The Republicans are committing unnatural acts. They really are. It looks like a weird sex position, the way they have drawn these things, and it's grotesque.
Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
So I didn't hear from you yesterday on Mother's Day, but that's okay. I know I'm teasing. Please.
Yeah. I can't even imagine the royal Ascot wedding, coronation, jubilee that is Mother's Day at your house.
Seriously, you got three mothers.
You got three mothers, an ax, a ceramic mug business, and somebody definitely crying in a Subaru. It's got to be... That's Lou. It's got to be... There's a lot of... a lot of mothers. Yeah. No, I have to say. And also my mother, too.
Well, I'm glad you had a nice Happy Mother's Day, Kara. What did you do for your lovely wife?
Uh, not a lot. All I do is remind the boys to call her.
That's what I do. I basically send a lot of angry texts along the lines of, 'Have you called the person that gave you life?' That kind of thing.
Anyway, we should get to the news. This is a really interesting story. I thought, and I was paying attention, was a way. The FCC's lone Democratic commissioner is accusing the Trump administration of waging a, quote, 'sustained coordinated campaign of censorship and control' against ABC. In a letter to Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro, Anna Gomez said the FCC under Brendan Carr has been weaponized to pressure a free and independent press and all media into submission. The letter comes after ABC accused the FCC of attempting to chill free speech, which it did in a petition filed last week. That filing is tied to the FCC's probe into whether The View violated equal time rules when Texas Senate candidate Colin Allred went on the show earlier this year. ABC argues The View got an FCC exemption in 2002 as a bona fide news interview program, which it is, and that ruling remains in effect today. And you know, as usual, Brendan has said so many things publicly that are really damning in terms of when they come to court, you know, as being such a suck-up to the Trump administration and not the independent person he's supposed to be. He can have his opinions about things, but he has become more censorious than all the left he accuses them of, and is making all manner of business threats. It's interesting that Disney and ABC is pushing back rather hard under this new CEO. Something probably I suspect Iger wanted to do but felt he couldn't at the time. But any thoughts on this?
Well, yeah, they're learning that... you said this, you sort of predict there's going to be a lot of standing up and... well, they're learning that they have figured out that sucking up to Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump's [__] has not paid off for them. Remember the economic warfare that DeSantis was trying to levy for political reasons, and it doesn't pay. It doesn't pay to appease these guys.
They did push back on DeSantis, if you recall. Remember they sort of played games with him for a while.
Yeah, they did. They did.
Well, with Trump they did not. That is correct. And now go to the legal veracity. This isn't legal ambiguity. This is a government harassment campaign with an FCC seal on it. Saying that the equal time probe, or that The View violates equal time, that basically essentially means Fox and Friends have been violating equal time for 25 consecutive years. This is just ridiculous.
And then the lone Democrat on the FCC is a woman named Anna Gomez who essentially is yelling into a void while the institution continues to be weaponized against the press. It's not... I mean, Commissioner Gomez basically can't even dissent. It's more like a hostage note when she writes her letters of dissent. So this is nothing but again more weaponization of media or weaponization of our government agencies to try and squelch free speech. It's just insane when they talk about... I mean, all this [__] that supposedly Democrats call for violence and the language they use. Ridiculous. And Brendan is just making it worse by giving these stupid speeches with his smug little, you know, [__] eating grin that he always has on his face. And again, Brendan, I'm following you everywhere you go after you leave office, and I will make sure people understand what you did constantly. Constantly. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead.
This is... and I hate to say this, and it goes into our next story. Do you want to talk about gerrymandering?
Yeah, we will. Yeah, I can read. I mean, for people who don't know, obviously this got big press. As redistricting wars ramp up ahead of the midterms, Democrats are facing some major setbacks. The Virginia Supreme Court just struck down a voter-approved map that could have netted the Democrats up to four House seats. It's not over yet, and we'll see. It's going to go to the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court, of course, did its business by weakening the Voting Rights Act in a recent ruling, setting off redistricting pushes in several southern states. Republicans could now have around 15 new winnable districts, but Trump's approval ratings are still a massive hurdle. As one Democratic strategist put it, Trump has the power to rig the maps, but he doesn't have the power to get his approval rating higher. It could slap back at them. It's really interesting. One of the longshot options reportedly tossed around in Virginia: lower the mandatory retirement age for the state Supreme Court and replace the entire bench. I think there's a bunch of things they may have to do, but what's a real shame is that now the Democrats are going to have to gerrymander their states, which is not good for any of this. None of this is any good. Breaking this precedent of 10 years following the census to do this, what is essentially stealing. Just when you look at the map in Tennessee, it's insane. Like, there's people 210 miles away from other voters, which is crazy. It's a crazy map, and it's all done to retain power. Which I think they won't actually doing this. I think people are offended by having their votes stolen from them.
Well, Democrats, and I agree with this, wanted to fight fire with fire or gerrymandering. And they lost both the map and, you could argue, the moral high ground, although I think it was the right move. And you can't argue with the fact the other side is destroying democracy. I mean, Tennessee is the template, right? There's two Democratic Congress people in 2020, Nashville and Memphis. Republicans redistricted Nashville in 2022, and now it's Memphis. The playbook is pretty straightforward here. They find a Democratic district, and they redraw the lines until it disappears. Now, I actually believe... I don't believe... I mean, a really interesting message and the right message for a candidate, specifically a presidential candidate, and right now the only one actually talking about [__] issues is Rahm Emanuel. They're all just cosplaying Obama, hoping for rhetorical flourish and talking about breaking bread with Jews and Muslims and we need to come together.
I say Newsom got the job done in California. He like hit them hard and won.
He fought back and he won. He fought the law and he won. But we need structural reform. One, a really decent talking point, an issue for a president, a presidential candidate would be the following: Within 90 days, I'm putting up for a vote in the Congress and the Senate to de-gerrymander the entire United States. Six Republicans, six Democrats. We're going to use technology. It might be just as much as putting a grid on top of the United States map and saying, 'Okay, it might be AI, whatever it is, but we need to de-gerrymander the United States.' And then I think another structural reform, and it goes to a larger issue. A lot of the world's problems right now can be reverse-engineered to old men who won't [__] leave.
It creates fascists who find reasons to deny democracy. It creates public investment that lacks investment in young people and children. It creates a demographic collapse because young people don't get money because old people keep voting themselves more and more money. I see it in academia. Young academics are leaving the field because there's no [__] room for them. Because a guy who was the bomb in 1988 in gap one accounting won't [__] leave because we give them tenure about the time they become totally unproductive. There needs to be a shedding, a healthy shedding of skin. I have self-imposed term limits on boards. You need to move on. And one of those structural reforms should be term limits and age gating for the most important people of the long term of the United States. And that is our Supreme Court.
Absolutely. We need... or term limits and age gating both. Right. Correct.
Well, at both at the same time or one or the other.
Yeah. For God's sakes, if you're 72, your prefrontal... your brain is shrinking. Your brain starts shrinking at 45. By the time you're 72, most people have a very difficult time with cognitive function. And I'm sure there's exceptions. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was very smart at 80. She should have been forced to retire at 72, as should the rest of them. You need young thinking. You need people who occasionally have a [__] child in the house so they can relate to the issues facing young people. You don't want to pack the court because all that means is when a Republican gets in, they're going to expand the court from 12 to 30 people under their watch. You need age gating and you need term limits. But more than anything, a great talking point for a Democrat right now would be: I am going to de-gerrymander the US within 90 days. I'm going to put a vote up, and you can find out who is not up for true democracy here.
Right. Absolutely. I mean, one of the things, just that when you look at these maps, you know, at some point, obviously gerrymandering's been around forever, but these are like... they're unlike... the Republicans are committing unnatural acts. They really are. It looks like a weird sex position the way they have drawn these things. And it's grotesque. It's grotesque. And they, you know what it was? I have to say those images from Tennessee with those fat white old men laughing at young, very vibrant, interesting black legislators... you're nothing more... they really did look like the Confederate South. They look like the Confederate South. It was a version. And then laughing, 'You all, by the way, y'all are going to die of a heart attack relatively soon because you look like you could get out for a walk or two.' But one of it just was the visuals were so like these old racist [__]. And I'm not sure that's... And then at the top of the heap is Trump who looks like... who's cognitively... I keep saying this, Scott, we have to, you know, we did it with Biden. I think we have to zero in on his cognitive difficulties that just continue. And today Dr. Oz and the other one, Kyrsten Sinema, were like talking to him like he was a toddler, like a toddler when he was something or the Mr. Pres. It's like you talk to someone in an old folks home.
Age gating. No one should be allowed to run for president if, when elected, they're going to be older than 70 or pick a number. Have neurologists decide. You need a physically and mentally ridiculously capable person. But at some point, neither Biden nor Trump should be entrusted with overseeing the Sixth Fleet or NAFTA agreements or trying to stay up till 4 in the morning to get the votes they need, whatever it is. Yeah, this is a young person's job.
Agreed. You know, when I said that to you, I think you were surprised. You were like, when I said I'm leaving at 72. I have 72 and that's it. That's it. I'm gone. I'm off to Cambridge.
That's the number you fix. 72.
Yes. I bought myself a cap in Norway. I bought myself a cap. I love it. I'll send you a picture. Yes, that is it. 72. And I'm gone. I'm gone. Like, see you later. Maybe I'll sit and write historical novels from my cottage in Cambridge, but I'm gone. Like gone. Gone.
I'm pretty sure your third wife's going to be Susan Collins. I think you're going to be one of those tech people that goes MAGA on us.
And I'm up to you, Mary. By the way, she has a tremor.
If a man and a woman need a marriage license to get married, what do two women need?
Oh, very funny. Very funny.
I don't think that's sexist. See, I think it's profane and vulgar, but I don't think it's sexist.
Isn't the issue I have any... No, it's not that funny.
It's not that funny. Anyway, these redistricting... I think he cannot fight the polls. The polls are so bad. Everyone doesn't like him. That's one thing I did, the message I gave to people. I was like, he is widely... he has his group that like him, but I got to tell you, you got to watch the cracks in MAGA and you got to watch the polling, which is everyone is sick to [__] with this guy. And he is cognitively disabled. I'm going to say that in every single show until the 20 past the 2026.
That's the cold comfort that we as progressives are serving ourselves up this morning, and that is that Trump can't rig the... he can rig the maps, but he can't rig his approval rating.
Infuriate people, although... that's the hope that basically... segregating voting again with taking away, neutering certain parts of the voters' rights acts, this ridiculous corrupt gerrymandering, that it'll come back to haunt them. And my fear is the following.
Okay, tell me, because I have a fear. I believe that America is still highly sexist, highly lookist, and opts for a person who may be wrong more often than not, strong, but is effective versus people who are right and ineffective. And this is the key distinction between the Democrats and the Republicans right now: is the Republicans are wrong and being highly effective, and Democrats are right and virtuous and totally [__] ineffective.
I'm not so sure. This whole thing with the ballrooms and the weird... the thing with the weird title base and etc. It's just... it's getting... vote based on a ballroom. No, I know they don't, but it's part of the whole crazy old man thing. One thing that I will say, I was with a bunch of cyber experts, and the two things they did point out, I think correctly, is one: the Russians are preparing to attack during the midterms, you know, in Trump's favor, as recent studies have shown they did obviously against both Clinton and attack, you know, online, like a lot of online cyber, not just cyber, cyber and information fuckery essentially. And then the second thing is I sat next to one guy who's an American who was talking about, who's obsessed with Steve Bannon, and he feels they're going to try to... and Trump has sort of talked about it a little bit, put... go to 80 districts that matter and put martial law in place or create all manner of ICE and Proud Boys etc. If you listen to Steve Bannon, he does talk about this. And I think a couple of the cyber people were paying a lot of attention to Steve Bannon and what he's doing. And you know that that sack of... that meat sack of rumpled whatever is very effective in many ways. Speaking of effective, although I can't believe he keeps hanging on looking the way he does. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, a game-changing feature coming to Apple's AirPods.
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Scott, we're back with more news. This is really interesting. Apple's reportedly reached the late stages of development for new AirPods that include tiny cameras designed for AI features. Who said they were going to put cameras? You and I have talked about this. The cameras would help Siri understand what's around you, so you could ask questions about objects, landmarks, or directions in real time. The new AirPods are expected to look similar to AirPod Pro, but with slightly longer stems to fit the camera hardware. This is astonishing. I think Apple originally wanted to launch the AI wearable sooner, but delays in upgraded Siri pushed the timeline back. You will of course lose 50 pairs of these, Scott. This is really... 50, 100, by the way. This has no pods in it because I can't find them. Gosh. Jesus. And there's... I can attest in New York, Scott's New York apartment, there's so many AirPod cases everywhere and they're like one AirPod in them. Some are never been opened. It's really... It's a funny... I love those things. I absolutely... Yeah. So, talk about this because one of... there's obviously privacy because a lot of people have been pushing back on the Meta glasses which sell just okay. They don't... they're popular but not that popular. So talk a little bit about this because there is a privacy issue here, like people looking out. At the same time, it's inevitable you're going to have these heads-up displays in some way, and this is a version of heads-up display that isn't in your face, which I think is more effective, that it's in your ear, of a camera in your ear. I love your thoughts on this because you have big thoughts on visual, like heads-up displays.
Well, as much as I hated mixed reality headsets and the Oculus, I love this. And it goes back to a very anthropological thing. What is harder for people to adapt to when they lose their vision or they lose their hearing?
Vision, I guess, but not...
Hearing. Okay. All right. As a matter of fact, when your hearing goes, you stop processing words and you become more... this is going to sound strange. Well, it's not strange. People have a much more difficult time maintaining societal contact, relevance in relationships when their hearing starts to go as opposed to their vision starting to go. Your hearing... the last sense to go when you die is hearing. You're supposed to... when people pass, you're supposed to keep telling them that you love them. Supposedly, that's literally the last sense to go. And I think it's the most underrated of the senses. We have overinvested in visuals and underinvested in hearing. AirPods, if they were a distinct company, just AirPods would be a Fortune 50 company. And what is this? What is Apple doing here? They're turning your ears into eyes and sending the footage. You know, unfortunately, they might be sending the footage to Cupertino. But the AI wearable race is now happening. What's interesting though is it's not happening where people thought it was going to happen. It's happening in their ear canal. So Meta has Ray-Ban bands. Apple has AirPods. Google probably has some glasses. I don't know what they're calling it this week. Yeah, they originally had contact lenses. Remember, a long time ago we broke a story about them working on contact lenses with visuals in them. But go ahead.
The problem here, or the... I think it's a great idea and I'll buy one. The problem is the hardware for... at Apple, the hardware is always ready before the software, and they wanted to launch this sooner, but Siri is probably one of the worst tech products of the last 10 years.
It is. It really is. And Apple, I mean, think about it. Apple has the world's best supply chain and the world's most embarrassing AI assistant.
It is so bad. I hate Siri.
I mean, essentially, AirPods, as they envision it right now with this, with cameras, is essentially because of a very weak AI assistant overlay. It's like a Lamborghini chassis waiting for an engine that works. So, the hardware will be the best looking hardware, the best operating hardware. The problem will be the AI overlay. And I told you what I believe.
They have to get it right. They have to... I think they're going to [__] can Siri and license it to someone else for tens of billions of dollars, right? Yeah. Why not just make it good? Like I am constantly, 'Siri, call Scott' or 'Siri, you know, text Scott' or something like that, and it never works. It sometimes works and it just... it should work every single... What if it was Gemini? What would Gemini... needs to catch up. What would Gemini pay Tim Cook or the new guy to design something? We're your default AI. Look, Siri, just talk to me even though I didn't want to. Go away, Siri. Sorry. Go ahead.
I think they're in the pole position here. I think the most elegant move to massively throw 10, 20 billion dollars a year to the bottom line would be to have a bake-off and say one of you is going to be the Intel inside of Apple, and that is your... kind of a big thing to give up though. But they're not good at it. Just like with Maps, they're just not good at it. Well, search, they gave it up in search and it worked out well for them. Search. Yeah, exactly. I think this is a move.
Let me ask you a physical question. Okay. So, when AirPods... people do not remember this. When AirPods first came out, people made fun of the look of it. You remember, everyone... you look like an alien. You look like you're wearing earrings for men. And then everyone just loves them, right? And they fall out of your ear. There was all manner... Now, if they're even longer with these like stems, it could look odd. But it seems to me the best solution is the in-the-ear AirPod-looking things. Not over the ear, not around the neck, over the head, except, you know, I'm on an airplane. I wear, you know, a pair of really good noise-canceling headphones, but that's different. So, you think that's okay. And the privacy issues. You don't have an issue with the people... it can see everybody and it's recording presumably.
Well, that is a big issue. I haven't thought that through, right? Because you're not supposed to be taking pictures of people's kids. The surveillance, government, you go into the White House, uploading your data, your whereabouts... but no one creates tech hardware that is a better signaling device than Apple. And pulling out your iPhone, I've always said... pulling out your iPhone is like pulling out an Amex Black card, but for a billion people, not 10 million. It says that you get it. It says you're one of the seven most wealthiest people on the planet. It says you're probably in the creative arts industry. You know, it just... it is incredible signaling. I wear my AirPods. If I'm at a conference and I just need to get somewhere without getting... without speaking to people or I'm just feeling exhausted by people, I just put my AirPods in and I act like I'm talking to somebody, like I'm speaking to myself.
I know that trick. But let me just say one of the things I'd like to not look at my iPhone anymore. I'd like... like I use my watch quite a bit, but it's not good enough, and if my AirPods were better, I would not pull my phone out at all.
You know, that's the thing. So, I think this is really interesting. Another interesting piece of tech, and we're very tech-heavy today. SpaceX chipmaking project in Texas will have an initial price tag of at least $55 billion and could eventually grow to $119 billion according to a public hearing notice. The project called Terapab will create chips to power AI for SpaceX and Tesla. I think this is a smart move by Elon. SpaceX is asking for tax breaks for the project, of course, which will be discussed at a hearing next month, and Texas will definitely give it to them because that's what Texas does. They bend over. Speaking of bending over, SpaceX is of course preparing to go public with one of the largest IPO offerings in June. To me, more than the robotics focus, this is really an important... I mean, the way they do energy is sort of rapacious to the people living in the areas they're living in, and there's getting a lot of pushback. But the idea of your own chips, all these companies really have to be in that game, it seems like. And it's an important... Elon really does know this. I don't think he's as highly technical as he makes himself out to be, but he does understand this is the heart of it. Your thoughts?
I agree. This is a really smart move and it's one of the most interesting... and it's also, quite frankly, it's fundraising. It's going to be a big slide in his road show for SpaceX IPO. They're talking about a 60 to 120 billion dollar chip fabrication plant, Terapab, and it would be bigger than the... the biggest one in the US right now is a $65 billion plant from TSMC. So, the world's most advanced chip maker with 50 years of experience, Elon is trying to out-TSMC TSMC. So, it creates... He's very good. He and Trump are both obsessed with being in your [__] face every day, and they're very good at it. And so this is... it may... I'm not... I think it's going to happen. The guy is a big thinker.
Exactly. Like XAI went nowhere.
It may or may not... he may not be very good at this. It doesn't matter. It is a great... This guy is a big thinker. He's bold. He's pulled off some big bold... Let me say he did surrender XAI by doing the Anthropic deal. It just... everybody's left. He's not going to win here. He could win in this. And I think he probably might... this is a better focus for him.
Speaking of focuses for... French prosecutors are summoning Elon and X's former CEO, Linda Yaccarino. Oh, Yaccarino, where did you go to? She's doing some health company to face preliminary criminal charges into X. The investigation includes charges of child pornography and sexualized deepfake. It was interesting when I was in Europe, they were like, 'Oh, it's not... he's not going to... it's not going to go anywhere.' I don't really care. I'm glad a government is doing it, right? Because ours certainly wouldn't. And they should face an investigation of what was happening there at X doing all this. Who made the decisions about these child pornography and sexualized deepfake creations? I'd like to know, and I'm glad a government is pursuing it. I don't even care if they win. I'm glad they're doing it. That's my feeling.
There you go. Yeah, I don't... More power to them. At some point big tech executives, their flight pattern is going to look like gerrymandered because they're not going to be able to go to the airspace. We forgive these founders, especially during the Trump administration, for the economic pass is the word I would use.
Yeah, but we are net gainers from big tech. We just are in the US. That's not to say... should pay the price for stuff like this.
I agree. Yeah. That's not to say we shouldn't hold them accountable. It's not to say they shouldn't be subject to the same rules and regulation as other industries, but if you had a red button to push and do away with all big tech, you wouldn't want to do it. And for all the problems and externalities, there isn't a single nation in the world that was presented with the opportunity when say, 'Put your headquarters here.' The problem is, you know, the big tech... I don't think Italy is a net gainer from big tech. The US is, but I'm not sure other nations are.
And so, a lot of these nations are doing the math and saying, 'You've gutted our media companies. You don't pay that many taxes here. You haven't really increased employment a lot. You're just creating tremendous disruption and sexualized deepfakes.' Yeah. And also you now appear to be an existential threat to our kids' emotional and physical well-being. We're not down with, you know, the idolatry of innovators for a lot of good reasons and some bad. It has totally kind of infected or overwhelmed the US. The worm has turned a little bit. AI is way down. People are realizing what a negative impact this has had on our children and then going much bigger. It's manifesting itself in terms of being ground zero for frustrations around income inequality. But these other nations just aren't that impressed by these guys. They're like, 'Okay, you broke a law. We're going to charge you.'
Yeah. I like the activity. And I think as you said a long time ago, early in our relationship, someone has to do a perp walk on whether it's chatbots and kids dying or something like that. Someone has to go to jail. They won't, but I like the effort by...
these governments, and I don't think it's... I think someone needs to investigate how they made these decisions about sexualized deepfakes and child pornography on whatever service that doesn't, and what they did to stop it or not stop it. I think it's important for the public.
