Kara Swisher Explains How The U.S. Was Inches from Economic Collapse, How Big Tech Influences Our Politics, How America Is Trapped in a Cult & Why She Still Finds Hope

Is America in a Constitutional Crisis? Kara Swisher Explains the Chaos—And What Comes Next! Podcast legend Kara Swisher (Pivot, On with Kara Swisher) breaks down how the current administration’s reckless moves—from tariffs to deportations—are shaking Wall Street and hurting everyday Americans and gives her full tech industry analysis & political commentary. Is this the breaking point? And can anything stop the spiral? In this eye-opening breakdown, Kara reveals why every American—regardless of party—should be alarmed by rising economic uncertainty, the manipulation of truth by tech billionaires, and the dangerous decline of a free press. Swisher digs into how misinformation spreads, why idolizing Silicon Valley billionaires like Elon Musk could backfire, and what really happens when moguls step into the White House. Plus: the surprising power of comedy in dark times, how to stay sane while staying informed, and why she still holds hope for America’s future. Kara Swisher's Book, BURN BOOK: A Tech Love Story: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Burn-Book/Kara-Swisher/9781982163907 BialikBreakdown.com https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ YouTube.com/mayimbialik https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOocPnDh2YQZZwh86K2OxA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The golden age of America begins right now.

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Is this a constitutional crisis?

• 0:06Speaker 02

  The reason people come to our country and invest in our country is because we have the rule of law. Now, we don't have the rule of law.

• 0:13Mayim Bialik?

  Is this other side so defensive of the president and the establishment that they have to lie?

• 0:19Speaker 02

  Yes, that's what they're doing. Because let me tell you, they'll call me and say, "What a fucking lunatic." And I'm for as much free speech as possible, but I'm also like, if you allow enough really hateful speech to happen, untruth wins every single time. Enrage equals engagement. That's a human condition. When you're angry, you lean in. It keeps you there. It's like drinking, or drugs, or anything else. It's also a very visceral feeling for humans, and especially Americans, to have team approach. We there have to designate what hate speech is. That's a buzzsaw. It depends on who you are. Or tolerate enormous amounts of hate speech that is very deleterious to our national psyche.

• 0:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Can you talk for a moment just how close to collapse we were?

• 1:01Speaker 02

  The bond markets were about to sink us into a depression.

• 1:04Jonathan Cohen?

  And if America defaulted on their debt?

• 1:06Speaker 02

  We default. It's over. It's game over. It's depression. It would take a decade to get out of. Unfortunately, the system we have doesn't anticipate a lawbreaker as president. And so what do you do? You wait them out, and then many years from now, jail all these people for doing what they're doing, which I think is coming at some point. And as long as he is in power and Congress doesn't move to stop him, this is a cult.

• 1:35Speaker 04

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• 2:05Speaker 05

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• 2:36Mayim Bialik?

  Before we dive into today's episode, I'm going to ask you to do something very quick, very easy, but super helpful. Going to ask you to hit the subscribe button. You see it? Go get it. Hit the subscribe button. It just takes a second, but it means a lot to us. You have probably noticed from all of the comments that we get, many people find that listening to MBB regularly is helping them feel happier, healthier, more inspired. And you know what? That actually is why we are doing this. It makes my heart swell to hear that so many of you are feeling inspired. So subscribing to this show, whether you're listening on YouTube or whether you're listening to it through a podcast app,

• 3:20Mayim Bialik?

  it's the easiest way to ensure that you will never miss an episode. So we don't want you to miss a single one, and you don't want to miss a single one. So you'll get notified as soon as a new episode drops. All you have to do is subscribe. And share this episode with someone if you enjoy it. We're trying to spread the word. Help us do that. The best way to support our show is by subscribing. So do it now. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate you. Let's get back to the good stuff. Hi, I'm Mayim Vialik.

• 3:48Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 3:50Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our breakdown.

• 3:51Jonathan Cohen?

  We're going to be breaking down the news cycle today, trying to help us dissect, understand, better come to terms with what's happening. We're trying to give the other side some perspective while seeking, you know, truth with a capital T.

• 4:07Mayim Bialik?

  We're going to be learning about the ways that we can view what's currently happening in our country in such a fashion that... We don't feel like we're losing our minds. And in many cases, we're going to be breaking down today. What are the things we should actually be worried about in terms of the economy? How it impacts us personally? The news cycle and how we interpret it? And the ongoing complexity, and some might say chaos, that has been going on in this current presidency? We're not going to be speaking about this from a partisan perspective, though. We're trying to understand what is practically and actually going on? How can we react to it?

• 4:49Mayim Bialik?

  And what should we legitimately be concerned about as Americans? What are the things that make America great? And how do we protect them so that we can still be proud of the country that we call home? We're going to be talking with Kara Swisher. Once referred to as Silicon Valley's most feared but revered journalist, she's kind of the oracle of the tech world. She's the host of Pivot with Scott Galloway, who we've had on here, and also on with Kara Swisher. She's the editor-at-large at New York Magazine, contributor to a bunch of other news organizations. And her bestselling memoir, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, details in particular her relationship with Elon Musk and how it evolved.

• 5:29Mayim Bialik?

  And she's going to be joining us to talk about all things news, tech, and politics in ways that we can really understand and wrap our heads around. Break it down. Kara Swisher, thank you so much for joining us on the Breakdown.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  No problem. Thanks for having me.

• 5:46Mayim Bialik?

  We're really grateful to have the opportunity to talk to you, largely because so many people are confused about what's happening in this country in particular. And obviously, that ripples out to the world. You know, every headline is some version of words like unprecedented, you know, crisis, verge of collapse, you know?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, and today, too, with the stock market is really down again.

• 6:11Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I literally had to check the news twice between getting dressed and talking to you just to make sure I literally didn't miss anything. And I think that's what a lot of people are feeling. There's this, there's kind of, you know, there seems to be some sort of chaos. That's just sort of like hovering, you know?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  It's not hovering, it's the presidency. I mean, that's the problem. I mean, one of the things you think about, there's an expression in tech, who's the adult in the room? You know who the adult in the room is? The stock market. The stock market has decided that Donald Trump is a chaos monkey and doesn't want any part of it, and so is not going to reward him. So the only one, he's got a room full of people, the cabinet room, who's just lying to him, or else believes the nonsense, what they just did, which was unplanned. And I hate to use the word unprecedented with Donald Trump, because he always does things, so he just does, he's just a chaos monkey, is what you have to think, throwing feces around the world, essentially. And so, the Wall Street is not like that. Wall Street just says, "Mm-mm, this isn't going to make us money." Nobody likes chaos in their lives, in their general lives. And Wall Street, absolutely, and same thing with corporate America, doesn't like not

• 7:13Speaker 02

  to know what's going to happen, what the next thing's going to be. And this red light, green light, and then driving us off the cliff thing is just beyond belief. And now he's got the yips. He said everybody was yippy. In fact, he was yippy, and appropriately so, because the bond markets were about to make, sink us into a depression. If he had not done this, and pulled back, although it should have been just remove them all together, so you don't have this uncertainty of whatever 90 days is, we would have been in real trouble with the Treasury bonds and everything else, so.

• 7:46Mayim Bialik?

  So, first of all, that's helpful as a general framework, but I wonder if you can sort of address, kind of right off the top, why is what you're saying not simply a partisan argument? Meaning, "I'm mad we didn't win the election, this is sour grapes." Can you explain a little bit why this is not about what party you voted for?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you can be angry about the deportations and the grabbing people off the street, that is unprecedented also. Well, it's not, actually, it's happened in our country, that's not true. It's happened many times, unfortunately. We all look back on it and think, "We should never do that again." But I think, when it comes to money, if you have a 401K, if you have kids in school, if you want to use a 529, if you have retirement, if you just want to buy a house, everybody has a concern in this kind of economic chaos that was not... It's not the, the, the issue isn't China, the issue isn't Europe. The issue is a one person decided to do something that was wrong, just and based on false math and, and decided to pull this thing when the, when the global order had

• 8:50Speaker 02

  been doing rather well. And now there were ways to, it's just like the Department of Government Efficiency. Nobody's against a better, more serviceable government. Nobody is against that. But trying to do this fishing expedition that doesn't really find that much fraud, that, that isn't really about reform. It's, it's sort of the old Silicon Valley, move fast and break things, but move fast, break things, and then have no plan of fixing them whatsoever. And I think anyone with any, who wants to buy a house, who wants to send their kids to school, who wants to save money, has to be concerned about this. Wants a job, because now companies, they're not going to expand. Why should they? Why should they? Because it's chaotic. And so if you're someone, and say if these treasury, these T-bills went up, the yield went up, nobody could borrow money.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  We could not invest. We could not, you wouldn't, you wouldn't make a factory right now. If you were thinking of expanding, you stopped thinking of expanding. You also stopped thinking of hiring. You thought about laying people off. And so, you know, I think creating constant chaos may be fine for Donald Trump, because that's where he lives, in his chaotic head. But for the rest of the country, most people depend on dependability and the, and the rule of law. Because without, the reason people come to our country and invest in our country is because we have the rule of law. Now, we don't have the rule of law, or just, he just keeps breaking things. And so, so people will start to make alliances elsewhere. Europe will start to ally with Canada and India and China even. This has been a real opportunity for China.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  And not us, because we're not a dependable, lawful place. And so, no matter what your partisan thing, if you seem like a chaos monkey, nobody wants to hang out with you. That's, it's not partisan to say that.

• 10:31Mayim Bialik?

  So who are the people? And, you know, I keep trying to read, like, I really, I really try and understand, quote, "the other side."

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 10:39Mayim Bialik?

  Because I don't want to be, and I remember when Trump was first elected, you know, before we kind of knew fully what might happen in the first ...term and my kids were young at the time. And you know, there was a lot of kind of like jokes among small people who don't know anything, you know, of like Trump's a this, Trump's a that. And I said, you know what, guys? This is the President of the United States. Let's just give it a second. I don't want you to be these like, we're liberal children and we wave this flag. Let's just give it a second. It didn't take that many seconds for Trump to start using words that I don't allow my kids to use at the dinner table. And then it became clear, okay, we're playing a different game. But even still, I try and see, what's this quote, "other side"? Am I just being blinded by, you know, insert-

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Correct, you should, as you should.

• 11:20Mayim Bialik?

  So when I read the quote, "other side", you know, I'm reading like economists and I'm like trying to understand it. When you talk about it, it seems very clear to me. But I wonder if you can try and help us understand, what is this other side? Is it that they're so defensive of the President and the establishment that they have to lie? Is that what's happening?

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yes, that's what they're doing. Because let me tell you off the record, they'll call me and say, what a fucking lunatic. Like they do, that's the worst part of it. Like, you know, you're, they're sort of like, well, we don't agree with this, but we're going along. And so you can't, it's a really interesting dichotomy is in that they, none of them. Now, what happened here behind the scenes is the pressure, even Ted Cruz was breaking away. There was so much pressure from, and Fox News did, which, which is important to Trump because that's all he watches all day, like my mother. So the Republican administration quietly said, cut this out. Like, you're in big trouble. So did big investors, so did companies. I'm sure they said it to him. And then when the bond market started to see what was happening, people don't realize, a couple of things.

• 12:26Speaker 02

  The only thing I would say to you, Republican, Democrat, do you like your money? Do you like your house? Do you like having a job? Like, I do, and I don't, I really don't want to have it screwed up because some guy believed in the 1980s that tariffs, he just doesn't know how to do math. I'm sorry he doesn't know how to do math, but I get why he believes it. And there are some problems in tariffs. Of course, there's some advantages that people take. But we have mostly benefited from free trade. The United States of America is the greatest beneficiary of free trade. The problem is, we like to consume more than other people. And so that's a problem the United States has, right? And if we do that, if we want to have cheap goods and if we want to have plastic from China and stuff like that, that's a bigger problem for our country.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Should we be buying 500,000 things? Should we have 20 presents under the Christmas tree?

• 13:15Mayim Bialik?

  It just ends up in men's testicles, apparently.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Right, that's true. And everybody's brains, actually. So I think it's just a, you have to like, you can go and say, "Okay, we have to have stronger trade agreements. We probably should have, when a lot of these trade agreements were done, we should have thought more about the job, the downstream effects on people's jobs, and moving it." But one of the things you have to think about is, what kind of country do you want to be from a manufacturing point of view? Do we really want, like, Howard Lutnick, who is, I didn't realize how dumb he is, he's really quite dumb. He's like, "We were going to bring Americans back and screw little screws and..." We don't want those jobs anymore, the 20,000, $30,000 jobs. It's better to work at McDonald's or Amazon than those jobs, right? That they do in China. We exported those jobs.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  And then what we do really well in is information services, consulting, intellectual property, design, marketing. We are a net surplus in all those services, who are going to get screwed in this thing. Because they're also, people think of things as tariffs, but it's also services get tariffed. And we win. We win in technology, we win in services, we win in intellectual property. Foreign students coming here to school, which is a big industry, we win. Now that's done, because we're kicking them out, right? That's actually good for the US to have those foreign students in this country, even if they don't like certain things, if they protest. That's the whole point of the United States of America, is to protest.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  And so, one of the things that's important to keep in mind is, we want jobs that people make $200,000 at, or $100,000, not the jobs that are screwing, well, any robots are going to do that anyway. So why do we want them back here? Second thing is, it takes years and years to build factories to do this, like decades. We're not going to do that anymore. We have to lean into AI. We have to lean into advanced technologies. We have to lean into stuff like that. And none of this is solved by a trade war. None of this. We're never going to make plastic toys in this country. It is never happening again, ever, like ever. And so, and it's a good thing because we've moved on to better jobs. The way Chinese want to move on to better jobs. They don't want those jobs either, but we exported those jobs.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  And now have to figure out what are the higher paying jobs that we do well in. And we already are showing that in technology. As I said, services, intellectual property, marketing, design, the higher level. And that's where we should want to be as a country. And that means we need better education. We need retraining. We need all kinds of stuff like that. But none of this is addressed because this guy is still living in the 1980s and wants to bring back the factory. Like, it isn't coming back and it shouldn't necessarily come back. We should be smarter about what we want our citizens to do for a living.

• 16:05Jonathan Cohen?

  Can you talk for a moment just how close to collapse we were with the bond market? You know, and if America defaulted on their debt, which is potentially what could have happened, can you just explain to the average person like just how catastrophic that would be?

• 16:20Speaker 02

  It just, the yields are just what you paid for it. So it went up to 4.75%. It could have gone to 12. It went to 12. It's over. We owe so much money on our national debt. It's as if your mortgage rate went up to 100 when it was at 7 or whatever. Everybody knows that. If suddenly you're paying $10,000 over $1,000, it changes your entire budget. You can't afford it essentially. And so, we would default on those. There's no money. There's no money to pay it. And so, people, especially the Chinese, own enormous amounts of our Treasury bills, right? They are our creditors. So they could screw us anytime by selling these. We take their money and use it to...

• 17:03Speaker 02

  To have a deficit, right, or to give money a tax break for the rich. We use that money and hand it to someone else, presumably to create industry. It's not true. It's a tax break for the rich. And so we use that money and it's been used and allocated elsewhere. And so the only way to, even if we got rid of all the services, we still owe the money, right? It doesn't matter. It's still a debt. And so if it costs more to borrow money, that means everybody is going to cost more to borrow money. And it would have been disastrous. Like you couldn't, you couldn't borrow money. You just couldn't borrow money. You couldn't, there'd be no capital. One of the great things about this country is the free flow of capital and the free flow of money in our society. And so if you wanted to open a bakery, you couldn't do it. You couldn't afford it.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  You couldn't afford to open a bakery. You couldn't afford to pay down debt. And so the government is the biggest one with the biggest debt and therefore would have been squeezing out everybody else. But then they couldn't pay it back, so.

• 17:59Jonathan Cohen?

  If the US defaulted on its debt, you know, we're considered to be the most reliable country. People, other countries loan us money so that we can keep going. We're, you know, you hear about the government always trying to raise the debt ceiling. Like, what is the practical ramifications like to, to people going to the ATM and taking cash out and buying things?

• 18:20Speaker 02

  Hyperinfla-, you'd go with a, you'd go with a wheelbarrow because inflation would soar. Because the government would presumably print money. And then we're, then we're, then we're a really bad third world country who, you know, people go with buckets. It just, that's why, like a lot of countries got into Bitcoin initially, way back when. The, the hyperinflation of governments doing things like this and defaulting on loans created a situation where capital fled from a country. And right now you see that happening. European stocks are up, America. Investors are going to Europe. They're going to elsewhere to invest their money. Lots of European stocks are killing it right now because it doesn't feel safe here. And then these crazy PE ratios that a couple of our companies have, you know, get, get killed.

• 19:04Speaker 02

  And the people that are really carrying the stock market are this technology industry. And therefore, if the technology shares suffer.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  If they get a cold, everybody dies. Like, that's really pretty much it. And so, it, everyone always says Wall Street isn't mainstream, but it kind

• 19:21Mayim Bialik?

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• 20:50Mayim Bialik?

  It's the best way to support our show.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  It is. It kind of, it, it's all related to each other. And, and people's, it, it all has reverberations around capital we raise and what we can do. But a treasure, we default, it's, it's over. It's game over. It's game over. It's depression. It's nobody, it, it would take a decade to get out of, at least, if not longer.

• 21:12Mayim Bialik?

  I want to go back to some of what you mentioned about the faith that people historically have in what, what many of us consider, you know, the American dream, right? And, and in particular, how that, how that relates to, well, many different freedoms, right? And I want to tackle, I want to tackle freedom of press. Because, you know, one of the sort of hallmarks, and we had Connie Chung on, you know, when she had her memoir out.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  She's great.

• 21:42Mayim Bialik?

  And, you know, what she talked about was a really interesting thing, even at the time of reporting on Watergate. She said, "Everyone has their own political perspectives and flavors." She said, "But what news used to be was an attempt to get at the truth, and while there are angles to that, and there are biases to that, that are inherent because we're human." She said, "There was always a fundamental notion of, for example, if the government is doing something deleterious, news on both sides need to report that equally." And some of the things we've seen, you know, are restrictions on what press is allowed.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Well, like with the AP.

• 22:26Mayim Bialik?

  Right. Like, this is, like, you know, bad with a capital B, as far as I'm concerned. The notion that you have to call, like, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of, like, "Send me to prison. Let my children see that Mayim Bialik was taken to prison because she wouldn't say Gulf of America."

• 22:42Speaker 02

  So stupid.

• 22:43Mayim Bialik?

  Can you talk about what freedom of press, and I think it also relates to kind of legacy media, because I think this is something that we're sort of seeing that, that we're kind of all in this, like, spiral of. Can you talk a little bit about, about this?

• 22:57Speaker 02

  There is some very exciting stuff going on in media. I was, I've been one of the early media entrepreneurs, sort of shifting away from legacy media.

• 23:04Mayim Bialik?

  But explain to people why, why that's, why we need to do that, and it's not just either left-wing or right-wing hysteria, saying legacy media has a problem.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Well, it has a problem because it's a business problem. It's hard. There's a lot of problems. It's not making what people want to, you know, just if you're a restaurant that makes things people don't want to eat, they don't want to eat them. And so the way you're making them, the way you're delivering them, is not what people want. And so younger people, and actually adults, not just younger people, want their news in different ways, and it's shifted, just like it shifted from radio to television, et cetera, et cetera, newspapers to radio to television. That's what's happening. So there's a consumption issue happening. And, and newspapers, for sure, didn't pay attention to it. And that's one of the reasons I left The Post and the, I was like, "Everyone's going digital, my friends, and so you better figure this out." The second thing is in economic... ...issue, which is that that is now dominated by Google and Facebook, all that advertising. They have, they, they run the whole gamut and that's where advertisers have moved away

• 23:55Speaker 02

  from television, furs, newspapers and stuff like that. And so, everybody finds better ways to market and so their business is gone, right? So, subscribers are gone, the business is gone, I mean, the advertising business. And, and then, something kind of silly with newspapers are classifieds. Classifieds used to be a very big moneymaker. Well, Craigslist came and collapsed it completely and they collapsed it such that it's never coming back. Like, that's the thing. Like, everyone's like, "Oh, we'll do something else." I'm like, "There is nothing else. There's nothing else." So, the only other choice you have is to cut costs or find new, fresh ways to do media. And lots of people have done that. I think one of the things Connie was talking about was the idea that, so if your, if your economics are getting kicked out, you can do less and less and therefore your business

• 24:40Speaker 02

  dies. It's a kind of a spiral. And so, you have to reinvent yourself in a really significant way. And most of the legacy media companies have enormous costs. I mean, you worked in television, you know, the town car, the, the this, the that. Like, you can't have that anymore. It just doesn't, it, it, the costs are out of line. Too many executives, I'm sure you've been plagued by executives, Colleen. There's like, seven of them. What do they do? I don't know. It's not efficient, right? And so, um, so the way Hollywood is, was operating, for example, and that's a good example, or newspapers, was in a high-cost system, but it was high profits, it was high revenues. And then the revenues collapsed and then the profits collapsed and they still had the system in place. And so, that's really, pretty much what happened. The other thing is, um, as consumers especially got them in different places, they went for

• 25:24Speaker 02

  the low-cost alternatives. And since news was now flooding the system, it, it used to be scarce, now it flooded and a lot of it is not reliable or fact-checked or anything else. Then you have kind of like, shoddy products everywhere and you don't know where the real stuff is. And then, on top of that, uh, people, especially in the Trump administration, have been suing, suing, they're trying to change the laws around media libel and stuff like that. They're really trying to overturn Times versus Sullivan and therefore they can sue people to quiet them, right? Out of existence, the settlement with ABC, the attempted settlement with CBS, even Mark Zuckerberg paid a vig even though they did nothing wrong, you know, to get him

• 26:07Speaker 02

  off their back because he could now use the tools of government and also the legal thing to to attack to attack people, which is why he's also attacking the lawyers so they can't defend you and therefore you have no avenue but to settle. And so really you have an economic and consumer collapse to start with and then it moves into where we are. But it doesn't mean there's not some really vibrant media stuff going on all over the place and on all sides of the of the of the the spectrum.

• 26:37Mayim Bialik?

  Talk a little bit about the the freedom of press issue. Why should people be especially disturbed by the restriction of AP or or really any media that any president doesn't like?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Because it's in the First Amendment. It's the first, so it must be the most important. Like, because it's first, it's there, it's short, it's very, it's instilled in the Constitution that that there should be, the government shall make no law that restricts the freedom, among other things, there's a bunch of things in there. But they cannot do this, what they're doing, trying to restrict it, it just says it, it's not even like, hmm, what do they mean? They're very clear, it's very clear what it says. Again, I recommend you read it because it's pretty simple. And there's a bunch of other amendments, obviously, that people argue over, but this one's pretty, pretty much what it is. And so it's it's not, you, what what Trump is doing and what many people have done before

• 27:33Speaker 02

  that is even if it's it's in the Constitution, they just do it anyway. And then you have to defend yourself and spend money doing it, right? And so time and money can silence people very easily. The other thing is that we have an idea in this country that media has been fair and balanced, whatever, whatever Fox News wants to say. It hasn't ever until Watergate. There was a short time during Watergate when everyone was sort of, it was so explicitly a government corruption that newspapers got, you know, touted as being the saviors. But mostly people have hated journalists. Since the beginning of our country, beginning of the founding of our country, and it's been very partisan for most, you know, look at, go look at, if you feel like

• 28:16Speaker 02

  reading anything, listen to the newspapers that back Jefferson versus Adams versus, they didn't really attack Washington that much, but Jefferson and Adams and Hamilton, they were really ugly. They were ugly and partisan for pretty much until Watergate, and in ways that were not as respected as you think they were, for sure.

• 28:36Mayim Bialik?

  I want to kind of double click on free speech here because it's boiling over into some very, very uncomfortable intersectional places. And, you know, it's funny because every, every couple of months, someone will send me this Scott Galloway explanation of, you know, what happened after October 7th. And it's, it's one of the most elegant and morally clear, you know, statements about, about the bizarre, you know, kind of upside downness of many aspects of the conversation about this. However, that being said, this

• 29:14Mayim Bialik?

  country is, is, is founded on and supported by the notion that you are allowed to hate the country, you are allowed to burn the flag, you are allowed to be extremely upset, you're allowed to protest. My parents were tear gassed, my parents had sit-ins to allow black students into the public school system. I was raised by, you know, the principles of the civil rights movement. And also, what Trump is, is essentially doing is saying that there are certain kinds of speech that will take your funding away. And there are certain kinds of speech that will make people question, can you deport someone for free

• 29:55Mayim Bialik?

  speech? The answer is no. Can you deport someone? Well, right. So

• 30:00Speaker 02

  You can.

• 30:01Mayim Bialik?

  Well, right.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  You do it, and then you wait for the Supreme Court to act, which will take 150 years.

• 30:05Mayim Bialik?

  Well, and I wonder if you can sort of help us thread this needle a little bit because also, and, you know, for me and for my community, it's a large, it's a larger conversation surrounding, is there a difference? The difference between hate speech and incitement speech, is there support for terrorist organizations and where do we thread that needle? The problem, in my view, is that, you know, in this case antisemitism is being used as a weapon by the Trump administration to kind of act like, oh, we're doing this to protect you. When in fact, it's a real affront to those of us who are true liberals and believe in the values of the Constitution. Can you talk a little bit about this complexity?

• 30:43Speaker 02

  It's a really difficult problem because people are scared, right? I mean, as a gay person, the same thing. Like, when you hear, you know, I'm scared for my family and this and that. And there is a very fine line between hate speech and just, you're a fucking asshole, right? You know what I mean? Like, just don't be such an asshole, or don't be, or you're an antisemite, or you're a racist. And one of the things we've tried to do in this country is protect from the worst people, right? That say the terrible things. That said, there are some instances where, like, I had a very famous back and forth with Mark Zuckerberg many years ago, when I was doing an interview with him, and I was talking about Alex Jones, who I think is a heinous piece of shit, who was saying these kids who were killed in Connecticut were child actors, etc., and really tormented these parents.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  And finally, they won in court, but they won because of copyright infringement, not because of free speech, which was interesting. Anyway, they got there, he's not able to pay them, but they won, in any case. A bit of an empty victory, but not really. He lost. And so, so we were talking about that, and my whole point to Mark was, okay, you're not the government, you're a private company, you can make rules, right? On your platform, what you want the rules to roll, just like a restaurant can, just like anybody else. And so, one of the things he tried to, and I said, you have these rules on Facebook, and he's violated every one, why isn't he kicked off? That's all. Why have them? Like, don't have the rules. Why do you have the rules? Like, that was a pretty simple question. And he was, you know, hemming and hawing, because he just didn't want to do the rules,

• 32:10Speaker 02

  essentially, even though he had written them themselves. And so, he said, let's switch to the Holocaust. And I was like, oh, no. No, no, no, no.

• 32:17Mayim Bialik?

  That sentence never went anywhere good.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  No, no. I know why he did it. I'm sure a PR person, he happens to be Jewish, was like, as a Jewish person, I believe everyone. That was where he was going. I happened to be a Holocaust studies minor, so I knew a thing or two. And I was like, okay, let's go there. And he didn't finish, famously didn't finish college. And so he, so he starts going on, and he started to talk about Holocaust deniers on their platform, which, which there started to be many. And it was, I find that very dangerous if you're running a platform, if you let them go on, because real truth mixes with lies, and then it gets all muddied. And so, as, as, as a purveyor of information, New York Times doesn't put that stuff on its front page. As a publisher, you should exercise restraint in terms of people who lie. That's my feeling if I ran the place.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  And so I pointed out to him that in years to come, if you allow Holocaust deniers free rein and not kick them off, you have a toxic stew that later really manifests itself into antisemitism in a massive way. And, you know, it's historically propaganda works that way. And so he said famously, well, Holocaust deniers don't mean to lie. And I was like, wow, they're kind of the definition of liars to me. And they're vicious and malicious.

• 33:31Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I appreciate his dipping into subjective truth. You know, that's not exactly what I go to him for.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  They really do mean to lie. That's their whole goal. And, you know, and I, I think he was missing the point. He thought he was the government or something. I don't know what his, was in his very, not very intellectual brain. But it was really interesting, because these are the people in charge of things. And what happened is downstream, it got ugly downstream. I was worried about what was going to happen later if these people had full access to the biggest news platform on the planet, without the people at the top of this news platform having any responsibility for what happened. And the same thing with, with January 6th, everything else. They just let it go. And they're like, well, speech will sort it out. I'm like, but it doesn't sort it out. It makes it worse. And so I think there's a good debate to be had.

• 34:20Mayim Bialik?

  So can you talk about what happened downstream?

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, downstream antisemitism, the rise, which is pervasive in our society since the beginning of time, unfortunately. But it became, when truth mixes with, with, with untruth, untruth wins every single And so you do have to have a very careful analysis and I'm for as much free speech as possible. But I'm also like, if you allow enough really hateful speech to happen on campuses or wherever. I just think they were just attacking students when other people do it and they don't get it. They don't, you know, why, why only focus on students? Why not focus on terrible things Elon Musk says? Why don't focus on this? Why don't you like, cause it all is, I think he has more power than some students at Columbia, honestly, personally.

• 35:10Mayim Bialik?

  Well, it's funny because when, um, when the latest Kanye complexity occurred and people were very upset about the Super Bowl.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  He's a racist. What is the complexity with this guy?

• 35:19Mayim Bialik?

  I'm saying what the incident, the variety of incidents happened. That was also the same week that Elon Musk made a very, very bizarro gesture that I think is much more concerning, you know, and.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Can I stop you?

• 35:31Mayim Bialik?

  Please.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  That was a Nazi. That was a Nazi. That was, he was doing a Nazi salute. He was 100%. I'm sorry. I wish we would stop like giving him the benefit of the doubt. He did it to troll us, maybe. I don't know if he's an anti Semite. I have no idea. He never, you know, I don't know, but it would certainly, he did it twice. He was clearly what he was doing. He was not doing a Roman salute. It was, it's, I have been in rooms with him where he says, what can I do to really set people off? That's what's in his head. It's not, it's hateful anyway, because it's meant to cause like consternation.

• 36:06Mayim Bialik?

  Well, so it's, and it's funny, it's interesting you said that because I've been talking, you know, I have a 16 and I have a 19 year old. And so we have a lot of these conversations and I'm, I'm much, I'm much more interested in trying to understand, you know, as part of these conversations, this type of person and what is happening with this type of. You know, I just call it like this like tech bro, you know, like, right, let me just like see what I can do to like fuck shit up.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:35Mayim Bialik?

  So I feel like the Twitter is a great example. And I think like I didn't understand that Facebook was kind of the same thing because I was so busy thinking about should I still have a Twitter account? Can you please explain a little bit about what we're seeing as the intersection between the power of the tech, you know, kind of sector? And how that is actually influencing what we experience and what we are allowed to experience as a free people?

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Right, well Twitter's not real life, right? I had 1.6 million followers on there. I'm not on it anymore. I leave it there because I don't want them to take my name, that's all. It just sits there like an empty lot essentially. I was quite active as one of the earliest people on there and I kind of found it interesting to disagree with people. And but again, it's the same idea of not worrying about the consequences of what the platform you're platforming people. If you don't have rules of the road, it turns into a Nazi porn bar. That's what it feels like to me. And so I don't really like Nazi porn bars as a rule and so I don't go there. And so I think what happens is it degrades real conversation and it pulls people out. So I just don't want to physically, I don't want to be there mentally or physically.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  I think one of the things that happens is that people think this is the way people interact and it does bleed. People say it doesn't bleed out into real life, but I think it does bleed out into real life, right? And so you start to see, and Scott's new book is about that. It's called I'm Being a Man or something, I think that's the title of it.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  What is the pattern that people are following of men? Like for example, I'll just take men for an example. What is the pattern matching? Is it this bullying, hateful, try, always trying to troll people? You know, acting like you're 12 years, a really badly raised 12-year-old boy when you're 53? Is that what we want out of a man? That where money matters more than? Being nice, being a bad parent, bad parent to your daughter, who's by all means very witty, speaking of all the funny that Elon tries to be, his daughter is very funny. You know, that's the kind of thing is what are our patterns? And what are our young people looking up as heroes? And if this is heroic behavior, in this case, a 53 year old acting like a badly raised 12 year old,

• 38:54Speaker 02

  I don't think that's a good sign for our world, right? And so, and then it has complete control over this platform, you're going to get that kind of behavior. I think it's troubling that there aren't.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  I believe in heroes and people you look up to, and they don't have to be famous, they don't have to be rich, they don't have to be politicians. But I certainly, there are all kinds of, what is the pattern we want? Especially at this point, young men to look up to, because they're the ones that are struggling the most at this moment, in this moment in time. And honestly, I always think, well, if they're mad, we're all fucked, right? You know, I'm not as worried when girls are fucked, you know, or in a bad mood. I am worried for girls, I have a daughter. But I think it's really important to think about who are our many role models that we have in society? And if they're all incredibly negative and get, well, the getting's good and hateful, it's problematic for our society in general.

• 39:51Jonathan Cohen?

  What about the incentives of the platforms themselves? You know, we've heard you talk and debate section 230, like, is there a solution?

• 40:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 40:02Jonathan Cohen?

  There's not.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  No, I mean, enrage equals engagement. That's really, I mean, that's a human condition since, and that will never end. When you're angry, you lean in. You also lean into cat videos, you also lean into all kinds of things. But you definitely get, when you're angry, it keeps you there, right? It's like drinking or drugs or anything else, it keeps you engaged. And it's a very visceral feeling. It's also a very visceral feeling for humans and especially Americans to have team approach. Like, I'm on this team, this is my team. Like, so that's why you see a lot of the wearing of hats and the wearing of t-shirts. Hats particularly are real, nice hat you have, by the way. But, you know, it's a communications, like it's kind of what the colors you're wearing

• 40:46Speaker 02

  and stuff like gangs are like that, football teams are like that. And so I just think it's, the problem is, section 230 was designed to protect these companies when they were young, to be able to grow because they would have been sued out of existence. And now they have no liability. But removing it is sort of like removing the heart. You really can't take it out now because they would be sued out of existence. So what is, what is a way to have these companies have liability that they justly deserve and go to court and have their day in court, positive or negative, without absolutely decimating these businesses? And so that's the difficulty of it because they want to pretend they're platforms and not publishers.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  I contend they're publishers and platforms at the same time. And that's really hard. I don't have a solution for this because it's, we either have to say, just designate what hate speech is, which of course then that's a buzzsaw, right? It depends on who you are, you know, or tolerate enormous amounts of hate speech that is very deleterious to our national psyche.

• 41:55Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, smaller platforms have tried to have algorithmic transparency where the user can control the weight.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:02Jonathan Cohen?

  And that seems in theory to be a possible option, but also then you're asking people to engage in a way that they probably won't? Like, are they going in and manually adjusting their settings and asking to be shown both sides of things and then?

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Or you create products, right? That people, different products that are successful. I just think it's very hard to beat anger, anger and teamness and fear. I think fear is a really big motivator and a lot of these things, you know, I don't know how old your kids are, but, you know, the stuff around teen girls is really disturbing, all the statistics, what's going on around self-esteem. It's very hard to look away. The problem is, a lot of this is addictive. It's all addictive. I mean, a lot of it, all of it. So it's addictive, it's a product that's addictive, necessary for your job and your social life. And it's endless. And so it's worse than drugs, right?

• 42:56Speaker 02

  There's only one other industry that calls its audience users, which is drugs, right? So how do you, and in drugs, you don't need for your work, right? You just like them, or you happen to like them. So it's a really difficult thing. You cannot unplug from the digital world because of the way we have designed our world. And it's necessary. And so you're necessarily attached to an addictive and often angry medium. And that's problematic.

• 43:27Mayim Bialik?

  So I'm on board with this analysis, right? And there are certain things that I, as an individual, or if I'm speaking for other people, like, I can limit my time on these platforms. I can remove my account from, let's say, I cannot have an X, no, but I could not have an X account. I can go to, you know, Blue Sky, where all the liberals are, and we can all talk to each other. But for me, like, what I really want, like, as a human being, is to not have to think about any of this fucking shit. And then what happened is that I see Elon Musk, who I just don't want to think about him.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, me neither.

• 44:03Mayim Bialik?

  And he's now, literally, he's in the White House in ways that I-

• 44:08Speaker 02

  How do you think I feel? I moved to DC, and now he's here. Like, I moved away from him.

• 44:12Jonathan Cohen?

  He followed you. Maybe he followed you.

• 44:15Mayim Bialik?

  So I feel very, I feel very confused, conflicted, and upset. And generally, you know, it's not contributing to-

• 44:23Speaker 02

  So tell me, what are you most confused about? That the richest person in the world gets unlimited access because of his money? What's the, or he's an asshole, or what?

• 44:30Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I mean, for me, there are certain things that I want kept separate. And I'd like rich asshole dudes who, you know, allow Nazi porn bars to be their business, you know, and to feel like the most important person in the world because everyone thinks that that's the goal. And that's the other disturbing thing, is that I know many, many men who love this. And it seems like a lot of the country is still super kind of into this. So I like-

• 44:56Speaker 02

  No, not the statistics. That's absolutely not true.

• 44:58Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, but I like to keep that separate. So to me, what I don't like- Is that

• 45:02Speaker 02

  To have to see it.

• 45:03Mayim Bialik?

  Is that he had some sort of like maybe disproportionate role in like, you know, like getting who quote he wanted into the White House. Like that feels weird. And I understand voting is always about like which party has more money and I I get it. It's all fake, but now this person that I didn't want to think about and really wanted elsewhere is now like, he's there, he's doing weird things, he's being given responsibility that I'm sorry, I was like raised, you know, to believe that like government people work in the government. And okay, Ronald Reagan was an actor, but then he became a politician. But this is not a man I want in the White House doing things and eliminating like

• 45:43Mayim Bialik?

  studies of biological diversity because it accidentally had the word diversity and someone like searched the word diversity. And I blame Elon Musk for that, you know, so what is happening? Why is he there and what am I supposed to do about it?

• 45:55Speaker 02

  Why is he there? Well, you know, rich people have always been there. You just don't see them and they're not so thirsty for attention. And it's so badly raised that they are desperate for a hug almost constantly. I mean, this stuff is deep with this guy, obviously, but like I care, I don't give a fuck. Get a therapy and move along, but one of the things you have to, you have to realize this is not a new fresh thing of rich people pulling levers, right? He just does it explicitly and rather loudly, essentially. He's also going through some things in front of us and none of us are interested in the things he's going through. Right? Obviously, there's a lot happening here.

• 46:32Mayim Bialik?

  You mean like we're watching a, a, some sort of mental collapse?

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Well, you know, you didn't really know, I guess, I don't know who the head of Lockheed was, but they were there manipulating the president, just, we just didn't see it, right? They didn't feel the need to make themselves the center of attention. So we've got someone who has a real problem in desperate need of attention, obviously. I mean, come on, you don't even have to try hard. Someone who constantly has to be on camera, has to be talking and never stops talking with the most money in the world and therefore is ubiquitous and won't go away. Just how can we miss you if you won't go away kind of thing? And so, and unfortunately, and I'll tell you, Trump people don't like him. Like, I get calls all the time, but Trump does. So that's all that matters, right? Trump likes him.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  And Trump likes the whole manner of, like, you know, it's like a panoply of Star Wars Cantina characters over there, right? And so, you remember Omarosa? She was there for a while. Like, come on. Like, this guy really enjoys strange characters hanging around him at all times. And so, so the problem is Donald Trump likes him. And the way we've set up the presidency is if the president likes someone, they stay. And there's nothing's gonna happen until Donald Trump says, "Go away." Now, this Wisconsin loss was interesting because when Elon's not next to Donald Trump, you can like or dislike Donald Trump, but he is popular with the people he's popular with. Like, let's be clear. Maybe not this week. I'll tell you, probably isn't so much this week. And it's the, we'll see what happens in the cult.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  But, but they, but they don't like him by himself. They don't like Elon by himself, that's for sure. He spent a lot of money in Wisconsin and he lost really badly. And so, there is a limit to the powers of everyone except Donald Trump, right? Who seems to defy gravity most of the time on, on lots of issues. Certainly has nine, 20, 90 lives, you know, kind of thing in terms of coming back. So, I think one of the problems is you, it's explicit. This is, the corruption is explicit, the incompetence is explicit, the grandiosity is explicit, and it feels like you're in the middle of a game show or some weird, you know, remember the movie Network? It feels like we're living in that right now, right?

• 48:47Mayim Bialik?

  It feels like we're in Squid Game. We're in a combination of like Squid Game and a little bit like Lost, you know? And a little bit like Stranger Things, like, and a little bit Cuckoo Pants.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  But it is a celebification of our politics in a way that there were, you know, Donald F. Kennedy was a celebrity politician, and probably, so was FDR, you know, so was Teddy Roosevelt. It was not a new, fresh thing for our chief executives to be like that. But one of the things that we, there's an idolatry, and Scott and I have talked about this a lot, the idolatry of innovators, even if they aren't so perfect. Look, there's all kinds of problems at Tesla. Today, there was a series of ...stories about OSHA violations at Tesla. Many car companies have violations, but they they really go to town on lots of them. And so we but we still have idolatry of rich people and idolatry of of innovators as if they know everything. And so what happens

• 49:37Speaker 02

  is because they're good in one thing, rockets, cars. And by the way, Tesla's not doing so well, so he needs to get over there and be better at cars again. But because they're good in one thing, they're good enough. They know about Ukraine because they're good in making a social network. They know all about how we should treat our gay and lesbian kids. They don't. That's the problem. And so we we idolize innovators and we decry experts. Like, that's what's really kind of troubling. People who actually know what they're talking about. We think less of them. And we whatever Elon Musk says, well, he must know. He has a billion. He has 300 billion, not less, not anymore. He has less than that today.

• 50:17Speaker 02

  He has $290 billion. He must know. He must. You know, he's got to have the answer. Well, he's not a good parent. That's clear. He's not a good, you know, I mean, he's not good at lots of things. And I think that's.

• 50:29Mayim Bialik?

  He's not good at not making Nazi salutes.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  Right. He's that's a Nazi salute. Please just say it's a Nazi salute. You of all people know what that was, right? Come on.

• 50:37Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I mean, look, I mean.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Don't give him the benefit. Why give him the benefit of the doubt?

• 50:41Mayim Bialik?

  No, I'm not giving the benefit of the doubt. What it was was that I didn't see it. I heard about it. And I was like, this can't be a thing.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  You saw it then.

• 50:47Mayim Bialik?

  And then I watched it. And I was like, holy Toledo, that's clear as day. And then my my younger son was like.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  He did it twice.

• 50:53Mayim Bialik?

  Right. My younger son was like, people said that he was stimming because he's on the spectrum. My younger son's like, that's not what's happening. I was like, no, no, no, no.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  I know lots of people with his issues around autism.

• 51:03Mayim Bialik?

  None of them randomly make Nazi salutes.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  All my friends are autistic. We're like, we don't do that. Like, it's like, no, you don't. And if you did, I'd smack you one. So it was he's just but I do believe. I do believe he was fucking with people.

• 51:16Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, correct.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  I think he's, listen, his grandfather, stone cold anti-Semite, doesn't mean he is. Don't know. But certainly, he's anti-Semitic, he's anti-Semitic enough to do it. That to me.

• 51:31Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I think he's, I think he's clueless enough to not underst- Well, no, my, my feeling is, there, there are many people who are doing outrageous things that may not fully believe in the philosophies under, I don't believe that he's a card carrying member of the Nazi Party and that he wishes he could. No.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  The damage is done, to me.

• 51:54Mayim Bialik?

  Correct.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  If you, if you know that this causes pain to people, that means you're a cruel person, right? If you know that it leads to people to become more anti-Semitic, why do it? Now, I draw the line at comics sometimes, who sometimes go way over the edge. I, I think they do. But, I, I, I'm like, let them just do it. Let, when it's very clearly comedy, as much as I might hate some of it and think it's hateful, and I've had lots of, I interview comics a lot, and some of the comics are like, why be hateful? Some of them are like, I should be able to say what I want. I see that happening. But in a public figure who's in the administration, they might show some judgment and feel like they're here for all Americans, and to go out of their way not to be cruel, and that's

• 52:37Speaker 02

  what's not happening here, is, they think, they want to pleasure themselves around trolling more than they want to be a decent person.

• 52:44Mayim Bialik?

  I think, I think not caring, meaning not caring what other people think, which, you're right, it's like the most annoying, forgive me, 12-year-old boy. And really, through, you know, it's that like, I don't give a fuck, and I'm gonna do what I want anyway.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  Or even, you ever have a friend, you ever have a friend that goes, I don't mean to be a bitch, but, and then, and I'm like, stop with but, you're a bitch, and I don't want to hear it. Like, that's, how many of us have heard that? I don't, I don't mean to be a bitch, but.

• 53:09Jonathan Cohen?

  Kara, you do interview a lot of comics. Just briefly, can you talk about the role of them pointing out the absurdity? I've heard you say, sort of, late night is getting it the most right when it comes to just how absurd things are.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, all comics. I do all kinds. I'm actually about to do some more right-wing ones because some of them are very funny, I have to say. They're never expecting me to. They're like lesbians from San Francisco, I'm gonna offend them, and I never get offended. I'm like, I work with Scott Galloway, I don't get offended, my friend. But I think it's really important. Comedy has always been an important part of every society. You know, in our society, Mark Twain, there's all kinds of people, you know, that have done amazing comedy over the many years. And I always think satire is one of our strongest arrows in our democracy. Whether it's Thomas Nast with cartoons, whether it's her block at the Washington Post, whether it's comics, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, to this day,

• 54:06Speaker 02

  the GOAT, as far as I'm concerned. And everything he does now resonates today. It's astonishing how, he's so topical, but he's not. That's one of the, I recommend you go back and listen to some of his sets. I just find them incredibly wise as people. I find them, they find, they go to the heart of things. They're almost like poets. They get, they get to the essence of the problem. And, you know, even things like New York Times Pitchbot on Twitter and X and Threads, I love it because it's so funny. It just, they do fake headlines in New York Times that are so on fucking point. I just interviewed the owner of The Onion. I love The Onion.

• 54:43Mayim Bialik?

  I was gonna say, we're living in The Onion, yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  I love The Onion. That guy, he's this little billionaire. He's not the biggest billionaire, but he's a billionaire, and he saved The Onion from death. And I just love that. I like, I think it's really important because even if you're, unless you're completely devoid of a sense of humor, even, even a right-wing person, if they hear something, a joke about Trump is like, you know, you know, he's gonna, what was it, he's gonna, not run for a third term, he's gonna run for a fourth Reich or something like that, or a third Reich or something. It was so funny. And I said it to my mom, and she laughed, like, you know. So I think it always, it gives people a chance to reflect without feeling like they're going into their corners. And you, it's hard to be mad when you're listening to a comic right

• 55:28Speaker 02

  away. And it's even harder to be a Although many people are. I just don't like it when it becomes unnecessarily cruel or extended. Then it's just mean. Then it's just mean. I had a real issue with Dave Chappelle and trans people. Not because I don't mind a trans joke. I love him. I love his lesbian jokes. But if he did an hour and a half of them and only on that, you're like, okay, can we? I get it. I get it. That's my only issue is the the length and breadth of the of the comedy that's coming at you. That's my only issue.

• 55:59Mayim Bialik?

  It's kind of, it's interesting you you you mentioned this because I was talking with Jonathan. I'm a I'm a stand up connoisseur. Like, this is my thing. I listen to kind of every stand up. I'll listen to it in different languages with the subtitles. Like, I'm fascinated by fascinated by this form of, you know, of entertainment and commentary. And what I've actually noticed, and I'm not going to name names, is several comics that that generally do men who do kind of toe that line of like, it's brash, it's this. What I have noticed is a definite shift in the boldness with which we have returned to what many would just say is racism, misogyny and homophobia.

• 56:42Mayim Bialik?

  So I I said to Jonathan, like, I'm seeing this ripple out. I'd like to believe that most people don't want that. And then I'm seeing very large Netflix specials where it's kind of like, oh, because because they're laughing about it. I'm supposed to be okay with it, or because they talk about their wife's IVF, like, I'm supposed to feel sorry that, like, they went through that and therefore. And I'm having a little bit of a challenge with it because I'm this like, I'm supposed to be not able to be easily offended. And yet I can't help but connect it to what's going on in the White House.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's not funny because it does have an effect. I just, all I'm saying is I give them more of a birth than the president. I think the president of the state should have a decorum. I'm sorry. I just think they should. Comics, look, I feel like, is that funny or is it not funny? Right? That's really what it is. And if it's, if you have to get, I did a great interview with Julie Louise Driver, who I think is one of our legendary comedians. And she's like, why do you have to have cheap jokes to win? Like, that shows you're lazy and stupid. Like, like, why do? Why be cruel? You can be funny and clever and without doing, you know, you're sort of back in the era of Henry Cut Youngman, or, you know, remember Andrew Dice Clay, who I actually was funny in parts and other offensive in other parts. Why go for the fag joke, right?

• 57:57Speaker 02

  You know what I mean? Like, why do that? And so I've had really good discussions of Michelle Bateau I just had, who's wonderful. She's like, it's just lazy and stupid. It means you're stupid and lazy. And so I kind of, at the same time, certain groups and all groups, not just certain groups, all groups can be easily offended, you know, as a lesbian, there's so many lesbian jokes. I just want a funny one. Like, make it fucking funny if you're gonna make it, but just don't do the U-Haul, la la la. Try a little bit fucking harder, like, and, you know, which is, I think that's what it is. It's laziness and stupidity, and it's a cheap laugh. And I don't, that's what I think has returned, is a lot of cheap laughs. But I don't think that stuff lasts. Our greatest comics are, the George Cogs

• 58:42Speaker 02

  are such good thinkers. I just did Josh Johnson at Cooper Union in New York. I did a live interview with him. What a young man. He's in his 30s. Just a tremendous comic. And so, his jokes are so long and complicated. I just, and he's thriving. So I do think a lot of really, Mike Birbiglia, Michelle is great, Desi Lydic, there's all kinds. And they're real thinkers. And I just think they will prevail over stupid shock jocks. But now David Portnoy's a Democrat again, so who knows?

• 59:14Mayim Bialik?

  Talk us through a little bit more of what many see as a constitutional crisis. Can you kind of hone in a little bit on the deportations and what's going on? What kind of deportations are okay? What kind are not? What should we be disturbed about? And why is this something that we really should be concerned about?

• 59:33Speaker 02

  You know, let's be clear. Obama and Biden also did deportations. Like, let's not pretend they didn't. I think the issue is the due process part of it, right? The due process, and it makes, a sensible proportion would go, like, why were, I understand, the Venezuelan sent to El Salvador with this guy who runs El Salvador, who was a former club owner, whatever. It's basically Guantanamo, we're just paying for it there, right? That's what's happening there. I think due process is the difference here, is that if you're in this country illegally, we should, by the way, Congress has abrogated its responsibility to create sensible immigration laws, right?

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  We've always had issues around immigration, whether it was Irish, whoever came over, you know, over the many, many, my family was Italian, we came over all kinds of difficulties, all kinds of racism, all kinds of behaviors that are similar, not the same, but similar. Everybody's family is an immigrant here in this country, really, except for the Native Americans who are here. And so, one of the things that is happening here is it's just unduly, again, the same thing, unnaturally cruel, capricious, ignoring due process, and putting people, why would you grab people off the street and then just put them in a Salvadoran prison if they're not, I think most Americans can get that. What did they do? Nothing? And you just sent them to a prison?

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  And so, I think that's what's happening here, and then when judges rule against you, ignoring them. Like, that to me is what's happening here that's very different. I don't think that we haven't, I think we didn't listen to people who live in our border states enough, in terms of the difficulties they were facing, as much as I thought it was cruel for southern mayors to send immigrants up north. It does make you, like, you have to, we have to figure this out as a country to understand, I thought it was a cruel way to do it, but I understood, I have a lot of friends living in those border states, a really difficult situation. And it's not because immigrants are more prone to crime, they're not. It's not because we don't have jobs, we do, like, that need to be done.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  It's that we have to, like, figure out a way to be, I'm the Emma Lazarus type of person, is that we open our doors to people, and the more people we can bring in, the better, and the better our country is, to me. And so, I think it really lies at the heart of Congress, a lot of this, and then Trump is just running over it with his lawlessness, which is, again, goes back to what we talked about with Wall Street, it's lawlessness, and that makes us a less good country.

• 1:02:11Jonathan Cohen?

  What happens when the executive branch doesn't abide by court rulings and/or the Supreme Court? Does the law just not matter anymore? Who enhances things?

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  It's happened before, as you know. Andrew Jackson didn't ignore the rulings on Native Americans and just didn't do it. He said, "Let them enforce it himself." Unfortunately, the system we have doesn't anticipate a lawbreaker as president, right? That's the problem. And so what do you do? You either wait them out and then many years from now, jail all these people for doing what they're doing, which I think is coming at some point if they continue to break the law that we're doing it. There's nothing to be done. They no one anticipated someone like this. Unfortunately, he can do this. And as long as he is in power and Congress doesn't move to stop him, which and abrogates its responsibility.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't know about you, but Mike Johnson looks like a lapdog to me, like he doesn't seem to want to exercise the power that our founding fathers gave him. There's nothing to be done. If this is a cult, there's nothing to be done about it. Or if they're scared or whatever.

• 1:03:24Jonathan Cohen?

  By this definition and explanation, if it's a cult, if there's nothing to be done, what prevents Trump from seeking a third term? And we've been told to believe him when he continues to say he's serious about something.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  He can try. I mean, look, we've had these issues in our country many, many times. They can try. We certainly, you know, a lot of people, this is a terrible time. It really is. There's a number of terrible times in our country's history. But we had McCarthyism. We got through that. We got through it. We did. We had the Civil War. We got through that. You never heard of the Whiskey Rebellion? It was touch and go for our country during the Whiskey Rebellion, right? And so, and that was just about taxes. That was just a tax revolt, essentially, which was interestingly put down by Alexander Hamilton, sent by George Washington. So we have been through things like this where people, you know, Nixon, like, we got through it. We got through it.

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  And so my hope is that this is a particularly pernicious person who really does believe in autocracy, right? And my hope is that our country is so diverse and it is so, it is such a diverse country that... We can push this off eventually, but there will be a lot of damage in the interim. Look, we did the Japanese internment camp. You just, when you think about that, it's just astonishing. We did that, but we did it. We did it. We did it. We put people, Franklin Dela Rosa did it, that kind of thing. So, Woodrow Wilson, all kinds of antisemitic

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  behavior from him, right? Like, with the people we didn't bring into this country during the with Nazi Germany, who we rejected to come here to save them, to save their lives. I mean, unfortunately, we've been through these kind of things. It's just, it's never really, there's never been such an egregiously law-breaking president as this one.

• 1:05:15Jonathan Cohen?

  So what I hear is you have hope in law-abiding citizens coming together and actually returning the rule of law to some degree?

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  I have hope that you don't know the end of the story yet. And there's always another story. I just don't, I don't, that we're not going to have pain happening. I, you know, the problem is, we have all these, all this fiction and all this sci-fi about the way it's going to be. The Handmaid's Tale has its sixth season, right? Apparently, it's going to end up on Hope in the end, and we've been through some shit on that show. I just do, I, I'm a believer, one of my favorite plays is Angels in America, and the last line, "The world always spins forward." I believe that. I do. I, the other thing is, I don't know if you have kids. I have four kids. I have to believe in the future. I have to believe in a future where they have freedoms that I've had. But I haven't had every freedom for years. I couldn't say I was gay. Like, I couldn't, just couldn't.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  And I couldn't get married, and I couldn't have kids, but now I can. And so, I really believe the world spins forward, even if it spins backwards sometimes. So, I think in the act of having children, you're saying you believe in the future. That's my feeling. That's my reason for having kids.

• 1:06:23Mayim Bialik?

  Well, mine are sixteen and nineteen, and I'd like to put them back in. I had

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  Oh, no! Don't say that. Don't say that. I have a nineteen-year-old. He's great. Yeah. I have four of them. And so, I really believe in the future, right? I really do. I had more after I had older kids. And so, I just feel like we just can't

• 1:06:45Speaker 02

  This can't be the end of the story. That's all. It just won't be. It won't be. And I think there's lots of people who think that. And we are in a cult situation with this guy. And he is compelling and he is interesting. And he is a, an important political figure. And a hundred years from now, they will study this guy forever. But it's, but he definitely has supporters. And we have to figure out a way to get them out of the cult. I don't, it is a cult. My mother hated Trump. Now loves him. Now she hates him again, which is interesting. She's lately like, I don't like him so much anymore. I'm like, why? He goes, well, he's, you know, the money. It was money for her, like the, her money, her stock market thing has gone down.

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  But I do think people wake up from these delusions eventually, after a lot of pain, unfortunately. And that's the part people aren't going to like. And the ones that are suffering right now don't like it all. Poor, you know, all over the country.

• 1:07:42Mayim Bialik?

  Well, thank you so much for your time.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:07:44Mayim Bialik?

  And also for bringing back the possibility of mock turtlenecks. You know, if nothing else, there is hope.

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  I've had this. Can I tell you? I, I didn't do my wash and I, I found this at the bottom. This is from the eighties, my friend. Isn't it? It's from the eighties. And I was like, I haven't worn this since college.

• 1:08:00Mayim Bialik?

  You know, if nothing else, if nothing else, let's have hope that it's coming back.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  I have, I, I thank you for noticing it and insulting it. I agree with you, but my, but I tell you.

• 1:08:10Jonathan Cohen?

  I genuinely like it.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  Do you? I know. I was like, I haven't worn this since like 1985, like kind of things.

• 1:08:18Jonathan Cohen?

  I thought it was a conscious choice.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  No, I moved, I'm renovating my house. We moved back in and everything's in boxes. And it was the only clean, I have a lot of very beautiful Lululemon sweatshirts, the whole nine yards, real soft. And this is like, I think I bought it when it was called The Gap.

• 1:08:35Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, I was going to say, that was a Gap staple.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a The Gap shirt. It's got a pocket, it's got a pocket, the whole thing. I thank you for noticing, my beautiful. I'm going to get my clogs out next.

• 1:08:46Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you so much. We really, really, we're so, so grateful to you for, for talking with us and breaking some of this down.

• 1:08:52Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:08:57Mayim Bialik?

  The thing about Kara Swisher is that...

• 1:09:00Jonathan Cohen?

  She has hope for the future.

• 1:09:01Mayim Bialik?

  No, that's not what I was gonna say. She has the most depressing way of creating hope for the future. Meaning, in the process of her describing how hard it is historically, and we're gonna be studying this, and there's gonna be a lot of damage, and bodies will be laying in the street, but it won't be like that forever. It's like, she might as well have been like a biblical prophet. That's what the prophets were like. They were like, "The women will be eating their own children. There will be sorrow throughout the land. Like beasts will be feasting on their children. But God will save us eventually. I don't know."

• 1:09:39Jonathan Cohen?

  Eventually, we will all be saved, or we will be dead.

• 1:09:43Mayim Bialik?

  You know, the entire time that we were talking to her, I had this kind of like running, this running thing in the back of my head is, "I hope people of all political perspectives can listen to someone like this." Not because I think she's right, or that you have to believe her. But the way that she is trying to talk to us is, I think, the way people on both sides should be trying to talk to us. Meaning, you can have difference of opinions about policies, and about if you believe in social security, and how you feel about poor people, and why you think people use drugs and get pregnant. That's not really what we're talking about here.

• 1:10:26Mayim Bialik?

  If we're talking about kind of fundamentals of understanding what the United States represents in the world, what our Constitution is established to do, and how we can understand that, I don't need to bend the rules. Like, I don't need to change the definition of free speech because the current president doesn't like that people won't say Gulf of America. Like, that's just basic stuff. So, yes, she definitely has a particular perspective, but the analysis, to me, is what's more interesting than, "Do I agree with her or not?"

• 1:11:02Jonathan Cohen?

  I think the analysis is interesting. I also like the historical context to say we've been in these places before. There have been governments that have ignored court orders. It's, yes, it feels unprecedented, but it actually isn't. We've come through these cycles and that historical context, I think, makes it a little bit less precarious. It's not that it isn't serious, but that we've been able to come out of these cycles in the past.

• 1:11:32Mayim Bialik?

  I, I think what she brought up, two points that I think are significant. And one is that this is happening amplified in real time in ways that we never anticipated and which we cannot put back in the bottle in terms of social media, the access to media, the access to information and the, the combination of that then being what is in the White House. So we kind of have this like double whammy of we have so much more information that can be available and also manipulated and it has a direct connection now to what's going on in the White House. But, you know, she mentioned, um, she, she mentioned Manzanar.

• 1:12:13Mayim Bialik?

  And this is, this is one of those things that if you don't know about it and you learn about it, it, like it, it, it floors you that in this country, we took citizens of this country and we put them in forced camps. Like we, we forced Japanese Americans to go live in barracks. Like that happened and there was no social media to broadcast it. So a lot of people didn't know that it was happening. But the notion that that is, I mean, among the many stains on our country's history,

• 1:12:57Mayim Bialik?

  that's one that happened pretty recently that is very, very uncomfortable. Once you know about it, because you have to then have this framework of what is this country that I love? What do, what does it stand for? And, and how do I keep that? So when you see all these things happening, it should disturb you. And if you're one of these people who's like, people who are anti-Semitic need to be deported without due process. I'm sorry, that's not what this country is about. That's not why we're here. It's not why the Constitution exists. And you don't have to like any of it, but that's just true. You don't get to say because you don't like that someone's anti-Semitic, that they get to be deported without due process. That's not how it works in America.

• 1:13:42Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, there's a fine line between having a belief system and causing lawlessness or breaking the law.

• 1:13:49Mayim Bialik?

  I'm not talking about breaking the law. I'm not talking about supporting propaganda of terrorist organizations. I'm not talking about Qatar funding activities on our campuses with a very, very specific purpose that we know about. I'm not talking about that. I'm saying a student on a campus in America should not be afraid to go to a protest and say, "I don't like the policies of this country." We cannot function that way. And we cannot have that fear. And you can't have that fear. I can't have that fear. And yet, everything feels so upside down and crazy that it feels like a lot of people who otherwise have good intentions

• 1:14:32Mayim Bialik?

  are absolutely being influenced by what's going on in the White House to think that their particular opinion can trump the United States Constitution. And guess what? Even if I would agree with you, it can't.

• 1:14:46Jonathan Cohen?

  This also goes to the tech platforms and what is a lie? What is truth? What is a lie? And the danger of that being subjective. While we think Holocaust deniers should not be given a platform, as soon as you say, "Well, that is a lie," then what else is a lie? Is this medical treatment totally safe? Well, if you say otherwise, then that's a lie.

• 1:15:12Mayim Bialik?

  So, look, the Holocaust gets a separate category, just historically. It gets a separate category in the same way that the N-word is a separate category. There are certain things that just don't follow the rules of other things, and that's just the way it is, right? So I think that the notion that you have unregulated...

• 1:15:34Mayim Bialik?

  Media platforms, right? Unregulated media platforms that indeed are encouraging a type of information. And the defense being some like twisted version of free speech is erroneous. It's wrong. And the same kind of moral clarity I have about not believing in the death penalty, I have about this. I'm not confused here. This isn't like, oh, maybe I should this, that. And you don't have to, you can believe in the death penalty. That's fine. I have complete moral clarity about the reason that we don't kill people as a form of punishment. Like, I'm very clear about it. And I think that's the kind of moral clarity that especially as a woman, I'm sometimes afraid to have about these things.

• 1:16:18Mayim Bialik?

  Like, oh, what if I'm wrong? What if Elon's right? And like, oh, he's so rich and he's so smart and he knows all these things and I don't know all these things. Or all these men on these platforms. But you know what? Like, what if I felt as clear as Kara Swisher about it? That like, it's not okay to have platforms that amplify things that are disgusting, hateful and damaging. It's your responsibility as the head of that platform to have some form of regulation. And if you don't, don't be surprised that people call you a Nazi porn bar. It's like hashtag Nazi porn bar.

• 1:16:56Jonathan Cohen?

  I love that you're just hearing that as the phrase for the first time.

• 1:16:59Mayim Bialik?

  I never heard that.

• 1:17:00Jonathan Cohen?

  It's been around. You gotta listen to more of Scott and Kara's podcast.

• 1:17:06Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, it's, okay, it's their thing.

• 1:17:07Jonathan Cohen?

  That's where, I mean, that's where I heard it. Yes, I agree with you. And it's a very slippery slope to say what is offensive.

• 1:17:15Mayim Bialik?

  That's what Kara would say. It's not slippery.

• 1:17:17Jonathan Cohen?

  It is, it is. Because what ends up happening is that one person or an agency decides, wait a second, this term is offensive. And some people say it's not. While you can have moral clarity on the Holocaust, it ends up setting, and I'm not saying we shouldn't have it for the Holocaust. Maybe that is a protected area. But very quickly it becomes, well, this is also protected. And this core group of people think that a certain term is also protected. And that is off limits. And we just start adding and adding and adding. And then you get to a point where, you know, Facebook...

• 1:17:52Jonathan Cohen?

  Says, "Oh, the government was calling them directly and saying they have an initiative and they have to make sure for whatever reason that they censor specific information." And it isn't historical and the information isn't totally available yet. So while I agree with you theoretically, in practice, what happens is a very slippery slope where someone else is deciding what is true and what is not. And I think the problem that you're articulating is extremely complex. There are not really any fantastic solutions to this problem. When we ask Kara, "Well, should you be able to sue a platform if it's promoting misinformation that is clearly identified as lies, hurtful?"

• 1:18:34Mayim Bialik?

  No, so this is where I think it gets complicated. It's not about what's hurtful. Plenty of things to me are hurtful. When people say that they don't believe that someone should be allowed to use the pronouns that they want, I find that very hurtful, right? Do I think that that should be illegal to say? No, right? Rage inducing? I mean, I'm induced to rage. Look, I'm a, you know, 49-year-old woman. I'm induced to rage like on the daily. I think that there are different distinctions that we need to become more comfortable with that are not as blurry. And I think that they're not. I have to let a certain level of this go.

• 1:19:15Mayim Bialik?

  When I see people saying like, "Oh, all these people protesting, you know, America's funding of Israeli military," when people are like, "Deport them all." Like, that's insane to me, right? I think it's important to make a distinction between things that are irresponsible, right? Which Kara is sort of defining Holocaust deniers. It's an irresponsible thing to platform and things that are hurtful or rage inducing. And I think that's sort of the constitutional conversation that we're also having. I do not believe that the president or the government is allowed to say, "I don't like how universities are dealing with protesters and we're going to withhold funding."

• 1:19:58Mayim Bialik?

  It's a different thing for the government to say, you know, "Is there an institutional problem that needs support?" But not just blanketly making the American public believe that if you protest, you don't get funding from the government. It's actually not that simple, but that is the narrative that we're kind of all living under now.

• 1:20:21Jonathan Cohen?

  This has been an episode about trying to not ignore the news cycle. Sometimes we say we have to take news breaks. There has been an overabundance of news. It's been hard to follow. That's why we did this episode today. How do you, as a person who you are, meaning that you're aware, but you try not to be clicked to the news cycle to avoid that rage-inducing activity? How do you stay aware, know what's happening, but also take care of your mental health?

• 1:20:55Mayim Bialik?

  This is a hard one because I think that I'm grateful to people like Kara, who've got their finger on the pulse of what's happening. I'm grateful to, you know, as Mr. Rogers would say, the helpers. Like, I can't necessarily do all of this, right? But thank God, there are, I mean, I, you know, I know lawyers who deal with deportation cases, who have been fighting for decades to protect people who are, you know, deported against the rule of law. So I'm grateful that there's other people kind of handling it. But I'll be honest, like, on the daily, I can't handle the volatility that has been occurring in the current presidency.

• 1:21:39Mayim Bialik?

  And if he was a Democrat and doing these things, I'd say the same. I don't need to know this much. I don't want to know this much about what's going on in the White House. I don't, you know, I remember when I saw some, I don't know if it was memes or whatever, about like Elon Musk with a chainsaw. I was like, well, that's funny. I didn't realize it was based on a real thing, you know? Like, it's, this is so beyond what, and I don't find it amusing. And I think that's part of it. If you can find this amusing, if you have the ability to do that, if you cannot have your blood pressure, you know, get raised, by all means, have a good time. But yeah, I can't, I can't be part of it. Like, I just can't.

• 1:22:24Mayim Bialik?

  I can't keep up.

• 1:22:26Jonathan Cohen?

  The continued theme is due process. It's not that we don't want some government reform. It's not that we don't want to get corruption out of the government. It's not that you don't want to find waste. But there's nuance in how to do it. And I think the insensitivity of a chainsaw

• 1:22:46Jonathan Cohen?

  Cutting people's livelihoods and moving them out of jobs, even if they should be moved out of jobs, is very difficult. Like, that's a traumatic experience for someone who has to go figure out how to support their family.

• 1:22:59Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I mean, just in the week that we were recording this episode, I've heard of several people experiencing layoffs. You know, a lot of this stuff is hitting people very, very hard. And, you know, what I feel hopeful for is, hopefully, some ability and, you know, to pull away from, quote, "legacy media", so that we can start getting information that does feel more like what news should be. Should be reporting what's happening and not what people are essentially funding to have us believe is happening.

• 1:23:37Jonathan Cohen?

  Thank you, everyone, for joining us for this episode. If you haven't already subscribed, please do so on the YouTube channel. Click the bell notification or subscribe anywhere you get podcasts.

• 1:23:48Mayim Bialik?

  And make sure to check out On with Kara Swisher and Pivot. And if you want to read a fascinating history of Kara Swisher's kind of journey through all of this, in particular, in the tech world, read Burn Book: A Tech Love Story. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  It's my Piolex Breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction, one fiction. And now she's gonna break down, so break down. She's gonna break it down.

• 1:24:22Speaker 04

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