Cuomo digs in, Chaos in the skies, and Evictions delayed... perhaps

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Galloway is off again today because all he does is take vacations. We were lucky to be joined by attorney and contributing columnist at The Washington Post, George Conway. Hello, George.

George Conway: Hello. How are you doing? Thank you for having me, Kara.

Kara Swisher: No problem. We're trying to do all these different co-hosts. This week, we had Stephanie Rule. We've got a lot of people coming up. But I wanted to bring you in. There's lots of news to talk about. And you know, sort of the idea of the way the show goes. But I really wanted to talk about legal things with you, obviously, but anything else you want to talk about? People are surprised me in terms of what they're interested in. But let's start a little bit about air travel. I just interviewed the head of American Airlines, Doug Parker, and he was talking about the bailout and all kinds of things. But one thing that, in flight cancellations, it's a rough summer for the airline industry, even though it got $56 billion from the federal government because of pandemic disruptions and because of a wide range of things, including unruly people on the airlines. I just wanted to get some sense from you. There's all kinds of things going on. American and Spirit Airlines cancel hundreds of flights due to weather and staffing issues. Not enough people. The staff are dealing with major passenger incidents. Frontier Airlines crew duct taped an unruly passenger in a seat on a Miami-bound flight after he groped an attendant this past weekend. A few hours earlier, an American Eagle crew had to break up a brawl between two men. The Association of Flight Attendants is calling for criminal penalties for unruly passengers. What do you think about all this? How would you handle it, lawyer George?

George Conway: How would I handle it? I don't know how I would handle it in the sense that I don't know there's anything different to do other than you get the people off the plane and you arrest them and you prosecute them, particularly that guy. What's his name? Cuomo?

Kara Swisher: No, no, not Cuomo. We'll get to Cuomo. Don't worry. Yeah, the Frontier Airlines guy.

George Conway: Nice, George. Nice. Andrew, Andrew.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, we'll call him Andrew C.

George Conway: In C20AD. No, you just have to get them off. I think the interesting thing to me is what the F is going on out there with all these people behaving like this. I hate to politicize it and say that this is just part of the political realm that we're in. But I think there's some kind of a crisis going on in this country where people are no longer adhering to basic social norms or wanting to defy them. Now, this guy was probably drunk off his ass.

Kara Swisher: Yes. They've cut – the head of American Airlines told them they don't have liquor on the planes now.

George Conway: Yeah. Yeah, they got to cut back on the alcohol, but there's something going on. I obviously haven't run the numbers and I'm not a statistician, but this does seem to be something statistically significant going on here. It's some kind of a societal behavioral thing. I'd love to hear what some social scientist has to say about this, what kind of sociologists.

Kara Swisher: So what do you imagine to do anything about it? The politicization of everything. I like all the dogs in the background. We're going to leave them in the thing, don't worry.

George Conway: Yeah, they're unruly and they've probably had their dog nip for the day. I'm sorry for that. But it adds a little to the process.

Kara Swisher: So this is this idea of institutional decline that has been going on for years and years, helped by the pandemic. And people then getting out and then having the pandemic return, essentially.

George Conway: Yeah, and I think it's that. But I also think there's just something. With a lot of people now, it's like, I don't care what anybody says. I'm going to do what I think and I'm going to live in my own reality. And everybody can go fuck themselves. I don't know if that has something to do with what we've been through the last four years.

Kara Swisher: So is there a solution? Do you imagine that it would just change? People will calm down?

George Conway: I don't know. I honestly don't – is that a permissible answer?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's fine.

George Conway: I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'd love to know. I'd love to know what it is that's causing all this.

Kara Swisher: Right. And because it does seem like it's statistically, you can see the uptick. It's real numbers.

George Conway: Yeah, there are real numbers.

Kara Swisher: The FAA reported more than 3,000 cases of unruly behavior by passengers in the first half of 2021. This included nearly 2,500 instances where passengers refused to comply with the federal face mask mandate. I think the mask stuff began it, right? This fight over the mask.

George Conway: Yeah, but the mask stuff didn't begin with the mask stuff. If it weren't the masks, it would be something else.

Kara Swisher: Right, right. Like vaccination.

George Conway: And it's just people are reverting to behaving like five-year-olds where it's like, "Oh, you're telling me to do something? I'm not going to do it."

Kara Swisher: So one of the things that's also happening is that Congress is not getting along with mask mandates or whatever. And there was a big fight over the CDC extending its eviction moratorium through October 3rd, a move that might be on shaky ground. The move only applies to areas experiencing "substantial and high levels of community transmission." Chuck Schumer claims that's 90 percent of the country. In June, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned that the CDC's eviction ban was overstepping its authority. Joe Biden seems to know this. But the White House wants states to distribute $46 billion in emergency rent relief. So far, only $3 billion has been dispersed. An estimated 11 million adults are behind in their rental payments. It's a really difficult question. Representative Cori Bush slept on the steps of the Capitol to call attention to it. Even if it's illegal, what do you think is going to happen here?

George Conway: I think it's going to get struck down by the courts. The problem is, there was a moratorium that Congress actually enacted into law, which is the right way to do it. And then that expired. Now the CDC is relying on its general authority to protect the public health, which would include lockdowns if necessary, closing the border, normal types of things that historically governments have done to stop pandemics and the spread of communicable diseases. An eviction moratorium does not fall within that. There's nothing to believe that an eviction is more likely to spread COVID-19 than you going to the supermarket. In fact, it's probably less so because you're not going into a public place with a lot of people. This is really just an economic issue, and that's not within the purview of the CDC. The proper way to do this is to pass a law that says you can't have evictions for a set period of time because of the pandemic, if Congress is willing to do that. And if you really feel that you need to help renters who are having economic difficulty, the right way to do that is not to place the burden specifically and narrowly on landlords who aren't necessarily all Jared Kushner. They could be Kara Swisher renting out her basement.

Kara Swisher: I am a landlord.

George Conway: And it's not fair to people who own property that they should bear the entire burden of this. If there's going to be a burden, it should be borne by all taxpayers. And that's the idea behind the actual relief, which is the problem.

Kara Swisher: Which is interesting. The housing market is also exploding.

George Conway: Yeah, which is sort of inconsistent with the whole eviction moratorium thing. It means people are moving around. If you were really serious and you thought it was a public health issue, just don't move.

Kara Swisher: Don't move, right. Exactly. Of course, we're not going to do that. What do you think Biden is going to do? From a political point of view, it makes him look good, like trying to help people.

George Conway: It makes him look good. Well, it gets certain people off his back. But the disturbing thing to me as a lawyer is the rule of law aspect of it. The president of the United States, no matter who he is, is sworn to faithfully execute the laws, including the Constitution. He shouldn't be doing things that he thinks are probably not legal, even for political purposes, because nobody should be doing that. It doesn't matter whether it's the wall where Trump illegally diverted money to it. It doesn't matter whether it's DeSantis in Florida with his social media bullshit, which clearly violates the First Amendment. He's obligated to follow the Constitution and the laws as a public official. It doesn't matter whether it's for a good purpose or not, because one person's good purpose may not be yours.

Kara Swisher: Right.

George Conway: The good purpose may be Donald Trump thinking that he should be elected president when he wasn't. It's a slippery slope. I don't mean to make an equivalency between this eviction ban and the wall and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, because that would be a false equivalency. But the solution is to pass something. The problem is if one side does something, the other side will invoke some kind of false equivalent and say, "Well, if they could do this, we can do this."

Kara Swisher: Right, right. And we're off to the races.

George Conway: And it's a very dangerous and bad thing. And we're on a plane throwing drinks at each other. It's the same thing.

Kara Swisher: Well, yeah.

George Conway: That's one of the reasons why, as a lawyer, I've always been a conservative. Historically, there had been a tendency for liberals to twist the law and the Constitution to achieve ends that weren't necessarily consistent with the statute or the Constitution. That whole rule of law concept is why I think we have only one party that's trying to adhere to the rule of law, which is now the Democratic Party. So to see Biden do this, it's like, somebody's got to hold the floor on the rule of law. I really would like them to just bite the bullet and say, "We can't do this legally. Congress absolutely has to act, though, because there are a lot of people struggling."

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there are a lot of people. And they've shoveled out how many trillions of dollars already. To everybody.

George Conway: Too many. Too much.

Kara Swisher: Well, some people think so. Some people don't. Okay. So moving on to some politics. Two small special elections in Ohio with some bigger implications. Trump-backed Republican candidate and a centrist Democrat won the primary elections in a pair of open seats Tuesday. Mike Carey, a political newcomer backed by President Donald Trump, beat a field of experienced Republicans in the Columbus area. The former president's preferred candidate lost in a special election in Texas last week. Shontel Brown, a centrist backed by Hillary Clinton and the Congressional Black Caucus, beat out a progressive candidate, Nina Turner, who was backed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Large candidate fields, low voter turnout. We can't read too much into these elections. But what could we say is going on about Trump and his declaration of his kingmaker status? And then the influence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party?

George Conway: I can speak to the influence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party just on the basis of this one-off special election. I think the Texas race is interesting because it was a general election with everyone on the ballot. That meant the Democrats were voting and moderates or independents were voting. It just shows you that they're going to vote against Donald Trump's candidates. That's the problem that the Republicans have. He may be able to pick particular candidates in a primary, but it doesn't mean they win general elections except in districts that are unlosable for Republicans.

Kara Swisher: So it's not necessarily a sign, but it's something to be watched for. Do you think he's a kingmaker?

George Conway: I think he can ruin somebody more than he's a kingmaker.

Kara Swisher: Ah, that's interesting. That's what I think.

George Conway: His power is the power of destruction. That's what he does. He doesn't create anything; he destroys, because that's the nature of his personality. That's the way he exerts power in the Republican Party, through the threat of destruction. He may destroy himself in the process. He kind of did that by losing the House, the Senate, and the presidency, which he could have won if he were actually competent and sane, even with the pandemic, I believe. He engages in destructive conduct, and that is why they are all terrified of him. That's why they go along with it, because they are afraid of what he will do if they defy him. He'll take everybody down with him.

Kara Swisher: So when you talk to people behind the scenes, what is the attitude? "We're just going to go along"? You've been sort of for shame for doing this. You've written a lot.

George Conway: I don't really talk to people who are in the Republican Party who are just kowtowing to Trump. I just don't have that many people to talk to about that. But I do think that everybody is taking the path of least resistance. It's this incredibly short-termist view that they've been taking for four years. It keeps making things worse and worse.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they don't make a stand. Very few.

George Conway: They can't. I think they're incapable of it now.

Kara Swisher: Well, now they can't. They can't go back. All right. We're going to get on to our big story, your favorite one. Governor Andrew Cuomo is running out of supporters following the report by New York Attorney General Letitia James detailing evidence of sexual harassment and creating a toxic work environment. President Biden, Nancy Pelosi, New York's entire Democratic congressional delegation said he should step down. Over 80 New York State Assembly lawmakers said they would support starting an impeachment process if Cuomo doesn't resign, which takes a couple of months. Rudy Giuliani does seem to be one prominent defender, which is not great. Giuliani tweeted, "Cuomo may be guilty, but we used to have trials for convictions," which is a fair point, Rudy. That's what Cuomo's Democratic allies denied President Trump. There would be poetic justice if they did that to Cuomo, but it would be unjust, dangerous, and entirely un-American. So what do you think about this? Talk from a legal point of view, because Letitia James did not bring legal charges, although other jurisdictions are looking at that.

George Conway: Let me take a step back here. An unwanted touching is technically criminal. He felt up this executive assistant. Technically, you could charge that. Do people get charged for things that don't involve ripping people's clothes off? Probably not. Is it necessarily sexual harassment? It probably is, in terms of the civil aspect of it. To me, the bigger question is, who is this man and why do you want to have somebody who is just this abusive and self-narcissistic in a position of authority over people? The answer is, you don't. That's the real problem here. What put him over the cliff were the first two accounts in the report. The one with the executive assistant that he called into the office on the weekend and made a pass at, to use 1950s lingo. And then the state trooper one, which was just gross. Even though the physical contact there was brief, the whole context of it was abusive. The combination of those two, more so than some of the others which everybody already knew about, put him over the edge politically.

Kara Swisher: But legally, he is not in jeopardy criminally, correct?

George Conway: I don't think so. You could technically bring a charge of physical assault, but they generally don't do that. Sexual harassment, to me, is a multidimensional thing. You have the degree of the physical aspect, the degree of the verbal aspect, the number of times it's repeated with one person and others, and the credibility aspect of contemporaneous corroboration—did the victim tell people at the time or relatively soon after? Here, the physical aspect wasn't rape or sexual assault. I'm just making an assessment of how bad it is in terms of whether you give somebody the employment death penalty. You fire them. You kick them out of their job. If there had just been one or two of these incidents, leaving apart the groping, you might be able to say in an employment context, "Cut the shit." Although they don't tolerate much of that these days. If he were CEO of a major corporation, he'd be gone. Because he did it with so many people, and it's clear that he disregards—

Kara Swisher: It's 11 women claiming harassment. Not all of them were hugely awful, but when you put it all together, it's awful.

George Conway: Right. And it just shows you his mentality and his perception of a droit de seigneur.

Kara Swisher: Is that how you say it?

George Conway: Yes. That's exactly how you say it. It's a bad example. If you wouldn't permit this in the private sector, you absolutely should not permit it in the public sector. That was always one of the points I liked to make about Trump: if he were in any other job, he would have been fired.

Kara Swisher: So when you look at how Letitia James handled this, and obviously there's rumors she's going to run for governor, right? That seems likely. A lot of AGs have jumped from there to the governor's seat or tried to. How do you think she handled it?

George Conway: She put in an outside firm. I think that was absolutely the right approach. It insulated her from the political aspect of it. These are two professionals with professional reputations who were brought in especially for this. And remember, guess who asked for this? He did. Cuomo asked for this. "Okay, here you are. Here it is." He's got no business complaining about it.

Kara Swisher: Well, he did. He said it was political. In his video, what do you imagine?

George Conway: I know, but he's got no business complaining about it. The facts are the facts. They described the testimony in excruciating detail and released tons of exhibits. You don't have to read very far to come to the conclusion that if one half of this is true, he should go.

Kara Swisher: So you thought she handled it well?

George Conway: Yeah, I think she handled it very, very well. And he obviously did not.

Kara Swisher: You see that huge controversy of them trying to trash Lindsey Boylan.

George Conway: Oh, Lindsey Boylan, yes. Yeah, they did that. They continued.

Kara Swisher: Which was just sort of—

George Conway: Yeah. I can see where they were going because at that point, it was really just her and she did leave their office on bad terms and apparently there were people there who didn't like her. But that's how they do it. Anytime you attack a victim, particularly when you don't have the facts on your side in terms of the sexual harassment act, you're just going to blow yourself up. If you go out and defend the alleged perpetrator without knowing all the facts, you just have to assume that with some of these guys, there's so much under the waterline that you can't see at first. That's what happened here. These guys who do this shit are usually recidivistic.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. All right? It's not just one thing. Typically, when they engage in this kind of conduct, they think they can get away with it, which amazes me in 2021 that you could ever think that. I think he's brazening it out, but I think he's doing a trauma. Everyone's talked about that. The video. This guy's a narcissist.

George Conway: Yes. He's a world-class narcissist.

Kara Swisher: But what do you think of his video? "I did it with everyone. Black and white, young and old, straight and LGBTQ, powerful people, friends, strangers, people who I meet on the street." I was like, "You're a creep with everybody?" What do you think about that?

George Conway: It's a bad faith false equivalency.

Kara Swisher: So what would you do if you were his lawyer?

George Conway: I think the only argument you can make is that maybe it's not a high crime or misdemeanor. I don't know what the standard is for impeachment under the New York state constitution. I think he's got to go full contrition mode. It's a little late for that. He should say, "These are not grounds for removal of a governor," but also engage in full contrition mode. The problem is he can't really engage in full contrition mode because some of the allegations are so bad and he's locked himself in testimonially. If he all of a sudden says, "Yes, I'm sorry, I did all this stuff," he can't do that with the stuff he's denied because then he's basically admitting perjury, which is a crime.

Kara Swisher: Right, right. And that could be one aspect you could throw in in an impeachment trial—that he may have perjured himself. If he's denying the grope and he's denying the touching of the state trooper and so on. Lastly, what happens with the civil cases here? Obviously, there are other cases being looked at in Manhattan and Albany. What happens now from a legal point of view with him? Or are these just civil cases that he will have to deal with?

George Conway: These individuals, if they choose to, could sue him. The law is pretty tough on sexual harassment claims. You have to show that there is this pervasive problem that really alters the conditions of employment in such a fashion that it's different for one person of one gender and different for another. But if you read the stories of these women, you go into the office every day and you dread it. His best defense, weirdly, would be that he's such an asshole that everybody was miserable there for different reasons. The report actually talks about that.

Kara Swisher: Elizabeth Spiers wrote about it. He was a screamer and a yeller and just a psychological abuser.

George Conway: So oddly, that would be his best defense—that he mistreated both men and women. Although frankly, he mistreated women in a way that was a bit different because of the sexual aspect of it.

Kara Swisher: So do you think he's going to be impeached? That's probably where it's going.

George Conway: Yes, I think he's going to be impeached or removed.

Kara Swisher: Removed. Okay. All right, George, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the insurrection hearings and take a listener mail question.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, George, we're back with another big story. The latest revelations coming out of the investigations into the January 6th attack on the Capitol. ABC News got a hold of, reviewed a collection of Justice Department documents turned over to the House and Senate committees. First off, there were some emails at the end of December 2020 where the former acting head of the DOJ's civil division, wandering out of his area, Jeffrey Clark, circulating a draft letter asking Georgia's governor and state lawmakers to investigate claims of voter fraud in the state. He was trying to get acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donahue to sign off on this letter. They refused. Then there was the draft of an unsent resignation letter that Rosen's chief of staff wrote in case Rosen got fired during the January 6th meeting with Trump. He didn't, but the letter detailed his intent to resign over what he said were former presidents' direct instructions to use the department to support false election fraud claims. Rosen and Donahue later thwarted an attempt by Clark to have Trump appoint him acting attorney general. So, wow, the Justice Department is quite a place. Tell us about your insights into what was going on here from a legal point of view and also a political point of view in a place that's not supposed to be that. I mean, I think both legal and politically.

George Conway: I mean, basically what was happening here was Donald Trump was trying to politicize the Justice Department, to use the Justice Department in an illegal fashion to perpetuate himself in office. And he was doing it in a manner that reflected the fact that he didn't really care whether there was proof of the fraud that he was claiming had been perpetrated upon him. I mean, he told Rosen and Donahue, basically, don't worry about the facts. Just say that there was fraud and we'll take care of the rest. There was this note in Donahue's notes that basically said, you know, I and Trump and the Republicans in the House will take care of it.

Kara Swisher: Right.

George Conway: So, you know, that to me, those documents show – they really show as much as anything else his criminal intent.

Kara Swisher: Right. Yeah. You tweeted that. You tweeted that.

George Conway: Yeah, absolutely, because they just show that he absolutely was – he didn't care about the legal aspects of it. He didn't actually want the Justice Department to do something that would argue – that might be within its purview, which would be to enforce the law. He didn't actually care. He just wanted them to make a statement that he could use politically. And under the criminal provision of the Hatch Act, you cannot force or try to coerce anybody. That includes the President of the United States can't do this. Can't try to coerce anybody into engaging into political activity. And this was purely political precisely because they were basically telling him there's nothing legally that we can do because the facts aren't there and that's not really our role. And he's just saying, so what? You know, make this statement and make this statement in effect for his own political benefit.

Kara Swisher: So what happens then? This has happened time and again.

George Conway: Well, again, I wish the Justice Department now would engage in the enforcement of the criminal law against Donald Trump because this is a pretty clear violation right here. You could argue that some other statutes were violated. And in terms of other things that Trump did, the fact that he just didn't care about what the facts were and just blew past the facts, and the fact that he told the Georgia Secretary of State that he just needed to find 10,000 X number of votes, just shows basically that he was attempting to steal the election himself. He was attempting to do what he was accusing everybody else of doing, and that should be criminal under federal and state law. And I just don't – you know, I understand the hesitance of the Justice Department to get into this because it's –

Kara Swisher: Because he will politicize it.

George Conway: It's politically fraught. But I don't know how you can let this pass.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but they seem like they're going to. Because now Rosen and Donahue are expected to provide interviews in coming days. This is why Donald Trump doesn't like lawyers. They take notes.

George Conway: They take notes, right. I know there's this famous passage in the Mueller report where he was trashing McGahn for taking notes. And McGahn says, no, no, no, no, good lawyers take notes. And then Trump said, oh, no, no, I had great lawyers like Roy Cohn, and they never took notes. But yeah, I think you're going to hear – I mean the story was basically they knew the election wasn't stolen. They knew this was all bullshit. Barr knew it, which is why he basically quit, because he told Trump that and Trump had had enough with him. And I think the rest of them who were left after Barr left were basically trying to run out the clock. And they were fending off these demands and requests and emails and bullshit emanating from the White House and just trying to run out the clock to January 20th to the point. But also there was this point on January 3rd where Trump was ready to fire Rosen and replace him with this guy you mentioned, Jeffrey Clark, who was the assistant attorney general in terms of the environmental and national resources division and then had become acting head of the civil division. and who basically was all in on the stop the steal and was doing all sorts of crazy stuff and was having conversations directly with Trump and angling to be the replacement for Rosen.

Kara Swisher: So what happens to him? What happens to him? A lot of people are talking about disbarring him.

George Conway: I don't know. I think I'd have to know more facts about what he did because when you get disbarred for something, usually it's for, you'd have to do something, if he had filed something in court that was dishonest, if he had made a public statement in connection with a case like Rudy Giuliani did, you could get suspended or disbarred, which is what happened to Giuliani. You know, here he was just doing, he was engaging in bad conduct within the confines of the government, although really not acting on behalf of the government. I don't think he ended up actually doing anything. Maybe you could get him on conspiracy to engage in, you know, yeah, it's difficult. I just don't see, you know, because he was thwarted, I don't think there are necessarily going to be any ramifications for him other than, I don't know if he'll ever get a job again.

Kara Swisher: Or, you know, you did tweet it, this is a criminal intent, but you think this is going nowhere.

George Conway: Right. Yeah. I think that's right.

Kara Swisher: What about the committee calling McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy and Jordan? This is another proceeding. It's a political proceeding, but it's also a legal proceeding to find an investigation.

George Conway: Yeah, I think they have to. I think particularly McCarthy, because we already know that there was some kind of conversation or conversations that day between McCarthy and Trump. And we know pieces of those conversations. We need to have, I think, testimony from basically everybody who spoke with Trump that day because that's one of the big sort of the gaps in our knowledge. We have these books that are coming out where people are unloading their stories about how they tried to tell the president or they tried to tell somebody who told the president that, oh, this is terrible. You have to go on TV. You have to tell these people to stop and go home and so on and so forth. And he basically dragged his feet for many hours. Well, what was he saying? These books written by these great reporters like Bender and Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker, they don't actually have that much on what Trump was actually doing. I mean, there was more reporting actually in the days immediately following January 6th about what Trump was doing. And there was a Washington Post story that said basically had some White House person saying that Trump was an absolute monster that day, not for attribution. And you have some reporting from The New York Times that's saying that somebody had said that he had lost it. And there was some reporting from I don't know which newspaper about how Cipollone was essentially saying you could be criminally or civilly or criminally liable for this. we don't have a lot of detail on that and we don't have a lot of detail on what Trump was doing, right? In the Bender book, or I don't know which book it was actually. They all meld into each other.

Kara Swisher: They all meld together. They kept having to bring, Meadows kept bringing Ivanka down to calm Trump down. According to a source close to Ivanka Trump and if they were any closer, they'd be on the other side of them. But go ahead.

George Conway: Right, right. They might be right. Like, that's the source with blonde hair and tall and blonde hair and whatever. And what was the response? We don't hear about like, oh, well, he screamed back or he said, I know you're right. You're right. I'm just so shocked at this. I can't go on television. So they need to be. They have to find out what he said. What did he say and do? What was he wanting? He was watching TV all afternoon.

Kara Swisher: All right. Final question here. Will they do that? Will they do that?

George Conway: Yeah. They're going to, well, I mean, do what? Call people to testify? Absolutely. They absolutely have. a moral and ethical and legal and constitutional obligation to do all that. Kinzinger has said that they're going to do that. They're going to do, they're going to definitely call, they have to call McCarthy. Jordan seems to be hiding something. If you've seen his statements on television, when they ask him, did you talk to Trump? He's like, oh, I had ice cream on Thursday. He's just avoiding it.

Kara Swisher: What about Trump himself? All these people. What about Trump himself?

George Conway: Yeah absolutely Absolutely I wouldn call him in a live hearing unless I were having him cross by a guy like Barry Burke I think what I would do first before with basically almost all these people is take their depositions have good lawyers go down there and make these people sit in a room for five hours and take their depositions under penalty of purging

Kara Swisher: All right. And that's what I would do with Trump. We'll see. And Trump, you know, Trump, all the things that he has done over the last few years, he hasn't even had his deposition taken on any of them.

George Conway: No, he hasn't.

Kara Swisher: It's just shocking. The civil cases, the criminal cases, he's managed to avoid even having an answer. And he can't answer questions.

George Conway: Yeah, so that's the problem. Truthfully under oath, which is one – that's why his lawyers fought so hard not to have him even interviewed by the law people.

Kara Swisher: Exactly. So likely he is not. He will probably not be. All right, George, we have to pivot to a listener question. Roll tape. You've got – I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Katie here from Madison, Wisconsin. My question for you is, do you think social media companies like Facebook will face the risk in the next five to 10 years of major class action lawsuits? We've seen this with tobacco companies and most recently with the opioid crisis. And with all the discussion you talk around its effects of depression and other mental illnesses, was just curious what your thoughts are on this. What do you think, George? What's going to happen with lawsuits with these companies? Possible or is it going to be?

George Conway: I don't think they're going to go anywhere. I mean, you know, in terms of the specific disinformation, you know, I think that Section 230 protects them. And I think generally the First Amendment protects them. And I don't know how you would put together a claim that says that, you know, going on Facebook causes depression. I don't think the causation – I think there may be a correlation, but I don't think you could show the kind of causation that would be necessary to establish a legal claim. And I just don't see how you would hold these companies liable for this sort of thing. I just don't see it.

Kara Swisher: So what legal challenges do they face? Is it more just federal laws around antitrust and things like that?

George Conway: I don't even think the antitrust things pan out because –

Kara Swisher: Explain, explain.

George Conway: Facebook has – you can't define – I mean one of the things that government sometimes does in antitrust cases is define the actual – you have to show in an antitrust case that somebody is engaging in monopolistic conduct or in controlling the market in a defined product. If you define the product as Facebook, yeah, Facebook has a monopoly of Facebook. But there are so many – Facebook competes with so many other avenues of communication and miscommunication, whether it be Twitter, whether it be just message boards and so on and so forth, that you can't really define a market in a manner that would allow you, I think, to bring an antitrust case against Facebook for controlling, I guess, information flow. I just don't see that.

Kara Swisher: So where does it go? Does it, does they have to look at, this has to be sort of a legislative to, they remove liability protections. Now, most people think that should not happen because it would be disastrous from a business point of view. But how do you look at if something like that, this, this law protects them on all, it's sort of a get out of jail free card for everything, correct? I mean, is that.

George Conway: Yeah, and I think you basically, you couldn't have, you know, you couldn't have anything. You couldn't have Twitter. You couldn't have Facebook if you didn't have essentially Section 230 because you can't, you know, I could go, you know, either of us could go on Twitter in 10 seconds and libel somebody. And then Twitter would be held liable for that. And they basically would shut down pretty quickly.

Kara Swisher: Right.

George Conway: So I just don't know how you deal – I don't know what the happy medium is between allowing this sort of unrestricted free speech and shutting it down altogether in a manner that's – I don't know how you do it, frankly, inconsistent with the First Amendment. But I don't know what the solution is to this. I honestly don't know.

Kara Swisher: Well, I think more. More sites. That's my – my argument is more sites.

George Conway: Yeah, I think that's – well, more sites.

Kara Swisher: I got more sites, though, but what if all the sites are like, you know, Getter?

George Conway: Yeah. How do you pronounce that? Getter.

Kara Swisher: I'm on Getter. You're on Getter, right? You and ISIS, I gather, now, is on Getter. And porn.

George Conway: And porn. Let's not leave out the porn.

Kara Swisher: I tried to get on Getter. Did they let you on?

George Conway: No.

Kara Swisher: What? I don't know how. I tried. I tried. For some reason, it kept rejecting me.

George Conway: Oh, you might be in their blacklist.

Kara Swisher: I think I'm on a blacklist, right? Because basically, you're supposed to enter your Twitter handle.

George Conway: Yes, right.

Kara Swisher: Right. Oh, you must be on a blacklist.

George Conway: Oh, my God. I can talk to Jason Miller for you if you want.

Kara Swisher: Just offer. Yeah, no, I was going to get A.J. Delgado to do it for me. We're not going to explain that reference at all. So are there any legal implications for these companies? You're right. The First Amendment does, when people, what's really interesting is someone like Trump, who's demanding to be back on these platforms, saying it's his First Amendment right. But the First Amendment rights lie with these companies, not with Trump, correct?

George Conway: Correct. Correct. And he's not going to get back on and his claims are bullshit because they're not the state. I don't know. I mean, first of all, what are you trying to do with these? That's step one. We have to ask, well, what do you want these companies to do that they're not doing? And I think ideally you would want them to filter out the misinformation better. But if you start trying to force them to do that in some manner, you're coercing speech or you're coercing – And I don't know how you can do that with the First Amendment. It's a very dangerous path to go on because what if the next Trump administration coerces a company not to allow criticism of MAGA or whatever?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, right.

George Conway: You can't – that's the problem. That's why we have a First Amendment. And, you know, I don't think the framers really understood what could be possible, you know, in their era of people cranking primitive printing presses and pamphleteering. I think judges will knock this down. That's where it's going to go. No, judges will never tolerate it because we have a very firm and strong First Amendment tradition that basically says that you cannot engage in regulation that is not content neutral. And even trying to fend off disinformation, that's not content neutral. Although, I mean, false speech is actually protected by the First Amendment.

Kara Swisher: Right, but these companies can make those rules. These companies are – These companies have every ability to make these rules. I think the question is, are they willing to do that in a manner, you know, do they think they can do that in a manner that doesn't hurt their business model? And the second manner is, can they do it? Effectively. How effectively can they do it? Because they're so large. So are there any legal avenues for people who are having problems with this from your perspective? If you were trying to fight victims?

George Conway: No. No, I don't think so.

Kara Swisher: I would agree with you, George. I have to say that. All right, George, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, George, each week we like to make a prediction. It can be about anything. Give us one of yours.

George Conway: I think Giuliani is going to get indicted soon. Let's explain. And I think that, you know, because of his recent interview. He gave an interview to a, I guess it was WNBC TV news reporter in Manhattan who was interviewing him for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and they were down at the 9/11 site at the memorial. And he just starts spouting off about how unfairly he's being treated by the government. "I'm more than willing to go to jail if they want to put me in jail. And if they do, they're going to suffer the consequences in heaven. I'm not. But I didn't do anything wrong. Why are you willing to go to jail if you feel that you're innocent? Because they lie." I mean, these are not the words of somebody who thinks they're not going to be indicted.

Kara Swisher: Okay. So you think he will be? That's one of the next shoes that's going to drop. And be disbarred, correct?

George Conway: He has. Yeah, I don't think he's going to have a leg to stand on when they actually have a disciplinary hearing to confirm whether or not he should be suspended. And he has other problem, reportedly, according to Maggie Haberman of the Times, is he's basically broke at this point.

Kara Swisher: Yes, yes.

George Conway: So I don't know how he defends himself from all this stuff.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. So what a fall. It's actually kind of sad.

George Conway: It is. Think about it. 20 years hence, right? And he could have just, you know, he had a nice sinecure. He could have just stuck to that. And it's just inexplicable.

Kara Swisher: Well, he just can't quit him. That's how, you know, he just can't. He can't do it. You can see it. You can see it. It's just self-destruct.

George Conway: It is. It's a lot of things going on there, I think.

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's an excellent prediction. All right. How soon? How soon do you suspect?

George Conway: Soon. I'm not going to hazard that, but it'll happen this year, probably in the fall. It's just my, I mean, just wild ass guess based on no specific information. So I disclaim it as a wild ass guess, but you just can't, it's a prediction. It's a prediction.

Kara Swisher: All right, George, thank you so much. This is really helpful. These are really good. That's a really good prediction. I think you're absolutely correct though. And I think you're correct about these Facebooks and others. I don't think there is an avenue. I think laws, if they want to pass new laws around them, around privacy and data and things like that, that's the avenue. to go in because then you...

George Conway: Yeah, and moral suasion.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. Moral suasion.

George Conway: Well, yeah, but I mean, if you just pass data and privacy laws that makes their business not quite as, you know, interested in creating rage and anger, that would help a lot.

Kara Swisher: Just basic rules around data privacy. And those are certainly completely legal to do. And you mean, and that would be basically so that you can't use data on what people are looking at to encourage to dump more of that same shit on them.

George Conway: Yes, exactly. There's all kinds of business.

Kara Swisher: Which is the problem. That feedback, that's the intentional feedback.

George Conway: Yeah, there's all kinds of things they can do to make these businesses.

Kara Swisher: And then also encourage innovation so that there's more. You may or may not like Getter, and I'm sorry you can't get on it, but it's more like that is great. I don't care what they are. The more the better, and the more innovation there is, the better. Anyway, I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you.

George Conway: Thank you very much. Have a great rest of the summer. Thank you for having me.

Kara Swisher: Don't forget if there's a story in the news and you're curious about and want to hear more our opinion on, go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the show. Today's show was produced by Lara Neyman and Evan Engel. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.