Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds, and President Biden ordered the US to
Speaker 1: share evidence of Russian war crimes with the Hague. We
Speaker 1: have a great show today. The Washington Post. Will Sommer
Speaker 1: joins us to talk ron DeSantis staffers sharing Nazi imagery
Speaker 1: in a pro DeSantis post. And then we'll talk to
Speaker 1: Vanity Fairs Nick Bilton about the disastrous Twitter rebrand. But
Speaker 1: first we have Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics. Dana Milbank.
Speaker 2: Great to be with you, Mollie.
Speaker 1: Delighted to have you. I think of this GOP Congress
Speaker 1: as doing the work for Democrats in a way, that is,
Speaker 1: they are literally every day cutting ads for Democrats.
Speaker 2: It's really considerate. I mean, can they make a contribution
Speaker 2: in kind to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But you'll
Speaker 2: think about it. We've got we just had really good,
Speaker 2: better than expected GDP members. Inflation is down, the stock
Speaker 2: markets higher than it's been since twenty twenty one. Order
Speaker 2: crossings are down, like things kind of look good.
Speaker 1: And the economy and the numbers they are economic growth
Speaker 1: two percent.
Speaker 2: It's all looks pretty good. So what are the House
Speaker 2: Republicans going to do? Well? First of all, they're going
Speaker 2: to make sure we shut down the government. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: fall as of September thirtieth. And then, you know, because
Speaker 2: a lot of people will be you know, furloughed and
Speaker 2: won't have anything to do. All the government to shut down,
Speaker 2: they will have the entertainment of impeaching President Biden on
Speaker 2: yet to be determined charges. Yeah, so they're forcing votes
Speaker 2: on impeachment. They're seemingly headed towards this inevitable shutdown where
Speaker 2: they're opposing not just the Democrats, and they're opposing the
Speaker 2: Republicans in the Senate who are actually trying to increase
Speaker 2: a military spending. But I mean, they just reached you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't even like two months ago where you know,
Speaker 2: this big bipartisan depth ceiling bill, and they've already saying, no,
Speaker 2: we're going to renege on that. We're going to cut
Speaker 2: an additional two hundred billion dollars and we're going to
Speaker 2: and we're going to laidle on all of these poison pills,
Speaker 2: you know, restricting abortions, LGBTQ rights, anything, that has the
Speaker 2: word diversity in it. It's kind of a circus. And
Speaker 2: then of course they've just proven that there are alien
Speaker 2: life forms that are here on Earth.
Speaker 1: We're going to get to aliens in a minute, but.
Speaker 2: First I want to tell myself I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I know, really, first we got to talk about like
Speaker 1: all of the other weird hearings they've had over the
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks, besides numerous hearings on gas stoves.
Speaker 1: This is what happens when Rupert Murdoch is the speaker
Speaker 1: of the house, really is that you just start Everything
Speaker 1: you produce is like that. So, I mean, we had
Speaker 1: gas stoves, we had irs whistleblower, which may or may
Speaker 1: not have ultimately been he was just confused.
Speaker 2: It sounded a little bit like that. I mean, there
Speaker 2: were well, there were two whistleblowers, but of course the
Speaker 2: one whistleblower worked together a whistleblower, so essentially they were
Speaker 2: one whistle blower there. And yes, what that emerged to
Speaker 2: be was, you know, they disagreed with what the conclusions
Speaker 2: of the prosecutor came up with, which apparently happened in
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the cases that this guy was involved in.
Speaker 2: So you know, look, I mean, as we saw it
Speaker 2: in the Botch Plea hearing this week, the auntor Biden
Speaker 2: case is really messy. You know, he did a lot
Speaker 2: of crap and it's really kind of sleazy, and you know,
Speaker 2: I mean the relagents have also they've exposed, if you will,
Speaker 2: that members of the Biden family have made money over
Speaker 2: to the years. What they haven't done, is one of
Speaker 2: the guys on the houseovers A Committee rather candidly admitted
Speaker 2: last week, is they have not produced any evidence that
Speaker 2: Joe Biden was involved in the abyss right right right,
Speaker 2: which you think would be a rather key element if
Speaker 2: you are in fact planning to impeach the president of
Speaker 2: the United States. But they're so far, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of plunging towards that they're going to call it an
Speaker 2: impeachment investigation, which leads to an impeachment inquiry, which then
Speaker 2: leads to impeachment. They're hoping at some point along the
Speaker 2: way they will be able to produce some actual evidence
Speaker 2: of that. Your constructor that Rupert Murdoch is a speaker
Speaker 2: of asked, I suppose that's right, you know, I think
Speaker 2: it's more typically Matt Gage and Marjorie Taylor Green in
Speaker 2: essence the Freedom Caucus. But of course they're also taking
Speaker 2: their marching orders from Fox. But you know, they say,
Speaker 2: we're going to shut down the government, while McCarthy has
Speaker 2: no choice. We're going to shut down the government. They
Speaker 2: clamor for impeachment, while McCarthy kind of has to go
Speaker 2: along with it because he's out of a job if
Speaker 2: he says no to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean exactly, and he has. Remember, I think
Speaker 1: an important data point here is that there is this
Speaker 1: one person motion to vacate. So one person, be it
Speaker 1: Marjorie Tailer Green who happens to be at least temporarily
Speaker 1: aligned with McCarthy, or Matt Gates who has been for
Speaker 1: a long time not aligned with McCarthy. Just one of
Speaker 1: those people could make a motion to vacate and have
Speaker 1: put into works a new speakership.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. I'm not hearing a lot of noise
Speaker 2: about that. But they could do something well short of that,
Speaker 2: they could still grind the whole place to a whole.
Speaker 2: So this week they said, look, we're going to insist
Speaker 2: on this extortion of getting cutting another two hundred billion
Speaker 2: beyond what everybody just agreed to for twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: spending levels, and if Speaker McCarthy does not agree to
Speaker 2: our ransom demands, well we're going to oppose the rule.
Speaker 2: We're going to not allow these appropriations bills to come
Speaker 2: to the floor. And they only need five members of
Speaker 2: the Freedom Caucus to do that, and they brought the
Speaker 2: entire House to a hole. There can be no passage
Speaker 2: of spending bills or anything else without that. So in
Speaker 2: a way, they don't even need it to pose McCarthy.
Speaker 2: They can just make the House completely effective and essentially
Speaker 2: just shut it down with just five of their boats.
Speaker 2: And there's clearly more than five who were very happy
Speaker 2: to gum up the works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just incredible stuff. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: what it looks like with these hearings. So we had
Speaker 1: the RS. Now I will let you talk about UFOs.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's very important. I mean, you can only have
Speaker 2: so many hearings on transgender Americans. I think we have
Speaker 2: a few more today, and I think there have been
Speaker 2: three hearings this week on the border crisis, even though
Speaker 2: the actual border crossings are down considerably. But yeah, so
Speaker 2: the House Oversight can be brought in. Guy says he's
Speaker 2: a whistleblower. He worked in the Defense intelligence and he
Speaker 2: has said the most extraordinary things that the United States
Speaker 2: is in possession of alien spacecraft that either are extraterrestrial
Speaker 2: or cane from another dimension, That there are alien non
Speaker 2: human life form pilots, that the United States actually has
Speaker 2: the remains where warehousing these apparently one of them a
Speaker 2: defense contractor one of these spaceships came from Mussolini in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three in the United States at the time
Speaker 2: got a tip from Pope Pious and was able to
Speaker 2: intercept that spaceship from the Italians. So okay. So either
Speaker 2: this guy has just blown the lid off the biggest
Speaker 2: scandal in the history of the universe, and somehow everybody
Speaker 2: Democrat and Republican has kept it secret for one hundred years,
Speaker 2: or there's some kind of you know, wacky business going
Speaker 2: on here. I'm agnostic. It could go either way, but
Speaker 2: it's noteworthy that House Republicans in particular, we're giving this,
Speaker 2: you know, taking this guy's word as gospel. It's just
Speaker 2: more evidence of the deep state. So the deep state
Speaker 2: is now covering up alien life form. So it's like
Speaker 2: the anti government antipathy has gone intergalact, Like, there's nothing
Speaker 2: that the deep State will not do to deceive and
Speaker 2: lie to the American people.
Speaker 1: So let's just talk about this for a second, because
Speaker 1: I think there is a really interesting question about conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about it for a minute
Speaker 1: because we are in a period right now where there
Speaker 1: is one political party that is really ruled by a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist, Donald Trump. I mean, this is a guy
Speaker 1: who really does come from the world of you know,
Speaker 1: Obama was born in Africa. Again, you know, with Trump,
Speaker 1: there's always a question of does he really believe it
Speaker 1: or does he believe it because it helps his career, right,
Speaker 1: we don't know and it doesn't necessarily matter, but he
Speaker 1: has certainly created a culture. And now we have Elon
Speaker 1: Musk On's Twitter, and Elon Musk believes that vaccines give
Speaker 1: you mayocardia, which even myocarditis, even though we know that
Speaker 1: that's not right and yes there's a small percentage, but
Speaker 1: you know whatever, So I just wonder, are we worse
Speaker 1: than we were in the nineteen sev because remember my parents, fully,
Speaker 1: I mean my parents definitely did not believe that there
Speaker 1: was only one shooter who killed JFK.
Speaker 2: Well, look, there have always been conspiracy theories in a
Speaker 2: segment of the American public that believed it. The difference
Speaker 2: now is people in the highest levels of government, during
Speaker 2: the Congress or during the Trump administration are saying, you're
Speaker 2: totally right to think these things, you know, bringing RFK
Speaker 2: Junior into you know, speak to the Weaponization Committee. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a guy who says that Wi Fi causes
Speaker 2: leaky brain syndrome.
Speaker 1: Yes, he also believes that chemicals in the water are
Speaker 1: turning the kids trans.
Speaker 2: Right, which fits neatly with all the transgender investigations that
Speaker 2: are underway. You know, the difference is people are saying
Speaker 2: in a high level people, you know, opinion leaders are
Speaker 2: saying it's legitimate to think this stuff. That's that's the
Speaker 2: real difference.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Now some of it's really sinister, like that great replacement
Speaker 2: theory that's you know, white nationalism right there. You know,
Speaker 2: the up with the aliens. I mean, I suppose if
Speaker 2: you're going to embrace every conspiracy theory it comes along,
Speaker 2: eventually you wind up with Area fifty one and Roswell, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, this guy says was totally illegit Alien
Speaker 2: landing in Roswell totally legit.
Speaker 1: Did Mussolini factor into that, don't know.
Speaker 2: It's classified, Molly, so I can't really reveal that. But
Speaker 2: it was the Air Force debunking of Roswell that was
Speaker 2: a total hack job. That's the actual quote there. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is old school, this is actually the
Speaker 2: tinfoil hat stuff. But you know, if you're going to
Speaker 2: go with replacement theory, if you're gonna go with RFK
Speaker 2: Junior conspiracy theory, if you've got to say elections are
Speaker 2: still on, well, of course eventually you wind up with
Speaker 2: the aliens are among us, and in fact they're malevolent
Speaker 2: actors who are doing bad things to us.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think is interesting about RFK Junior.
Speaker 1: I think, and again can't speak to wads in people's heads,
Speaker 1: but it certainly seems in my mind that these Republicans
Speaker 1: are trying to elevate RFK Junior because they know that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not growing the electorate so their guy,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, certainly some of them believe that
Speaker 1: Trump won in twenty twenty and so when he runs again,
Speaker 1: who went in twenty twenty four. But there are certainly
Speaker 1: got to be a few people on Earth one here
Speaker 1: who are like, you know, this guy is not growing
Speaker 1: the electorate. And when he gets up there for an
Speaker 1: hour and a half talking about how unfair it is,
Speaker 1: this is not going to speak to swing voters in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder how much of what's happening here
Speaker 1: is these people in the Republican Party trying to elevate
Speaker 1: other candidates in the hopes of hurting Biden.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's happening, you know, I think that maybe giving
Speaker 2: a little too much credit and thought process what's actually
Speaker 2: happening here. I don't think there's a whole lot of
Speaker 2: thought process involved. I think, you know, every individual member
Speaker 2: is reck recognizing that, you know, the way to get
Speaker 2: ahead individually is to be, as Tom Massey once said,
Speaker 2: the craziest sat of a bitch out there. That will
Speaker 2: get you that you'll go viral with that, You'll get
Speaker 2: your Fox News audience with that, and that will give
Speaker 2: you power, that will give you leverage with the leadership.
Speaker 2: It's also, you know, assures that you will not be
Speaker 2: out of stet with Donald Trump, because that could be
Speaker 2: ruinous to your career. So I think a lot of
Speaker 2: it's self preservation and as you know, there's no way
Speaker 2: to really know how many people actually believe the crazy
Speaker 2: stuff and how many are just going along with it.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably one third, two thirds or something.
Speaker 2: But it's a distinction without a difference because they're saying
Speaker 2: the same thing. But it's selfish, it's self preservation, and
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a whole lot of strategicy going on.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is the thing that always shocks me,
Speaker 1: is how little anyone in Congress is really thinking about stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Mitch McConnell for a second. Really, yesterday
Speaker 1: he had this freeze. We don't know what it was,
Speaker 1: it really was. I mean I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I do not align politically with Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 1: but I have incredible respect for that guy because he's
Speaker 1: a fucking killer. He has stolen three Supreme Court seats.
Speaker 1: I mean, the man isn't at like the Republicans would
Speaker 1: be nowhere without Mitch mcconnald. They really would be nowhere
Speaker 1: as payment they have just been. You know, they basically,
Speaker 1: you know, the trumpets have been so mean to him,
Speaker 1: which is fine, I mean, good for them, but he
Speaker 1: did have this phrase I mean, talk to me.
Speaker 2: He has been remarkably and ruthlessly effective, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think he deserves a lot of the blame for
Speaker 2: the mess working. I mean, he made Yeah he's no
Speaker 2: fan of Trump, but he made Trump possible. Is you
Speaker 2: know his in twenty sixteen sort of a deal with
Speaker 2: the devil saying okay, we got to windors, this guy
Speaker 2: got to get our big donors behind him. Had it
Speaker 2: not been for Mitch McConnell's at acquiescence, I don't think
Speaker 2: we would have had a Donald Try Trump. And sure
Speaker 2: he has stood up against him from time to time,
Speaker 2: but you know, like notably not when you know, in
Speaker 2: crucial moments like after January sixth he spoke out against him,
Speaker 2: but then opposed uh conviction on the impeachment charges. So
Speaker 2: but look, I mean, you know, compared to Rick Scott
Speaker 2: or whoever the alternative would be, I mean, McConnell is
Speaker 2: certainly a force for good, you know, all relatively speaking.
Speaker 2: But we are at the point where Mitch McConnell, you know,
Speaker 2: may well be the voice at reason. So I mean,
Speaker 2: certainly on it just on the basic human level, you
Speaker 2: don't want to see that happen to anybody in public
Speaker 2: or anywhere else. Also, he is you know, one of
Speaker 2: the very few. You know, I hesit to say hesitate
Speaker 2: to say moderating forces, but given given where things have gone,
Speaker 2: he is relatively moderate compared to you know, certainly what
Speaker 2: we're seeing in the house. You know, he dares to say, well,
Speaker 2: maybe it's not such a great idea to you know,
Speaker 2: plunge ahead with impeachment. So you know, I would wish
Speaker 2: him health, right, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, he's a traditionalist who has also caused the incredible
Speaker 1: fuckery that we are in back to sort of the
Speaker 1: like you know landscape right now. I think September is
Speaker 1: going to be a shit show with the potential shutdown.
Speaker 1: They have a few more days now. Trump wants McCarthy
Speaker 1: unless McCarthy can somehow manage not to have this happen,
Speaker 1: to expunge the impeachment. Talk to me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you know, it's sort of meaningless. It's trying.
Speaker 2: It's saying that this thing, that this actual historical event
Speaker 2: did not occur. It's based on an expunge censure. I
Speaker 2: guess you know Andrew Jackson to see the extent it's
Speaker 2: based on anything, you know, it has no practical effect.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were around, we know what happened during
Speaker 2: the Trump years. You know what it does do is
Speaker 2: it will force Republicans, including the ten or so as
Speaker 2: Republicans who are in Biden One district, to go on
Speaker 2: record essentially defending Trump in January sixth and everything else
Speaker 2: for no real purpose other than, you know, Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 2: antagonized Donald Trump by initially failing to endorse his presidential bit.
Speaker 2: So now everybody's got to pay the price and go
Speaker 2: through this expungement. I mean it's you know, fairly revealing
Speaker 2: that it's came from. Yeah, it came from Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 2: but also from a least to fanic, you know, a
Speaker 2: member of leaderships. So just like with the actual with
Speaker 2: the Biden impeachment, with the seemingly inevitable shutdown, it's just,
Speaker 2: you know, another way in which the Republicans are going
Speaker 2: to have to walk the plank because Kevin McCarthy is
Speaker 2: a leader in name old and he cannot protect his members.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: It has been a great pleasure. I hope you enjoy
Speaker 2: your vacation, and more.
Speaker 1: Importantly, do not forget to follow Dana on threads.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Molly, I aspired to keep up with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's your name on there?
Speaker 2: It's Dana dot Millbank.
Speaker 1: Dana dot Milbank on threads. Go now. Will Sohmer is
Speaker 1: a media reporter at The Washington Post. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics. I am delighted to have with us today
Speaker 1: someone I have known from the very beginning, A Daily
Speaker 1: Beast alumnus. Are you an alumnus alumni, A superstar, A
Speaker 1: friend of mine, A very good friend of Jesse. Is
Speaker 1: the great Will Sommer.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm just delighted. So, you know, I was thinking because
Speaker 1: Jesse and I, you know, we're always booking this show
Speaker 1: because that's all we do. And we were like, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really fucked up shit going on on
Speaker 1: the internet right now, and who can we talk to
Speaker 1: you about fucked up shit on the internet. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, Will so is the man
Speaker 1: for this. I do want to also talk to you
Speaker 1: about what happened to X a little bit. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: not on the technology side, but on the sort of
Speaker 1: like vibes side. But I first, so let's first talk
Speaker 1: about the vibes over at X for those of you
Speaker 1: who are not terminally online like you and I. X
Speaker 1: is the company formally known as Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so this is you know, just a few
Speaker 3: days ago Elon Musk said, okay, time to say goodbye
Speaker 3: to the bird. We're all transitioning. And it's like wait
Speaker 3: what oh time we knew the time had to come.
Speaker 3: We got to grow up and put the bird away.
Speaker 3: And now Twitter is going to become X and the
Speaker 3: backstore here is that. For decades, Elon Musk has wanted
Speaker 3: to call a company X, and so we know when
Speaker 3: he was at PayPal, he wanted to change it to
Speaker 3: PayPal and they were like, no, people know the name PayPal.
Speaker 3: They're using it as a verb. You know, we have
Speaker 3: this great recognition. Why would we call it X. And
Speaker 3: apparently his reason is it's cool. It's the coolest letter.
Speaker 3: And so now he owns the company, now he owns Twitter,
Speaker 3: and so he can do it. It is truly, I
Speaker 3: think I think we've seen so many baffling moves sreen
Speaker 3: lawn munks, but I think this might be the most baffling.
Speaker 1: I always am a little interested in motivation. Do you
Speaker 1: think this is because no one has ever told again
Speaker 1: more Monday Morning quarterbacking. We don't know what goes on
Speaker 1: in Elon Mus's brain, but if we were to be
Speaker 1: the Sigmund Freud of this situation, do you think that
Speaker 1: what happened here is that no one has ever told
Speaker 1: this person now, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I think that's it. I think he owns the
Speaker 3: company and he has sort of like I think, terrified
Speaker 3: whoever remains at Twitter. I mean, you know, one one
Speaker 3: just really strange aspect of all this is the speed
Speaker 3: with which it happened. There were reports of inside Twitter
Speaker 3: offices just you know, the handyman just rapidly taking the
Speaker 3: signs down. You know, they were the sign outside of
Speaker 3: twitter San Francisco headquarters when down so fast that the
Speaker 3: police stopped it because they didn't have permits. You know.
Speaker 3: Someone on Twitter said, you know, why is this happening
Speaker 3: with the urgency of a coup? You know, like it's
Speaker 3: just like we got to get this stuff out of here.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, Elan has said, you know, he's
Speaker 3: posted these pictures of himself with the letter X, and
Speaker 3: he says, everyone knows I love X. And so the
Speaker 3: larger takeaway from this, besides just that we're kind of
Speaker 3: locked in this room with this guy and you know
Speaker 3: he's he's just doing whatever he wants. Is that, you know,
Speaker 3: apparently this is part of this larger plan to make
Speaker 3: Twitter into this sort of world spanning app. This idea
Speaker 3: that you know, you'll do your banking on Twitter and
Speaker 3: you'll do really all of your this is the one
Speaker 3: app you'll need, you know. And of course given that
Speaker 3: in the past all of the things he's seen fit
Speaker 3: to do with Twitter, including let random substackers, you know,
Speaker 3: just go diving through the emails for whatever they want
Speaker 3: to find. I mean, maybe not the folks I would
Speaker 3: trust with my bank account.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wonder like so yeah that. So
Speaker 1: he hired this woman, Linda Jacarino is right, and she
Speaker 1: came from NBC and was very legit. She now has
Speaker 1: the words job in the world, which she deserves for taking.
Speaker 1: But you know, she was saying, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a payment company, it's going to be we chat, it's
Speaker 1: going to be this, it's going to be that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're just making up these valuations, if
Speaker 1: you add more functionality, you can make up a higher valuation.
Speaker 1: But the idea that you know, they they can't keep
Speaker 1: advertisers who actually were on the platform let alone. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just wonder if even like Iran de Santis would
Speaker 1: give his bank information at this point.
Speaker 3: It is fascinating. One of the changes he's made to
Speaker 3: Twitter is that, of course people can pay for blue
Speaker 3: checks now, which come with being promoted higher up and replies.
Speaker 3: And so we've been introduced to this world of the
Speaker 3: much more the Elon brained fanboy, right, and these guys,
Speaker 3: we are like, yes, the time is now for X.
Speaker 3: We've all been waiting for it. You know, it's X
Speaker 3: is the future. So these people seem very into it.
Speaker 3: But I think there are may be a couple thousand
Speaker 3: of them. I mean, I think the average person. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just very very bizarre. And as you said, I
Speaker 3: mean this Linda Yakarino, who's coming from NBC, who is
Speaker 3: apparently a pretty legit executive there and now has to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's X time. I love this idea. This is great. Actually,
Speaker 3: it's really something to behold these blue.
Speaker 1: Checks, and this is something I am asking for my
Speaker 1: own notification. We know these are real people and not bots.
Speaker 3: Well, I think in some cases they probably are. I
Speaker 3: mean and and you know, I think that's a good point, Molly,
Speaker 3: because I certainly prefer to think that their box's real.
Speaker 3: I honestly, I feel like I take psychic damage when
Speaker 3: I read these people's tweets, and I have to remind
Speaker 3: myself that, like, not everyone in the world is like this,
Speaker 3: because I'll heading, what everyone loves this Elon's crazy new
Speaker 3: idea and why why do I do this and all
Speaker 3: this stuff. But the thing is, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of them are not bots. I think there really are
Speaker 3: people who just whatever Elon does, they love it. And
Speaker 3: I think they have this kind of like slavish devotion
Speaker 3: to a guy just because he's really rich.
Speaker 1: Thank god he can't run for president. I myself wonder, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I used to really read Twitter for the
Speaker 1: discourse and to see what people would say about an
Speaker 1: article and to see but it does seem and again,
Speaker 1: we don't know about this, and there's not so much
Speaker 1: transparency about how algorithms work, or at least I have
Speaker 1: not seen that it's such a radically different experience using
Speaker 1: Twitter versus using threads or versuss using the Blue Sky.
Speaker 1: You know, three social networks that are largely meant to
Speaker 1: have the same experience, and they're radically different. So clearly
Speaker 1: the algorithms in these three sites work differently, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I think a big issue with Threads has
Speaker 3: been that they're very insistent on doing this kind of
Speaker 3: algorithmic stuff, so that I'm seeing some random like prankster
Speaker 3: team Prankster in La. It was just like, like, just
Speaker 3: this is epic, Whereas on Twitter, you know, you look
Speaker 3: at your for you page, which is the algorithmic side,
Speaker 3: and they're just like, you want to see a video
Speaker 3: of a guy like getting hit by a bus, and
Speaker 3: you know, I don't, but you know, that's that's really
Speaker 3: that's what these companies are pushing.
Speaker 1: I like the suit Guy.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love the suit Guy, Molly, and I just
Speaker 3: have to say, you know, I'm I'm kind of a
Speaker 3: amateur men'swear guy myself, and I've been following suit Guy
Speaker 3: long before the algorithm picked him up. I love it,
Speaker 3: and people are they crave a backlash. I find that
Speaker 3: guy's content so useful, and people are just like, aren't
Speaker 3: we all sick of men'swear Guy? But you kidding, He's
Speaker 3: the last good thing on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was my thinking too. I was you know,
Speaker 1: I have a husband and two sons, and I was
Speaker 1: sending one of the sons the thing about the King
Speaker 1: of Greece, the King of Spain, the King of Spain
Speaker 1: and his tailoring and you know how, because the truth
Speaker 1: is men'swear, like nobody knows how that's supposed to look anyway.
Speaker 1: So but anyway, we got to talk about Nate Haffman.
Speaker 1: So let's I'm just going to give you a little
Speaker 1: bit of the scene here. The most terminally online presidential
Speaker 1: campaign ever. Is this soon to be over? Ron Desanta's
Speaker 1: campaign continue.
Speaker 3: Yes. So there's a fascinating thing going on with the
Speaker 3: Desanta's campaign, and that's there's this generation of young Republican
Speaker 3: activists who often style themselves as the New Right. They're
Speaker 3: allied with people like JD. Vance. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of their ideas, when you boil down to it, are
Speaker 3: basically fascism.
Speaker 1: Right. Chris Rufo is like this right, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is that crow.
Speaker 3: It's sort of like in a lot of cases, it's
Speaker 3: like kind of like they want like a Catholic theocracy,
Speaker 3: like Francoism perhaps, And so it might say.
Speaker 1: Laugh because it's scary and they believe it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically your idea is the right of you know,
Speaker 3: let's say George W. Bush, we don't like this, or
Speaker 3: Jeb Bush, we don't like this because this idea that
Speaker 3: the government is kind of taking a hands off approach
Speaker 3: to the economy has allowed wokey corporations like Disney to
Speaker 3: run a muck and so we need now, we need
Speaker 3: a government that's really going to punish our ideological enemies
Speaker 3: and like outlawed drag shows and all these kind of
Speaker 3: like diysantasy issues. So a lot of these guys have
Speaker 3: been attracted to DeSantis. Nate Ackman is very interesting character.
Speaker 3: This guy is still i think, like twenty three at
Speaker 3: this point. He's really young, and this is a guy
Speaker 3: who came out of this Claremont Institute. These like really
Speaker 3: what I think people on the left off and call
Speaker 3: wing nut welfare, sort of like you graduate from college
Speaker 3: and the Koch Brothers or someone else hands you a
Speaker 3: fellowship and says, hey, kid, just keep pumping out these articles.
Speaker 3: Your life is made. And so he's an interesting guy.
Speaker 3: I think he's part of like the DC Rational Review
Speaker 3: Crew exactly, like a bunch of fellowships, like what the
Speaker 3: neighborhood in DC called the wharf where it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: all these kind of Maggie New Right types hangout. And
Speaker 3: this is a guy who frankly had it made. He wrote,
Speaker 3: I think when he was like twenty one or twenty
Speaker 3: he had a huge like a front page in the
Speaker 3: Sunday Times review section about like the new Right and stuff,
Speaker 3: and he was quoted a bunch of the Times. He
Speaker 3: could have been the face of the new right, coasted
Speaker 3: into book deals and whatever in this kind of like
Speaker 3: proto fascism, like the friendly phase of that, but he
Speaker 3: was too online. This is a cautionary tale.
Speaker 1: For you and I and mostly for Nazis. But yes,
Speaker 1: continue a lot.
Speaker 3: Of these guys they talk a lot about optics or
Speaker 3: they talk about what they call hiding your power level.
Speaker 1: This is real in cell talk here, right.
Speaker 3: And so like you can look at something like Charlottesville
Speaker 3: and which they came to see is a big mistake,
Speaker 3: not because someone was murdered, but because it is something
Speaker 3: that for a normal person you can say that guy
Speaker 3: march in Charlottesville and they go, oh, geez, that guy's
Speaker 3: a Nazi, right, And so they blew a lot of
Speaker 3: their identities essentially, But for someone like Nate Hawkman. He
Speaker 3: first he screwed up before joining the Desantas campaign because
Speaker 3: he was caught on a Twitter space And you know,
Speaker 3: Jesse does this our this podcast, but the amount of
Speaker 3: like random right wing career immolation that goes down on
Speaker 3: Twitter spaces is truly crazy. This is where they talk
Speaker 3: about like he's having sex at TPUSA in like the
Speaker 3: lobby at TPUSA conventions, all this stuff, and almost no
Speaker 3: journalists listen to it, and then I'll just drop in
Speaker 3: and be like, well, this is crazy. So he was
Speaker 3: praising Nick Fuentes, who's the white nationalist leader, and saying,
Speaker 3: you know, oh, maybe he's got some good ideas or whatever.
Speaker 3: So I think he got fired from a job over that.
Speaker 3: He ended up on the Desanta's campaign, and he has
Speaker 3: now been tied to these meme videos that Desanta's campaign
Speaker 3: was creating and then kind of laundering through third parties,
Speaker 3: which someone CALLEDNBC because you know, this idea of covering
Speaker 3: up these campaign ads. But the first one was the
Speaker 3: really anti gay one. We all saw where it would be,
Speaker 3: you know, Donald Trump's cool with drag queens. And then
Speaker 3: here's DeSantis and he says we're going to shut down
Speaker 3: this gay stuff and then cut it with American psycho right.
Speaker 1: Both homo erotic and anti gay.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and Peaky Blinders. And you know, the thing
Speaker 3: I want to underline there is that they were doing this, Molly,
Speaker 3: do you know what a sigma male is now?
Speaker 1: And if I don't, then our listeners also don't. No
Speaker 1: offense to our listeners.
Speaker 3: So a sigma male, it's like, you know, we think
Speaker 3: of the alpha male, the beta male, the previous right
Speaker 3: wing obsession with these hierarchies. A sigma male they see
Speaker 3: as a man who sort of goes his own way
Speaker 3: and it's sort of a lone wolf. And so in
Speaker 3: this case they have these like Sigma male memes like
Speaker 3: from Peaky Blinders or what have you. And so they
Speaker 3: had this very bizarre video. And then more recently the
Speaker 3: reporting revealed that Nate Hawkman, when he was working for
Speaker 3: the Dasantas campaign, put out this video of Dysantis. It
Speaker 3: was sort of like DeSantis is going to institute a
Speaker 3: new Reich where they had this sort of a Florida
Speaker 3: themed son and rat and this is a neo Nazi symbol.
Speaker 3: This is pretty crazy stuff for the Desanta's campaign to
Speaker 3: be creating and then ultimately he was fired.
Speaker 1: I mean obviously not unsurprising, but I mean I guess
Speaker 1: they did fire like two thirds of their staff, so
Speaker 1: it makes sense. But from very early days we saw this.
Speaker 1: This DeSantis campaign had a really pretty extreme cyber bullying
Speaker 1: arm led by Christina Poushaw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the Disanta's campaign really is. I will
Speaker 3: say they're pretty good at Twitter fights. They don't think
Speaker 3: he's so good at winning primaries. I mean they get
Speaker 3: in these like quagmire battles with the Trump people online
Speaker 3: and the Trump campaign, you know, people watch Dune. I
Speaker 3: mean they have these like online like Sarto car like
Speaker 3: death corps who will just debate with Desanta's people forever. Now,
Speaker 3: the genius of the Trump campaign is they outsource this, right,
Speaker 3: Like they have just a bunch of lunatics who will
Speaker 3: will argue all day. But this is on the Disanta side.
Speaker 3: They have actual like Dysantis people in the campaign doing
Speaker 3: it and it's just not a great look. Christina Poushaw
Speaker 3: got in this like a really intense argument with like
Speaker 3: a sixteen year old or something, and you know she
Speaker 3: may have had a point, but you just don't want
Speaker 3: your you know one of your time lieutenants arguing with
Speaker 3: teenagers online.
Speaker 1: I speak for yourself. I think that was what Lincoln did.
Speaker 1: Jesse just texted me that we have to talk about
Speaker 1: the Sound of Freedom. Just give our listeners the TLDR
Speaker 1: on the Sound of Freedom.
Speaker 3: Well, Sound of Freedom, move over, Barbenheimer. The movie Sensation
Speaker 3: of the Summer is Sound of Freedom, a movie starring
Speaker 3: Jim Caviezel, who people may remember as Jesus in the
Speaker 3: Passion of the Christ.
Speaker 1: Nobody remembers that.
Speaker 3: I went to Catholic school. BALI was a big deal.
Speaker 3: You got extra credit if you went to see it.
Speaker 1: It's funny because it's like anyone who spends a lot
Speaker 1: of time on Twitter has been like, you know, you've
Speaker 1: been approached by some blue chack who has said, you know,
Speaker 1: you were so upset by the Sound of Freedom. I
Speaker 1: was like, I have no idea what that is. Like,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 1: I've worked really hard not to know what it is.
Speaker 1: But I guess I'm going to find out right now.
Speaker 3: Right. So Sound of Freedom is about It's the It's
Speaker 3: sort of a fictionalized account of this guy named Tim
Speaker 3: Ballard who launched this group called Operation Underground Railroad that
Speaker 3: purports to rescue children from child sex trafficking. And so
Speaker 3: the VICE has done a lot of great reporting on
Speaker 3: his claims, which here in many cases to be exaggerated.
Speaker 3: But this is sort of the very heroic version of this. Now,
Speaker 3: if all of this sounds a bit QAnon adjacent, you're
Speaker 3: not wrong because Jim cavisl while the movie itself doesn't
Speaker 3: mention QAnon, Jim Cavizl is like incredibly QAnon build. I mean,
Speaker 3: he is Marjorie Taylor Green levels. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: I was at a qnon themed convention in Tulsa and
Speaker 3: he got up there and I thought, that's kind of weird.
Speaker 3: A guy of this prominence is at this QON convention.
Speaker 3: And he said, I got this movie coming out. It's
Speaker 3: called Sound of Freedom, and it's about how we're rescuing
Speaker 3: kids from having there a drina chrome drained by the
Speaker 3: global elites, so you know, these satanic rituals and stuff.
Speaker 3: And then he pals around with a JFK Junior impersonator.
Speaker 3: They went on away, you're that guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what's that guy's name?
Speaker 3: It's actually a second one. I think you're thinking of
Speaker 3: a different guy.
Speaker 1: Oh, I was thinking about the crazy guy who doesn't
Speaker 1: look anything like JFK Junior.
Speaker 3: This guy doesn't either. Vincent Fusca is the guy you're thinking.
Speaker 3: And he's like a relatively nice guy because he just
Speaker 3: kind of hangs out.
Speaker 1: He is nice. Yeah, I mean nice relatively speaking.
Speaker 3: The Jim cavizl Wan is a guy named wan O
Speaker 3: Savan who had this like almost successful scheme to gain
Speaker 3: control of our elections. He's very deep in it. And
Speaker 3: the reason people are talking about Sound of Freedom is
Speaker 3: because it's box office has been huge. I believe it
Speaker 3: may have surpassed the new Mission Impossible movie at this point.
Speaker 3: It beat or roughly beat the Indiana Jones at the
Speaker 3: box office one weekend. But there's kind of a backstory here,
Speaker 3: which is that they have it set up so that
Speaker 3: you can buy just huge amounts of tickets for other people,
Speaker 3: and then they can go redeem the tickets online. So
Speaker 3: people will go to these screenings and find that they're
Speaker 3: quote unquote sold out, but actually the theater is totally empty.
Speaker 3: So it's not I wouldn't say it's like an organic phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. So this is like buying, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty thousand copies of Don Junior's book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very similar to that. The other funny aspect
Speaker 3: of this is people will go to these you know,
Speaker 3: kind of these people who are looking to at red
Speaker 3: bills on QAnon. We'll go to these screenings and there
Speaker 3: will be some issue where it's like the sodum fountain
Speaker 3: wasn't working or the ac is off, and they'll say,
Speaker 3: you know, the global cabal is trying to prevent me
Speaker 3: from seeing Sound of Freedom. And so there's all these
Speaker 3: videos of people saying like, Hm, the employee didn't open
Speaker 3: the theater up quick enough, Soros.
Speaker 1: Much, Oh wow, that's really stupid. All right, Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: am I pretty depressed. I'm mildly depressed from this interview.
Speaker 1: I hope you will come back in the fall so
Speaker 1: we can talk about the continual death of our democracy.
Speaker 3: Well, there's so much to talk about. Molly, thanks for
Speaker 3: having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks Hi, It's Molly, and I am wildly excited that
Speaker 1: for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening
Speaker 1: to right now, is going to have merch for sale
Speaker 1: over at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now
Speaker 1: buy shirts hats, hoodies, and toe bags are incredible designs.
Speaker 1: We've heard your cries to spread the word about our
Speaker 1: podcast and get a toe bag with my adorable Leo
Speaker 1: the Rescue Puppy on it. And now you can grab
Speaker 1: this merchandise only at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: for your support. Nick Bilton is the author of Hatching
Speaker 1: Twitter and a special correspondent at Vanity Fair. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Fast Politics, Nick Belton.
Speaker 2: How's it going?
Speaker 1: You know, live in the dream, So let's talk about X.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about actually, like, should I have a Mitch
Speaker 4: McCollum moment where I just stopped talking for twenty seconds
Speaker 4: and we just stand there in silence, and then afterwards
Speaker 4: I make a joke about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, for sure that it was. You were sandbagged.
Speaker 1: I'm going to sand bag you right now. What is happening?
Speaker 4: What is happening with X dot com? The update since
Speaker 4: we've last spoken is that Mark Zuckerberg created a quote
Speaker 4: unquote Twitter killer that has not necessarily proven to be
Speaker 4: a Twitter killer called Threads, and now Elon Musk has
Speaker 4: changed one of the most recognizable brands on planet Earth
Speaker 4: from Twitter to X. The letter I mean I guess
Speaker 4: Elon probably this is a word. But the letter X
Speaker 4: is something that goes back for Elon many many many
Speaker 4: many years in fack decades, and it's something he's been
Speaker 4: obsessed with. Weird, it's so bizarre. One of his kids
Speaker 4: is called X. It's you know, it was the first
Speaker 4: X dot com credit card from PayPal. You know, he
Speaker 4: just is obsessive that there's the Tesla Model X, but
Speaker 4: the four Teslas that he sells, that the model S,
Speaker 4: the Model three, the Model X, and the model why spell.
Speaker 1: Out sexy right, very stupid.
Speaker 4: So he's got this kind of like it's a very
Speaker 4: kind of childish view of brand and things. And I
Speaker 4: think that this is just another step in that direction.
Speaker 4: I think where things are going to get typicult is
Speaker 4: that I don't think anyone's going to adopt it. They're
Speaker 4: not going to call it X. They're going to continue
Speaker 4: to call it Twitter. And a perfect example of that is,
Speaker 4: you know Google renamed itself alphabet, Like when do we
Speaker 4: talk about Google is alphabet?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: You know, Facebook rebranded itself meta. We still call it Facebook.
Speaker 4: And I think that this will be the same for Twitter,
Speaker 4: and he'll call it X and he'll reference it as X,
Speaker 4: and the rest of the world will call it Twitter.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. So he wants to call it X.
Speaker 1: So it's just because he likes the letter. There's nothing else. Well,
Speaker 1: it's partially he has.
Speaker 4: This vision for what he and I think this goes
Speaker 4: back also back to the PayPal days, but he has
Speaker 4: this vision for what he calls the It's almost like
Speaker 4: the everything stores. It's a little bit like Amazon, if
Speaker 4: you if Amazon had a social network and way you
Speaker 4: can do anything on one website and there. And the
Speaker 4: reason for this is, like I think, I think personally,
Speaker 4: he's seen there are instances of these kinds of technologies
Speaker 4: in Asia where you have an app we chat, Yeah,
Speaker 4: we chat and things like that, where you have an
Speaker 4: app that you do your banking, you chat, you read
Speaker 4: the news.
Speaker 2: It's everything.
Speaker 4: And I think that Elon kind of has had this
Speaker 4: dream of making one of those and I think that
Speaker 4: that's what he's trying to do with Twitter. And what
Speaker 4: will happen is he'll probably integrate all those things. There's
Speaker 4: no question about that. You know, you will see some
Speaker 4: sort of banking in there, You'll see some sort of
Speaker 4: store power, you know, all these different things I just
Speaker 4: don't know if people are going to use it, because
Speaker 4: he has really burned so many bridges with consumers and
Speaker 4: distanced himself from so many people. I can't imagine I
Speaker 4: wouldn't be using the x dot com banking system when
Speaker 4: Elon can be as kind of emotional and angry over
Speaker 4: nothing as he is.
Speaker 1: Right, there is no sense behind any of this. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you have taken a brand, you have platformed of people
Speaker 1: who would not otherwise have been platformed, and now you
Speaker 1: want people to give you their money.
Speaker 4: The thing about Elon that's really interesting is he has
Speaker 4: these obsessions, right. It's extreme OCD where he's like, Oh,
Speaker 4: I want to build an electric car and a driverless car,
Speaker 4: and he spends his entire life obsessing about how to
Speaker 4: do that. That can work out really fucking well for him.
Speaker 4: He built the biggest car company on the planet and
Speaker 4: changed the entire car market to drive others to make
Speaker 4: electric cars, which they would never have done had it
Speaker 4: not been for him, So we need to give him
Speaker 4: that credit. At the same time, he was like, I
Speaker 4: want to go to Mars and I want to build
Speaker 4: rockets to go there, and he obsessed and obsessed and
Speaker 4: obsessed until he did that, and he will do that,
Speaker 4: and there's just no question that that will happen. But
Speaker 4: there is also a downside to that kind of side
Speaker 4: of his personality and like this and the X branding,
Speaker 4: of course, is one example of that. In the nineties,
Speaker 4: he wanted to change the name PayPal to X and
Speaker 4: replace it. He's kind of talked about since the early
Speaker 4: two thousands that it's such a novel and intriguing an
Speaker 4: open ended term.
Speaker 2: Because I don't know.
Speaker 4: He's just obsessed with this letter, and that obsession is
Speaker 4: something that he is going to drive until he breaks it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I don't know what his end goal is here. Honestly,
Speaker 4: I think that I think he was he accidentally purchased Twitter.
Speaker 4: I think it seemed like a good idea at the
Speaker 4: time because he was pissed off with the CEO at
Speaker 4: the time, and I think and then he was forced
Speaker 4: to do it because he signed the contracts. And now
Speaker 4: I think he's just trying to figure out what he
Speaker 4: can make this thing into that saves space for him.
Speaker 4: And I think that this direction of this new X
Speaker 4: dot com is the direction he's going to go.
Speaker 1: That seems like what we're looking at so explain to
Speaker 1: me why why he doesn't. I mean, he just is
Speaker 1: going to take this to broke. I mean what happens now?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think that Elon is is capable of
Speaker 4: a lot of things, but he is not capable of
Speaker 4: breaking Twitter. You know, there used to be the saying
Speaker 4: that that Twitter the company you couldn't kill. I think
Speaker 4: that a lot of people have tried, accidentally or intentionally.
Speaker 4: Jack Dorsey was arguably one of the worst CEOs I've
Speaker 4: ever seen, who did nothing. His philosophy as a CEO
Speaker 4: was that if he had to make a decision, he failed.
Speaker 4: That doesn't seem like leadership to me. That just seems
Speaker 4: like passing the buck. He was the person who oversaw
Speaker 4: the company during the Trump era, where he could have
Speaker 4: had a huge impact on society in the world, in
Speaker 4: the company, and chose not to until the very last
Speaker 4: minute and actually perhaps the last minute, and the company survived.
Speaker 4: It made money, and it was worth billions, and it
Speaker 4: had thousands of employees, and it continued to work. And
Speaker 4: I think that Elon can elon his way through anything,
Speaker 4: and he'll say silly things, and he'll piss off half
Speaker 4: his user base and he'll do whatever he wants to do.
Speaker 4: But when push comes to shove, whenever there's a big
Speaker 4: breaking news event or there's an earthquake or a ride
Speaker 4: in the street or whatever it is, people in and
Speaker 4: go to Twitter. It kind of has become a part
Speaker 4: of the fabric of society, and there's nothing that he
Speaker 4: can do to completely break it until something bender comes along.
Speaker 4: And I just don't think that we're in an age
Speaker 4: and society where people want something better. I think that
Speaker 4: this is the thing with to go back to Mark
Speaker 4: Zuckerberg and threads, there's an irony that to the fact
Speaker 4: that Zuck called threads threads because the term comes from
Speaker 4: of course, like the two versions of it. The first
Speaker 4: version is when someone makes a thread on Twitter and
Speaker 4: you know, they do like seventy five tweets and they're like, threat,
Speaker 4: check this out. The second version, which I think is
Speaker 4: more appropriate, is that we all have these threads on
Speaker 4: our phone, so like our group chats of people we
Speaker 4: talk to all the time. And I think that that
Speaker 4: is what is actually replacing Twitter slowly. It's that being public,
Speaker 4: it turns out from most people, is not as fun
Speaker 4: as we thought it would be. And so the I
Speaker 4: Messages to me, Apple's I Messages and these other chat
Speaker 4: platforms are the new thread They are the new Twitter.
Speaker 4: And I think that's where most of the most of
Speaker 4: conversation is now happening. It's not happening on platforms in public.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. What does that mean for threads?
Speaker 1: Threads got a huge bump and then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden it got exhausted.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, I think the reality is we want something from
Speaker 4: these platforms. We want them to give us something. They
Speaker 4: do give us these connections, they give us information and
Speaker 4: so on and so forth, but they also have a
Speaker 4: vapidness to them and a staleness to them a and
Speaker 4: the algorithms are too good. The reason the algorithms are
Speaker 4: too good is because, you know, it's funny. I don't
Speaker 4: really use social media that much anymore. I haven't posted
Speaker 4: on Twitter and god knows how long, and I haven't
Speaker 4: posted on Instagram in a couple of years. And I
Speaker 4: think I used threads two or three times. I can't
Speaker 4: even remember the last time I posted on Facebook. But
Speaker 4: every once in a while I'll download them and like
Speaker 4: kind of see what's going on, just because what I
Speaker 4: have to do for work and I downloaded Instagram recently
Speaker 4: and I clicked it, like surfaced a video of like
Speaker 4: a plane landing, like from a pilot's perspective, and I
Speaker 4: clicked on it. I was like, what is that? And
Speaker 4: then I clicked off and now that's all of my
Speaker 4: feed and I'm like, what, I don't care about that?
Speaker 4: Why are you showing me that? And I think that
Speaker 4: what happens is the algorithm thinks, oh, you like this,
Speaker 4: so you're going to like more of this. It becomes exhausting,
Speaker 4: and I think that the algorithms are too good, but
Speaker 4: they're also bad at the same time, and they don't
Speaker 4: know what it is we like, so they think that
Speaker 4: they know what it is we like, and that ends
Speaker 4: up driving consumers away because it gets exhausting. And I
Speaker 4: think that Zuckerberg thinks that he still hasn't solved the
Speaker 4: social media proxy platform, whatever it is. He hasn't figured
Speaker 4: out what it is yet. And I think the reality
Speaker 4: is that we don't want them. I think that they
Speaker 4: provide something for a short period of time and then
Speaker 4: we get bored of them or they make us feel bad,
Speaker 4: because they do make us feel really really bad, all
Speaker 4: of them, and people quit and they they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm done with that. And I think that he thinks
Speaker 4: that he can just continue you to solve it, and
Speaker 4: I just don't think it's a solvable thing. I think again,
Speaker 4: a place like I messages where you have ten different threads,
Speaker 4: where you can be different personalities to different threads. So
Speaker 4: if I have one a work, I'm going to obviously
Speaker 4: be a lot more polite and not you know, send
Speaker 4: silly links and say silly things. If I have a
Speaker 4: thread with my family, I can obviously say certain things
Speaker 4: to them that you know are appropriate or not appropriate.
Speaker 4: And the same thing goes for threads with my friends,
Speaker 4: where I can say something that on Twitter I would
Speaker 4: get canceled for or I would lose my job or whatever.
Speaker 4: Like I could share a link to something that I
Speaker 4: don't feel like debating with five hundred people, but I
Speaker 4: can debate with three friends. And I think that that's
Speaker 4: why so many people have moved over to these insular
Speaker 4: private chats, because they're safe and they are with people
Speaker 4: you know, And that to me is why threads will
Speaker 4: never work, and.
Speaker 1: They couldn't just make it more like Twitter.
Speaker 4: Well, I do, only Twitter works either, which is why
Speaker 4: there's only three hundred and thirty million people on it,
Speaker 4: versus you know, there's four billion people on social media.
Speaker 4: There's five point something billion people that use these chat
Speaker 4: services around the globe. So if you look at it
Speaker 4: from that perspective, Twitter doesn't work. It's more into a
Speaker 4: big news platform.
Speaker 3: And I do think.
Speaker 4: What Elong will end up doing is shifting it to
Speaker 4: be more of a media company, because I think that
Speaker 4: he will realize that getting new users on Twitter is
Speaker 4: it's not just a branding problem. It's hit its peak.
Speaker 4: Everyone on the planet knows what Twitter is, but they
Speaker 4: don't sign up or they don't use it because they
Speaker 4: don't like it. And so I think that what he'll
Speaker 4: end up doing is kind of the thing that you're
Speaker 4: seeing where he's got people like Tucker Calls and others
Speaker 4: using it as a video platform and then it becomes
Speaker 4: a media conglomerate like a Fox News and with public chat.
Speaker 1: Oh god, it's so crazy, Nick, What else are you watching?
Speaker 4: I'm paying attention to all of the terrifying things that
Speaker 4: are going on right now with AI, which is very
Speaker 4: very scary stuff. And I have been working on a
Speaker 4: big story for fans fair about that will come out
Speaker 4: later this summer. We're at this kind of inflection point
Speaker 4: with technology where it is about to you know, we
Speaker 4: think that social media had a negative impact on society. Wait,
Speaker 4: so you see what AI does?
Speaker 2: You know AI.
Speaker 4: It'll have positive impacts, is no question. It'll cure cancer,
Speaker 4: and it'll help us explore the universe and all these things.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, it has the potential to
Speaker 4: destroy humanity. And I don't say that to be hyperbolical.
Speaker 4: This is a fact of what AI researchers have been
Speaker 4: talking about for decades. And yet in the same way
Speaker 4: that we that social media was thrust upon us by
Speaker 4: the nerds, we are about to have it thrust upon
Speaker 4: us by the you know, AI, by the by the
Speaker 4: bigger nerds, and and the repercussions could be disastrous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievable. Thank you so much, Nick.
Speaker 4: Of course, thank you so much. Happy to do it anytime.
Speaker 3: Noo.
Speaker 5: Jesse Cannon Molli joung fast that Rudy Giuliani not want
Speaker 5: to be known to be telling the truth, whether it
Speaker 5: was when he was a mayor and lying about crime
Speaker 5: statistics and these days lying about elections.
Speaker 1: Well, he was America's mayor and now he's America's criminal.
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani has conceded that he made public comments falsely
Speaker 1: claiming two election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss were
Speaker 1: not in fact passing drives to each other, they were
Speaker 1: passing gingermins to each other. And Rudy Giuliani has formally
Speaker 1: recounted his lying and despite the fact that he has
Speaker 1: we repeatedly pushed these debunked claims. So, of course the
Speaker 1: world of the Gateway Pundit will never see this retraction.
Speaker 1: It will not air on Fox News, it will not
Speaker 1: be on the cover of the New York Post. Oh
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the use of it is ultimately
Speaker 1: for these two poor women who have had their lives
Speaker 1: destroyed and had people show up at their houses. But
Speaker 1: that is the state of America right now, and for
Speaker 1: that it is our moment of Houck Gray. That's it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics
Speaker 1: makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what
Speaker 1: you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep
Speaker 1: the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.