I never used to think about it before, but now I think literally anything I write down somewhere the government might have.
You also shove everything into GPT. Seriously, I don't do it at all, but...
Oh, I love... Yeah, I'm definitely in a... very promiscuous with the information.
Got to be promiscuous somewhere.
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
How you doing today, Scott?
I'm good. I got a little bit of the X hangover. Did X last night, 4 a.m. Couldn't sleep.
What, are you having trouble sleeping when you're old? I'm getting...
I am. I wake up at 4:08 every night. I'm turning into one of those people that's just like a ghost walking around the house. I used to be such a good sleeper.
Yeah, you're supposed to do that. You're supposed to get up and walk around, just so you know. Not try to go to sleep lying there.
Yeah. What did I watch? I've been watching... you know what? I'll watch anything with my favorite actor, Hitler. I just type in World War II and I watch the Battle of the Bulge in color. I'm obsessed with World War II. I'm officially 100 years old.
Not Rome. Usually men are Rome, but Rome or Hitler usually seems to be things men of your age like to watch.
Why don't you ask me what I did this weekend?
Oh, I'm sorry. What did you do this weekend?
Oh, yeah.
So that obviously was for Lucky, not for one of your kids.
No, it was for Clara. So it was so interesting because all the girls showed up in mermaid outfits. Every single one of them. And they were fantastic, let me just say, versions of mermaids. All kinds of spangles and this and that. All the guys, all the boys, many showed up in superhero costumes.
Yeah. If anyone wants to believe gender is not a thing, just have a party and invite boys and girls over and see what they do. Put a room full of dolls and cars and see what happens.
Yeah, it was interesting. They looked fantastic. Clara had a great time. We had a treasure hunt. Amanda baked the cake. It was beautiful and delicious. And it was fun. It was good. I cleaned the yard with my power washer. That was fun for me, that part.
We really have gender... speaking of gender roles,
I know. She baked a cake and you did the power wash. So if it's a really difficult parking spot, you handle it. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, I get handed... like this morning Saul handed me one. Every time he has something broken or needs a battery, he hands it to me.
Mom will fix it. Yeah. We are in a gender role. I hate to say it, but it's true.
The best alliance in history is the alliance between masculine and feminine energy.
I guess. I don't know. I'm good at fixing things. I really am. That's true.
That's great.
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it was a fun weekend. It was really nice. It was lovely.
So, is there a specific mermaid piece of IP? What is it?
Oh, yeah. Little Mermaid. Yeah.
Well, they loved... Listen, everyone likes K-pop Demon Hunters still. This is like a crazy trend happening. But among boys and girls, by the way. But Mermaid, Little Mermaid, that's the Disney mermaid. My favorite kind of mermaid IP is Bill Belichick's Instagram of his 22-year-old mermaid. I love the thought... I love that they planned that, they thought this will be a big hit. This is a really good idea. Have you seen that Instagram of them?
Are you... Is that going to be you someday? Do not... You best wife.
Let's hope so. I need to get much richer. Why do you think I'm doing this?
Value that lady of yours. She is the same. I should do the same. But let me just say your lady is fantastic.
My... as Robert Redford said when he was accepting lifetime... my lady friend. My lady, must make her feel good.
I like that. I like that.
Yeah. I often call men ladies. Like I go, 'Hey ladies, let's go.' And it annoys...
Speaking of which, what are you dressing up for Halloween?
Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I am. Again, my assistant, who is usually in charge, wanted me to go as Larry David. And I'm like, that's just...
No one's going to invite me into the bathroom to do ketamine when I'm dressed like Larry David.
Okay, you're right. You're right.
No, like hot women are going to come up to me and say, oh, you know, hey, can I follow you on...
That would work. Larry David would work, but go ahead.
Oh, 100%. I'm bringing out the one that works. I'm going as Deadpool again.
Oh, but I'm going as Deadpool.
I'm going as Deadpool after the fire, so I have to get a makeup artist to put all these scars all over my head.
But I don't know which private members club to go to. There's a lot of competition this year because they're all...
They're all... it's crazy. If you think the competition between AI is intense, it's nothing compared to the private membership bloodbath that is taking place in Manhattan.
Oh, no. What happened was I'm fascinated with the economics of this.
Okay. Basically there's been...
Which one's public? Soho House?
Soho House is public. It just got taken private.
It's a fantastic deal. It's a great idea. It doesn't make money. It spends too much money. Shouldn't have been a public company. It's been taken private.
But that's sort of like a Toyota, like good value for the money.
Yeah. And then this really talented entrepreneur, this guy named Scott Sartiano, who's a lovely guy, started Zero Bond. He came in with a Mercedes offering and everything's demographically driven. There's just so much money now at the top 1%. And it was a huge hit. And I'm not exaggerating. And about 36 months or 24 months later, these things just started popping up everywhere. Literally everywhere. And the bummer is, I mean, if you have money, great. The bummer is, where do young people go who don't have the money to get into? That's an opening. That's an opening in that area is cheaper, but then again if it's too cheap then everyone can go.
You know it's interesting. There's the same phenomenon here in DC. There's the Ned and then there's this one the Trump people opened up with Chamath Palihapitiya and the whole gang. But that one, a Trumper just told me, they're all dropping in price, especially the Trump one. Like it was started at like $500,000, now it's down.
No, no one wants to go hang out with those guys. And also you're...
But I'm just saying it dropped.
You're ignoring a basic truth, and that is... or we're not talking about basic truth. The reality is all these things are driven off of two things. They're driven off of rich men and the hot women that like rich men. There's some fun, cool stuff that's creative on the Lower East Side, but the reality is these private members clubs, they price discriminate, which they should, for younger people, but basically it's a bunch of 40-some-year-old dudes and a bunch of hot 20-some-year-old women. When I moved, I remember going... there's such a weird power dynamic in terms of the mating market. When I first moved to New York, I just came out of UCLA where I was not a big deal, but I was young and good-looking and finally coming into my own and dating a lot of very high-caliber women. I got to New York at the age of 22, was a Morgan Stanley analyst. I couldn't get arrested because any of the women who used to date me at UCLA were dating 35-year-old hedge fund managers that could take them to the Hamptons. So, if you're a guy in your 20s in New York, you might as well be invisible. At the same time, if you're a woman going into her 30s who's nice and attractive, but not crazy hot, you might as well be invisible. New York is America. It's optimized for two people: wealthy men and hot women. And for everybody else, it's a soul-crushing experience. And these clubs are that on steroids.
I would agree. I don't drink, but I've started going to bars with Amanda. Just the idea of going to bars now is more appealing than a club to me, like with other people.
Are they lounges or bars?
Well, this one was this little thing called Fountain Inn, and it was just an old Georgetown house that they redid.
Wait, did you have a pimp's cup with Chuck Todd?
No. No, I didn't. There's no Chuck Todd.
The other one is more like a bar and it was full of young people but older people because they had games, they had ping-pong, they had... it just was lovely food but not too fancy. Just it was full of young people playing games, which I loved. Like, and not just young people, it was like a mix. It was really... it was...
Can't imagine anything lamer. I just ordered Negronis with George Stephanopoulos.
I didn't... It wasn't those people. It was not fancy. I'm just saying that I'm not exaggerating. I avoid DC because there's like... I've never found...
The only late-night drinking spots are like interns and you feel like a pervert. There's like no cool lounges or places.
Well, I'll take you... I don't belong to the Ned, but we'll go to the Ned. Ned is actually kind of nice. It's...
Oh, it's a membership club.
Yeah, it's a membership club. It's right across from the White House. It's on top of Riggs Bank. It's actually my neighbor belongs. So we'll have her drag us there. We'll go there.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That sounds great.
You're never coming here.
Oh, no. The night we have our show, that's where we're going to go.
Okay. All right. We have a show here in DC, by the way. Anyway, we got to get to stuff. The tour is going great. It's selling great. So, buy your tickets.
We're sold out. No, we're sold out in the city. We're sold out in...
Toronto and San Francisco for sure.
We're sold out in Toronto. I heard.
And San Francisco. I had lots of...
Now, just don't tell anyone the venue is 12 people. We're doing it in Lou's old basement apartment.
Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including OpenAI backtracking on copyrights. What a shock. And Elon Musk pushing for a Netflix boycott. Oh, good god. But first, President Trump's immigration crackdown is escalating. Actually, this is quite troubling. Over the weekend, he authorized the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to Chicago. Governor JB Pritzker is warning that federal agents and raids are turning the city into a war zone. He's creating problems. Trump also keeps trying to send National Guard troops into Portland. He first attempted to send Oregon National Guard troops in. It was blocked by a federal judge whom he appointed. He then tried to deploy troops from California, was blocked by the same judge who was really pissed off. So, he keeps trying to find National Guard. This judge is going to block it completely. Texas National Guard troops are also in the mix for Oregon and Illinois with Governor Abbott's blessing. By the way, he is saying some things that are incredibly inflammatory, saying maybe Portland should be gone. All this, none of your [__] business, Greg Abbott, like sit down. I shouldn't say that, but all this as protests intensify in Chicago and Portland over these ICE raids. I don't know what you thought, what you've seen, but it seems like a really truly demented escalation. And Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem is also saying ICE agents will be all over the Super Bowl where Bad Bunny is the halftime headliner. I don't know who can afford, as you noted, going to the Super Bowl, but it's very expensive for people to know. So, any thoughts on all this? Because it's truly troubling what's happening here. It's all led by Stephen Miller, obviously.
Well, there's two things here. The first is I just think this whole thing is such manufactured division. And that is, if you think about it, socialism is supposed to be about equality, right? That we should have, everyone should have the economy, the spoils should be... William Gibson said the future's here, it's just not evenly distributed. You could say the same thing about capitalism if it's left unchecked. The prosperity happens, it's just not evenly distributed. Socialism is a means of correcting that by the government owning the means of production. By the way, this is hands down economically the most socialist government America has ever had.
Liberalism is the idea that everyone should be free to pursue liberty, even if it means very strict private property and search and seizure laws where you may know that house there's crime in it, but if you don't have a warrant, a search warrant approved by a judge, you're not allowed to go in. We believe in gun rights as a form of liberalism to a certain extent because we believe it's worth a certain amount. I don't want to protect gun rights, but the whole idea of a liberal democracy is the pursuit of liberty. Fascism, the juice of fascism is trying to convince people that the enemy is within, attacking and threatening the chosen way of life. And that's what this is. This is fascism on any metric. The idea that crime is out of control. If that were true, then it was way more out of control several years ago. And also, if you were really serious about reducing crime, you wouldn't be sending in federal troops who don't know how to conduct crime investigations, don't know how to collect evidence, don't know how to arrest people. They're just there to intimidate people. I am a believer that if you're going to spend now over a trillion dollars on the military, you should be proactive around the use of the military. I would rather see these guys and gals in Ukraine supporting long-range missile launches to destroy oil infrastructure. I would rather see them as a peacekeeping force in Gaza. They are ineffective and all they do is tear at the fabric of society and make us hate each other. And here's the bottom line.
No. What we have is an administration...
...and godlike technology dividing us.
I mean, it was interesting because there's still a few troops around DC and I went by one last night and I was trying to be nice and I was like, 'You guys should go home.' Like I was very nice about it and they're like, 'Don't you think we want to go home? This is ridiculous.'
They were like not wanting to be there either. So they were standing on the corner and then did you see the picture from Portland? They were at Voodoo Doughnuts.
There were all these troops at Voodoo Doughnuts, which are like delicious doughnuts, may I add. I mean, what do you think about everything's performative, whether it's Kristi Noem or Stephen Miller, who I think is a committed fascist actually. The others I think are very performative. Looking at, you know, Pete Hegseth wants to run. I bet Kristi Noem wants to be president. But it's really... it creates... if you create enough problems with these people there, you will have a clash, which is I think what they want.
That's what they're looking for.
That's what they're looking for, a fight. Now, one of the things that's been, and this is in our wheelhouse, big tech is getting involved in all this. Apple and Google have pulled several apps that let users flag sightings of ICE agents, including a widely used app called IceBlock. The move comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi pressed Apple to remove IceBlock, claiming it puts federal officers at risk for doing their jobs. The app's creator slammed the decision, accusing Apple of bending to what he called an authoritarian regime. Meanwhile, ICE is hiring contractors to scan Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube to find leads for enforcement raids and also monitor people's social feeds. Again, communist. This is what the authoritarians do. What do you think of... And we have given so much of our information over to these companies and they don't deserve the trust we have given them in lots of ways. I'm of mixed mind on the IceBlock and at the same time I'm kind of like, well, this is what happens when you do things like this, like people get creative. There's one in San Francisco is showing where parking meter people are, which the city got mad about, so you could move your car in time. I mean, it seems like when you do one thing and people take action against the other, guess what's going to happen? What do you think about the tech companies?
I'm on the tech company's side of this. If you get a letter from the attorney general telling you to take an app down, I just think you have to comply with the law. I don't fault them for doing that. What I think this shows though is that we need more diversity of platforms. I also do like the idea of encryption, but at the same time, I like the government's ability. We're better at spying than anyone else in the world. And America and the Israelis have basically developed technology where they can essentially hack almost any phone. I quite frankly like that because I do think of us at the end of the day as the good guys. At the same time, you said something that's really stuck with me and that is people should have the right to have secrets. I really like that. I like the idea. I never used to think about it before, but now I think literally anything I write down somewhere the government might have or that...
You also shove everything into GPT. Seriously, I don't do it at all, but...
Oh, I love... Yeah, I'm definitely in a... very promiscuous with the information.
Got to be promiscuous somewhere.
Anyway, so but I find that fascinating. I just... I'm curious how it comes back with stuff. But so I don't think you can fault tech for taking down these platforms. The images of American cities and ICE agents and masks.
I think that will go down as a pretty... I mean, not on the same level as the internment of Japanese families, but kind of the same flavor.
Yeah, absolutely. Did you see that one where the guy was just standing there on the sidewalk? He was close to him and the guy was like, 'Back off,' and he wasn't close enough to have what they did to him. He was near him, right? He was a tall guy near an ICE agent and he goes, 'Back off,' and he was like, 'I'm standing on the sidewalk.' And then the guy took him to the ground and beat the living [__] [__] out of him. It was crazy. It's crazy.
Well, there's tests. A lot of police forces have tests and they say, 'Okay, we understand that people who might like the idea of having a gun and a badge sometimes might have a background where they want to be in a position of authority and we got to be clear that they're going into that position for the right reasons.' And it strikes me that if you are signing up for ICE right now, and I realize people have an obligation to make a living, you're not doing this to protect and serve. I think there's a decent chance that you have some underlying hostility towards immigrants that is not befitting, and the fact that you can wear a mask.
Judges make really dangerous decisions every day. They put very dangerous people behind bars. They don't wear masks.
So the fact that we have decided to normalize the idea that certain people of the government on the street can wear a mask. What that means is we want to give them license and we want to give them the confidence to engage in depraved, vile behavior. If we trust our society enough that someone can put a mobster, a murderous mobster in prison and the jurors and the judge don't get to wear masks, then why on earth would we let people who supposedly are legally deporting people here illegally wear masks? Why? Because the way they are engaging in it is a form of violence, of a violation of people's rights, of an activity that makes you feel really bad about America and humanity and does nothing. I was with someone who's a fairly famous anchor and their partner has left the country.
Their partner is legal, but because they're non-white, they can't relax. They're worried about... they know that if they don't want to be incarcerated incorrectly for 72 hours...
Yeah, exactly. Let me say, speaking of judges not wearing masks, the people who are now under attack are the judges. Stephen Miller started to call judges insurrectionists now for doing their job. And one of the judges who pushed back on one of Trump's many violations of the law had her house burned down. They don't know what happened, but the house was burned down. Stephen Miller right now, if this man doesn't go to jail someday for what he is creating here, creating all kinds of anger or down in shame. If you notice, another one of his relatives said he's a heinous piece of [__], used to be normal and now we don't know what's happened to him. The whole family. But the judges are the ones under siege. You're right. They don't get to wear a mask. They stand, they write long rulings and if these thugs, that's what they are. If they're wearing masks, you're a thug. If you want to do it, you don't need to have your identity protected. What are you, like a delicate flower? If judges don't, who don't have guns, if other juries don't, they don't have guns to protect them, you should not have a mask on your face. That to me says everything. Let me just say the one thing that was really heartening to hear is the Pope, who has been talking about this during a mass this past Sunday. Pope Leo urged Catholics to open their hearts and arms to migrants. This came after he referenced the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States while speaking to reporters last week. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, as usual because she's a mouthpiece, pushed back on those comments. And MAGA influencers also voiced their unhappiness with the Pope. I thought what he said was really strong, was very strong. He spoke out on immigration. He spoke on a lot of things. This guy is just as sharp as a tack. And I like that he's sort of entering the picture for decency. I guess that's what I would say. I don't think it's left or right. It's like, don't be indecent. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
Look, the term undocumented worker is a misnomer because here's the thing. These people have documents. They have phone contracts. They have driver's licenses. They have social security cards. They have W-2s. They have all sorts of documents to ensure that US corporations can bill them. They have bank accounts so they can wire money home so banks can get the float. They have all sorts of documentation such that we can make money from them. And the notion that they're... okay, I get it. If you're here illegally, you should be asked to leave. I understand that. Now, at the same time, and it all comes back to the same thing, if we were serious about this problem, we would fine the employers. I mean, if they're not here because they like the weather, they're here because there's jobs. Because a lot of domestic workers will not take these jobs. They will not wipe your grandmother's ass or build your house for 15 bucks an hour.
And if we want to have cheaper houses, cheaper health care, better services, better restaurants, we have for the last 40 or 50 years turned a blind eye to this. We have done it intentionally on both sides of the aisle. We didn't wake up with tens of millions of undocumented workers. Did Democrats and the Biden administration probably let it go too far? Yes. But this notion of turning into a police state and demonizing these people and taking our eye off the ball off of real security threats. Also, I am somewhat empathetic to the notion that Democratic governors invited an overcorrection by virtue signaling all the [__] time instead of actually cleaning up their own cities that they're governing.
True, but Scott, that's like taking a sledgehammer to a fly, right?
Right. It's a total overreaction. And the thing that's most depressing is I shared a clip, I believe it was from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie with the ship blowing up around the sky. And it had this caption, 'This is how it feels to be a centrist in the US.' And I wrote, 'No, it's worse.' And the comments were like, 'Uh, centrists are fascists, centrists are enablers.' We are just so divided and angry right now. Tom... Thomas Friedman had something, I thought he had something very cogent on... he said, 'We're not that divided, we're just being divided.'
And everyone says come together and everything and we need to turn the heat down. I'm telling you folks, it's not about a politician trying to cosplay Obama and turn down the political heat.
We have connected 40% of the S&P to rage and sequestering us from one another.
Yep. And what hap... I don't know about you, I go on social media now and I see these videos of these kids and these women being separated from their husbands on social media and I [__] hate America for about 30 seconds.
And I'm not saying it's not important that we don't see that, but when you have an administration and algorithms that say, 'Oh, we're going to... this is going to make us so much money. We're going to have so many Nissan ads from this.'
So, we have this one-two punch of an administration that conflates masculinity and leadership with coarseness and cruelty and algorithms that make a [__] ton of money from it. And the result is, if you were to go out today, ICE raids and all, and I'm not in any way accepting or diminishing the ugliness of these ICE raids, but if you go out in Portland, if you go out in Paramus, New Jersey, or you go out in Provincetown, you're generally going to find Americans from all political spectrums are generally speaking really lovely people.
No, you're right. I would agree. I would agree with you. I just think one of the issues is this is an attempt to divide and create anger and it works. And I think what's really nice is to see everyone coming around to something you and I have been going on about forever. You saw Macron talk about social media. You see everyone is now on this bandwagon. And these people should not be trusted with our information or decision-making about our society. It's enough with them deciding what we should do. Look, we're willing addicts to these people, but it's heroin. And it will not end well if we don't take some control of this. And what the Trump administration has done to take control is to get bribes from them. And that's what they are, these payouts, and let them do whatever they want. They need to be drastically regulated in many, many ways or taxed either way. You know, they need to be pulled back in ways that shouldn't be making decision-making. And that will get us to our next thing when we get back. OpenAI does an about-face on copyright policy for Sora 2.
Scott, we're back with more news. OpenAI has backtracked and will give copyright holders more control over how their characters are used on Sora, its new AI video generation app. As a reminder, leading up to the launch, the company had said copyright holders would have to opt out of having material appear in videos. Scott, you made excellent points last week. CEO Sam Altman said the company would have to, quote, 'somehow make money from the app to offset costs' — oh well, don't make it if you can't make money, Sam — and would try to share some of the revenue with rights holders who opt in. We'll try to share. Thanks. Sora is a top free app in Apple's App Store at the time of the taping. It's an interesting app. By the way, OpenAI and chip designer AMD have announced a multibillion-dollar partnership to collaborate on AI data centers. This is Lisa Su. I just recently interviewed her actually. But the fact of getting away with anything they want is just... they still think that. And by the way, OpenAI's DevDay will be happening after we tape today. We'll talk about that more on Friday. But thoughts on this turnabout. I mean, they must have heard holy hell from everybody. That's my assumption.
Well, I've hired hackers and AI engineers to reverse-engineer everything that OpenAI spent money on. I'm calling it ClosedAI because they have not opted out. They have not opted out. Closed.
