Pivot
Hunter Biden Pardon, Kash Patel for FBI Director, and Guest Lauren Greenfield
Tue, 03 Dec 2024
Kara and Scott discuss the Hunter Biden pardon, and its repercussions for President Biden. Then, President-elect Donald Trump selects Kash Patel to run the FBI, and new reports raise questions and concerns about Pete Hegseth. Plus, Elon Musk takes aim at Sam Altman and OpenAI, yet again. Our Friend of Pivot is filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, whose new docuseries, "Social Studies," provides an inside look at teens and social media. Lauren explains what parents don't know about their kids' social media usage. Watch "Social Studies" here. You can find the "Social Studies" curriculum and parents guide here. Follow Lauren at @lgreen66. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the implications of the Hunter Biden pardon?
At the same time, I think they've used Fauci as a punching bag. And to make their points, they will continue. I think they would have continued to plague Hunter Biden. So I'm okay with this one. I don't know. I just, it's gross. I think if, you know, Trump's done 10 of these and then rewarded them even further. So I'm kind of like, oh, whatever. Like, it's Hunter Biden. It's fine. Let's move along.
I think it's going to come and go. I don't.
Yeah, come and go.
But also, I think, I've said this before, I think the Alvin Bragg New York case against Trump was politically motivated. I think every case against Hunter Biden is politically motivated. They were both a waste of prosecutorial resources that wouldn't have been allocated towards the prosecution had these individuals not been political figures.
The Bragg one, but not necessarily the documents one or the insurrection one?
Oh, no, I think the nuclear secrets one. I've always thought, I've thought that New York and the fact that we are not mendacious fucks and not that strategic like McConnell, We wait too long to bring cases such that they can play slow ball, and we dilute the veracity of the legitimate cases with bullshit cases around paying off a porn star. So I think this is what I want, Cara.
I want more mendacious fucks running our party. I want Schumer out. I want Nadler out. We need more Mitch McConnells. We need more strategic motherfuckers who are totally unashamed, who take their punches regardless of what goes over well at the country club or who they can say to their... Well, we stand on the moral high ground. Well, what's that getting us, boss?
Yeah, or just older, just older. We need new fresh blood. I mean, there's a move to remove Jerry Nadler from— Put in Raskin. That guy's smart. Raskin. Yeah, guess who's behind it? Guess who's behind it? Nancy Pelosi, apparently.
Well, she's got some of the Machiavellian things, but it's time for her to exit the stage, too.
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Chapter 2: Who is Kash Patel and why is he being considered for FBI Director?
We can't normalize this. What's even worse than being a poor role model and not being qualified, a different level, in my opinion, of threat is Patel, who has called for using the power of the Bureau and the Justice Department to prosecute journalists. Open quote. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly.
We'll figure that out, he said during an appearance on Steve Bannon's podcast. The fact that this guy is being considered is so, the fact that, as you described it perfectly, I don't think, well, I'll take that back. It's not fair to call her a Russian asset. She's a Russian sympathizer.
She provides comfort and aid to the enemy, and she will absolutely frighten the shit out of our own assets and our own allies. So I don't understand why he's not bringing the same level of maturity to our security apparatus and our defense apparatus that he's brought to the economic appointments. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
I think he just gets something happens late at night with him. Maybe he's taking ketamine with him. Elon or something. Anyway, we'll see what happens here. But it's disturbing. I would recommend reading The Mother's Letter as disturbing as along with the story from The New Yorker for Hegseth, that's for sure.
And I'm looking forward to the Kash Patel story, which is going to be just worse, I think, in a different way, and the Tulsi Gabbard stories. Anyway, journalists are doing a great job with these things. And I thought it was a very fair story on Pete Hegseth. It really was. So, you know, Whatever. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.
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Chapter 3: What controversies surround Pete Hegseth's nomination?
When we come back, Elon targets OpenAI and Sam Altman yet again. And we'll speak with Lauren Greenfield about what she learned about teens and social media in our new docuseries, Social Studies.
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Have you ever scrolled through Instagram in the summer and wondered how everyone you know is suddenly in Europe? You've probably thought to yourself, how can they actually afford that trip? Well, summer's almost here, and on this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, I'm diving into practical ways to save on summer travel.
Flight prices change constantly, literally day to day, and often those changes in price can fluctuate based on your location, the strength of your country's currency, and how popular a destination is in your region. So how do we see what that flight price would be in another place? We are using a VPN.
Plus, I'm answering some of your burning travel questions from finding better flight deals to making the most of your travel credit cards. We're breaking down the travel industry's best-kept secrets. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash yourrichbff.
Scott, we're back. Elon Musk's feud with OpenAI is heating up with Elon trying to stop OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company. The new filing says OpenAI's path from nonprofit to for-profit has been full of anti-competitive practices and flagrant breaches of its charitable mission. OpenAI's spokesperson says the suit is without merit and Elon is recycling the same baseless complaints.
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Chapter 4: How is Elon Musk targeting OpenAI and Sam Altman?
Like they're just teenagers. And so I think, and that wasn't just pornography, that's on TikTok. So I think that, you know, and one girl talked about being in abusive relationship as her first relationship and not knowing that, that it was abusive because of what she had seen as normative on pornography.
And we hear stories about assault and violence against girls, and we can see this being mirrored in pornography. So I think that in a way, what I was looking at was more probably like common and mainstream than having a relationship with a bot, but you can see how dangerous the influences are. And also just how
how it kind of takes away from like the joy and romance and, you know, puppy love of being a kid. We also see relationships being about fame. Like one girl, Ellie, has a puppy love relationship in middle school with a child actor, and then she becomes famous accidentally. And we see kind of relationships be means to popularity.
One of the things, I'm actually interviewing the mother of that child later today who killed himself. One of the things that's really disturbing to me is that they want to get off, but they can't. And I remember when I was younger, and I'm sure Scott remembers, any little bit of prurient thing you could find, you read, right? But you only got a tiny little taste of it, right? Like some
I don't know, some weird sexual thing when you were- Yeah, your dad's Playboy in the garage that you found, right? Right, right. But you only got little tastes of it. And it was enough, and then it was a little scary at the same time, and it was scary to access it. And now it comes flooding at you in an addictive manner, which is a very different thing.
So one is that it's so available, and there's no price for it, right? You're not going to get in trouble or anything else. And I do think kids do want to get off of these things. Both my kids took their social media off their phones because it made them feel bad, including the dating sites, by the way, because I think those made them feel bad at the same time when they get a little older.
What do you think is the best solution for disruption of getting it out? I think in some ways my kids would prefer not to have had it. I feel like that's their tone towards it. And right now they mostly watch TV on it. That's what they do now. But what do you think the solution to get them off of it? Even though they talk about wanting to, they don't get off of it, right?
I mean, I agree. A lot of them said they would have preferred to be in the generation of their parents before it exists. And yet it's a kind of necessary evil in their generation. Like Cooper and Stella are talking at the end and say, like, do we exist if we're not online? Like that's the current existential question for young people. I think it's very hard to to go off as an individual.
We see Ivy go off in the show and eventually get back on. It's a real statement of saying, I'm going to be outside of the social life. I think that being a teenager is about being in the social life, trying to find yourself socially, having friends, being accepted. I think that As a next step, like really we need collective action. It's very hard to do this individually.
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