--:-- Kara Swisher: [00:00:00] AI agents are getting pretty impressive. You might not even realize you're listening to one right now.
--:-- Kara Swisher: We work 24-7 to resolve customer inquiries. No hold music, no canned answers, no frustration. Visit sierra.ai to learn more.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say. So we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe, expose corruption wherever we find it, and give fresh perspective on everything from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at TheGuardian.com.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Free August is in full swing and going rather well, I would say, for myself. So today I'm joined by someone I have huge admiration for, producer, writer, director, and comedy legend, Judd Apatow. Welcome, Judd. How you doing?
--:-- Judd Apatow: You know, I'm intimidated. It's big shoes to fill. I know he brings the energy, and I'm hoping that I can do it. I've been prepping all day.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, fantastic. Let me ask you a question. You're in North Carolina, right? Correct?
--:-- Judd Apatow: That's right. North Carolina, where it can be 90 degrees and raining all day.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right. Okay. So what are you doing there? What are you working on?
--:-- Judd Apatow: We're making a movie with some young men from Saturday Night Live who have been making these incredible digital shorts. They're called Please Don't Destroy. And we're here this summer. Someone thought it would be good to shoot a movie in the mountains in August in North Carolina. I'm not sure who. I need to locate that person because it is hot.
--:-- Kara Swisher: The glamorous life of a Hollywood person. Let me ask you, though, because we're going to talk about a lot of stuff that's been going on in the country right now. I'm going to talk about Bros, which is your latest movie. But do you think about where to do movies right now? Where is Hollywood's mind on this thing? Because they've gone through different iterations of this over the decades.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I think it changes because the laws change. And you always want to encourage people who are trying to pass sane laws that you want them to succeed. So the idea of when you say to a state, "If you continue to have these laws, we may not bring our work here," is a sensitive issue because there's a lot of crews here and people that make their living in the industry. And you're bailing on them also when you decide not to come to a state. So I think it's a very painful discussion that would be solved by people just caring about the rights of other people. And also it's an enormous amount of the country that has laws set up to prevent women from having rights over their own bodies. So I think this debate is just beginning about what to do. But for me personally, I tend to drift towards places which I feel are generally more hospitable to values I agree with.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right. And when you think about that, is there something a state could do that crosses a line? Like what Indiana just did, this very strict abortion law, versus a Kansas, which was showing some signs of electoral interest in terms of people who are pro-abortion rights? I mean, it's all pretty awful, isn't it?
--:-- Judd Apatow: The basic right should not be the states. I mean, that's just the worst case scenario. Then you get into what's really the most terrible, which is what if you have an ectopic pregnancy? What if doctors are scared to do basic health care because they think they're going to get in trouble? The thing that scares me the most is like bounty. It's like, "Oh, you can make money if you turn somebody in because they cross state lines or got an abortion pill." It really sets people up to be even more polarized. And I think all of those ideas, we're just beginning to come to grips with how truly terrible this can become. We'll see in the midterms, because I would hope that a lot of people are going to vote maybe who wouldn't have voted, or maybe their vote might change because they realize where we're headed, which is against gay marriage, against contraception, gay adoption. There's so many other issues that could head in this direction unless people stand up and vote. So my thing is always, it's all about voting. Just figure out how to do it. Even if they're trying to prevent you, figure out how to get registered and get it done.
--:-- Kara Swisher: This gets us to your movie, Bros, that you produced starring Billy Eichner. He's also a writer. And one of the things that was interesting is it sort of painted a picture of gay life. Right now, I've never felt more under siege than back in the 80s. I feel like that right now. And I have four children, married. Nerve-wracking, actually, in terms of adoption and all kinds of the idea of what the Supreme Court was saying. So talk a little bit about this movie, because it's a really happy version of gay people that feels a little bit under siege right now, trying to present this sort of rom-com of how you find happiness between people.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, when we started the project, we started it four years ago, maybe even a little longer, in times which were, I think, a little better regarding all of these issues. We thought there should be a gay rom-com, a big studio with a real budget movie like this, and it shouldn't be an area that this type of film doesn't exist in. There's something really terrible about that. And so we all worked together with Nick Stoller, the co-writer and the director, to try to create this to be something big and fun and about love and about dating and about a relationship that you don't get to see on TV too much.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Indeed. And TV, by the way.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Things have changed in a really dark way in the last year. So it does change it. But the movie does have a lot of content in it, which is very personal to Billy about the way he feels about being excluded and what his life has been like and how it's different to be gay in this country and all the ways that the systems work against you. So we were surprised that a lot of the issues that are coming up in places like Florida with Don't Say Gay were actually in the movie and in some of the moments which are more serious in the film. And some of those scenes are very moving, and you also wish they weren't necessary.
--:-- Kara Swisher: So there were a lot of sort of darker scenes in it. How do you think about balancing that? Talk a little bit about that and translating that to the screen.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, there's certainly plenty to be mad about. And I think that it's important that we have an honest character. Whenever we make these movies, we try to start from a place of real honesty. What's preventing somebody from getting in a relationship? What are the obstacles generally in their lives? And so if you're going to be three-dimensional and tell the truth, some of that would be what you're frustrated about. And it was important that that was in the movie. Most of those scenes are really, really funny, but it felt appropriate to have a couple where they were more serious.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right. One of the last questions I have about this is there's a huge call out to Brokeback Mountain, which of course was the game movie that happened, but it was two straight actors. And everyone was like, it was a breakthrough moment. I thought it was depressing. The same thing, like a lot of the movies, they're depressing and then there's straight actors playing it. When you thought about creating this, and there's lots of callbacks to it, including near the end. What do you think, why do you think Hollywood's been so slow to embrace all kinds of different things when there's a lot of appetite for it? Or maybe there just isn't enough appetite from their perspective.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I think that when you look at Hollywood, ultimately, it's a few megacorporations who are looking to make money. And they'll just go in the direction of where the money is and where the path of least resistance is. But when they have theories about things, a lot of times it's hard to change them. So if they wonder, "Will this type of movie about this community make money?" they might be slower to make that movie. And I think it isn't just about LGBTQ plus community. It's about all the different communities. And then when something makes money, they chase it. The heartbreaking part about it is, is there are always decades behind the curve. And so when we showed this movie, the crowd wasn't like, "Oh, I can't handle this." They were basically loving it. And what it felt like in the room was, we were ready for this so long ago.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yes. It's ridiculous. It's taken this long to do this.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Right. Absolutely. And so the movie's a real crowd pleaser. It's really fun. It's really romantic and sweet. But there's something about it that makes you go, it's weird that it's 2022 and it's taken this long to do this.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Although I must say the volleyball scene in Top Gun 2 and Top Gun 1 is still gayer than this movie, despite the amazing amount of gays here.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Those are high bars. Those are high bars.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, so the movie comes out, Bros comes out on September 30th. And again, it's an all LGBTQ cast, which is unusual, I think, in general. But today we'll talk about a lot of things. You couldn't have a better week for having Judd here. Trump's wild week of legal problems, also of interesting narrative. And I can't, it couldn't become a movie. It's too much. Strange. It's too much stuff. It's too much.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Too many scandals, too much crazy. Like, how would you even... when people have tried, you go, how do you... every day could be a movie.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. So first of all, Disney has more streaming subscribers than Netflix. I guess Ron DeSantis's woke business ideas didn't seem to work out. Disney Plus added 15 million subscribers last quarter, giving the House of Mouse a slight edge in streaming. When you added all its networks, Disney losses are growing, too. It lost more than a billion dollars on streaming last quarter. It is committed to streaming, though. It's also announced it's raising prices on some of the streaming options. I'm sure more advertising is next. So talk a little bit about this from your perspective, how you look at all these streamers. Obviously, it's been a cornucopia of content for content creators like yourself. But at the same time, there's lots of them. How do I look at it?
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, I mean, I look at it as someone who watches it. And I hope that people will take chances and make good content and not just become network television. And that's really the fear is that when you have too much metadata that you think you know what people like. And then when you think you know what people like, are you not taking as big a swing into your own gut and your own imagination and your own creativity and making choices about what to make? Because the data might say, "Well, we just love crime documentaries." And I love crime documentaries. But I don't want to only watch crime documentaries or crime movies. And there are certain areas that if you watch all the streamers, you go, "Oh, it tends to go in that direction." Because the great things that happen usually would not be in the data. The great movie that you didn't see coming about the weird subject approached in a way that no one's ever done it before cannot be predicted. And so as a viewer, I just hope that what it felt like at the beginning of streaming, which was, "Hey, we're going to create a place that's so creative that we're going to have stuff that you can't get anywhere else," doesn't turn into lowest common denominator everywhere.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right. How do you consider as a creator or creators in general it like, "Oh, more money for us"? Or do you see it as problematic given so many of them? Or is it worrisome as a creator?
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, I think the only worry is that if everyone feels on the edge of success that creative risks won't be taken as often. You can just do dating shows forever because you think that's what's going to get you more subscribers as opposed to making a movie that on paper may not work. And we all know that's what most of our favorite movies were in the past. They broke the mold in some way. So for me, I want them all to be healthy and do great so that they can be bold. That's what I think is most important for the programming. Because if the programming isn't good, people aren't going to watch anyway. And we all have the same experience. We go home and we scroll for like 10 minutes. And we like our streamers based on if that scrolling time isn't forever. If we find something fast, we're like, "That streamer is working. Look how quickly I got to whatever, Bird Box." But if it's taken me a long time, I'm like, "Why do I have this thing?"
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right, right. It is, yeah. As someone who makes movies and television for them, it's the same thing, basically. Are they in the mood to try something? Will they allow us to do something innovative?
--:-- Judd Apatow: So during COVID, we made the movie The Bubble about trying to make a movie during COVID. And Netflix was very supportive of going for something really wild and silly that talked about the time. And it was a great experience. And that only probably could have happened with a streamer and with people like Ted Sarandos and Scott Stuber who allowed it. And that's what you want.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Do you imagine most of your movies are going to be streamed in the future? Or most of the future Judd Apatow movies are going to be streamed in the future versus in theaters? Do you think about that at all or do you not care?
--:-- Judd Apatow: I think about it all the time. I mean, I think that you want it all to be healthy. I think it's a little bit like shooting movies on film or on digital. It's really important that we keep shooting on film also. We don't want to lose that option. And I think we want movies to work in the theaters. We want comedies to work in the theaters. When we show Bros to a full house, people love it and they enjoy the communal experience of it. And you don't want that just to be for Marvel movies. All sorts of great movies and dramas need to be seen in the theater. But at the same time, streamers are making a ton of movies that might not get made for the theaters. And we like watching things at home. I'm mainly watching things at home. So I think that that's awesome. Also, you just don't want one side to win.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. Although it was Ted Sarandos who said he didn't think most movies would get to the theaters and he thought it would be blockbusters and not the smaller movies, comedies and the dramas. He was last year when I interviewed him. It's a really interesting time to think about where you're going to appear. But I agree. Some of the... I would have liked to have watched Bros not by myself. I was thinking I'd love to be in the theater.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, the world will get to. And I think that's also really exciting because I feel like Bros is really one of the best movies I've ever been a part of. And it works well in the theater, and it's new, and I'm assuming it's going to do well. How I always look at it when it comes to the health of the theaters is, what was the great comedy that bombed in the theater? Only when you have an amazing movie really bomb do you go, something's going wrong. And I think that Bros is great, and I really expect it to do well in the theater and show people that if you make a great comedy, people will leave the house.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's true. All right, next thing. Elon Musk has dumped Tesla for Twitter once again. On Tuesday, he sold nearly $7 billion worth of Tesla shares. He implied the sale was a safety measure in case things didn't go his way in the Twitter case, which most people think it is not. He also said he's done selling shares, which he said last April, and he dumped another batch. And he also has more Elon-esque plans than the most. When asked if he'd create his own social platform, he would simply write x.com. I happen to know that's a site he owns from his original company, x.com, when he started, which he sold to PayPal many years ago. So he still owns the URL from way back when, when he didn't have much money. I'm just curious how you look at him from a narrative perspective, this Elon drama. Is it boring to you or a comedy or a tragedy? Or how do you look at it?
--:-- Judd Apatow: I've only met the man once. I think twice. Many years ago, I don't know, maybe 10, 12 years ago, but before Tesla, I was at a party. I think it was an Oscar party. And I was drinking, seemed like he was drinking. And I was introduced to him, didn't know who he was. Maybe he had heard his name as the PayPal guy or something. And I asked him what he did. And he said, "I'm trying to create a spaceship that can go to Mars and back." And I responded in my drunkenness, "You'll never figure that out before you die."
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, wow.
--:-- Judd Apatow: "You just don't have enough time." I tried to discourage him from innovation is what I'm saying. And so far he's doing pretty good. He's gotten some steps. He may have to also master life extension, which I'm sure he's also working on, possibly.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Possibly.
--:-- Judd Apatow: So in terms of him, what do I make of all that? I don't know. I'm not big in the stock market, but I do remember watching him smoke pot on Joe Rogan and thinking, "I don't know if I'm going to invest in this Tesla thing." And probably I lost an enormous amount of money. Not that I would have invested much money because I just thought, well, that's kind of different. And it didn't make me feel great about handing that person my money. But maybe you need people who want to open their mind and be creative and think things that no one's ever thought before. But I do listen to you and Scott debate this all the time. And the thing that is terrifying is if you have someone that is brilliant and can think of things that have never been thought of before, you don't want them also to love chatting on Twitter.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right, right. You just want that person to be alone in a room cracking the code on Mars. Just get back to Mars. Get back to making the cars work better. I don't want him thinking it's time for me to be a riot on Twitter. That's my job. And you know what? I shouldn't be on Twitter either. Do you think he's funny?
--:-- Judd Apatow: I'm more troubled by the fact that he thinks it's necessary to be funny.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, oh.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I'm embarrassed that I want to be funny.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay, but that's your job.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I don't need him to feel that he needs the ego stroke of the attention, but I think that's everybody in the world. Everybody wants to be famous. Everybody wants to be an entertainer. Do we want Thomas Edison to also think, "I must be a crack up and have a lot of TikTok followers"? I don't want those people to feel they need to do that.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I'm going to point out he really was kind of a P.T. Barnum of his day. He called reporters together. He was difficult. He tried to kill Tesla, really. I'm wrong. You've proven me wrong right away.
--:-- Judd Apatow: You've proven me wrong right away. Thomas Edison was an asshole, let me just say. And sometimes Elon Musk is.
--:-- Kara Swisher: I've heard this before. Henry Ford, there's a lot of...
--:-- Judd Apatow: Asshole.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Asshole. Walt Disney had his moments with the unions and the Jewish people.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Yes. Aren't you glad you picked a career where you don't have to work with attention-hungry megalomaniacs all the time? I mean, you know.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Woo! Just missed out on that. Just the sweet people of Hollywood.
--:-- Kara Swisher: All right, let's get to our first big story. Speaking of attention-seeking megalomaniacs, Donald Trump is keeping his mouth shut for once. The former president pleaded the fifth this week in a deposition with New York State Attorney General's office. The AG is conducting a civil investigation into Trump's business practices, but his legal problems don't end there. The FBI executed a search warrant on his Mar-a-Lago home this week in an unrelated case. Trump had plenty to say about that, including "they even broke into my safe." Also this week, a federal appeals court ruled that the House Ways and Means Committee can access Trump's tax returns. I mean, you reference this idea that this could not be made up by people who write these things. Where are we in this story from your perspective?
--:-- Judd Apatow: I think that we're all thinking it's pretty incredible that you could do so many things which would get the rest of us in trouble and always slip by. Starting with Trump University, that every time it seems like, well, that's kind of simple. But I feel like if I owned a house and it was worth $100,000 and I wanted to get a loan on my house and I said it was worth $10 million, I think I would get in trouble. And that's really what that case is about. If you've seen the numbers, it's not that complicated. And so there's a certain fraud there that seems simple. If I was running for office and I lost and I called up people in the state and said, "Get me 11,000 votes. Just find me 11,000 votes." I think I would get in trouble for doing that. Or if there was a riot and there were thousands of people at the Capitol and I could tell people to stop them and protect them or get them out of there, and I just sat there for several hours and didn't do anything while people begged me to do something, I feel like I would get in trouble. So I think sometimes you think, "Well, at some point it's going to happen." But then it never seems to happen. And I feel like he seems to have an innate understanding of all the ways our system doesn't work, where all the holes are.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I can't imagine he keeps very important things in his little hotel safe. I mean, if he's not smart enough to find another place to put the good stuff at this point. I mean, really, what would you keep in the safe at the place where you live? He has other places to hide things. So what did they find? 1970s porn, something like that.
--:-- Kara Swisher: But besides that, I mean, one of the things that's interesting is as a character, this has been good for him in a lot of many people feel. There was speculation online what it means for 2024, whether it was the timing was good for Biden, who, by the way, was busy passing the burn pit bill and everything else, like was doing a great job dealing with Al-Qaeda, et cetera, et cetera, even while he had COVID. But the attention immediately came on to Trump. When you think about character development, how do you look at him as a character in the American drama, I guess, or comedy or tragedy? I'm not sure which one it is.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, in a way, he's the joker. He's chaos. And that's always fascinating to people. People don't understand him. I think the main reason why the fascination is endless is no one really understands him. You don't get a very coherent conversation with him to get what he's all about. And he doesn't put himself in a position to be interviewed like that. For instance, when COVID started and he said, "Oh, it's just seven, it's going down to nothing in a couple of weeks." We know that they told him, "Oh man, this is bad. This is a worldwide nightmare." Well, why would you do that? You would do that because you don't want to look like anything bad happens on your watch, even if you know it's about to take over the country. So we don't understand a person like that who thinks in that way, who's so self-serving. It's a form of madness. And it is, if it was a TV show or a movie, that is the type of show you want to watch with an ingenious, bizarre character. Unfortunately, it affects people's lives. It costs people their lives. And I think there are obviously people who like having a chaotic figure there to attack what they see as the other side. I look at it in a very simple way. These people are in public service. They should just be obsessed with making people's lives better, alleviating pain, supporting people, lifting people up. And it seems like so much of it is just a fight. He seems to just want to be in a fight every single day. Grievance, constant grievance.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It's beyond that.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I think he wants a fight every day. I think one of the things with President Obama that we all noticed was he loved when it was calm. He loved when there wasn't any news. He liked when things were just working out and we could go about our lives. With Trump, he wants something to happen every day. Even if it's him saying, "I take the fifth 400 times," it's a great day for him. He's in the news. And, "Oh, my safe got broken into." He's in the news. He's fighting someone. And that's a weird thing to really want to be in combat every single day.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. They agree. But the other thing is people that involve themselves, too. Like Andrew Yang had an unfortunate tweet. I thought it was saying, "I'm no Trump fan. I want him far away from the White House as possible. But fundamental part of his appeal has been that it's him against the corrupt government establishment. This raid strengthens that case for millions of Americans who will see this as an unjust persecution." Andrew Cuomo, who should probably keep quiet for a while and sit in the back some more, said, "The DOJ must immediately explain the reason for its raid. It must be more than a search for inconsequential archives. It will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation legitimacy of January 6th investigations." Really, him lecturing the DOJ is interesting, especially because they're not really allowed to talk about it in reality. The people around it, how do you look at that with all the characters? And it's including the Republican Party, which sort of rallied him around him for this particular event. I mean, isn't it simple? If somebody asks you for something for a year or so and you don't give it to them, at some point they say, "OK, we're going to come over and get it." And why should he be an exception to that?
--:-- Judd Apatow: The only reason why he's an exception is because he has the ability to make a lot of noise and rile people up that we all think might get dangerous. But why should you be allowed to not honor a subpoena? That's the thing we've all found fascinating, that it took a year or more to just get people to answer questions or get people to show up and just say, "I refuse to answer questions."
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right, right.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I don't think any of us think that's how it would work for us. If I did something that was questionable, I could just keep refusing to talk to anybody about it if I was in the government. And that's the thing that I think is shocking to most people, because you would assume if there's a question about something, you're allowed to ask someone about it. And that doesn't seem to be the case, even for people where it's not a criminal situation, where just everyone around Trump found a way to not answer questions for a really long time until they thought it looked better for them to answer questions.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right, which was January 6th investigations. What's interesting is, though, others are terrified. Alex Jones certainly got his hat handed to him in the Texas trial. There's more to come. Also, his lawyer mistakenly, I'm not sure if it's mistaken, turned over two years' worth of his text to prosecutors in his defamation trial. Tucker Carlson is reportedly terrified that his text with Alex Jones could come out. The texts include also a nude photo of Jones's wife sent to Roger Stone. Stone denies ever receiving and says that Alex Stone should sue his own lawyer over the error. They've been handed over to the January 6th committee. What's really interesting is the intersection of all these stories together into one weird amalgam. I feel like I'm in a Marvel, like the Avengers over several episodes, you know, several movies or something. And it keeps referencing back and then other people pull in. When you look at someone like Alex Jones, he is starting to pay for his sins, essentially. But not Trump.
--:-- Judd Apatow: It reminds me, I made a documentary about George Carlin that's on HBO. And he used to say, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. And when you're born in America, you get a front row seat." And it's just so much crazy. And it's really dark. It's bottom feeders. Alex Jones would talk about it being a hoax. I mean, is there anything more evil that you could do on Earth than that? And then sell millions of dollars of Alex Jones merchandise off of all of the hubbub around that. And there's a lot of really bad people who will do anything for money in a way that I don't think we realize. And that's what's happened with journalism and social media. There's probably always been people that awful around. Now we just have instant access to them. I find it really sad. It's hard to have the energy to fight against it. But I think that it's our country and we all have to not let it get us so down that we don't do the things that we can do to lift people up. Because there is a monetary incentive to being a nightmare in America right now. It works.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It works. You referenced your really tremendous documentary, which people should go watch on HBO on George Carlin. How would he make this moment? What would he see?
--:-- Kara Swisher: I mean, it just becomes... because he predicted a lot of this stuff. He talked about it a lot, about the power of government, et cetera, et cetera. Well, he had a lot of observations. And he used to say, "I'm here to entertain people, but I'm also here to let you know that I've been thinking." I don't think he had a lot of answers, but he certainly knew where the problems were. He talked a lot about big money and big business controlling the media and the government, and that those people didn't have other people's interests at heart. They just want to make money. We see that when the January 6th committee hearings aren't broadcast wall-to-wall on Fox. It's because it goes against their business interests to have the truth out there. Or if you don't think it's the truth, at least the truth of what they're saying on that day. He was very suspicious of authority. But at the same time, he loved people and he was concerned that people weren't educated and the powers that be wanted people not educated. He thought that they wanted people just educated enough to work the machines, but not educated enough to ask hard questions. That is a big problem. And he thought we get the politicians we deserve because we vote for them. So it is a cycle of bad education, being trained to accept what's in front of you. And then certain people seem to be making a lot of money. Yeah, I sure would like to hear him today. I'll tell you that.
--:-- Judd Apatow: His daughter says you probably couldn't predict what his opinion would be. That whatever you think it would be, it would probably surprise you.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, no. He's Joe Rogan. He's been reincarnated as Joe Rogan, who's not very funny, actually. He was always about the little guy. He wanted us to care about people who are being mistreated. That was the most important thing to him.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Yeah. Well, it would be interesting. You're right. You never know where you'd be today.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Anyway, this George Carlin documentary, by the way, has been nominated for five Emmys. It's well worth watching. All right, Judd, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about privacy in a post-Roe world. And I'll take a listener mail question about working with your spouse.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay, Judd, we're back with our second big story. Police in Nebraska used private Facebook messages to charge a mother and her teenage daughter over an alleged illegal abortion. Facebook handed over messages between the mother and the daughter in response to a warrant. The woman now faces criminal charges related to her 17-year-old daughter's abortion in April, and the teen will be tried as an adult. Facebook says the warrant didn't mention abortion and came before the Supreme Court's decision. Even if Facebook is telling the truth, this is a bad look for the company. I kept thinking "burn in hell" for several days after I read this. Meta announced some privacy upgrades to its WhatsApp this week, including allowing users to exit a group chat without notifying everyone. And unlike Facebook messages, WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted by default. So what do you think of this? Facebook likes to say their hands are tied when the police come knocking, but there are technical solutions. They also could just refuse, as Apple did, facing down the government over encryption issues. So how do you look at something like this?
--:-- Judd Apatow: It does seem to be the inevitable end to all of it. We invite all these gadgets in. You have a friend who's like, "You've got to cover up your camera because they can look at you," or "You have to shut off your microphones." I'm usually the person that's like, "Really? What are they going to see me doing?" But the truth is, if I'm talking in front of my phone, yes. If I'm wandering around my kitchen and my friend Alexa is over, my Alexa suddenly asks me what I want. So it's listening all day long. And then they say, "Well, it only records the moment when you say Alexa." But it has to listen all day. So we don't really know what's happening. And then how does that get intertwined with the government and what certain states might see as a criminal act? It's just a disaster. It's something that got big too fast that we can't manage anymore. How I deal with it is I try to stay out of trouble. I just try not to do anything wrong.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Trouble finds you, in case you're interested. They'll find whatever they want.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Some of these messengers, a lot of this encryption stuff does solve the problem. It keeps the police out of people's... and of course, then it could protect criminals. There's the push-pull of that. But in the case of abortion, they're going to use these texts and this information of people talking to each other to convict people, because this is where people speak now, rather than just on a phone that may or may not be listened to.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yeah. And what's really sad about it is I've heard people say, "Well, we're all just going to have to pick a state that we think is more in line with our values." Most people can't afford to do that. You're just trapped in a place that suddenly changed. My dad's in Florida. Florida is changing in a way that I don't think is great. I don't think my dad is going to have to deal with most of these issues. But people are just there and you can't say, "Okay, well, I'm going to move somewhere else to not have to deal with this." And what's unfortunate is it feels like a 10, 20-year war. It's not something that's going to get resolved in a few weeks.
--:-- Judd Apatow: No, not at all. They're very committed. They're committed to a lot of things. There's an expression about breakfast: the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. You know, bacon and eggs.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Well, I think what people don't talk about enough is there are a lot of people — and it's just beginning to bubble up — who really want this country to be a theocracy. If you see people online like Mike Pompeo, Marjorie Taylor Greene, there are big meetings where they want religion involved in every decision in this country. That's why they're willing to put up with someone like Donald Trump, because he is moving the ball forward and getting things accomplished that they want to get accomplished. But most of those things are based on religion. You know, abortion had a minor plot in your film, *Knocked Up*. Tell me about it.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Yes, I do. And I won't say the word for little baby ears over there, but it rhymes with "shmushmorshing." I'm just saying, hold on, Jay, cover your ears. You should get a shmushmorshman at the shmushmorshman clinic. Shmishmorshen.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Did you invent that term?
--:-- Judd Apatow: I think that's a little lost to time. The idea was that two of Seth Rogen's friends would have the worst abortion debate of all time. Just two idiots debating it. I think we accomplished that. Sometimes people say to me, "Well, she didn't get an abortion in the movie." But a lot of the movie was based on personal events. It was a mix of fictional and personal. But if Katherine Heigl did have an abortion, the movie would have been seven minutes long. Obviously, everyone should have the opportunity to make that decision. That was just a story about two people that decided to see if they could get along if they had the baby. But that scene is a ridiculous scene. And unfortunately, that scene is what America is about to turn into.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right, right. Absolutely. Okay, Judd, let's pivot to some listener mail. You've got mail. The question comes from Beth via email. I'll read it. "Hey, Kara, a couple of weeks ago on the show, Katie Tour mentioned worrying about working with her husband. My husband and I have been starting and running businesses for 16 years while raising four kids. We literally work side by side most days. I found that having a business was actually a solve for our relationship. Even if we were in a serious disagreement, an emotional situation at home, we went to work, put our professional pants on, acted supremely respectful to each other, and got it done. Even if we were in a fight, I really cherish going to work and being able to look at him with love and respect. It's like a demilitarized zone. Are we just lucky that we ended up together, or do more couples find joy working together if they got over their initial fears? Thanks, Beth." Oh, you've worked with your wife and stuff. How do you think about this?
--:-- Judd Apatow: I'm all for it. I think it's fun to have common purpose. I like when we have a common purpose and we have a project that we're both trying to make work together. If you're not getting along that morning when you get to work, you have to put that aside. It's even harder for us because we have to put that aside and try to be hilarious with each other. So you can't just tolerate each other. You've got to get to hilarity. But I loved every time I've gotten to work with Leslie, just because she's also so great at what she does. She is a real collaborator on all of these projects. Even the ones that she's not a part of, she's the one watching the cuts with me and giving me great advice because I think she's very in tune emotionally and asks a lot of great, tough questions. So I'm for it. Work with your spouses.
--:-- Kara Swisher: This is Leslie Mann, who's wonderful. Oddly enough, the other night, I ended up watching her in *The Other Woman*. She's very funny.
--:-- Judd Apatow: *The Other Woman* is great. I like her on Cameron Diaz's shoulders, with the legs and everything else. It was really quite good.
--:-- Kara Swisher: When you think about working together, you also work with your family, your daughters at times. They have their own careers, obviously. Maude is on *Euphoria* and your daughter Iris is on *Love* and many other things. Are they in your latest? This is *This Is 50* because you did *This Is 40*?
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, I'm writing *This Is 50* right now. I'm living it and writing it. So I hope I'll get an opportunity to do that pretty soon. It's been really fun working with them. I like them. In the beginning, I just thought, "I just don't want to hang out with other people's kids." You're always looking to avoid that. We started working together when they were tiny. Over the years, we've done so many things together that they've just become incredible actresses and are doing amazing things on their own. I think it's fine. I look at it like a cobbler. It's a family business. You wind up talking about movies and storytelling and art. Hopefully some of it seeps into their brains.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Is there another family that works as much together as yours? I'm trying to think in Hollywood.
--:-- Judd Apatow: There are all sorts of people who have kids who work in the business. I think it's a natural thing. If I was a dentist, I would just talk about dentistry all day long and probably my kids would want to pull teeth. If you're a firefighter, you're talking about firefighting.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Right, right. I think that's a TV show, *Blue* or whatever. My dentist, his father is a dentist and his father is a dentist. There's that whole thing going on. In any case, they got the better end of the deal on this one. Beth, thank you for that. I think working with your spouse can work out. It's an interesting thing that you sort of have to set it aside and really do the work. Although, unfortunately, what happens — which is the plot of many sitcoms — is people don't set it aside when they're working together. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Judd, one more quick break and we'll be back. I'll let you out of here for wins and fails.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Okay, Judd, we have this section where we call wins and fails. I would like your win and fail this week.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Well, the win, I think, would be Serena Williams announced that she is — I don't think she's announcing an official retirement, but just beginning to head towards that direction. She's the greatest of all time. Won the Grand Slam 23 times, was number one 319 weeks during her career, and is amazing. So that's a win for a whole career. Choosing your family is also a win.
--:-- Kara Swisher: She's also an entrepreneur. I've met her because her husband has been in tech, Alex Ohanian, and she's done a lot of really interesting entrepreneurial stuff. So I think maybe she's interested in that. And she's a great philanthropist as well. Indeed. There are too many great things to mention. And then for fail?
--:-- Judd Apatow: A right-wing dating app.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, no.
--:-- Judd Apatow: Where all conservative people can get together. They're going to have a problem because they're going to need abortions at the end of that road. And then they're going to be in trouble. Also, they'll probably have gay kids because the gays have straight kids. They are the ones that make the gay kids. So good luck with that dating app.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Should I switch it to a win? It might be a win. Maybe I messed up. Is that a fail?
--:-- Judd Apatow: It's a win. They're going to learn from experience. They're going to find their heart through experience. It'll be like Dick Cheney learned. That's what's going to happen with this dating app.
--:-- Kara Swisher: How did you think of that video he made? I'm really curious. "In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward." Because he was pretty loathsome for so long. It's always weird when Darth Vader comes in, even when he says something that is correct. You can't trust it.
--:-- Judd Apatow: But that was the end of the movie. Darth Vader gets good at the end. Remember? Like he's there with Obi-Wan. It can happen. Hollywood made it so. It's like Darth Vader just coming out, being like, "Don't trust Trump." I don't know if there are many Republicans who are still looking to him for their choices at this point. But it's good that he did it. Anytime he says the right thing, we can be happy for that. But I don't know if he has the same weight.
--:-- Kara Swisher: It's sort of like when a Republican, a very virulent anti-gay Republican, suddenly has a gay son. And it's like, "Now I see." You're sort of like, "Fuck you." It's like when Paul Manafort says the right thing. You don't care that much. And isn't it interesting that no one talks about that Paul Manafort admitted this week that he gave voter information to the Russians?
--:-- Judd Apatow: Oh, yeah.
--:-- Kara Swisher: People don't even talk about it. He finally admitted that he did it. And everyone said, "Oh, all of that investigation, it was all false." And he's like, "Yeah, I just did it for my career, to help my career. It wasn't Donald Trump who wanted me to do it. I just did it for a job later." So he has a lie in it, but he does admit that he did it.
--:-- Judd Apatow: That's true. Can I have that Darth Vader impression one more time of Dick Cheney? [In a deep, gravelly voice] "I believe in love." I sound a little more like the water boy.
--:-- Kara Swisher: That's true. Okay, Judd, that was very funny. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. One thing before we go, as you may have heard, I enjoyed Scott-free August so much that I'm starting a whole new Scott-free show. We're looking for an experienced podcast producer to join the team. As you may know, I've done hundreds, thousands of interviews over the years and I don't just wing them. Well, sometimes I do actually. I also rely on a team of smart people to help me prep and make it all sound good. Enter the new job. We're looking for a producer with a newsroom background, editing skills, someone who knows a bit about tech, business, media, and politics. We want someone with at least five years experience. So if that sounds like you, apply at the link in our show notes. It's an essential role. It'll be a lot of fun. Judd, you cannot apply. Although you'd be an excellent production assistant.
--:-- Judd Apatow: It would be really great. Who knew this is how you find employees at the end of the podcast? I can just do that. Like, "Hey, I need this person in my life." What do you need? I'm going to come back at the end of one of your episodes. I'm just going to list job requirements and you'll help me.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Yes, I will. It's going to be a great show. Actually, you know what I'm thinking of calling it? *The Joe Rogan Experience with Kara Swisher*. Anyway, Judd, I'm a huge fan. Thank you so much for taking the time and doing this. I know you're a busy man.
--:-- Judd Apatow: I love that if I was 8% as good as Scott, I've achieved my goal.
--:-- Kara Swisher: Oh, well over, well over. And everybody watch *Bros*. It opens on September 30th. It really is very funny, but also very deep. It's much deeper than I expected. Anyway, I will read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neyman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ben Woods engineered this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thank you so much. Thank you.
