What if you could remember everything? Everything you said, everything you did, everything other people said and did around you, everything you ate, everything you watched, everywhere you went, what if you could remember all of it? On this episode of The Verge Cast, brought to you by Meta, we explore how AI might make that possible and what it might mean to be a person in a world where nobody forgets anything ever again. That's The Verge Cast, anywhere you get podcasts.
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that isn't all about tech. It's about real people providing real defense. When threats arise or issues occur, their team of seasoned cyber experts is ready 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for support. Visit Huntress.com slash Pivot to start a free trial or learn more. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media podcast network. I'm Cara Swisher and I'm Scott Galway. Scott, I apologize for being late today. I got trapped
on stage with Nancy Pelosi. Well, smell you. That wasn't an apology. That was you being braggadocious. That's true. I'm being braggadocious. I just interviewed her at the right near Capitol Hill. I think one of her first interviews is not appearing for a little while yet. It's about what she thinks about the future and she has a new book called The Art of Power. We talked a little bit about that. But she had a lot of, so we ran a little long. Well, you should probably kick things off
with stock tips. That's correct. That's correct. No, stop it. I sound like a Republican. I sound like a Republican. You know what? She's a legend. Do you know she's a legend? She's a legend. I think my favorite image of 2022 is the picture of her after flying for nine hours or whatever it was or 12 hours of Taiwan and her pink pan suit and heels. Yeah, I like her with the coat and the sunglasses coming from Trump. Her mortal enemy is Donald Trump, I
think. That's the takeaway from this interview is that she'll do what she has to do to stop him, including sort of tossing Joe Biden under the bus, which she was part of and probably a big part of. Yeah, she's emerging as sort of the central figure that was, you know, who not only stabbed the Prince, but killed him. Well, you know, I think she feels like Trump is some so important that is important to adjust. I think she was the word adjust. We need to adjust, which is interesting.
Anyway, it's an interesting time to be in Washington. I'll tell you that in a day. I don't see that what Washington is boring, but it certainly isn't. And we've got lots to talk about today. There's so much going on. President Biden's first speech after stepping down, text docs taking a dive and we'll speak to our friend of pivot, Dr. Anthony Fauci about his new memoir and more. But first before that, you were on the today show that was lovely. You were lovely with your son
and George Han, your other son. Oh, it was so nice. First off, Savannah Guthrie is lovely. She is. You can see why these morning show people are, you know, on the water still some of the most viewed programs in the world. They're just so likable and lovely. It was nice for me. I took my youngest and they were super cool to him and us. And then we walked around Times Square and Midtown. I showed my son, 12, 5, 2, and Avenue Americas, where was my first job at Morning
Stance. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Was the impress? It was so fun. I don't, well, I'm sure you don't feel this way. The only people who make me deeply insecure are my sons. And I'm constantly trying to impress them and constantly coming up a little bit short. Yeah, you know what? He just loves walking around New York and everything and he loved being at the today show. But I'm not sure he was down in press. You look very smart. Did George Han dress you? What happened there?
You know, I thought that today's show I just had to bring it plus all my athlete's year is dirty right now. So yeah, yeah, no athlete's year for Savannah Guthrie. I feel like it's like getting older. I need to step it up a little bit. Yeah, you look good. You look like a little George Han that George did your styling for you. Yeah, but George was comes with me now to my George and my two-fifth staff Mary Jean always come with me to that stuff
for emotional support to my emotional support animals. Oh, well, you did a great job. You do. Thanks. Yeah, that went well. I was that was easy. And your book went roaring up the thing that today's show has a lot of. Oh, it doesn't it? Nip in a JD's heels. I'm coming for you. I know. I know. Weird like. You'll bully allergies. I'm a dog loving father of two that's coming for your bitch ass. You weirdo. I am just behind him. We're going to call it the dog allergy.
Yeah, the dog allergy. That good for you. Good for you. I'm glad that that worked really well. But let's get to our first big story. Scott, President Biden gave his first speech and stepping down on Wednesday saying, I revered this office, but I love my country more. So I just a couple of things. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris's poll numbers show performing better against Trump than Biden had. And it means Trump
had to try out a new nickname for her at his North Carolina rally yesterday. Let's listen. So now we have a new victim to defeat lion Kamala Harris lion. L.Y. I.N. apostasy. Not his best work. I have to say he could do better. He also mispronounces her name. But it doesn't matter. She's doing great. Her presidential campaign is in full swing. Harris secured support from a majority of Democratic delegates. All but promising. She will be the nominee. A CNN poll has her 46% support
among registered voters to Trump's 49. It's within the margin of error. And there's some very promising signs of who's come back on board, including women and young people and his and and and she's lowered dramatically. Trump's appeal to Hispanics. Harris's campaign says she raised $126 million as of Wednesday morning since Biden announced his exit from the race. So let's talk a
little bit about what's happened. There's obviously a honeymoon phase. And Trump is sort of struggling to figure out whether to be sexist or racist or whatever his his plan as are just nasty. Thoughts on how it's going. There's just no denying it. The amount of momentum and inspiration she's brought to the race is is just staggering. I mean it's so even those of us who weren't big Kamala boosters are sort of overwhelmed with the sense of enthusiasm and momentum and kind of
signing up. She's inspired Gen Z. I mean you're right. It's some of this will phase. Some of this is a honeymoon period. But if you look at fundraising. If you look at the polls. If you look at just how flat-footed the Republicans and Trump seem right now. It just feels like what what last week felt like you were bereft or resigned to this pick possibly is now seems like the right pick and what everyone has really got renewed enthusiasm right now. It's why why do you think that is
so let's talk about the messaging because this is an area you excel in. The Democrats are pounds to gun viral footage of JD Vance in 2021 suggesting that Harris is one of a bunch of childless catlates who are miserable at their own lies running the country. Interestingly second gentleman Doug M. Hoff's ex-wife left to Harris's defense in a statement. Kirsten M. Hoff said
these are baseless attacks for over 10 years since Cole and Ella were teenagers. Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I she added I love our blended family and grateful to have her in it. A stepdaughter Ella M. Hoff followed up with an Instagram by saying how can you be childish when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I I love my three parents. So that's part of the messaging. There's a lot of talk about the messaging. Obviously the Republicans is about sexism and racism.
It seems like she's more into freedom beyond say she's using a lot of Republican words. Keep the government out of our lives. Freedom, patriotism. It's interesting. It's kind of an interesting situation there. Mokar marketing wise messaging. Well first off I just want to acknowledge you were right now is wrong. I thought JD Vance was going to be a good pick. He said he was going to be a terrible pick and so far already it looks like the wheels are coming off and even Republicans.
There's all these Republicans going on background saying it was a terrible pick. She's a difficult candidate for them to criticize and what sort of summarizes whether Republican party is right now is telling Republican surrogates not to attack her based on racist or sexist tropes and I thought to myself what does it mean about your party when you actually have to go out and tell people that tell elected officials not to make racist sexist remarks.
JD Vance is going to play and I didn't see this right into the Democrats hand of okay he's the bridge to 2025 and 2025 is project 2025 is a pretty decent off-broadway version of the handmaid's tale and to a certain extent because she is non-white in a woman it's more difficult for them in any way to attack her because it comes off as racist and sexist it kind of reveals them for many of their policies which scares people so I think they're in a they're in a deliciously weird spot.
I think the messaging is going to come down to two things on the Republican side they're going to try and go after you guys constantly accuse us of not being democratic that you're constantly saying that Trump is in the democracy and then you put up a candidate that never got a single vote
or never got a single delegate I think that that messaging they'll do in the short run over the long run I think they're going to run video loops of these campus protests and of these democratically run cities and on the west coast and that will be their messaging and then they'll try and make
her any attempt to make her look bad leftist personally communist is yeah but the reality is it's going to be difficult to do without issues not and her positioning is crystal clear in my mind because she just needs to say okay week by week this is how many pedophiles I put in prison
these are the degree mills I shut down in California this is Trump University which was closed down by another you know she's just going to go I'm she can immediately inoculate herself from the fears that some people moderates might have about a woman or this sexist view that a
president needs to be machoed up she can be the sheriff in town and the one that was putting these weak criminals taking advantage of other people such as Donald Trump in prison that's that my opinion I'm a prosecutor he's a foul on is her message and their message is going to be this
is what happens when you let Democrats can get control of institutions and cities but you also have to talk about the future right what are you going to do I mean I this is something policy just said it's not about what you you can never get credit for what you've done it's what you're going to
do right and you use the what you've done by showing that you can get it done right if you you know I think these attacks on her not having a kid is really bad like it's so offensive to women that's just dumbed how that's just it's okay that's good for us they just come across this sexist and weird
in that non-traditional families aren't aren't welcome that that that doesn't work at all but I would disagree I agree you need to paint a vision for the future that's really nice but politics is basically digress into how how can I make them an even less appealing version of what I am for
messaging around the future is one thing and one thing only stay the course look at GDP it's up into the right look at the markets it's up into the right look at inflation it's down into the right let's just keep this going I'm the steady hand here the people are in place the momentum is
good we don't want to fuck with it just we're going to stay the course one of them is let we're not going back to she's using that quite a lot in and freedom which I think are good good good motto the issue I think she should I mean let me cosplay economic advisor the issue I think
she should bring up they would get her a lot of credibility with moderates is if she said she did a speech and a thought piece and outlined a policy and view on we have to get our deficit under control that would position her is the adult and win over a lot of moderate Republicans that's
interesting great idea I didn't even thought of that's got gal way there you go that's on here of course you know what I'm thinking of what are you thinking of freedom families but no what Taylor Swift song could be the one of commas campaigns song I like the man you'll put seriously brand wise
Taylor Swift it's easier for it to come out in support of comaharras and it was for a sport Biden obviously she's going to be important correct obviously she's got Beyonce on her side oh these I mean Taylor's subsistive phenomenon around childless cat lady by the way FYI
there you go yeah celebrities never seem to have brought the juice that people at home celebrities generally speaking good are supportive of democrats other than you know like Clint Eastwood and Chuck Norris or Kid Rock or whatever Ted Nugent which I think actually hurt their cause
but Taylor Swift is such a pheno oh my god if you could sign up Taylor Swift she's just such a phenomenon on her own it's we just what we need is saying the star spangled banner at the democrats well no if we want to win the election we just need to get Taylor Swift on board and
lower the voting age to 14 and boom it's over boom it's done it's done actually in this case she is an celebrity that will matter here and I think I suspect she's gonna go right there especially because of abortion issues all right Scott let's go in a quick break we come back we'll talk
about the unimpressive earnings at alphabet and Tesla and talk to our friend pivot dr Fauci support for pivot comes from Miro you're wrapping up one project and looking ahead to the next congratulations at this point it's normal for most teams to take a moment to regain your bearings
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your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today at Miro.com that's three free boards at Miro.com Fox creative this is advertiser content from Zell the recruiter said all I needed to do was send $500 to cover mandatory safety training
and the job was mine in a world where financial crimes are more and more sophisticated there's a team that's got your back copy that dispatch we're on it hop in skip we got a bony recruiter safe squad the crime drama everyone is talking about I know it's only my first day
but that sounds like a pretty cut and dry job scan strap in rookie these days criminals can even make it look like it's your bank calm but that's where we come in my what my savings account compromised no I won't hold no I didn't authorize a $12,000 withdrawal that's my life savings
why don't you come with me I'll show you how to report to the FTC what paid me a platform to choose let's contact them too don't miss the TV event of the season safe squad hey ace yeah kid you're right those one hell of a first day learn how you can spot the signs of a scam
so you don't have to call the safe squad by visiting www.vox.com slash safe squad HQ remember never send money online to people you don't already know and trust today explain Sean romans firm standing outside of the White House to ask Americans how they feel about a historic moment their president dropping out of the presidential race mixed feelings I think it's sad but overall I think he might be making the right decision I'm sad to see him drop
out but I think it needed to be done so I think like hopefully it brings out more young voters Joe Biden is considered as an anti-cris I wanted to stay in this way I know Trump would have won now it's up in the air but I just feel like it's America ready for a woman and also a black woman so that's what scares me no I just don't really see Kamala or really anyone else being a Bible threat to Trump Kamala Kamala we need the facts man I don't know you know me like I think it's some fishy going on
but you know don't pull me yeah I'm gonna quote you yeah we're gonna ask Vox's Andrew Procop and David Axelrod how they feel on today explained amen Scott we're back for our second big story the Nasdaq has taken its biggest tumble since 2022 thanks to earnings reports from alphabet and
Tesla Alphabets quarterly earnings showed a slowing growth in advertising sales with ad sales rising 11% down from 13% in the previous quarter on top of that whiz the cyber security startup we had talked about the alphabet plan to acquire I decided to turn down the 23 billion dollar offer
alphabet shares are down almost 5% in the last five days of time the taping I want to talk about this but I'm gonna mention Tesla earnings have showed a 7% percent decline with auto revenue with earnings for share coming down below Wall Street estimates tells the shares are down 10%
in the last five days given up a lot of the gains they've been making Nasdaq is down over 3% in the last five days and the SPS down 2% because of these tech companies I'd love to hear your thoughts on this is your big area of expertise talk a little bit about alphabet first and then Tesla
well alphabet actually at a decent quarter is just that one I mean alphabet's dealing with this existential issue of having one foot in and one foot out of AI in the sense that they have Gemini but Gemini gets about an eighth of the traffic of open AI or of chat GPT and when you think about
all the head start in the captive audience across Google and Android have only the eighth the traffic of what is supposed to be a startup but it's really just Microsoft AI is unusual and the question is they're trying to incorporate AI into their core platform search and there's still
a little bit people would argue trapped in the innovators dilemma and that is they don't want to go all in on Gemini at the risk of cannibalizing this quarter of a trillion dollar toll booth amazing best business probably in history called search so there's still kind of I would argue
a little bit one foot in one foot out trying to have their cake and eat it too I understand why they're doing people got spooked about YouTube sales slowing I didn't think was that big a deal and the other thing that's hurting their earnings is like everyone else they're now
it except for Apple they're now in this arms race and their catbacks was dramatically up sort of which sort of hit hit earnings the bigger story I think or what was more like genuinely bad news was Tesla and that is the EV market I think it's interesting an initial analogy would be the
streaming market and that is it was over invested because people saw it as the future and now there's a bit of a shakeout and that is in the way you see the shakeout is in an intense price competition a year ago the equivalent EV was $8500 more expensive than its internal combustion
peer now that number that margin premium has dropped of $1,500 and the F150 lightning the EV is actually $10,000 less than its internal combustion counterpart probably because they produce too many in addition that while the market continues to grow Tesla has not a lot of people would describe
its products as a bit tired not described and they are a bit tired let's you know we've been saying that from a year like where's their new stuff except for that heinous hot cyber truck I have driven a math friend of mine is this master the universe head shungata went out to the Hamptons
to Sam and he has a matte black cyber truck and people were stopped and staring at it and it's just I I drove in it I would describe it as a ridiculous car out of a out of a Simpson's episode I think it's insane were you embarrassed to get in it I'd be embarrassed to get in it oh no there's a lot of
shit I've done that's much more embarrassing what's the problem what does he have to do here he obviously was he took a vote on on Twitter whether to call it whether to to invest $5 billion in X AI I mean I'm literally like when is the SEC going to come and arrest this fella like well at first
I mean there's a couple things one the what if you listen to the earnings call the questions were more pointed and more heated than they've been in a long time to this point the earnings calls have been a much of stenographers and sick offense thanking him for a great quarter this one was
distinctly like boss we have been waiting for a robot taxi for five years you know how frustrating that is to be on a corner when you call and they say oh a robot taxi is just it's a minute away it's a year away he's even saying now that it could be by the end of the year but it might be 2025
he said I think in 2019 or 2020 we were a year away right yeah no he constantly constantly constantly people's patience is is really really wearing thin but more than anything I'm a valuation guy if you look at Ford earnings Ford trades at seven times forward earnings GM trades at five
times forward earnings Ferrari an amazing company with you want to talk about a moat trades at 50 times right Tesla trades at 99 times forward earnings and the moment you say that people say well it's not a car company it's an energy company it's going to be a robot taxi company do you want to the
scariest thing in that earnings call is that they're 2030 projected profits they're saying 80% of those projected profits will come from its robot taxi division so they are estimating the four fifths of their profit are going to come from a division and a technology that they haven't shown
an ability to even deliver yet I know I need to I just real quick need to correct myself it wasn't the company it was our Kathy Woods which makes it bachelors crazy anyways but she was saying 90% of Tesla's enterprise value earnings will be attributed to the robot taxi business by
well she just a stenotic 21 Elon Musk but you know when I was thinking when I heard these are I was like this guy had everything like he had it like he could have shifted into new products new exciting things he get it owned it like really been Ferrari right and he's just blown it
here in a way that I it's sort of sad because it was a very good company and it still is in a lot of ways it's just I'm just and then the the corporate governance here I mean it's just the idea that you would say to Tesla shareholders I'm going to take five billion dollars of our hard
earned cash flow and use it to try and take my other failing company and put on an AI dress you just that wouldn't even be a conversation at a board level of most companies would be like no stay focused on we do cars boss we're not we're not in media we're not interested in funding your
adventures in AI media with our hard earned money and instead he takes to a Twitter poll like have you pulled your board members that represent the shareholders at Tesla but again it is corporate governance is sort of a cute novelty we used to talk about before before before
you're such a waste I was just thinking you know I'm not inclined to him in any way but I feel bad because it was a really good you know what I mean like you're like why did you go out with that girl when you had this girl like that yeah did you see I'm really remiss to bring I've always felt
that people deserve a pretty wide birth and privacy around the relationship with their kids did you see his interview with Jordan Peterson yes I he said a terrible thing about his trans good I was so deeply rattled by that yeah I thought that that was just to summarize he basically
he holds woke ideology responsible for what he describes is the loss of his the death of his child he did name the child too and and I'm I'm I'm really I'm remiss to bring up people's relationships with their kids because they're so sacred and it's in its difficult it's you know
until you walk in those shoes you don't know the dynamics of family but he made this available for public consumption by going on Jordan Peterson this is exactly the opposite of what it means to be a man that is correct your absolute first reflex instinct response your muscle memory around
being a man is you move to protection and if any group in the world you want to protect it's your kids and internally you might fight like hell to try and convince your your your your child not to go through gender affirmation that I think that is up to a family and their doctor and the individual
and but for God's sakes to to go on television and describe your child is dead he is he talks a lot about his father being demonic he is demonic parent I have to say he's done a lot there's so much anti-trans stuff he puts out there it's crazy just you know that that was his being like
subtle his anti-trans stuff and this was explicitly awful you know I don't care what happened he was a child Elon you're keeping up with your dad in that regard and being a bad bad parent I agree with you it was very rattling I'm shocked every time it happens okay Scott let's bring in
our friend of pivot Dr. Anthony Fauci is the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases he's also the author of a new memoir on call a doctor's journey in public service there's kind of a little news since your book came out it's kind of drowned out
we've had a lot of things happening and we'll get to those in a second but let's talk about where we are right now it's been a little over four years since covid upended our lives looking back let's talk about what you wish you'd known or done differently back in 2020 because you
write in the book about initially giving guidance not to wear masks but you later said those words got twisted by extreme elements later you also acknowledge in a recent interview that keeping schools closed for an extended period of time was not a good idea talk a little bit about your
reflections about covid although a lot of the book is about AIDS which is of course you played a major role in dealing with that yeah I think it's important to emphasize for the listener that this is a memoir of my 55 year 54 years in public service only two or three of which was covid so
covid is a minor fraction of my memoir but everybody obviously focuses on the last couple of chapters because that's fresh in their mind but getting to your specific question I mean obviously the point that I was making in the memoir and I continue to make is that we were dealing and in
some respects we still are dealing with a moving target if you have a static situation you could make recommendations and guidelines and and transfer information to the public that is very firm and doesn't change but when you're dealing with a moving target where what you know about
covid in January and early February is different than what you know in March and April not only is the information changing but the virus itself is changing I mean we would have never imagined that in one single outbreak we would have multiple variants that we would have to deal with
that would have varying degrees of escape from already existing immunity we didn't know in the beginning that the virus was transmitted predominantly by people who don't have any symptoms which was one of the reasons why there was a confusion one of the several reasons why there was some confusion
about whether or not we should be strongly recommending the use of masks and as I mentioned in the memoir the reasons why there was from both the surgeon general the CDC and I obviously supported them that we didn't necessarily need to wear masks as that there wasn't any strong
indications that masks were effective outside of the clinical setting number one number two we didn't appreciate fully at all that a symptomatic spread was important we were thinking about the influenza model where people sneezing and coughing once it became clear that a it was spread
by asymptomatic people and that masks actually do work outside of the setting we made our change and we said wait a minute there is a very good reason to be wearing masks and that's the reason why the recommendation changed that understandably could be interpreted as scientist flip flopping
but it really isn't flip flopping when you use the data that is available to make the real time changes in your recommendations because science is self correcting and this is one of the examples when it's self corrected except in an era where self-collecting is not allowed because you would
enter now you you of course you're clear and we'll talk about the AIDS crisis in a minute you've dealt with political issues of course like political angry emotional things like that but in this point changing your mind is a political act right I mean you've worked with seven presidents but you
had Donald Trump in this case to deal with and you get into the drama in the book in a chapter title he loves me he loves me not you reflect on the moment you realize you have to refute him publicly talk a little bit about the politicization because you've become not a person but a political
you know football among people why did you feel important to refute him publicly and how how do you manage that as a scientist presumably you don't want to become political because it gets in the way of just making a mistake and then correcting it well of course I certainly have tried
throughout my more than a half a century career and my 38 years as the director of the institute and I ID I tried very acidiously to stay out of things that were frankly political but in answer to your specific question I just I was not comfortable in having to publicly disagree with and contradict
the president of the United States were a number of reasons one I didn't want to get into a political issue a number two I have a great deal of respect for the office of the presidency of the United States but when the when the president began publicly saying things that were frankly and clearly incorrect and then I was asked to comment on that mostly by the press I just felt it was critical in order to maintain my own personal and professional integrity but even more important to fulfill my
primary responsibility which is to the American public my responsibility is not and has never been to any particular administration it's been to the general public and I felt as a public health official as a scientist and a public servant that I absolutely had to be totally honest and
honest he meant publicly contradicting with the president was saying because he was desperately hoping that the outbreak would disappear at the end of March just the way flu in a seasonal manner generally diminishes and essentially disappears as you enter into the early spring months
of April and May when he saw that was not happening he started to say things that were not true like saying it was going to disappear like magic when it became patently obvious that not only was it not disappearing it was actually getting worse then he started to invoke magical elixirs
like hydroxychloroquine was going to be the cure for this and then when he started to say that I felt obligated to say no that's not the case there's no scientific indication that hydroxychloroquine works and in fact there is some indication that it could be harmful
so when that didn't work then he started bringing in people who started telling him things he wanted it here like Scott Atlas who came in and started to say that we didn't need to worry about it it was okay just let it rip and let people get infected and herd immunity will come in
which was clearly incorrect both conceptually and was proven to be incorrect practically so again that was the difficult situation I was in I didn't relish it the people who are you know very strong supporters of the president misinterpreted that I was doing that to undermine the president which
I certainly did not want to do at all that was not my purpose but that unleashed a sort of a tsunami of antagonism against me mostly on the part of the staff at the White House people like the communication staff people like Peter Navarro and others who were much more vehement against me
than was the president himself he was less phased by that than they were in fact we even to the very end had someone of afraid but nonetheless still a reasonably good relationship it's nice to meet your doctor Fauci thank you Scott so part of science is being open to iterating and trying
to find the best ideas and incorporating them into the science when you look at so many nations took a different approach to how to handle the pandemic some wanted to let herd immunity you know see if that worked others had sort of the sort of the authoritative or authoritative lockdown distinct of the US which unfortunately it just feels like every discussion around this has been so deeply politicized here when you look at other nations and their approach to the pandemic who do
you think got it most right and what can be learned from that you know of Scott if all nations were equal and some did it one way and some did it the other you could accurately tell whether one thing worked versus an other but there's a big difference between an island nation like New Zealand
and Australia who clearly had the capability of effectively you know keeping out the flow of infections and when they were in the country to control them you had other societies that readily accepted the government decision that everybody needs to wear a mask and everybody needs to lock down
and they would not essentially having a paradoxically negative reaction against it so again if you were in a country where you were accepting of the authority of the government people like those in Korea and Taiwan and places like that did relatively well that was part of their culture I mean in
Japan and certain Asian countries they wear masks or winter anyway even without their being COVID so the idea of saying wear a mask whereas in the United States when the CDC recommended in the peak of the outbreak that we wear masks you have the president of the United States getting up and saying
well the CDC recommends it but me personally I don't think I'm going to wear one that immediately made masks become a political issue when it never should have been a political issue right well it's about a lot more things so one of the things as you said you've been involved in public health for
for decades many decades and a big part of this book focuses on your work which I think you were most known for you were not known for COVID or anything else now you shall go down in history as the COVID person but you're work during the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s you call that time the
dark years of your medical career you know obviously prepared you for dealing with things during COVID but talk a little bit about that period and where we are now with the AIDS crisis it seems so far away it seems a million years away and in that case you managed to forge alliances with
people such as Larry Kramer who were you were adamantly attacking you like very much so at the time as I recall so talk a little bit about that experience because it probably is the most important part of your career historically well it is it's a 43 year part of my career as opposed to a three
year part of my career which was which was COVID well they well let me take each of the points that you make Kara and very briefly address them when I've said it was the dark years of my medical career it was because I was personally on a daily basis taking care of desperately ill
young mostly men who have sex with men who had a terrible disease that inevitably was killing almost all of them with few exceptions and it was a period from 1981 until we developed the effective therapies that really most of my patients with very few exceptions died no matter
what we did you know and I had it then the prior 10 years had developed some very effective therapies for autoimmune inflammatory diseases where most of the patients expected they were going to die from these fatal diseases and I was fortunate enough to have developed therapeutic protocols that
led to more than a 90% remission in these individuals so I was used to success after success after success then along comes HIV and right through 1981 until we developed therapies you know in the mid 90s that my patients were suffering terribly and dying that as I described not only for me but
for my colleagues who were doing the same things that I was doing trying to do meaningful research at the same time of taking care of patients was really something that led to a bit of post-traumatic stress because it's not easy to every single day when you're trained as a healer and find out
that no matter what you do you're not really healing anybody so that's what I meant by the dark years the point you make about interacting with the activists people like Larry Kramer and Peter Staley and Mark Harrington people like that that was one of the most positive experiences I had because
what the activists were doing they were trying to gain the attention of the scientific and regulatory community to make the point that the standard approach of the design of clinical trials the entry and exclusion criteria the rigidity of the regulatory process of taking seven to ten years to get
an approval was just very ill-fitted and ill-related in the sense of being able to adequately address a disease that was killing most people in ten months so they wanted to be part of the discussion of how we can make this type of an approach more adapted to their particular
situation and now unfortunately the scientific community and the regulatory community had the attitude which worked well for other diseases but retrospectively was totally inappropriate for HIV was saying we know what's best for you do it our way and their response was no this is
the very unique situation so when the scientific and regulatory community did not listen to them they became very provocative iconoclastic disruptive and theatrical and since I was a very visible person out there taking care of people with HIV and being the government face of the response
I became the target of the attacks and one of the best things I've ever done was to drop back and put aside the theatrics and listen to what they were saying and when you listen to what they were saying and put aside the provocative behavior what they were saying was making perfectly sense
and I came to the immediate conclusion that if I were in the issues I would be doing exactly what they were doing and that's when I brought them in and I myself became an AIDS activist and I became an advocate for them and that was the process that didn't turn around overnight it took weeks
and months and years to finally get to the point where their contribution was much value added and to this day you know fast forward 43 years those people are now literally some of my closest friends and colleagues and in fact as I describe in the memoir you know people like Peter Staley
and David Barr are my closest advisors now when they were my antagonists back then. So how did you know now in this do you imagine that happening with the COVID crisis medical science as we said has gotten increasing politicized it brings you worries about the next major health crisis and you
just testified at a house hearing back in June tied to the investigation into COVID's origins and you had congresswoman Marjorie Telegrain who seems to have a particular interest in you got particularly fired up saying that you should be jailed for repulsive evil science.
Do you see that happening here years from now? Well well Cara it's as I say when people ask that that it is completely inappropriate to compare the confrontation of the activists with the vitriol and ad hominem that's going on right now because back then I invoke the the iconic civil rights
leader John Lewis who said in the civil rights movement we may trouble but it was good trouble you know the activists the AIDS activists were making good trouble because quite frankly they were correct what's going on now where you have the extremists you know mostly call right republicans
in those committees and and the right wing media like Fox News and others to them it's pure attack it's ad hominem and vitriol it isn't a question of let's work together to see how we can make things better if you go back to that committee hearing that I testified as the sole witness in June
you're absolutely correct the purpose reported purpose of the hearing was how can we look forward and make things better to help us prepare better for the next pandemic there was nothing about that hearing that resemble that it was all attack attack in fact and if you look at some of the members
you know on the GOP side like Marjorie Taylor Greene you know and Ronnie Jackson and and Jim Jordan they didn't ask any questions they just spent their entire five minutes attacking so I don't think that that is an indication that they want to gain our attention to make things better so I think
it's very it's totally different than the AIDS activists I mean it's like cherries and watermelon can I follow up on that please so I don't think young people realize you know we're hoping that COVID is the health crisis of their age but for those of us living in San Francisco in the 90s
I'm much I found the AIDS crisis substantially more traumatizing you were walking around meeting people at parties three months later you heard that AIDS six months later they were gone and my godfather my oldest was diagnosed as HIV positive after his partner died and he was starting to get it
as his affairs in order and then science lifted him up science caught him and now he's a spin instructor thriving career married again when you look out there I mean people just don't realize what a miracle this this has been when you look out there on the horizon because I want to be a
little bit more optimistic do you what kind of potential do you see what disease category or what types of different breakthroughs do you think were closest to them might provide the type of miracle that the the AIDS cocktails provided nearly a part of the millennium yeah well Scott thank
you for bringing that up and you know it gets back to what I just mentioned to Cara a little bit ago that my book is 40% or maybe 50% HIV because of the reason that you point it out it is a miracle of biomedical research where I was taking care of people from 81 2 3 4 5 6 7 that were all dying
and now all of my patients I see in the outpatient department who come in just to say hello just incredible I mean that's all they can buy is to say I'm doing fine and they're productive they have families they're just they're they're leading essentially in all the lives but but jumping ahead
to your question is that I think it that there is the possibility that advances in biomedical research will continue to allow us to meet the challenges of new emerging diseases and I think what we did with the COVID vaccine is a classic example of that the idea of the decades of investment
in basic and clinical biomedical research that led to the mRNA technology which is an extremely adaptable vaccine platform and the immunigent design that really started off decades earlier in the attempts to make an HIV vaccine led to a vaccine that was unprecedented in the speed in which
you add a safe and effective vaccine 11 months from the time that the sequence of the virus was put on a public database to the time an effective and safe vaccine was going into the arms of individuals if we continue that kind of support of basic and clinical biomedical research we can essentially
affect the same sort of miracles in the future for emerging infections similar to what we've seen with COVID the one thing that we need to work a lot on that did not serve us so well was the local public health infrastructure and the relationship between the central public health process and the
local like identification isolation contact tracing it was very fragmented and cities and states did it differently as opposed to a uniform well thought out response that everyone could benefit from there was a lot of political influence on whether or not you decided to get vaccinated or
not which is so tragic that people decided not to utilize a life saving intervention merely based on ideological considerations I mean that should never enter into a public health arena but it has obviously I mean it's it's do you feel like it's done in that regard because look there's all
this misinformation people say I know better you know you have a you have a candidate running for office a third party candidate in RFK junior who is just insisting and is and and also his his running mate that it causes autism vaccines that I have people who I never thought would tell me
idiotic things like that tell me things like that constantly I don't want to put it is often very liberal people which it's not it's not necessarily you know Trump voters or anybody else and it's a really interesting shift in attitude towards public health which is distrustful that there's
nobody knows the the the heart stuff everything else and it's by prominent figures this is not a this is not sort of a group of wacky people who would just do this and then you have it fueled by online you know misinformation and personal attacks on you to try to denigrate you uh to to make
you into something you're not do is there any way to put it back that you get trust in public health going forward or you know a lot of people feel like public health has done a disservice to itself by not not being more flexible or open-minded towards people with questions no I think obviously we
always have to be open-minded to us people with legitimate questions but you know Cara it's sometimes really very difficult to counter absolute frank conspiracy theories that are totally unfounded in facts I mean the data to show that not only does vaccines not cause autism but that
is no relationship whatsoever between vang and the data are overwhelming and it's just you know I don't want to be being prudjorative about people like rfk jr but unless he's got a scrambled brain I mean he can't be a stupid guy and he's got to realize that the data are overwhelming and
if he wants to really make a decision based on information and evidence it's inconceivable that he's still talking about autism but he is but I've seen dozens of people who should know better should know better doesn't seem to be working anymore no it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't I just say
public health in that regard well public health suffers Cara and the problem is that the the social media ability to spread misinformation and disinformation is something in 2024 and recent years much much different than what I faced as a young physician back in the 1970s and
1980s it's just that it appears that those who spread misinformation and disinformation are extremely energetic about it it's almost as if they don't have a day job you know and the people who are who are no better and are trying to spread correct evidence based information have a lot
of other things to do with themselves and they can't be spending all their time trying to counter people who seem to do nothing but spread misinformation and disinformation by the social media so it's almost like we're being out energized by the people who are spreading false information and
I guess you know my owny solution I wouldn't even call it a solution but my only option I would think would be to get people who care about the truth to put a little bit more energy in spreading correct information although they see what's happens to you and don't really want to do that right
they don't well you know that's true I mean you get death threats you are constantly you become an icon to the right in it not a good way um you know it has personal it has personal prices to pay for that it does but you know when people ask me is that a disincentive to go into
public health and public service my response is always that the gratification and the positive impact you can have by going into public health and public service far outweighs the negative aspects that people throw at you even though it's uncomfortable that we have to put up with that
the positive aspects of public service and public health it must be very positive because I wouldn't want to be you I think uh so doctor it feels as if unfortunately mass and vaccines were somewhat not somewhat we're politicized even weaponized mostly on the far right but I would argue
on the far left we in a weird way politicized obesity and that is we didn't want to have an honest conversation about it because we saw it as fat shaming um we're most of the deaths somewhat directly indirectly related to this other pandemic in the US that continues to rage on and that is
obesity one do you agree with that and two I would just love to get your thoughts on glp1 drug yeah well Scott good point you're absolutely correct if you look at the two or three conditions that would put somewhere at a higher risk if they were infected of progressing to a severe
outcome with hospitalizations and deaths obesity is at the top of the list obesity and obesity is associated with diabetes diabetes is the other one at the top of the list obesity is associated with hypertension hypertension is also one of the top three or four so obesity is really a very
very high risk now you're asking what my opinion is of the glucagon peptide one you know I every bit of data that I see about that is a positive impact you know not only on diminishing the amount of obesity that an individual would have but also diminishing some of
the other risks heart disease or hypertension or or what have you so I think we're still in the early phases of the of the glp1 but I would like to watch it carefully and think that ultimately it's going to be a very positive impact on a lot of different people who cannot control
their obesity for the normal ways of just saying stop eating so much which you know when someone who's morbidly and chronically obese that is not a good answer no not at all and it leads to so many other outcomes when you're thinking of right now obviously health mental health is something
that's also been a big deal when you look at all the swirl around both Donald Trump and Joe Biden around their cognitive abilities it seems like medicine is is something that is just there nothing there's nothing everyone's a doctor everybody's knows what they're talking about everyone
comments on it and yet we have we're going to have a next pandemic we're going to have a next healthcare crisis how do you change that when you think about that dynamic when when everybody is an expert is that does does that have a deleterious effect on health public health well yeah because
everyone thinks they're an expert I think I would correct what you were saying if everyone was an expert there would be no problem we'd have a lot of expertise floating around but it's just that everybody thinks they're an expert and that's when you get into a problem because then people
can't determine the difference between one and another you look at do anything around AI are you a lot of people I talk to in Silicon Valley are you know they they talk about the the possibilities of AI helping health care drug discovery drug interaction cancer research how are you approaching
that well I don't I mean I'm in a position now of not utilizing AI but I observe from my purchase of experience and medicine for over 50 years that there are many many positive aspects of AI obviously there were those who were concerned about the negative aspects of AI but the ones
that are obvious like for example with all of the information you put into things like reading X-rays or reading skin biopsies or reading you know visual imaging of retina or CT scans or MRI scans AI is can have a very positive effect I think we obviously have to have the proper control
so that it isn't used inappropriately but I myself you know that's not my lane I don't utilize that you're demonized I mean and I wonder all right you've got a very distinct career you've highly credentialed you've earned your accolades your titles and your demonized you're working your
ass off and people are demonizing you there's just no way that can't take a toll on you mentally and emotionally I'm just curious what practices or or what you did to kind of manage your own mental health you know Scott that's a great question and I have the ability and I've developed it over the
years to compartmentalize and to focus like a laser beam on what my what my goals are what my function is you know as a physician it was taking care of patients and everything else get shielded out as a scientist it's to do the best possible science and as a public health official
to keep my eye of the ball of my goal and my function is to preserve and protect the health of the American public and since the United States you know was such a leader in public health indirectly for the rest of the world all of the other stuff although you know what when you look at
it at face value it's you know nobody likes to be demonized but I I try and I believe succeed in filtering that stuff out and realizing that it's just one of the you know the liabilities of our society today the other thing is I have an amazing support structure I describe it in my
memoir my wife Christine is just an amazing person with rock solid person in being able to just always keep me grounded in reality of who I am and never let me forget the about who I am and what I should be doing so support structures are really really important and I'd fortunate enough
to have someone who's lived through it with me and is a very wise person whose counsel I hold very very dear so what's next for you what is your next move well you know one of the reasons I step down besides wanting to go ahead and and write my memoir which I've now finished and it's out
so that's that's behind me was I wanted to use my many decades of experience to perhaps inspire young people who might be thinking about getting into public health or public service or who are already in public health and public service so I now am a distinguished university professor
in a dual appointment in the School of Medicine in the School of Public Policy at Georgetown and I enjoy very much the interaction with students when I was at the NIH for more than 50 years it was mostly interacting with doctoral level and senior scientists and others here when you're dealing
with 19 20 21 year old 25 year old students there's a whole different milieu that you have there that is really very gratifying to be able to help them advise them inspire them that's what I'm doing now and I'm enjoying it very much if don't jump wins there are
threats to you and others are you worried in any way they have made threats a lot of them you know Cara I the answer is I don't want to seem like I'm a you know the brave hero but no I'm not worried about it you know what is going to be is going to be if they if they do the ridiculous thing
of retribution and revenge I don't know what to have on revenge about I look at what have I done that you want to have revenge against me but you know if you do well you know well I don't know what to say except I'm not going to let it bother me all right well keep teaching we really
appreciate it Dr. Anthony Fauci again the book is called on call a doctor's journey in public service thank you doctor thank you Scott one more quick break we'll be right back for predictions Scott let's revisit some predictions we got right Trump media and technologies down almost
70% in the last month which we predicted would happen it's just it's not a company stop it people it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a thing on whether Trump is going to be president or not that's what it is it's an indication of whether he is and as I predicted JD Vance strain to be a poor
choice for the GOP largely because I know him so that you know I think he's charmless and weird and everything about him is strange and I think he's actually usually vice presidents don't matter but in this case what a bad choice in any case I had I had the nightmare idea that Trump would
dump him and then picnic he hailey which would be it would probably cause him to win in some ways but Scott give us your prediction well I just love correlating a reverse engineering from the financialization and politicization of everything means that what happens in the political
spectrum has impact on stocks now and our prediction last week was that it went from 46 to 36 and Donald Trump media was going to go below 30 and it's having it about 30 today because it's become a tracking stock for Trump's likelihood of recapturing the White House and I think the
same thing is going to happen to Tesla Tesla is kind of there are meme stocks DJT media is a total meme stock it's trading on things that have nothing to do with the underlying valuation companies like AMC and GameStop are pretty close to that they've kind of disassociated their valuation from
the underlying businesses which are generally shitty businesses a company that's kind of squarely in the middle is Tesla because it is it is to be fair it's a great company it's it has incredible products it's been incredibly innovative it does spin off recast low it's growing it has marked
the EV revolution but it trades at kind of a meme stock valuation that is even with its growth prospects it's very hard to imagine it ever growing into a valuation of again twice the P ratio of Ferrari which is kind of a vanity buy so I think what's the narrative that's going to play
out as a following I think we're about to be a bunch of stories saying that all of these tech libertarian billionaires co-sing up to Trump in exchange for political favors and advantages that would advantage their business I think there's going to be more stories about okay you've gone
all in on Trump and you think it's going to get you business which by that logic means that if in fact it's a Harris presidency it's going to be really bad for your business that it's going to be unlikely she's going to put more tariffs on B.Y.D. it's going to be unlikely that she puts
pressure on the Fed or Janet Yellen to come up with some bachelors crazy lack of regulation that sends crypto through through the roof also it's unlikely she'll stop the SEC from coming after your act that's that's exactly right and so I think people at the media is going to start connecting
the dots there and companies associated with this new techno libertarian all in on Trump are going to think this could be bad I mean typically speaking companies wisely other than behind the scenes funneling money to people who are behind their interest do not come out in favor of
certain candidates so I think one you're going to see I think Andrews and Horowitz and Sequoia were just just did not do the scenario planning here around giving a full-throated endorsement of Trump but I think the stock that will and this is not financial advice I've never been more wrong
than when I talk about Tesla stock but I can't help but think people are going to start to write articles on how bad will a Harris administration be for Tesla and I think that's going to impact the stock as she does better the stock will do worse that is absolutely true although
exactly right DJT is still worth 5.7 billion yeah but hey it's the car it's got four million in revenue is loving it only lost I don't want to be right yeah it only lost a third of a billion on seven million in revenue I know why can't we get into this racket we need to get into it how do we
care a media caram media dog jungle cat social Scott and caram media truth no it has to have your name in it too I know you're gonna leave me someday but that's will be okay I'm just a good looking guy in the background that's right that's how people think of us you the good side piece well you
did look good on the today so I have to say you're even handsome thank you for saying that that's really all the matters really good I really appreciate it anyway I love seeing you succeed okay Scott that's the show we'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot please read us out today
show is produced by Lauren Amon sewing Marcus and Taylor Griffin earning your Todd engine during this episode thanks also to Drew Burrows and Milsa Vario Nishat Kruwa as Vox Media's executive producer Vodio make sure you're subscribed to show whatever you listen to podcasts thanks
for listening to pivot from New York Magazine of Vox Media you can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod we'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care have a great week come if you've been enjoying this podcast here's a look into
what else is happening at New York magazine I'm Corey Seeker and I'm here with Reeves Wideamann who has written about the American obsession with NDAs where did they come from why are they everywhere and are they good for anything besides covering up for abusers after you poked
around NDAs for a while do you see NDAs used mostly as tools of abuse and coercion you see positive results like where where did you land on NDAs I think in most situations it is used as a way to sort of claim power but not even necessarily to like to do a bad thing it's just kind of it is this
now the sort of boring standard tool in the toolbox of corporations or powerful people but now it's being used on the people at the bottom it's the warehouse workers at amazon being made to sign them or like I was just trawling job listings while doing the story and there were NDAs for forklift
drivers and like people working in butcher shops and I think on the one hand it's just kind of like well I might as well there's no downside for me to do this but it is also just another way that you sort of keep your employees or people you get into a relationship with and that you sort of keep
your thumb on them so I do think it is at the end of the day the people who are giving them out by and large are trying to control someone do you think that they're going to become standard for like literally every interaction and job interview and possibly relationship as well or do you think
they're just finally going to die or become outlawed like where do we go from here you know it was corporations first then it was celebrities then it was just rich people who aren't famous but they also want to protect their privacy the next frontier is people like you and me and and are we
going to start giving them to their partners you know I think some people are going to start start experimenting with it it doesn't take much to go online download a free NDA and without even consulting a lawyer and hand it over to someone I did as a joke send one to my girlfriend uh she
hasn't signed it yet but uh but I I yeah I at least sent it so that's Reeves Widermint who may I may not be single soon you can read his work on NDAs in our beautiful print magazine in your own home or on nymag.com slash lineup