If you're tired of endless strolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Peter. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you.
You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City, and save your favorite box, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. Download the Eater app at EaterApp.com. It's free for iOS users. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Galway. I cannot believe it on the day Elon is trying to buy Twitter is out today. I'm joined by writer, actor, and media personality, and sometimes Pivot Co.
host, Gee-hon. George Hahn. I'm thrilled that you're here. George, good to see you again.
Kara, it's such a thrill to be here. Thank you for asking. Of course, you're my first choice, honestly. I thought it'd be fun to talk to you after.
And by the way, Scott thinks every now and then, because he's such a loud mouth, we need a palate cleanser, and you are a palate cleanser, as if I have to pick one. Give me a minute. I'll show that real fast. Anyway, did you watch the Grammys last night?
I did not. I was on a plane to Vancouver. I'm in Vancouver right now. I didn't because I still have PTSD from the Oscars, and I'm in that place where for the next few award shows, I'm going to have to watch them through my fingers.
I did see some clips, and I'm sure you're as well. By all accounts, it was actually a fun show. Yeah, I think there wasn't too much Zelensky up here. Justin Bieber's outfit.
I noticed you tweeted about it. Tell me about what you thought about that. He was channeling David Byrne. Pre-prompted me, and he showed up and he said, George, can I get a ruling?
And I immediately thought of David Byrne in his when stop making sense, talking heads, a drag, which was fantastic. Can Bieber do his own riff on it? It's fine. What really concerned me is that Justin, along with many others, starting with Timothy Chalamet, there was that term so-and-so lost to shirt.
It seems like everybody literally lost their shirt. No one's wearing shirts now. The shirts are very last year. No, it was interesting.
The host of SNL, I'm totally Jared Carmichael. He wasn't wearing shirt, but he looked good. I have to say, I don't like it. What do you think?
I think it depends on who's doing it. You took a picture of it. That's why you took a picture of it. Oh, me?
You did it. You did it. You did it. You did it.
You did it. You were good. You're very kind. I, you know, some can pull it off.
And it's not necessarily an age thing because Lenny Kravitz showed up. I don't know if you saw what he was wearing on the red carpet. No, I did. But he had on like tight leather pants.
He still pulls it off and boots that nearly went on. He was catwoman from the waist down. And then shirtless, but he wore this chainmail halter that he, it worked. Lenny Kravitz looked great.
Yeah. What about Chalamet? What do you think of Chalamet? I think Timothy's having fun.
You know, you're young, have some fun. These are the days where you're in your 20s. Everybody wants to have sex with you. Like, find yourself.
Okay. All right. Okay. Well, speaking of finding yourself, Louis C.
K. Apparently isn't canceled. He won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album just days after Will Smith resigned from the Academy of his conduct by the Oscar Smith. By the way, says he's willing to accept whatever punishment the Academy doles out.
The obvious question, why is Smith's bad behavior potentially punished? And Louis back, I guess, you know, when he was whipping out his ding dong. Yeah, he was whipping it out. My word for penis is just so you know, ding dong, but go ahead.
Move along. Or dong as you know, that's pre-dom. I don't like that. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, listen, it's been a minute since the Louis situation and comedy is tragedy plus time. So it's been a little time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not excusing it. Yeah. I got in terms of craft.
I think Louis C K minus the incident or the, you know, the, the stuff. The incidents apparently, but go ahead. Incidents. Yes.
Several. He is a master craftsman when it comes to joke making. Right. A modern genius.
The whole situation really disappointed me. I liked and admired his work so much. He's a real artist in that in that world. I haven't seen a special.
You know, there were some of his competition in the category was Louis Black, my door. Chelsea Handler. That was a good special. Yeah.
Very. Chelsea hits it with the drugs a lot. Like I get it. Chelsea.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, everybody's got their thing with the trans stuff. I mean, what's interesting?
I've been thinking about a lot because I did think the shappelle that particular segment was super transphobic and he has a problem with that. I didn't read Kathy Griffin about that. Same time as a genius. I think I decided to give comics like a real wide berth now.
And as I think about it and sort of evolved my opinion, in this case, I don't give a wide berth for whipping out as being as a woman. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. It's interesting issue.
But on stage, I give comics. The hitting or the penis whipping is just, I don't know what to do. It's really hard to figure it all out. Although I'm pretty much on the side of Yuck, like you are creepy.
For reminding me of this early 90s album from Sandra Bernhard titled, Excuses for Bad Behavior. And now we're here. Like now we're living it. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, what's interesting is people voted for Louisa King, knowing about his behavior. So they've obviously forgiven him for it. We'll slap King only after the votes were cast.
So anyway, it's interesting. It's interesting. Yeah, it is. It's interesting.
And so, you know, people want to watch it. I think people should watch what they want to watch. And, you know, sometimes with Chris Rock, people are going to have a hard time over the tasteless, the dude who picked a Smith joke. Same time saying you should deserve it.
I think Jared Carmichael made a great point during his monologue on SNL. He said, comic is wonderful. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to be clear.
Up top. I've talked about it enough. Can't talk about it. Can't think about it.
I don't want to talk about it. You can't make me talk about it. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I got a question.
Do you want to talk about it? I urge everyone to go watch his monologue because it really is delicious. He's really is. Masterful opening monologue.
He did. So today, just so you know, we'll talk about a lot of things. Elon Musk's new Twitter, not his new Twitter, but his new Twitter. He's bought a big chunk of the company nearly 10%.
We'll get some news about Sarah Palin and other loud amounts. I know you love to talk about them. And then to cool down, we'll speak with Dr. Laurie Santos about happiness.
But first, discovery and one immediate will merge in the coming days. Advocacy groups are saying the merge company is failing Latinos. Okay, the alliance of groups, including Edward James, almost Latino Film Institute. So he discovered he has zero Latino showrunners directors executives in 2021.
That seems odd and strange. When you think about all the different companies with all these hits and everything else. Anyway, that's going to happen. That's going to happen next week.
And then David says, off takes over. He's sort of an old schooler. I suspect he's like, Oh God, now I own a big company. He's sort of been twiling away for discovery for a long time where he's not gotten as much attention.
So he better be ready for this kind of attention on all kinds of friends. The way Bob Japik is on at Disney. I don't know what you think. You have to represent.
I mean, it's not kind of a no brainer. You know, and they have the Latino community has every right to be sort of going, Hey, hey, with this. Yeah, yeah. What's going on.
Yeah. Sorry. Not sorry. You got to represent.
Yeah, I think it's interesting because when you move from, you know, when you're not prepared for the onslaught because there's these partisanship and culture wars are even though people are actually concerned about inflation and day to day life. When you look at polling, it's going to be a part of the corporate scene, no matter how you slice it going forward. And so depending on what side are in the and the right is just as aggressive as the left in calling people out. You know, Bob Japik got caught in sort of a scissors here when he in a squeeze because he did the wrong thing on the case unless we in Florida.
And then when he started to do the right thing, you want to stand to attack him. So I don't envy the CEOs are paid an enormous amount of money, but it's a really difficult squeeze for a company. When they have to pick a side essentially. Well, I am sometimes yes and sometimes not a fan of Anna Winter, but she says one of my favorite things about this very thing.
You have to stand for something. Yeah. Yes. It just depends on what you stand for.
Well, she's had her own stare of controversies by the way in that area. Yeah, I mean, in general, I would agree. I would agree. And I think it's hard for you to stand for something.
Well, David, welcome to the Thunderdome. I think you're going to find it a little different than our, you know, having a controversy on Guy Fieri. I, you know, whatever, I think it's going to be a little more than that. That was the biggest start discovery.
Yes. And I like Guy Fieri anyway. I watched a diner's drive-ins and whatever it called. Also Jen, the White House is Jen Psaki, maybe headed to MSNBC.
She was born and she was shown Peacock also on regular channels. What do you think about this sort of revolving door? It seems like it's not just her. It's on the right.
It's on the left. They just hired Mick Mulvaney somewhere. I forget where they were. On Mick Mulvaney at CBS.
CBS got a huge controversy. So what do you think about these things? It depends. I think Mulvaney is a different thing and Stephen Colbert had an incredible monologue about it.
Yes, news has hired the ex-presidents former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to quote, provide political analysis across the networks, broadcasts and platforms. For more, we go to the late show's own media analyst Stephen Colbert. Stephen, your thoughts? What the ****?
Psaki? That doesn't surprise me. You know, like the conservative ones go to Fox. Jen Psaki's going to go to MSNBC.
Not really. But not really a surprise. But the difference, as I say from where I'm sitting, is that Jen Psaki's not a liar. She doesn't stand up there and lie to everybody all day when she does that.
The right thing she does, but go ahead. Of course they do. But she's also very good at her job. It's the formula now.
It's what you do. I don't know what I'm going to say. I mean, what's the thing? Sean Spicer's over at what?
Own? Or one of them? I forget. We're saying Sean Spicer went where?
We don't know. I know. But then what was the other press secretary for? Chaley McEninamini.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Who's running for governor and stuff? They can go into politics or they go on to one of these things. I still have the roots of this formula.
Cable has has got to be overhauled. I just feel like it's just a lot of people screaming at each other. And I get why you would scream to the converted, but it seems I don't know. It just doesn't illuminate George.
It doesn't. Well, as a junkie of public radio, I broke up with Cable a long time ago. And NPR listener. And so when you listen to something like NPR, which really kind of feels like the grownups table, nobody's yelling.
Some people think it's shaded, but go ahead. They're pretty good about getting both sides and the people on the right show up and they say, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. And they do their bit, but there's nobody's yelling.
And then when I turn on or see a clip from Cable News, it is jarring. The contrast in tone. And it seems like sort of almost childish by comparison. It is 100%.
I try not to touch it. Although I've been watching, obviously, the imagery from sending scenes in a very good job in Ukraine. And let's go to covering inflation and stuff like that, which is, I think, could do the same thing on all these topics. They don't have to be a war with really awful photo imagery, which I think does bring people in at the same time.
They're doing great reporting. Anyway, let's get on to our first big story. Elon Musk frequently owns people on Twitter, but now he owns Twitter at least a big chunk of it. On Monday, an SEC filing revealed that Musk had purchased more than 9% of the company.
That makes him the largest shareholder. And that is a big deal. I have been waiting for some rich person on the right or left to do this. And he who knows where he is?
He's all over the place. Scott asked a good question this week. What does Elon want from Twitter that he doesn't already get when we were talking about starting his own because he did a poll about whether he should start a social network? As clever as Elon is, he decided to buy one.
He's never gotten even close to getting kicked off of Twitter, which people were like, oh, now we can't get kicked off. He actually stays within, you know, whether you like his Hitler memes or calling US senators Senator Karen, like, it was a bit more. It's fine. I think this is a really fascinating.
People got mad at me because I said it was fascinating. But it certainly is. And Twitter jumped on the news. So the market is expecting him to do something.
It doesn't mean that others won't come in. I'm surprised. He's the exactly right person to do this. And he was actually quite close, has been close to Jack Dorsey.
It doesn't have integration with any of his other companies. Maybe it does. Although Mark Benioff tried to buy Twitter at one point. So tell me, what do you think about this?
It doesn't surprise me. I'm still kind of unclear about the why. Like, it's not like he needs the cash. What is this about?
He hasn't been canceled. He can say and do kind of whatever he wants. And I guess we're going to talk about it later with our guest. But in terms of like this being a pursuit of happiness, what more do you need?
Oh, I don't know. I think he is so linked with Twitter. He loves it. He's obviously like you and I.
Do it in some fashion. I think he's got a point of view on this about free speech. You know, he did that when he did Starlink in Ukraine. No one's going to try and let us decide who goes over this thing.
You know, I think it fits in exactly with his worldview in that he probably felt Twitter had gone too far in policing people. I wouldn't be so he is going to have if he continues and others jump in enormous pressure on this on this management. It is probably something nobody expected. Although when you think about it, it makes perfect sense that he would be the one to do it.
I was not a rich person would move in. But if it was, you know, sore, sort of teal, that would be too much. This guy isn't is sort of weird spot. You know, people who hate him think he's too right wing people who love him.
Think he's just saying it like it is. I would think he would be fore putting Trump back on the platform. That would be my guess. Is he for that?
I don't know. That's the thing. I don't. I think I'm imagine he's a little bit of a visual.
He wasn't doing a vote for when we last interviewed him on a vote for Trump at the same time. I think he has some things in common, right? Like some things he agrees with. So especially around this idea of being sensorious.
I think this is really interesting. And I think people are losing their minds that their beloved Twitter could get in the hands of a billionaire, you know, like this. And that's a lot 10%. It gives you an enormous clout within a company to make changes.
It's more than most shareholder activists. And let me just say the stock of Twitter has been very low. As Scott has talked about a lot, it is an activist shareholder moving in a very different way. So I don't know.
I think it's kind of smart on his behalf for his money, but it's up 30%. Washington Post has an owner. Yeah, exactly. Right.
So I mean, he's not going to be the full owner, but he can't be able to afford it. It's certainly shareholders have got to cheer this because they felt that Twitter is undervalued for a long time. And it has been the same as it was when a public or something like that. But you, again, the idea that him, he claiming that he's being censored, how exactly?
I don't know. Well, he just, no, he talks about free speech in general. I don't think he himself has claimed he's seen that he might have at one point. But you've talked about this.
I'm going to push back a little bit. Okay. Twitter is a private company. And when we agree, like these are their rules, you know, it's like, this is like, this is their codes of conduct.
And if you're not going to buy it, we're a private company. This is not the public square. Twitter can kick me or you off whenever it wants to. Right.
Well, it has to go along their guidelines. I'm surprised I haven't been suspended. I know. Come on.
They love you. But here's the deal. That's correct. It's a private company.
And therefore he can buy it. So, and he can change the rules if he wants their rules, because if he gets enough influence on the board, et cetera, he can change their rules. And so that's how he's doing it. He's not like yelling from the sidelines like a Ted Cruz or whoever, Josh Hawley.
He's actually going to buy it and change the rules. And I think I suspect they made some very hard calls on Trump and some others. And he would take those breaks off. I think he would change those rules.
He would, I'm not sure he goes far as Alex Jones, but he might, you know, he might be like, look, good ideas, bad ideas, they need to be out there all at once. And of course, he's not taking mind that these things can be terribly abused and manipulated by people. But it's really, people are really losing their, they love Twitter and like they don't want someone they don't agree with owning it. Right now, Jack Dorsey was sort of managed to be in both worlds, very free speech oriented.
And then he seemed to make the right decisions at the right time when it was Alex Jones or Trump or whatever, the left light. But he sort of got pressed from the right, but he managed to sit in the middle. Elon is a really interesting character to put in the middle of this because you just don't know where he's going to come out. Although he does tend towards loud mouthery, I guess, I don't know what to say.
He does tend towards attacking Democrats and Biden, for example, but he doesn't necessarily not attack the other side when he feels like it. He's just people find him to be, some people find him to be authoritarian. And just here's, but here's my, and I think Scott might feel the same way. I can't remember exactly what Scott.
Scott should be thrilled because the stock is up. But go ahead. There is that, but I'm sorry. But like the fact that a guy, the way we worship the ultra wealthy and powerful people, and he is excused from behavioral norms, from manners, from like being a gentleman, like, what is your problem?
What he has said about Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Like, what the hell happened to you? Your mother loves you, right? Was it because dad wasn't in the picture?
Why are you like this? Why is it okay for him to be a dick? He's a dick. And I'm like, but because he's rich and powerful, we're supposed to go, well, he's okay.
Is it? It's okay. It's just what he is. I don't think it's an excuse.
He can do what he wants. And I think in this case, he can buy this. It's a private, you're saying it's a private company. I'm not supporting or not.
I'm just surprised no one's done it. And I do think there's only a very few people who could pull something like this off. Jack Dorsey was one of them. And of course, he was even freshly because of stock.
This has gotten the stock up 30%. This is literally the plot of succession at the end of the season when Alexander Starsgard was going to be bought, and then he ended up pumping his stock that allowed him to buy Logan Roy's company. Right? This is sort of a town.
Like, following along with the place. And when I, I don't know why I didn't think Elon buys Twitter, like, kind of thing. Now, again, this could be a pile on of others. There might be some in Silicon Valley that come with him.
He's got a whole crew, you know. And so you could see him, you know, Mark and Driesen getting in here and others. And so it changes the equation quite a bit because he's a private company. And so as much as people don't like that Twitter doesn't want because it's a private company, he can do what he wants because he has money and can buy it.
And he can. And I don't like, I don't want to sit next to him at Thanksgiving dinner table. Like, no, I just like everyone. Okay.
All right. But you know, it's interesting that it doesn't have to fit in with those other things because Twitter is really two things, a news vehicle and a marketing vehicle. And so, you know, he will have influence. People say, Oh, he's not going to be like, Sure, well, like anyone who has that much, they can influence the board.
They can influence. And there's no particular stock here that keeps one person in power. Jack Dorsey, who actually, when I interviewed Jack Dorsey last time, I said, who's your favorite person on Twitter? He said Elon Musk, I think they're quite close.
It's my impression. And so I don't know that for a fact, but it was an interesting choice. And he thought he was enthusiastic and he said he wants this and that. And so I think he can have enormous influence.
And it could set off a bidding war for this thing. Mark Benny off is wanted to buy it. You know, Peter Teal could get in here. There's all kinds of people who have the means to do this.
And before people didn't want to touch Twitter because it was so toxic. And in this case, why not touch? You know, why not grab it? And I think this is fascinating.
This is going to be real interesting. It's going to be hard for Scott because as much as, you know, as you know, Elon called Scott and then Sufable Numskull on Twitter, which was enjoyable to all of us, including Scott. But he loves to dump on Elon, but Elon's the reason the stock is up, which he wants punching down. You think?
I guess. I don't know. Everyone goes after anybody based on his money and his following. Every movie makes is a punch down.
Okay. All right. Well, any case. He doesn't need I've talked to him about this.
I think it's ridiculous. But that's all right. He can do what he wants. If I was his mother, I told him to dial it back, but he didn't see what he wants.
But I ain't his momma. His mother is actually a was a model. She's quite beautiful and fair. She has a point of view.
She got mad at me once that was scarier than Elon getting mad at me, which happens periodically. Anyway, I like her so much. I really do even though even though like she got mad at me, I don't care. She's his momma.
That's okay. He pulled his Twitter followers and asked if Twitter's algorithm should be open source, which was interesting at 80% said yes, which creates a whole nother fork in the road here. There's already an open source version of Twitter called Mastodon. So that's interesting.
Anyway, we'll see what happens. Scott. I can't wait till Scott gets one of you because he must be torn today. All right, George.
Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the blue red state divide is growing and we'll speak with a friend of pivot, Dr. Lori Santos. Hey, I'm AppiShell, comedian, writer and floating head.
You may or may not have seen on your 4U page and I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, wait. Don't swipe away. It's called That Sounds Like A Lot.
As in that feeling when you check your phone in the morning, you read three headlines and you immediately think, oh, that sounds like a lot. I can't deal with all this. But guess what? I can deal with it and I'm gonna get into it every Friday.
I'll break down whatever chaos is happening in the world. Then I'll sit down with a comedian. You can be progressive and not be like fucking annoying. Maybe an actor.
They go coming into them and going too far. You go, why? Does the Sadie Hawkins dance happen? Maybe a filmmaker.
Since leaving that show, I'm challenged to sparing. I just got to hang out and try to do stuff. I'm really sure that the show is a little bit more than a charm. It could be a politician, basically anyone who responds to my cold DMs.
We're recording the whole thing in a beautiful studio, so yes, you can watch it on YouTube, or you can listen wherever you get your podcast. This is not the place to get the news, but it is the place to feel a little better about it. That sounds like a lot part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Maria Sharapova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.
Every Week, I'm sitting down with Trailblazing Women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. I'm going to talk about your podcast. George, do your impression of doing a fox, please.
Oh, my book. You wanted to ask me about my book. Well, it started as a memoir, but now it's just kind of now. It's just my first book.
And if I may say so, it is a masterpiece. Explain who you're doing. I just love it. Oh, you're still going.
Okay. That's not a vocal fry. That is a vocal like flipping that on the grill. I saw her in Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler, and she was Adam Sandler's secret, Mr.
And she was good. I thought she was very sweet and charming in the movie. That movie is a 90 minute heart attack. Yeah.
Yeah. Really a stressful film to watch. Anyway, you did it. That was a beautiful Twitter thing.
I'm sure you long will like it as the owner of Twitter. I want you to the rest of the show and that voice. No, please don't. Okay.
All right. So we're going to get our next topic. America's Blue Cities are hell holes apparently. At least that you think if you read the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal.
A recent piece in the post claims that murder and rape rates in San Francisco are up by double digit percentage points. But as Peter Calloway points out, who is a public defender, that's only true because the numbers are so low. That's a single instance raised the rate significantly in case homicides went from 10 to 11 people. Meanwhile, the third way found among the top 10 states of the highest murder rates are red states.
So this has been a meme. I've been on Twitter just this past week. I was just in San Francisco and I went, I learned to every part of the city. I walked myself around.
There are terrible parts, including downtown Soma and Tenderloin as always. They're just horrific and lots of problems in the streets. Other parts have improved. Now, everybody's complaining about petty crime and I don't think it's petty.
Breaking windows, cars, bike, stolen, package theft, people, homeless people, homeless people, mentally, homeless people, yelling at people. I was also just in New York City. There's been a lot of really significant crime, very high-profile crimes. But there is sort of this attack.
My point was that it's cartoonish to talk about any city this way. And they've seized on San Francisco in this way that, listen, there's absolute problems, no question. But it really is very complex and nobody wants to talk about that, including post-pandemic. So you live in New York City and you went through the same thing.
People are going to say your city is dirty and awful and we should leave. And yet you can't ignore it. New York City, Mayor Adams, recently cleaned out homeless encampments across the city. And San Francisco, they did that too.
They pulled out a lot of these homeless encampments. So tell me what you think about these very real problems with these cities without falling into the cities as hellhole mess or shittles, as Donald Trump might say. Well, it was the whole, the city is a hellscape narrative that kind of made me internet famous. And I did a video that went very viral.
And it was that same kind of narrative. New York City's streets are like a fucking hellscape. I mean, there was like people and violence and like looting and fires everywhere. And you look at the streets and the lines of people doing things like getting ice cream, gay ice cream.
And Molly John Fast and I actually were calling bullshit on it because we're actually here. That was in summer 20 in the wake of the George Floyd killing and the demonstrations. I think Megan McCain got famous for saying it was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Then leave.
Then get out. That's my thing. If like if it, but like going back even further, Cara, there was always been this very, the middle American relationship with the big city in general has always been one that has been colored with fear and distrust. And it's where those weirdos are and you're going to get mugged and you're going to get raped.
And it's where it's where weirdos go. New York City usually bore the brunt of this for a hundred percent. And people are afraid of the big. I grew up in Cleveland and I remember in the late 60s after the riots, there was the white flight.
Everybody went to the suburbs. And to this day, there is a mistrust of city folk and public transportation is like dirty and, you know, so the. Very Batman version of the city, which is interesting. And again, at the same time, you don't want to fall into the truth.
See what happens to me in San Francisco is you got these people who want to get Chesa Bowden out. I think Bowden is how you pronounce it. He was the DA who was actually been doing more prosecution of rapes and murders, which is interesting if you actually look at the same time. He's been tone deaf to what very real and I don't want to call him petty crimes because if you live in a city, it becomes it creates a real my neighbor got assaulted by a mentally illness man.
You know, you and then you have those people who are trying to paint him a certain way. You have this you have the board of education that got recalled because they went too far. They went too far on the lab like ridiculous. They should have been focusing on schools and they were focusing on renaming things.
And I get why they do that at San Francisco, but at the time when the middle of the pandemic parents didn't want to hear this. There's a tension around that there's he is probably going to get called. And at the same time, you have these sort of those on the left are pretending it doesn't exist. Right.
So it's kind of a real problem when you when these cities, but you become these. It's I keep saying it's nuanced. It's nuanced. There's much more going on and nobody wants to ever and let's talk about how to solve them versus either virtually signaling on the left or virtual signaling on the right is really.
And again, cities are returning rents are up. I found New York and San Francisco to be vibrant, vibrant. And I was sort of struck by New York when I was struck by San Francisco. Same thing nonetheless.
It's a problem. And so how do you change that? Because there was a story in the New York Times today about the Gulf between red and blue states, you know, in terms of being run. They have all these, you know, the anti trans things and it's happening in the red states and in the blue states.
They're doing the opposite, which is further protecting whether it's trans people, gays and lesbians, women, abortion, etc. Still going back, like going back to what I was talking about before, look at an electoral map, look at the electoral map after 2020, 2016, the cities blue, everything else red, you know, in the city, like the Emerald City, it's where people go to get out of where they came from to share ideas, like ideas and thinking and conversations happen in cities that don't happen not necessarily at all, but in the way they do anywhere else. You know, I have been accused to answer your question, managing and running a city. It's a work in progress.
There are problems. There will always be problems. There is no such thing as a utopia in American or global society, really. And it's work.
And we have problems here in New York. We always have. We always will. Is it perfect?
Never going to be. Do I want to live here more than anywhere else? Absolutely. I've been accused of being in this sort of liberal bubble.
I'm in a bubble. Excuse me. I walk a block and I hear five or six different languages. There are people of different colors, backgrounds, education, customs, cuisines, clothing, you name it, orientations, gender IDs.
How is it where you, everybody else's told me about their bubble? I love that about this. Yes. I thought once when they were talking about someone, I have a lot of relatives in the red states and they are red.
They are red people. It's isolated. It's like a snow globe. Yeah.
And one of the things they said is you all never visit us here. You don't get our point of view. I said, when did I see you in San Francisco to get my point of view? Like it goes both ways, sir.
Thank you. You know what I mean? And so interesting. I was like, come over here and see how we live.
Come to see. It's something tweeted. I mean, I thought it summed it up well. Republicans keep soaking fear and hate while we Democrats keep hoping that facts are more important than feelings.
We never learned both sides like they don't understand these are feelings and stuff. Yeah. Because I've got to get a hold of themselves. Like it's really hard at the same time.
I get completely offended when they that the Republicans try to reduce it into this scaremongering and this is and it is worse. It is worse. Guess why? The city used to be New York City.
I lived there during David Dinkins. It was like a what did I call it? What did I call it? It was terrible.
I went to Columbia and there's a Charles Bonsa movie era. You know, there's. And who was it was said to New York City? Drop dead was it for it?
Drop dead. It was for it for it to city drop dead. And so it's it. Look, if you want to live in a rural area, live in a rural area, you don't need to dunk on cities and you know, say, you know, a lot of the people who've left San Francisco, they all do is dunk on San Francisco.
I'm like, just go to your little home and be happy where you are. And so I think it's a very difficult and almost intractable problem. Some of these issues in the city, no matter what you do, whether you move these encampments, which some people are like, you can't do that to these people. You have others who, you know, are in the middle.
Don't like the homeless in the game. It's yet also feel for these people. And this is just what a city is like you said. I was at Tom Cotton who was something recently tried to paint this picture that like, why would you want to be in the cities where you're in public transit where you have to, you know, be in with other people and stuff.
They want to make you live in downtown areas and high-rise buildings and walk to work or take the subway or ride an electric scooter or whatever it is that Pete Buttigieg takes to work this week. I remember when I lived in Cleveland for three years, I didn't have a car, which was weird to people. And I took a bus to, there was a funeral, like not far from where I lived downtown. And my brother called me while I was on the bus.
And he said, are you going to Father, someone says funeral? I said, yeah, he said, do you need a ride? I said, no, I'm on a bus. And he goes, oh, why?
That was his response. Like that's, like that is the sort of Midwestern or smaller town perception of, oh, you're going to share space with people who aren't necessarily just like you. Yes, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You must have been freaks people out.
It does. It does. Yes, you are still in an omelelele. In any case, We're going to talk about happiness next.
We're going to know what? Be happy where you fucking are. Like, you don't need to, when you have to drag another group, and that applies to the left and the right, but the right does it a lot. Well, no, they both do, honestly.
That's the point. I've been doing this. I have a theory and we could talk about it further, but like, these people on the right with the culture war and what these cards they're playing. Yeah.
These are people who were not, they didn't get to sit at the cool kids table in the cafeteria in high school and they're still bitter about it. And they have made it their life's mission because they're not funny. They're not clever. They're not even sometimes interesting.
And so this is their, this is their petty payback. I suppose, but the cool kids could have been a lot nicer. Let's be agreed. You know, I'm not, I'm not a fan of the mean girls.
Are you a cool kid? Are you cool? No, I was kind of in the middle. Like I was friendly with the jobs, even though I was not sports.
I was friendly with the theater kids. I was friendly with the kids were black and smooth. I kind of, yeah, I got along with everybody. Yeah.
I was right in that middle too. It was interesting. The cool kids can be assholes, by the way. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of pivot.
Dr. Lori Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale where she teaches the university's most popular course in over 300 years. That's a long time psychology and the good life. She's also the host of a happiness lab, a podcast based on her course.
She joins us today to finally reveal a secret to a happy life. Welcome. Dr. Santos.
Thanks for being here. Yeah. Thanks so much. I'm on the show.
So we're just talking about, you just wrote about Yale's happiness professor. I don't know if you like being known as that. Because anxiety is destroying her students. There's been a lot of articles lately about this idea of putting, I think it was reading a David French piece and some others about this idea of bringing our own fears and anxieties to kids, the impact of, you know, social media on it, the lack of There's all kinds of reasons.
So can you talk to me a little bit about your piece and what you're talking about this anxiety is destroying your students. I noticed that I have some teens and I don't think it's destroying them necessarily, but it's definitely an issue. Yeah, to be fair, I didn't write that quote. That was the New York.
I guess I know, blow quote to kind of, but I do think, you know, I mean, if you look at the level of mental health, the function we're seeing in our college students, it's really unprecedented. Right. Nationally, over 40% of college students report being too depressed to function most days over 65% report feeling overwhelming, anxious. So, you know, more than two thirds.
And what we're seeing is around 10% of students regularly port being suicidal or at least feeling so suicidal that they've seriously considered taking their life in the last year. So that number is more than 10% nationally and like, which could be pandemic related, correct? No, this is actually pre pandemic. The last National College Health Report was 2019.
And so some of these numbers have gotten even worse. And so there's this really open question of like, what has happened? These rates of depression and anxiety in many cases have doubled in just the last eight or nine years, right? So it's not just the normal like, oh, maybe it's more awareness or what's the pandemic like?
Or we're studying it more. It's being studied. Maybe they weren't happy before. Yeah, and I think there is something to that.
You know, you know, students before a test, you know, back in my day would say like, oh, I've butterflies in my stomach now. People are like, I'm anxious or, you know, I'm upset that, you know, I was boy didn't call me back. Now I'm depressed. Right?
So I think we have more clinical terms for this. But again, if you look at, you know, real markers, again, in cases of suicide, these kinds of things, all of these rates are going up and they're going up quite significantly. I mean, the big question is like, why? And I think we don't have a great handle on exactly what the answer is yet.
Well, what would be your feeling if you had to, you know, obviously Facebook got an enormous amount of attention for Instagram. And I don't think the research is quite there yet. I think it got a lot of attention because politicians and the media can see these on this. It's anecdotally quite true.