Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discuss the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds. And a federal judge has blocked Florida's
Speaker 1: ban on gender firm and care for trans youth. We
Speaker 1: have such an interesting show today. Nprs Miles Parks stop
Speaker 1: spy to talk to us about Republicans' latest fuckery with
Speaker 1: the voter rolls. Then we'll talk to the New York
Speaker 1: Times Ryan Mack about the bleak future in store for
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's Twitter. But first we have the host of
Speaker 1: the Think Like an Economist podcast, University of Michigan Professor
Speaker 1: Justin Wolfers. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 2: Welcome back Justin Fast Politics and Fast Economics.
Speaker 3: Molly, Fast Economics. We need your help, man, I'm here
Speaker 3: to help.
Speaker 1: Let us talk first about the blockbuster jobs numbers.
Speaker 2: The jobs we're blockbuster again, right, yeah, So let me
Speaker 2: just give some context for your listeners. Yes, we economists
Speaker 2: pay enormous attention to a monthly set of numbers called
Speaker 2: the Jobs Report. Partly it's because we love it when
Speaker 2: people find work. But it's not just that. This is
Speaker 2: also the first big data release that tells us what
Speaker 2: the economy was doing in May. So it's not just
Speaker 2: that it's important, it's also that it's reliable and it's early,
Speaker 2: and so it tells us when we get all the
Speaker 2: rest of the indicators to May, it's also going to
Speaker 2: say this economy just kept rocketing along.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of anxiety here that we and this
Speaker 1: has been going on for a while, that we were
Speaker 1: going to go into a recession or something, you know,
Speaker 1: that we were going to have a hard landing. These
Speaker 1: jobs numbers explain why they're so relevant.
Speaker 2: Right, So I will tell you, molly, Like every month
Speaker 2: for the last maybe year and a half or two years,
Speaker 2: literally every month a journalist has called me and said, boy,
Speaker 2: do you think this means we're in a recession?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Every time, and in every single one of those months,
Speaker 2: the economy has created more jobs than it normally does.
Speaker 2: So it's not just that the economy is not a
Speaker 2: lot of nuts. In that sentence, let me.
Speaker 1: Go back, Yeah, tell us without the quadruple negatives.
Speaker 4: Please, you're saying I should aure not the knots. Boom, yes, boom,
Speaker 4: that's right. We got some real academic humor here. Continue. Yes, no,
Speaker 4: I'm just kidding, hilarious.
Speaker 2: Continue, So, if people thought we're in a recession, we
Speaker 2: should be creating fewer jobs than we normally are, in fact,
Speaker 2: we should be losing jobs. False and false. The opposite
Speaker 2: of a recession is when we're creating jobs, and the
Speaker 2: extreme opposite of a recession is when we're creating jobs
Speaker 2: faster than usual.
Speaker 3: Right, all of which is true right now.
Speaker 2: All of which is true this month, last month, the
Speaker 2: one before that, the one before that, and how long
Speaker 2: do you want me to go on for molly okay?
Speaker 1: On the internet, which we're trying to do less of,
Speaker 1: but on Twitter, the tech bro crew, which includes Elon
Speaker 1: Musk and his minions were mad about these job numbers
Speaker 1: and felt that they weren't legit.
Speaker 3: Can you explain a little bit about this incredibly dumb story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, if you and you alone have a galaxy
Speaker 2: brain that understands all of capitalism, which I do, Yes,
Speaker 2: and some numbers come out that happen not to reflect
Speaker 2: the reality that you see as you're walking down Sandhill
Speaker 2: Road in Silicon Valley to buy an eighteen dollar latte.
Speaker 3: We are really at peak naughtiness here. Justin continue, Yes, there's.
Speaker 2: Only one conclusion you can draw, which is the numbers
Speaker 2: must be fake. Reality could not possibly be anything else
Speaker 2: you perceive it to be. I will tell you, Molly,
Speaker 2: the fun thing about this is I teach freshman economics.
Speaker 2: I have brilliant, wonderful eighteen year olds, and I teach
Speaker 2: this stuff about how these numbers are calculated and so on,
Speaker 2: and they fall a little bit of sleep because statistics
Speaker 2: aren't for everyone. But any one of my freshmen could
Speaker 2: fly out to Silicon Valley and I'm sure I could
Speaker 2: get one of them out there for a mere two
Speaker 2: thousand dollars an hour to give a quick little lecture
Speaker 2: on how the numbers are collected. And let me tell you,
Speaker 2: the moment someone tells you there's corruption involved, they're telling
Speaker 2: you they don't know what they're saying. They could explain
Speaker 2: the very simple mathematics of how it involves both addition
Speaker 2: and subtraction and sometimes long division. And it turns out
Speaker 2: the rest of the economy is just not necessarily what
Speaker 2: your little bubble looks like.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Sometimes these numbers are adjusted after they're announced. Can you
Speaker 1: explain a little bit about what where those factor into
Speaker 1: I mean, have you seen big adjustments down and what
Speaker 1: does that look like.
Speaker 2: So here's how they collect the most important of those numbers,
Speaker 2: which is called the Non farm Payrolls Report. Basically, every
Speaker 2: big company in the country and a pretty good sampling
Speaker 2: of smaller companies are asked every month to send in
Speaker 2: a form or to electronically zap across a headcom to
Speaker 2: the government, and then the government uses statistical voodoo otherwise
Speaker 2: known as you know, just standard extrapolation to come up
Speaker 2: with the numbers that you read about in the newspaper. Now,
Speaker 2: sometimes it happens that the folks in the personnel department
Speaker 2: are a little bit busy and they don't zap their
Speaker 2: numbers across in time, and so every month they publish
Speaker 2: the number before all the responses come back, and in
Speaker 2: order to be responsible the next month, the statistical authorities so, well,
Speaker 2: let's count all the forms that were returned, and so
Speaker 2: they publish what's called the revised number. It is true
Speaker 2: that the first number you read is an initial early
Speaker 2: best guess. It is true that they're subsequently revised. One
Speaker 2: of my favorite tech bro stories I've heard is that
Speaker 2: they're always published is if the economy is strong, and
Speaker 2: then later quietly Biden and his minions revise it down
Speaker 2: when literally the exact opposite has been true over the
Speaker 2: past few years. So it turns out these numbers ten
Speaker 2: over a couple of months have been revised up more
Speaker 2: often than down, But over a long run of history,
Speaker 2: they're revised up and down roughly as often as each other,
Speaker 2: and roughly as much under Republicans as Democrats. And this
Speaker 2: is just an incredibly serious and boring statistical exercise, and
Speaker 2: there's nothing more to it than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, just I want to
Speaker 1: get into this for another minute, even though it's so stupid.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a bad tension that we have
Speaker 1: a certain And again, these are not all tech bros.
Speaker 1: These are just very loudest ones, and they tend to
Speaker 1: be the very libertarian ones. But do you think it's
Speaker 1: bad that this crew is so convinced that the economy
Speaker 1: is bad and wants to make it so or do
Speaker 1: you think that's just a normal tension that we see.
Speaker 2: Let me answer by broadening the lens and not just
Speaker 2: picking on the tech bros. Right, So, the our word
Speaker 2: recession is one we have just heard an absolutely relentless
Speaker 2: drum beat of over the past two years, just month
Speaker 2: after month, and each of your listeners has tuned into
Speaker 2: a major TV station, or listen to a radio broadcast,
Speaker 2: or read a headline from a major newspaper saying are
Speaker 2: we in recession? Are we in recession? Are we in recession?
Speaker 2: People are worried about a recession. And the amazing thing was,
Speaker 2: if you're one of the statistical nerds that I am,
Speaker 2: there never has been even a hint that we're in recession.
Speaker 2: And so that raises this very deep question what the
Speaker 2: hell's going on? And a bright young economists who came
Speaker 2: up with this idea lovely expression. She called it a
Speaker 2: vibe session. It's the vibe, man. The vibe is recessionary.
Speaker 2: The reality, though, which is reflected in statistics, is not.
Speaker 2: And I think it's kind of important because when I
Speaker 2: say the reality is not, I am not saying your industry,
Speaker 2: your job, your street, your part of the country is
Speaker 2: doing okay. I don't know. What I do know is
Speaker 2: when we add up the statistics across hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of people that on average, the economy today is doing
Speaker 2: a lot better and has continued to improve for the
Speaker 2: last couple of years. And so there's a deeper I
Speaker 2: don't like saying this because normally I think the economics
Speaker 2: media does a pretty good job, particularly from top outlets,
Speaker 2: But this has been a case where the disjunction between
Speaker 2: popular opinion and media reporting versus reality has been larger
Speaker 2: than I've ever seen in my life. I don't have
Speaker 2: a deep theory as to why, but I do know
Speaker 2: that's true.
Speaker 3: You don't have a deep theory into why. You want
Speaker 3: to just make a gas.
Speaker 2: I'll take a guess. So one, Molly, you might notice
Speaker 2: that I'm on your show right now during the middle
Speaker 2: of a booming economy. What are we talking about right now?
Speaker 3: The economy?
Speaker 2: Did you use the word recession when asking me some questions? Yes, okay,
Speaker 2: so I'm talking about a recession because you asked me
Speaker 2: about a recession, right, Molly, Why did you ask me
Speaker 2: about a recession?
Speaker 1: We're not in one, because there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: anxiety about a recession.
Speaker 2: So you have to talk about a recession because everyone
Speaker 2: else is talking about a recession. Yes, and despite the
Speaker 2: fact I know we're not in a recession, I'm talking
Speaker 2: about a recession as well. It's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a self reinforcing loop there. But let me give your
Speaker 2: listeners to other explanations. One, there actually is something bad
Speaker 2: going on at the moment. Inflation is high. Inflation sucks, right,
Speaker 2: I hate it, it's awful.
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so good. You've now got my bold opinion. I'm again.
Speaker 1: Hey, so it's high, but it's actually better than we thought.
Speaker 3: Right, talk to us about inflation. The numbers are going down.
Speaker 2: Right, So, first of all, inflation is not the same
Speaker 2: thing as recession. A recession means we're making less, we're
Speaker 2: buying less, fewer of us have jobs. Yes, it's about
Speaker 2: the stuff that's getting done. Inflation is about the price
Speaker 2: tags associated with that stuff. And so those price tags
Speaker 2: have been a source of angst. But the amount of
Speaker 2: stuff we do has actually been going up. Now inflation
Speaker 2: is fortunately on its way down. There are gradations. We
Speaker 2: could talk about numbers, but let me just use normal
Speaker 2: terms instead. There was a point about a year ago
Speaker 2: where it was at the let's call it the holy
Speaker 2: shit level where.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 2: You couldn't help but notice it. You'd go to the
Speaker 2: grocery store and stuff was more expensive, right, So that's
Speaker 2: what inflation's like eight, nine, ten percent. Then it's now
Speaker 2: fallen to the four or five percent, which is the
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of a minor annoyance, but you're
Speaker 2: not seeing your paycheck getting robbed at at a really
Speaker 2: crazy rate. And then once we get to two or
Speaker 2: three two percent. No one will believe me when I
Speaker 2: say this, but once inflation gets down to two percent,
Speaker 2: you can barely notice it. And the reason you can
Speaker 2: barely notice it is once it's two percent, some things
Speaker 2: are getting a lot cheaper and some things are getting
Speaker 2: a lot more expensive, and it actually requires a really
Speaker 2: big spreadsheet to figure out which side of the ledger
Speaker 2: is bigger. So we're down from holy shit levels towards
Speaker 2: annoying but noticeable, and inflation is going to continue to
Speaker 2: fade down. And the question is will it get all
Speaker 2: the way to unnoticeable or will it stick it mildly annoying.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, as we're talking about this,
Speaker 1: the dead ceiling, big news drama, a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: it could have really crashed the American economy and really
Speaker 1: hurt the Biden presidency. I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: had that anxiety that did not happen, and Biden.
Speaker 3: World really did best.
Speaker 1: The GOP time to me about a how they basted
Speaker 1: them and be what it looks like now.
Speaker 2: Great, So let me tell you a story in three acts.
Speaker 2: First two acts are good news, and then we learned
Speaker 2: the whole thing was a tragedy. The first act is
Speaker 2: there were threats to not raise the debt ceiling, which
Speaker 2: would have forced the US to default on its debt,
Speaker 2: which could have caused a financial crisis, not unlike that
Speaker 2: of two thousand and eight two thousand and nine, forcing
Speaker 2: millions out of work. That could have happened. Good news
Speaker 2: in this first act is that didn't happen. Eventually, Congress
Speaker 2: decided to do what it ought to do, and what
Speaker 2: it's done seventy times in the past is raise the
Speaker 2: debt limit. Second act is who won and who lost?
Speaker 2: And my reading is that Biden. And it's not everyone's reading,
Speaker 2: by the way, but my reading is that Biden ate
Speaker 2: McCarthy's lunch. Now you have to kind of go deep
Speaker 2: in the weeds to see it and know a little
Speaker 2: bit about how the government does accounting. So really, Biden
Speaker 2: I wanted a clean debt ceiling bill, which was a
Speaker 2: way of saying Biden wanted to give nothing up. Of
Speaker 2: course that's my opening can. But in fact my opening
Speaker 2: gambit is I give nothing up and you send over
Speaker 2: a pint of ice cream. Love ice cream, but we
Speaker 2: don't want to compare things to that. What he ended
Speaker 2: up giving up was nominal spending caps, so caps on
Speaker 2: government spending for the next two years. That sounds like
Speaker 2: a lot. Now. Let's realize, though, that Republicans refused to
Speaker 2: do anything on taxes, so it was all on the
Speaker 2: revenue side, within sorry, all in spending side. Within government spending.
Speaker 2: Two thirds of it's what's called mandatory spending, which is
Speaker 2: like Social Security, and they said, well, we're not going
Speaker 2: to touch any of that. The remaining one third is
Speaker 2: what's called discretionary spending. This is the stuff where we
Speaker 2: have to have annual bills appropriating money. And they said, yeah,
Speaker 2: well look at that. Well half of that one third
Speaker 2: is military spending, so we like the military, we don't
Speaker 2: want to do anything there. So what you're left with
Speaker 2: is caps on one half of one third, that is
Speaker 2: one sixth of the federal budget. Those caps, there's actual
Speaker 2: cap for the next two years. And then the bill
Speaker 2: says and here's our goals for the future. Thing about
Speaker 2: goals is they're just that, they're just words. So Biden
Speaker 2: gave up two years of caps. Here's a funny thing. Now, Biden,
Speaker 2: can't you know, he's kind of one at this point,
Speaker 2: but he's got to give McCarthy something to go back
Speaker 2: to his folks and claim a big win. Here's a
Speaker 2: really weird thing. There's a part of the government called
Speaker 2: the CBO Congressional Budget Office whose job is to say
Speaker 2: how much money any new bill will cost or save.
Speaker 2: And what they do is they say, well, it's obviously
Speaker 2: these caps will cut government spending for the next two years,
Speaker 2: and they say, we don't know what's going to happen
Speaker 2: in the third fourth. And they say they accumulate the
Speaker 2: total savings over ten years, but they don't know what's
Speaker 2: going to happen in years three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 2: nine and ten. So they say, well, let's just assume
Speaker 2: government spending sticks at its level at the end of
Speaker 2: two years, except will allow for inflation adjustments. So it's
Speaker 2: like they assume that the two year deal lasts for
Speaker 2: ten years, and so carfee can go back, and so
Speaker 2: imagine that we cut spending one hundred million dollars for
Speaker 2: the next two years. You and I would say that's
Speaker 2: two hundred million dollars worth of savings. The Congressional Budget
Speaker 2: Office would say, yeah, but spending's going to remain lower
Speaker 2: than that. Otherwise would be for one hundred million for
Speaker 2: each of the next ten years. So therefore that's a
Speaker 2: trillion dollars in savings. So McCarthy goes back to his
Speaker 2: folks and shows these graphs, saying I saved us a
Speaker 2: trillion dollars, and Biden quietly says, hey, you know what,
Speaker 2: I didn't really give them very much at all, which
Speaker 2: is the truth.
Speaker 3: Right, So then what's the third act?
Speaker 2: So can I give you one more thing on the
Speaker 2: second act because it's kind of interesting? Yeah, yeah, of course,
Speaker 2: the Republicans really wanted work requirements in order to get
Speaker 2: government assistance. They're like, you know, too many people who
Speaker 2: are poor are just sitting around enjoying being poor. What
Speaker 2: we want them to do is have to work in
Speaker 2: order to.
Speaker 3: Be poor, right, right, They're so cruel.
Speaker 1: I mean, I shouldn't be laughing, but the work, I mean,
Speaker 1: the idea here is like you now, it's just let's
Speaker 1: just pick on the people who need us anyway.
Speaker 3: Gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they said, if your age fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: four and want various forms of assistance, you have to
Speaker 2: show that you're working or trying to work. And the
Speaker 2: Democrats actually said, okay, but in return, let's agree that
Speaker 2: work requirements, which actually already exist for a lot of
Speaker 2: the population, right right, are inhumane for certain groups like veterans,
Speaker 2: homeless people, and foster kids. And so they said, let's
Speaker 2: just get rid of the work requirements for them, but
Speaker 2: we'll boost them for these other guys you want to punch.
Speaker 1: Amazing because the reality is homeless people, veterans, and faster kids.
Speaker 2: Are on benefits at higher rates than the rest of
Speaker 2: the population.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, it was laughed.
Speaker 2: So guess what the number of people subject to work
Speaker 2: requirements actually falls.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Which is quite the negotiating outcome from McCarthy.
Speaker 1: So is it fair to say that McCarthy is in
Speaker 1: fact a golden retriever of a man?
Speaker 2: McCarthy's new doesn't really know how it's done, And Biden's
Speaker 2: seen this play before, and I don't know. I find
Speaker 2: it hard to answer your question, Molly, because I really
Speaker 2: like golden retrievers. But oh my goodness, if we see
Speaker 2: Biden v. McCarthy, if we see that again, I'm going
Speaker 2: to feel pretty good going into it. And so I
Speaker 2: spent all my energy not gloating because I didn't want
Speaker 2: to wake anyone up to how badly McCarthy got beat.
Speaker 2: Let's get to the third act. So far, it's a
Speaker 2: good news story. No, we didn't crash the economy and
Speaker 2: Biden didn't give up most anything to get it. One
Speaker 2: view is the system worked. Here's the problem. What we'd
Speaker 2: spent the entire period of that debate doing is basically
Speaker 2: standing up and saying, hey, I'm thinking about not repaying
Speaker 2: my debts, and then the Republicans will say, I think
Speaker 2: it even more right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: The brinkmanship is bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you ever met a bank manager, like, do
Speaker 2: you have a mortgage or anything? Molly a car loan?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, So let me just give you some advice. Next
Speaker 2: time you want to loan, don't walk into the bank
Speaker 2: and say, you know, if things are going okay, I'll
Speaker 2: make my payments. But if I feel kind of pissy
Speaker 2: with this other guy, I'm not going to make a payment, right,
Speaker 2: And that's effectively, what Congress did and what that's going
Speaker 2: to do is cost us all because we know that
Speaker 2: our commitment to repaying our debts is not that great.
Speaker 2: And the world's bank managers, which is global financial markets,
Speaker 2: are going to say, if I'm going to lend you,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do it at a higher interest rate.
Speaker 2: And then we also had all these people in Treasury,
Speaker 2: their full time job normally is helping run the American economy.
Speaker 2: They spent three months basically looking down the back of
Speaker 2: our metaphorical couch for extra quarters in order to keep
Speaker 2: the government open. And this is all just completely wasted work.
Speaker 2: So my better half, Betsy Stevenson, had an op ed
Speaker 2: in The New York Times yesterday in which he says,
Speaker 2: this may be cost us twenty billion dollars. It's like
Speaker 2: Congress just like just picture this, the number of school
Speaker 2: buses full to the brim of dollar bills lined up
Speaker 2: in front of Congress, and they've got McCarthy out there.
Speaker 2: He probably sent Matt Gertz out to do it instead
Speaker 2: with a cigarette lighter, just burning dollar bills hour by
Speaker 2: hour by hour by hour. And so yes, the system worked,
Speaker 2: but this was political point scoring. But it was political
Speaker 2: point scoring with yours and my tax dollars, and you
Speaker 2: should be pissed. Whoever won this shouldn't have burned a competition.
Speaker 2: This is the most expensive campaign advertisement that either side
Speaker 2: has ever written. They would never pay this much for
Speaker 2: this sort of political advertising, and the reason they did
Speaker 2: it is because it wasn't the RNC paying for the advertising,
Speaker 2: it was your million instead.
Speaker 3: Justin thank you so much a pleasure. Mine.
Speaker 1: Miles Parks is a correspondent on NPR's Washington Desk. To
Speaker 1: hear more of his reporting, head to NPR dot org.
Speaker 3: Welcome Too Fast Politics, Miles Park.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you, so gonna set the
Speaker 1: stage here a little bit. You and the NPR team,
Speaker 1: which is probably a lot of people on of you,
Speaker 1: did an incredible investigation into one of the sort of
Speaker 1: best ways to fight voter fraud and how that.
Speaker 3: Mechanism is being disabled by the right. Can you explain
Speaker 3: what Eric does?
Speaker 5: So what Eric does is it takes all of this
Speaker 5: government data. It takes data from state DMVs, it takes
Speaker 5: data from the Social Security Administration, in the US Postal Service,
Speaker 5: and then each state's voter records, It takes all of
Speaker 5: that data, throws it in a bowl securely. All the
Speaker 5: sensitive data is encrypted before Eric analyzes it. And then
Speaker 5: a guy named Jeff Jonas, who is a kind of
Speaker 5: world renowned cybersecurity guide, developed this technology that allowed for
Speaker 5: this system to match up all of these different records
Speaker 5: from different government systems and then spit out reports that
Speaker 5: can be sent directly to local election officials so they
Speaker 5: can update their roles. So it will say, hey, John Smith,
Speaker 5: we are very confident that your voter, John Smith has
Speaker 5: now moved to Rhode Island. You should reach out to
Speaker 5: John Smith with a mailer to ask if they've moved
Speaker 5: and see if it comes back to you. Then they
Speaker 5: produce another report that says, hey, we have information that
Speaker 5: John Smith seems to have voted twice in Rhode Island
Speaker 5: and in South Carolina. And then they have another report
Speaker 5: that says, you know, we have information that seems to
Speaker 5: indicate John Smith has died in Georgia or something like that.
Speaker 5: So it uses all this data to actually spit out
Speaker 5: reports election officials can use. Because these are I think
Speaker 5: we also forget that these offices are under resource. They
Speaker 5: don't have some person in the back, who's able to
Speaker 5: go through millions of pieces of data and try to
Speaker 5: figure out whether their voters have moved. What we'll figure
Speaker 5: out all of this stuff. So Eric did a lot
Speaker 5: of that work with technology, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is the thing that I'm struck by
Speaker 1: is that these secretaries of state can't handle this. That's
Speaker 1: why this database was created. And the original anxiety about
Speaker 1: it was really that it was registering voters.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: Well, the original original anxiety was that it was connected
Speaker 5: to George Soros in some way, which was quickly proved false.
Speaker 5: And I think once that got proved false, then it
Speaker 5: started focusing on the One aspect of Eric is that
Speaker 5: one of the reports it produces says, hey, John Smith moved,
Speaker 5: got a driver's license but hasn't registered to vote. You
Speaker 5: should send them a postcard. That's one of the things
Speaker 5: that kind of gets muddled when the far right talks
Speaker 5: about this. They imply that Eric is registering voters or
Speaker 5: is actually doing anything. Eric is producing reports and then
Speaker 5: the local election officials and all these states act on them.
Speaker 5: So it's not like people are getting registered by Eric.
Speaker 5: Eric is just telling the election official, hey, we think
Speaker 5: you should reach out to this person and give them
Speaker 5: some information on how to register.
Speaker 3: Can you explain to us what is happening.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, it's a very complicated story that's actually kind
Speaker 5: of simple. Basically, states without this tool, which is called
Speaker 5: the Electronic Registration Information Center, have no way to share
Speaker 5: election data. So if you are let's say South Carolina,
Speaker 5: and you want to know if one of your voters
Speaker 5: moves to Connecticut gets a driver's license there, I think
Speaker 5: people kind of assume that the government is talking to
Speaker 5: itself in all these different ways. It is not. And
Speaker 5: so this organization called the Electronic Registration Information Center, better
Speaker 5: known as ERIC, was started about ten years ago to
Speaker 5: help election officials know when their voters move, get notified
Speaker 5: when their voters die, and then also critically for especially
Speaker 5: for these Republican states, for the small amount of people
Speaker 5: every federal election who do vote in more than one state,
Speaker 5: which is illegal, and ERIC is the only way that
Speaker 5: states have to catch that sort of voter fraud. And
Speaker 5: so for the first nine years or so of its existence,
Speaker 5: it was growing and beloved. I mean, I've been covering
Speaker 5: voting for about half a decade now, and every time
Speaker 5: I would talk to an election official, and I'm talking
Speaker 5: about the most conservative election officials in the country from
Speaker 5: West Virginia and Missouri and Texas. These people love this
Speaker 5: thing as well as Democrats, who I think people some
Speaker 5: Republicans think that Democrats don't want clean voter roles, but
Speaker 5: the Democratic election officials say no, it's much more efficient
Speaker 5: to have mail going to the right places, to have
Speaker 5: our precincts set up where you know addresses are accurate.
Speaker 5: So Eric was beloved for close to ten years until
Speaker 5: last year when the far right started targeting it with
Speaker 5: a smear campaign campaign that really effectively started kind of
Speaker 5: blowing this thing up.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this because this all started
Speaker 1: with an article in The Atlantic.
Speaker 5: Well it started with an article. There's a couple different
Speaker 5: starting points, so really it actually goes back to an
Speaker 5: article in the Gateway Pundit.
Speaker 1: I thought the Atlantic article came before for the Gateway Pundit,
Speaker 1: and the Gateway Pundin article is based on the Atlantic article.
Speaker 5: No, so the guy who wrote that article, he made
Speaker 5: a joke in the piece that it wasn't an article
Speaker 5: in the Atlantic, and that's why the far right loved it.
Speaker 5: So I think it may have got misunderstood there basically
Speaker 5: he wrote a blog post. This guy, Jay Christian Adams
Speaker 5: wrote a blog post in twenty sixteen that loosely alleged
Speaker 5: that George Soros was somehow behind Eric, and then the
Speaker 5: Gayway Pundit found that article, found some interviews with the
Speaker 5: same guy, turned that into what they called kind of
Speaker 5: investigation into Eric, and then published their article in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty two.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about the Gateway Pundit. Gateway Pundit
Speaker 1: for those of you who are not extremely online, and
Speaker 1: I assume there.
Speaker 3: Are a few people who listens podcast.
Speaker 5: Who lucky them, lucky you guys right, who don't.
Speaker 1: Know about the dumbest man on the Internet, Jim Hoff.
Speaker 1: But the Gayway Pundit is this incredibly stupid site run
Speaker 1: by a guy with two short bangs and his twin
Speaker 1: brother that basically pumps out crazy cannspiracy theories but has
Speaker 1: become really a sort of central educator on the right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I will not be commenting on the has appearance, right, Well, yes,
Speaker 5: but I I but our investigation did find that the
Speaker 5: Gayway Pundit has become a real influential player, especially in
Speaker 5: these states where these election officials are going to be
Speaker 5: running in Republican primaries, and they're going to need to
Speaker 5: be winning Republican primary voters in off election years. That
Speaker 5: could be a very small percentage of diehard Republicans, and
Speaker 5: a lot of those people are reading the Gayway pundit.
Speaker 1: Because we're all going to die, so Gayway Pundit Cleta Mitchell.
Speaker 1: So explain to us who Cleida Mitchell is and where
Speaker 1: and sort of where she comes up with this idea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, Clelida Mitchell is this very influential Republican election
Speaker 5: attorney who kind of came to prominence after twenty twenty
Speaker 5: for helping former President Trump try to overturn that election.
Speaker 5: She was on the phone call with Georgia election officials
Speaker 5: where Trump was asking them to find votes. And so
Speaker 5: since twenty twenty, Kleida Mitchell has kind of found a
Speaker 5: niche as a key election denier. She has started a
Speaker 5: podcast called Who's Counting, which does a good job of
Speaker 5: spreading a lot of election misinformation. She's also started this
Speaker 5: thing called the Election Integrity Network, which is a coalition
Speaker 5: of sort of grassroots groups all over the country that
Speaker 5: are interconnected in this web that they're kind of aimed
Speaker 5: at quote unquote election integrity, but in reality, our investigation
Speaker 5: found that they're pushing to dismantle a lot of tools
Speaker 5: and helpful things that actually help election integrity. So what
Speaker 5: happens is the Gateway Pundit publishes this article in January
Speaker 5: of twenty twenty two, and we found we did a
Speaker 5: really cool social media analysis that looked at hundreds of
Speaker 5: thousands of posts in far right channels and found that
Speaker 5: they really latched on to this Gateway Pundit article. And
Speaker 5: then Louisiana pulls out a week later, the Secretary of
Speaker 5: State there announces it we found to a conservative activist group,
Speaker 5: which is key because a lot of election officials I
Speaker 5: talk to, Republican and Democrat, point to that actually even
Speaker 5: more importantly than the Gateway punted article, because gatewayed publishes
Speaker 5: stuff every day that the government doesn't respond to. But
Speaker 5: the moment that an election official actually responded to it
Speaker 5: and gave it credibility, that is what kind of started
Speaker 5: this entire pressure campaign on the other Republican states. And
Speaker 5: so what we found is that Cleta Mitchell saw Louisiana
Speaker 5: pulled out and decided, Wow, this is a thing that
Speaker 5: really seems to ignite our base. Started focusing her podcast
Speaker 5: on it, these election integrity groups started focusing on it.
Speaker 5: She started telling these groups, reach out to state legislatures
Speaker 5: in your states, reach out to your election officials, and
Speaker 5: that happened, which kind of, over the course of a year,
Speaker 5: led to a number of these state election officials feeling
Speaker 5: the pressure and actually pulling out.
Speaker 1: So you talked through this on your NPR podcast and
Speaker 1: also on the station I assume about exactly how this
Speaker 1: went down, and you actually interviewed a secretary of state
Speaker 1: talk to me about sort of how this went down.
Speaker 5: So what it really boils down to is that for
Speaker 5: a lot of last year, a lot of these Republican
Speaker 5: election officials were on the record as saying they loved
Speaker 5: this tool. Like this secretary of state who you mentioned
Speaker 5: that I interviewed and I've talked at linked with the
Speaker 5: number of times. His name's Frank Lrose in Ohio. He's
Speaker 5: a Republican, but he's also pushed back at times against
Speaker 5: election denihalism, and so he in February called this tool
Speaker 5: one of the best tools we have for fighting election fraud.
Speaker 5: And he talked me through basically said, you know, if
Speaker 5: you want to win a Republican primary, you kind of
Speaker 5: need these voters. So he almost had empathy for people
Speaker 5: like Kyle Ardwin in Louisiana and West Allen in Alabama,
Speaker 5: who were the first secretaries to pull out of this thing.
Speaker 5: They were trying to win elections, and he was basically saying,
Speaker 5: that's how politics works. They looked at this thing, said well,
Speaker 5: my voters want this, I'm going to do it. But
Speaker 5: hopefully over time it starts to kind of cool off,
Speaker 5: states start to get into it, the pressure kind of
Speaker 5: dies down. A month after that interview, LaRose pulled Ohio
Speaker 5: out of eric and so we kind of saw in
Speaker 5: real time as this investigation unfolded, the pressure building on
Speaker 5: these election officials who just weeks before were defending it
Speaker 5: on the record.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, but they did it because they were scared
Speaker 1: of pushback from the far right or I mean, they won't.
Speaker 5: Say that, but well, the the well exactly exactly, they
Speaker 5: will never say that. But what we found is this
Speaker 5: common through line where especially the first few election officials
Speaker 5: that pulled out, they're all going to be running in
Speaker 5: Republican primaries in the next you know, year to year
Speaker 5: and a half. Larrose, for instance, is expected to run
Speaker 5: for Senate in Ohio. Florida pulled out. You know, obviously
Speaker 5: DeSantis is in the presidential race Missouri and West Virginia.
Speaker 5: Both those secretaries of state have now announced runs for governor,
Speaker 5: and so there is kind of a through line of
Speaker 5: politics actually kind of inner fearing an election administration here.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting because it really is you're really seeing
Speaker 1: how much the craziness of Republican primary politics has reverberations
Speaker 1: that we can't even quantify.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that was to me why this story
Speaker 5: was worth doing. Was it was not this feels like
Speaker 5: a twenty twenty four story. Yeah, you know in terms
Speaker 5: of this is not only because of how the election
Speaker 5: is going to be run in twenty twenty four, but
Speaker 5: I think there are a lot of Republicans who are
Speaker 5: still members of ERIC who are pushing through this pressure.
Speaker 5: This is not something where you can paint the Republican
Speaker 5: Party with like one big broad brush. You know. What
Speaker 5: we're seeing is people like Brad Raffisberger and Georgia who
Speaker 5: has been one of the most vocal defenders of ERIC
Speaker 5: and is still a member. It's an individual decision for
Speaker 5: each one of these Republicans to say, will I stand
Speaker 5: up to this pressure and defend this thing that I've
Speaker 5: been on the record for defending.
Speaker 1: The thing I would say about Brad Rathitsberger is that
Speaker 1: he has shown that he has the monetary support to
Speaker 1: be able to win a primary challenge.
Speaker 3: We just saw that for him, So obviously, I mean.
Speaker 5: It's easier for somebody who refeels confident in their political position, right,
Speaker 5: But I mean, to be fair, Leroe's just won re
Speaker 5: election last year in Ohio and defeated a primary challenger,
Speaker 5: not a super serious primary challenger necessarily, but he had
Speaker 5: just won a Republican primary last year, and so it
Speaker 5: was interesting to see. But obviously he sees it seems
Speaker 5: like I should say that he sees this Senate run
Speaker 5: as this is something he needed to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's just such an interesting situation because
Speaker 1: you really see the Gateway pundon has so much power.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, And what I think this story also showed
Speaker 5: to me was that there's an infrastructure in a way
Speaker 5: there wasn't four or five years ago to get this
Speaker 5: election denial moving into policy. It's like it's not just
Speaker 5: like throwing spaghetti at the wall in social media anymore.
Speaker 5: Like these groups that I mentioned, these election integrity groups,
Speaker 5: they didn't exist five years years ago. And so you
Speaker 5: have these groups of people in all of these states
Speaker 5: who have a way, like we found call outs in
Speaker 5: all of these states where these groups were telling their members,
Speaker 5: here's the emails for all of your all of the
Speaker 5: state lawmakers and the election officials, here are the talking
Speaker 5: points on ERIC. Reach out to them. Phone calls are
Speaker 5: best in person, it's best. Email works too, And so
Speaker 5: there is an infrastructure now that actually works to get
Speaker 5: these ideas into the mainstream in a way that didn't
Speaker 5: there what there wasn't five years ago.
Speaker 3: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: It's such a strange situation. So you can get a
Speaker 1: state back into ERIC. It's not like there's some mandatory
Speaker 1: leaving period.
Speaker 5: Right exactly. So a lot of the election official I
Speaker 5: talk to said, basically, we just got a weather, this storm,
Speaker 5: and hopefully in maybe it's two years, maybe it's five years,
Speaker 5: but some of these states that have left will look
Speaker 5: to join again. Some of the Republican states have started,
Speaker 5: including Lrose has kind of been leading this effort to
Speaker 5: start almost like an ERIC competitor, where they will be
Speaker 5: able to share data amongst at least probably Republican states,
Speaker 5: but maybe they will be able to get a few
Speaker 5: other states. It's unclear whether that will work as well
Speaker 5: as Eric did and whether they will be to be
Speaker 5: able to get as many states, but there is definitely
Speaker 5: a world where Eric kind of pushes through this weird time.
Speaker 5: I think it's fair to say that in twenty twenty
Speaker 5: four these states will probably not have access to that data,
Speaker 5: and it's really unclear how they'll be able to prosecute
Speaker 5: voter fraud.
Speaker 1: So interesting and so weird and also depressing. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much for having Mollie. It's been
Speaker 5: a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Hi. It's Mollie and I am.
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Speaker 1: New York Times. Welcome to Fast Politics, Ryan Mack.
Speaker 6: How's it going?
Speaker 3: You know, live in the.
Speaker 1: Dream completely ironically, of course. So I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about your I mean, I guess, do you
Speaker 1: get sick of the Elon Musk beat?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I've covered him for a couple of years now, and
Speaker 7: you know, I go in and out of covering certain
Speaker 7: companies and focusing on different things, but it's always interesting
Speaker 7: in Elon world.
Speaker 6: So it's it's entertaining.
Speaker 3: Did you at one time?
Speaker 1: Because I went on a tour of the SpaceX factory
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen SpaceX No, of the Tesla factory in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen with a like a university board that I
Speaker 1: was not on. I was just a guest, and and
Speaker 1: I thought, this guy is incredible, this company is amazing.
Speaker 3: Did you Did you.
Speaker 1: Originally have that kind of feeling about Musk or did
Speaker 1: you always just were you always just a serious, straight
Speaker 1: reporter who didn't have expectations about your subject.
Speaker 7: I'll give the reporter answer, which is as any straight
Speaker 7: serious reporter.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't let my kind of personal feelings get in
Speaker 7: the way of what's what I report on. I will say,
Speaker 7: you know, I focus on accountability in my work and
Speaker 7: that's been kind of the guiding light. And so you know,
Speaker 7: I think you can you can analyze and view Elon
Speaker 7: in a couple buckets. He is, of course very successful.
Speaker 7: I don't need to tell people that. You look at
Speaker 7: his at worth, you look at what he's done with
Speaker 7: you know, normalizing electric vehicles and privatizing the space industry
Speaker 7: like that is all no one's ever done that. You know,
Speaker 7: he is very singular in having done all those achievements,
Speaker 7: and you know you can read about that and you know,
Speaker 7: read Ashley Vats's book and see that success. At the
Speaker 7: same time, you know, I think I started really reporting
Speaker 7: on him and his companies at my previous job at BuzzFeed,
Speaker 7: and you know, we were doing you know, investigations into
Speaker 7: what was happening at those Tesla factories, and my colleague
Speaker 7: at the time, Carolyn and Donovan, was really looking at
Speaker 7: kind of the human costs of these factory workers who
Speaker 7: were building these electric cars at the kind of this
Speaker 7: breakneck pace, you know, and they were getting hurt and
Speaker 7: crushed and you know, not getting the support from the
Speaker 7: company because they were fighting for the union. The company
Speaker 7: was fighting against the union movement, and you know, you
Speaker 7: can see these people getting hurt in this process. And
Speaker 7: that's this lens that I've I've taken into, you know,
Speaker 7: reporting on him and his companies.
Speaker 6: Not to say that the other side of things, you.
Speaker 7: Know, I do acknowledge, you know, he's very successful, but
Speaker 7: in my work, that's that's how I've seen him.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Elon wanted to try to
Speaker 1: do was to get Twitter to make money. That has
Speaker 1: sort of run counter. Can you explain to us what's
Speaker 1: happening with Twitter's advertising and just sort of where we
Speaker 1: are with that.
Speaker 7: Well, I think the whole thing about making money, it
Speaker 7: really depends on what week you get him answering that question,
Speaker 7: because some weeks, you know, I don't care about money.
Speaker 7: It's not about money, it's about free speech. I'm making
Speaker 7: a principal decision, you know, supposedly as he says, defending
Speaker 7: the digital town square or whatever. You know, in other weeks,
Speaker 7: he is a businessman, you know, he has to run
Speaker 7: this company he paid forty four billion dollars for it.
Speaker 7: He loaded it with I think thirteen billion dollars worth
Speaker 7: of debt to close this deal. You know, he has
Speaker 7: to get the economics to work. And part of this economics,
Speaker 7: you know, the main chunk of that is the advertising portion.
Speaker 7: And historically, like any large social media company, advertising has
Speaker 7: been the lifeblood of Twitter, and you know it, in
Speaker 7: the past, advertising has accounted for about ninety percent of
Speaker 7: revenue at the company. And in coming into the company
Speaker 7: and buying it back in October, Elon Musk has essentially
Speaker 7: cratered that business. He's talked about it somewhat openly, and
Speaker 7: we you know, recently got some internal documents and spoke
Speaker 7: to some employees current informer that kind of paid a
Speaker 7: kind of bleaker picture of where the company is at
Speaker 7: since the takeover.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me because one of the things that
Speaker 1: I was sort of surprised by, and again this is
Speaker 1: perhaps my own naivy day, but like he does just
Speaker 1: blatantly lie about things, which you know, again I don't
Speaker 1: know why that shocks me so much, but like there's
Speaker 1: certain things, like you said, if there's an ad on
Speaker 1: your tweet, you'll.
Speaker 3: Get paid for it. Remember that that was just not
Speaker 3: real at all.
Speaker 7: Right, I think he's working towards that. I would say,
Speaker 7: you know, there is you know, undoubtedly obfuscation.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: I think the thing about lying is there has to
Speaker 7: be intent to deceive.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: I think he makes these very big predictions and large
Speaker 7: projections that often don't hit the mark.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: You know, we started our story this week about problems
Speaker 7: with advertising by looking at some of the comments he
Speaker 7: made back in April, and he gave this interview with
Speaker 7: his BBC reporter This kind of it's been made fun
Speaker 7: of quite a bit, but you know, he went on
Speaker 7: this live interview with the BBC and talked about, you know,
Speaker 7: advertisers are almost all back on the platform. You know,
Speaker 7: we're gonna break even. He painted this picture of the
Speaker 7: company really having turned a corner and doing well, and
Speaker 7: actually these documents show otherwise.
Speaker 1: And then you have the head of trust and safety
Speaker 1: and the head of brand safety and ad quality, and
Speaker 1: you have I mean, you have all of these people resigning.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and actually actually probably contextualize what those documents showed
Speaker 7: before going into that. But with the documents showed, you know,
Speaker 7: US AD sales were down fifty nine percent for the
Speaker 7: first weeks of quarter two. You know, the for that
Speaker 7: would mean, you know, April into May, the company has
Speaker 7: been down tens of millions of dollars compared to last year.
Speaker 6: They're also undershooting.
Speaker 7: They're already kind of adjusted projections for revenue this quarter,
Speaker 7: and it kind of paints this bleak, bleak picture.
Speaker 6: For the company moving forward.
Speaker 7: You know, if they can't bring in this money, you know,
Speaker 7: Twitter is going to have to keep operating at a loss,
Speaker 7: and Elon Musk's going to have to keep sinking money
Speaker 7: into this business. You know, That's what we kind of
Speaker 7: showed in these documents. And with regards to the questions
Speaker 7: you asked with the kind of folks that left recently,
Speaker 7: this all happened last week when this kind of Daily
Speaker 7: Wire incident popped up.
Speaker 1: Will you tell our listeners what this did? It's so stupid,
Speaker 1: but it worked, right. They were able to get you
Speaker 1: along to do what they wanted.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I think of like still reporting it out.
Speaker 7: But basically what happened is The Daily Wire, a right
Speaker 7: wing podcast network and content network and by Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 7: had a movie they wanted to promote called What Is
Speaker 7: a Woman? Obviously playing into the culture war around trans issues,
Speaker 7: and they wanted to promote this movie. If you have
Speaker 7: been anywhere near Elon's Twitter feed, you obviously know this
Speaker 7: is a culture war topic that is very near and
Speaker 7: dear to his heart. He has himself, you know, exhibited.
Speaker 3: Trans people, right, and I.
Speaker 7: Don't think it's very secret what his politics are on
Speaker 7: the topic. The Daily Wires says claims that they had,
Speaker 7: you know, a deal to promote this movie essentially, I
Speaker 7: think hour and a half long movie, by pushing it
Speaker 7: into some kind of special area on Twitter that it
Speaker 7: could be promoted. There was supposed to be some money exchange,
Speaker 7: and they claim that it was then prevented because of
Speaker 7: the content of the video itself. Twitter had these rules
Speaker 7: around misgendering folks and policies intended to protect people who
Speaker 7: were trance, and those have been kind of whittled away
Speaker 7: under Elon Musk. Yeah, I guess some of the remaining
Speaker 7: folks at the company decided to uphold those policies.
Speaker 3: Or maybe not. I mean they could also be lying, right, It's.
Speaker 7: A little unclear. Yeah, it's a little unclear. So this
Speaker 7: kind of dust up happens. Elon comes in and says, well,
Speaker 7: you know, actually before that, you know, the video was
Speaker 7: actually labeled on Twitter as I guess, under the company's
Speaker 7: popolicies around hate speech. And Elon comes in and says,
Speaker 7: this is the wrong decision, you know, decisions made that
Speaker 7: weren't and I wasn't involved with, and he blames his underlings,
Speaker 7: and he then gives full promotion to this video, which
Speaker 7: then gets pushed everywhere on Twitter, and then those people
Speaker 7: get fired or resigned. Essentially, the head of trust and
Speaker 7: safety and the head of brand safety all left last
Speaker 7: week in this kind of kerfuffle.
Speaker 3: And that was because of this, yeah part.
Speaker 7: And you know other kind of I guess dust ups
Speaker 7: in the past, but yeah, this was kind of I
Speaker 7: guess the nail in the coffin.
Speaker 1: I think about Linda Jakarino, who went over there. It's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine taking a job there after the way
Speaker 1: he's treated his other employees. It seems like a real
Speaker 1: gamble in my mind.
Speaker 6: Yeah, her first day was yesterday.
Speaker 7: I think there is no shortage of people that want
Speaker 7: to work with this very successful entrepreneur, you know, people
Speaker 7: that maybe view him in that other bucket as this
Speaker 7: successful man they can hitch their start of his you know,
Speaker 7: they can build a name for themselves. You know, there's
Speaker 7: all types of motivations for why someone would want to
Speaker 7: work with Elon Musk. You know, everyone has confidence in themselves.
Speaker 7: They're maybe like, you know, maybe they see what's happened
Speaker 7: in the past and they think they can they can
Speaker 7: buck that trend. And you know, and there are and
Speaker 7: there are examples of people that I've worked successively with
Speaker 7: him in the past when shot while at SpaceX for example,
Speaker 7: being the you know, pre eminent example of that, the
Speaker 7: kind of president at SpaceX who's been there for decades.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I want to ask you is, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was this RFK junior Twitter spaces yesterday. It didn't break,
Speaker 1: but it did spread a lot of anti VAXX conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've gone from like, you know, actively trying
Speaker 1: not to spread these things to actively trying to spread them.
Speaker 1: I mean, what am I missing here?
Speaker 7: And that happened on Lindy Acarina's first day, so I'm
Speaker 7: sure that excited advertisers that she yeah.
Speaker 6: Once to court.
Speaker 7: I mean it just evidence is the shift in let's
Speaker 7: call it Twitter one point zero. Everything before Elon and
Speaker 7: Twitter two point zero everything that has come with Elon's ownership.
Speaker 7: You know, Twitter used to have policies around COVID misinformation.
Speaker 7: That was something they enforced through the pandemic. They developed
Speaker 7: it because of concerns around misinformation on the virus and
Speaker 7: the vaccines. Obviously, we can debate, you know, how effective
Speaker 7: those were or whether those were completely correct to implement
Speaker 7: at the time. Now, obviously Elon has given a platform
Speaker 7: to the leading one of the leading anti VACS activists
Speaker 7: in the US. You know, he's obviously now a presidential candidate.
Speaker 7: So that's the guys by which Elon has welcomed him
Speaker 7: into this platform to do a Twitter space like he
Speaker 7: did with Ron DeSantis a couple of weeks ago, or
Speaker 7: I don't know what last week or something. I don't
Speaker 7: even know the weeks anymore, But that illustrates the difference
Speaker 7: here in the approaches of Twitter past and present.
Speaker 1: We're seeing less accountability for this kind of thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think that there's any chance that this wolf
Speaker 1: spur government oversight. I mean, we've seen like the spread
Speaker 1: of misinformation via Facebook, like causing things like genocide or
Speaker 1: helping organize genocide. I mean, you know, we've really seen
Speaker 1: some technology that is unregulated. I mean the road to
Speaker 1: this is paved with the bodies. And I mean do
Speaker 1: you see any impetus for anything happening or do you
Speaker 1: think this will just continue as it does?
Speaker 7: I don't think, you know, not in the US. I mean,
Speaker 7: there's really no laws around, you know, how platforms should
Speaker 7: handle misinformation in the US, and I frankly don't know
Speaker 7: the answer to that or don't know if that would
Speaker 7: be the best way to adjust it. I mean, Twitter,
Speaker 7: at its core essentially is still a private company. It's
Speaker 7: making decisions that its owner thinks his best with regards
Speaker 7: to how it operates. You know, it's protected by Section
Speaker 7: two thirty and which is much longer debate to be had.
Speaker 7: But there isn't necessarily any law breaking in the US
Speaker 7: with regards to hosting RFK Junior on a Twitter space.
Speaker 7: There could be a counter argument to be made that
Speaker 7: people hearing him and his belief systems and his viewpoints
Speaker 7: will actually go against it. You know they won't, right, right,
Speaker 7: I might can be the business in fact in et cetera,
Speaker 7: et cetera.
Speaker 3: Right, you could go either way.
Speaker 7: But there are you know, rules around social platforms and
Speaker 7: misinformation and disinformation in the EU, and they have to
Speaker 7: show compliance with these laws, and that could be a
Speaker 7: potential avenue for regulation with regards to how you know,
Speaker 7: speech is I guess regulated in these places.
Speaker 6: So, you know, I don't think it's going to happen
Speaker 6: in the US.
Speaker 7: You know, the EU has these laws around compliance for
Speaker 7: social media companies with miss info and disinfo.
Speaker 6: But we'll see. I guess what happens with Twitter.
Speaker 1: Is Elon's goal to host all the presidential candidates in spaces.
Speaker 7: I think you would tell you that, And yeah, he
Speaker 7: said he's he'd welcome other candidates as well.
Speaker 1: But he has sort of made overtures that he's going
Speaker 1: to support to Santa's right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean it's he's made no secret that he's
Speaker 7: going to support Disantas. I mean, he's tweeted it multiple
Speaker 7: times at this point. Maybe he sees himself as like
Speaker 7: the you know, Twitter is Howard Stern in a way
Speaker 7: where he hosts these people and he talks about talks
Speaker 7: with them, and he just wants to be a podcast
Speaker 7: host and like, you know, content creator. No, I don't know,
Speaker 7: it could be an ego thing here, but yeah, he
Speaker 7: said as much. He's wanted to bring any candidate on
Speaker 7: to talk in his Twitter space. Whether that's the most
Speaker 7: effective use of his time, I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 7: a Tessa shareholder or a SpaceX shareholder, but you know
Speaker 7: he was in a Twitter space yesterday for two hours
Speaker 7: with RFK Junior talking about everything from vaccines to bio
Speaker 7: weapons to nuclear power.
Speaker 3: So better him than me. So I think the top
Speaker 3: line here is that there.
Speaker 1: Is a chance that everyone, no matter even if you're
Speaker 1: the richest man in the world, all he wants to
Speaker 1: be is a podcaster.
Speaker 6: I mean, I feel like there's.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think for him, and maybe he wakes up
Speaker 7: next week and he doesn't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 6: Who knows, I'll just take.
Speaker 3: His money and he can have Mike podcast. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much, Ryan, this is great, of course, thanks for
Speaker 3: having me. No moment, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 2: My Jung Fast. This RFK junior guy, he really likes
Speaker 2: to spread the disinformation.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk held a Twitter spaces with RFK where he
Speaker 1: said a lot of really stupid crap. I'm talking about RFK,
Speaker 1: though I'm sure that Elon said.
Speaker 3: It was a little evenly distributed.
Speaker 1: It was two hours of stupid crap from both of
Speaker 1: those guys. Again, I don't know where they caught the
Speaker 1: brain worms that they have, but it's pretty depressing to
Speaker 1: watch them spreading disinformation and misinformation, especially when we know
Speaker 1: that RFK Junior is really just acting as a spoiler
Speaker 1: to elect Donald Trump, and for that he is our
Speaker 1: moment Offucker. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
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Speaker 1: best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
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Speaker 1: for listening.