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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds, and President Biden ordered the US to

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Speaker 1: share evidence of Russian war crimes with the Hague. We

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Speaker 1: have a great show today. The Washington Post. Will Sommer

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Speaker 1: joins us to talk ron DeSantis staffers sharing Nazi imagery

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Speaker 1: in a pro DeSantis post. And then we'll talk to

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Speaker 1: Vanity Fairs Nick Bilton about the disastrous Twitter rebrand. But

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Speaker 1: first we have Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Welcome back

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Speaker 1: to Fast Politics. Dana Milbank.

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Speaker 2: Great to be with you, Mollie.

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Speaker 1: Delighted to have you. I think of this GOP Congress

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Speaker 1: as doing the work for Democrats in a way, that is,

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Speaker 1: they are literally every day cutting ads for Democrats.

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Speaker 2: It's really considerate. I mean, can they make a contribution

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Speaker 2: in kind to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But you'll

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Speaker 2: think about it. We've got we just had really good,

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Speaker 2: better than expected GDP members. Inflation is down, the stock

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Speaker 2: markets higher than it's been since twenty twenty one. Order

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Speaker 2: crossings are down, like things kind of look good.

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Speaker 1: And the economy and the numbers they are economic growth

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Speaker 1: two percent.

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Speaker 2: It's all looks pretty good. So what are the House

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Speaker 2: Republicans going to do? Well? First of all, they're going

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Speaker 2: to make sure we shut down the government. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 2: fall as of September thirtieth. And then, you know, because

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Speaker 2: a lot of people will be you know, furloughed and

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Speaker 2: won't have anything to do. All the government to shut down,

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Speaker 2: they will have the entertainment of impeaching President Biden on

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Speaker 2: yet to be determined charges. Yeah, so they're forcing votes

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Speaker 2: on impeachment. They're seemingly headed towards this inevitable shutdown where

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Speaker 2: they're opposing not just the Democrats, and they're opposing the

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Speaker 2: Republicans in the Senate who are actually trying to increase

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Speaker 2: a military spending. But I mean, they just reached you know,

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Speaker 2: it wasn't even like two months ago where you know,

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Speaker 2: this big bipartisan depth ceiling bill, and they've already saying, no,

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Speaker 2: we're going to renege on that. We're going to cut

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Speaker 2: an additional two hundred billion dollars and we're going to

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Speaker 2: and we're going to laidle on all of these poison pills,

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Speaker 2: you know, restricting abortions, LGBTQ rights, anything, that has the

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Speaker 2: word diversity in it. It's kind of a circus. And

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Speaker 2: then of course they've just proven that there are alien

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Speaker 2: life forms that are here on Earth.

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Speaker 1: We're going to get to aliens in a minute, but.

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Speaker 2: First I want to tell myself I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: I know, really, first we got to talk about like

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Speaker 1: all of the other weird hearings they've had over the

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Speaker 1: last couple of weeks, besides numerous hearings on gas stoves.

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Speaker 1: This is what happens when Rupert Murdoch is the speaker

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Speaker 1: of the house, really is that you just start Everything

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Speaker 1: you produce is like that. So, I mean, we had

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Speaker 1: gas stoves, we had irs whistleblower, which may or may

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Speaker 1: not have ultimately been he was just confused.

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Speaker 2: It sounded a little bit like that. I mean, there

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Speaker 2: were well, there were two whistleblowers, but of course the

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Speaker 2: one whistleblower worked together a whistleblower, so essentially they were

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Speaker 2: one whistle blower there. And yes, what that emerged to

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Speaker 2: be was, you know, they disagreed with what the conclusions

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Speaker 2: of the prosecutor came up with, which apparently happened in

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Speaker 2: ninety percent of the cases that this guy was involved in.

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Speaker 2: So you know, look, I mean, as we saw it

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Speaker 2: in the Botch Plea hearing this week, the auntor Biden

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Speaker 2: case is really messy. You know, he did a lot

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Speaker 2: of crap and it's really kind of sleazy, and you know,

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Speaker 2: I mean the relagents have also they've exposed, if you will,

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Speaker 2: that members of the Biden family have made money over

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Speaker 2: to the years. What they haven't done, is one of

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Speaker 2: the guys on the houseovers A Committee rather candidly admitted

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Speaker 2: last week, is they have not produced any evidence that

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Speaker 2: Joe Biden was involved in the abyss right right right,

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Speaker 2: which you think would be a rather key element if

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Speaker 2: you are in fact planning to impeach the president of

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Speaker 2: the United States. But they're so far, you know, sort

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Speaker 2: of plunging towards that they're going to call it an

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Speaker 2: impeachment investigation, which leads to an impeachment inquiry, which then

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Speaker 2: leads to impeachment. They're hoping at some point along the

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Speaker 2: way they will be able to produce some actual evidence

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Speaker 2: of that. Your constructor that Rupert Murdoch is a speaker

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Speaker 2: of asked, I suppose that's right, you know, I think

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Speaker 2: it's more typically Matt Gage and Marjorie Taylor Green in

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Speaker 2: essence the Freedom Caucus. But of course they're also taking

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Speaker 2: their marching orders from Fox. But you know, they say,

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Speaker 2: we're going to shut down the government, while McCarthy has

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Speaker 2: no choice. We're going to shut down the government. They

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Speaker 2: clamor for impeachment, while McCarthy kind of has to go

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Speaker 2: along with it because he's out of a job if

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Speaker 2: he says no to them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean exactly, and he has. Remember, I think

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Speaker 1: an important data point here is that there is this

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Speaker 1: one person motion to vacate. So one person, be it

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Speaker 1: Marjorie Tailer Green who happens to be at least temporarily

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Speaker 1: aligned with McCarthy, or Matt Gates who has been for

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Speaker 1: a long time not aligned with McCarthy. Just one of

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Speaker 1: those people could make a motion to vacate and have

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Speaker 1: put into works a new speakership.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. I'm not hearing a lot of noise

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Speaker 2: about that. But they could do something well short of that,

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Speaker 2: they could still grind the whole place to a whole.

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Speaker 2: So this week they said, look, we're going to insist

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Speaker 2: on this extortion of getting cutting another two hundred billion

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Speaker 2: beyond what everybody just agreed to for twenty twenty four

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Speaker 2: spending levels, and if Speaker McCarthy does not agree to

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Speaker 2: our ransom demands, well we're going to oppose the rule.

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Speaker 2: We're going to not allow these appropriations bills to come

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Speaker 2: to the floor. And they only need five members of

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Speaker 2: the Freedom Caucus to do that, and they brought the

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Speaker 2: entire House to a hole. There can be no passage

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Speaker 2: of spending bills or anything else without that. So in

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Speaker 2: a way, they don't even need it to pose McCarthy.

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Speaker 2: They can just make the House completely effective and essentially

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Speaker 2: just shut it down with just five of their boats.

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Speaker 2: And there's clearly more than five who were very happy

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Speaker 2: to gum up the works.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just incredible stuff. So let's talk about

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Speaker 1: what it looks like with these hearings. So we had

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Speaker 1: the RS. Now I will let you talk about UFOs.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's very important. I mean, you can only have

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Speaker 2: so many hearings on transgender Americans. I think we have

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Speaker 2: a few more today, and I think there have been

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Speaker 2: three hearings this week on the border crisis, even though

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Speaker 2: the actual border crossings are down considerably. But yeah, so

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Speaker 2: the House Oversight can be brought in. Guy says he's

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Speaker 2: a whistleblower. He worked in the Defense intelligence and he

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Speaker 2: has said the most extraordinary things that the United States

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Speaker 2: is in possession of alien spacecraft that either are extraterrestrial

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Speaker 2: or cane from another dimension, That there are alien non

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Speaker 2: human life form pilots, that the United States actually has

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Speaker 2: the remains where warehousing these apparently one of them a

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Speaker 2: defense contractor one of these spaceships came from Mussolini in

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Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three in the United States at the time

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Speaker 2: got a tip from Pope Pious and was able to

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Speaker 2: intercept that spaceship from the Italians. So okay. So either

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Speaker 2: this guy has just blown the lid off the biggest

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Speaker 2: scandal in the history of the universe, and somehow everybody

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Speaker 2: Democrat and Republican has kept it secret for one hundred years,

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Speaker 2: or there's some kind of you know, wacky business going

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Speaker 2: on here. I'm agnostic. It could go either way, but

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Speaker 2: it's noteworthy that House Republicans in particular, we're giving this,

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Speaker 2: you know, taking this guy's word as gospel. It's just

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Speaker 2: more evidence of the deep state. So the deep state

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Speaker 2: is now covering up alien life form. So it's like

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Speaker 2: the anti government antipathy has gone intergalact, Like, there's nothing

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Speaker 2: that the deep State will not do to deceive and

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Speaker 2: lie to the American people.

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Speaker 1: So let's just talk about this for a second, because

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Speaker 1: I think there is a really interesting question about conspiracy theories,

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Speaker 1: and I want to talk about it for a minute

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Speaker 1: because we are in a period right now where there

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Speaker 1: is one political party that is really ruled by a

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist, Donald Trump. I mean, this is a guy

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Speaker 1: who really does come from the world of you know,

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Speaker 1: Obama was born in Africa. Again, you know, with Trump,

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Speaker 1: there's always a question of does he really believe it

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Speaker 1: or does he believe it because it helps his career, right,

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Speaker 1: we don't know and it doesn't necessarily matter, but he

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Speaker 1: has certainly created a culture. And now we have Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk On's Twitter, and Elon Musk believes that vaccines give

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Speaker 1: you mayocardia, which even myocarditis, even though we know that

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Speaker 1: that's not right and yes there's a small percentage, but

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Speaker 1: you know whatever, So I just wonder, are we worse

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Speaker 1: than we were in the nineteen sev because remember my parents, fully,

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Speaker 1: I mean my parents definitely did not believe that there

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Speaker 1: was only one shooter who killed JFK.

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Speaker 2: Well, look, there have always been conspiracy theories in a

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Speaker 2: segment of the American public that believed it. The difference

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Speaker 2: now is people in the highest levels of government, during

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Speaker 2: the Congress or during the Trump administration are saying, you're

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Speaker 2: totally right to think these things, you know, bringing RFK

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Speaker 2: Junior into you know, speak to the Weaponization Committee. I mean,

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Speaker 2: this is a guy who says that Wi Fi causes

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Speaker 2: leaky brain syndrome.

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Speaker 1: Yes, he also believes that chemicals in the water are

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Speaker 1: turning the kids trans.

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Speaker 2: Right, which fits neatly with all the transgender investigations that

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Speaker 2: are underway. You know, the difference is people are saying

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Speaker 2: in a high level people, you know, opinion leaders are

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Speaker 2: saying it's legitimate to think this stuff. That's that's the

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Speaker 2: real difference.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: Now some of it's really sinister, like that great replacement

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Speaker 2: theory that's you know, white nationalism right there. You know,

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Speaker 2: the up with the aliens. I mean, I suppose if

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Speaker 2: you're going to embrace every conspiracy theory it comes along,

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Speaker 2: eventually you wind up with Area fifty one and Roswell, which,

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Speaker 2: by the way, this guy says was totally illegit Alien

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Speaker 2: landing in Roswell totally legit.

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Speaker 1: Did Mussolini factor into that, don't know.

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Speaker 2: It's classified, Molly, so I can't really reveal that. But

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Speaker 2: it was the Air Force debunking of Roswell that was

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Speaker 2: a total hack job. That's the actual quote there. So,

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Speaker 2: I mean, this is old school, this is actually the

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Speaker 2: tinfoil hat stuff. But you know, if you're going to

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Speaker 2: go with replacement theory, if you're gonna go with RFK

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Speaker 2: Junior conspiracy theory, if you've got to say elections are

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Speaker 2: still on, well, of course eventually you wind up with

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Speaker 2: the aliens are among us, and in fact they're malevolent

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Speaker 2: actors who are doing bad things to us.

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Speaker 1: One of the things I think is interesting about RFK Junior.

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Speaker 1: I think, and again can't speak to wads in people's heads,

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Speaker 1: but it certainly seems in my mind that these Republicans

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Speaker 1: are trying to elevate RFK Junior because they know that

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not growing the electorate so their guy,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, certainly some of them believe that

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Speaker 1: Trump won in twenty twenty and so when he runs again,

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Speaker 1: who went in twenty twenty four. But there are certainly

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Speaker 1: got to be a few people on Earth one here

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Speaker 1: who are like, you know, this guy is not growing

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Speaker 1: the electorate. And when he gets up there for an

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Speaker 1: hour and a half talking about how unfair it is,

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Speaker 1: this is not going to speak to swing voters in Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: And so I wonder how much of what's happening here

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Speaker 1: is these people in the Republican Party trying to elevate

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Speaker 1: other candidates in the hopes of hurting Biden.

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Speaker 2: Maybe that's happening, you know, I think that maybe giving

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Speaker 2: a little too much credit and thought process what's actually

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Speaker 2: happening here. I don't think there's a whole lot of

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Speaker 2: thought process involved. I think, you know, every individual member

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Speaker 2: is reck recognizing that, you know, the way to get

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Speaker 2: ahead individually is to be, as Tom Massey once said,

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Speaker 2: the craziest sat of a bitch out there. That will

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Speaker 2: get you that you'll go viral with that, You'll get

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Speaker 2: your Fox News audience with that, and that will give

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Speaker 2: you power, that will give you leverage with the leadership.

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Speaker 2: It's also, you know, assures that you will not be

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Speaker 2: out of stet with Donald Trump, because that could be

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Speaker 2: ruinous to your career. So I think a lot of

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Speaker 2: it's self preservation and as you know, there's no way

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Speaker 2: to really know how many people actually believe the crazy

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Speaker 2: stuff and how many are just going along with it.

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Speaker 2: I think it's probably one third, two thirds or something.

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Speaker 2: But it's a distinction without a difference because they're saying

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Speaker 2: the same thing. But it's selfish, it's self preservation, and

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Speaker 2: I don't think there's a whole lot of strategicy going on.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that is the thing that always shocks me,

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Speaker 1: is how little anyone in Congress is really thinking about stuff.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about Mitch McConnell for a second. Really, yesterday

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Speaker 1: he had this freeze. We don't know what it was,

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Speaker 1: it really was. I mean I have to say, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I do not align politically with Mitch McConnell,

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Speaker 1: but I have incredible respect for that guy because he's

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Speaker 1: a fucking killer. He has stolen three Supreme Court seats.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the man isn't at like the Republicans would

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Speaker 1: be nowhere without Mitch mcconnald. They really would be nowhere

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Speaker 1: as payment they have just been. You know, they basically,

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Speaker 1: you know, the trumpets have been so mean to him,

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Speaker 1: which is fine, I mean, good for them, but he

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Speaker 1: did have this phrase I mean, talk to me.

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Speaker 2: He has been remarkably and ruthlessly effective, and you know,

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Speaker 2: I think he deserves a lot of the blame for

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Speaker 2: the mess working. I mean, he made Yeah he's no

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Speaker 2: fan of Trump, but he made Trump possible. Is you

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Speaker 2: know his in twenty sixteen sort of a deal with

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Speaker 2: the devil saying okay, we got to windors, this guy

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Speaker 2: got to get our big donors behind him. Had it

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Speaker 2: not been for Mitch McConnell's at acquiescence, I don't think

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Speaker 2: we would have had a Donald Try Trump. And sure

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Speaker 2: he has stood up against him from time to time,

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Speaker 2: but you know, like notably not when you know, in

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Speaker 2: crucial moments like after January sixth he spoke out against him,

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Speaker 2: but then opposed uh conviction on the impeachment charges. So

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Speaker 2: but look, I mean, you know, compared to Rick Scott

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Speaker 2: or whoever the alternative would be, I mean, McConnell is

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Speaker 2: certainly a force for good, you know, all relatively speaking.

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Speaker 2: But we are at the point where Mitch McConnell, you know,

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Speaker 2: may well be the voice at reason. So I mean,

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Speaker 2: certainly on it just on the basic human level, you

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Speaker 2: don't want to see that happen to anybody in public

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Speaker 2: or anywhere else. Also, he is you know, one of

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Speaker 2: the very few. You know, I hesit to say hesitate

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Speaker 2: to say moderating forces, but given given where things have gone,

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Speaker 2: he is relatively moderate compared to you know, certainly what

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Speaker 2: we're seeing in the house. You know, he dares to say, well,

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Speaker 2: maybe it's not such a great idea to you know,

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Speaker 2: plunge ahead with impeachment. So you know, I would wish

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Speaker 2: him health, right, I.

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Speaker 1: Mean, he's a traditionalist who has also caused the incredible

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Speaker 1: fuckery that we are in back to sort of the

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Speaker 1: like you know landscape right now. I think September is

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Speaker 1: going to be a shit show with the potential shutdown.

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Speaker 1: They have a few more days now. Trump wants McCarthy

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Speaker 1: unless McCarthy can somehow manage not to have this happen,

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Speaker 1: to expunge the impeachment. Talk to me about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as you know, it's sort of meaningless. It's trying.

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Speaker 2: It's saying that this thing, that this actual historical event

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Speaker 2: did not occur. It's based on an expunge censure. I

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Speaker 2: guess you know Andrew Jackson to see the extent it's

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Speaker 2: based on anything, you know, it has no practical effect.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we were around, we know what happened during

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Speaker 2: the Trump years. You know what it does do is

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Speaker 2: it will force Republicans, including the ten or so as

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Speaker 2: Republicans who are in Biden One district, to go on

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Speaker 2: record essentially defending Trump in January sixth and everything else

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Speaker 2: for no real purpose other than, you know, Kevin McCarthy

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Speaker 2: antagonized Donald Trump by initially failing to endorse his presidential bit.

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Speaker 2: So now everybody's got to pay the price and go

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Speaker 2: through this expungement. I mean it's you know, fairly revealing

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Speaker 2: that it's came from. Yeah, it came from Marjorie Taylor Green,

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Speaker 2: but also from a least to fanic, you know, a

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Speaker 2: member of leaderships. So just like with the actual with

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Speaker 2: the Biden impeachment, with the seemingly inevitable shutdown, it's just,

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Speaker 2: you know, another way in which the Republicans are going

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Speaker 2: to have to walk the plank because Kevin McCarthy is

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Speaker 2: a leader in name old and he cannot protect his members.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable. Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: It has been a great pleasure. I hope you enjoy

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Speaker 2: your vacation, and more.

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Speaker 1: Importantly, do not forget to follow Dana on threads.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Molly, I aspired to keep up with you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what's your name on there?

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Speaker 2: It's Dana dot Millbank.

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Speaker 1: Dana dot Milbank on threads. Go now. Will Sohmer is

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Speaker 1: a media reporter at The Washington Post. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: Fast Politics. I am delighted to have with us today

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Speaker 1: someone I have known from the very beginning, A Daily

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Speaker 1: Beast alumnus. Are you an alumnus alumni, A superstar, A

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Speaker 1: friend of mine, A very good friend of Jesse. Is

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Speaker 1: the great Will Sommer.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: I'm just delighted. So, you know, I was thinking because

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Speaker 1: Jesse and I, you know, we're always booking this show

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Speaker 1: because that's all we do. And we were like, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of really fucked up shit going on on

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Speaker 1: the internet right now, and who can we talk to

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Speaker 1: you about fucked up shit on the internet. And I

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Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, Will so is the man

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Speaker 1: for this. I do want to also talk to you

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Speaker 1: about what happened to X a little bit. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: not on the technology side, but on the sort of

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Speaker 1: like vibes side. But I first, so let's first talk

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Speaker 1: about the vibes over at X for those of you

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Speaker 1: who are not terminally online like you and I. X

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Speaker 1: is the company formally known as Twitter.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and so this is you know, just a few

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Speaker 3: days ago Elon Musk said, okay, time to say goodbye

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Speaker 3: to the bird. We're all transitioning. And it's like wait

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Speaker 3: what oh time we knew the time had to come.

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Speaker 3: We got to grow up and put the bird away.

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Speaker 3: And now Twitter is going to become X and the

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Speaker 3: backstore here is that. For decades, Elon Musk has wanted

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Speaker 3: to call a company X, and so we know when

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Speaker 3: he was at PayPal, he wanted to change it to

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Speaker 3: PayPal and they were like, no, people know the name PayPal.

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Speaker 3: They're using it as a verb. You know, we have

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Speaker 3: this great recognition. Why would we call it X. And

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Speaker 3: apparently his reason is it's cool. It's the coolest letter.

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Speaker 3: And so now he owns the company, now he owns Twitter,

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Speaker 3: and so he can do it. It is truly, I

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Speaker 3: think I think we've seen so many baffling moves sreen

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Speaker 3: lawn munks, but I think this might be the most baffling.

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Speaker 1: I always am a little interested in motivation. Do you

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Speaker 1: think this is because no one has ever told again

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Speaker 1: more Monday Morning quarterbacking. We don't know what goes on

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Speaker 1: in Elon Mus's brain, but if we were to be

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Speaker 1: the Sigmund Freud of this situation, do you think that

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Speaker 1: what happened here is that no one has ever told

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Speaker 1: this person now, I.

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Speaker 3: Mean, I think that's it. I think he owns the

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Speaker 3: company and he has sort of like I think, terrified

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Speaker 3: whoever remains at Twitter. I mean, you know, one one

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Speaker 3: just really strange aspect of all this is the speed

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Speaker 3: with which it happened. There were reports of inside Twitter

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Speaker 3: offices just you know, the handyman just rapidly taking the

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Speaker 3: signs down. You know, they were the sign outside of

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Speaker 3: twitter San Francisco headquarters when down so fast that the

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Speaker 3: police stopped it because they didn't have permits. You know.

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Speaker 3: Someone on Twitter said, you know, why is this happening

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Speaker 3: with the urgency of a coup? You know, like it's

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Speaker 3: just like we got to get this stuff out of here.

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Speaker 3: And so, you know, Elan has said, you know, he's

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Speaker 3: posted these pictures of himself with the letter X, and

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Speaker 3: he says, everyone knows I love X. And so the

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Speaker 3: larger takeaway from this, besides just that we're kind of

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Speaker 3: locked in this room with this guy and you know

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Speaker 3: he's he's just doing whatever he wants. Is that, you know,

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Speaker 3: apparently this is part of this larger plan to make

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Speaker 3: Twitter into this sort of world spanning app. This idea

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Speaker 3: that you know, you'll do your banking on Twitter and

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Speaker 3: you'll do really all of your this is the one

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Speaker 3: app you'll need, you know. And of course given that

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Speaker 3: in the past all of the things he's seen fit

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Speaker 3: to do with Twitter, including let random substackers, you know,

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Speaker 3: just go diving through the emails for whatever they want

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Speaker 3: to find. I mean, maybe not the folks I would

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Speaker 3: trust with my bank account.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wonder like so yeah that. So

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Speaker 1: he hired this woman, Linda Jacarino is right, and she

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Speaker 1: came from NBC and was very legit. She now has

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Speaker 1: the words job in the world, which she deserves for taking.

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Speaker 1: But you know, she was saying, it's going to be

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Speaker 1: a payment company, it's going to be we chat, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be this, it's going to be that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you're just making up these valuations, if

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Speaker 1: you add more functionality, you can make up a higher valuation.

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Speaker 1: But the idea that you know, they they can't keep

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Speaker 1: advertisers who actually were on the platform let alone. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I just wonder if even like Iran de Santis would

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Speaker 1: give his bank information at this point.

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Speaker 3: It is fascinating. One of the changes he's made to

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Speaker 3: Twitter is that, of course people can pay for blue

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Speaker 3: checks now, which come with being promoted higher up and replies.

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Speaker 3: And so we've been introduced to this world of the

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Speaker 3: much more the Elon brained fanboy, right, and these guys,

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Speaker 3: we are like, yes, the time is now for X.

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Speaker 3: We've all been waiting for it. You know, it's X

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Speaker 3: is the future. So these people seem very into it.

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Speaker 3: But I think there are may be a couple thousand

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Speaker 3: of them. I mean, I think the average person. I mean,

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Speaker 3: it's just very very bizarre. And as you said, I

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Speaker 3: mean this Linda Yakarino, who's coming from NBC, who is

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Speaker 3: apparently a pretty legit executive there and now has to say, Okay,

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Speaker 3: it's X time. I love this idea. This is great. Actually,

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Speaker 3: it's really something to behold these blue.

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Speaker 1: Checks, and this is something I am asking for my

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Speaker 1: own notification. We know these are real people and not bots.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think in some cases they probably are. I

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Speaker 3: mean and and you know, I think that's a good point, Molly,

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Speaker 3: because I certainly prefer to think that their box's real.

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Speaker 3: I honestly, I feel like I take psychic damage when

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Speaker 3: I read these people's tweets, and I have to remind

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Speaker 3: myself that, like, not everyone in the world is like this,

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Speaker 3: because I'll heading, what everyone loves this Elon's crazy new

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Speaker 3: idea and why why do I do this and all

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Speaker 3: this stuff. But the thing is, I think a lot

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Speaker 3: of them are not bots. I think there really are

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Speaker 3: people who just whatever Elon does, they love it. And

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Speaker 3: I think they have this kind of like slavish devotion

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Speaker 3: to a guy just because he's really rich.

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Speaker 1: Thank god he can't run for president. I myself wonder, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I used to really read Twitter for the

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Speaker 1: discourse and to see what people would say about an

431
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,600
Speaker 1: article and to see but it does seem and again,

432
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 1: we don't know about this, and there's not so much

433
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: transparency about how algorithms work, or at least I have

434
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:37,160
Speaker 1: not seen that it's such a radically different experience using

435
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:41,920
Speaker 1: Twitter versus using threads or versuss using the Blue Sky.

436
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: You know, three social networks that are largely meant to

437
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:49,640
Speaker 1: have the same experience, and they're radically different. So clearly

438
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: the algorithms in these three sites work differently, right.

439
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I think a big issue with Threads has

440
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 3: been that they're very insistent on doing this kind of

441
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 3: algorithmic stuff, so that I'm seeing some random like prankster

442
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 3: team Prankster in La. It was just like, like, just

443
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 3: this is epic, Whereas on Twitter, you know, you look

444
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:12,080
Speaker 3: at your for you page, which is the algorithmic side,

445
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 3: and they're just like, you want to see a video

446
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:16,520
Speaker 3: of a guy like getting hit by a bus, and

447
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:19,439
Speaker 3: you know, I don't, but you know, that's that's really

448
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 3: that's what these companies are pushing.

449
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: I like the suit Guy.

450
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 3: Oh, I love the suit Guy, Molly, and I just

451
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 3: have to say, you know, I'm I'm kind of a

452
00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 3: amateur men'swear guy myself, and I've been following suit Guy

453
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 3: long before the algorithm picked him up. I love it,

454
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 3: and people are they crave a backlash. I find that

455
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 3: guy's content so useful, and people are just like, aren't

456
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 3: we all sick of men'swear Guy? But you kidding, He's

457
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 3: the last good thing on Twitter.

458
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was my thinking too. I was you know,

459
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: I have a husband and two sons, and I was

460
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 1: sending one of the sons the thing about the King

461
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: of Greece, the King of Spain, the King of Spain

462
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: and his tailoring and you know how, because the truth

463
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: is men'swear, like nobody knows how that's supposed to look anyway.

464
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: So but anyway, we got to talk about Nate Haffman.

465
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 1: So let's I'm just going to give you a little

466
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: bit of the scene here. The most terminally online presidential

467
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: campaign ever. Is this soon to be over? Ron Desanta's

468
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:16,440
Speaker 1: campaign continue.

469
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,399
Speaker 3: Yes. So there's a fascinating thing going on with the

470
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 3: Desanta's campaign, and that's there's this generation of young Republican

471
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 3: activists who often style themselves as the New Right. They're

472
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 3: allied with people like JD. Vance. I think a lot

473
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 3: of their ideas, when you boil down to it, are

474
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 3: basically fascism.

475
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: Right. Chris Rufo is like this right, I mean, this

476
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: is that crow.

477
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 3: It's sort of like in a lot of cases, it's

478
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 3: like kind of like they want like a Catholic theocracy,

479
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 3: like Francoism perhaps, And so it might say.

480
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 1: Laugh because it's scary and they believe it.

481
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically your idea is the right of you know,

482
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 3: let's say George W. Bush, we don't like this, or

483
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 3: Jeb Bush, we don't like this because this idea that

484
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 3: the government is kind of taking a hands off approach

485
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 3: to the economy has allowed wokey corporations like Disney to

486
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 3: run a muck and so we need now, we need

487
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 3: a government that's really going to punish our ideological enemies

488
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 3: and like outlawed drag shows and all these kind of

489
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 3: like diysantasy issues. So a lot of these guys have

490
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 3: been attracted to DeSantis. Nate Ackman is very interesting character.

491
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 3: This guy is still i think, like twenty three at

492
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 3: this point. He's really young, and this is a guy

493
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 3: who came out of this Claremont Institute. These like really

494
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 3: what I think people on the left off and call

495
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 3: wing nut welfare, sort of like you graduate from college

496
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:35,199
Speaker 3: and the Koch Brothers or someone else hands you a

497
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 3: fellowship and says, hey, kid, just keep pumping out these articles.

498
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 3: Your life is made. And so he's an interesting guy.

499
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 3: I think he's part of like the DC Rational Review

500
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 3: Crew exactly, like a bunch of fellowships, like what the

501
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 3: neighborhood in DC called the wharf where it's like, you know,

502
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,199
Speaker 3: all these kind of Maggie New Right types hangout. And

503
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 3: this is a guy who frankly had it made. He wrote,

504
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 3: I think when he was like twenty one or twenty

505
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 3: he had a huge like a front page in the

506
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:06,320
Speaker 3: Sunday Times review section about like the new Right and stuff,

507
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 3: and he was quoted a bunch of the Times. He

508
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 3: could have been the face of the new right, coasted

509
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 3: into book deals and whatever in this kind of like

510
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 3: proto fascism, like the friendly phase of that, but he

511
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 3: was too online. This is a cautionary tale.

512
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: For you and I and mostly for Nazis. But yes,

513
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: continue a lot.

514
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:29,919
Speaker 3: Of these guys they talk a lot about optics or

515
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 3: they talk about what they call hiding your power level.

516
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: This is real in cell talk here, right.

517
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 3: And so like you can look at something like Charlottesville

518
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 3: and which they came to see is a big mistake,

519
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 3: not because someone was murdered, but because it is something

520
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 3: that for a normal person you can say that guy

521
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 3: march in Charlottesville and they go, oh, geez, that guy's

522
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,119
Speaker 3: a Nazi, right, And so they blew a lot of

523
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 3: their identities essentially, But for someone like Nate Hawkman. He

524
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 3: first he screwed up before joining the Desantas campaign because

525
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 3: he was caught on a Twitter space And you know,

526
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 3: Jesse does this our this podcast, but the amount of

527
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:06,119
Speaker 3: like random right wing career immolation that goes down on

528
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 3: Twitter spaces is truly crazy. This is where they talk

529
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 3: about like he's having sex at TPUSA in like the

530
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 3: lobby at TPUSA conventions, all this stuff, and almost no

531
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 3: journalists listen to it, and then I'll just drop in

532
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 3: and be like, well, this is crazy. So he was

533
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 3: praising Nick Fuentes, who's the white nationalist leader, and saying,

534
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 3: you know, oh, maybe he's got some good ideas or whatever.

535
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 3: So I think he got fired from a job over that.

536
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 3: He ended up on the Desanta's campaign, and he has

537
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:34,359
Speaker 3: now been tied to these meme videos that Desanta's campaign

538
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,199
Speaker 3: was creating and then kind of laundering through third parties,

539
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 3: which someone CALLEDNBC because you know, this idea of covering

540
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 3: up these campaign ads. But the first one was the

541
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 3: really anti gay one. We all saw where it would be,

542
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 3: you know, Donald Trump's cool with drag queens. And then

543
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 3: here's DeSantis and he says we're going to shut down

544
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 3: this gay stuff and then cut it with American psycho right.

545
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: Both homo erotic and anti gay.

546
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:01,040
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and Peaky Blinders. And you know, the thing

547
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 3: I want to underline there is that they were doing this, Molly,

548
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 3: do you know what a sigma male is now?

549
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: And if I don't, then our listeners also don't. No

550
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: offense to our listeners.

551
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 3: So a sigma male, it's like, you know, we think

552
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 3: of the alpha male, the beta male, the previous right

553
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 3: wing obsession with these hierarchies. A sigma male they see

554
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 3: as a man who sort of goes his own way

555
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 3: and it's sort of a lone wolf. And so in

556
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 3: this case they have these like Sigma male memes like

557
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 3: from Peaky Blinders or what have you. And so they

558
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 3: had this very bizarre video. And then more recently the

559
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 3: reporting revealed that Nate Hawkman, when he was working for

560
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 3: the Dasantas campaign, put out this video of Dysantis. It

561
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 3: was sort of like DeSantis is going to institute a

562
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 3: new Reich where they had this sort of a Florida

563
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 3: themed son and rat and this is a neo Nazi symbol.

564
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 3: This is pretty crazy stuff for the Desanta's campaign to

565
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,479
Speaker 3: be creating and then ultimately he was fired.

566
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: I mean obviously not unsurprising, but I mean I guess

567
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: they did fire like two thirds of their staff, so

568
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: it makes sense. But from very early days we saw this.

569
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 1: This DeSantis campaign had a really pretty extreme cyber bullying

570
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: arm led by Christina Poushaw.

571
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the Disanta's campaign really is. I will

572
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 3: say they're pretty good at Twitter fights. They don't think

573
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 3: he's so good at winning primaries. I mean they get

574
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 3: in these like quagmire battles with the Trump people online

575
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 3: and the Trump campaign, you know, people watch Dune. I

576
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 3: mean they have these like online like Sarto car like

577
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 3: death corps who will just debate with Desanta's people forever. Now,

578
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:40,239
Speaker 3: the genius of the Trump campaign is they outsource this, right,

579
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 3: Like they have just a bunch of lunatics who will

580
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 3: will argue all day. But this is on the Disanta side.

581
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 3: They have actual like Dysantis people in the campaign doing

582
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 3: it and it's just not a great look. Christina Poushaw

583
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 3: got in this like a really intense argument with like

584
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 3: a sixteen year old or something, and you know she

585
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 3: may have had a point, but you just don't want

586
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 3: your you know one of your time lieutenants arguing with

587
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 3: teenagers online.

588
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: I speak for yourself. I think that was what Lincoln did.

589
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: Jesse just texted me that we have to talk about

590
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: the Sound of Freedom. Just give our listeners the TLDR

591
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: on the Sound of Freedom.

592
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 3: Well, Sound of Freedom, move over, Barbenheimer. The movie Sensation

593
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 3: of the Summer is Sound of Freedom, a movie starring

594
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 3: Jim Caviezel, who people may remember as Jesus in the

595
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 3: Passion of the Christ.

596
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: Nobody remembers that.

597
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 3: I went to Catholic school. BALI was a big deal.

598
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 3: You got extra credit if you went to see it.

599
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like anyone who spends a lot

600
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 1: of time on Twitter has been like, you know, you've

601
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 1: been approached by some blue chack who has said, you know,

602
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: you were so upset by the Sound of Freedom. I

603
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: was like, I have no idea what that is. Like,

604
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know what it is, but

605
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: I've worked really hard not to know what it is.

606
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 1: But I guess I'm going to find out right now.

607
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 3: Right. So Sound of Freedom is about It's the It's

608
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 3: sort of a fictionalized account of this guy named Tim

609
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 3: Ballard who launched this group called Operation Underground Railroad that

610
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 3: purports to rescue children from child sex trafficking. And so

611
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 3: the VICE has done a lot of great reporting on

612
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 3: his claims, which here in many cases to be exaggerated.

613
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 3: But this is sort of the very heroic version of this. Now,

614
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 3: if all of this sounds a bit QAnon adjacent, you're

615
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 3: not wrong because Jim cavisl while the movie itself doesn't

616
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 3: mention QAnon, Jim Cavizl is like incredibly QAnon build. I mean,

617
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 3: he is Marjorie Taylor Green levels. In twenty twenty one,

618
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 3: I was at a qnon themed convention in Tulsa and

619
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 3: he got up there and I thought, that's kind of weird.

620
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 3: A guy of this prominence is at this QON convention.

621
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 3: And he said, I got this movie coming out. It's

622
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 3: called Sound of Freedom, and it's about how we're rescuing

623
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 3: kids from having there a drina chrome drained by the

624
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 3: global elites, so you know, these satanic rituals and stuff.

625
00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 3: And then he pals around with a JFK Junior impersonator.

626
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 3: They went on away, you're that guy.

627
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what's that guy's name?

628
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 3: It's actually a second one. I think you're thinking of

629
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 3: a different guy.

630
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 1: Oh, I was thinking about the crazy guy who doesn't

631
00:32:58,400 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: look anything like JFK Junior.

632
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 3: This guy doesn't either. Vincent Fusca is the guy you're thinking.

633
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:05,840
Speaker 3: And he's like a relatively nice guy because he just

634
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 3: kind of hangs out.

635
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: He is nice. Yeah, I mean nice relatively speaking.

636
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 3: The Jim cavizl Wan is a guy named wan O

637
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 3: Savan who had this like almost successful scheme to gain

638
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 3: control of our elections. He's very deep in it. And

639
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 3: the reason people are talking about Sound of Freedom is

640
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,479
Speaker 3: because it's box office has been huge. I believe it

641
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 3: may have surpassed the new Mission Impossible movie at this point.

642
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 3: It beat or roughly beat the Indiana Jones at the

643
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 3: box office one weekend. But there's kind of a backstory here,

644
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 3: which is that they have it set up so that

645
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 3: you can buy just huge amounts of tickets for other people,

646
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 3: and then they can go redeem the tickets online. So

647
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 3: people will go to these screenings and find that they're

648
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 3: quote unquote sold out, but actually the theater is totally empty.

649
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 3: So it's not I wouldn't say it's like an organic phenomenon.

650
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. So this is like buying, you know,

651
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: twenty thousand copies of Don Junior's book.

652
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very similar to that. The other funny aspect

653
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 3: of this is people will go to these you know,

654
00:33:57,880 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 3: kind of these people who are looking to at red

655
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 3: bills on QAnon. We'll go to these screenings and there

656
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 3: will be some issue where it's like the sodum fountain

657
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 3: wasn't working or the ac is off, and they'll say,

658
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 3: you know, the global cabal is trying to prevent me

659
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 3: from seeing Sound of Freedom. And so there's all these

660
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,439
Speaker 3: videos of people saying like, Hm, the employee didn't open

661
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 3: the theater up quick enough, Soros.

662
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: Much, Oh wow, that's really stupid. All right, Well, I mean,

663
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: am I pretty depressed. I'm mildly depressed from this interview.

664
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back in the fall so

665
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: we can talk about the continual death of our democracy.

666
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 3: Well, there's so much to talk about. Molly, thanks for

667
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 3: having me.

668
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: Thanks Hi, It's Molly, and I am wildly excited that

669
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening

670
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: to right now, is going to have merch for sale

671
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:55,479
Speaker 1: over at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now

672
00:34:55,640 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: buy shirts hats, hoodies, and toe bags are incredible designs.

673
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: We've heard your cries to spread the word about our

674
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: podcast and get a toe bag with my adorable Leo

675
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: the Rescue Puppy on it. And now you can grab

676
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: this merchandise only at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. Thanks

677
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: for your support. Nick Bilton is the author of Hatching

678
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: Twitter and a special correspondent at Vanity Fair. Welcome to

679
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Nick Belton.

680
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 2: How's it going?

681
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 1: You know, live in the dream, So let's talk about X.

682
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 4: Let's talk about actually, like, should I have a Mitch

683
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 4: McCollum moment where I just stopped talking for twenty seconds

684
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 4: and we just stand there in silence, and then afterwards

685
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 4: I make a joke about it.

686
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, for sure that it was. You were sandbagged.

687
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: I'm going to sand bag you right now. What is happening?

688
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 4: What is happening with X dot com? The update since

689
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 4: we've last spoken is that Mark Zuckerberg created a quote

690
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:12,239
Speaker 4: unquote Twitter killer that has not necessarily proven to be

691
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 4: a Twitter killer called Threads, and now Elon Musk has

692
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 4: changed one of the most recognizable brands on planet Earth

693
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 4: from Twitter to X. The letter I mean I guess

694
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 4: Elon probably this is a word. But the letter X

695
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 4: is something that goes back for Elon many many many

696
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 4: many years in fack decades, and it's something he's been

697
00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 4: obsessed with. Weird, it's so bizarre. One of his kids

698
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 4: is called X. It's you know, it was the first

699
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 4: X dot com credit card from PayPal. You know, he

700
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 4: just is obsessive that there's the Tesla Model X, but

701
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 4: the four Teslas that he sells, that the model S,

702
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 4: the Model three, the Model X, and the model why spell.

703
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: Out sexy right, very stupid.

704
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 4: So he's got this kind of like it's a very

705
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 4: kind of childish view of brand and things. And I

706
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 4: think that this is just another step in that direction.

707
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,239
Speaker 4: I think where things are going to get typicult is

708
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 4: that I don't think anyone's going to adopt it. They're

709
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 4: not going to call it X. They're going to continue

710
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 4: to call it Twitter. And a perfect example of that is,

711
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 4: you know Google renamed itself alphabet, Like when do we

712
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 4: talk about Google is alphabet?

713
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: Right?

714
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 4: You know, Facebook rebranded itself meta. We still call it Facebook.

715
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 4: And I think that this will be the same for Twitter,

716
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 4: and he'll call it X and he'll reference it as X,

717
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 4: and the rest of the world will call it Twitter.

718
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. So he wants to call it X.

719
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: So it's just because he likes the letter. There's nothing else. Well,

720
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: it's partially he has.

721
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 4: This vision for what he and I think this goes

722
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 4: back also back to the PayPal days, but he has

723
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 4: this vision for what he calls the It's almost like

724
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 4: the everything stores. It's a little bit like Amazon, if

725
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 4: you if Amazon had a social network and way you

726
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 4: can do anything on one website and there. And the

727
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:56,760
Speaker 4: reason for this is, like I think, I think personally,

728
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,839
Speaker 4: he's seen there are instances of these kinds of technologies

729
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 4: in Asia where you have an app we chat, Yeah,

730
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 4: we chat and things like that, where you have an

731
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 4: app that you do your banking, you chat, you read

732
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 4: the news.

733
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 2: It's everything.

734
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:15,400
Speaker 4: And I think that Elon kind of has had this

735
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 4: dream of making one of those and I think that

736
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 4: that's what he's trying to do with Twitter. And what

737
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 4: will happen is he'll probably integrate all those things. There's

738
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 4: no question about that. You know, you will see some

739
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 4: sort of banking in there, You'll see some sort of

740
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 4: store power, you know, all these different things I just

741
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 4: don't know if people are going to use it, because

742
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 4: he has really burned so many bridges with consumers and

743
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 4: distanced himself from so many people. I can't imagine I

744
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 4: wouldn't be using the x dot com banking system when

745
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:49,479
Speaker 4: Elon can be as kind of emotional and angry over

746
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:50,840
Speaker 4: nothing as he is.

747
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: Right, there is no sense behind any of this. I mean, like,

748
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: you have taken a brand, you have platformed of people

749
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 1: who would not otherwise have been platformed, and now you

750
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: want people to give you their money.

751
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 4: The thing about Elon that's really interesting is he has

752
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 4: these obsessions, right. It's extreme OCD where he's like, Oh,

753
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,319
Speaker 4: I want to build an electric car and a driverless car,

754
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 4: and he spends his entire life obsessing about how to

755
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 4: do that. That can work out really fucking well for him.

756
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 4: He built the biggest car company on the planet and

757
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 4: changed the entire car market to drive others to make

758
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 4: electric cars, which they would never have done had it

759
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:33,640
Speaker 4: not been for him, So we need to give him

760
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 4: that credit. At the same time, he was like, I

761
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 4: want to go to Mars and I want to build

762
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 4: rockets to go there, and he obsessed and obsessed and

763
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:41,879
Speaker 4: obsessed until he did that, and he will do that,

764
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 4: and there's just no question that that will happen. But

765
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,359
Speaker 4: there is also a downside to that kind of side

766
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 4: of his personality and like this and the X branding,

767
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 4: of course, is one example of that. In the nineties,

768
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 4: he wanted to change the name PayPal to X and

769
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 4: replace it. He's kind of talked about since the early

770
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 4: two thousands that it's such a novel and intriguing an

771
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 4: open ended term.

772
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 2: Because I don't know.

773
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:08,839
Speaker 4: He's just obsessed with this letter, and that obsession is

774
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 4: something that he is going to drive until he breaks it.

775
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 1: You know.

776
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,360
Speaker 4: I don't know what his end goal is here. Honestly,

777
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 4: I think that I think he was he accidentally purchased Twitter.

778
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 4: I think it seemed like a good idea at the

779
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 4: time because he was pissed off with the CEO at

780
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 4: the time, and I think and then he was forced

781
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 4: to do it because he signed the contracts. And now

782
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 4: I think he's just trying to figure out what he

783
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,919
Speaker 4: can make this thing into that saves space for him.

784
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 4: And I think that this direction of this new X

785
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:38,759
Speaker 4: dot com is the direction he's going to go.

786
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: That seems like what we're looking at so explain to

787
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: me why why he doesn't. I mean, he just is

788
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: going to take this to broke. I mean what happens now?

789
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that Elon is is capable of

790
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 4: a lot of things, but he is not capable of

791
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:58,760
Speaker 4: breaking Twitter. You know, there used to be the saying

792
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,280
Speaker 4: that that Twitter the company you couldn't kill. I think

793
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 4: that a lot of people have tried, accidentally or intentionally.

794
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 4: Jack Dorsey was arguably one of the worst CEOs I've

795
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 4: ever seen, who did nothing. His philosophy as a CEO

796
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 4: was that if he had to make a decision, he failed.

797
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:21,720
Speaker 4: That doesn't seem like leadership to me. That just seems

798
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 4: like passing the buck. He was the person who oversaw

799
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:28,320
Speaker 4: the company during the Trump era, where he could have

800
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 4: had a huge impact on society in the world, in

801
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 4: the company, and chose not to until the very last

802
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 4: minute and actually perhaps the last minute, and the company survived.

803
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 4: It made money, and it was worth billions, and it

804
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 4: had thousands of employees, and it continued to work. And

805
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 4: I think that Elon can elon his way through anything,

806
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,359
Speaker 4: and he'll say silly things, and he'll piss off half

807
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 4: his user base and he'll do whatever he wants to do.

808
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 4: But when push comes to shove, whenever there's a big

809
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 4: breaking news event or there's an earthquake or a ride

810
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 4: in the street or whatever it is, people in and

811
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 4: go to Twitter. It kind of has become a part

812
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:04,759
Speaker 4: of the fabric of society, and there's nothing that he

813
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,439
Speaker 4: can do to completely break it until something bender comes along.

814
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 4: And I just don't think that we're in an age

815
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:12,799
Speaker 4: and society where people want something better. I think that

816
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:14,879
Speaker 4: this is the thing with to go back to Mark

817
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:17,839
Speaker 4: Zuckerberg and threads, there's an irony that to the fact

818
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:21,879
Speaker 4: that Zuck called threads threads because the term comes from

819
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 4: of course, like the two versions of it. The first

820
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 4: version is when someone makes a thread on Twitter and

821
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:30,720
Speaker 4: you know, they do like seventy five tweets and they're like, threat,

822
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 4: check this out. The second version, which I think is

823
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 4: more appropriate, is that we all have these threads on

824
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 4: our phone, so like our group chats of people we

825
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 4: talk to all the time. And I think that that

826
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:45,920
Speaker 4: is what is actually replacing Twitter slowly. It's that being public,

827
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 4: it turns out from most people, is not as fun

828
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 4: as we thought it would be. And so the I

829
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 4: Messages to me, Apple's I Messages and these other chat

830
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 4: platforms are the new thread They are the new Twitter.

831
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 4: And I think that's where most of the most of

832
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 4: conversation is now happening. It's not happening on platforms in public.

833
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. What does that mean for threads?

834
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:14,080
Speaker 1: Threads got a huge bump and then all of a

835
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: sudden it got exhausted.

836
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 3: Yeah.

837
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 4: Look, I think the reality is we want something from

838
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 4: these platforms. We want them to give us something. They

839
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 4: do give us these connections, they give us information and

840
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 4: so on and so forth, but they also have a

841
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 4: vapidness to them and a staleness to them a and

842
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 4: the algorithms are too good. The reason the algorithms are

843
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 4: too good is because, you know, it's funny. I don't

844
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 4: really use social media that much anymore. I haven't posted

845
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:42,879
Speaker 4: on Twitter and god knows how long, and I haven't

846
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 4: posted on Instagram in a couple of years. And I

847
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 4: think I used threads two or three times. I can't

848
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 4: even remember the last time I posted on Facebook. But

849
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:52,360
Speaker 4: every once in a while I'll download them and like

850
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 4: kind of see what's going on, just because what I

851
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 4: have to do for work and I downloaded Instagram recently

852
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 4: and I clicked it, like surfaced a video of like

853
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 4: a plane landing, like from a pilot's perspective, and I

854
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 4: clicked on it. I was like, what is that? And

855
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 4: then I clicked off and now that's all of my

856
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:10,839
Speaker 4: feed and I'm like, what, I don't care about that?

857
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 4: Why are you showing me that? And I think that

858
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:15,840
Speaker 4: what happens is the algorithm thinks, oh, you like this,

859
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 4: so you're going to like more of this. It becomes exhausting,

860
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 4: and I think that the algorithms are too good, but

861
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 4: they're also bad at the same time, and they don't

862
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 4: know what it is we like, so they think that

863
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 4: they know what it is we like, and that ends

864
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 4: up driving consumers away because it gets exhausting. And I

865
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 4: think that Zuckerberg thinks that he still hasn't solved the

866
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 4: social media proxy platform, whatever it is. He hasn't figured

867
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,360
Speaker 4: out what it is yet. And I think the reality

868
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,839
Speaker 4: is that we don't want them. I think that they

869
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 4: provide something for a short period of time and then

870
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 4: we get bored of them or they make us feel bad,

871
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 4: because they do make us feel really really bad, all

872
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:55,799
Speaker 4: of them, and people quit and they they're like, oh,

873
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 4: I'm done with that. And I think that he thinks

874
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 4: that he can just continue you to solve it, and

875
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 4: I just don't think it's a solvable thing. I think again,

876
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 4: a place like I messages where you have ten different threads,

877
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 4: where you can be different personalities to different threads. So

878
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 4: if I have one a work, I'm going to obviously

879
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 4: be a lot more polite and not you know, send

880
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 4: silly links and say silly things. If I have a

881
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 4: thread with my family, I can obviously say certain things

882
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 4: to them that you know are appropriate or not appropriate.

883
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 4: And the same thing goes for threads with my friends,

884
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:31,439
Speaker 4: where I can say something that on Twitter I would

885
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,720
Speaker 4: get canceled for or I would lose my job or whatever.

886
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 4: Like I could share a link to something that I

887
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 4: don't feel like debating with five hundred people, but I

888
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:41,800
Speaker 4: can debate with three friends. And I think that that's

889
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 4: why so many people have moved over to these insular

890
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 4: private chats, because they're safe and they are with people

891
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 4: you know, And that to me is why threads will

892
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 4: never work, and.

893
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: They couldn't just make it more like Twitter.

894
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 4: Well, I do, only Twitter works either, which is why

895
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 4: there's only three hundred and thirty million people on it,

896
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 4: versus you know, there's four billion people on social media.

897
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 4: There's five point something billion people that use these chat

898
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 4: services around the globe. So if you look at it

899
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 4: from that perspective, Twitter doesn't work. It's more into a

900
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 4: big news platform.

901
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:17,080
Speaker 3: And I do think.

902
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 4: What Elong will end up doing is shifting it to

903
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 4: be more of a media company, because I think that

904
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 4: he will realize that getting new users on Twitter is

905
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 4: it's not just a branding problem. It's hit its peak.

906
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 4: Everyone on the planet knows what Twitter is, but they

907
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 4: don't sign up or they don't use it because they

908
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 4: don't like it. And so I think that what he'll

909
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 4: end up doing is kind of the thing that you're

910
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,840
Speaker 4: seeing where he's got people like Tucker Calls and others

911
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 4: using it as a video platform and then it becomes

912
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 4: a media conglomerate like a Fox News and with public chat.

913
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: Oh god, it's so crazy, Nick, What else are you watching?

914
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 4: I'm paying attention to all of the terrifying things that

915
00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 4: are going on right now with AI, which is very

916
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 4: very scary stuff. And I have been working on a

917
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 4: big story for fans fair about that will come out

918
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:08,959
Speaker 4: later this summer. We're at this kind of inflection point

919
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 4: with technology where it is about to you know, we

920
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 4: think that social media had a negative impact on society. Wait,

921
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 4: so you see what AI does?

922
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:18,320
Speaker 2: You know AI.

923
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 4: It'll have positive impacts, is no question. It'll cure cancer,

924
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:25,399
Speaker 4: and it'll help us explore the universe and all these things.

925
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 4: But at the same time, it has the potential to

926
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 4: destroy humanity. And I don't say that to be hyperbolical.

927
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 4: This is a fact of what AI researchers have been

928
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 4: talking about for decades. And yet in the same way

929
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:39,479
Speaker 4: that we that social media was thrust upon us by

930
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 4: the nerds, we are about to have it thrust upon

931
00:47:42,120 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 4: us by the you know, AI, by the by the

932
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 4: bigger nerds, and and the repercussions could be disastrous.

933
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable. Thank you so much, Nick.

934
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 4: Of course, thank you so much. Happy to do it anytime.

935
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:00,359
Speaker 3: Noo.

936
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 5: Jesse Cannon Molli joung fast that Rudy Giuliani not want

937
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 5: to be known to be telling the truth, whether it

938
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 5: was when he was a mayor and lying about crime

939
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 5: statistics and these days lying about elections.

940
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 1: Well, he was America's mayor and now he's America's criminal.

941
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:22,760
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani has conceded that he made public comments falsely

942
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:28,879
Speaker 1: claiming two election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss were

943
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: not in fact passing drives to each other, they were

944
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:40,240
Speaker 1: passing gingermins to each other. And Rudy Giuliani has formally

945
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:44,359
Speaker 1: recounted his lying and despite the fact that he has

946
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: we repeatedly pushed these debunked claims. So, of course the

947
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:53,799
Speaker 1: world of the Gateway Pundit will never see this retraction.

948
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: It will not air on Fox News, it will not

949
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: be on the cover of the New York Post. Oh

950
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,320
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the use of it is ultimately

951
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: for these two poor women who have had their lives

952
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:08,840
Speaker 1: destroyed and had people show up at their houses. But

953
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: that is the state of America right now, and for

954
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: that it is our moment of Houck Gray. That's it

955
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday,

956
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics

957
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what

958
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep

959
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:31,240
Speaker 1: the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.