You would love Bukaya Saka. They're both wonderful men.

01:16:46 Speaker_09
Masayoshi San runs, wait a second, isn't that the internet guy? Is that another person?

01:16:50 Speaker_02
No, no, it's not Sodbank. No, Son. Son. 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. They've also got the nicest stadium.

01:17:06 Speaker_02
Actually, you know what? You don't even need to come. Send your boys. I'll take them to a Premier League game. It's the best sporting event in the world. You know what they do at Premier League games?

01:17:16 Speaker_02
The losing side, the losing fans, everyone stays after the game and they clap for their team and they stick around. I'm convinced it's the last place that men can show emotion, where they high-five each other and hug.

01:17:27 Speaker_02
There is nothing, I'm not into sports at all. I go to a Premier League game probably every other weekend.

01:17:33 Speaker_09
All right, I will send my sons to you to do this. You know where we are going? I have accepted on your behalf.

01:17:39 Speaker_09
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.

01:17:47 Speaker_02
Was he chairman of Twitter at one point or something? Or he was on the board of Twitter, right?

01:17:50 Speaker_09
He might've been, he might've 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.

01:18:00 Speaker_09
All these really rich people are looking for different sports areas to invest in, and they happen to like bull- Professional bull riding?

01:18:06 Speaker_02
PBR?

01:18:06 Speaker_09
Professional bull riding.

01:18:08 Speaker_02
I think it's owned by WME, isn't it?

01:18:10 Speaker_09
No, I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, he's making invests. Maybe he is, because he's close to those guys. But I wrote him. I'm like, bull riding? He goes, you want to come? I'm like, we're coming. We're coming to bull riding.

01:18:22 Speaker_09
I saw it once, and I loved it.

01:18:23 Speaker_02
Tell me you're a lesbian without telling me you're a lesbian.

01:18:25 Speaker_09
I know. He's like, how do you like bull riding? And I said, I'm a lesbian.

01:18:29 Speaker_02
Nothing is safe.

01:18:30 Speaker_09
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.

01:18:37 Speaker_02
You know how to get those bulls out angry. They basically put a rope around their nuts and then they singe it right before they open that gate.

01:18:47 Speaker_09
Do you know what? I'm thinking of doing that for you sometimes. That's a great idea.

01:18:51 Speaker_02
You never know. That's called a Tuesday night and I'll pay you for it. I will pay you for it.

01:18:55 Speaker_09
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 and whatever soccer situation you have going. Anyway, that's the show. We want to hear from you.

01:19:06 Speaker_09
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.

01:19:14 Speaker_09
I also want to mention on my latest episode of On with Kara Swisher, I'm talking to Nathan Myhrvold, the founder and CEO of Intellectual Ventures and former CTO of Microsoft. He's a really funny thinker about everything.

01:19:24 Speaker_09
We discussed all sorts of things, including tech leaders taking to social media. This is my favorite response. Let's listen.

01:19:31 Speaker_08
Have you been surprised by the shift of some tech people into this area? I am surprised at how people who

01:19:40 Speaker_05
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,

01:20:03 Speaker_05
in a way that, look, Cara, let's make a little pact here. If I ever do that, come and stop me. I will.

01:20:11 Speaker_08
I tried with a number of them. It didn't work. It didn't work. I tried.

01:20:16 Speaker_09
Anyway, I like Nathan. He's always really funny.

01:20:18 Speaker_02
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.

01:20:30 Speaker_02
The CEO of Intel was fired today.

01:20:33 Speaker_09
Oh, wow. Well, deserved.

01:20:35 Speaker_02
You watch. You watch. We're going to we're going to see a private equity shop come in. Also, also, just to tease the next episode, Daddy, Daddy might be part of an owner group to buy a football club and we're all going to go.

01:20:48 Speaker_09
Oh, I mean, a football. Football or soccer?

01:20:53 Speaker_02
The real football.

01:20:54 Speaker_09
Oh, real football.

01:20:55 Speaker_02
By the way, this is not Man City or a Premier League team. It's what a podcaster can afford. But still, it's going to get me good seats and a shirt, and we're all going to go. It's going to be a ton of fun.

01:21:08 Speaker_09
Okay, good. It's a teen girls team, something like that.

01:21:14 Speaker_02
That sounds pretty good.

01:21:15 Speaker_09
Bend it like Beckham. Did you see that movie? Go watch that movie again.

01:21:19 Speaker_02
I did. That was Keira Knightley's first film. Probably her best film, but it's pretty low bar. I'm not sure. I'm not a huge fan of Keira Knightley.

01:21:24 Speaker_09
Bend it like Beckham, Scott Galloway. Okay, I'm excited for that. I'm excited for you to be a sports owner. You've always wanted to do that. Always. I support it.

01:21:32 Speaker_02
The midlife crisis continues. The Arrested Adolescents Tour.

01:21:36 Speaker_09
New dates announced. Oh, good. Oh, fantastic. Okay. All right, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more. Please read us out.

01:21:48 Speaker_02
Ernie Entertide engineered this episode. Thanks also to two bros, Miss Severio, Dan Shulan, and Kate Gallagher. Nishat Karua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the new show wherever you listen to podcasts.

01:21:59 Speaker_02
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.

01:22:22 Speaker_03
Support for this episode comes from AWS. AWS Generative AI gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced cloud.

01:22:35 Speaker_04
2025 is going to be a huge year for the tech industry. AI is either going to take over or maybe kind of start to go away.

01:22:42 Speaker_04
Regulation is going to continue and change the tech industry, or maybe a new president is going to change his mind about how all that is supposed to work.

01:22:50 Speaker_04
We're going to get new gadgets and new apps and new social platforms competing for our time and attention and new information about what it means to be a person on the internet and how we should be thinking about that.

01:23:00 Speaker_04
We have no idea what's coming next year, but on The Vergecast this month, we've decided to speculate wildly anyway. We're spending our time trying to figure out what's coming next year, what isn't, and what it all means. All that on The Vergecast.

01:23:13 Speaker_04
Presented by Polestar. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.