Hollywood on Blast, Vaccine Mandates, and Friends of Pivot Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Galloway is out the entire month of August, so today I'm joined by our very good friend, NBC News senior business correspondent, MSNBC anchor, Stephanie Ruhle. Welcome, Stephanie.

Stephanie Ruhle: Thank you so much. Good to be here.

Kara Swisher: And like Scott, a month off. Are you kidding me?

Stephanie Ruhle: I know. I know. He's a European. He thinks he's European or something like that.

Kara Swisher: I'm not sure what's going on. He's Floridian, okay? He's Floridian. It's far from Europe.

Stephanie Ruhle: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Well, you were my first choice to be first, obviously, because we're such a hit together. I'm really trying to find new partners in case something happens with Scott. As you know, it could at any moment. So I like to be prepared and see who I get along with and who I spark with. And obviously I spark with you.

Stephanie Ruhle: Wait, do you think we get along?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I do. I do. I think we get along really well.

Stephanie Ruhle: Because I just agree with you.

Kara Swisher: No, you don't. No, you don't. You were just giving me a hard time about George Hahn where we were saying he wanted to be on The View and we agreed he'd be really good. But you made a salient point, which I think is unfair. But go ahead. Make it.

Stephanie Ruhle: Not only do I want George Hahn to be on The View, I want him to get his own show. However, this argument of George replacing Meghan McCain is a non-starter in the way people are cast on that show. Meghan McCain was the Republican. When they're scouring American Republicans, George is definitely not on the list of Republicans. So who's going to get that job? What man would you put in there? What male would you put in there?

Kara Swisher: I mean, they should have a man in there, don't you think? They should. Or anybody. How about a Mitt Romney flavored person? I know Jeff Flake.

Stephanie Ruhle: Jeff Flake. Oh, that would be interesting with him and Whoopi Goldberg. Interesting. I like it. Plus he's Midwestern.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I like it. And he's not Meghan McCain. That's the key part of it. Anyway, we have a lot to talk about. So let's talk a little bit of a few short things. One is Scarlett Johansson suing Disney for breach of contract after they premiered Black Widow in theaters and on Disney Plus at the same time. She was supposed to be paid a portion of the box office revenue, alleges streaming ate into her paycheck. It's pretty common for movie stars to get paid a portion of the box office, but everything's changing. At the same time, Reese Witherspoon apparently sold Hello Sunshine for $900 million. We'll see what that's worth. But what's going on in Hollywood, Stephanie? What's happening?

Stephanie Ruhle: Well, on the sad front, now that everything is streaming or streaming and going box office style for that next generation, they're not going to have the same relationship with movies that we once did. Even though everything changed with every generation, I think it's really sad. The Scarlett Johansson one, listen, pre-COVID, it was not uncommon for big stars to get these profit participations. So you get $20 million up front, and then depending on how the box office looks, you get a kicker in the back end. That could be zero or it could be $50 million. Of course, everything shut down because of COVID. Now, what's great about the fact that it's a Disney movie, they have the kind of money where they could shelf that movie for the last year and a half, hold it in inventory, and wait to release it in the box office. However, if you're Disney, you're not making money streaming yet. Disney Plus isn't a home run. They don't want to say, "Yes, we're going to give you a cut of the streaming service," because you can't define exactly how much money you should get.

Kara Swisher: Well, if you sell it, in this case they sold it for $30. So yes, they could define those sales.

Stephanie Ruhle: Yes. You know what? You're right. I'm wrong there. But listen, it's dicey territory for them to set a precedent to now pay. Going forward, I'm sure all these big stars are going to cut a different deal or Disney Plus will say, "We'll buy projects wholesale like Netflix style. Maybe we'll pay you more money up front and nothing in the back end." However, if she does win or they settle, this opens up the floodgates for all the other actors in Marvel movies or other people. I think Disney's going to win.

Kara Swisher: This is the end of the star system in Hollywood. The stars used to be sort of kept in an area and then they'd bring them out in the old days, right? And that wasn't great. And then they got enormous power and they opened enclosed movies. Now, I don't think it matters in these big movies who's the star. I don't think a person can really open a movie anymore. It just has to be a superhero movie or something with a lot of noise. So I think this is the last vestiges of things. And if you're not entrepreneurial, like a Reese Witherspoon, where you do a lot of things...

Stephanie Ruhle: I was just about to say, if you have your own production company, if you are actually doing something as a stakeholder and on the IP, then you can continue to get paid. But stars who get to be equity holders just because they're stars, I don't think it's going to last. Given how difficult the last year and a half has been, remember if you're Disney, it's not just your studios, it's your theme parks. They're just not writing big checks. And with a new CEO, maybe he's viewing this as, "I don't need to dance with these stars. These movies are giant. You got $20 million. You get what you get."

Kara Swisher: The second thing is another woman blasting Hollywood, Amanda Knox. She took to Twitter over the weekend in a really great thread to call out the Matt Damon movie Stillwater. By the way, Matt Damon was also saying movies aren't the same anymore in another interview. Knox was convicted and then acquitted of killing her roommate, Meredith Kircher, as a student in Italy. This was a miscarriage of justice. Stillwater opened this past Friday. Its director, Tom McCarthy, said the film was directly inspired by those events. I'm going to read the first tweet in the thread that Knox posted the night before the movie opened. "Does my name belong to me, my face? What about my life, my story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I returned to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, and story without my consent. Most recently, the film Stillwater." So she's technically a public figure. What do you think? I'm going to guess that I disagree with your point of view, so I want you to go first.

Stephanie Ruhle: I think they should have involved her. Obviously, she didn't have an agent, but she had talked about not doing things like that. I guess her story is not her own, but it's pretty awful what they did.

Kara Swisher: I'm going to disagree. I think she's a public person and it's a public story and they have every right to write a movie, make a movie. Yes. Do I think it would have been good or interesting or maybe better for the film if they would have hired her on as a consultant? I'm guessing they didn't since she's out here saying nobody contacted me, but I haven't seen the film. I don't know what kind of light it paints her in. So it seems like it would have been a smart idea. But them not doing it, I don't think it's a big deal. Are we now going to have to pay every biographer's subject? We're going to interview Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker. Do they have to pay Trump a side piece because they wrote a book about him? No.

Kara Swisher: Well, yes, but in this case, it's interesting because Monica Lewinsky, another figure who's been taken advantage of quite a bit, is coming out with her own story with American Crime Story. She'll be participating finally in this one where Beanie Feldstein plays her. I love her. It's going to be great, but it's a really interesting issue. I would urge people to read her tweets because I think she's a beautiful writer. One of the things that's hard is to think about it. Hollywood doesn't care at all. They're just going to use her story if they feel like it. I think they probably should have gotten her cooperation in some way. I think they were too scared to contact her.

Stephanie Ruhle: Do you think it was scared? What's the downside if they contact her?

Kara Swisher: I don't know why they didn't then. I don't know who's telling the truth. I think it's just a sloppy move. I don't necessarily think it was vindictive. It's a business that thinks about itself. They had their story. They knew what they wanted to tell and they could go forward. You could question how it makes her feel, but all's fair in love and war. It's business. They don't have to ask her. By the way, Camille Cottin is in it. She was in Call My Agent, which is my favorite show ever. She's also in it, which is interesting.

Kara Swisher: Last thing, Jack Dorsey's Square is going to buy Australian fintech company Afterpay. This is a big deal, I feel. What do you think? It comes as other fintechs such as PayPal and Amex are rushing to capitalize on the installment loan payment trend. It's basically a layaway for the digital age. Afterpay said its average user is 31 to 33. Consumer advocates say it's too soon to understand the risks of the fledgling trend. Layaway we know about. What do you think, Stephanie Ruhle?

Stephanie Ruhle: I think two things. I think anything in the layaway space, in the peer-to-peer lending space, into lending to people who have less financial security makes me a little bit skittish. Think about how predatory payday lenders are. Consumer protections are really important in this space. However, what I think is the most important part of the story is less about the company they bought and more about Square. Jack Dorsey knows this company has an extraordinarily high valuation. So what did he do? He took his stock out for a spin and he bought this company for $29 billion, which also is probably an enormously high number. Going down the line, when people say, "What's the valuation of Square? Why is it so high?" Now he gets to say, "Look at my portfolio of assets." That's what I think this is about. This is about beefing up and putting some legs under his valuation. And of course, he's spending a lot of time at Square and not Twitter necessarily.

Kara Swisher: In terms of competing with banks and things like that, should this make those banks nervous? Or PayPal or an Amex or others who deal in credit?

Stephanie Ruhle: I don't think it should make anybody nervous. I think it should make regulators wake up. Whether you're talking about fintech or social media, traditional businesses are highly regulated, like traditional media, traditional banking, and the new technology side of it isn't. We haven't seen the dangerous downside yet because we all love cool, fun, new technology, especially if it's for young people. But you and I have all lived through the bad part of these things. I'm super worried about consumer protections. There's nothing against this company or this industry. It's just important.

Kara Swisher: Fair point. All right. Time for the big story. The newest trend in corporate America is vaccine mandates. Walmart, Disney, Facebook, Google are requiring some or all of their employees to be vaccinated to come to work. Walmart and Disney are two of the country's largest private employers. Here's a list of companies that are requiring some or all of their employees to be vaccinated: Netflix, Saks Fifth Avenue, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Delta and United Airlines for new employees only, Morgan Stanley, The Washington Post, which was a surprise to me, Lyft, Uber, Twitter. What do you think? It's not just employees. Restaurants and Broadway shows are starting to require ticket holders indoors to show proof of vaccination. Will this work or produce a backlash, Stephanie?

Stephanie Ruhle: Who cares if it produces a backlash? They damn well should, right? In France, every day we could turn on the TV and say, "Look at the protesters." What are there, a thousand protesters, 10,000 protesters? The first week Emmanuel Macron put the mandate in place, almost 4 million people in France got vaccinated. It works. I'm angry because for all the noise corporate America gives us about wanting to do the right thing and being leaders for social justice and writing letters for voting rights, here's something they absolutely can do to protect our country, to protect their employees, to also pay back the government who just bailed out businesses big and small to the tune of trillions of dollars. Now do your part. Businesses have that giant carrot. You're always going to have anti-vaxxers over here. But in the middle are all of these people, especially young people, who are like, "I'm healthy, I don't really need it." But if you say to that person, "Great, well you can go to work, you can go to a bar, you can go to the gym, you can go to your favorite sporting event," they're going to run out and get vaccinated. I think it's super selfish and short-sighted that businesses... Remember when we first got the vaccines, we kept hearing people who are fully vaccinated are able to go to this store without a mask on. When was the last time anyone asked you your vaccination status when you walked in a store? When I'm in a store and I see people with masks on, they don't seem to be people who aren't vaccinated. More likely, they're people being extra cautious. This will be the next big wave of people getting vaccinated. I think when the vaccines go from emergency approval to full approval, you'll see a lot more businesses do it.

Kara Swisher: Incentives have been tried: monetary awards, event tickets, time off. I just talked to the head of American Airlines and they were doing things like that. You got an extra vacation day for current employees. He doesn't want to make them. So what would be your argument to Doug Parker or someone else that you should make them? I was like, "I don't think I'll fly American Airlines if I don't know if all your people are vaccinated." I'll be honest with you. I don't think I will.

Stephanie Ruhle: I just think this argument, "You can't make people," I don't know. I don't like shots either. But when I walked my five-year-old to show up for kindergarten on the first day, if he wasn't vaccinated, my other choice was to homeschool. So of course, boom. I'm going to get my kids vaccinated. All of this is just crazy. Businesses are like, "Oh, I'm not sure." They absolutely should do it. They're being short-sighted. They're saying, "I don't want to make this hard decision. I don't want to face the backlash. I don't want to lose customers." Well, guess what? If we don't do something significant, we're never getting rid of COVID. If you want to actually have your business flourish long-term, require it.

Kara Swisher: There's two things going on. Reassuring vaccinated people that they're not at high risk, because I think some people in the media have gone a little hog wild on this breakthrough vaccination thing.

Stephanie Ruhle: I agree. When you get to the bottom of the story, it's always like one person who had a cough. It's like a flu vaccine or anything else where you could get the flu. I've gotten the flu when I've had the flu vaccine. Some years I don't. Some years I do. So many people think the media is overdoing the "vaccinated people can get COVID" thing. Yesterday, I saw someone on TV who said, "This is a Category 5 hurricane." No, it's not. It was a Category 5 hurricane last year. If we're overdramatic about this, people of influence are going to lose even more credibility. It's catnip for anti-vaxxers. It was Ali Velshi who I saw on TV say, and I thought it was a great point, "Vaccines are like seatbelts. They're not going to prevent you from having a car accident, but they could definitely save your life."

Kara Swisher: One of the things that's also in contention is the mask wearing. States are arguing, governors are arguing with local municipalities over the mask thing. I think that's a separate thing. But one of the things that's interesting is they get mushed together and conflated in some weird fashion. When was the last time you wore a mask?

Stephanie Ruhle: Today, right now, in the Starbucks.

Kara Swisher: Do you always?

Stephanie Ruhle: Well, it's a new thing in DC. The mayor just required it. So they make you. For months and months, I wore a mask. I didn't notice it. I didn't feel it. I thought nothing of it. I flew recently, so I wore a mask. It's amazing when you don't wear it for a while. You're like, somehow it felt burdensome, cumbersome. But for months and months, I thought nothing of it. Now wearing it, I'm mad, to be totally honest. I'm angry with the unvaccinated.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Stephanie Ruhle: This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. I'm angry with what they're doing to society, to culture, to business, to my kids. I'm mad at them.

Kara Swisher: It is a dicey situation. The question of masks and what cities and states will do, I don't think people are going to cooperate on the mask wearing. On the vaccination, that's where we need to focus everything. Mandates for vaccination for government employees and states. Democratic governors in California and New York have announced vaccine mandates for government employees. I was just thinking of healthcare workers. I just got a note from one of my kids' schools where they said, "You have to get vaccinated or you can't come to school. Here's two forms, a religious form and a health form if you can't get vaccinated. If you can't, you have to be tested every day and wear a mask." I was like, "Okay, this will be interesting." I'm interested to see the parents that go nuts on this one.

Stephanie Ruhle: Also, everyone who thinks, "Oh, well you can use the religious or the medical exemption," not really. The business is required to then find a suitable accommodation. It's not like, "Check the box and I'm in." They're going to make it cumbersome. You can't just skirt this. The number one issue is how do you make your employees feel safe? It's having everybody vaccinated.

Kara Swisher: 100%. I think businesses requiring it is critical. I think it's going to be harder for governments to do it. I think state governments can do it more than federal government. But at some level, companies are going to have to step in here and really suck it up and make it happen. You're right. They took the money. Now they have to help us get out of this.

Kara Swisher: Stephanie, we're going to have a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk a lot about an area that you're very interested in, infrastructure.

Stephanie Ruhle: Oh, I am. Thank you.

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Kara Swisher: All right, Stephanie, we're back. The Senate is trying to get some work done before the August recess. They even worked over the weekend to finalize the text of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, a lot less than Biden had wanted. But the bill includes $550 billion in new spending over five years for roads, electric vehicle charging stations, replacement of lead water pipes. The text for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was more than 2,700 pages. It would provide the biggest infusion of U.S. federal spending in infrastructure in decades. So $66 billion for Amtrak and rail, $65 billion for broadband expansion, clean drinking water, et cetera. Tell us what you think of this right now overall, and then I have some questions.

Stephanie Ruhle: I think...

Kara Swisher: You said it wasn't going to happen, right?

Stephanie Ruhle: No, no, that's not true.

Kara Swisher: Okay.

Stephanie Ruhle: I said what's not going to happen is a bipartisan bill and this separate $3.5 trillion reconciliation. That's what I think. You can't get both of those things done. Getting this bipartisan bill done would be a tremendous win for the Biden administration and for the country. We all collectively know we need infrastructure. Does the $1 trillion bill have everything in it? No, definitely not. But the argument on the other side that we must link the $1 trillion package to the $3.5 trillion makes absolutely no sense to me. I think getting this bipartisan bill done would be huge. We all agree we need new infrastructure in this country. Trump claimed he was going to do it, he couldn't get it done. What Democrats, I fear, are missing here is the Mitch McConnell factor. Self-described Grim Reaper. Democrats are so focused on, "Yeah, get the bipartisan bill done, but we also need our bill done at the exact same time. Let's link the two." I don't think you can link the two. All of those Republicans are going to walk away. Let's be honest, irrelevant of what is in this bill, if I was one of those Republicans, I would walk away. Why would I say, "Yes, I've spent all this time agreeing on a bill, but at the same time, you're going to also get your own?" I completely think that there are lots of things in the go-it-alone bill that I would like to see, like the expanded child tax credit. I'd love for that to be in there permanently. I think they should get working on some stuff in there. But if they really try to force this and progressives say, "I will not sign A unless I get B," I think it's going to blow the whole thing up.

Kara Swisher: Do you think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is voicing concerns about the bill, saying the House shouldn't pass the bill without the partisan $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill? Is there any chance these bills are considered separately?

Stephanie Ruhle: I think they will end up needing to be. Even this idea that all Democrats have signed on to the $3.5 trillion, they haven't. Kyrsten Sinema has already said she's not sure. Joe Manchin. Sinema and Manchin have other people behind them who vote the way they do. Manchin, whether you like him or not, is sort of a human shield. I think there are other Democrats who vote the same way he does from states like my own state, New Jersey, but they let him take the rap. The other Manchin thing I would say, and you've got West Virginia roots, not me. There's lots of reasons to go after Joe Manchin, but he doesn't answer to voters in any other state but West Virginia. The things he votes for are what keep him in office and it's good for West Virginia. If you want to have somebody run against him as a Democrat, go for it. But if Joe Manchin loses, there's a better chance he's losing to a Republican.

Kara Swisher: That is correct. So what of the things in here? $66 billion for rail and Amtrak. What did you think of that? That's a lot of moolah for Amtrak. Also broadband expansion. What do you think is important here from a tech point of view?

Stephanie Ruhle: Broadband expansion is absolutely at the top of my list. What was taken out of this that's a huge disappointment for me was a small number that would have had the biggest return on investment, which was the $80 billion to fund the IRS. We have a massive tax gap in our country. Tax money that's owed, you don't have to change a single letter in our tax law, but it's just not collected. I want to say something like 20% of the IRS's workforce has been reduced over the last 10 years. They need more funding. Talk about technology. They need their systems upgraded. Of everything I could look at in infrastructure, the fastest way to put money in and get way more money out would be to fund the IRS. I'm bummed that they took that money out.

Kara Swisher: Why do you think they did that? Because that's a lot of rich people we know taking advantage of all the different rules that aren't being enforced.

Stephanie Ruhle: 100%. But I feel like funding the IRS is really important, but I'm a nerd, not a lobbyist. There are other components in there where people would say there's a lot more need, a lot more suffering, they need a lot more support. There are many more advocates fighting to put other things in there. I don't think there's a lot of people fighting to get more money for the IRS. Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you also have a whole lot of rich donors who aren't necessarily tax cheats, but they don't want more attention to the IRS. So yeah, you're happy to make them happy.

Kara Swisher: Last thing, they're giving money to electric vehicle charging stations, but a whole lot less. Biden appeared in front of an electric car company. How is this going to happen? Do you think the companies are just going to have to pay for the rollout of different charging stations? I've noticed many, many more put up by Tesla everywhere I go now when I stop and drive. You see them in the back of gas stations. Where do you see that? It got cut rather considerably, but it's still here.

Stephanie Ruhle: Listen, from their perspective, investing in those charging stations is investing in the future. While that's great, I think they're looking at it as, "My house is broken right now. The pipes are broken. The toilets are broken. We have to fix that before we put an addition on the house." They looked at things like charging stations as an investment in the future and said, "Let's cut that and let's invest more in what's in dire need, like our literal bridges that are falling apart." So I get it. Most likely those companies are going to have to put the money forward, and that's kind of okay. They can.

Kara Swisher: So you think it will be passed separately? You think that's right now?

Kara Swisher: I think there's no way they get passed together. And if Democrats try to make that happen, they lose. But the one thing I'll say, you can never count out the depths Mitch McConnell will go to to screw something up.

Stephanie Ruhle: Yeah. Right. He made it very clear for eight years with Obama. He's made it clear now. He's here to block the Biden agenda. And he doesn't care if you call him a fake, a phony, a liar, a jerk. He'll just hop right back in his turtle shell. And at the end, he gets what he wants. So everyone having a dance jam that like, "Oh my gosh, even Mitch McConnell voted yes." It was a procedural vote. I'm not having a party yet.

Kara Swisher: All right. Okay. It's a perfect note to switch to our next topic, our friends of Pivot. Welcome to the Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporters, Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker. Thank you for coming on.

Carol Leonnig: Thanks for having us.

Kara Swisher: Well, you guys are right at the top of the bestseller list right now, along with several Mark Levin and Jesse Watters, but nonetheless, you're right up there. So you interviewed more than 140 senior administration officials, advisors to the president, even the president himself at Mar-a-Lago, 70 days after he left Washington. Trump certainly seemed to think of himself as a kingmaker. Is he one? I'd love your thoughts on how you look at that right now.

Carol Leonnig: There's no question, Kara, that he has decided he's going to be a kingmaker. And there are certainly a ton of people waltzing and flying and trekking to Mar-a-Lago to kiss his ring. Phil and I sat on the pretty brocaded sofas in his lobby at Mar-a-Lago, and we watched a parade of people come in. But also among them were lawmakers who want his endorsement. He's not wrong that he has an impact on whether or not they're going to win the primary. Dan Crenshaw was there when we visited, just waltzed over to say he just thought Trump looked great. "Healthy and hale, sir. What's your secret?" They are meeting with him on a regular basis. Republican lawmakers who want to raise money, want to tap into his base, want to seize some of his popularity. And what happened, Phil, in the Texas special congressional election last week? The Trump-backed candidate lost.

Phil Rucker: That's exactly right. He endorsed a candidate for a special election in a congressional seat down there. But another Republican candidate won that race. And it shows you the limitations of Trump's power, although there's a consensus, obviously, within the Republican Party, including with the leaders here in Washington, that Trump's endorsement is influential and that that may have been a fluke. And heading into the midterm elections, they're all about Trump still.

Stephanie Ruhle: Except, of course, Republicans lost the midterms while Trump was in office. I guess the thing that confuses me so much is, what is Trump? He's a branding genius. Why is he still looked at as a kingmaker? I mean, Carol, yes, all the parade of people came down there to see him, but they don't have to, right? There was a moment after the insurrection, after the election, where you saw that one night when Lindsey Graham said, "Enough is enough, we're gone." And then Lindsey Graham got heckled at an airport and then he said, "Forget about it, you're my homeboy." Trump lost the midterms, lost the House, lost the Senate, lost the White House. I don't understand why he has that kingmaker status. Explain why, or is it even true?

Carol Leonnig: Well, it's definitely true still. I mean, if the primary was held tomorrow, he would be the Republican candidate for president. Now, he's got a long time to go before he has to make that decision. He certainly intimated to us that he's a guy who's considering running. But I really want to just zing in on something else you said, Steph, which is this idea that there was a moment when they could have broken with him. I was talking to a Republican fundraiser and operative who was nearly in tears a week ago telling me that if all of the Republicans had just joined hands after January 6th and said, as Lindsey Graham did, "Enough is enough. That's it. Attack on a democracy, we're done." If they had had the guts and the spine to do that, Trump would be far more in disgrace because they would have communicated en masse that this was unacceptable, that this call and response to attack the Capitol, to basically bring people to the Capitol to threaten to hang Mike Pence, his vice president. If they had done that then, according to this operative, we would be looking at a very different field.

Kara Swisher: So we're watching the hearings last week on the Capitol attack. Your book paints a picture of what led up to that, what was going on in the West Wing, which is going to be a critical part in these investigations. But you reported a lot of it. And you also had a chance to ask Trump what his goal was on January 6th. Talk a little bit about that, Phil. And then, Carol, what do you think is going to come out of these investigations?

Phil Rucker: Well, we did ask Trump what his goal was, what he wanted from his supporters when he said "march to the Capitol." And we were struck by what he said in his answer. He said, "I wanted what they wanted." Well, what they wanted was to hang Mike Pence. They wanted an insurrection. They wanted to overthrow America's democracy. They wanted violence and the lives of police officers. Trump that day, according to our reporting, was watching it all unfold on television. He was in the private dining room just off the Oval Office, transfixed by the images on TV because he liked what he saw. He saw thousands of his supporters marching up the steps of the Capitol, waving his flag, wearing his red Make America Great Again hats. It was the show of force that he wanted to try to intimidate lawmakers. And it took a lot of persuading over a couple of hours from some of his advisors, including his daughter, Ivanka Trump, to try to get him into a headspace where he would actually be willing to tell his supporters to stop the violence and go home.

Stephanie Ruhle: It's striking that the president wouldn't act. Why do you believe that BS about Ivanka behind the scenes, all the good that she was doing, trying to get her dad to do the right thing? For four years, people kept whispering that garbage in my ear, "What she's doing when no one's watching, what she does privately." Baloney. Then sit down for a public interview and say, "This is what I was doing behind the scenes." That's the one thing that I'm like, give me a break, Phil. What makes you believe that Ivanka was urging him?

Phil Rucker: I hear you, Steph. And look, over those four years, we were told so many times that Ivanka was the moderating force, and she had very little influence doing that. It didn't work almost always. But we know from reporting with other sources on January 6th that she actually that afternoon did try to pressure her father. Tried. And persuade him. And she failed repeatedly because it took several hours for him to actually issue that statement. And she wasn't the only one doing it, but she was one of the people doing it.

Kara Swisher: All right. So in this case, she was actually attempting it because things had gone off the rails. So what do you imagine happening, Carol, in this investigation? Because you have two Republicans who are on the outs with the Republican Party inexplicably. And they have this amazing testimony. What's going to happen from this?

Carol Leonnig: I don't have very high hopes because everybody has turned it into a political game, a strategy of how to avoid making Republicans look bad for not wanting to acknowledge what actually happened on January 6th. I mean, we saw this heartbreaking testimony. If we thought January 6th was bad, hearing the officers describe what it was like for them was just bone-chilling. And I know some of those officers, but I hadn't even heard some of the things that they described. Officer Fanone, we all know, he had a heart attack. He was begging for his life, "Please don't take my gun, I have kids." This was not the hugging and kissing that Donald Trump described to us. But as for what's going to happen, I don't have high hopes that it's going to get what an investigative reporter wants, which is facts. I will say there's one glimmer of hope, which is I've heard that several of the committees have been requesting some very specific information from the FBI. And that information is going to get to the heart of what did our government know ahead of January 6th. Not just the little bits and pieces that The Washington Post and my colleagues and I have reported, but what do you get with a subpoena, what do you get with the power of the Hill? What can we learn about what the FBI knew ahead of time?

Kara Swisher: Does any of it ever hang on Trump? He can blame everybody else. And of course, now he's diminishing it, saying nothing really happened, it wasn't that bad. And then you see it being articulated by lots of people. Megyn Kelly was doing it the other day. All these people are just sort of articulating that it was a tourist visit. That one is easily done. But others are trying to diminish what happened. "Most people should be allowed to protest," et cetera. Is any of this going to hang on Trump, Phil?

Phil Rucker: I mean, we'll see if it hangs on him. But you're right about the whitewashing. It's been extraordinary. It's as if we didn't see it with our own eyes, but we did see it. And it's all on videotape. And it's not just Trump who's trying to whitewash it. It's the Republican leaders throughout the Congress. It's conservatives on Fox News. They're trying to mislead the American people about what happened on January 6th. And that's why the work of this commission is so important, to get to the bottom of what really happened and to remind people how dangerous that moment was and how close the country came to collapse.

Stephanie Ruhle: But then does the work of the commission result in anything? Because the people who are moved by this or upset or want something done already felt this way before the hearings. And the Republican political calculation, as disgusting as it is, is that the American voter isn't thinking about this. They're not caring about it. They care about putting food on their table and inflation. How do you get voters to care about this? Because that's the only way you get lawmakers to do anything.

Carol Leonnig: Well, one way is to remind people that if, as one Republican I talked to said, we may have an insurrection every four years if we are going to tolerate this kind of la-la-land description of what didn't happen. It did happen. And are people going to do what was urged by Michael Flynn, one of Trump's greatest allies, right before January 6th? "The people have to take to the streets. The courts won't decide. The voters won't decide. The ballot machines aren't trusted. We have to take to the streets as people with some sort of force and with some sort of weaponry to decide who's the president." That's a pretty scary place to be. It might not be every four years. Remember, we're in August. August is the month when the hardcore conspiracy theorists, QAnoners, believe that Trump is going to be reinstated. And by the way, I'm all joking, you could laugh about it, but Mark Meadows sort of seemed to insinuate something strange in an interview this week.

Kara Swisher: He was a big character in your book. Talk a little bit about him and this recent statement that he made that the cabinet was meeting. I'm not sure what was going on there. Such a bizarre statement by Mark Meadows. He said that Trump is meeting with his cabinet as if he were still the president or running some sort of shadow presidency. And of course, I'm racking my mind trying to think which cabinet secretary is actually meeting with Trump, because most of them have distanced themselves from him by now.

Phil Rucker: Meadows might have meant his kitchen cabinet, meaning the political people. But regardless, when Carol and I were down there at Mar-a-Lago with him, it was clear to us that he still thinks he's the president or thinks he wants to continue acting like he's the president with all the adoration and the love of his supporters, sort of blinding himself intentionally to the reality that Joe Biden is the president now and that the country is moving on past him.

Kara Swisher: Carol, did you have that impression? He thinks he's the president?

Carol Leonnig: The theater of it, Kara, is just so stunning. We're there, arranged to be there by the president at five o'clock dinner hour. People traipsing in for the club dinner, going out to the beautiful patio. And he's got the Air Force One model as if he redesigned it. It's there on the coffee table, but he didn't redesign Air Force One. The design he hoped he would have, with its replicas there almost like it exists. And when he walks out onto the patio after two hours and 45 minutes of talking to us, dinner is really getting into full swing, and there is a standing ovation and they play "Hail to the Chief" as he emerges. Everything about that visit told me he's created a Brigadoon. He's created a special exile where reality doesn't have to pierce it.

Stephanie Ruhle: Then Trump sitting down with you two for an interview. He knows exactly who you are. "A Very Stable Genius" was not a complimentary book about Trump. He knew that this was not going to result in anything glowing about him. Donald Trump sitting down with you guys, does that not prove he's manifesting that all press is good press?

Phil Rucker: He certainly thinks that, I think. He wouldn't sit down with us for our first book, "Stable Genius." But for the second one, it didn't take much persuading to get him to do the interview. He wanted to do it. And I think he thought that he was charismatic enough that he could somehow change our thinking or persuade us to view his final year in office differently. We're not that gullible. We're pretty hard-nosed reporters. And we wanted to go hear what he had to say. But by the time we got there, we'd already interviewed 140 other people who made pretty clear to us what the truth was about him. So anything he said didn't make a difference.

Kara Swisher: You think he thought he could change both of your minds?

Phil Rucker: Yeah, he thought he could win us over.

Kara Swisher: That's crazy. So you obviously weren't won over. He's given lots of interviews for this attention, and I think coverage is what he's looking for because all of the books are on the bestseller list. "Landslide," yours, I don't know about the others, but there's a lot of books and there's more coming out. But that's a lot of books, a lot of noise, just like he would be on "The Apprentice" or anything else. So talk a little bit about how he'll do going forward without the platforms he used to have. He's not on Gettr yet. I am on Gettr, and he's not on Gettr. Since he can't go on a major social media network, it's unlikely he'll be restored to Facebook. He is not going back to Twitter. Gettr, we'll see if it becomes big. He hasn't gotten on it, but it's not that big yet. I can tell you it's quite small after having used it for a little bit, and noisy, and it's not the people he wants to reach, really. So can you talk a little bit about how he's going to do without the social media that he used so deftly while he was president?

Carol Leonnig: It seems to me he's going to find his social media low point or high point. He's going to find something. We don't know what that will be at this minute. And maybe you're right. Gettr is not massive the way Twitter was. Who knows what he'll be restored to or what he'll find. But the truth of the matter is, Kara, he gets press coverage. When Donald Trump says something, it gets picked up. And the reason is because we all know he is a defining figure in the Republican Party. And who is Kevin McCarthy singing the tune to? Donald Trump's tune. Who is, even Mitch McConnell, who really despises Donald Trump, finds him responsible for his loss of the Senate leadership, finds him to be a person of no principle. Even he is deftly avoiding ticking off Trump any more than he has to, and certainly trying to continue to keep those voters for the midterms. So Trump's going to keep having a megaphone, which he masters beautifully.

Stephanie Ruhle: Then is the only thing that stops him the law? If he's actually in a legal quagmire that would prevent him from running for office? Because he doesn't have a problem fundraising.

Phil Rucker: Yeah, Steph, I would say the law or his health. He's 75 years old. And to run again for president, he would be 78 when the 2024 campaign rolls around. He could do it. Joe Biden has done it. But Trump is not the healthiest man out there. So there's a chance that he may not have quite what it takes to mount that full campaign.

Kara Swisher: OK, now he's going to run because you just said that. So when you look at this, one of the things that's interesting is all this stuff does come out. And these notes just come out this week that the Justice Department was taking around the thing. It's sort of "criming in plain sight" kind of thing. It's kind of at this point, and all this stuff comes out. Do you imagine he wants to run again? And I'd love for each of you to think about it. You spent a lot of time talking to everyone around him. What is the hold that he has on the actual voters? These people would abandon him in a second if they could, I suspect. That's my feeling, but not these voters. So what do you imagine the hold is, and what do you think he's going to do? If you had to guess, I mean, I know you're not supposed to guess, but spending time with him, it feels like he wants to run again, correct? Or maybe I'm just being spun by him?

Carol Leonnig: I like the way you put that question, Kara, because two things at once. One, the guy didn't think he was going to win. He was shocked on election night in 2016 when he won. It was a branding exercise. It was a way to get buzz, right? And when he won, he probably was in that particular room, the most surprised of all of them that that had happened. But once he became president, he really fell in love with that. And he did not want to give it up. And he did a lot of things that you could argue if you weren't president, they would be a crime. You would be indicted. And as for "criming," I love that word. I'm going to try to get that into the newspaper stories. "Criming" is just a fun one. But if he were not president, he would have met the standard for being indicted on multiple counts. Obstruction of justice. In four different instances, he was stunningly able to have a phone call in which he asked a foreign power to investigate an American, also skating right over the law. You asked, what's his hold? This is where I think Phil and I realized in the first book's reporting, for "I Alone Can Fix It" and "Stable Genius," that it's mastery of making people who have felt forgotten, dismissed, looked down the nose of by coastal elites, making them feel that he's their defender. He's got their back, even though he has done almost nothing for them. He says, "I am your defender." The other thing he's got going for him is his ability to stoke that anger and fear, not address it, amp it up. And that has had an amazing effect. Phil and I have gone all over the country, remotely, of course, being interviewed. A lot of Republican people ask us, who are Trump followers, ask us, "How dare you have all this hate for Trump? How dare you put this in this book? We're never going to change our mind. Trump is our guy." And what interests me is they're actually not interested in the facts that we've carefully corroborated. They're not interested in the fact that we fact-checked this book with Donald Trump. They're not interested in that. They're interested in the fighter, the pugilist, the man that says he's their defender. They don't care what he actually does. They just care that he keeps saying that.

Stephanie Ruhle: But then isn't it not just that forgotten voter? It's also the very affluent voter, right? In that Make America Great Again, it's that white affluent voter who now likes to say, "Oh, I'm being buried. I can't run my business the way I want. I can't hire who I want." On August 4th, Winged Foot, where the U.S. Open Golf Tournament is supposed to happen next week, is having an event for Trump that they've been trying to keep quiet. That's an 80-person banquet. These are some of the most affluent New Yorkers who know all the things in your book are true, and half the nonsense out of his mouth is false. And beyond that nonsense, they all watched the insurrection, and they know it's true. So what about those voters who stand with him, Phil?

Phil Rucker: It's really important because they've all made their own sort of moral and ethical calculations where they're going to set aside the things that they know are true and harrowing and even disgusting about his leadership and his character because they make a buck. Either their taxes are lower or their businesses can thrive in a way that they wouldn't under a Democratic administration. They care about the bottom line. And they're not going to focus so much on the morality in that office or about America's standing abroad.

Kara Swisher: All right. Very last question. Will he run? Each of you. Prediction.

Carol Leonnig: Yes.

Phil Rucker: Yes.

Kara Swisher: Will he win?

Phil Rucker: He's got a good chance. If Joe Biden doesn't run again, I think he's got a better than good chance.

Kara Swisher: On that note, thank you, Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker. Thank you. "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year" is out now. We really appreciate you coming on.

Carol Leonnig: Thanks, Kara.

Phil Rucker: Thank you, guys.

Kara Swisher: All right, Stephanie, one more quick break. That was fascinating. A little scary.

Stephanie Ruhle: It was. For real.

Kara Swisher: I know. For reals. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Stephanie, wins and fails. I would love to know what you have. I'm just going to let you do them today.

Stephanie Ruhle: Wins and fails? Really? Okay, I'm going to give you two fails to start. My first fail is the state of Florida. They have 67 counties, 66 have high COVID transmission rates. The average age of a person hospitalized in Florida right now is 42 years old. So all this is people who are old or vulnerable. And meanwhile, last week, Governor DeSantis was out giving a speech in Salt Lake City, fighting against the mask mandate, saying he's going to defund schools if they insist on having mask mandates. So I would say Florida lost. The number two loser last week had to be Tom Barrack, one of President Trump's oldest friends, closest allies, gets arrested. He is in a heap of trouble. The fact that his bail was $250 million speaks to that. I mean, that's an enormous number for a guy who is a super wealthy California jet-setting international businessman. At the age of 74, he is looking at a tough road ahead. And I think it's really telling that Trump didn't say one single thing about it. And I would say the winner for the week, you know I'm going to the Olympics, obviously. Team USA, but most definitely Suni Lee, the now gold medalist. My favorite thing was when her dad said, "Simone Biles is truly the greatest ever because she enabled my daughter to win gold." And everything that happened around Simone Biles, it's a win for mental health awareness. It really is.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. And also, she knew what she couldn't do. She knew she couldn't do it. People don't understand that. I would say the fails were continuing people insulting her. But you're right. Some of the Olympic stuff is really great. It's difficult to watch and the ratings are down, but it's nice that they're still taking place. Obviously, the upsurge in COVID in Japan is not very welcome.

Stephanie Ruhle: Yes, that's true. Ratings are down, but I would say because of all the on-demand, I can kind of watch it whenever. Listen, for everybody who's going after Simone Biles, each one of them, I would love for any of them to come and sit down with us. And I'd love to know where they showed great mental or physical fortitude in any significant way. Based on what I read on Twitter, it was a bunch of silly boys in lazy boy chairs moaning and groaning.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. They couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, as they say.

Stephanie Ruhle: As they say.

Kara Swisher: Okay, Stephanie, that is the show. We'll be back on Friday. My co-host for that show will be attorney and contributing columnist of The Washington Post, George Conway, who will be able to comment on what Phil and Carol just said. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your questions for the Pivot podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Stephanie, thank you so much for doing this today. And I'm going to let you read us out with the credits.

Stephanie Ruhle: Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman and Camila Salazar. Ernie Endredat 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 basically wherever you get your podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend, maybe somebody you don't like. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank you, Stephanie.

Kara Swisher: Thank you, Kara.