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0:00:34 Using AI chatbots is pretty easy.
0:00:38 Knowing how to feel about them, that’s more complicated.
0:00:42 You know, and I don’t think that biologically we’re necessarily equipped
0:00:46 to be emotionally handling this type of relationship
0:00:48 with something that’s not human.
0:00:50 Our AI companions.
0:00:52 That’s this week on Explain It To Me.
0:00:56 New episodes every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:06 Episode 357.
0:01:09 357 is the area code covering parts of Central California.
0:01:14 In 1957, the baby boom hit its peak with more than 4.3 million births,
0:01:17 and Sputnik launched, which kicked off the space race.
0:01:20 I remember when I was a younger man, a boy actually,
0:01:24 saying to my mom, Mom, someday I’m going to be shot into space.
0:01:25 To which my mom replied,
0:01:28 well, if your dad had done his job, that would have happened.
0:01:31 Go! Go! Go!
0:01:42 Welcome to the 357th episode of The Prop G Pod.
0:01:43 I am in Aspen.
0:01:44 Why am I here?
0:01:45 Because I can be.
0:01:46 I absolutely love it here.
0:01:48 Building a home here.
0:01:51 This is where I’m going to sit around and wait for the ass cancer,
0:01:54 meaning this is where I think I’m going to leave feet first,
0:01:58 where I plan to wind down and give up podcasting when I’m, I don’t know, 93.
0:01:59 I think that would be a good time.
0:02:02 I used to think when I was a younger man, when I was in my 40s,
0:02:06 that I was going to create space or room and go totally dark on social media
0:02:08 and stop podcasting by the time I was 50.
0:02:09 But here’s the thing.
0:02:12 I love the fame, the relevance, and the Benjamins.
0:02:20 But I am here and our technical director, Drew, rented an apartment called the Aspen Alps
0:02:23 right on the mountain here and set up this giant studio.
0:02:25 So I hope you appreciate all the production values here.
0:02:30 They told me to take off my hat because they didn’t like the way it looked.
0:02:31 And I took it off and I thought, you know, fuck it.
0:02:32 It’s my image.
0:02:33 It’s me.
0:02:34 They’re AI.
0:02:34 I’m me.
0:02:35 I own me.
0:02:36 I own the digital, Scott.
0:02:39 I’ve been, it’s been an emotional weekend for me.
0:02:43 I’ll get back to that later in the episode and I look like shit and I’m self-conscious
0:02:45 and, you know, all that good stuff.
0:02:47 But what are we doing here?
0:02:48 We’re very much enjoying ourselves.
0:02:53 I think I used to come to Aspen in the winter, put our kids on skis, came here in the summer
0:02:55 and now just come here in the summer.
0:02:57 I think mountain towns in the summer are absolutely wonderful.
0:03:00 I went to this place called Woody’s Creek’s Tavern, Woody Creek Tavern yesterday.
0:03:05 And a bunch of people rolled up on a horse, which I thought was ridiculously cool.
0:03:06 Okay, what’s going on?
0:03:08 The Epstein file.
0:03:10 I got this wrong.
0:03:11 I thought it was going to blow over.
0:03:12 I thought people were sick of hearing about it.
0:03:17 But it ends up that when you promote conspiracy theory for a good, I don’t know, five or seven
0:03:21 years and won’t stop hammering on it and then keep talking about this file and this list that
0:03:24 when you decide, oh no, I’m on the list and I’d rather not come out.
0:03:28 So nothing to see here, folks keep moving along, that everyone gets angry.
0:03:33 I did watch, I did enjoy watching Alex Jones cry in his car over the Epstein list.
0:03:39 But a lot of this comes down to sort of a major theme, I think, or a broader theme, and that
0:03:40 is one of identity.
0:03:46 And I think under the auspices of being able to create bots, not being subject to standards
0:03:52 around moderation, a public, and not taking responsibility for the comments they make, that
0:03:59 identity or specifically some sort of fidelity or irrational passion for the value of anonymity
0:04:05 has really hurt our society, and that is whether it’s, look at the most depraved behavior on
0:04:06 behalf of our government right now.
0:04:11 I would argue that it’s simply put is, is it the administration cutting food stamps?
0:04:13 That’s right up there.
0:04:20 Or the world’s wealthiest man murdering or killing the world’s most vulnerable and poorest
0:04:20 children?
0:04:21 That’s right up there.
0:04:28 But right close, maybe a close third, would be a bunch of individuals who’ve been weaponized
0:04:34 to create a private army for the president, who separate, rip families apart, are now, I
0:04:35 guess, rounding up citizens as well.
0:04:39 When you treat people differently based on identity, that is the definition of racism.
0:04:44 And these actions are, in fact, racist, where they’re targeting people based on their identity,
0:04:45 not on their behavior.
0:04:47 And what do we have?
0:04:51 We have individuals who realize how depraved this behavior is, so they wear masks.
0:04:53 They hide their identity.
0:04:56 And online, we have a lot of people with masks.
0:05:02 It’s somewhere between 20, 40, 50 percent sometimes of activity on a social media platform are bods
0:05:06 who have been weaponized by someone who doesn’t want you to know their identity, because what
0:05:09 they’re saying is either slanderous or they’re too cowardly to live up to it, or they would
0:05:13 be embarrassed to say such aggressive, inaccurate things.
0:05:19 And so we tolerate it under some bullshit notion that a civil rights activist in the
0:05:20 Gulf needs anonymity.
0:05:24 Well, with the blockchain, you could probably allocate a certain number of accounts for anonymous
0:05:26 accounts if, in fact, they needed the anonymity.
0:05:30 But the 99.9 percent of people who are just acting like cowards or being aggressive or tearing
0:05:34 at the fabric of our society because of anonymity, I don’t buy that bullshit.
0:05:42 When some idiots at UCLA decide to pass out bans to non-Jews and then we’ll let anyone without
0:05:46 abandon, i.e. Jewish people, onto certain parts of the UCLA campus and the UCLA leadership does not
0:05:49 show up to stop that shit right away.
0:05:51 What do those people do?
0:05:52 They wear masks.
0:05:58 So I think it’s pretty easy to spot people with depraved who are about to engage in things that
0:06:01 they do not want to associate their identity with because they are wrong.
0:06:06 And whether it’s a stormtrooper for Star Wars, a member of the KKK, a member of ICE,
0:06:12 or all of these bots online, anonymity has become a real problem in our society.
0:06:18 And that is, just as an example, I get a lot of really nice messages online.
0:06:20 I also get some of the vilest shit I’ve ever seen in my life.
0:06:24 And if I were a woman, I would be really, I would feel physically intimidated.
0:06:28 And I’ve been forwarded some messages that some of my female friends get online and it
0:06:29 is just totally unacceptable.
0:06:31 And it’d be pretty easy.
0:06:35 Find out who that motherfucker is on the other side of that keyboard and they will stop because
0:06:40 they will realize what they’re doing not only carries penalties, but just does not acquit
0:06:41 them very well.
0:06:45 And, but instead we’ve decided, oh, we need to sell more Nissan ads.
0:06:48 And under this bullshit notion that anonymity is key to progress.
0:06:49 No, it’s not.
0:06:54 And you could have a certain amount of anonymity for people who have a legitimate reason to be
0:06:54 anonymous.
0:07:01 But there is an issue here around our love of letting people have no accountability for their
0:07:06 actions under the auspices of some sort of First Amendment or free speech or protection.
0:07:10 And it has gone too far and the snake is eating its tail.
0:07:14 I would like to see, I like the fact that there’s cameras everywhere in New York and London.
0:07:19 What you also need when you have this kind of surveillance technology is really strong laws
0:07:26 to ensure, I don’t even think any camera footage or online tracking can be used to prosecute
0:07:27 someone in a misdemeanor.
0:07:31 I think it has to be a very serious crime and there has to be a lot of safeguards that err on
0:07:36 the side of not getting a search warrant for that data such that people feel comfortable being
0:07:39 their true selves, but at the same time have to represent their identity.
0:07:42 But where I was headed was some really vile shit online.
0:07:47 If I’ve been recognized several times in Aspen and people couldn’t be nicer or wherever I
0:07:50 am in the world, even when people disagree with me, they come up and say, I didn’t like your
0:07:50 take here.
0:07:51 This is what I think.
0:07:52 And they listen and they’re thoughtful.
0:07:58 And one of the really terrible things about AI and LLMs is LLMs are crawling the online
0:08:03 world, which is much harsher and much more cowardly and much more mendacious.
0:08:03 Why?
0:08:04 Because of anonymity.
0:08:09 Whereas if these AI LLMs were crawling the real world where people have to take responsibility
0:08:14 for what they say and you get to look them in the eye when they say something, I think the
0:08:19 world would be a better place because AI would be training people how to behave in person where
0:08:23 you have accountability as opposed to training the world to behave the way they behave online.
0:08:28 And it’s not only people who individually pulse negative behavior.
0:08:32 There are people who want to create dissent and tear out the fabric of America, i.e.
0:08:39 the GRU and the CCP, and create millions of bots that manufacture content that doesn’t even reflect
0:08:44 how any individual feels, but gives you the impression that this is how millions of people
0:08:44 feel.
0:08:49 If you wanted, say you were pro-Ukraine, say you were a professor who was constantly talking
0:08:54 about Putin’s illegal invasion of Europe and how the U.S. should absolutely allocate the funds to
0:08:59 push back on a murderous autocrat, wouldn’t you be stupid not to create a troll farm in Albania
0:09:05 and then slowly but surely using AI, try to undermine that professor’s credibility with negative comments
0:09:10 all of the time about any of his or her content?
0:09:12 And I believe those lists have been assembled.
0:09:14 It would be stupid not to weaponize those lists.
0:09:15 And oh, great.
0:09:20 We have social media platforms that love the lies because the lies and the aggressive behavior
0:09:22 create more engagement.
0:09:24 The algorithms are Tyrannosaurus Rex.
0:09:26 They’re attracted to movement and violence.
0:09:29 And it creates more clicks, more engagement, and more Nissan ads.
0:09:30 So where are we?
0:09:35 Should an individual have First Amendment rights and be able to say pretty much anything about
0:09:37 pretty much anybody at pretty much any time?
0:09:38 Yeah, I think so.
0:09:41 But should a bot have First Amendment protection?
0:09:42 I don’t think so.
0:09:44 Should we be creating this atmosphere?
0:09:47 And it has gotten much worse over the last 20 years.
0:09:53 Where anonymity serves as a chaser and an incendiary to take the worst among us
0:09:56 and absolutely expand that behavior and forgive them for it
0:09:59 and encourage that behavior and also let bad actors
0:10:04 pretend to be people who engage in some of the most uncivil conduct
0:10:07 experienced in our society.
0:10:12 So I’m a big fan of getting rid of this love of anonymity.
0:10:16 And if you look at what’s going on, whether it’s ICE, whether it’s troll farms,
0:10:21 whether it’s people spewing hate speech on campus, what’s the problem?
0:10:21 Anonymity.
0:10:24 You want to show up and protest?
0:10:24 Fine.
0:10:30 But I don’t think a movement where everyone on your side feels the need to wear a mask,
0:10:35 I think that says something about what you’re saying and says something about your character.
0:10:39 Anonymity has been abused and it is tearing at the fabric of our society.
0:10:41 Okay, moving on.
0:10:45 In today’s episode, we speak with Greg Lukianoff, a free speech advocate,
0:10:49 First Amendment attorney, president of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression,
0:10:55 and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, and most recently, The Cancelling of the American Mind.
0:10:57 I’m going to bring up some of these topics with Greg.
0:11:00 We discuss with Greg free speech in a divided country,
0:11:04 how cancel culture took off, and what today’s campus protests tell us about the state of open debate.
0:11:09 We also get into how schools are failing to build resilient students.
0:11:13 So with that, here’s our conversation with Greg Lukianoff.
0:11:27 Greg, where does this podcast find you?
0:11:32 Maine, actually. This is my first day up here since last year.
0:11:34 First day up there. Where are you usually?
0:11:35 D.C.
0:11:40 Oh, nice. So let’s bust right into it. Give us your thoughts on cancel culture.
0:11:47 How did it start? Brief history of it. And how does it differ from accountability, so to speak?
0:11:53 Sure. I mean, I wrote a book called Canceling of the American Mind when I started the project.
0:11:59 20-year-old Ricky Schlott, who’s absolutely brilliant, and I feel very lucky to work with her.
0:12:07 And it definitely was one of those things that was a really striking discontinuity from the rest of my career.
0:12:11 I started working defending free speech on campus in 2001.
0:12:17 And back then, you were most likely to get in trouble on campus from administrators.
0:12:20 Professors were fairly good on freedom of speech.
0:12:25 Students were great on freedom of speech and freedom to differ, differing opinions.
0:12:36 But right around 2013, going into 2014, a cohort of students showed up that were much less, you know, just to be blunt, tolerant of difference.
0:12:41 But essentially, you started seeing a lot more demands that speakers be canceled.
0:12:44 You started seeing demands for new speech codes.
0:12:47 And this was a big shift from what I’d seen before.
0:12:50 But I also started seeing some of this happening off campus.
0:12:54 So I tried to define cancel culture as a historical period.
0:13:00 Because all moments in the history of censorship have commonalities.
0:13:03 But they also have things that make them distinct.
0:13:13 And I think one of the distinct characteristics of cancel culture is that it was essentially impossible to have it as we understood it without something like social media.
0:13:22 Something that allows you to create the reality or oftentimes appearance of a sudden mob that’s demanding you fire that one employee.
0:13:24 And this wasn’t a subtle shift.
0:13:29 You know, I’d been doing this job for a long time prior to 2014.
0:13:41 And from 2014 on, you know, I’ve seen more professors lose their job, more tenured professors lose their job than, you know, what I’d seen in my previous half of my career, you know, times 20.
0:13:44 You know, it was really quite a shift.
0:13:59 So the way that Ricky and I define cancel culture is the uptick of campaigns to get people fired, punished, penalized, expelled, or otherwise punished for speech that would be protected under the First Amendment.
0:14:12 There, I’m making an analogy to public employee law, which basically means that there’s some common sense injected in there, but that essentially you’re not supposed to fire people just for their outside speech as a citizen.
0:14:15 And the culture of fear that resulted from it.
0:14:19 And one thing you should notice about that definition is there’s no political valence to it.
0:14:22 So cancel culture is cancel culture, whether it comes from the left or the right.
0:14:35 Isn’t that one of the deltas, though, that there’s always been shaming or criticism of people if they, you know, if their narrative doesn’t match yours or an opportunity to kind of play into gotcha culture.
0:14:42 But what I see is the big difference over the last 10, 15 years is the discovery that you could go after people’s livelihood.
0:14:48 It used to be that that was somewhat isolated, like we’re, I mean, I don’t like what Greg says.
0:14:49 I’m going to publicly shame him.
0:14:50 I’m angry at him.
0:14:51 He’s a bad person.
0:14:52 You shouldn’t be his friend.
0:14:53 You shouldn’t be listening.
0:14:58 But it never jumped the shark to now go after his livelihood.
0:14:59 Wasn’t that the big difference here?
0:15:08 Well, that was part of the definition, our campaigns to get people punished in some real material way, like get them fired, expelled, etc.
0:15:10 It’s not cancel culture if you’re just telling it.
0:15:16 There was a phenomenon called trashing in the 1960s that Musa Al-Gharbi likes to point to.
0:15:23 And it’s this really nasty, vitriolic way of going after your political enemies that was everything you’re talking about.
0:15:24 It’s like the person’s a bad person.
0:15:25 Don’t listen to the person anymore.
0:15:31 Or they’re not, you know, they’re not doctrinaire, as I would like to be doctrinaire.
0:15:34 But it generally didn’t get to the point of, and this professor has to be fired.
0:15:41 And the biggest shift, the one that kind of shocked me, was the uptick around 2017.
0:15:46 Because at first, students were focusing on each other and outside speakers.
0:15:52 But 2017 really marks the moment when they started going after professors in large number.
0:15:56 Talk a little bit about, quote unquote, de-platforming.
0:16:15 De-platforming is just the idea that essentially, the way we define de-platforming in our research department at FIRE is essentially getting a speaker, either getting them disinvited or making it so difficult to hear them or otherwise chasing them off campus.
0:16:23 The ones that scare me, the kind of de-platforming that actually scares me the most are the ones that involve violence or the threat of violence, for obvious reasons.
0:16:26 It’s primarily targeted at speakers.
0:16:31 We also consider it de-platforming if you do the same thing to, like, say, playing a movie.
0:16:34 That essentially you’re showing a documentary that’s not very popular on campus.
0:16:36 Students show up and shout it down.
0:16:40 But this is actually one of the areas where a lot of it actually comes from the right as well.
0:16:49 Because for a lot of speakers on campus, there’ll be off-campus pressure to get that person disinvited.
0:16:57 And this is particularly true of, say, speakers that could be painted as, like, a pro-choice and sometimes Catholic groups.
0:16:59 I think the Cardinal Newman Center is big on this.
0:17:03 Pressure schools to disinvite that person.
0:17:12 So generally, and this is for fairly obvious reasons, if the threat to free speech and de-platforming comes from the left, it tends to come from on campus.
0:17:15 If it comes from the right, it tends to come from off campus.
0:17:19 I saw some of this as a faculty member at NYU.
0:17:31 I remember about 10, 15 years ago, it became sort of in vogue for department chairs to put out very long emails about how certain microaggressions would not be tolerated.
0:17:38 And it was, OK, we’re charging kids $280,000 to come here.
0:17:41 Some of them leave riddled in student debt.
0:17:44 Two-thirds of the faculty probably isn’t holding their weight.
0:17:47 So there was an opportunity to step into this virtue circle.
0:17:50 And no one could ever criticize them.
0:17:51 I’d do anything but applaud.
0:17:52 Otherwise, you are a racist.
0:17:59 And there was this, almost this sort of self-appointed police.
0:18:12 That, and it was always, quite frankly, and I consider myself a pro-progressive, but people never got counseled for being too progressive.
0:18:15 And it felt very unhealthy.
0:18:27 And then, well, comment on that, and then I’m going to play identity politics and just make some anecdotal observations in the classroom and see if there’s any actual data that supports my thesis.
0:18:43 But talk about how all of a sudden, do you think some of it is, I just saw it as people who weren’t adding any actual value and were trying to find some merit and grab virtue or some sort of relevance and saw this as an easy way to try and grab status, so to speak.
0:18:47 Yeah, I think it’s a lot of things going on at once.
0:19:12 Well, one thing from my work with Jonathan Haidt, one chapter we ended up leaving out because I just didn’t have enough research to back it up, was my intuition that a lot of the phenomena we were seeing seemed to be playing out some of the values of the circa 2010 anti-bullying movement.
0:19:17 If you can get me to have a little time to develop this, I can explain it.
0:19:31 So in coddling, we talk about there being three great untruths, which are basically terrible advice to give someone that’s inconsistent with either modern psychology or ancient wisdom, and that will make you more miserable if you believe them.
0:19:37 And so we give this negative advice as what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, you know, kind of like the opposite of Nietzsche.
0:19:43 The second one is always trust your feelings, which sounds nice, but it’s just awful advice.
0:19:54 And three, life is a battle between good people and evil people, which is contrary to a more sophisticated understanding of that everybody has some aspect of good and evil within them, which is more how I was raised.
0:20:10 And there was a critic who pointed out after coddling came out in 2018 that these were more or less kind of like the way anti-bullying was being taught after sort of like a moral panic about it.
0:20:14 Not that bullying isn’t real and should be addressed, but things manifest in their own ways.
0:20:23 And this was primarily due to parents being aware of more of this stuff due to the fact that they could see it on their cell phones, they could see it on their on their screens.
0:20:27 And this did have an emphasis of, you know, human fragility.
0:20:31 If you feel that you’ve been wronged, you’ve been wronged.
0:20:39 And that there’s basically only two types of people, good people and evil people, you know, good people, victims and bullies.
0:20:43 I think that this wasn’t the only cause by any any stretch of the imagination.
0:20:51 But to explain why I think young people had such sympathy for this movement, I think they were framing it partially in that way.
0:20:55 But unfortunately, because the rule of human behavior is that all motives are mixed.
0:21:07 It also met with something that my very young colleague and co-author on Canceling the American Mind was able to point out that she was part of the first generation of people to grow up with cell phones in her pocket.
0:21:09 She had them since she was 10.
0:21:16 And in junior high school, you know, it took on very much the nature of what you would expect.
0:21:32 A mass communication device given to kids in junior high school, it became a way of showing aggression against your perceived enemies, but doing it within the rules of the time, which you don’t call out someone for being unpopular or ugly.
0:21:37 You call them out for being something more that makes you allows you to feel more moral.
0:21:49 So I think these two mixed motives kind of came together for the students when it comes to the utterly crucial role, though, of the administrators, because this one, if administrators looked at this and went, no way.
0:21:49 No, no, no, no, no.
0:21:53 You’re not you’re not you’re not getting a professor fired because you don’t like what they said.
0:21:55 This would have died in the crib.
0:22:01 But they had met those same administrators we’ve been fighting for fighting against at fire forever.
0:22:20 And together it created this kind of calamity for for freedom of speech, where these people who already believed it was their job to say what shall be orthodox on this particular campus met a cohort of students that were more willing to play along with that, too.
0:22:22 And again, as with all things, with mixed motives.
0:22:27 You said something that I thought was so, I don’t know, puncturing.
0:22:35 You said that students are being taught the mental habits of anxious and depressed people, which really struck me.
0:22:42 And I thought we’re teaching the kids to be fragile and actually make them less resilient.
0:22:45 It’s more than just word.
0:22:48 These I have seen this evolution where kids in my class.
0:22:50 They feel weaker.
0:22:56 It’s not just it’s not just a cool virtue thing and trendy or fashionable.
0:23:01 They appear to me to be less resilient.
0:23:03 Talk about that.
0:23:29 Yeah, I mean, the whole project with me and me and John came out of my observation when I was dealing with my own anxiety and depression and cognitive behavioral therapy is what saved me and utterly transformed my life, which is a process by which you develop all these tools and sort of talking back to the exaggerated voices in your head that tell you things like you’re doomed or you’re a failure or nobody loves you.
0:23:34 All of these kinds of voices that to a degree, to be clear, everybody except sociopaths have.
0:23:39 But, you know, when you’re anxious and depressed, they’re louder and they’re harder to ignore.
0:23:53 The amazing thing about CBT is it teaches you that if you actually rationally not not power of positive thinking stuff, but just rationally interrogate these, you realize you’re overgeneralizing or engaging in fortune telling that.
0:23:59 You know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you’re overgeneralizing or mind reading all these things that logically don’t really stand up to scrutiny.
0:24:11 And the observation that I that really brought me to talk to John about a potential collaboration, although actually I just told him the idea that I thought was cool, I didn’t actually think we’d collaborate on it.
0:24:26 That was a that was a dream come true, was just that it was like we were teaching kids reverse CBT, that we’re teaching them do overgeneralize, do catastrophize, do engage in binary thinking, do do believe, you know, the future.
0:24:45 And and and and it comes from, I believe, two different places, one, a very well meaning idea from both parents and administrators all through all through K through PhD to sort of and an instinct to sort of protect young people and to insulate them from harm.
0:24:57 But then a less admirable quality is that essentially if you make people feel guilty or frightened, it’s in theory will motivate them towards political action that you prefer.
0:25:01 And to me, that’s that that’s the one that makes me pretty angry.
0:25:06 The first one makes me kind of sad because it’s like, yeah, no, it’s an understandable instinct, but it’s still terrible advice.
0:25:22 And you should have known that the second one is the idea that we can sort of guilt, shame, anger, upset through telling people that they are more fragile than they are, that they are in greater danger than they are, that that will somehow result in a better world.
0:25:36 And I always make the point, listen, this is a bad calculation, even just rationally, because people who are filled with despair and anxiety don’t always choose, to say the least, the best course of action to get from point A to point B.
0:25:41 Yeah, I want to make some observations anecdotal, and you tell me if there’s any data to back it up.
0:25:56 In terms of, I think, I’m trying to think of that product, was it called JotForm, where all of a sudden someone would get upset by something and spin up an online petition and within a certain amount of time, everybody thought it was cool to join in and the dean had to deal with this bullshit.
0:26:17 And I do think a lot of it was bullshit, but a couple observations, and you tell me if the nullifier validate them, I would never got in the way, or I was never subject to this sort of scrutiny or blowback, because the first thing I say in class, one, I’m known as being provocative and, quite frankly, a little bit aggressive and obnoxious, so the expectation is there.
0:26:32 And the first thing I say is, if you think there’s a non-zero probability, something I say is going to trigger you, I curse, I have certain unconscious biases I’m still working on, but if you think something’s really going to emotionally trigger you, you should call your parents and tell them to come get you, because you’re not ready for college.
0:26:41 So there’s a certain expectation that I’m going to be a little bit out there, and no one ever has, I’ve never gotten run over by this.
0:26:53 I have some colleagues who are much more thoughtful and considerate than me, 99.9% of the time, and then they make an error.
0:27:01 They’re inarticulate around something, and it’s shocking because they’re known as these nice, benign people.
0:27:15 And then they get taken, you know, they get taken out and shot, because it’s almost like those of us who are a little bit more aggressive and provocative regularly are not subject to the same scrutiny as someone who makes one false move.
0:27:33 And then the second observation I would make, and this is identity politics, but I’m going to do it anyways, the people I have observed in class who get really upset, I mean physically upset, they’re not faking it, it tend to be women, tend to be white women.
0:27:35 Upper-class white women, yes.
0:27:37 What’s the data there?
0:27:48 The data on women, particularly white women, and particularly upper-class white women being more free-speech skeptical is just very apparent.
0:27:55 And that’s one of those things that, you know, it makes me a little uncomfortable to say it, but it’s a consistent finding.
0:28:00 And it’s something that we found among the professorate, among students as well.
0:28:11 And, of course, I think the free-speech skepticism comes from a good place, but so does all of censorship, you know, so I don’t think that that’s a strange observation.
0:28:25 The observation that the professors who start out more sympathetic tend to be more vulnerable definitely accords with my professional experience, that it certainly seems that way.
0:28:37 But then there’s also a category of sort of outspoken conservative or outspoken, you know, iconoclastic professors that I’ve definitely seen get targeted quite aggressively over the years.
0:28:48 So, in some ways, I will say that some of your observations come a little bit from luck, because, like, you get one student or one administrator who decides, I’m getting Scott Galloway, and the whole dynamic changes.
0:28:52 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:30:11 President Trump met with the leaders of five African nations at the White House yesterday.
0:30:16 One oops got all the attention when Trump paid Liberia’s president a compliment.
0:30:18 Well, thank you.
0:30:19 It’s such good English.
0:30:20 Such beautiful.
0:30:23 Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?
0:30:26 English is Liberia’s official language.
0:30:28 Were you educated where?
0:30:29 Yes, sir.
0:30:31 In Liberia.
0:30:32 Yes, sir.
0:30:33 Well, that’s very interesting.
0:30:37 Anyway, you know what happened behind closed doors right before that meeting?
0:30:43 President Trump pushed those African leaders to accept people who are being deported from the U.S.
0:30:46 That’s according to a Wall Street Journal exclusive.
0:30:50 In fact, it’s trying all kinds of ideas to increase the pace of deportations.
0:30:53 And we’re going to tell you about some of them on Today Explained.
0:30:56 Today Explained is in your feeds every weekday.
0:31:06 This week on Net Worth and Chill, we’re diving deep into Trump’s one big, beautiful bill,
0:31:11 the sweeping legislation that promises to reshape America’s economic landscape.
0:31:15 From tax cuts to student loans, I’m breaking down what this massive piece of legislation
0:31:19 actually means for your wallet, your investments, and your financial future.
0:31:22 We’re going to find out who wins and loses in this economic overhaul,
0:31:25 analyze the market reactions that have investors buzzing,
0:31:30 and discuss whether this bill will deliver on its promises or create unexpected consequences.
0:31:34 Just because you’re not on Medicaid doesn’t mean this doesn’t impact you.
0:31:37 Poor people don’t stop having medical emergencies.
0:31:39 They just stop being able to afford them.
0:31:44 Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash yourrichbff.
0:31:53 What are your thoughts on how the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn handled that situation
0:32:01 and generally assess their response, Congress’s or the Congressional Committee’s viewpoint on this?
0:32:03 And this is a difficult one.
0:32:10 And what is the line between free speech and hate speech from people in masks that creates an environment
0:32:12 that’s unhealthy for the community?
0:32:13 Your thoughts?
0:32:22 Now, there have been critics who have been really critical of those professors when they went to the anti-Semitism hearing in December of 2023.
0:32:33 There have been people who have been primarily critical of the fact that when asked if calling for genocide was protected or not on their campus,
0:32:35 they said it depends on context.
0:32:37 Now, here’s the truth.
0:32:39 It does depend on context.
0:32:46 In First Amendment law, if you’re saying something, and particularly academically, if you’re saying something theoretically,
0:32:52 if you’re saying something in the course of a philosophical discussion, that is different than being like, I’m going to kill you.
0:32:53 So context is right.
0:32:58 But the reason why I nonetheless have zero sympathy, actually, to be fair,
0:33:05 I have sympathy for the president of MIT, because MIT has not been the best, but it sure as hell has not been the worst.
0:33:17 Penn and Harvard, Claudine Gay, I had no sympathy for them at all, because the reason why I have no sympathy for them is they’d been utterly terrible on freedom of speech prior to that point.
0:33:26 And definitely your critics, including people like Barry Weiss, have a good point that saying these people who claim to be exquisitely sensitive about fat phobia,
0:33:34 you know, is the example that she usually uses, were suddenly not caring if someone said something that sounded an awful lot like you,
0:33:36 your country should be wiped off the map.
0:33:37 So what is the line?
0:33:42 The line, as far as fire is concerned, and we think to a large degree the law is,
0:33:47 is something that actually crosses the line into anti-Semitic or racial or sexual harassment.
0:33:51 And that’s not as simple as just saying something offensive.
0:33:56 Actually, it can’t just be saying something offensive, which, by the way, I think is absolutely the right rule.
0:34:04 I think the situation for free speech would be even worse than it currently is if we didn’t have that bedrock principle,
0:34:05 which is called in the law.
0:34:11 It has to be a pattern of discriminatory behavior directed at somebody for it to be harassment.
0:34:16 But a lot of what we saw on campus after October 7th, you don’t even have to get to that question.
0:34:24 A lot of what we saw was, you know, violent attempts to intimidate, actual threats, in some cases, physical assault,
0:34:29 taking over buildings, all of these things that are just not protected, nor should they be.
0:34:32 And particularly, this is something that I just did a TED Talk.
0:34:36 And the thing that I, and I probably angered some people by opening up with this example,
0:34:38 but I want to be really clear here.
0:34:41 There was a speech, for example, at Berkeley.
0:34:50 There was an Israeli Defense Force speaker there, and students organized to, and it’s nice to have this actually like in a,
0:34:54 like in a screenshot of a tweet, of a text message to everybody.
0:34:56 Shut it down.
0:35:05 And 200 students stormed where the guy was supposed to speak, you know, broke down a door, broke down a window, and chased the guy off.
0:35:09 And it’s, and I always have to explain, okay, that’s mob censorship.
0:35:16 Like, like, like that is an attempt by people to say, 200 people to say to anybody who would want to hear this person,
0:35:19 you’re not allowed to hear this person because I don’t approve of them.
0:35:20 That’s not okay.
0:35:26 That’s the kind of thing that, in my opinion, should get you kicked out of a university because it means you’re not actually understanding the point of a university.
0:35:32 And one of the reasons why this angered some people is because I also tend to point out that from October 7th on,
0:35:38 all but about three, and in the two worst years for deplatforming involving violence and involving,
0:35:44 um, and involving shout downs, as they’re called, um, all but three were pro-Palestinian activists.
0:35:51 So, like, it was one of these things, we’re spending plenty of time defending the free speech rights of pro-Palestinian students,
0:35:57 pro-Palestinian professors, but nonetheless, we were also seeing these same students and, uh,
0:36:02 who expected to be protected by freedom of speech showing no respect whatsoever for the free speech of others.
0:36:05 So, a lot of these issues are actually not that hard.
0:36:13 The hardest issue you get into is essentially if it’s not a threat, if it’s not, uh, blocking someone from getting from point A to point B,
0:36:16 it’s just really, really offensive.
0:36:22 At what point does that actually become, uh, anti-Semitic or, uh, racial or ethnic harassment?
0:36:27 And the answer is essentially that, that, that Davis test, um, that we always refer to at FIRE,
0:36:32 which is, is it severe, persistent, and pervasive such that it causes a reasonable person
0:36:36 um, to, uh, uh, to be denied effectively in education.
0:36:43 So, that’s, that’s a high standard, but it should be if you’re dealing with something that has an, an offense aspect in it.
0:36:47 But again, for a lot of these situations, you didn’t even have to get to that analysis
0:36:50 because what the students were doing wasn’t protected in the first place.
0:37:00 So, I’m asking this to learn, not to make a statement, but I struggle with, I feel like anonymity has been conflated with free speech to our detriment.
0:37:10 That some of the really vile things you see online, you know, I understand how important it is for individuals to have First Amendment free speech rights,
0:37:12 but I don’t think that applies to bots.
0:37:20 And I think that an understandable protection for anonymity has morphed into a total lack of accountability
0:37:22 and a real coarsening of our discourse online.
0:37:27 And I think it extends into letting government agencies wear masks and things like that.
0:37:35 But I’m curious, I’d love to just get your thoughts on the fulcrum between the importance of people having the right to say things anonymously
0:37:39 because what they’re saying could trigger danger or self-harm or harm for them.
0:37:45 And at the same time, how this reverence for anonymity may have gone too far and resulted in a lack of accountability
0:37:48 and some really ugly shit spreading online.
0:37:50 Your thoughts, Greg?
0:37:54 Well, in terms of First Amendment law, anonymous speech is protected.
0:37:57 But I don’t think that’s sufficient enough of an answer.
0:38:03 And I think, I tend to think of the justification for anonymity as like a seesaw.
0:38:12 That essentially, if we lived in a free and enlightened society in which people welcomed dissent and welcomed disagreement
0:38:16 and there was no imaginable idea that you’d be punished for it,
0:38:22 then the justification for anonymity would kind of fall on, bring hollow to people.
0:38:24 They’d be like, who cares?
0:38:25 But we don’t live in that world.
0:38:27 And we live less in that world than we used to.
0:38:37 Because even, I’d say, 10 years ago or 12 years ago, before cancel culture, the idea of saying something that was your genuinely held opinion
0:38:46 had a much lower likelihood of ruining your career, add to it the possibility of being actually punished in some way.
0:38:56 Now, that certainly applies to now, to a much larger degree than I ever thought I’d see, to say, a lot of countries in Western Europe at this point, a lot of countries in the Anglosphere.
0:39:03 I mean, you know, by different estimates, they’re arresting something like 30 people a day for offense speech in Britain.
0:39:11 I’ve heard different accounts, but generally they go between 7 and 40 people being arrested a day for that.
0:39:14 Germany, you know, like that will brag about the fact that they did morning raid.
0:39:20 They did this on 60 Minutes as well, brag about doing morning raids on someone who called a politician a penis.
0:39:25 Under that situation, the justification for having an anonymous speech goes way up.
0:39:27 Can it and is it abused?
0:39:29 Absolutely.
0:39:35 But, you know, I think actually I’m going to quote Milton Friedman here, but it’s just a really good quote.
0:39:37 Something isn’t a right unless it can be abused.
0:39:39 I like that.
0:39:52 What about, so Section 230, the idea that these nascent platforms aren’t subject to the same kind of libel, slander, disparagement laws that traditional media platforms.
0:39:54 What are your thoughts on that?
0:39:59 I think we toy with Section 30 to our great peril.
0:40:07 I think that it’s, you know, like democracy, it’s the worst of any system except all the others.
0:40:13 Now, to be clear, there might be some other system that I haven’t thought of that could be better.
0:40:23 But when it comes to things and but I do find it particularly almost amusing that conservatives are going after 230 or were going after 230 with such gusto.
0:40:47 Because if you actually even let’s just take it to the defamation protections that 230 gives to ISPs, to Internet service providers, if suddenly that were to vanish, it would lead to Internet service providers censoring a lot more, like a lot, lot more, because they can be held liable for liable for defamation.
0:40:57 And I think that given the biases in a lot of social media companies, that would wildly disproportionately affect what conservatives say.
0:41:02 So I think that 230 is probably I think that overall we benefit so much from 230.
0:41:04 Of course, it’s going to have downsides.
0:41:25 But you see you don’t see an issue that traditional media platforms, which are struggling to stay viable and raise the funds to do fact checking and put out, I don’t want to say the truth, but a greater attempt to do the good work of journalism and fact check and do their research.
0:41:33 You don’t see that a problem with holding traditional media to an entirely different standard, a higher standard than these online platforms.
0:41:35 Yeah, and that’s generally the way they’re held.
0:41:40 Essentially, traditional media that’s responsible for the content that they produce.
0:41:49 I think it makes more sense to hold them liable for not doing the sufficient fact checking for defamation as opposed to something that hosts everything.
0:42:01 I mean, something that hosts the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and YouTube and everything else under the sun, you know, is something that’s quite distinct than just, you know, just the New York Times by itself.
0:42:04 Do you think there’s opportunity for nuance or gray area?
0:42:08 And I’ll propose a solution or what I think we should think about.
0:42:09 I think about 230 a lot.
0:42:24 The idea that people can break through and say things and post something and that a company that creates a lot of economic value, lets a lot of interesting opinions, sometimes the conspiracy view ends up being actually more true than you think.
0:42:36 There’s been some just wonderful things about these platforms and the ability for viewpoints and consumers or content producers to kind of go direct to consumer and kind of have at it.
0:42:43 At the same time, I worry that the protection is not consistent in the sense that, well, let me propose a solution.
0:42:56 So if my co-host on one of my podcasts, Raging Moderates, and she’s the kind of the sole Democrat on this show, which is actually the most watched show on cable news called The Five.
0:43:15 Someone got upset that she called out Ken Paxson or something and mocked up a picture of her with her previous boyfriend and has, you know, has gone into this tried and true misogynistic, slut-shaming, misinformation, having an affair from her first husband, hasn’t been married to her.
0:43:16 I mean, just total nonsense, right?
0:43:39 And the algorithm on Twitter loves that because it creates a lot of comments, a lot of engagement, people weighing in, conspiracy theorists, and also people protecting her creates more Nissan ads because, and the algorithm itself from Twitter is trained to elevate that content and give it broader and further reach than it would organically because it creates Nissan ads.
0:43:42 In other words, in other words, there’s an economic incentive to spread this information.
0:43:49 Do you think there’s a solution or some gray area where maybe we say, okay, you’re a bulletin board and you can’t be responsible?
0:43:54 It’s just, it’s, it’s unrealistic suppression of speech, economic impairment.
0:43:59 If you were responsible for policing everything, someone pins up on the board.
0:44:08 But if you as a social media company decide to elevate algorithmically content and give it more spread than it might organically,
0:44:17 at that point, are you really different than an editor at CNBC or MSNBC or at Fox who’s subject to a different set of standards?
0:44:25 Shouldn’t they be subject to the same standards if they make the conscious decision to algorithmically elevate content?
0:44:37 I’m always worried about the distortative impact of government, also regulation sometimes, and liability.
0:45:00 And so I’m very hesitant to change anything without, and my job is to make the argument for, you know, err on the side of free speech as much as possible and err on the side of as little, as few things being banned and as few things being government regulated as possible.
0:45:13 So my fear is that essentially if you started having government entanglement with algorithmic choices, you know, you really got to decide, one, you know, which government do you trust?
0:45:15 Do you trust Biden to do that?
0:45:16 Do you trust Trump to do that?
0:45:26 But also, particularly when it’s a liability standpoint, how distortative that actually can be to what gets reported in the first place?
0:45:32 Because this is, in a sense, kind of like why everybody sues for libel in Britain.
0:45:46 It’s very, they still, even though they’re, even though they’ve made slight improvements around the edges, it’s still much easier to find people guilty of committing libel in Britain than it is the United States.
0:46:02 We actually have a shield for the country, basically saying, you know, providing some modicum of protection for people in the U.S. from libel tourism that takes place in, that takes place in the U.K.
0:46:11 So, you know, I’m always going to be fairly skeptical of that kind of stuff, but it’s also my societal role to be skeptical of that kind of stuff.
0:46:14 We’ll be right back.
0:46:26 Foldable phones have been around for a while now, but maybe you’ve never used one.
0:46:31 This week on The Verge Cast, we take a look at Samsung’s new lineup of foldables.
0:46:37 This could be a big moment where foldable phones become a lot more interesting to a lot more people.
0:46:45 Plus, we look at executive shakeups at Apple, Meta, and X, where Grok is going absolutely off the rails.
0:46:54 Plus, we do our signature microphone test with the latest over-ear headphones, and we get into why it’s so hard to make a great strength training app.
0:46:56 That’s this week on The Verge Cast.
0:47:06 We’re back with more from Greg Lukianoff.
0:47:12 So I want to throw kind of the most difficult stuff at you and get your thoughts.
0:47:25 So if I were Putin and I’d lost a million men to a war in spending, you know, $70 to $100 billion a year on a losing war,
0:47:31 and at some point, if this war continued to wreak the kind of economic and human damage,
0:47:36 if it were to continue to do that, at some point I might find myself falling out of a window.
0:47:43 So I think he would be stupid not to weaponize and spin up troll farms in Albania
0:47:48 and then create a list of the 10,000 most influential people online who are pro-Ukraine
0:47:54 and start attacking their reputation with millions of bots in a very thoughtful way.
0:47:56 Is he already doing that, though?
0:47:57 Well, yeah, I think he is.
0:48:01 And that’s my question, and that is, do bots have First Amendment rights,
0:48:04 and do these platforms have some sort of obligation,
0:48:09 which I think would only be registered or adhered to through some sort of regulation,
0:48:14 to protect us against bad actors that might be, quite frankly,
0:48:18 raising a generation of military, civic, and nonprofit leaders who don’t like America
0:48:20 or begin to have their views shaped,
0:48:27 and ultimately our votes and our military decisions shaped on outside forces
0:48:34 that are taking advantage of a very porous and lightly regulated tech ecosystem and platforms.
0:48:35 Your thoughts?
0:48:38 The question of whether or not bots have First Amendment rights,
0:48:42 of course they don’t, but do bot creators have First Amendment rights?
0:48:46 At least when they’re in the United States, absolutely, certainly they do.
0:48:50 When you’re talking about the kind of propaganda, kind of warfare,
0:48:55 and targeting that is possible in the age of the Internet, in the age of social media,
0:49:00 when you’ve kind of fall down this rabbit hole of how you actually address it
0:49:05 without actually devastating, without having huge government encroachment,
0:49:08 which will end in bad places as well,
0:49:12 or without creating massive unintended consequences,
0:49:18 the best way to do this historically has simply to have authorities that people actually trust.
0:49:23 And we have blown giant holes in the only thing that really can protect you
0:49:25 from disinformation and misinformation.
0:49:32 And you have to start figuring out ways to get authorities that people essentially trust.
0:49:36 Because one of the ways we could potentially address some of this stuff
0:49:43 is by having institutions pointing out what is troll farms and what isn’t.
0:49:46 But under the current environment, there’s going to be a lot of like,
0:49:47 sure, they are.
0:49:51 You just don’t like what they’re saying is going to be the response there.
0:49:55 And in a situation where these institutions had better societal trust,
0:49:56 it’d be like, oh my God, you’re right.
0:49:59 So you’re a First Amendment attorney.
0:50:02 What are we not paying attention to in the courts?
0:50:05 Have there been any legal decisions that you think are
0:50:11 especially important to the future of First Amendment or speech or its regulation or lack thereof?
0:50:15 What have you seen come down the pike that you think has not gotten enough attention?
0:50:17 Yeah, I mean, I think it got good attention,
0:50:20 but I think people haven’t thought through all the ramifications of it.
0:50:26 And this gets to your point on anonymity where we may disagree to some degree.
0:50:39 But the change in the law to say that you can’t actually require verification for kids
0:50:44 and actually really for anybody to use porn sites in Texas
0:50:50 is a case that could really have some serious bad ramifications
0:50:54 unless it stays relatively cabined.
0:50:57 Now, I was definitely among the First Amendment people saying,
0:51:01 listen, there’s a case called New York v. Ginsburg from the late 1960s
0:51:06 that says you can require store owners to put the, you know,
0:51:09 put the nudie mags, you know, on the back shelves
0:51:12 and to make sure that that miners don’t get them.
0:51:19 But then we had decade after decade of the Supreme Court and other courts basically saying,
0:51:23 but online that can’t possibly apply for all sorts of,
0:51:25 and to be clear, very serious reasons.
0:51:28 I knew that wouldn’t last forever.
0:51:33 And then eventually Texas passed a verification regime
0:51:36 that was actually more complex than I originally understood,
0:51:41 but was first marketed as something where you had to basically show like a driver’s license
0:51:46 if you want to see porn that would also include that they had to have disclaimers
0:51:51 saying that, you know, porn is harmful to your mental health and all this kind of stuff,
0:51:53 which has compelled speech issues.
0:51:59 I think they made some efforts to sort of improve the law and make it clear that there’s other ways to verify.
0:52:04 Anyway, so that fight was something that I predicted we were going to lose in the Paxon case.
0:52:05 Now, here’s the question.
0:52:09 Are we then going to, with the best of intentions,
0:52:15 create an environment where you essentially can’t use the Internet without identifying yourself in some way?
0:52:20 And that scares me, because I do actually think that the situation for free speech,
0:52:25 even in the so-called free world, is dodgier than it’s ever been in my lifetime.
0:52:33 And the idea that at this precise moment we’d also make it harder for people to hide what they’re looking at
0:52:35 or what they’re reading scares me.
0:52:40 So our efforts at FIRE are definitely going to be to make sure that that decision,
0:52:46 as much as possible, stays cabined to kids’ access to adult materials.
0:52:48 Don’t you think the platforms are already doing that?
0:52:52 Don’t the platforms already know exactly what we’re doing, saying, and when?
0:52:58 But as long as they use it to monetize advertising, it seems to be there’s a tolerance for it.
0:53:01 I think the cat’s already out of the bag.
0:53:02 I think they already know everything we do and what we say.
0:53:04 We don’t seem that worried about that.
0:53:11 But then we have this, do we have this tremendous fidelity for protecting them
0:53:17 when it comes to any, I don’t know, forward-facing viewpoints that might result in more,
0:53:22 I don’t know, just more, it seems like we’re just protecting them in the wrong areas
0:53:24 and not looking at them in others.
0:53:26 I apologize for the word salad there, Greg.
0:53:28 Do you see any inconsistency?
0:53:30 Yeah, no, I definitely get the concern.
0:53:37 But I do think that there are tools that people badly underutilize that can actually protect your privacy.
0:53:38 Well, they’re purposely made complicated to utilize.
0:53:42 Have you tried to regulate your kid’s content on Face, on Meta?
0:53:48 I mean, they are not, I would argue, they are not readily accessible purposefully,
0:53:49 or they’re not easily used.
0:53:55 Yeah, no, and I definitely ask for help to make, with my kid’s stuff.
0:53:59 But now we have, you know, we have Signal, you know, for example.
0:54:02 We do DuckDuckGo, you know, like that.
0:54:05 I have Custodial installed on my kid’s phones.
0:54:09 Yeah, there are some basic steps you can do to somewhat protect your privacy.
0:54:13 And of course, when it comes to private corporations doing bad things,
0:54:18 and this is something that I feel like we have an entire generation of young Americans
0:54:22 sort of brainwashed to believe that you should be more afraid of corporations
0:54:23 than you should be of governments.
0:54:30 And I just think that’s absolute nonsense, particularly foreign governments,
0:54:33 but also, frankly, the U.S. government.
0:54:39 And that corporations, you know, people talk about that evil profit motive.
0:54:43 And I’m kind of like, I prefer the profit motive to a lot of the other motives you can have
0:54:45 for finding this stuff out.
0:54:50 And profit motive often lends itself to, and by the way, we protect our users’ privacy
0:54:56 in a way that, you know, the Chinese, the CCP, or Russia, or even our own government,
0:55:00 it’s like, no, we want this information for other reasons.
0:55:06 So just so you know, I’m very good at turning this podcast into, it’s really just an excuse
0:55:07 for me to talk about me.
0:55:14 Steve Bannon suggested that the president, that the administration sue me for some of the things
0:55:14 I’ve said about him.
0:55:16 I called him a rapist.
0:55:23 And do you feel that the president is, in different ways, trying to suppress free speech?
0:55:26 And if and what laws, or what do you think should be done about it?
0:55:32 What are your views on, it feels to me like free speech has been chilled from the administration.
0:55:34 And I’m just curious, curious to get your thoughts on it.
0:55:35 Sounds like you agree with it.
0:55:38 But what can and should be done to push back on that?
0:55:44 Well, it’s tough because the, okay, so the ways in which it’s being chilled, just really
0:55:48 quickly, there’s been, you know, attacks on mainstream media.
0:55:52 People can argue that it’s deserved, but that doesn’t mean you get to violate the First
0:55:52 Amendment.
0:55:54 There’s attacks on higher education.
0:55:58 Again, you can feel like it’s deserved, but it doesn’t mean you get to violate the First
0:56:00 Amendment or existing laws.
0:56:05 And then there’s the attack on the law firms, which probably is the one that I think gets
0:56:07 the least attention, but probably scares me the most.
0:56:11 When it comes to the media, for example, like, were the group defending Ann Selzer?
0:56:18 Ann Selzer is the pollster in Iowa who got the poll really wrong right before the election,
0:56:21 having Kamala up by two points in Iowa.
0:56:23 And of course, that was way off.
0:56:25 She was like 11 points off.
0:56:28 But when it came out, she apologized.
0:56:33 She explained how she got it wrong, saying that she was using methodology that was really
0:56:39 effective maybe 10 years ago, but has gotten increasingly ineffective as fewer people have
0:56:40 landlines and that kind of stuff.
0:56:43 Because she used to be considered like the gold standard of pollsters.
0:56:47 But she was nonetheless sued by Trump himself, actually.
0:56:49 This is before Inauguration Day.
0:56:55 For under a Consumer Protection Act in Iowa.
0:57:03 And the Consumer Protection Act was really designed for preventing false advertising, like as in
0:57:07 in commercial speech, saying that, you know, these pills will help you lose 40 pounds a day
0:57:12 type things, not getting a poll wrong, which is, you know, good faith reporting.
0:57:14 So we’re defending her in that case.
0:57:19 Then there’s also like the 60 Minutes situation, the ABC News.
0:57:25 The 60 Minutes one, I think of as particularly bad because it really seemed like the administration
0:57:36 was dangling a proposed merger with Skydance in front of CBS to saying, kind of implying, we’re not going to agree
0:57:39 to this unless you play ball, which is good.
0:57:45 The university stuff, nobody’s been a bigger critic of Harvard, for example, than I’ve been.
0:57:51 They have finished dead last in our campus free speech rankings, one of the best and most data intensive
0:57:54 things that FIRE does, or the most data intensive thing that FIRE does.
0:57:57 And Harvard was dead last two years in a row.
0:58:02 But we’re currently defending Harvard because the letter the administration sent to Harvard
0:58:07 was basically saying, because you’re probably in violation of Title VI, which they may be,
0:58:17 and Title VII, which when it comes to admissions, probably are, that we essentially have to
0:58:19 nationalize Harvard.
0:58:24 Like basically, the government gets to decide all of the key things about what Harvard would
0:58:27 decide on its own, which is not a power the government’s been granted.
0:58:32 And when it comes to the law firms, I mean, like that, that’s the one that I really, I wrote
0:58:38 on this, my substack, the Eternally Radical Idea, about the, about all of these, these cases.
0:58:45 And it started with them just going after attorneys who had opposed the Trump administration, even
0:58:50 like people like Robert Mueller, and where they had law firms and, and saying that they
0:58:55 would be denied their secret service protection, and not secret service, their-
0:58:56 Yeah, their security details.
0:58:57 Repackage violence.
0:59:03 If you’re someone who ordered a strike on Suleiman, the head of the Iranian security forces, and
0:59:07 you take away a general’s security detail, you’re putting that person in harm’s way, in my view.
0:59:12 And get rid of their security clearance, and then also deny them access to federal buildings,
0:59:15 which of course include court, uh, uh, uh, courtrooms.
0:59:19 And that’s, that’s to me like some of the most chilling stuff.
0:59:20 Now, what can be done about it?
0:59:25 Uh, the most, the, the thing that’s happening consistently is that Trump is losing in court.
0:59:30 And so far, he’s mostly been abiding by those rulings.
0:59:35 Um, I’m a little bit concerned, given how fast and loose sometimes this administration
0:59:40 plays with the rules, that that might not hold up when push really comes to shove.
0:59:42 Um, but, you know, fingers crossed.
0:59:47 In terms of, like, what else people can do about it, I think it really is a question of what
0:59:51 happens in the next, uh, in the midterms, and then, of course, in the presidential election.
0:59:56 Um, but, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s troubling, but not unexpected.
0:59:58 Yeah, shocking, but not surprising.
1:00:04 Uh, just as we wrap up here, Greg, a lot of young men listen to this podcast, um, based
1:00:08 on some of the many challenges, all young people, but especially, I would argue, some young men
1:00:10 in our society are facing right now.
1:00:14 A lot of them are struggling with their own mental health, and I appreciate how transparent
1:00:18 and vulnerable you were at the beginning of the podcast, talking about your own struggles,
1:00:22 and you had said that cognitive behavioral therapy really helped you.
1:00:28 Can you share, uh, some thoughts on your struggles with your own anxiety and depression and any
1:00:31 advice you might have for young people who are facing their own challenges?
1:00:37 Sure, um, and that’s, you know, and, and it’s tough because, like, you know, everyone struggles
1:00:43 kind of differently, and I, I really understand people’s kind of concern about, well, one, of
1:00:48 course, the expense of getting a therapist, uh, but also the fear that’s given that therapy
1:00:54 has to some degree become politicized, that they don’t want to end up someone with a therapist
1:00:58 who’s going to judge them, you know, for, for, for, in some cases, just for being a male
1:01:01 for having, um, and, you know, non-conforming political views.
1:01:08 Um, so I, I get all of that, but I, I did hear from one, uh, friend about their, about
1:01:15 their kid who basically said he didn’t need therapy because he watches a lot of podcasts.
1:01:22 Um, and he, he’s on YouTube a lot getting advice and it’s, and it’s just not the same thing.
1:01:23 Yeah, that’s not the fix.
1:01:30 Yeah, so there’s people out there like Camilo Ortiz, uh, Ortiz, sorry, um, who is trying
1:01:37 to put together apolitical therapists, you know, um, who, or ones who won’t judge you, you know,
1:01:41 who won’t let their political opinion interfere with their therapy, which is amazing that you
1:01:42 have to do that, but you do, unfortunately.
1:01:49 Um, and, and within, so looking for people who are, who are recommended that way for CBT,
1:01:54 there’s also some, you know, some approaches to CBT that actually lend themselves fairly well
1:01:59 to even apps, um, which is, I don’t think it’s sufficient, uh, but it can help.
1:02:01 Uh, but here’s the thing.
1:02:06 It may be simple, but it’s not easy because you have to do it several times a day.
1:02:11 You have to actually do it when those, um, self-hating voices come up in your head,
1:02:12 those catastrophizing voices.
1:02:17 Otherwise your brain will never get in the habit of talking back to those and you have
1:02:23 to do it every time they come up and you have to do it for pretty much, like I would say probably
1:02:27 you’re not really going to see much change, uh, for the first six months even.
1:02:31 But I remember about nine months in suddenly being like, wait a second, all these things that
1:02:34 used to pop up in my head, they’re not, they don’t sound convincing anymore.
1:02:36 And it was really dramatic after that.
1:02:39 So I, I definitely believe looking to CBT.
1:02:44 I think that, you know, um, one thing that I do a lot when I’m having a hard time is I
1:02:46 go reread Seneca’s letters to a young man.
1:02:52 I, I, I find that they’re really approachable, uh, meditation is very helpful to people, but
1:02:54 don’t forget things like things.
1:02:55 Exercise is really key.
1:02:59 And if you’re in it, um, there is something there.
1:03:02 My favorite book is Upward Spiral by Alex Korb.
1:03:07 I highly recommend, I have like a whole thing, I have a whole, like a, a, a sub stack, um,
1:03:09 on, on, on this very issue.
1:03:11 Cause it’s, I get asked it so much and I give kind of all of my advice.
1:03:13 And what’s that sub stack called or what’s that post called?
1:03:18 Well, I don’t remember what that post is called, but my sub stack is the eternally radical idea.
1:03:21 Uh, but also, you know, talk to people about it, talk to friends.
1:03:26 Um, the, when you’re in a really bad way, there’s a sense that nobody’s going to want to hear
1:03:29 your, hear your whining about it, but that’s just not true.
1:03:34 Um, and, and, and in most cases, cause you know, as, as hard as it may be, may be, may
1:03:38 be to believe sometimes when you’re really deep down and dark, um, there are people out
1:03:39 there who love you.
1:03:44 Greg Lukianoff is a free speech advocate, first amendment attorney, president of FIRE, the
1:03:49 foundation for individual rights and expression and coauthor of the coddling of the American
1:03:55 mind, which has probably had more impact on my parenting than any book I have read.
1:04:01 Uh, and also the canceling of the American mind, his latest book war on words, 10 arguments
1:04:05 against free speech and why they fail is out next week.
1:04:07 He joins us from Maine.
1:04:11 Greg, I’ve wanted, I wanted to meet you and speak to you for a couple of years because one
1:04:18 of my role models, uh, Jonathan Heights, whenever he talks about you, he speaks about you in such
1:04:19 reverence and with such respect.
1:04:23 Uh, so I was really excited to, uh, have this conversation.
1:04:24 Very much appreciate your time.
1:04:30 Also very much appreciate, uh, what you said, um, at the end about cognitive behavioral therapy.
1:04:37 Uh, and I, the, the takeaway I have and that I hope people take away from this podcast is when
1:04:41 you’re really down and you think everyone’s sick of you and sick of hearing from you and doesn’t
1:04:43 have time for you that that that’s just not true.
1:04:45 Uh, so anyways, thank you for sharing that, Greg.
1:05:14 My father passed away last week and it’s been a rough few days for me as it is for anybody
1:05:15 who loses a parent.
1:05:20 Uh, our species, our competitive advantage is that is our brain.
1:05:24 It’s so big that we’re expelled from the human body prematurely and our brain is exactly the
1:05:25 wrong size.
1:05:30 It’s big enough to ask very complicated questions, but not big enough to answer them.
1:05:35 And death is something our brain still hasn’t come, uh, to grips with.
1:05:39 And that is, um, especially with a parent, this is someone who is your first protector.
1:05:44 And then when you lose that person, the idea that all of a sudden that protector isn’t
1:05:45 around is devastating.
1:05:47 It’s a mirror.
1:05:52 You see a lot of yourself in this person and, uh, you immediately think about all the different
1:05:55 things in your life that developed good and bad with this person.
1:05:59 And you have to deal with those and come to attempt to come to grips with them, which
1:06:00 sometimes can be painful.
1:06:03 Our brains are used to continuity and patterns.
1:06:07 We’re used to having that person in our life and we assume they’re going to be around
1:06:09 forever and it’s impossible to believe they’re not going to be around forever.
1:06:14 So the finality of death is just very shocking and very difficult to wrap your head around.
1:06:20 The biggest or most profound moments in my life have involved, uh, birth and death.
1:06:26 Uh, the death of my mother, my mother passed away when I was 39 after what was a pretty ugly
1:06:32 model with a smoking related illness, um, specifically cancer, breast cancer, uh, twice.
1:06:33 And then it metastasized in her stomach.
1:06:40 Uh, and it was just the finality and the harshness of it and the brutality of the way she died kind
1:06:46 of really, um, it’s sort of, you know, these things change you.
1:06:50 They, they, they, they really, I think for most people, you’re sort of never the same.
1:06:54 I was much lighter and funnier before that happened.
1:06:59 And I think something kind of died in me, but at the same time, I developed a wonderful sense
1:07:00 of the finite nature of life.
1:07:03 And then when my kids were born, that changed everything for me.
1:07:09 I became much more responsible, uh, much more anxious, but, uh, started for the first time
1:07:12 in my life thinking about other people, which was an enormous unlock.
1:07:13 And I’ll come back to that.
1:07:19 And then the death of my father is a debt, a different sort of feeling, not nearly as close
1:07:21 to my father as I was to my mother.
1:07:26 So my dad, George Thomas Galloway was born in 1930 in Sydney, Australia to a woman who was
1:07:28 a domestic servant for a wealthy family.
1:07:30 He was born out of wedlock.
1:07:36 And the deal was that the family found out my grandmother was pregnant and they had a daughter
1:07:39 who did not have any children of her own and was in her thirties, which was
1:07:40 considered a, you know, a tragedy.
1:07:46 And they agreed to adopt her child, her unborn baby and would give her enough money.
1:07:48 But the deal was she had to, to leave.
1:07:52 And I think they even gave her some money, uh, cause they didn’t want the biological mother
1:07:52 around.
1:07:54 And my, my grandmother agreed.
1:07:58 And then, uh, my grandmother gave birth to my father in Sydney, Australia.
1:08:03 And I don’t know the full story, but convinced her boyfriend or the father of the child, which
1:08:05 is obviously very upset to meet her at the docks.
1:08:09 And they got on a ship for, for Scotland.
1:08:14 I can’t even imagine what the, the ship route was like from Sydney to Glasgow.
1:08:17 And so my father always jokingly said, I could have been a McVicar.
1:08:20 It was the McVicar family that built like battleships or something.
1:08:21 And he says that he’s pissed off.
1:08:25 He would have much rather stay in, in Sydney, Australia than the son of a rich family.
1:08:32 Anyways, uh, raised in depression era, Scotland and world war two, Scotland, he says his first
1:08:34 memory is watching the Clydes bank rate.
1:08:41 I think it’s called where Henkel Henkels and Messerschmitts dropped bombs on, uh, munitions
1:08:45 factories or shipbuilding factories, uh, just outside, I believe of Glasgow.
1:08:49 And he jokes that, uh, they were obviously very patriotic.
1:08:55 He was nine when the war broke out, 15 when it ended and that anyone with an accent in
1:08:59 Glasgow, his, him and his 10 year old buddies would follow around and take notes on them
1:09:00 because they assumed they were spies.
1:09:07 And then, uh, uh, after the war ended, he was 15, but at the age of 17, he lied about
1:09:11 his age and went to a recruitment office and wanted to be a pilot for the IRF.
1:09:14 And the recruiter said, you’re too tall to be a pilot.
1:09:17 So he went across the street or somewhere to where they were recruiting for the Royal Navy
1:09:20 and joined the Navy at a very young age.
1:09:26 And before he knew it was on, uh, I believe it was an aircraft carrier and my father could
1:09:29 repair, they do an assessment, a skills assessment test.
1:09:32 And he disclosed that he could repair things.
1:09:35 He repaired motorcycles and that he was a good swimmer.
1:09:41 And so the next day he was no joke in a helicopter, in a wetsuit, in the North Atlantic,
1:09:44 practicing what he found out later was pilot rescue.
1:09:49 They kind of informed him what he was going to do while he was in the helicopter in a poorly
1:09:50 fashioned wetsuit.
1:09:52 And they said, okay, this is the deal.
1:09:53 You’re going to jump out into the water.
1:09:56 We’re going to throw out 150 pound dummy, not in that order.
1:09:58 Then we’re going to lower a basket.
1:10:04 And your job is to get this 150 pound dummy into a basket as if it was a pilot in the North
1:10:04 Atlantic.
1:10:08 Oh, and by the way, even with your wetsuit, in about 14 minutes, you’re going to die of
1:10:08 exposure.
1:10:09 So there’s some motivation.
1:10:16 So my dad jumps into the North, wavy North Atlantic when it was dark out and tries to get
1:10:18 this dummy into this basket.
1:10:23 And then he said the scariest moment was he got the dummy into the basket, most exhausting
1:10:23 thing he’s ever done.
1:10:24 They pull it up.
1:10:28 And he said the current started taking him away from the helicopter.
1:10:32 And he was worried they were no longer even going to be able to see him and get him out.
1:10:33 And they drop a winch.
1:10:35 He connects it and they pull him up.
1:10:38 His first week, he got his pay.
1:10:42 He put it in a locker at the foot of his cot.
1:10:44 And the entire locker was stolen.
1:10:49 I guess this was sort of something that the freshman recruits were stupid and would put
1:10:51 money in their locker thinking it would be secure.
1:10:54 So there was a service where he could send money home.
1:10:58 So he would send all of his money from the Navy, all of his pay home to his mother.
1:11:02 And after two years, he calculated he had enough money to get to America.
1:11:07 And he came home to find out that his mother had spent his money on whiskey and cigarettes.
1:11:12 And in her defense, she claimed that, what did you expect me to do?
1:11:13 I was bored.
1:11:18 So my father has always had a very unhealthy relationship with money.
1:11:22 I mean, it really scarred him growing up in the Depression-era Scotland and I think acts
1:11:23 like that.
1:11:30 But he did get some money together and got to America and led what could arguably be called
1:11:31 the American dream.
1:11:36 My favorite story about him first arriving in America was he and my mom met in Canada.
1:11:37 They got pregnant.
1:11:38 They hated the weather.
1:11:39 They bought a newspaper.
1:11:43 And there was an article saying that the nicest weather in North America was in San Diego.
1:11:49 So they loaded up my seven-month pregnant mom into an Austin mini-metro and drove from
1:11:51 Toronto to San Diego.
1:11:54 My dad’s first job interview was to be a salesman for a candle company.
1:11:58 And the head of HR there said, you’ve got to stay here.
1:11:59 She asked him how long he’d been in the country.
1:12:00 And he said, just two weeks.
1:12:01 And she said, that’s incredible.
1:12:03 She said, just wait right here.
1:12:07 And she went and got her boss and said, you need to meet this guy, Tom Galloway.
1:12:11 He’s only been in the country for two weeks from Scotland and he can already speak the language.
1:12:12 I love that.
1:12:19 Anyways, my dad was aggressive, smart, and charming and got jobs.
1:12:23 And at his peak, we had a home in Laguna Niguel.
1:12:28 I was thriving and they were living what could best be described as an upper middle-class home.
1:12:33 And unfortunately, my dad was not a high-character person.
1:12:34 Married and divorced four times.
1:12:39 A handsome man with a strong jaw and a Glaswegian accent in 70s California.
1:12:42 Did not only think with his dick, he could listen to it.
1:12:49 And my dad rifled through four marriages and four divorces, including his last one where he decided to leave his fourth wife when she had late-stage Parkinson’s.
1:13:01 So he was never able to really connect with people or ever really develop a sense outside of kind of the survival instinct of investing in other people and other people’s relationships with other people.
1:13:03 He was broken that way.
1:13:06 And there’s just no not acknowledging that.
1:13:17 However, what has helped me or some of the learnings here is that what has helped me process this is I love that Dr. Sue saying, don’t cry because it’s over.
1:13:18 Laugh or smile because it happened.
1:13:27 I’m thinking about all the things I’m grateful for, being the son of George Galloway, on very basic things.
1:13:27 I am tall.
1:13:29 I have broad shoulders.
1:13:30 I have a good voice.
1:13:32 And I have made an exceptional living communicating.
1:13:34 None of those things are my fault.
1:13:36 I got all of those things from my father.
1:13:41 And just because maybe he didn’t purposely work to give them, give me those things, there’s no reason I can’t be grateful for them.
1:13:50 I think the ultimate test of evolution and the most basic box you need to check as a man is the following.
1:13:56 And that is, are you a better father to your son than your father was to you?
1:13:59 And my dad checked that box in indelible ink.
1:14:03 His father, I found out later in life, used to physically abuse him.
1:14:05 I can’t even imagine what that would be like.
1:14:10 The person you’re supposed to trust most in the world, the person you’re supposed to protect you, physically abuses you.
1:14:12 And he never did that for me.
1:14:17 And he did try after my mom and dad got divorced, he would try and meet me in places and take me to museums.
1:14:22 And there’s a lot for me to be grateful for.
1:14:35 What has helped me in terms of my relationship with my father that has been one of the biggest unlocks in my life, hands down, was I really struggled with my relationship with my father.
1:14:47 Because every time I thought I was being a good son, and I remember back to the fact that he kind of left me and my mom and wasn’t very kind to us, was I would get resentful and angry and kind of cut him out of my life for small periods of time.
1:14:55 And then an enormous unlock, and my biggest piece of advice, if you’ve made it this far, is I decided, okay, what kind of son do I want to be?
1:15:05 I don’t think about the relationship as a transaction and what he owes you or what you owe him or base my behavior on what he did or did not do for me.
1:15:08 But just simply put, what kind of son do I want to be?
1:15:13 And the reality is I wanted to be a loving, generous son, and I wanted to have a great relationship with my dad.
1:15:17 And I had all of the qualities and resources to do that.
1:15:22 And from that moment on, I put away the scorecard, I put away the bullshit, and I was a great son.
1:15:25 And it was not only wonderful for him, it was wonderful for me.
1:15:29 I’ve loved these last 20 years of just having a great relationship with my father.
1:15:30 He’s charming.
1:15:30 He’s funny.
1:15:31 He does love me.
1:15:36 And it’s just been a huge lesson for me in life.
1:15:48 You know, not is my partner as good to my parents or is nice and generous to me based on how I should behave around her, but what kind of partner do I want to be?
1:15:49 What kind of business person do I want to be?
1:15:52 What kind of employer do I want to be?
1:15:55 I used to look at every employee as, are they adding as much value as I’m paying them?
1:15:57 And if they’re not, I’m going to fire them.
1:15:59 Now I think, how can I be just an amazing employer?
1:16:01 How can I be an amazing friend?
1:16:05 How can I be, what kind of investor do I want to be known as?
1:16:08 And then live to that standard and put away the scorecard.
1:16:13 Don’t base your behavior on what you did or didn’t get from that person, but on the person you want to be.
1:16:16 And that’s just been such an enormous unlock for me.
1:16:25 So as I sit here and I think about my dad and I try to process his death, you know, I think this guy lived the American dream.
1:16:27 He came to America.
1:16:32 The biggest gift he gave me was that he took this enormous risk and got to America.
1:16:45 And so much of my success, so much of the ability to have a wonderful family is based on something that was not my fault, specifically my dad having the courage and taking the risk to get to America.
1:16:47 And I’m very appreciative of that.
1:16:52 George Thomas Galloway was 95 when he died.
1:16:53 He was very much a man.
1:16:55 He was a protector.
1:16:58 He wanted to protect his country.
1:16:59 He was a provider.
1:17:01 He provided for two families.
1:17:04 And he was a procreator.
1:17:07 He had two kids and four grandkids.
1:17:26 His son and his daughter will miss him terribly.
1:17:52 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
1:17:55 Our assistant producer is Laura Janair.
1:17:57 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
1:18:01 Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1:18:47 Thank you.

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0:01:12 This week on A Touch More,
0:01:16 we’re talking all about the WNBA All-Star roster
0:01:20 with ESPN analyst and former All-Star herself,
0:01:20 Chenea Gumake.
0:01:23 She also tells us what she wants to see
0:01:24 from the CBA negotiations.
0:01:28 Plus, I’m sharing some of the record-breaking updates
0:01:30 from the Euros in Switzerland.
0:01:33 Check out the latest episode of A Touch More
0:01:35 wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
0:01:41 Welcome to Raging Moderates.
0:01:42 I’m Scott Galloway,
0:01:44 and President Trump is clearly in the Epstein files.
0:01:47 Oh, good morning to you too, Scott.
0:01:48 Come on.
0:01:49 Come on.
0:01:50 That’s why we’re here, Jessica.
0:01:51 In today’s episode,
0:01:54 I was in Ibiza last week.
0:01:57 Word has it, I did Molly and had an amazing time,
0:01:59 and I think I’m enjoying this more.
0:02:00 Yeah.
0:02:02 It’s just taking you to another level.
0:02:03 Oh, my God.
0:02:04 This is my hot girl summer.
0:02:07 Today, we’re going to talk about,
0:02:08 today, we’re going to talk about MAGA revolting
0:02:10 over the Epstein files,
0:02:12 an all-time high of Americans now seeing immigration
0:02:14 as a positive for the country.
0:02:17 Well, welcome to pulling your head out of your ass
0:02:20 and a proposal to evaluate lawmakers’
0:02:22 cognitive fitness for office.
0:02:24 That’s ageist, Jess.
0:02:26 That’s ageist.
0:02:28 Anyways, let’s get right into it.
0:02:31 The president is once again at odds with his own base.
0:02:33 This time, it’s over Jeffrey Epstein.
0:02:37 But we should really be focusing on Rosie O’Donnell.
0:02:39 I think that’s not a distraction.
0:02:41 Our favorite Irish lass, Rosie.
0:02:42 Yeah.
0:02:44 No, that is not an attempt to distract and say,
0:02:46 look over here from the fact that he is clearly
0:02:47 in the Epstein files.
0:02:50 After the DOJ released a memo concluding Epstein died
0:02:52 by suicide and had no secret client list,
0:02:55 Trump urged supporters to move on
0:02:58 and defended Attorney General Pam Bondi,
0:02:59 calling her fantastic.
0:03:02 He also claimed critics were just selfish people
0:03:03 trying to hurt him.
0:03:05 But MAGA world isn’t buying it, Jess.
0:03:07 At Turning Point USA Student Summit,
0:03:09 the crowd booed Bondi’s memo,
0:03:11 accusing Trump of breaking his own promise
0:03:13 to release the full files.
0:03:15 And influencers, including Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer,
0:03:17 are openly criticizing the administration.
0:03:19 Loomer is now calling for a special counsel.
0:03:21 Who the fuck cares what Loomer wants?
0:03:21 But anyways.
0:03:22 Trump cares.
0:03:24 There you go.
0:03:27 The leader of the free world happens to care.
0:03:27 He cares.
0:03:29 Inside the administration,
0:03:30 the fallout is even worse.
0:03:34 FBI deputy director and podcaster Dan Bongino
0:03:35 almost resigned.
0:03:35 Almost?
0:03:36 Oh, no, Dan.
0:03:40 We hate to lose someone as competent as you
0:03:41 from our public ranks.
0:03:44 He almost resigned after a tense blow up with Bondi.
0:03:45 He skipped work Friday.
0:03:48 It’s like one of these little tech Google bitches
0:03:50 doing a lunch walkout,
0:03:51 pretending that anyone cares.
0:03:54 Oh, he took the day off.
0:03:55 That’ll show him, Dan.
0:03:58 And he hasn’t spoken to DOJ leadership since.
0:04:00 He hadn’t spoke to him in a whole four days.
0:04:02 Bongino’s future is uncertain.
0:04:04 But for now, he’s still on the job.
0:04:06 Bondi’s still in Trump’s good graces
0:04:10 and even took her to the football game on Sunday,
0:04:11 which, by the way, was outstanding.
0:04:12 Yeah, it was kind of funny
0:04:14 how he wouldn’t get out of the picture, though.
0:04:15 Yeah, and he was booed.
0:04:16 That was my favorite part.
0:04:18 But this episode exposed serious fractures
0:04:21 within the MAGA world and Trump’s grip on it.
0:04:24 Jess, give us your thoughts on this.
0:04:26 I got this wrong.
0:04:27 I didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal.
0:04:28 And it’s just blown up.
0:04:29 Give us your take.
0:04:30 Yeah.
0:04:33 We are conditioned to think nothing matters
0:04:37 because nothing has mattered up until this point, right?
0:04:39 So you think, oh, this is a news story
0:04:41 for maybe a couple of days.
0:04:43 And you worry if you’re recording something
0:04:46 that it’s going to be old by the next day, right?
0:04:47 But this one has had legs.
0:04:52 And a lot of that is because you have the luminaries,
0:04:54 and I’m being generous with that term,
0:04:58 but, you know, the faces of the party upset
0:05:00 and the rank and file upset.
0:05:03 And usually those things don’t coincide, right?
0:05:05 You get a few pissed off people here,
0:05:06 but down here, everyone’s fine.
0:05:08 Or down here, people are upset,
0:05:10 but up here, folks aren’t.
0:05:13 And we have to be real about this.
0:05:15 There are folks who were very outspoken
0:05:17 about the Epstein files and being upset,
0:05:19 like Charlie Kirk, Benny Johnson.
0:05:21 They’ve already fallen back in line.
0:05:23 Trump called Charlie Kirk, apparently.
0:05:26 Then he starts posting, you know,
0:05:27 this isn’t really worth our time.
0:05:30 And Benny Johnson, who had a four-point plan
0:05:33 to how the administration could make things better,
0:05:35 which also included, you know,
0:05:37 something having to do with Bill Clinton,
0:05:41 now is saying that MAGA is taking this seriously,
0:05:44 and apparently Bondi is going to start
0:05:46 dribbling out more information,
0:05:48 or that’s what we heard from Lara Trump.
0:05:51 But I’m kind of in two minds about it.
0:05:52 So the one mind,
0:05:54 which I think is more like your Ibiza-Molly mind,
0:05:57 is I’m excited by this,
0:06:00 because it also shows that for some in this movement,
0:06:02 there is a bridge too far,
0:06:04 or a line that you can’t cross.
0:06:06 And there are a lot of people,
0:06:08 especially the rank and file,
0:06:12 who are upset because this guy was running a pedophile rank,
0:06:13 right?
0:06:15 There were kids that were being abused
0:06:17 who deserved justice,
0:06:20 and that that’s something that should matter,
0:06:22 no matter what.
0:06:25 The other side of that is that it obviously exposes
0:06:29 that Trump, someone who has managed miraculously
0:06:30 to market himself as someone
0:06:33 who isn’t just in it for himself
0:06:35 and isn’t part of the swamp
0:06:37 and the cabal of powerful people
0:06:40 that will protect themselves no matter what,
0:06:42 is exposed now as someone
0:06:44 who’s just your run-of-the-mill,
0:06:47 you know, sharky salesman, right?
0:06:48 That’s how it always was.
0:06:50 And for those of us who aren’t particular fans of his,
0:06:52 that’s how we saw him from the jump,
0:06:54 not even just with the Epstein stuff.
0:06:55 In general,
0:06:57 especially if you’d been around New York,
0:06:59 you knew exactly who Donald Trump was.
0:06:59 You know,
0:07:01 the guy who’s stiffing his contractors,
0:07:05 who’s saying disgusting things about women,
0:07:06 who’s, you know,
0:07:08 cheating on everyone he ever married.
0:07:11 And that never penetrated.
0:07:12 So I kind of just gave up hope,
0:07:13 I guess,
0:07:15 that people would see
0:07:16 that aspect of his character.
0:07:18 And that has been affirmed now
0:07:20 that people are seeing this.
0:07:21 The other side of me,
0:07:23 which is a bit of a Debbie Downer,
0:07:25 and I hate to bring the mood of the pod down
0:07:27 because it has been snappy to begin,
0:07:30 is that I’m also concerned
0:07:32 that we’re going to spend all this time
0:07:33 on the Epstein files,
0:07:34 and it won’t matter,
0:07:37 and we’ll forget to talk about real stuff
0:07:38 that actually affect people’s pocketbooks
0:07:39 and how they’re going to vote.
0:07:41 And, you know,
0:07:43 we’ll show up with campaign posters for 2026
0:07:44 that don’t say,
0:07:45 he took away your Medicaid,
0:07:46 and it’ll say, like,
0:07:48 Pedo Island or something.
0:07:50 It won’t be that extreme,
0:07:51 but, you know,
0:07:53 being relentlessly focused on the things
0:07:54 that win elections
0:07:58 are how you capture people’s attention,
0:07:59 and this is,
0:08:01 it’s an enjoyable sideshow,
0:08:03 I guess is how I would describe it.
0:08:06 So what are your feelings besides elation?
0:08:10 Well, so I teach a session on crisis management,
0:08:13 and there’s sort of just three basics to remember,
0:08:14 and they’re easy to remember,
0:08:15 but they’re hard to do.
0:08:17 And the first is to acknowledge the issue.
0:08:20 The second is to take responsibility,
0:08:21 and the third is to overcorrect.
0:08:26 And I would imagine that the vast majority of people
0:08:27 who went to this island
0:08:31 or accepted private jet travel with Epstein
0:08:33 did not engage in pedophilia.
0:08:35 I mean, there’s a lot of strafe here.
0:08:37 A lot of people have been caught up in this who,
0:08:39 I mean, should wealthy, powerful people
0:08:41 do enough diligence on someone to recognize,
0:08:44 okay, if he’s been convicted of a sex crime
0:08:46 or has questionable activities,
0:08:48 I’m not going to, you know, fraternize with him.
0:08:51 But if the president, in my view,
0:08:52 it’s always the cover-up.
0:08:54 It’s not the scandal, it’s the cover-up.
0:08:56 And if the president had said,
0:08:58 you know, when I was younger, I liked to party.
0:08:59 I met this guy.
0:08:59 He was fun.
0:09:01 He was known for being, having a good time.
0:09:03 He was giving money away.
0:09:03 He seemed legitimate.
0:09:06 And I spent time with him, went to the island,
0:09:09 did not engage in any of these illegal activities.
0:09:12 It was a huge error in judgment, and I apologize.
0:09:14 I think this whole thing would blow over.
0:09:16 And if he said, even if he didn’t mean it,
0:09:20 and I’ve instructed my AG to release the files
0:09:22 or look into it, and then just like he said,
0:09:24 he was going to release his taxes and never did,
0:09:26 I think he’d be fine.
0:09:29 But he could not be acting more guilty.
0:09:31 Oh, wait, wait, wait.
0:09:34 Let’s cancel Rosie’s citizenship.
0:09:35 Look over here.
0:09:37 Nothing to see over here.
0:09:38 He could not.
0:09:41 It’s when my dog gets into the trash
0:09:42 and I walk into the kitchen,
0:09:45 I know my dog has gotten into the trash.
0:09:49 I mean, she could not be more transparent in her guilt.
0:09:52 And it’s as if a communications consultant has said,
0:09:56 okay, do you want to come across as guilty as possible?
0:09:58 Do you want it to seem like, in fact,
0:09:59 you weren’t just down there,
0:10:02 but there’s some really ugly information
0:10:03 about you in these files?
0:10:04 Okay, then act like this.
0:10:06 And this is exactly what he’s acting like.
0:10:10 I feel as if he has such strong political instincts
0:10:11 in terms of his base.
0:10:13 And here he’s just,
0:10:16 he literally looks like guilty.
0:10:19 And now I believe there’s something more here.
0:10:22 I used to think, okay, you know,
0:10:24 all of these guys accepted a party.
0:10:25 They like to have a good time.
0:10:27 They like to be around hot people.
0:10:29 And I would imagine just in terms of probability,
0:10:32 the majority of them did not engage in a crime.
0:10:34 I’m sure some did.
0:10:38 But this feels like this guy is scared to death
0:10:40 of this thing coming out.
0:10:43 And he comes across as really guilty.
0:10:44 Having said that,
0:10:45 and then this is my prediction around this,
0:10:46 and I’m curious to get yours.
0:10:50 Every time I’m hopeful that Senator Susan Collins
0:10:53 actually gives a goddamn about her constituents,
0:10:56 or Senator Murkowski is going to find a backbone
0:10:59 and realize that this is really counter
0:11:00 to the values she espouses, too.
0:11:02 And then they all fall in line.
0:11:06 And I think the same thing’s going to happen here.
0:11:06 And, you know, all of a sudden,
0:11:07 Charlie Kirk’s saying,
0:11:11 you know, after trying to stir this conspiracy outrage
0:11:14 and everything about, you know,
0:11:17 the election being stolen and a pedophile ring
0:11:20 in a basement that is non-existent of a pizza shop
0:11:23 where Secretary Clinton was drinking the blood
0:11:24 of sacrificed children,
0:11:27 it is very rewarding to see the snake
0:11:28 eating its own tail here.
0:11:31 But I think eventually he calls them
0:11:33 and they all snap and fuck in line.
0:11:36 And this just, we just move on.
0:11:37 Your thoughts?
0:11:38 Yeah.
0:11:40 I mean, I largely agree with you.
0:11:43 It doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy something fleeting.
0:11:44 Revel in it.
0:11:46 Like we all love Chinese food, right?
0:11:48 And then we forget that we ate an hour later.
0:11:49 It’s Christmas for Jews.
0:11:50 Chinese food for everyone.
0:11:51 Yep.
0:11:53 So enjoy it.
0:11:57 Like the turning point clips will live forever of,
0:12:01 you know, Steve Bannon and Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson,
0:12:05 though I’m very confused about the Mossad connect,
0:12:08 you know, that he was a intelligence asset,
0:12:10 also worked for the Israeli government.
0:12:14 But, you know, I’m happy to indulge in some more conspiracy.
0:12:17 But yeah, I generally think that they’re going to fall in line.
0:12:20 And part of that is that there’s no alternative.
0:12:23 And I’m not even talking about, oh, you’re going to wake up and you’re going to vote for
0:12:24 Democrats.
0:12:33 Donald Trump has so completely owned the right wing of the country that you’ve got nowhere
0:12:33 to go.
0:12:40 There have been many moderate Republican soldier that has tried to stand up there and say,
0:12:41 hey, look over here.
0:12:45 There are other people who believe in, quote, conservative values.
0:12:46 And you could give it a shot.
0:12:50 Nikki Haley, Chris Christie in 2016, everybody and their mother tried.
0:12:51 Right.
0:12:52 Ted Cruz even won Iowa.
0:13:02 And he has captivated the attention and the loyalty of this group of Americans in a way that I
0:13:06 certainly haven’t seen politically, at least in my time.
0:13:09 And so they don’t really have an alternative of somewhere else to go.
0:13:15 And MAGA, more so than the Democrats, which we talk about this part all the time, they don’t
0:13:17 run purity tests the same way we do.
0:13:20 They allow for ideological inconsistency.
0:13:25 And yes, I think that there are going to be people that don’t move past this, but it
0:13:32 is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the general MAGA movement because they’ve
0:13:34 got no other optionality.
0:13:41 And we’ll see what he essentially makes Pam Bondi do to try to paper over this because they’re
0:13:44 saying now that there’s going to be more releases coming.
0:13:49 And I, I’m not sure there has to be a sacrificial lamb.
0:13:51 If there will be, I think it’s Pam Bondi.
0:13:57 And if I were to put on my conspiracy theory hat, which is very chic, I would say that my
0:14:06 old colleague, Jeanine Pirro, would be a wonderful replacement for Pam Bondi if she ended up exiting
0:14:08 stage left in all of this.
0:14:10 I’m not sure if you’re being serious or not.
0:14:11 You’re being serious?
0:14:12 No, I am being serious.
0:14:15 You think that Jeanine Pirro would be a good attorney general?
0:14:23 I, I, she wouldn’t be our choice necessarily, but I think that Pam Bondi has seemed miraculously
0:14:29 unserious in this role for someone who had a very important job, obviously in Florida, was
0:14:31 instrumental to Trump in being able to win the state.
0:14:35 And she’s been a bit blah, right?
0:14:36 In this role.
0:14:38 She doesn’t even perform that well in the cabinet meetings.
0:14:43 And, you know, Jeanine Pirro is now the U.S. attorney for D.C.
0:14:45 So she is in the administration already.
0:14:49 And it, it wouldn’t surprise me is what I’m saying.
0:14:51 So yes, I am being serious about that.
0:14:56 You know, you, none of these people would be our picks, but the Wall Street Journal even
0:15:03 wrote a piece about how much the D.C. office is loving having Pirro there and how they have
0:15:05 been surprised by her seriousness.
0:15:08 And she’s reverted back to what she was like as a D.A. in Westchester.
0:15:11 So anyway, I’m just throwing that out there.
0:15:13 Well, at 74, she’d be one of the younger people in government.
0:15:14 There you go.
0:15:15 Yeah.
0:15:16 That’s exactly what people wanted.
0:15:18 Jeanine, you look fantastic.
0:15:22 But do you think someone is going to have to go that there’ll be a Mike Waltz?
0:15:24 Is there’ll be a blood offering?
0:15:26 It’s a really interesting one.
0:15:30 I just don’t, I have a striking inability to predict what’s going on here.
0:15:32 I don’t know.
0:15:33 I guess it depends how long it goes.
0:15:37 What do you think of this effort by a couple Democrats to force a vote?
0:15:38 The Ro Khanna vote?
0:15:39 Yeah.
0:15:40 What do you think of that?
0:15:41 Do you think that’s a good move politically?
0:15:41 Yeah.
0:15:42 I mean, it happened last night.
0:15:44 It got voted down.
0:15:45 That’s right.
0:15:45 Shocker.
0:15:47 Well, they’re in charge.
0:15:50 I mean, this is why you got to win fucking elections, right?
0:15:51 Because then you have the votes to do things like this.
0:15:53 Right on, sister.
0:15:53 Yeah.
0:15:55 It’s a well-timed F-bomb.
0:15:55 That’s right.
0:15:56 That’s what we’re supposed to do.
0:15:57 Like one per day, right?
0:15:58 I think it’s the role for Democrats.
0:15:59 That was mine.
0:16:03 But yes, I think it’s right to be drawing attention to this.
0:16:08 And I also think the attitude the Democrats have had about this consistently, which is,
0:16:09 put it all out there.
0:16:15 There are going to be some folks on our side that are in these five—I don’t even know.
0:16:16 They’re playing semantics with it.
0:16:17 Is it a file?
0:16:17 Is it a list?
0:16:24 And Alan Dershowitz, who defended Epstein and also has been accused of being part of this
0:16:28 cabal, has said in interviews recently, there’s a list.
0:16:29 I know there’s a list.
0:16:33 Galene Maxwell is trying to get her story out there.
0:16:37 You know, she was the front page of Drudge, which you know that things are going really
0:16:39 badly for the president when that’s happening.
0:16:45 And you do have a person who is alive and, for now, and hopefully stays alive, sitting in
0:16:48 a jail cell who probably knows a thing or two about this.
0:16:55 So I think Ro Khanna and folks should be out there really holding their feet to the fire,
0:16:56 not losing the plot.
0:17:01 You know, they’re cutting food assistance and Medicaid and giving tax breaks to the wealthy
0:17:03 and all these things that people actually vote on.
0:17:11 But this is a cultural moment, I guess, not only because the Epstein files and did Jeffrey
0:17:15 Epstein kill himself and all of that has taken on pop culture relevance, but it is saying
0:17:22 something generally about class warfare and it is saying something about where the president
0:17:27 fits in that conversation that we don’t usually have a chance to partake in.
0:17:32 It’s usually just partisans kind of peeing into the wind about it, right?
0:17:34 And it doesn’t matter at all.
0:17:36 And now they’re receiving a little bit of it.
0:17:36 Yeah.
0:17:44 So just going back to Janine Pirro as attorney general, I hadn’t realized that she was actually
0:17:46 nominated for a daytime Emmy award.
0:17:48 So I do think she’s qualified.
0:17:48 Yeah.
0:17:53 And also her criticizing the prosecutors, the January 6th defendants saying they hadn’t done
0:17:53 their job.
0:17:54 She’s clearly.
0:17:59 I just got to ask you, Matt Gates, Pam Bondi.
0:18:05 You’re saying you think he’s going to wake up and say, I’d love we really love Merrick
0:18:05 Garland back.
0:18:09 That just feels like even the president could do a little bit better than that.
0:18:10 But anyways.
0:18:12 Anywho.
0:18:12 Yeah.
0:18:13 Please move on.
0:18:18 So just some quick data here around this that shocked me and you’re a pollster.
0:18:18 You’ll find this interesting.
0:18:24 According to new polling from Morning Consult, Trump’s approval rating has fallen about six
0:18:28 percent since his comments about the Epstein case.
0:18:30 That’s that’s a pretty big move, isn’t it, Jess?
0:18:35 Yeah, it’s things have been at certain moments in complete freefall for him.
0:18:40 And we’re going to talk about immigration where that is very pronounced on the economy as well.
0:18:45 But, yeah, people are not into how this is being handled.
0:18:50 And you’re completely correct that there was a way to manage this properly where you just
0:18:54 said, you know, I want to protect the victims, for instance.
0:18:57 And some people would say that’s a load of BS.
0:19:02 But in general, the people who are prone to forgive him would forgive him.
0:19:06 And certainly none of these influencers, I think, would have been mad about it.
0:19:10 So it’s completely relevant that you could go down six points that quickly.
0:19:17 And you know that his team is paying attention to it as well and saying, like, well, what can
0:19:23 we do to leak out enough that nobody is incriminating or we don’t have to hand over the proverbial
0:19:27 list or files or whatever we’re calling it and still be able to manage this base?
0:19:32 Because, you know, he has things that he’s doing that he certainly feels really good
0:19:37 about, right, that he has a couple weeks of good news for his side, you know, getting the
0:19:38 reconciliation bill across.
0:19:42 There’s going to be the rescission bill, the Iranian strikes.
0:19:46 Like, he’d love to be talking about all of those things.
0:19:49 And now this is all that he’s getting.
0:19:53 I mean, trying to change the subject now he’s going after Adam Schiff for a bad mortgage in
0:19:53 Maryland.
0:19:55 I mean, it’s completely laughable.
0:19:59 So just a quick test of your political knowledge here.
0:20:02 There’s only one cabinet member that has a net positive rating.
0:20:04 Any guesses who that is?
0:20:05 Rubio?
0:20:08 No, it’s RFK Jr.
0:20:08 What?
0:20:10 RFK Jr. is the most—he isn’t that wild?
0:20:13 He has a plus 5% net approval rating.
0:20:15 It’s because he’s good looking.
0:20:19 I’m pretty sure that the pollsters asked Rubella and Measles who their favorite cabinet
0:20:20 member is.
0:20:23 OK, with that, let’s take a quick break.
0:20:23 Stay with us.
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0:23:59 Welcome back in a quiet but seismic shift.
0:24:04 The U.S. recently deported eight men to South Sudan, most of whom aren’t even from there.
0:24:10 Under a controversial third-country deportation policy, the legal experts say could amount to enforced disappearance.
0:24:11 Their words.
0:24:20 Their families haven’t heard a word since July 4th, and now ICE has issued new guidance to fast-track similar deportations with minimal notice and virtually no chance for migrants to object.
0:24:24 And that’s just one piece of a much bigger picture.
0:24:26 Across the country, immigration crackdowns are intensifying.
0:24:35 The new remote detention camp in Florida, Alligator Alcatraz, is drawing outrage for inhumane conditions and the fact that hundreds held there have no criminal charges.
0:24:41 Meanwhile, the administration is appealing a court order to blocked race-based immigration rates in California.
0:24:46 But a new Gallup poll shows Americans are more supportive of immigration than they’ve been in decades.
0:24:50 Even a majority of Republicans now favor a path to citizenship.
0:24:52 That’s a switch.
0:25:00 But if you’re wondering how far Trump might go to flex his immigration powers, look no further than his latest threat to strip Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship.
0:25:01 Yeah, that makes sense.
0:25:03 He called her a threat to humanity.
0:25:04 Huh.
0:25:09 And said she should stay in Ireland, where she moved after his re-election.
0:25:13 Legal experts quickly pointed out that’s not how citizenship works.
0:25:19 Still, it’s a telling moment, one that shows how far the rhetoric and policy is escalating.
0:25:20 It’s a weapon of mass distraction.
0:25:27 Jess, how does the Supreme Court’s green light on third country deportations open the door for more extreme removals?
0:25:36 And what legal or diplomatic fallout do you think we might see if other nations refuse to cooperate or detainees simply vanish, like in the South Sudan case?
0:25:38 I’m going to say it again.
0:25:42 You got to win elections because then you get to appoint people to the court.
0:25:48 And we are so massively screwed because of this conservative majority.
0:25:55 And my expectation is that Trump will probably get another appointment before he finishes in 2028.
0:25:58 And that really scares me.
0:26:02 You know, there are moments where you say, like, Amy Coney Barrett, I love you, or whatever.
0:26:03 Not this one.
0:26:09 And the most disturbing part of it to me, or the thing that I guess stuck out the most,
0:26:14 is that as part of getting rid of this nationwide injunction that came from the lower court,
0:26:21 is that it does away with having to give meaningful notice before deporting to a third country.
0:26:28 So what they’ve been doing is essentially running out the clock or having no clock,
0:26:34 so that family and attorneys cannot get to a lot of these people who have been either wrongfully detained
0:26:39 or really should just be deported back to their country of origin.
0:26:46 And you hear this constantly, whether we’re talking about CECOT or detention facilities all over the U.S.,
0:26:48 makeshift or permanent.
0:26:50 You know, we’ll talk about Alligator Alcatraz.
0:26:55 But nobody is getting their due process.
0:27:00 Nobody is getting time to talk to an attorney, let alone to their wife or their husband.
0:27:04 And that the Supreme Court could be comfortable with that.
0:27:07 Even when I think about it, it was just a few months ago, right,
0:27:13 where they seemed like some sort of arbiters of humanity about the deportations to CECOT,
0:27:18 where they said they have to make a meaningful effort to produce Kilmar Abrego-Garcia.
0:27:22 Now we have South Sudan with no call to your lawyer is fine.
0:27:23 Yeah.
0:27:27 It strikes me that in a weird way, a lot of these things are interconnected.
0:27:30 And I’ve been thinking about, I hate anonymity.
0:27:35 And I’m interviewing today Greg Lukianoff, who’s a big First Amendment guy.
0:27:36 And I imagine he’ll give me a—
0:27:36 He runs fire, right?
0:27:39 Yeah, he’ll give me a cogent argument for why anonymity is so important.
0:27:45 But my sense is our fidelity or conflating free speech with anonymity has led to an environment
0:27:52 where people will weaponize millions of trolls to create intimidation and shape the discourse
0:27:57 around what’s advantageous for some folks who don’t have America’s best interests at heart.
0:28:02 I don’t think people would ever behave this way if they had to have their identity released online.
0:28:07 And in general, I think that almost anything involving a government investigation,
0:28:13 there might be a quiet period for security reasons, but I think there’s no reason not to release everything.
0:28:19 I just—I can’t understand why any file isn’t ultimately released that the FBI aggregates
0:28:21 unless they see it as a security concern.
0:28:29 And then, more generally, what do stormtroopers ice the KKK and weirdos not letting Jews access
0:28:31 certain parts of UCLA have in common?
0:28:33 And the answer is masks.
0:28:40 And when I think about what’s been a hugely accretive or beneficial move for our men and women in blue
0:28:43 and our trust in police forces around the nation, it’s been body cams.
0:28:48 And the fact that they have their badge number and their name right on their—visible on their chest,
0:28:53 and they’re not allowed to wear masks because they have to take accountability for their actions.
0:28:57 And it’s been, I think, one of the greatest innovations in law enforcement
0:29:02 that if you’re going to apply force or you’re here to protect and to serve,
0:29:05 that you need to show all of your actions in 4D color.
0:29:11 And what do you know, ICE enforcement agents are wearing masks, which tells you, in my opinion,
0:29:15 everything about how they’re acquitting themselves or what they’re doing.
0:29:18 They wouldn’t dare want anyone to actually know who they actually are.
0:29:23 So this, to me, comes back to a basic trend in our society that’s a wrong trend,
0:29:28 and that is an acceptance and even reverence for anonymity as opposed to forcing people
0:29:30 to take accountability for their actions.
0:29:34 And people come back and say, well, what about the civil rights lawyer in the Gulf that needs
0:29:35 to protect our identity?
0:29:39 We could absolutely have anonymous accounts online and ensure that people are using them
0:29:42 for reasons where they would need anonymity.
0:29:48 But when you go onto your feed—and, Jess, I imagine you get a lot of this because I found
0:29:53 a disturbing trend online where women are subject to more hate-filled emails and rhetoric and threats
0:29:59 of violence by virtue of the fact that they’re women—I don’t think it’s healthy, this protection.
0:30:06 I think every social media platform should force identity and age gate and accepting a federal agency
0:30:12 that now has greater funding than the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not doing covert or national
0:30:18 security work, but treating people—you just wouldn’t see them putting their knees on the heads
0:30:22 of people or separating women from their 13-year-old screaming daughters if they actually had to show
0:30:23 their fucking faces.
0:30:28 So whether it’s the Epstein files and a belief that, oh, some things should stay out of public
0:30:35 view or masks covering the real identity and thereby reducing the accountability of this
0:30:40 enforcement agency, which we are paying for, I think all of it comes back to the same place,
0:30:43 and that is we have gone way too far with a reverence and an acceptance for anonymity and
0:30:45 not connecting identity to people’s actions.
0:30:46 Your thoughts?
0:30:49 I think it’s an incredibly important point.
0:30:55 And if you wanted to get into the nuance of what has to be for national security, what actually
0:31:00 needs to be put out in the world, I think that you can have those conversations on a case-by-case basis.
0:31:07 But in general, you know that society would run a hell of a lot different if people had to show
0:31:12 themselves, if they had to own what they’re saying in-person and online behaviors.
0:31:20 And you’re completely correct that it is a complete cesspool of what goes online, especially when it comes
0:31:21 to misogyny and harassment.
0:31:22 I’m going through this right now.
0:31:30 There’s a large conservative account that posted a picture of me with my ex-boyfriend and a picture of me with my husband.
0:31:36 And the post says that I cheated on my first husband.
0:31:37 I don’t have a first husband.
0:31:38 I only have one husband.
0:31:41 And, you know, it gets worse.
0:31:44 We’re talking whore, the C word, all of it.
0:31:53 And this is because I responded to the news that Ken Paxton, AG in Texas, his wife has filed for divorce after 38 years together.
0:31:57 It has been rumored for a long time that he cheats on her.
0:32:00 And she’s just had enough at this point.
0:32:09 Anyway, so I wrote The Party of Family Values strikes again because we’re constantly lectured by conservatives about how Democrats are folks that are part of a pedophile ring.
0:32:18 And it has unleashed a torrent online that I haven’t seen worse than actually when the president of the United States of America comes after you.
0:32:22 A lot from women, a lot from good Christians, right?
0:32:25 You know, I’m the best Christian there ever was.
0:32:38 And you’re an enormous whore and can’t get it taken down because of what goes on on social media now and the changes that have happened under Elon Musk.
0:32:42 And so I’m kind of just sitting here having to take it.
0:32:48 The algorithms love this type of outrage, this type of incendiary, ridiculous content.
0:32:55 And first off, I’m sorry you’re going through this, but to anyone that doesn’t have their head up their ass, realize this is all total bullshit.
0:33:08 But what this continues is a long tradition of misogyny that has gone just apeshit online where people don’t have to take accountability for their hateful, weird rhetoric, which sometimes can be very – it’s not only damaging emotionally and mentally.
0:33:11 It can put people in physical danger because people start believing this shit.
0:33:14 And then a crazy person picks up on it.
0:33:29 But it continues a long tradition that has gotten much worse online, which a bunch of dudes refuse to address because it’s difficult to imagine what it’s like to be a victim of this when you’ve never been a victim of this.
0:33:41 And the misogyny here is just so stark because, according to online trolls and especially the right, infidelity is a feature, not a bug for men.
0:33:43 And it’s a crime against humanity for women.
0:33:49 So why not just accuse women of something, whereas it would be a compliment?
0:33:52 I mean, that’s a real man on the Republican side.
0:33:53 He should even be president.
0:34:02 Well, the people who are making these comments about you, one, I don’t know if it’s a media organization, but effectively this goes back to big tech.
0:34:12 The platform platforming this clearly false content, most likely, and it sounds like it’s Twitter, the algorithms see it like how much activity it’s getting.
0:34:17 And so they elevate it and they give it more organic reach than it deserves on its own.
0:34:18 There’s no veracity here.
0:34:24 People wouldn’t be spreading this type of information as far and wide organically.
0:34:32 But because it invokes a lot of reactions and back and forth, and I’m sure people are weighing in and defending you, the algorithms love it.
0:34:40 So they spread it further than it would go on its own, thereby disparaging your reputation and also creating emotional harm.
0:34:49 When you algorithmically elevate content, you are now an editor and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be subject to the same liability and slander laws as traditional media.
0:35:08 Fox News, including your endorsement for attorney general, she was named in a case for spreading misinformation about Smartmatic, purposely and knowingly spreading misinformation around a company, knowing that it was false information that caused material and economic harm.
0:35:14 This is happening to you right now, but because it’s happening to you, Twitter knows this is bullshit.
0:35:18 And it’s very easy to see that this is causing real harm and disruption in your life.
0:35:30 But because they’re, quote unquote, a nascent technology company, which is what it was called in 1997 when this ridiculous 230 law was passed, they are not subject to the same liability as Fox News when they spread misinformation.
0:35:44 So this all comes back to big tech figuring out a way to weaponize Republicans and Democrats to avoid any real responsibility or liability for things that traditional media has been responsible and liable for.
0:35:52 It not only tears at the fabric of our society, it not only tears at the fabric of our society and coarsens our dialogue, but creates a post-truth society where nobody knows what to believe anymore.
0:35:59 Because the reality is, if somebody sees a story over and over, it becomes, in their mind, naturally, less of a lie.
0:36:03 It’s like, oh, I’m seeing this everywhere and there must be some truth to it.
0:36:13 No, it just means the algorithms have decided, regardless of how disparaging or slanderous it is, if it creates more engagement, we’re going to spread it far and wide.
0:36:26 So I kind of lay this at the feet, not only of the people who created this false narrative, but the fact that, one, the social media platform doesn’t force identity when people weigh in and say vile things about you.
0:36:27 We should know who they are.
0:36:29 They should have to stand behind it.
0:36:37 And also, this organization or the people posting this content, or the platform specifically, should be subject to the same laws as traditional media.
0:36:43 Anyways, I’m sorry you’re going through that, and I hope you recognize that in the moment, everything seems worse than it actually is.
0:36:48 This isn’t that meaningful, and everyone will forget about it and move on.
0:36:49 Yeah, I hope so.
0:36:55 Yeah, and I’m, you know, it’s been a few days, and you learn to move on quickly, which is probably another statement on how society works.
0:37:09 But I just wanted to add to your analysis to say that a critical component of why things are so bad is that we are so intellectually lazy now that no one wants to even Google something.
0:37:22 You know, this happens constantly, and I understand that it is baked into the job for me to bring information that is different from the mainstream conservative point of view that my colleagues are espousing.
0:37:38 But because you don’t want to spend any time taking a look at what Quinnipiac is saying or taking a look at what Marist is saying or even the Fox News poll, you just immediately dismiss anything that makes your antenna go a little haywire.
0:37:47 You know, to loop it back to the immigration issue, Trump has blown his best issue in historic terms.
0:37:57 I mean, he’s negative 27 on immigration now with Gallup, negative 16 with Quinnipiac, negative 9, Marist, Fox News, minus 7.
0:37:59 Totally lost support of the Hispanic votes.
0:38:04 Remember, that was one of their favorite things to talk about, how the hombres actually wanted this.
0:38:10 Well, it turns out the hombres are not actually interested in the way immigration law is being enforced at this particular moment.
0:38:15 And it probably has to do with the fact that 70 percent of people who are being detained haven’t been convicted of anything.
0:38:18 So they say, oh, well, people are pending charges.
0:38:22 You can say whatever you want about someone like this is the United States of America.
0:38:27 You have to be convicted of something, not just that they’re floating the idea that you did a very bad thing.
0:38:34 But you talk to the strongest section of his base about this, of Trump’s base.
0:38:38 Those poll, they’re all fake news polls, right, if they even exist.
0:38:45 And they haven’t spent any time actually going around and looking at a source that doesn’t confirm their immediate bias.
0:38:56 And so the masking thing with ICE agents, I don’t know if you’ve seen these stories, but there are people impersonating ICE agents, just like putting on masks and robbing, throwing people in trucks.
0:39:06 I mean, and some folks don’t even know if it isn’t actually an ICE agent that is doing something like this because the reality on the ground is that there are folks that are doing this.
0:39:09 And Brian and I were talking about this over the weekend.
0:39:18 We hadn’t been seeing that many stories from New York City about these immigration raids, like hearing a lot about what’s going on in Chicago and in Boston.
0:39:30 And I heard from a friend that apparently in big immigrant neighborhoods out in Queens in particular, that there are ICE agents everywhere there now.
0:39:37 So the city is not being spared because Eric Adams is a friend of the Trump administration in any way.
0:39:43 And I assume that the stories are going to start rolling in of these terrible things happening, you know, all over the subways.
0:39:52 And it’s just I’m not saying that immigration law doesn’t need to be enforced, but I don’t want our country looking like this.
0:39:54 Yeah, but it’s it’s so gross.
0:40:05 It’s performance and pageantry and fear and not really addressing the issue because going to the very core of the issue, while most people acknowledge immigration has been the secret sauce for American prosperity or one of them.
0:40:11 What they don’t want to have an honest conversation about is that the most profitable part of immigration has been illegal immigration.
0:40:14 And we can just wake up with tens of millions of illegal immigrants.
0:40:23 It’s a flexible workforce that comes in, pays Social Security taxes, commits crimes at a lower rate and then melts back to their own country when the work dries up.
0:40:27 It’s been this unbelievable, profitable, flexible workforce.
0:40:32 And where I see the far right go is they say, look, and it’s a solid argument.
0:40:33 Theoretically, they broke the law.
0:40:34 They broke the law.
0:40:35 They knew they were breaking the law.
0:40:37 They should be subject to enforcement.
0:40:45 But they never want to talk about, well, based on that law, shouldn’t we be prosecuting all the employers who knew they were employing undocumented workers?
0:40:47 And by the way, that is a crime.
0:40:49 But we don’t talk about that.
0:40:56 We don’t talk about the cut and dry, the employers, whether it’s fast food restaurants or families employing undocumented workers.
0:41:03 We seem to forgive those less brown, older, less vulnerable people, right?
0:41:06 So we’re just not focused on the right thing.
0:41:15 If you want to talk about an alien invasion, if you want to talk about millions of people storming the shores and offer their services for free, you want to talk about disruption.
0:41:26 What if seven or eight or 10 million immigrants stormed the shores, just overwhelmed the United States and were willing to work for free 24 by seven?
0:41:27 And what would that do to certain industries?
0:41:29 Well, it’s here, folks.
0:41:30 It’s called AI.
0:41:45 And instead of focusing on AI and taking some of that $12 billion and upskilling people and training to be critical thinkers and understand AI and how to leverage it and job training to get people out of things like trucking, which clearly AI is going to just decimate.
0:42:11 We want to scare the shit out of people and increase inflation by getting rid of three percent of America’s working population, which is ISIS goal, which will be somewhere between five and 15 percent of the agricultural and construction communities between tariffs on drywall gypsum, Canadian lumber and then emptying out construction sites of which 15 percent of the workforce is undocumented workers.
0:42:15 And by the way, when you lose 15 percent of your workforce, the industry kind of collapses for a while.
0:42:22 You’re going to see massive inflation and you’re going to see huge economic strain.
0:42:43 But instead, you know, instead of focusing on our economy, instead of focusing on how we would use that money to upskill people and protect jobs, I just think the president, I think they love this macho mass big guys ripping families apart that they’re I think so many Americans are so angry and upset that they actually enjoy some of this footage.
0:42:45 It’s like, oh, we’ll show those, you know, those criminals.
0:42:53 But, you know, the nice the nice white family that owns the car wash has been hiring undocumented workers and wink, wink.
0:42:56 Everybody’s put up with this for a long time.
0:42:58 Leave those good Americans alone.
0:42:59 I wonder what’s going to happen.
0:43:04 I think at some point there’s going to be a confrontation that’s going to turn violent in the United States.
0:43:07 I think I think people are so correctly horrified.
0:43:12 There was a really interesting video taken in a hospital where doctors just surrounded ice and said, what are you doing?
0:43:13 Get out of here.
0:43:18 And what is going on here is so craven and so aggressive and so upsetting.
0:43:23 I mean, at least the brown shirts in Nazi Germany showed their faces.
0:43:27 You know, these guys showing up with masks and the militarization.
0:43:31 I mean, it’s happened incrementally, so we’re not a shock.
0:43:45 But if someone had played just a few years ago what was going to happen here at car washes in Calabasas or to, you know, Uber drivers or or people showing up for their citizen hearings or church.
0:43:49 I think we would have just said, well, of course, that would never happen in America.
0:43:51 Well, well, it is.
0:43:57 Anyways, with that, we’ll take another quick break and we’ll be back in just a moment.
0:44:03 OK, welcome back.
0:44:06 Before we go, Washington Representative Marie Glessencamp-Perez.
0:44:13 She’s doing a few lawmakers have dared to do publicly question whether some of her older colleagues are still mentally fit to serve.
0:44:21 The 36-year-old Democrat is pushing a proposal that would allow the House Ethics Office to assess whether a member’s cognitive decline is impairing their ability to do the job.
0:44:24 An idea that was quickly swatted down by her colleagues in committee.
0:44:26 Are they really fucking old people?
0:44:27 Seriously, it’s become.
0:44:28 Actually, no.
0:44:28 Really?
0:44:31 They’re not really fucking old people that swatted it down.
0:44:34 It’s people who want to hang out for the next 50 years in Congress.
0:44:40 Or who are scared of the really fucking old people who wield a tremendous amount of power as well.
0:44:47 Fair Point, her call for cognitive oversight lands in a moment when concerns about mental acuity in government aren’t just theoretical, they’re fueling investigations.
0:44:57 Republicans are now probing whether Biden was mentally fit enough to authorize end-of-term and clemency decisions, claiming staff may have used an auto pen without his direct input.
0:45:02 Biden says he made every decision himself and slammed Trump and his allies as liars.
0:45:06 But still, the broader question remains, when is it too old to govern?
0:45:09 Curious on your thoughts on this.
0:45:11 How realistic is Perez’s proposal?
0:45:16 And could it actually break an unspoken code of silence around age and capacity in Congress?
0:45:19 Or will it just be another flashpoint that fades without reform?
0:45:19 What do you think, Jess?
0:45:23 It’s definitely not going to pass.
0:45:24 Right.
0:45:33 But I do think that it’s important for people to show who they are and their morality and their beliefs.
0:45:34 And that’s what she’s doing.
0:45:36 She’s just making a public declaration.
0:45:47 And this is coming from her constituents, who were all deeply concerned about President Biden and his mental fitness, as millions of Americans were, yourself included.
0:45:56 And she’s putting her stake in the ground, where she just says, this is something that we need to be talking about more and to be thinking about.
0:46:04 And maybe it’s not the end of the world if there’s some mechanism to step in when there is a problem.
0:46:12 And the argument against it is, well, we, you know, we have elections and they have to stand again and get voted back in.
0:46:17 But in a lot of these districts, they’re rubber stamps for whoever is in the majority.
0:46:19 You’re talking about D plus 30 districts.
0:46:23 And if someone isn’t getting primaried, then that carries on.
0:46:30 There’s a lawmaker, I think she’s 86 years old, who’s been flirting with maybe I’m going to run, maybe I’m not going to run.
0:46:35 Her staff has to kind of clean up after she makes a comment about it.
0:46:36 And now she’s decided that she’s going to run again.
0:46:40 Maxine Waters, she’s 86 years old.
0:46:41 I get it.
0:46:45 These are only two-year terms, so it should be out by 89 or whatever.
0:46:49 But, like, some things just don’t feel appropriate.
0:46:54 And I also think that there is an unfair sliding scale for folks.
0:47:02 Like, I interviewed Greg Kassar for our podcast, and he wants a new generation of leaders.
0:47:03 He’s part of that.
0:47:05 He’s on the progressive left of the party.
0:47:07 He’s been on tour with Bernie and AOC.
0:47:12 So I say, you know, well, Bernie’s 82 years old, and he’s going to run again for his Senate seat.
0:47:16 Well, there’s a carve-out for Bernie because Bernie has a ton of energy.
0:47:17 And, yes, I get it.
0:47:23 Bernie Sanders, you have a lot more faith in his ability to survive a term than you did necessarily about Joe Biden.
0:47:28 But you either have a standard or you don’t have a standard.
0:47:38 And that’s where this representative, Glucin-Kamp-Perez, is kind of putting her stake in the ground and just saying, we need to have standards that everyone abides by.
0:47:51 And then you can plan for what life after Congress looks like for you if it’s just retirement or maybe you want to go into the private sector or you want to go back to teaching if you’re a teacher or maybe, you know, want to travel the world, whatever it is.
0:48:02 But a lot of people have been talking a big game about passing the torch and a new generation of leaders or what it takes to do this job, which is an incredibly special, elite job.
0:48:04 There are only 435 people with this job on the Senate side.
0:48:09 Only 100 people in a country of 330 million who get this job.
0:48:11 Take it more seriously.
0:48:13 I love this.
0:48:24 And I think it’s just insane that we’ve decided that a 34-year-old doesn’t have the cognitive ability or life experience to run for president, but someone, 81, can do it.
0:48:30 16 years, term limits, or 18 years and 75, you’re out.
0:48:31 It’s just insane to me.
0:48:38 We have, we age gate all sorts of tests, whether it’s pilots, whether it’s CEOs of public companies.
0:48:44 And we’ve decided that, arguably, to your point, the most important decision, we’re not going to have age limits on.
0:48:46 And it really hurt Democrats.
0:48:49 I think five representatives died.
0:48:50 I think it’s three.
0:48:50 Was it three?
0:48:52 I thought it was five of them passed away.
0:48:53 Like, since the term.
0:48:54 Yeah, three.
0:48:55 It’s a lot of people.
0:48:57 I mean, I joked, I’m going to go see the F1 movie.
0:49:03 And I’m like, I think it’s hilarious that Brad Pitt is an F1 driver who clearly, I can, spoiler alert, I’m pretty sure he probably wins the race.
0:49:07 But in 10 years, his kids are probably going to take his driver’s license away.
0:49:13 It not only creates a situation where you have people who are cognitively impaired and make poor decisions, including to run again.
0:49:15 Bernie should not be allowed to run again.
0:49:17 That’s insane because biology is undefeated.
0:49:24 And by the time he’s 86 or 87, he’s probably going to slow down and not be able to represent his constituency very well.
0:49:27 And there will always be examples of the 100-year-old who runs a marathon.
0:49:39 But in general, we’ve decided that 17-year-olds don’t have the cognitive capacity to decide to join the army for good reason or that they, you know, kids should not be able to access pornography, at least theoretically.
0:49:42 We age-gate all sorts of stuff on the bottom end.
0:49:47 And the cognitive decline is just as severe on the back end.
0:49:49 Of course we should age-gate this.
0:49:51 And the dialogue, I believe, has actually progressed.
0:49:58 When I first said that Biden was too old to run on Bill Maher two and a half years ago, it was called an ageist and how dare you.
0:50:16 And, okay, in addition to the cognitive decline, which puts serious strain on the public, having to put up with individuals who no longer have good judgment or even just the capacity to do their jobs, it creates an environment where we’re not thinking long-term.
0:50:19 Two-thirds of Congress will be dead within 25 years.
0:50:24 Are they really that concerned at the end of the day about deficits and climate change?
0:50:35 And they get all indignant and clutch their pearls that they got as a wedding gift in the 30s and say, okay, you’re being ageist.
0:50:38 We care about climate change and our grandchildren?
0:50:39 No, you don’t.
0:50:44 Listen to young people talk about the deficit and the climate change.
0:50:46 They’re going to be around to have to pay this shit back.
0:50:58 They’re going to be around when everyone has to move out of or there’s forced mass migration and an unbelievable tax on everybody when we have to pay for disaster relief on super fires that are happening every other week.
0:51:02 So we absolutely need a representative democracy.
0:51:09 And the average age of our elected representatives across the world, this is a global phenomenon, has risen from 55 to 62.
0:51:16 And the U.S. has the oldest, I believe, of any G7, except we haven’t taken a note from other countries.
0:51:19 Most countries, there’s age gates.
0:51:22 You know, firefighters in the U.S. have to retire at 57.
0:51:29 You have to retire from the armed forces at 64 because you might make bad decisions to kill other people when you’re 84.
0:51:36 But we’ve decided, no, you can make decisions about who gets food stamps or what nations we do or do not declare war against.
0:51:41 Finland requires medical testing for driver’s license applicants after the age of 45.
0:51:47 England has an age limit of 75 for sitting on a jury.
0:51:57 They realize at 76, you may not have the cognitive ability or the physical stamina to pay attention to ensure that an individual is acquitted fairly through the court process.
0:52:01 Eighty-six members of the House and 33 members of the Senate are now over the age of 70.
0:52:04 In the House, the average age is 57.
0:52:07 In the Senate, it’s 65.
0:52:10 And this is the third oldest Congress in 1789.
0:52:11 Enough already.
0:52:12 Enough already.
0:52:13 We need age limits.
0:52:18 If we have them on the bottom end, there is no reason we shouldn’t have them on the top end.
0:52:23 It’s also a worse problem on the Democratic side than it is on the Republican side.
0:52:23 Fair.
0:52:27 Trump aside, who’s obviously an incredibly old president.
0:52:34 But the rank and file, and this is they doing as well with the Supreme Court nominations, too.
0:52:39 You know, I could see a world in which we were in power and we’re like, I’m really into this 65-year-old.
0:52:40 I think it would be great on the bench.
0:52:42 I’m like, take the teenager.
0:52:44 Put the teenager on the court.
0:52:45 Put in Representative Tallarico.
0:52:47 That’s a great plug.
0:52:47 Yeah.
0:52:49 We’ll have him on the podcast on Friday.
0:52:49 There you go.
0:52:51 This is how you’ve got to be thinking about it.
0:52:57 I do want to say something positive about the current state of Democratic politics.
0:52:58 Go on.
0:53:03 Because we don’t do this nearly enough, and these are fundamentally our people.
0:53:14 There’s new polling out from Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s pollster, showing that Republicans are trailing on the generic ballot in 28 House battleground seats.
0:53:19 There are huge amounts of pickup opportunities, especially with the big, beautiful bill.
0:53:21 Don’t blow it by only talking about Epstein.
0:53:33 And one thing that I saw that I thought you would really like is there’s this up-and-coming ad-making firm that’s Cool Campaigns, Van Ness Creative.
0:53:41 And they have basically issued a warning saying that if you’re not going to get online, then you just need to retire.
0:53:52 That no one should be making you ads or supporting campaigns of people who cannot communicate the way that the world is getting information and ingesting it.
0:54:00 And, you know, there’s an effort that you can make if, you know, you’re older and all you can do is hold a camera up to your face while you’re sitting in a car or whatever.
0:54:13 That’s still making some sort of effort, but there are actually pretty high numbers of folks in elected office who don’t even want to partake in the main vehicle for political communication at this point.
0:54:19 And that those people need to retire along with the 85-year-olds.
0:54:19 I agree.
0:54:25 Across both chambers, there are 20 members who are 80 years or older who likely think CHAT-GPT is a venereal disease.
0:54:31 I mean, the Congress is beginning to look like the waiting room at a cardiologist in Boca Raton.
0:54:33 It just, for God’s sakes, enough already.
0:54:34 All right.
0:54:37 Jess, that’s all for this episode.
0:54:39 Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.
0:54:42 Our producers are David Toledo and Eric Jenikas.
0:54:44 Our technical director is Drew Burrows.
0:54:47 Going forward, you’ll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday.
0:54:53 Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds.
0:54:58 This week, Jess and I are talking with, and we’re excited about this, with Texas State Representative James Tallarico.
0:55:03 Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss an episode.
0:55:05 Jess, have a great rest of the week.
0:55:05 You too.

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0:00:52 That’s this week on Explain It To Me.
0:00:56 New episodes every Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:01:04 Megan Rapinoe here.
0:01:14 This week on A Touch More, we’re talking all about the WNBA All-Star roster with ESPN analyst and former All-Star herself, Chanae Agumike.
0:01:18 She also tells us what she wants to see from the CBA negotiations.
0:01:23 Plus, I’m sharing some of the record-breaking updates from the Euros in Switzerland.
0:01:28 Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
0:01:33 Welcome to Office Hours of Prop G.
0:01:37 This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.
0:01:42 Just a reminder, you can now catch Office Hours every Monday and Friday.
0:01:43 That’s two episodes a week.
0:01:48 If you’d like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to officehoursofpropgmedia.com.
0:01:51 Again, that’s officehoursofpropgmedia.com.
0:01:57 Or, post your question on the Scott Gallery subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode.
0:01:58 First question.
0:02:03 Our first question comes from Snarky Spice on Reddit.
0:02:04 They ask,
0:02:07 Hey Scott, my dad and I have always been really close.
0:02:11 You recently discovered YouTube for the first time, and it’s actually the one who turned me on to your podcast.
0:02:13 We even met you at TED.
0:02:14 Oh, that’s nice.
0:02:20 Over time, though, he’s stopped listening to your pod or any others and has been hooked on the All In podcast.
0:02:29 My dad is a lifelong liberal, a philanthropist, and a very caring person, but since listening to that podcast, he’s been shocked by some of the things he’s started saying, Russian talking points and whatnot.
0:02:33 It feels like his worldview is changing, and it has been painful to watch.
0:02:41 As a daughter, how can I respectfully talk to him about the dangers of that kind of media influence without sounding condescending or pushing him further away?
0:02:44 And as a father of sons, how do you go about talking to them about media literacy?
0:02:46 Thanks for all you do, Amy.
0:02:49 I can’t speak specifically to the All In pod.
0:02:50 I’ve never listened to it.
0:02:53 I know they have a following.
0:02:59 I know that all of them are very successful, and then the podcast moderator, who’s, I forget his name, is less successful.
0:03:04 And they’ve gone, my understanding is from everything here is they’ve gone totally red pill.
0:03:09 But that’s their right, and that’s kind of your dad’s right.
0:03:15 I would say that trying to browbeat your dad, my son popped up the other day.
0:03:17 I mean, you are where you spend your time, unfortunately.
0:03:23 And my son, I remember on my way to get sushi, my 13-year-old or then 13-year-old son said,
0:03:25 Dad, when did they take their land away?
0:03:28 And he was obviously referring to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
0:03:30 And Emil, I wanted to go, well, that’s not actually accurate.
0:03:38 But the fastest way, I think, to get your family members to sort of seize up or cement their views or their weird views is to come at them.
0:03:43 And what I would suggest is what I’ve said to my son as I just started asking more about it.
0:03:48 And then my older son, a few years ago, was talking about Andrew Tate.
0:03:52 And he didn’t say he specifically liked him, but he was sort of defending him.
0:03:56 And I said, what is it about Andrew Tate that appeals to people your age?
0:03:59 And what do you like or not like about him?
0:04:02 And, you know, what attributes do you think are positive or negative?
0:04:05 I’d just ask a series of questions and try and get them to their own conclusions.
0:04:11 With respect to your dad, I think just having civil conversations around their views or what have you,
0:04:16 that hurts, losing people to the All Red Pill podcast.
0:04:18 Yeah, I don’t think there’s a whole hell of a lot you can do.
0:04:20 And I think it might be a learning experience for you.
0:04:26 Ask him to listen to a pod you like, you listen to a pod he likes, and then discuss.
0:04:34 And, but yeah, I have heard that those guys are basically Sergei Lavrov and kind of parroting Russian talking points.
0:04:38 But look, that’s your dad’s right, that’s their right.
0:04:42 And I would suggest you just try and engage him with other content.
0:04:50 But I can tell you what doesn’t work as, you know, a dad is coming at someone angry or in an obstinate.
0:05:03 I think from the left, we’re especially bad at that lecturing people and asking them to sign up for an orthodoxy and focusing on social virtue instead of what actually impacts the material and psychological well-being of actual Americans.
0:05:06 I think, I think the Democrats are just awful at that.
0:05:11 So I would just engage him in conversation, try and separate the person from the politics a little bit.
0:05:15 I don’t, I just don’t even talk to my father-in-law about politics.
0:05:17 I don’t need to hear why he thinks Trump is great.
0:05:20 I just, I don’t want to dislike the man and I would end up disliking him.
0:05:27 And where I live, where I have a home in Florida, I would say a good 40, maybe 50% of my friends are Trump supporters.
0:05:34 And, and I have one friend that I’ve grew up with my whole, I mean, I’m really close friend who’s like gone total fucking red pill.
0:05:44 He puts out these videos every day, like calling Governor Newsom, Governor Newsom and talking about, you know, that Biden should have been arrested.
0:05:47 And I’m like, Jesus Christ, this guy has literally lost his shit.
0:05:50 But I just ignore it all because I value the friendship.
0:05:55 And if you don’t separate the person from the politics, you’re going to lose 50% of your relationships.
0:06:07 And one of the terrible things about how polarized we’ve become and quite frankly, just how, what a fucking narcissist Trump is and how he needs to be in the news every day, even if it’s deploying the National Guard for no reason, in my view.
0:06:10 That’s just, just not helping.
0:06:18 And, but what I would say is try not to give into it and inject politics into your relationships because you kind of immediately sequester yourself.
0:06:19 From 50% of the population.
0:06:24 Anyways, long-winded way of saying try and separate the person from the politics.
0:06:27 Engage your dad in discussions around this stuff.
0:06:31 But I wouldn’t, I’d be very careful not to lecture at him.
0:06:34 And at the end of the day, he’s a grown man who gets to make his own decisions around this stuff.
0:06:35 Thanks for the question.
0:06:39 Our second question comes from KCBH711.
0:06:41 They say,
0:06:45 Hey Prop G, you said college is overpriced and outdated.
0:06:48 How does AI fit into the future of higher education?
0:06:52 Do you think it is the final nail in the coffin or a way to reinvent it?
0:06:54 Yeah, it’s overpriced.
0:06:58 But the problem is it’s, it’s still the ticket for a lot of people.
0:07:06 I continue to hear adults at parties whisper, oh, they don’t need, you know, our kids aren’t going to need college anymore.
0:07:10 Meanwhile, they’re paying college consultants $30,000 to try and get their kids into Brown.
0:07:12 These people are so full of shit.
0:07:13 Oh, it doesn’t matter.
0:07:14 You don’t need college.
0:07:17 It’s because they’re worried little Bobby is not going to get into a good school.
0:07:21 So the lie we tell ourselves is that people don’t need college anymore.
0:07:26 Yeah, a lot of people, two thirds of young kids aren’t not going to get a traditional liberal arts education.
0:07:31 But it still is a great, I don’t know, great on ramp into a better life.
0:07:32 There’s just no getting around it.
0:07:38 I think you’re going to make on average double, a college grad is going to make double what someone with a high school degree only is going to make.
0:07:43 And someone from elite college, it’s even, I think it’s even more dramatic.
0:07:51 So there’s bullshit around people don’t need college anymore is a lie we tell ourselves when our kids don’t end up with the opportunity or the desire to go to college.
0:07:53 And I want to be clear, it’s not for everybody.
0:07:55 There’s a lot of great jobs in the real economy.
0:08:05 I donate a lot of money to vocational programming for young adults because the real economy has a lot of interesting jobs out there in the trades that you started 60, 70, 80, 100.
0:08:17 You’re making 100 grand a year by the time you’re 25 installing energy efficient HVAC or repairing EVs or, God, I can’t imagine how much money they’re going to pay you if you get the skills to be on specialty construction for a nuclear power plant.
0:08:35 Anyway, there’s a lot of opportunities, non-college opportunities, but I think that the best thing, one of the best things we could do in terms of reform for college is one, revoke the tax status or tax-free status of universities that have over a billion dollars in endowment if they don’t expand their freshman class faster than population growth.
0:08:43 This artificial scarcity bullshit mindset is really creating a lot of manufactured stress among America’s middle class.
0:08:47 I got into UCLA when they had a 76% admissions rate.
0:08:50 I was one of the 24% that was rejected initially, and then I appealed and I got in.
0:08:53 And this year, the acceptance rate is 9%.
0:09:01 So if you don’t expand your freshman class faster than population growth, you’re no longer a public servant, you’re a Chanel bag, you lose your tax-free status.
0:09:10 Schools should be on the hook for 10%, 20%, 50% of bad debt such that they stopped doling out a shit ton of cheap credit to kids who they know are not going to be able to pay it back.
0:09:20 So your question about AI, I think AI will help people learn faster and will up the bar, but I don’t think it’s going to replace creativity, strategy.
0:09:23 You know, I think it might hurt salaries.
0:09:35 So investment banking and consulting are going to dramatically reduce their hiring because the initial entry-level people are basically doing the work that AI can do or AI can do the work that they can do right now.
0:09:51 But the top bankers, the top consultants are able to sit down with people and kind of emphasize the right points and sort of understand, can kind of see the matrix, if you will, of a company and have the credibility to say to the CEO, no, this is a stupid idea, you should be doing this.
0:10:02 So I think it’s going to enhance education, make it more efficient, but I don’t see it replacing education because at the end of the day, what we do at NYU or other schools, we don’t educate, we certify.
0:10:15 And that is the real value add and the reason people pay us, pay our students $212,000 and the reason why kids pay us $300,000 in tuition over four years is that what we’re doing is we’re certifying.
0:10:18 The admissions process is so arduous.
0:10:19 We do credit checks.
0:10:22 And above, I said it’s so fucking exclusionary and rejectionist.
0:10:24 We do interviews.
0:10:29 It’s basically the higher ed is the outsourced HR department for the corporate world.
0:10:32 And that is we make sure the kids aren’t mentally ill.
0:10:34 We make sure the kids can play with others.
0:10:35 The kids have to do group projects.
0:10:41 The kids at NYU have to go to Barcelona for the semester and show that they can survive without their parents.
0:10:44 You know, that they can do basic math.
0:10:46 That they can show up for class wearing shoes.
0:10:51 You know, just all this shit that basically says, all right, this is an adult that will succeed in the corporate world.
0:10:58 And so the corporate world is willing to pay a 40, 50, 60% premium because of the incredible screening we’ve done.
0:11:03 And some higher ed’s primary value add has already happened by orientation.
0:11:05 Whew!
0:11:06 That was a mouthful.
0:11:08 Thanks for the question.
0:11:10 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
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0:14:46 Welcome back.
0:14:48 Our final question also comes from Reddit.
0:14:50 Mango279.
0:14:52 Mango279.
0:14:53 Jesus Christ.
0:14:57 Prof G, how are you feeling about your son leaving for college soon?
0:14:59 It’s tough.
0:15:00 It’s very strange.
0:15:07 It’s, on the one hand, my purpose for the first four years of my life was trying to get rich.
0:15:11 And so I could take care of myself, my mother, and be a baller.
0:15:12 That was my purpose.
0:15:13 I’m not proud of that, but that’s the honest truth.
0:15:18 My purpose the last 10 years, 15 years, is I want to raise good men.
0:15:28 And no matter where I am in the world, at the same time I call my kids, I spend a ton of garbage time or just like nonchalant time with my kids.
0:15:34 My kids are at the point where they’re kind of like, I don’t want to say they’re sick of hanging out with me, but I’m kind of always pretty available to them.
0:15:37 And I think they’ll remember that when they’re older.
0:15:39 I think they’ll remember what an effort I made.
0:15:42 And I try also really hard to model good behavior.
0:15:43 And sometimes I fail.
0:15:44 I get angry a lot.
0:15:49 Or, you know, I have to remember I’m their dad, not their friend.
0:15:53 I had this image that we would be great buddies and they’d be really into World War II history and CrossFit.
0:15:57 And what you find out is if you want to be a good dad, one, you’re not their friend, you’re their dad.
0:15:59 And you’ve got to do the hard work early on.
0:16:01 You’ve got to have the hard conversations.
0:16:02 You’ve got to say, this is unacceptable.
0:16:05 No, you’re not going out with your friends tonight because you were disrespectful to your mother.
0:16:07 You know, you’ve got to do the hard work early.
0:16:11 And some, you have to be an asshole such that they don’t grow up to be huge assholes.
0:16:13 So that is my purpose, is trying to be a good dad.
0:16:36 But I still feel this kind of, this weirdness, sadness, and not failure, but I always had this image that I would do all these amazing things with my kid that would be so instructional, so many life lessons.
0:16:38 And I feel like I kind of never got there.
0:16:56 Like, I wanted to, I wanted to build something with my kids, you know, renovate a car, or I wanted to have kind of these weekly things with my kids where we went over our family history, or I wanted to have a kindness practice, or, you know, and I feel like the most I’ve done is I managed to get through all eight seasons of Game of Thrones with them.
0:17:05 You know, it’s just, I felt like, I know I’m a good dad, but I felt like I really wanted to be a great dad, and I just never quite got there.
0:17:06 And now it’s too late.
0:17:16 Now my boys are just into their own things and their own friends, and I’ve missed my window of opportunity to kind of be the great dad that I was wanting to be.
0:17:28 So I feel a little bit of like, shame’s not the wrong word, but disappointment, that I spent so much time virtue signaling and talking about being a dad, and I feel like, I know I’m a good dad, but I feel like I missed the opportunity to be a great dad, and now it’s too late.
0:17:29 So I have that kind of pit of sadness.
0:17:36 And I don’t know how much of that is on a self-reflection, or just the fact that I’m prone to depression, and see everything as a glass half empty.
0:17:55 I’m excited about the idea of trying to get my kids to launch, to have my oldest leave the house healthy, happy, you know, I’ve got him working out, I know he likes himself, I know he feels loved, but I want to get my kids to launch.
0:17:56 That’s my purpose.
0:18:09 I want my kids to go into the world, secure, happy, like themselves, find interesting things, add value, love their country, find a mate, and I think we’re tracking to get them to launch.
0:18:10 So that feels good.
0:18:15 The really hard part is, I got talked into boarding school from my oldest.
0:18:18 I think it’s been really good for him.
0:18:20 It’s kind of been a fucking disaster for me.
0:18:24 I really hate not having my sons in the same house with me.
0:18:26 I have my youngest, but I don’t have my oldest.
0:18:34 And even if I didn’t see him that day, just knowing he was upstairs, just hearing him around, hearing him on the phone, gave me a lot of comfort.
0:18:41 And I feel as if I’m always a little bit lost when I’m home and both my sons aren’t home.
0:18:41 He comes home.
0:18:43 It was told to me that he would be home all weekend.
0:18:44 He’s not.
0:18:45 He’s home Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.
0:18:47 It was the right thing to do.
0:18:50 He’s a bit of a, not a loner, but he’s very confident.
0:18:53 And he loves boarding school.
0:18:54 He’s doing really well.
0:18:54 He’s thriving.
0:18:56 I can see him kind of evolving into a man.
0:18:59 So it was the right decision for him, but it’s, I don’t know.
0:19:00 And so it was the right, I should stop there.
0:19:01 It was the right decision.
0:19:08 But the idea, one of the reasons we’re moving back to the U.S., one, I’m so fucking freaked out about this slow burn into fascism.
0:19:14 I want to be back on the ground, but two, it looks as if my oldest is going to go to college in the U.S.
0:19:17 And I don’t want to be more than a kind of a two-hour plane ride.
0:19:23 I mean, talking about the dog wagging the tail here, I’m literally reconfiguring my life.
0:19:30 Not reconfiguring my life, but wherever I end up living, it’ll be somewhere that’s close enough such that my son can come home the weekend should he desire to.
0:19:34 But, yeah, I’m sad about it.
0:19:35 Is sad the wrong word?
0:19:37 A mix of pride, a mix of melancholy.
0:19:40 I mean, I can’t tell you.
0:19:42 It was literally just yesterday.
0:19:48 My son would come in and, like, crawl into bed with me and then pop up and say, Dad, let’s make a plan.
0:19:59 And then all of a sudden, he was this, like, tall, gangly 17-year-old, you know, who is nice to me but is, you know, definitely not that impressed with me and definitely doesn’t want to make a plan for the day with me.
0:20:01 I don’t know where or when.
0:20:03 It just goes, you know, they say this, it goes so fast.
0:20:06 It goes so crazy fast.
0:20:15 So, yeah, I’m a little bit, I feel good about his leaving the nest and he’s doing well, but there’s just no getting around it.
0:20:18 I’m really sad that this is it.
0:20:23 And I know that 90% of the time I’ve spent with my kids or my oldest has already happened.
0:20:27 So, yeah, I’m sad that my son is leaving for college.
0:20:31 That’s all for this episode.
0:20:36 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to OfficeHours at PropGmedia.com.
0:20:38 That’s OfficeHours at PropGmedia.com.
0:20:46 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.
0:20:53 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
0:20:55 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
0:20:58 Thank you for listening to the PropG pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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0:01:18 Megan Rapinoe.
0:01:18 Megan Rapinoe here.
0:01:28 This week on A Touch More, we’re talking all about the WNBA All-Star roster with ESPN analyst and former All-Star herself, Chanae Agumike.
0:01:32 She also tells us what she wants to see from the CBA negotiations.
0:01:37 Plus, I’m sharing some of the record-breaking updates from the Euros in Switzerland.
0:01:42 Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
0:01:49 I’m Scott Galloway, and this is No Mercy, No Malice.
0:01:58 What would a modern-day Gestapo with Wi-Fi and drones targeting people based on their identity, not their behavior, look like?
0:02:00 We know what it looks like.
0:02:01 It’s called ICE.
0:02:05 ICE Age, as read by George Han.
0:02:15 President Trump is no longer fighting inflation, China, or AI.
0:02:25 Instead, he’s declared war on a manufactured threat, the enemy within, immigrants, journalists, and professors.
0:02:31 Our biggest threat, apparently, isn’t Russian aggression or economic inequality.
0:02:34 It’s your Uber driver or anthropology professor.
0:02:41 This is not only cruel and depraved, but stupid.
0:02:50 As the chill being cast across the agriculture, services, and construction sectors will likely be more inflationary than the tariffs.
0:02:52 More stupidity.
0:02:58 Trump’s goal is to deport 4 million undocumented people over four years.
0:03:01 That’s about 3% of the U.S. workforce.
0:03:05 10 to 15% in several sectors dependent on immigrant labor.
0:03:11 The big, beautiful bill signed into law on July 4th isn’t about border security.
0:03:16 It’s a blueprint for mass detention and deportation.
0:03:20 A $75 billion hammer in search of a scapegoat.
0:03:32 Under the law, ICE gets funding that rivals the military budgets of Italy or Israel to build sites like the facility in the Everglades, nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz.
0:03:33 The goal?
0:03:35 Fear.
0:03:38 This isn’t law enforcement.
0:03:44 It’s authoritarian cosplay designed to scare the electorate and silence dissent.
0:03:53 Trump’s war doesn’t punish behavior, but identity, as immigrants from certain countries and ethnicities are targeted.
0:04:02 Federal agents in full tactical gear swept through a park in Latino-heavy L.A. this week just to make a point.
0:04:03 The mayor said,
0:04:04 The mayor said,
0:04:07 It’s the way a city looks before a coup.
0:04:09 Question.
0:04:14 What do stormtroopers, the KKK, and ICE have in common?
0:04:17 A mask.
0:04:21 ICE has become Trump’s personal Praetorian guard.
0:04:30 Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Vice President Harris’ running mate, was excoriated for comparing ICE to the Gestapo.
0:04:33 But spare us the bullshit indignation.
0:04:43 Masked agents in fatigues, raiding churches and schools, separating families is not modern America, but 1930s Europe.
0:04:45 Or is it?
0:04:55 In the 2026 fiscal year, ICE will receive over $11 billion, a 10% increase from current funding.
0:04:58 The new law will more than double that.
0:05:06 It authorizes the hiring of 10,000 agents, bringing ICE’s force to nearly 30,000.
0:05:17 In 1944, Nazi Germany had 32,000 Gestapo officers and $2 billion, inflation-adjusted, in funding.
0:05:20 They were fighting a world war.
0:05:24 Trump is fighting home health aides and Uber drivers.
0:05:30 ICE claims it’s targeting the worst of the worst.
0:05:39 But fewer than one-third of the record 59,000 immigrant detainees have been convicted of any crime.
0:05:40 The rest?
0:05:44 A. Immigrants who didn’t look like the typical Iowa voter.
0:05:49 Trump’s reach even extends to his political rivals.
0:05:58 He publicly questioned the citizenship of NYC mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani and his former first friend, Elon.
0:06:02 Mamdani has been a U.S. citizen since 2018.
0:06:03 Doesn’t matter.
0:06:07 Criminal now also means not for Trump.
0:06:18 The argument that immigrants are stealing jobs is a lie told by people who’ve never built a business or managed a P&L.
0:06:21 Immigrants create jobs.
0:06:25 They work jobs native-born Americans won’t touch.
0:06:29 They pay into Social Security but rarely collect.
0:06:33 Deporting them is an economic own goal.
0:06:40 The Cato Institute estimates the cost of mass deportations could eventually exceed $1 trillion.
0:06:51 The Peterson Institute projects a 1.2% drop in GDP if 1.3 million people are deported.
0:06:57 Growing to 7% if deportations hit $8 million.
0:07:02 That’s not policy but, see above, stupidity.
0:07:05 Hurting others while hurting yourself.
0:07:15 Instead of militarizing immigration enforcement, we should be investing against the real challenge.
0:07:16 AI.
0:07:25 The World Economic Forum says 9 million jobs globally may be displaced in the next five years.
0:07:32 Anthropics CEO warns AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.
0:07:39 Imagine the population of Greece storming the shores of America and taking jobs,
0:07:41 even jobs Americans actually want,
0:07:44 as they’re willing to work 24-7 for free.
0:07:47 You’ve already met them.
0:07:50 Their names are GPT, Claude, and Gemini.
0:07:53 Want to protect American workers?
0:07:55 Train.
0:07:56 Don’t terrorize.
0:08:02 Trump’s war on domestic enemies doesn’t stop with ICE.
0:08:05 He’s coming for the press and the Academy.
0:08:11 Disney, Meta, and Paramount have all settled nuisance lawsuits with Trump
0:08:13 for a combined total of about $60 million.
0:08:17 All the funds go to his presidential library,
0:08:20 where truth will go to be laundered, not learned.
0:08:24 Newsrooms are folding or playing defense.
0:08:27 Breaking with a long-standing tradition,
0:08:31 the White House is hand-picking press pool participants.
0:08:37 Harvard, once America’s aircraft carrier strike force of soft power,
0:08:39 is now a mega-speed bag.
0:08:42 Autocrats always come for universities,
0:08:45 which train people to ask questions.
0:08:50 The White House is threatening to defund billions in research,
0:08:53 choke off international student visas,
0:08:55 and criminalize campus dissent.
0:09:02 Nearly 300 top researchers have applied for scientific asylum.
0:09:04 In France!
0:09:07 In the 30s and 40s,
0:09:11 some of the world’s premier academics fled Europe for America.
0:09:13 They brought quantum theory,
0:09:14 chemotherapy,
0:09:15 modern computing,
0:09:17 and other breakthroughs with them.
0:09:19 Oh, including the bomb.
0:09:24 The rivers of elite human capital are now flowing in reverse,
0:09:26 and we’re sending the scholars back.
0:09:30 How can we be this fucking stupid?
0:09:35 This isn’t a slippery slope,
0:09:37 but a vertical drop.
0:09:40 Trump has Congress kneeling,
0:09:41 courts folding,
0:09:43 and corporations cashing in.
0:09:46 What’s left is us.
0:09:49 This was never just about immigrants,
0:09:50 professors,
0:09:51 or journalists.
0:09:54 It’s about unchecked power
0:09:55 that,
0:09:56 unchallenged,
0:09:58 is metastasizing.
0:10:02 Democracy doesn’t defend itself.
0:10:05 We won’t fight this with hashtags,
0:10:07 but with votes,
0:10:08 lawsuits,
0:10:10 and courage.
0:10:14 This is the moment we decide,
0:10:17 are we citizens of a republic,
0:10:21 or spectators to its collapse?
0:10:27 Life is so rich.

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0:00:17 There’s a lot nobody tells you about running a small business.
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0:00:28 and the things, and the things, and the non-stop things.
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0:00:48 Welcome to Office Hours with Prabhji.
0:00:51 This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship,
0:00:53 and whatever else is on your mind.
0:00:56 Just a reminder, you can now catch Office Hours every Monday and Friday.
0:00:58 That’s right, two episodes a week.
0:01:02 If you’d like to submit a question for next time, you can send a voice recording to
0:01:03 officehoursofproftgymedia.com.
0:01:06 Again, that’s officehoursofproftgymedia.com.
0:01:12 Or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit, and we just might feature it in our next episode.
0:01:13 First question.
0:01:19 Our first question comes from The Relevant Elephants on Reddit.
0:01:21 God, the best names in the world.
0:01:21 They ask,
0:01:26 Hey, Prop G, you said mandatory service could help the nation’s loneliness epidemic.
0:01:31 I volunteer at animal rescues in LA, and I’m literally the only man there.
0:01:34 I’ve asked on Reddit how to get more men involved, and the top answers were,
0:01:37 that’s a woman’s job, or I don’t have time.
0:01:39 I don’t buy that, and I don’t think you do either.
0:01:41 So how do we reach these men?
0:01:44 How do we convince them that volunteering is masculine and actually good for their social
0:01:45 lives, too?
0:01:47 First off, thanks for doing that.
0:01:52 I feel a little bit self-conscious, like lecturing about volunteering, because I give a lot of
0:01:54 money away, but I don’t give much of my time away.
0:01:58 I like to think that I’m generous with everything but my time, so occasionally I’ll do some volunteer
0:02:04 work or spend time with young men, but I don’t show up to food kitchens and shit like that,
0:02:05 and I should.
0:02:07 I just, I don’t know, lazy, selfish.
0:02:09 So I don’t want to lecture people about it.
0:02:16 What I would say is that I had Dan Harris on the pod, and he writes about anxiety and purpose.
0:02:17 Very thoughtful guy.
0:02:24 He has a really wonderful podcast called 10% Happier, and he, a couple things that he said
0:02:26 really stuck with me is that, one, action absorbs anxiety.
0:02:31 If you are, I have someone in my life right now that has, like, crazy tooth pain and is worried
0:02:36 at something with her head, had a head injury, and I’m like, okay, let’s get you in to see
0:02:42 a neurologist, like, tonight or tomorrow morning, and a dentist, like, and immediately she felt
0:02:44 better because action absorbs anxiety.
0:02:47 If you’re worried about something, just immediately move to action to try to address it.
0:02:48 And you’re going to feel better.
0:02:55 Also, the other thing you said that a great way to sort of practice to sort of help you
0:02:57 get out of a funk or depression is to help others.
0:03:00 And that is, it gives you a sense of purpose.
0:03:05 You get out, you meet other people, makes you feel important, makes you feel masculine.
0:03:11 I think that if you’re feeling down, getting out of your own head and start focusing on service,
0:03:16 helping others, I think is a great way to kind of address maybe if you’re feeling a little
0:03:17 bit down or a little bit depressed.
0:03:20 So I think volunteer work is an outstanding idea.
0:03:25 In terms of how to get more people to volunteer at dog shelters, you know, I don’t know, go
0:03:27 on your social media feed and show all the cool dogs.
0:03:29 And it’s funny you say that.
0:03:34 I spoke at a conference in Palm Beach about three months ago.
0:03:37 And we were talking, I was talking about mating and the dynamics of mating.
0:03:41 And he came up to me and he was this shorter guy, like not unattractive, but not attractive.
0:03:44 Like not the kind of guy I would think would do well on dating apps.
0:03:49 And he said that he met his wife at a dog shelter and that his wife, he claims is much higher
0:03:50 character and much hotter than him.
0:03:56 But she was really drawn to him because of his kindness and his service, which I thought
0:03:57 was actually pretty interesting.
0:04:00 I do think, I’m trying to think how you appeal to dudes here.
0:04:02 I do think it’s probably a really good way to meet friends.
0:04:06 And also it’s just a great rap at a bar.
0:04:10 You know, well, when I was volunteering down at the, when Bosco, the rescue dog who I was
0:04:15 saving from the kill shelter down at the animal shelter I volunteer at.
0:04:17 Anyways, I think it’s probably a great way to meet friends.
0:04:24 And I would say social media and these accounts, these rescue shelters having accounts and
0:04:28 opportunities or calls to attention around opportunities to volunteer.
0:04:35 And again, just more broadly, I think that a fantastic way to address mild depression or
0:04:39 if you’re feeling down is to get out of your own head and start serving in the agency
0:04:39 of others.
0:04:41 Thanks for your good work.
0:04:45 Our second question comes from RedLegs05 on Reddit.
0:04:50 They ask, Prop G, you joke about being a narcissist.
0:04:53 I think most of us raised on social media are, but we rarely talk about it.
0:04:56 Maybe because if we’re not successful, it just feels shameful.
0:05:00 So how do you think narcissism fuels achievement or results from it?
0:05:03 And would you ever delete your social accounts other than Twitter?
0:05:04 You call them toxic.
0:05:08 What’s stopping you from actually logging off and signaling some virtue while you’re at it?
0:05:09 That’s an interesting question.
0:05:14 So a narcissist, I think, is someone who thinks, you know, looks out the window and sees himself
0:05:20 to an extent where they lack empathy and they can even become somewhat sociopathic because
0:05:22 everything is just about them.
0:05:29 they don’t really make much of an effort or think, look through the lens of other people’s emotions or success.
0:05:36 And I think I suffer from some of it, but I think even if someone states they’re a narcissist, it probably means they aren’t.
0:05:54 And one thing that has having kids, working with people, having had some adversity in my life, having friends from different economic backgrounds, going to a public school where there are people from all different ethnicities and economic backgrounds.
0:05:57 So I think you’re more inclined to become less of a narcissist, is that true?
0:05:59 What’s the opposite of narcissism, empathy?
0:06:00 I don’t know.
0:06:13 But I think that some of the self-absorption, I feel, or vanity are also embers such that I want to be more successful.
0:06:21 The affirmation or the approval of others in being impressive in other people’s eyes is definitely a motivating force for me.
0:06:25 And I think it’s interesting to look at what motivates you around things.
0:06:33 And my primary objective or purpose the first 40 years of my life was economic security, which is Latin for get more money.
0:06:35 And why is that?
0:06:43 One, in a capitalist society, all the signals are trying to encourage you to make more money and be more productive such that you’ll go out and buy more Chipotle
0:06:45 and go to Disney World and fuel the economy.
0:06:50 So every signal is, all right, how do you aggregate more money, more power?
0:06:53 Well, if you aggregate more money and power, your kids are going to have more opportunity.
0:06:56 You’re going to be, men are going to laugh at your jokes.
0:06:58 Women are going to want to have sex with you.
0:07:01 I mean, all of these things are pretty strong motivators in a capitalist society.
0:07:04 And so I very much bought into that.
0:07:09 And also in a capitalist society, you get to take care of your own when you have money.
0:07:12 And my biggest source of stress growing up and even into my 30s and 40s with kids,
0:07:18 was feeling like I was economically vulnerable, whether it was investing in companies that were going poorly
0:07:26 and worrying that I was failing my children or really my first sort of fear and anxiety around money when I was a kid
0:07:29 because me and my mom didn’t have enough, but the real fear set in when my mom got very sick.
0:07:37 And I felt those natural masculine protective instincts to try and take care of my mom.
0:07:44 And it was very hard and humiliating because I wasn’t able to do it at the level that I expected for myself.
0:07:48 And so I figured out pretty fucking early, okay, money matters a lot.
0:07:52 And I became very focused and that was my purpose.
0:08:01 But as I got older, wanting to be loved, wanting to impress people, wanting to have relevance, all of that.
0:08:01 I mean, that’s a form.
0:08:02 Is that a form?
0:08:04 I think that’s more vanity than narcissism.
0:08:06 But those things are very motivating.
0:08:14 And I have thought somewhat to your second part of your question, I thought at some point, I’m just going to go dark off of social media.
0:08:15 This is just so fucking stupid.
0:08:17 And I’m addicted.
0:08:19 I don’t have an addictive personality.
0:08:20 I drink a lot of alcohol.
0:08:22 I don’t do a lot of drugs.
0:08:25 I do some THC, but I don’t think I’m addicted to any of it.
0:08:29 I’m one of the 95% of people who manage their substance and their professional and personal lives fairly well.
0:08:34 Where I do have an addiction is I’m addicted to the affirmation of others.
0:08:38 I care too much about people who I will never meet or their opinion of me.
0:08:42 And sometimes it gets in the way of what really matters.
0:08:47 And that is the affirmation, love, empathy, and care of people who are close to me.
0:08:48 You know, I work.
0:08:54 I will trade off personal time for work because I want to impress people and I want to make more money.
0:08:56 And then I do slow down and think, what the fuck am I doing?
0:08:59 Here’s a nice thing about money.
0:09:00 God, I’m going off script here.
0:09:01 There’s three buckets.
0:09:03 There’s things you want to do.
0:09:10 I want to hang out with my kids and go to, you know, the, you know, the Arsenal game or Chelsea game or Spurs.
0:09:11 We’re a house divided.
0:09:13 How the fuck did we end up with three teams?
0:09:16 Anyways, there’s things you have to do, right?
0:09:17 Jim Bancop is going to be a can.
0:09:21 He’ll want to, he’s, he’s the CEO of Vox who distributes our podcast.
0:09:22 He wants to get together.
0:09:23 I have to do that.
0:09:24 And I say have to do that.
0:09:25 I also want to.
0:09:25 I like Jim.
0:09:26 He’s actually a reasonably nice guy.
0:09:28 And there’s things you should do.
0:09:34 I’ve been invited to all this shit at can that will be a bunch of people and it’d be good networking and good for my business.
0:09:38 And I’m like, the great thing about having money is you can eliminate the should bucket.
0:09:39 I no longer do shit.
0:09:41 I should no longer do shit.
0:09:41 I should.
0:09:42 Oh my God.
0:09:42 Isn’t that nice?
0:09:56 I do think though, that at some point I would like to go dark and just hang out with friends and maybe get involved in, I don’t know, trying to add more value on the nonprofit side.
0:10:00 Maybe write more, hang out somewhere beautiful and just wait for the ask answer.
0:10:08 This whole social media thing, it definitely, after I do a lot of it and it’s so important, you’ve got to be on social if you want to market your product, have relevance.
0:10:09 I get it.
0:10:15 But at some point I’m going to, you know, every time I spend more than a few hours on social media, I feel like I need to shower.
0:10:17 It’s like eating a big bag of Skittles.
0:10:18 You’re like, oh God, is that a good idea?
0:10:24 So, yeah, at some point I will, but right now I’m still desperate for your affirmation.
0:10:26 Thanks for the question.
0:10:28 We’ll be right back after a quick break.
0:10:37 Support for the show comes from Upway.
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0:11:38 Support for the show comes from LinkedIn.
0:11:41 One of the hardest parts about moving to a new city is finding your people.
0:11:45 You can look far and wide, but it’s hard to find the people who just get you.
0:11:47 And the same goes for you to be marketers.
0:11:53 Locating the right people who align with your business and an audience that connects with your product and your mission can make all the difference.
0:12:00 But instead of spending hours and hours scavenging social media feeds, you can just tap LinkedIn ads to reach the right professionals.
0:12:06 According to LinkedIn, they have grown to a network of over a billion professionals, making it stand apart from other ad buys.
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0:12:42 Can’t stop, won’t stop, get guap, 10 white toes and then Tori flip-flops.
0:12:51 This week on Net Worth and Chill, I’m joined by Saweetie, the Grammy-nominated recording artist and entrepreneur who’s turned her hustle into an empire worth millions.
0:12:57 From attending USC to pursuing music to securing major deals with McDonald’s and Matt Cosmetics,
0:13:03 Saweetie breaks down how she transformed her icy girl persona into cold, hard cash.
0:13:07 A money goal is to have passive income in the millions.
0:13:12 Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash yourrichbff.
0:13:18 Welcome back to our final question from Tana on Reddit.
0:13:24 Hey, Scott, I was laid off from my job three months ago and I’m having a lot of trouble finding a new job.
0:13:25 I work in tech as a product manager.
0:13:30 It seems like a lot of white-collar workers are also having trouble in the current job market, especially in tech.
0:13:34 What would you suggest are the best ways to go about regaining employment these days?
0:13:35 Thanks in advance.
0:13:37 I don’t think there’s a silver bullet here.
0:13:45 The one thing I would correlate with a job search that sometimes people don’t necessarily correlate with is,
0:13:49 one, it’s okay to be vulnerable.
0:13:59 I think especially men put up this front of, oh, yeah, I decided I didn’t like them and I left and I’m fielding other offers when the reality is I got laid off and I really need help.
0:14:01 Do you have any idea of anyone who’s looking for a job?
0:14:07 And I mean, you don’t want to come across as desperate, but it’s okay to be, yeah, got laid off, looking for a job.
0:14:09 Let me know if you know of any opportunities.
0:14:09 Here’s my CV.
0:14:11 This is the kind of role I’m looking for.
0:14:24 And I think it’s okay to call people you’re close with and say, if you have any ideas or to call and say, what I tell people are looking for a job I’m close with, I’m probably, there’s probably opportunities in my universe that I’m not thinking of.
0:14:32 If you want to meet someone at X company or you think, I had a friend of mine who is the chief revenue officer of a well-known tech company, but it’s not working out.
0:14:32 He doesn’t like it.
0:14:35 Call me and say, do you know anyone at Reddit?
0:14:36 There’s a job there.
0:14:39 And he forwarded me the job description and it ends up, I do know someone at Reddit.
0:14:43 So, one, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
0:14:46 Two, every day, just a list of shit you’re going to do.
0:14:50 Send out this many emails, go on LinkedIn, contact this many people.
0:14:56 Success in anything is a small series of disciplined efforts every day, right?
0:15:05 Working out every day, cutting back your food intake a little bit every day, sending nice messages to people every day, showing you care, saving a little bit of money every day.
0:15:10 That is what success is, small acts of discipline every day.
0:15:14 So, every day, before you go to bed or in the morning, write up a list, do certain shit.
0:15:24 Now, here’s the thing I find that’s most interesting about the job search dynamic is that I love that study that came out of Google that when they post a job opening, they get immediately at 100 applications.
0:15:26 They shut it down 20 minutes later or take it down.
0:15:28 They invite in the 20 most qualified people.
0:15:40 And then 70% of the time, the person they ultimately end up making the offer to is someone who had an internal advocate, someone who already worked at Google, who said, I know Lisa and she’s fantastic.
0:15:49 And just trust me on this, because here’s the thing, most hiring managers have figured out, interviews are fucking useless, literally fucking useless, or at least they are for me.
0:15:51 I mean, occasionally someone comes in and you’re like, no way.
0:15:54 And occasionally someone comes in and blows your socks off and think we should try and find a way to hire this person.
0:16:00 But anyways, I find the 80% in the middle just doesn’t work.
0:16:04 I’ve been fooled a lot in interviews, both of the upside and the downside.
0:16:06 So it’s about reference hiring.
0:16:14 If someone calls me, Ed Elson, who’s the co-host of Prop G Markets, my friend Joanna Coles, called me and said, you must hire this young man.
0:16:15 And I’m like, to do what?
0:16:17 And she’s like, it doesn’t matter.
0:16:24 And she’s like, literally, I called him and said, I don’t know who you are, but I’ve been told to hire you by someone I trust.
0:16:25 So I hired him and she was right.
0:16:26 He’s great.
0:16:32 So the key when you’re hunting for a job in general is to be as social as possible.
0:16:33 Go out.
0:16:40 Go out, meet as many people as possible, have fun, contact people, make as many contacts as possible and let people know that you’re looking.
0:16:46 And it’s in some, the most popular kids in high school aren’t the best looking, the smartest or the best athletes.
0:16:49 They’re the ones that like the most other people.
0:16:53 So to a certain extent, networking and looking for a job is a popularity contest.
0:16:58 And how do you become most popular and put yourself in a room of opportunities, even when you’re not physically in it?
0:17:00 You like as many other people as possible.
0:17:02 You’re as social as possible.
0:17:05 So one, a series of small disciplined acts every day.
0:17:12 Two, don’t be afraid and let your ego get in the way of calling out or calling people and reaching out and asking you for help.
0:17:16 And three, be as social as possible and let people know that you’re looking for a job.
0:17:18 Anyways, best of luck to you.
0:17:18 Thanks for the question.
0:17:22 That’s all for this episode.
0:17:27 If you’d like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at propgmedia.com.
0:17:29 That’s officehours at propgmedia.com.
0:17:37 Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.
0:17:44 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez.
0:17:46 Drew Burrows is our technical director.
0:17:49 Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:17:56 We’ll see you next time.
0:17:57 We’ll see you next time.