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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Fast Politics. I'm Molly Chongfast. We

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Speaker 1: have a great show for you today. Later in the show,

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Speaker 1: I'll talk to Alex Gibney about his new documentary, Musk,

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Speaker 1: and why big tech doesn't want you to see it.

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Speaker 1: But first, we have platypus economics, Justin Wolfers, to talk

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Speaker 1: about why Trump is overstepping in elections and why that

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Speaker 1: may ruin the economy. Welcome, welcome, Justin Wolfers.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Molly.

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Speaker 3: G'day.

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Speaker 1: Economy is both good and bad. Working and not working.

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Speaker 1: Explain to us the state of our economy is precarious?

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Speaker 4: It's such a hard conversation, Molly.

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Speaker 5: Normally, when journalists ask me about the state of the economy,

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Speaker 5: they're saying, you know, GDP's up, unemployment's flat. Inflation's a

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Speaker 5: bit high and they're talking about the today. I think

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Speaker 5: that's the wrong way to think about the Trump economy.

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Speaker 3: The things that worry me most, that keep me up

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Speaker 3: at night, are things that are going to grow like

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Speaker 3: a slow burning cancer, destroying a beautiful living organism.

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Speaker 4: What is America's position in the world?

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Speaker 5: Are we a trusted partner? Do we believe in the

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Speaker 5: rule of law anymore? Are contracts enforced and enforceable? Do

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Speaker 5: we want businesses competing in markets, each trying to produce

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Speaker 5: a better product at a lower price, or are we

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Speaker 5: moving towards businesses competing at Mar-a-Lago, each competing for favors

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Speaker 5: from the White House? What is our fiscal position and

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Speaker 5: what are the longer run implications of that? I even

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Speaker 5: have moments, and I don't want to be melodramatic, but

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Speaker 5: I've heard lots of friends of mine, serious friends, say

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Speaker 5: they're deeply worried about potential interference with the next election.

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Speaker 5: The day we become not a democracy is the day

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Speaker 5: we lose the power to kick out bad politicians.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And the day that bad.

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Speaker 5: Politicians can cement their power, that's an enormously important economic question.

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Speaker 5: I worry about the competence of the folks running our institutions.

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Speaker 5: I see signs of things frame. I don't know how quickly,

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Speaker 5: how dramatically, and I can't quite figure out the scale.

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Speaker 5: Am I a bedwetting liberal who screams about everything, or

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Speaker 5: is this a once-in-a-lifetime attack? I'm increasingly thinking the latter,

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Speaker 5: but I always want to be checking myself and making

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Speaker 5: sure I'm thinking about it right.

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Speaker 4: So.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that in that answer that I

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Speaker 1: see as something to sort of pull out is the dollar,

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Speaker 1: the value of the dollar when it comes to debt,

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Speaker 1: when it comes to being the reserve currency. And the

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Speaker 1: Fed unanimously decided to raise rates, including Trump's guy, handsome Kevin,

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Speaker 1: Kevin Warsh, put in there- to lower rates by Donald Trump, right?

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump thought this is our guy. He's going to

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Speaker 1: lower rates. Lowering rates are going to drive up the

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Speaker 1: stock market, which is in Donald Trump's plan, really. In

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump's mind, the stock market is the economy. So

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Speaker 1: that was what he wanted. Instead, Kevin Walsh voted and

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Speaker 1: they all unanimously voted to raise rates. So clearly they

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Speaker 1: saw something that is important here that maybe we don't.

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Speaker 1: So explain to us what they saw.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 5: So after a normal Fed decision, what would happen is

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Speaker 5: nerds like me would meet over coffee or beer and

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Speaker 5: we'd be like, I think it should be a quarter

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Speaker 5: point higher.

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Speaker 4: I think it should be a quarter point lower. And

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Speaker 4: we can.

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Speaker 5: Obsess about fractions of a percentage point of an interest rate.

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Speaker 5: We should, by the way, because it affects hundreds of

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Speaker 5: millions of people. But that's not the right conversation to

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Speaker 5: be having right now. And that's the point I think

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Speaker 5: you were just somewhat implicitly making. which is there's a

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Speaker 5: deeper question, which is, is the institution holding? Is it

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Speaker 5: serving the American people's interest or is it serving the

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Speaker 5: president's narrow political interest and hewing to his idiosyncrasies? And

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Speaker 5: what we saw, you know, so I could debate whether

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Speaker 5: rates should go up a quarter point or not, but

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Speaker 5: what's probably more important is we saw unanimity, which includes

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Speaker 5: Federal Reserve governors and presidents appointed by Obama, Biden, and Trump,

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Speaker 5: and actually several appointed by Trump. And they all uniformly said,

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Speaker 5: our view is if you look at the data, it

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Speaker 5: suggests that we should be raising rates. The most important

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Speaker 5: part of that sentence is we looked at the data.

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Speaker 5: So that's the institution holding. Um, that's why I breathe

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Speaker 5: a little easier last week. We're not all the way

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Speaker 5: there yet. Um, Remember, there's another Fed decision and it's

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Speaker 5: coming October 28th, just a few days before the midterm elections.

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Speaker 5: By one view, the case for raising rates remains fairly strong.

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Speaker 5: Inflation's too high. Unemployment is relatively low and stable. They've

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Speaker 5: just taken the first step on this path that handsome Kevin,

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Speaker 5: in fact, has said, I haven't put my foot on

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Speaker 5: the brake yet. I'm just taking my foot off the accelerator.

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Speaker 5: And it's certainly a good time to take your foot

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Speaker 5: off the accelerator. So by one view, we really should

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Speaker 5: be looking at a second rate hike in October. By

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Speaker 5: another view, the last few data reports have suggested inflation's

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Speaker 5: not quite as bad as we feared. Unemployment is looking

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Speaker 5: pretty good. And wouldn't it be good to just escape

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Speaker 5: the president's ire until just after the election? Let's put

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Speaker 5: back the interest rate hike from October to December. And

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Speaker 5: The economic data, in fact, have cooperated with the view

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Speaker 5: we shouldn't raise rates anytime soon. They've been very, very cooperative.

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Speaker 5: One worries, though, the best way to be apolitical is

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Speaker 5: to be apolitical. Right. Which is different than I don't

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Speaker 5: want to upset the guy in the White House. That's

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Speaker 5: not being apolitical. That's serving the White House's goals.

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Speaker 6: Right.

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Speaker 5: So there's– I think we already know what's going to happen.

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Speaker 5: Nick Timoreos at the Wall Street Journal sort of famously–

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Speaker 5: remarkably well sourced. Basically, when the Fed doesn't want to

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Speaker 5: upset markets, historically, what they do is they'd call Nick

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Speaker 5: and they'd say, could you write the following article so

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Speaker 5: that no one is surprised? He wrote an article last

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Speaker 5: week that said, the Fed is not going to tell

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Speaker 5: you what it's going to do next, but I do

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Speaker 5: know what the two vice chairs think, have been saying.

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Speaker 5: I want you to pay attention. They're probably going to

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Speaker 5: wait till after the election. So one of three things

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Speaker 5: has happened. Either the Fed has called Nick and said, basically,

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Speaker 5: get everyone in line so that they understand we're not

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Speaker 5: going to do anything before the election. I don't want

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Speaker 5: this to feel like a big surprise. Or second, we're

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Speaker 5: in a new regime and handsome Kevin doesn't talk to Nick,

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Speaker 5: in which case there's no signal in Nick writing a story.

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Speaker 4: We should all ignore it.

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Speaker 5: Or third, maybe he's just doing independent journalism, but it's

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Speaker 5: written in such a way that one certainly thinks, reads

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Speaker 5: it as sending a message to markets.

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Speaker 1: So you did not see that meeting as a sign

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Speaker 1: that the economy was in more trouble that like the

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Speaker 1: fact that they all voted to raise the rates. You

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Speaker 1: did not see that. You saw that as confidence in

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Speaker 1: the institution and not as some sort of problem coming

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Speaker 1: down the pike.

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Speaker 5: Well, so here's the problem. Handsome Kevin actually has two nicknames.

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Speaker 5: Handsome Kevin, who is handsome. this is Kevin Walsh, of course,

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Speaker 5: has also said that he doesn't like forward guidance, which

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Speaker 5: is to say he doesn't like to tell you what

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Speaker 5: he's thinking or what he's doing.

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Speaker 4: So he's also silent, Kevin.

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Speaker 5: And so the problem is you and I are trying

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Speaker 5: to guess what's the Fed trying to do. And they

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Speaker 5: just appointed a bloke who then took a monastic vow

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Speaker 5: of silence. Old silent Kevin's over there and you and

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Speaker 5: I are guessing. Okay. There's two ways of thinking about it. One,

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Speaker 5: the data was just unusually clear. We've got an inflation

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Speaker 5: problem and not an unemployment problem. interest rates were probably

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Speaker 5: at the point that there was a foot on the accelerator.

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Speaker 5: The moment didn't call for a foot on the accelerator,

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Speaker 5: take a foot off the accelerator. And the case was

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Speaker 5: incredibly strong. So 12 people all just happened to think

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Speaker 5: the same thing. And that frequently happens. There's a different,

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Speaker 5: and in which case last month was boring. The different

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Speaker 5: answer is the Fed was under a lot of pressure

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Speaker 5: from the White House and they decided that It was

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Speaker 5: useful to be seen as all 12 marching in step.

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Speaker 5: This probably wouldn't have been an explicit conversation. It may

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Speaker 5: have been sort of an implicit sense in the room

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Speaker 5: that were one to dissent, it undermines the credibility of

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Speaker 5: the institution. It makes it look like the White House

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Speaker 5: is in the room, blah, blah, blah. So this is

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Speaker 5: sort of like, we're not doing what you want. The

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Speaker 5: interpretation here is we're not doing what you want and

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Speaker 5: it's unanimous. Do you see how that sort of feels powerful?

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Speaker 5: So that could have been what they were saying. And

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Speaker 5: the problem, of course, is that if Kevin hadn't taken

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Speaker 5: that vow of silence, he could actually tell us.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. So what I'm hearing

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Speaker 1: from you is, in your mind, the fundamental, the largest

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Speaker 1: problem facing our economy at this moment is the possibility

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Speaker 1: that it will lose faith in the executive office. Because

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Speaker 1: the executive will try to mess with our elections.

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Speaker 5: And I think arguably has lost faith in the executive.

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Speaker 5: I think moms and dads around the dinner table right

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Speaker 5: now are looking ahead to their economic future and they

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Speaker 5: understand that the three biggest economic threats the United States faces.

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Speaker 4: Right now are tariffs and trade.

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Speaker 5: Wars, which continue to go on and continue to be

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Speaker 5: asyncratic and continue to be weird and continue to give

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Speaker 5: everyone else a reason to look elsewhere. The second big

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Speaker 5: threat is the war in Iran and the four to

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Speaker 5: six week war that just celebrated.

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Speaker 4: Its seven month birthday.

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Speaker 5: And, um, looks, I mean, I know that we're all

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Speaker 5: against open-ended wars in the Middle East. I'm certain the

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Speaker 5: president is, but he appears to be in one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Um, at the moment, his solution.

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Speaker 5: Appears to be to lie about it rather than either

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Speaker 5: a graceful exit or some other solution. Um, and so

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Speaker 5: the immense, um, Problems that's causing in global energy markets.

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Speaker 4: And it gets worse.

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Speaker 5: It's not just the Strait of Fomos is closed. Then

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Speaker 5: there's other pipelines that are getting closed. There's also the

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Speaker 5: fact that when oil and diesel are scarce, all of

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Speaker 5: a sudden it makes being friends with Russia that has

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Speaker 5: a lot of that stuff look a whole lot more attractive.

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Speaker 5: So there's geopolitical risk and a general sense of a

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Speaker 5: scrambling of either where things are at or if you

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Speaker 5: want it to be more dramatic, the post-war world order.

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Speaker 4: Um, and then we've.

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Speaker 5: Got a budget deficit that is the largest outside of

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Speaker 5: a recession or a war in American history. And no

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Speaker 5: sense that anyone in Washington is remotely interested in talking

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Speaker 5: about it. In fact, the president promising that each of

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Speaker 5: us gets $ 5, 000 and a puppy if Republicans win the

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Speaker 5: next election, which would be, I think the largest fiscal

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Speaker 5: stimulus we'd ever seen. But of course, it's a fiscal

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Speaker 5: stimulus we only need if Republicans win, which I assume

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Speaker 5: is because the president believes that if Republicans win, the

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Speaker 5: economy would be so bad we would need an extraordinary

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Speaker 5: fiscal stimulus, which is a striking thing for him to say.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: But that fiscal situation, folks are feeling it right now.

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Speaker 5: It's, you know, whenever you hear someone say bond yields,

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Speaker 5: they're basically saying there's too much borrowing going on and

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Speaker 5: not enough lending.

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Speaker 4: Not enough lenders.

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Speaker 5: And so interest rates are high, which makes it hard

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Speaker 5: to afford student debt and cars and mortgages. And it's

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Speaker 5: going to hit housing construction. So the thing all of

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Speaker 5: those three threats have in common is unlike any other

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Speaker 5: moment in my life, all of the threats are coming

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Speaker 5: from inside the house. Molly, you and I sort of

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Speaker 5: came of economic age during the global financial crisis. The

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Speaker 5: global financial crisis was a once in a century implosion

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Speaker 5: of financial markets. It was not... a policy directive from

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Speaker 5: the White House. Prior to that, we had the 2001 recession.

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Speaker 5: We had the popping of the NASDAQ bubble. Again, not

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Speaker 5: caused by the White House. We had the COVID recession. Again,

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Speaker 5: the White House is relevant, but it wasn't someone at

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Speaker 5: the White House said, why don't we go and attack

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Speaker 5: the US economy right now? We've got three very serious threats.

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Speaker 5: They're all coming from inside the House. and more than that,

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Speaker 5: the team whose job it is to look after us.

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Speaker 5: And I am still enough of a big government liberal

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Speaker 5: where I think the government's job is to make our

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Speaker 5: lives better and easier and tame the business cycle and

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Speaker 5: make sure we don't all lose our jobs. Um, at

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Speaker 5: the moment you have, um, I don't know what, you know,

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Speaker 5: the president has moved from idiosyncratic to highly idiosyncratic. And

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Speaker 5: I don't really know what's happened to Scott Besant. Um,

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Speaker 5: It sort of sometimes looks like maybe Pete Hegseth said,

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Speaker 5: why don't we take a lot of testosterone together? Because

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Speaker 5: he bellows and beats his chest.

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Speaker 1: He's also really into punchy, punchy.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I mean.

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Speaker 5: It looks like testosterone poisoning. And it doesn't look like

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Speaker 5: economic policy. So there's one view, which is, oh, let

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Speaker 5: him be. you know, blokes are blokes. If he wants

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Speaker 5: to go and beat his chest and pretend he's punching everyone,

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Speaker 5: you know, who cares?

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Speaker 4: Another view is, my view, and the views.

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Speaker 5: I had several friends who were former treasury secretaries, that,

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Speaker 5: you know, you want to maintain your credibility so that

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Speaker 5: when you speak, people listen. In some sense, speak softly

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Speaker 5: and carry a big stick. And when times are bad,

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Speaker 5: Having a senior government leader say, we will do whatever

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Speaker 5: it takes for things to be okay can be enough

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Speaker 5: to turn things around. But if you've lied 400 times

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Speaker 5: in a row or bellowed and not followed through or

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Speaker 5: had economic D-Day and then forgotten about it a day

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Speaker 5: and a half later, then you no longer command the

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Speaker 5: respect of the room. And so if we need that

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Speaker 5: moment of leadership, and maybe we haven't needed it yet,

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Speaker 5: but if we need it, Besant is increasingly unlikely to

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Speaker 5: be able to deliver it.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 4: Lutnik can't and Trump can't.

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Speaker 1: Squandered his credibility.

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Speaker 5: And so what that means is we don't, arguably the

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Speaker 5: most important economic policy tool we have is speech. And

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Speaker 5: it's the speech of trusted souls who can threaten or

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Speaker 5: promise to use American might in important ways. And what

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Speaker 5: he's done is he's threatened and not followed through enough

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Speaker 5: that that speech is gone and therefore it's like we've

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Speaker 5: lost one of our economic policy tools.

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Speaker 1: It also does strike me that Besant seems really focused

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Speaker 1: on bond markets in a very, I mean, obviously the

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Speaker 1: bond market, bond markets show that a decreased confidence in

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Speaker 1: the United States, right? That's why the rates are so high,

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Speaker 1: the yields are so high, right? Explain a little bit.

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Speaker 1: And Besson has approached it like a bond trader and

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Speaker 1: not like the treasury secretary. Is that right?

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Speaker 5: He's also approached it like a very bad bond trader.

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Speaker 5: So the first thing for people to understand is, okay,

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Speaker 5: so what is the bond market? It's basically a bank

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Speaker 5: where the federal government goes to borrow money. and also

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Speaker 5: big corporations go to borrow money. Those are corporate bonds

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Speaker 5: rather than government bonds. The thing is the price of

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Speaker 5: admission is trillions of dollars. It's a huge, huge, huge market.

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Speaker 5: Unlike others, just so big, so much money sloshing around.

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Speaker 5: It's the market for loans. So several weeks ago, Besant

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Speaker 5: started trying to push down long-term interest rates. And he

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Speaker 5: did that by using an obscure treasury facility in which

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Speaker 5: he brought first $ 4 billion and then $ 6 billion to

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Speaker 5: market and said he was going to move interest rates.

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Speaker 5: The thing that folks at home might struggle with is

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Speaker 5: $ 4 to $ 6 billion feels like a lot of money,

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Speaker 5: but actually in the bond market, it's sort of like

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Speaker 5: he walked into the bond market and started throwing quarters

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Speaker 5: at people. And the only way you hurt them is

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Speaker 5: if you hit them in the eye and you make

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Speaker 5: them go blind, but they're not impressed by the quarter.

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Speaker 5: In fact, the quarter rolls off them and they don't

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Speaker 5: even bother picking it up. So he turned up with

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Speaker 5: a water pistol to a gunfight. Then confronted with that,

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Speaker 5: so the analytic thing that you and I would do, Molly,

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Speaker 5: is we'd say, well, we messed up.

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Speaker 4: That's the wrong way to try.

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Speaker 5: To move bond yields. If we were to, we'd need

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Speaker 5: a huge amount of cash. We'd need a huge amount

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Speaker 5: of credibility. Otherwise, the market's going to call out bluff.

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Speaker 5: But if you've had sufficient testosterone poisoning, instead you lean in,

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Speaker 5: you beat your chest even harder and say, no, they're wrong.

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Speaker 5: They need to understand I am the market. And the

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Speaker 5: thing is, Scotty, you're not the market. You're the borrower.

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Speaker 5: You're the bloke who owes money, who's turning up with

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Speaker 5: his cup in his hand and saying, could you lend

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Speaker 5: it to me rather than someone else? And that's a

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Speaker 5: sense in which I think he's deeply misunderstood the bond market.

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Speaker 5: Kevin Walsh gets to shape the overnight market for loans

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Speaker 5: between banks. That's called the federal funds rate. But the 10, 20,

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Speaker 5: or 30-year bond yield, the rate at which we lend

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Speaker 5: people money for long periods of time is overwhelmingly.

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Speaker 4: Larger than.

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Speaker 5: Anything that Besson can do. He doesn't own the bond market.

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Speaker 5: The best he could do is screw the bond market

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Speaker 5: by creating enormous inflation and effectively inflating away our debts.

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Speaker 5: Hopefully he's not going to do that anytime soon. So

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Speaker 5: I think he's misread the space, he's misread the moment,

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Speaker 5: and he's lost a lot of credibility.

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Speaker 1: Justin Wolfers!

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Speaker 6: Mate.

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Speaker 5: Mate.

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Speaker 7: It's time to go over the headlines of the day.

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Speaker 7: This is an interesting move from Jamie Raskin. He's seeking

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Speaker 7: to preserve Trump's D.C. propaganda and put it in the

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Speaker 7: Smithsonian Institute.

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Speaker 2: Trump loves monuments to himself. He should like this, right?

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Speaker 1: This is like a messaging bill, which is actually not

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Speaker 1: a bad messaging bill, right? Because the idea here is

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Speaker 1: to draw attention to Trump's use of taxpayer dollars.

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Speaker 2: Can I propose a alternate take?

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: This is one of our first rage baiting bills. Like

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Speaker 7: this is a lot like what Abdul did to Mike

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Speaker 7: Rogers of saying Trump should come to Michigan. This is

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Speaker 7: a rage baiting bill.

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Speaker 2: In my opinion.

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Speaker 1: I would also add that part of the situation with

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Speaker 1: this bill is that what it does is it narrows

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Speaker 1: It focuses on preserving signage or artifacts related to Trump's

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Speaker 1: planned warning signs. I think it's to highlight two things, right?

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Speaker 1: It's to highlight the ways in which he's using Eurotax

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Speaker 1: dollars to destroy Washington, D.C. But it's also a way

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Speaker 1: of highlighting the ways in which he's using his Eurotax

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Speaker 1: dollars to advertise himself, which these two things are related

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Speaker 1: to each other. The bill directs the secretary of the

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Speaker 1: Smithsonian to collect and display Trump's sprawling portraits hung outside

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Speaker 1: of federal agencies at the Museum of Natural History. It's

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Speaker 1: just a very interesting way to get attention for something.

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Speaker 1: And remember, so much of this is about like capturing voters' attention,

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Speaker 1: capturing their imagination, connecting with constituents. So this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it won't pass, but it's certainly something to

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Speaker 1: do while Congress is out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: So we have some interesting polling from Reuters. They polled

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Speaker 7: whether Americans like the idea of paying for Trump to

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Speaker 7: make ads about what a great president he is. And

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Speaker 7: I'm going to shock you. This is more unpopular than

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Speaker 7: any poll I can remember.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, 90 percent. It's rare that all Americans agree on something.

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Speaker 1: Like this is it's like data centers, but it's it's

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Speaker 1: more unpopular than data centers. Is Donald Trump using your

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Speaker 1: taxpayer dollar dollars to advertise himself? And again, like, remember,

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Speaker 1: the admin has insisted that the ads were actually PSAs.

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Speaker 1: No one buys that because they have a lot of

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Speaker 1: the same footage of Trump's commercials. But the other point

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Speaker 1: here is. is that as soon as there was pushback,

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Speaker 1: Trump announced that his super PAC was going to pay

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Speaker 1: for it. But now he's saying that, you know, now

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Speaker 1: we see there are more ads that may not be

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Speaker 1: paid for by his super PAC.

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Speaker 7: So again, the old ones are still running on that dime.

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Speaker 6: Right.

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Speaker 1: So, I mean, this is one of these things. It's just,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's wild to watch him just do unpopular stuff. And,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's definitely trying to send people money. And

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Speaker 1: we saw there's more, you know, people are getting $ 90 checks,

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Speaker 1: some people. And then there are these Trump accounts for babies,

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Speaker 1: courtesy of Trump donor Michael Dow. But ultimately, he just

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Speaker 1: keeps doing really unpopular stuff right before a midterm election,

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Speaker 1: which I think is really something, especially when he has

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Speaker 1: so much. But I mean, the other thing I don't

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Speaker 1: understand is like America PAC. has basically, the Elon Musk

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Speaker 1: pack has seemingly endless money. Trump has at least, you know,

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Speaker 1: somewhere in half a billion dollars worth of campaign money.

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Speaker 1: And he has to, like, take money from the taxpayers.

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Speaker 2: Got to own the libs.

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Speaker 1: And that money should be going to businesses that do

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Speaker 1: business with his son's companies.

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Speaker 7: So, Molly, do you remember that ad campaign, The Most

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Speaker 7: Interesting Man in the World?

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Speaker 4: No.

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Speaker 2: Really?

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Speaker 6: Nope.

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Speaker 7: There's this ad campaign where it described the most interesting

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Speaker 7: man in the world and it described what he does.

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Speaker 7: So I present an ad for that. I can't remember

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Speaker 7: what shows wasn't the best ad. Anyway, I'm going to

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Speaker 7: nominate this guy for most interesting man in the world

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Speaker 7: in the way that it's interesting. And what the fuck?

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Speaker 7: This is terrible way. So this guy named is Victor Marx.

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Speaker 7: He's a he's the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Colorado. He

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Speaker 7: is a minister, an exorcist. He's killed an estimated 72

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Speaker 7: people during the war with ISIS. And now he basically

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Speaker 7: admitted that he's a domestic abuser.

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Speaker 2: And he said his wife was fake crying afterwards.

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Speaker 1: So Victor Marx is running for governor in Colorado. Remember,

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Speaker 1: right now, Governor Polis is the governor of Colorado. This

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Speaker 1: is a candidate I just did not know anything about.

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Speaker 1: And he sounds like just not good. Victor Marx. And again,

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Speaker 1: he has declared that he shoved his wife in the

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Speaker 1: past and would do it again. So I just want

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Speaker 1: to say Trump is underwater by about 29 points in Colorado.

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Speaker 1: So I think that Victor Marx is not going to

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Speaker 1: be governor of Colorado. And so my guess is that

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Speaker 1: this is probably OK. He's pretty rough. And again, Colorado

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Speaker 1: has birthed a lot of really weird candidates. You'll remember,

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Speaker 1: like Lauren Boebert is from Colorado.

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Speaker 7: I think that I would call Jared Polis very weird.

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Speaker 1: Jared Polis is pretty weird, I think. But it looks

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Speaker 1: like Phil Weiser, who is the attorney general, seems like

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Speaker 1: a lot less weird. But Colorado, it's a very strange

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Speaker 1: time in Colorado. And I think the fact that you have, like,

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Speaker 1: a governor's race in a pretty, in a somewhat strange,

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Speaker 1: In a state that can go either way.

437
00:25:16,700 --> 00:25:19,740
Speaker 2: A bluish purple state is the way I heard it called.

438
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:24,780
Speaker 1: Yeah. Who's so scary is really shows just how Republicans

439
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 1: are really in a strange and probably very destructive place.

440
00:25:29,140 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 4: Yeah.

441
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:31,360
Speaker 2: I would be remiss if I didn't read one quote

442
00:25:31,380 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 2: from this, though, that.

443
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:36,209
Speaker 1: Marxists love this story. It's like you're so happy with this.

444
00:25:37,190 --> 00:25:37,390
Speaker 3: Yes.

445
00:25:37,470 --> 00:25:37,770
Speaker 1: Go.

446
00:25:38,010 --> 00:25:38,270
Speaker 4: Sorry.

447
00:25:38,290 --> 00:25:39,810
Speaker 1: It's captured your imagination.

448
00:25:39,950 --> 00:25:40,370
Speaker 4: Go. Yes.

449
00:25:40,770 --> 00:25:42,810
Speaker 2: People have called us the real Mr. and Mrs.

450
00:25:42,930 --> 00:25:43,190
Speaker 4: Smith.

451
00:25:43,390 --> 00:25:46,030
Speaker 7: How many wives actually grab a backpack and put a

452
00:25:46,070 --> 00:25:48,949
Speaker 7: tomahawk night vision and put a grenade in their coat pocket?

453
00:25:49,380 --> 00:25:51,460
Speaker 2: We're not normal. I'll say so.

454
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know when you're that person why

455
00:25:54,780 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: you decide that you need to be the governor of

456
00:25:58,020 --> 00:26:01,420
Speaker 1: your state. It's just odd stuff.

457
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,260
Speaker 2: Maybe one of the ghosts who he was exercising told

458
00:26:04,300 --> 00:26:04,640
Speaker 2: him to.

459
00:26:05,220 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: Yes.

460
00:26:06,180 --> 00:26:06,570
Speaker 6: So, Molly.

461
00:26:07,390 --> 00:26:09,670
Speaker 7: You know I love watching a debate, and I couldn't

462
00:26:09,730 --> 00:26:12,250
Speaker 7: even get through this one last night because it was

463
00:26:12,780 --> 00:26:18,580
Speaker 7: pretty weird and pitiful. Troy Jackson handed Susan Collins' ass

464
00:26:18,619 --> 00:26:20,939
Speaker 7: to her, unlike what I've seen in previous debates with her,

465
00:26:21,260 --> 00:26:24,050
Speaker 7: where I actually usually think, as somebody who judges this

466
00:26:24,090 --> 00:26:27,929
Speaker 7: a lot, she's usually a formidable opponent in those debates.

467
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:30,340
Speaker 7: I don't think she always gets the best opponent, but

468
00:26:30,380 --> 00:26:33,060
Speaker 7: Troy Jackson really knew what he was doing last night.

469
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 2: What did you see?

470
00:26:34,140 --> 00:26:36,899
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought he did really well. And again, one

471
00:26:36,940 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: of the things about Troy Jackson that even his staunchest

472
00:26:41,260 --> 00:26:45,010
Speaker 1: defenders will say is that he's not that well-spoken. And actually,

473
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:47,030
Speaker 1: it's funny. I was talking to a friend from Maine

474
00:26:47,190 --> 00:26:50,129
Speaker 1: who was saying, is it that he's not that well-spoken

475
00:26:50,210 --> 00:26:52,650
Speaker 1: or is it that he really speaks like a Mainer?

476
00:26:53,430 --> 00:26:55,410
Speaker 1: Someone from real world Maine.

477
00:26:55,430 --> 00:26:58,090
Speaker 7: I had a friend say similar that like the same

478
00:26:58,130 --> 00:27:00,580
Speaker 7: way that Bernie's a little grouchy to a lot of people,

479
00:27:01,020 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 7: that he has a similar affectation.

480
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,160
Speaker 1: And so he's and and I think the moment that

481
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:09,900
Speaker 1: I'm the most there were two moments that really stuck

482
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,169
Speaker 1: out to me. But the one that really stuck out

483
00:27:12,190 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 1: to me was when. she, when Jackson said she's always

484
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: had healthcare, that's not the way it is for most

485
00:27:20,900 --> 00:27:25,070
Speaker 1: of us. And then Collins just walked right into it.

486
00:27:25,390 --> 00:27:28,149
Speaker 1: She said, first of all, I've not been insured my

487
00:27:28,190 --> 00:27:32,290
Speaker 1: whole life. I spent a year running for governor in 1994,

488
00:27:33,130 --> 00:27:35,150
Speaker 1: which is right.

489
00:27:35,150 --> 00:27:35,220
Speaker 5: 1994.

490
00:27:35,210 --> 00:27:37,450
Speaker 1: That's 32 years ago.

491
00:27:38,510 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 2: So Susan Collins was alive then.

492
00:27:41,420 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: Right. And Susan Collins is saying that 32 years ago,

493
00:27:45,070 --> 00:27:48,770
Speaker 1: She didn't have health insurance for a year. And that

494
00:27:48,810 --> 00:27:52,770
Speaker 1: that was and I think that's like just such an indictment.

495
00:27:53,070 --> 00:27:57,190
Speaker 1: I was really that I thought was a pretty like

496
00:27:57,290 --> 00:27:59,510
Speaker 1: impressive moment because you have to be a pretty impressive

497
00:27:59,550 --> 00:28:02,429
Speaker 1: candidate to walk your opponent into that. And then the

498
00:28:02,690 --> 00:28:06,090
Speaker 1: other one that I thought was pretty good or just

499
00:28:06,790 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: I think spoke to it was so they were talking

500
00:28:11,940 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 1: about how she had gotten SALT. Off the right. So

501
00:28:16,740 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: she said, I was successful getting road salt removed from

502
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: the tariff list, which you do need road salt in Maine.

503
00:28:23,420 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: And Jackson said, what about everything else? We can't eat

504
00:28:27,060 --> 00:28:31,180
Speaker 1: road salt. And I thought that was a pretty good.

505
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good line.

506
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:35,590
Speaker 7: The point he put on it was really good, which

507
00:28:35,670 --> 00:28:38,430
Speaker 7: is he says that she's an arsonist who brings a

508
00:28:38,470 --> 00:28:40,790
Speaker 7: cup of water to put out a fire. And that

509
00:28:40,870 --> 00:28:43,330
Speaker 7: line was right in line with that indictment, which I

510
00:28:43,370 --> 00:28:45,610
Speaker 7: thought was really good. And that was the theme of

511
00:28:46,290 --> 00:28:48,930
Speaker 7: the few minutes I could bear to watch this thing.

512
00:28:48,950 --> 00:28:50,550
Speaker 3: Yeah.

513
00:28:50,630 --> 00:28:52,370
Speaker 1: And I think it's a good I mean, I just

514
00:28:52,410 --> 00:28:56,450
Speaker 1: think you don't get, you know, this a guy where

515
00:28:56,490 --> 00:28:59,860
Speaker 1: everyone has talked about how he's not he doesn't speak well.

516
00:29:00,300 --> 00:29:03,300
Speaker 1: And like, obviously, if we're quoting lines from his debate,

517
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: he speaks as well as anyone.

518
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,380
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think it's like really that he's just not

519
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:13,500
Speaker 7: that politician that's like saying they're loving every moment of engaging.

520
00:29:13,060 --> 00:29:15,550
Speaker 2: With the human. But he was pretty good at putting

521
00:29:15,590 --> 00:29:16,910
Speaker 2: a point on things, I will say.

522
00:29:19,170 --> 00:29:24,190
Speaker 1: Alex Gibney is a legendary documentary director of movies like

523
00:29:24,350 --> 00:29:30,500
Speaker 1: Taxi to the Dark Side, Zero Days, and his latest, Musk. Welcome, welcome,

524
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:31,620
Speaker 1: Alex Gibney.

525
00:29:31,940 --> 00:29:33,420
Speaker 6: Hey there, Molly. Good to see you.

526
00:29:33,850 --> 00:29:37,100
Speaker 1: Good to see you. So I saw the movie in

527
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:42,340
Speaker 1: two parts and it's very full And in there's an intermission.

528
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: I would love you to talk about how you feel,

529
00:29:45,180 --> 00:29:47,940
Speaker 1: sort of what you feel about both parts of the

530
00:29:47,980 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: movie and and sort of how you did it.

531
00:29:51,340 --> 00:29:55,510
Speaker 6: Well, you know, in the spring of 2024, remember, I

532
00:29:55,530 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 6: started this late fall or no, uh, Late in the year. Yeah,

533
00:30:00,740 --> 00:30:04,540
Speaker 6: late fall 2022. So I've been on this beat for

534
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 6: a long time. And spring of 2024, we were coming

535
00:30:08,460 --> 00:30:10,930
Speaker 6: to the end and thinking that we'd release a two-hour

536
00:30:11,010 --> 00:30:16,510
Speaker 6: film in theaters in the fall festivals. And then Trump

537
00:30:16,570 --> 00:30:21,190
Speaker 6: was nearly assassinated. Elon hitched his wagon to Trump. And

538
00:30:21,290 --> 00:30:24,970
Speaker 6: my pals at HBO said, you're not done. Keep following

539
00:30:25,010 --> 00:30:28,620
Speaker 6: the story. But we had a film, right? And so

540
00:30:29,020 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 6: roughly speaking, I would say that ends up being the

541
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,459
Speaker 6: point of the intermission and then the point after. Though

542
00:30:36,010 --> 00:30:40,350
Speaker 6: I would say that we did move pieces around because

543
00:30:40,690 --> 00:30:44,830
Speaker 6: it's a film that's in chapters. But the first film

544
00:30:44,870 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 6: was after he had taken care of Twitter. He was

545
00:30:48,150 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 6: starting to go crazy, but he hadn't yet begun his massive– well,

546
00:30:54,600 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 6: he had begun his political project, which I didn't realize

547
00:30:56,900 --> 00:30:59,220
Speaker 6: at the time. But he didn't achieve the kind of

548
00:30:59,460 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 6: power that he achieved by linking arms with Trump.

549
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:05,700
Speaker 1: One of the things that I was struck by in

550
00:31:05,990 --> 00:31:11,750
Speaker 1: the movie is how similar his takeover of Twitter and

551
00:31:11,790 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: his takeover of the federal government is. That is something

552
00:31:15,980 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: I think I hadn't maybe at the time noticed, but

553
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 1: the way you lay it out, it's both part of

554
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,210
Speaker 1: his origin story and part of... And it just seems

555
00:31:27,270 --> 00:31:31,390
Speaker 1: like he has one playbook. Did you see that in

556
00:31:31,550 --> 00:31:36,150
Speaker 1: other parts of his life, like repetitive ways to deal

557
00:31:36,190 --> 00:31:38,690
Speaker 1: with problems? Like, just talk to me about sort of

558
00:31:38,710 --> 00:31:41,330
Speaker 1: the patterns you saw in the movie working on it.

559
00:31:41,340 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 6: I mean, I think... In a way, it ends up

560
00:31:44,340 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 6: being one of the reasons that the film is at

561
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,060
Speaker 6: its epic length. It's because you see something that's seeded early.

562
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,270
Speaker 6: And I would argue that there's a number of cons

563
00:31:55,330 --> 00:32:00,410
Speaker 6: that he plays, often related to driving up the stock price.

564
00:32:00,770 --> 00:32:04,470
Speaker 6: And then later, those cons get bigger and bigger and bigger.

565
00:32:04,850 --> 00:32:07,910
Speaker 6: So some of the cons he pulls over on stock

566
00:32:07,930 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 6: price at Tesla then get repeated for the SpaceX IPO.

567
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 6: but on a much larger scale. So yeah, he has,

568
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 6: it's like the Vince Lombardi of tech. He had three

569
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:25,290
Speaker 6: or four plays and he keeps running them over and

570
00:32:25,370 --> 00:32:27,930
Speaker 6: over and over again. And in the case of Twitter

571
00:32:28,030 --> 00:32:30,870
Speaker 6: and Doge, he literally used the same language in that

572
00:32:30,930 --> 00:32:32,010
Speaker 6: letter that goes out.

573
00:32:32,030 --> 00:32:32,270
Speaker 1: Same email.

574
00:32:32,810 --> 00:32:34,410
Speaker 6: Yeah, same email, right.

575
00:32:35,550 --> 00:32:40,310
Speaker 1: What is the original sin of Elon Musk? I have

576
00:32:40,350 --> 00:32:42,490
Speaker 1: a theory, but I want you to tell me what

577
00:32:42,510 --> 00:32:44,570
Speaker 1: you think this sort of original sin there is.

578
00:32:44,890 --> 00:32:47,030
Speaker 6: I mean, the way it works in the film, it's

579
00:32:47,390 --> 00:32:51,650
Speaker 6: the battery swap. You could also say it's the moment

580
00:32:51,730 --> 00:32:58,570
Speaker 6: when he won't settle a lawsuit until Martin Eberhard agrees

581
00:32:59,210 --> 00:33:02,750
Speaker 6: to say that Elon Musk was the founder. Because that's

582
00:33:02,790 --> 00:33:08,700
Speaker 6: a moment. That's not just credit grabbing. That's literally... rewriting

583
00:33:09,020 --> 00:33:13,430
Speaker 6: history to be able to make people believe that you

584
00:33:13,490 --> 00:33:14,510
Speaker 6: are something that you are not.

585
00:33:14,850 --> 00:33:18,270
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought the moment where

586
00:33:18,310 --> 00:33:23,430
Speaker 1: you get that Martin Eberhoff to that interview with him,

587
00:33:23,490 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: and I had sort of known that story, but hearing

588
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:33,780
Speaker 1: him articulate it is sort of stunning. And it sets

589
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: the stage for everything that happens next.

590
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 6: Yeah, because he doesn't just say, you know, I guess

591
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:42,500
Speaker 6: Martin was there, but really I was the founder. It's

592
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 6: not like that. It's like written down so that there

593
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 6: is a documented record and he wouldn't settle the lawsuit

594
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 6: until this was settled. Because that ends up being not

595
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 6: only a marker or the start of his kind of

596
00:33:56,300 --> 00:34:00,020
Speaker 6: meme personality, that he is this kind of Iron Man-like figure,

597
00:34:00,500 --> 00:34:03,480
Speaker 6: but also, you know, in Silicon Valley, to the founder

598
00:34:03,540 --> 00:34:07,380
Speaker 6: go the spoils. Not in terms of the stock you get,

599
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 6: but the stock price that you're able to shoot for

600
00:34:10,900 --> 00:34:16,210
Speaker 6: by saying, I'm this genius tech overlord. And even though

601
00:34:16,250 --> 00:34:20,149
Speaker 6: the economic fundamentals of the company don't justify it, you know,

602
00:34:20,590 --> 00:34:22,930
Speaker 6: bid up the stock because the future is glorious and

603
00:34:22,969 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 6: I will take us to planet Mars and beyond.

604
00:34:25,739 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: Tech overlord. oligarchs, the tech monopoly do not want people

605
00:34:31,660 --> 00:34:34,340
Speaker 1: to see this movie. Do you know this was coming

606
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,020
Speaker 1: and how are these people trying to silence you?

607
00:34:37,500 --> 00:34:40,990
Speaker 6: You know, first there was a kind of mysterious silence

608
00:34:41,430 --> 00:34:45,149
Speaker 6: at Universal and they control most of the international rights.

609
00:34:45,530 --> 00:34:51,210
Speaker 6: That's since been sorted out. Then we were surprised when,

610
00:34:51,570 --> 00:34:54,830
Speaker 6: you know, we dropped the trailer and Bleecker Street, who's

611
00:34:54,890 --> 00:34:58,790
Speaker 6: the theatrical distributor, started running ads for the trailer, and

612
00:34:58,830 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 6: they were all turned down by Meta, by YouTube, by TikTok,

613
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 6: and of course by X, but uniformly. And we appealed

614
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,180
Speaker 6: and then appeal denied, appealed again, appeal denied, because they

615
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,430
Speaker 6: said these are political advertisements. They weren't political advertisements. They're

616
00:35:16,469 --> 00:35:21,470
Speaker 6: advertisements for a movie. Only when an article was published

617
00:35:22,730 --> 00:35:27,300
Speaker 6: chronicling what was happening did Meta and YouTube suddenly say, oh, whoops,

618
00:35:27,830 --> 00:35:30,450
Speaker 6: It was a mistake. But it gives you a sense,

619
00:35:30,610 --> 00:35:33,430
Speaker 6: you know, and this was all happening just as, you know,

620
00:35:33,469 --> 00:35:37,509
Speaker 6: Zuckerberg and Musk and all the other and Bezos and

621
00:35:37,550 --> 00:35:40,890
Speaker 6: all the other tech titans are having dinner with Xi

622
00:35:40,910 --> 00:35:43,890
Speaker 6: Jinping at the White House. So you kind of get

623
00:35:43,930 --> 00:35:48,410
Speaker 6: this sense of manufacturing consent, you know, up at the top.

624
00:35:48,430 --> 00:35:52,090
Speaker 6: There's a limited set of things that you can talk about.

625
00:35:52,350 --> 00:35:53,830
Speaker 6: And if you can talk about them, you have to

626
00:35:53,870 --> 00:35:56,180
Speaker 6: talk about them in a certain way. or else you

627
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 6: will be silenced. So I got a glimpse of what

628
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:01,299
Speaker 6: the future might look like if we don't fight back.

629
00:36:01,540 --> 00:36:05,259
Speaker 1: I was surprised there wasn't more about his drug use.

630
00:36:06,550 --> 00:36:10,930
Speaker 1: Because of the Wall Street Journal reporting, we saw about

631
00:36:10,989 --> 00:36:18,549
Speaker 1: his drug use and also Ashley St. Clair's pointed inability

632
00:36:18,630 --> 00:36:20,169
Speaker 1: to answer that question.

633
00:36:20,190 --> 00:36:23,980
Speaker 6: I mean, I felt in a way I went as

634
00:36:24,060 --> 00:36:27,470
Speaker 6: far as I needed to go. The Wall Street Journal article,

635
00:36:27,989 --> 00:36:32,009
Speaker 6: which documented use of LSD, cocaine, ketamine, I think there

636
00:36:32,030 --> 00:36:36,650
Speaker 6: were some other drugs in the mix. I think in

637
00:36:36,690 --> 00:36:38,150
Speaker 6: a way that's all you need to know. That's a

638
00:36:38,250 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 6: pretty toxic mix of different kinds of drugs, particularly for

639
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:46,819
Speaker 6: somebody who has his own demons in the past, who's

640
00:36:46,860 --> 00:36:50,220
Speaker 6: becoming unhinged because of the power he's accreting, and also

641
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,379
Speaker 6: the kind of rage addiction that he seems to be

642
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 6: subject to because of his you know, insane tweeting, you know,

643
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 6: sometimes up to 150 times a day, many of those replies.

644
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:07,459
Speaker 6: So I just felt like within that context, that was enough.

645
00:37:07,540 --> 00:37:11,779
Speaker 6: It was showing that this guy is self-medicating in a

646
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:12,780
Speaker 6: way that's not healthy.

647
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:20,890
Speaker 1: I thought the interview with his father, Errol, was... pretty

648
00:37:21,450 --> 00:37:26,069
Speaker 1: spectacular and done in a very spare and brilliant way.

649
00:37:26,090 --> 00:37:30,310
Speaker 1: Did you have trouble getting that? And were you surprised

650
00:37:30,330 --> 00:37:35,220
Speaker 1: at how much he revealed himself despite not revealing himself?

651
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:41,740
Speaker 6: So it's an interesting question. Here's how the interview came down.

652
00:37:41,820 --> 00:37:45,089
Speaker 6: Somebody gave me his number. We called it, asked for

653
00:37:45,110 --> 00:37:48,549
Speaker 6: the interview, and he said yes. It was that simple, right?

654
00:37:49,050 --> 00:37:51,310
Speaker 6: And I don't think he asked Elon's permission. And I

655
00:37:51,370 --> 00:37:56,890
Speaker 6: think their relationship is strained. And yet at the same time,

656
00:37:56,930 --> 00:38:01,009
Speaker 6: he's obviously intensely proud. Elon also claims that he was

657
00:38:01,030 --> 00:38:03,630
Speaker 6: psychologically abusive to him, so forth and so on. But

658
00:38:04,170 --> 00:38:07,790
Speaker 6: I think in the interview, you get a glimpse both

659
00:38:07,830 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 6: of what Elon's childhood must have been like, but also

660
00:38:12,300 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 6: you get a glimpse into Elon because of who Errol

661
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:18,460
Speaker 6: is in terms of his sort of.

662
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 6: His willing to exaggerate or make up the facts, but

663
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 6: also a kind of penchant and reveling in violence, which

664
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 6: was one of the things that I found extraordinary. Because

665
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,400
Speaker 6: I asked him, there was a famous incident in which

666
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:38,270
Speaker 6: he killed two or three intruders into his house, killed

667
00:38:38,290 --> 00:38:42,610
Speaker 6: them with his. 357 Magnum. And I just asked him

668
00:38:42,650 --> 00:38:45,810
Speaker 6: the question, but the degree to which he went on

669
00:38:45,830 --> 00:38:48,090
Speaker 6: and on about it, and then began to describe the

670
00:38:48,130 --> 00:38:51,350
Speaker 6: different colors of blood, in the floor. You know, he

671
00:38:51,390 --> 00:38:53,170
Speaker 6: could tell that he was reveling in it in a

672
00:38:53,210 --> 00:38:56,029
Speaker 6: way that was, I must say, uncomfortable.

673
00:38:56,410 --> 00:38:56,660
Speaker 3: Yeah.

674
00:38:56,739 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 1: And then you used a really interesting bit of May Musk.

675
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: Explain how you found that and what I assume she

676
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:07,299
Speaker 1: was not interested in speaking to you.

677
00:39:07,660 --> 00:39:11,989
Speaker 6: Correct. But she had been. That was an archival clip

678
00:39:12,430 --> 00:39:17,090
Speaker 6: where she talked about how she was physically abused by

679
00:39:17,110 --> 00:39:22,660
Speaker 6: Errol And that was also pointed to me, or his

680
00:39:23,710 --> 00:39:28,070
Speaker 6: kind of misogynistic manner was pointed out to me by Justine.

681
00:39:28,620 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 6: you know, who, uh, Justine Musk being, uh, Elon Musk's

682
00:39:32,540 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 6: first wife, who said that at the heart of a

683
00:39:36,580 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 6: kind of, uh, toxic misogyny was Errol. And so that, uh,

684
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 6: I felt that was something that needed to be pointed

685
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,330
Speaker 6: out because he lives very much in a man's world

686
00:39:47,590 --> 00:39:53,030
Speaker 6: while he has these very interesting, lovers and wives, ultimately

687
00:39:53,050 --> 00:39:55,730
Speaker 6: the relationship always seems to turn sour in a way

688
00:39:55,790 --> 00:40:01,950
Speaker 6: that's almost stereotypically toxic male.

689
00:40:02,390 --> 00:40:07,489
Speaker 1: It's so interesting to me that Justine and Ashley are

690
00:40:07,530 --> 00:40:13,180
Speaker 1: both really smart and really sharp. And I actually really

691
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: like Justine and I really like Ashley. And they're both

692
00:40:17,140 --> 00:40:22,660
Speaker 1: really smart and really sharp and It's unusual in my

693
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 1: mind to have someone like that, like who has a

694
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 1: sort of Trump like relationship to women, be so interested

695
00:40:30,780 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 1: in smart women. What do you think that is? Like,

696
00:40:35,489 --> 00:40:37,850
Speaker 1: I mean, it just doesn't jive with the rest of

697
00:40:37,870 --> 00:40:38,710
Speaker 1: the project.

698
00:40:39,130 --> 00:40:40,810
Speaker 6: I totally agree with you. And it's one of the

699
00:40:40,850 --> 00:40:44,730
Speaker 6: things that fascinated me because and I would add that.

700
00:40:45,510 --> 00:40:49,569
Speaker 6: You know, I don't know anything. I mean, anything more

701
00:40:49,590 --> 00:40:51,910
Speaker 6: than I put in the film about Siobhan, who just

702
00:40:51,950 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 6: recently broke up with Zillow, who just recently broke up

703
00:40:55,100 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 6: with Musk. But by all accounts, she's really smart. And

704
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:02,879
Speaker 6: Claire Boucher is also very smart. And so he's he's

705
00:41:02,940 --> 00:41:10,970
Speaker 6: attracted to these very accomplished, interesting, really sophisticated women.

706
00:41:11,730 --> 00:41:11,930
Speaker 1: Yeah.

707
00:41:12,870 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 6: And and and they are attracted to him. Yeah. And

708
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:19,939
Speaker 6: and they feel, you know, but but there's a real

709
00:41:19,980 --> 00:41:25,899
Speaker 6: divide between either pre marriage and post marriage or particularly

710
00:41:26,540 --> 00:41:28,140
Speaker 6: pre children and post children.

711
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 4: Yeah.

712
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:33,299
Speaker 6: It's also sort of stereotypical. You know, it's like it's

713
00:41:33,540 --> 00:41:35,930
Speaker 6: almost as if a switch is flipped. Yeah.

714
00:41:36,250 --> 00:41:42,430
Speaker 1: The Siobhan Zillis breakup, which we saw was basically, from what,

715
00:41:42,870 --> 00:41:46,259
Speaker 1: at least on the outside, it looked like to the observer,

716
00:41:46,340 --> 00:41:50,339
Speaker 1: and who even really knows what happened, really happened. But, like,

717
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:57,330
Speaker 1: the Siobhan Zillis breakup was basically, he unfollowed her on X,

718
00:41:57,910 --> 00:42:02,870
Speaker 1: and then she... tweeted out a text message exchange that

719
00:42:02,890 --> 00:42:06,210
Speaker 1: they had. Again, there's probably more behind the scenes, but

720
00:42:07,070 --> 00:42:09,070
Speaker 1: were you slightly shocked by that?

721
00:42:09,610 --> 00:42:12,220
Speaker 6: I was shocked by both the public nature of it,

722
00:42:12,650 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 6: though I've seen other public exchanges between, say, him and Grimes.

723
00:42:20,739 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 1: Right.

724
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 6: Famously, she was desperately posting on X asking, Elon to

725
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:37,969
Speaker 6: bring their child back, you know, in desperation. So it's peculiar.

726
00:42:38,989 --> 00:42:39,250
Speaker 3: Yeah.

727
00:42:39,510 --> 00:42:42,930
Speaker 6: Definitely peculiar, but it's not the first time it happened.

728
00:42:42,969 --> 00:42:46,980
Speaker 6: And so, you know, it's as though Elon both lives

729
00:42:47,860 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 6: a private life, but also lives his private life on X,

730
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:56,020
Speaker 6: as do some of the women he's been involved with.

731
00:42:56,060 --> 00:43:02,240
Speaker 6: It's a peculiar... It's a really kind of peculiar cyber

732
00:43:02,260 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 6: meme-like existence.

733
00:43:04,860 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: How influenced– and again, this is just a guess– but

734
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:14,259
Speaker 1: how much do you think his behavior has changed over

735
00:43:14,340 --> 00:43:19,719
Speaker 1: the trajectory? I mean the film covers sort of from– early,

736
00:43:19,900 --> 00:43:22,660
Speaker 1: you know, it covers from his childhood to now, basically.

737
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,259
Speaker 1: But how much do you think his behavior has changed?

738
00:43:25,820 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: Like he was secretly giving money to Republicans really since

739
00:43:31,430 --> 00:43:34,690
Speaker 1: the beginning through or not from the beginning, but he

740
00:43:34,730 --> 00:43:35,590
Speaker 1: had been giving.

741
00:43:35,890 --> 00:43:38,670
Speaker 6: Really, it started big time around 2022. I mean, to

742
00:43:38,690 --> 00:43:42,850
Speaker 6: some extent, you know, something broke in his brain during COVID.

743
00:43:42,890 --> 00:43:46,620
Speaker 6: I think that's true. But I also think that in

744
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:52,220
Speaker 6: part because California tried to put constraints on him relating

745
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,450
Speaker 6: to protecting his workers at the factory, and he wanted

746
00:43:55,489 --> 00:43:59,450
Speaker 6: them to go full speed ahead. But I also think

747
00:43:59,469 --> 00:44:05,230
Speaker 6: it's a case of certain elements of his character becoming

748
00:44:05,330 --> 00:44:10,330
Speaker 6: more and more exaggerated the more power he obtained and

749
00:44:10,570 --> 00:44:14,339
Speaker 6: the fewer constraints he was willing to countenance. You know,

750
00:44:14,380 --> 00:44:17,180
Speaker 6: because Justine does talk about, you know, she talks very

751
00:44:17,219 --> 00:44:20,819
Speaker 6: movingly about how they would sit alone. They would sit

752
00:44:20,860 --> 00:44:23,980
Speaker 6: together in a coffee house and they would read silently

753
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 6: and just each other's company, how much she treasured that

754
00:44:28,940 --> 00:44:30,779
Speaker 6: and also talk about how much fun they used to have.

755
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 6: At the same time, she also talked about how he would,

756
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 6: you know, go into these rants and rages and diminish

757
00:44:39,420 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 6: her in ways that she found very unpleasant and also

758
00:44:42,460 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 6: gas lit her. In a way, you didn't really even

759
00:44:44,900 --> 00:44:48,980
Speaker 6: know about gaslighting until coming in contact with Elon, where

760
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,660
Speaker 6: you were trying to take a fictional world and impose

761
00:44:51,739 --> 00:44:56,780
Speaker 6: that on somebody else, which is a very narcissistic trait.

762
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:00,920
Speaker 6: I think some of the worst traits of Elon were exploded,

763
00:45:01,100 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 6: both by his power, his fame, and I think possibly

764
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:10,060
Speaker 6: his drug use, but also his engagement. on Twitter, which

765
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,790
Speaker 6: became a commercial mechanism for him at first and a

766
00:45:12,810 --> 00:45:16,890
Speaker 6: very effective one. But over time became a kind of

767
00:45:18,050 --> 00:45:20,890
Speaker 6: place of rage addiction, which is, of course, how he

768
00:45:20,969 --> 00:45:23,310
Speaker 6: then designs the platform once he buys it.

769
00:45:23,550 --> 00:45:28,540
Speaker 1: Do you think I thought the stuff about his daughter?

770
00:45:28,980 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 6: Yes.

771
00:45:29,910 --> 00:45:35,770
Speaker 1: Was very moving, that Justine was able to advocate for her,

772
00:45:36,650 --> 00:45:41,130
Speaker 1: but she couldn't really explain how. And I don't want

773
00:45:41,150 --> 00:45:43,210
Speaker 1: to know anything that gets anyone into any trouble, but

774
00:45:43,750 --> 00:45:48,690
Speaker 1: I wondered if you could talk about what his relationship

775
00:45:48,770 --> 00:45:52,150
Speaker 1: is with daughters. Part of it is he has this....

776
00:45:57,600 --> 00:45:59,820
Speaker 6: Part of it is his transphobia. I mean, he says

777
00:46:00,219 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 6: his son Xavier died. He plays off of dead naming

778
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:11,490
Speaker 6: and then says, my son Xavier is dead. Well, Vivian

779
00:46:11,550 --> 00:46:15,469
Speaker 6: Jenna Wilson is not dead. She's very much alive. She's charming,

780
00:46:15,950 --> 00:46:22,890
Speaker 6: full of beans, intelligent, and always determined to go her

781
00:46:22,950 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 6: own way. So very much alive. And she has a

782
00:46:28,340 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 6: great relationship with her mom, but somehow because she did

783
00:46:32,140 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 6: something that Elon didn't like, he saw that as dying

784
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:39,780
Speaker 6: as opposed to, as Justine movingly describes in the film,

785
00:46:40,420 --> 00:46:43,100
Speaker 6: you know, an adolescent growing up and deciding who she's

786
00:46:43,140 --> 00:46:46,299
Speaker 6: going to be as an adult. And that part he

787
00:46:46,340 --> 00:46:49,989
Speaker 6: seemed incapable of handling. Like she disobeyed him in a

788
00:46:50,350 --> 00:46:53,890
Speaker 6: fundamental way rather than engaging in who his child is.

789
00:46:55,260 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 6: and trying to come to some reckoning and understanding and

790
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 6: also some appreciation that inevitably all children go away from

791
00:47:03,540 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 6: their parents to some extent. Hope because you love them

792
00:47:06,820 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 6: that you'll have a new kind of relationship. But, you know,

793
00:47:11,580 --> 00:47:15,880
Speaker 6: he was never able to forgive that. And there's something

794
00:47:16,300 --> 00:47:19,220
Speaker 6: that Justine says in the film, which, you know, he

795
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 6: sends a message to Jenna via Justine saying, you know,

796
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:29,589
Speaker 6: tell her I'll always love her. Yeah. And the next

797
00:47:29,650 --> 00:47:31,230
Speaker 6: day he cancels her health insurance.

798
00:47:31,890 --> 00:47:32,690
Speaker 1: I mean.

799
00:47:33,610 --> 00:47:37,529
Speaker 6: That's hard to really even, you know, as a parent. Yeah.

800
00:47:38,270 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 6: It's really hard to grok, to.

801
00:47:40,530 --> 00:47:40,970
Speaker 2: Use that phrase.

802
00:47:41,050 --> 00:47:44,700
Speaker 1: It is very hard to grok. What do you think,

803
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,700
Speaker 1: how many children do you think, like one of the

804
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: parts of the movie that I think is really important and...

805
00:47:53,780 --> 00:47:58,420
Speaker 1: explained in a really smart way is that at every

806
00:47:58,620 --> 00:48:04,800
Speaker 1: point there is a There seems to be an NDA

807
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:08,379
Speaker 1: and a check And that seems to be like pretty

808
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:09,540
Speaker 1: much how he handles things.

809
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:12,739
Speaker 6: Yeah, and and and what we don't know I mean

810
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 6: the we know of 14 children. We know that he

811
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 6: calls his many children his legion And that some of

812
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:24,910
Speaker 6: those children are not children, you know, out of any

813
00:48:24,969 --> 00:48:28,750
Speaker 6: sexual relationship. He literally sends sperm and NDA and a

814
00:48:28,770 --> 00:48:32,210
Speaker 6: financial contract. Sometimes the people who reach out to him

815
00:48:32,390 --> 00:48:36,330
Speaker 6: on X or people he reaches out to. The thinking is,

816
00:48:36,570 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 6: and other people have said, that there are many more

817
00:48:39,030 --> 00:48:42,339
Speaker 6: than 14. So we should, you know, I don't know

818
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:45,620
Speaker 6: for sure, but I would guess that it's in the 20s, maybe,

819
00:48:45,660 --> 00:48:53,359
Speaker 6: or 30. I don't know. But given the pattern, it's... Yeah,

820
00:48:53,500 --> 00:48:58,839
Speaker 6: it's imaginable, easily imaginable. This idea that along with it is,

821
00:48:59,940 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 6: it's almost like a, well, what was it? Ashley St.

822
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:06,770
Speaker 6: Clair says she calls it a gatling gun of sperm.

823
00:49:07,070 --> 00:49:12,089
Speaker 6: There's something almost like prosecuting a war, and he uses

824
00:49:12,110 --> 00:49:13,050
Speaker 6: the term legion.

825
00:49:13,150 --> 00:49:13,630
Speaker 2: It's like.

826
00:49:15,650 --> 00:49:19,029
Speaker 6: He's like Saruman producing the Uruk-hai, you know?

827
00:49:20,410 --> 00:49:21,150
Speaker 2: It's weird.

828
00:49:21,489 --> 00:49:25,330
Speaker 6: And part of the NDA with Ashley St. Clair was

829
00:49:25,390 --> 00:49:29,550
Speaker 6: that neither she, if she had signed the financial contract

830
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 6: and the NDA, neither she nor their son could ever

831
00:49:35,380 --> 00:49:37,520
Speaker 6: say that Elon Musk was the father. But it was

832
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:39,819
Speaker 6: important to Elon to know that It was out there.

833
00:49:40,060 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 6: So what kind of parent is that? I mean, it's

834
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,700
Speaker 6: a whole different way of thinking. It's just like, I

835
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 6: need to spread my seed because I am so rich

836
00:49:49,140 --> 00:49:52,049
Speaker 6: and powerful that more of me needs to be in

837
00:49:52,090 --> 00:49:52,650
Speaker 6: the universe.

838
00:49:52,950 --> 00:49:56,790
Speaker 1: Was there anyone who was really critical in Elon world

839
00:49:56,810 --> 00:49:58,090
Speaker 1: who you thought you were going to be able to

840
00:49:58,130 --> 00:49:58,910
Speaker 1: get who you couldn't?

841
00:49:59,330 --> 00:50:00,830
Speaker 6: I mean, there were a lot of people I wanted

842
00:50:00,850 --> 00:50:02,390
Speaker 6: to talk to. And there were a number of people

843
00:50:03,250 --> 00:50:04,910
Speaker 6: I did talk to on background.

844
00:50:05,180 --> 00:50:05,620
Speaker 4: Right.

845
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:10,620
Speaker 6: So but a lot of people very close to Elon

846
00:50:10,650 --> 00:50:13,950
Speaker 6: were not given permission by Elon to talk. It was

847
00:50:14,010 --> 00:50:14,989
Speaker 6: also interesting to me.

848
00:50:15,010 --> 00:50:16,390
Speaker 2: I did.

849
00:50:16,410 --> 00:50:18,590
Speaker 6: I can't say who it was, but it was a

850
00:50:18,610 --> 00:50:22,339
Speaker 6: very powerful VC investor who I talked to on background.

851
00:50:23,540 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 6: And I said, OK, let's boil it down. I mean,

852
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:30,380
Speaker 6: if you had to to make one particular comment about

853
00:50:30,500 --> 00:50:32,930
Speaker 6: Elon Musk, what would it be? And he said he

854
00:50:32,969 --> 00:50:35,529
Speaker 6: was one of the most miserable men I've ever met.

855
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:39,290
Speaker 6: In other words, he lives his life in misery. He's

856
00:50:39,370 --> 00:50:42,250
Speaker 6: not a happy man. And of course, his mother, you know,

857
00:50:42,270 --> 00:50:44,910
Speaker 6: I said that in some interview or something, and his

858
00:50:44,950 --> 00:50:47,149
Speaker 6: mother came right out and said, I've always found Elon

859
00:50:47,170 --> 00:50:51,879
Speaker 6: to be extremely happy, you know, but I think that

860
00:50:52,260 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 6: it comes across like there's this pain and agony that

861
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:59,339
Speaker 6: he wears, you know, not unlike Trump, you know, some

862
00:51:00,300 --> 00:51:05,620
Speaker 6: childhood hurt that he's now, uh, inflicting on the rest

863
00:51:05,660 --> 00:51:05,900
Speaker 6: of us.

864
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:08,990
Speaker 1: Alex Gibney, thank you.

865
00:51:09,530 --> 00:51:11,049
Speaker 6: Molly, always great to talk to you.

866
00:51:12,930 --> 00:51:15,730
Speaker 2: And now your moment of suffering.

867
00:51:16,730 --> 00:51:17,790
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon.

868
00:51:18,650 --> 00:51:22,310
Speaker 2: So Molly, you know what the people long for? More robocalls.

869
00:51:22,410 --> 00:51:24,820
Speaker 7: And that's why Brendan Carr of the FCC is thinking

870
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:28,320
Speaker 7: about allowing more of them to happen before the midterms,

871
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 7: including those created with AI.

872
00:51:30,530 --> 00:51:33,270
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the only thing I like better than phone

873
00:51:33,310 --> 00:51:38,739
Speaker 1: calls is phone calls from non-existent people. Brendan Carr, you'll

874
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:44,660
Speaker 1: remember Brendan Carr as basically being just another Trump lackey. Fine.

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Speaker 1: Have AI call me. I won't pick that up either.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

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Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best

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00:51:59,880 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: minds in politics make sense of all this chaos. If

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00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,320
Speaker 1: you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend

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00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:10,950
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.