Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway and the Palmer Raids

Summary

Podcast Summary: SNAFU with Ed Helms – S4E16: Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway and the Palmer Raids

Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Ed Helms
Guests: Kara Swisher, Scott Galloway
Podcast: SNAFU (iHeartPodcasts)

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of SNAFU dives into the Palmer Raids, an infamous chapter in American history where fear, paranoia, and government overreach resulted in the large-scale violation of civil liberties. Through a lively, insightful, and at times humorous conversation, host Ed Helms, along with renowned commentators Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, draw sharp parallels between the post-WWI "first Red Scare" and the present moment. The discussion examines how fear-driven crackdowns repeat across history, the dangerous allure of rage-fueled media, inequality, and the destructive playbook of political demagogues.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Opening Banter & Guest Introductions

• [00:01] Scott Galloway jokes about befriending Kara for her party potential; Kara responds humorously, setting a playful yet sharp tone for the episode.
• [03:06] Ed introduces Kara and Scott as podcasting powerhouses, referencing their work (Pivot, Prof. G Pod, etc.). Kara quips, "Scott is the definition of SNAFU. That's how we got started. It was a snafu."
  • Quote: “That’s my stage name when I’m a stripper.” – Scott Galloway [03:12]

News Consumption Habits

• [05:19] Kara describes a wide-ranging and active “news diet” including everything from Blue Sky and Threads to the NYT, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. She highlights the importance of actively seeking out diverse voices and stories.
• [05:54] Scott self-deprecatingly admits, “All of that is a lie. I get all of my information from Instagram, TikTok, Threads ... my mind is being shaped by algorithms run by psychopaths.” [06:00]

Setting Up the SNAFU: Historical Context

• [06:28] Ed dives into post-WWI America: tense national mood, the Espionage Act of 1917 (used to silence dissent), the Sedition Act of 1918, and the jailing of socialists like Eugene Debs.
  • Core question: Why do societies repeatedly target free speech in times of anxiety?

Media, Dissent, and Suppressing the “Enemy Within”

• [08:07] Kara outlines a historical pattern: power structures always crack down on dissenters, from John Adams to the “Hammer of Witches” after the Gutenberg press.
  • Quote: “So I don’t think this is a new thing... After the attack on Jan 11, there were laws passed that were really, I think, dangerous in the United States out of fear.” – Kara Swisher [09:17]
• [09:43] Scott explains the cyclical nature of fearing “enemies within”—a hallmark of fascism. Clarifies that “Hitler first declared war on his own people.”
  • Quote: “Fascism is believing it’s the enemy within. And the most hopeful thing... we’ve been here before.” – Scott Galloway [10:23]

The Red Scare and Economic Inequality

1919: America’s Pressure Cooker

• [12:14] U.S. post-war landscape: social unrest, returning traumatized soldiers, economic hardship, and the Spanish flu pandemic.

The Bolshevik Revolution as Catalyst

• [13:13] Ed: The Bolshevik Revolution sparks fear among U.S. elites, hope among struggling workers.
  • Quote: “It’s rage versus fear. You have the workers raging about inequality, and then, of course, elites are afraid of losing their status and their fancy things.” – Ed Helms [14:00]
• [15:22] Scott: The “epicenter of many of our problems” is that, for the first time, 30-year-olds are less prosperous than their parents. Rage at inequality is a recurring pattern, often self-corrected by war, famine, or revolution.
  • Quote: “...the 26 wealthiest families in America pay an average tax rate of 6%... at some point, when the bottom 52% of America have the same amount of wealth as Elon Musk, they figure out the fastest way to double their wealth is to go after that person.” – Scott Galloway [16:00]

Historical SNAFU: The Palmer Raids Overview

Panic, Paranoia, and Brutality

• [22:47] Ed: The country descends into the “first red scare.” Real violence (mail bombs, coordinated attacks), but the threat is largely exaggerated by media and politicians.
• [24:35] Ed asks about modern “civil war” rhetoric; Kara says, “They want that. They would like that.” Scott contests America’s true level of division, blaming both media and political incentives for polarization.
  • Quote: “What we have is the most profitable companies in the world that have attached stakeholder value to dividing and polarizing us.” – Scott Galloway [25:33]

Media & Rage Economy

• [27:46] Kara: “Enragement equals engagement.” Social platforms and news media profit from keeping people outraged and hooked.
  • Quote: “...whatever Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Altman or any of them can do to grab onto your brain stem and hold it... they’re gonna do.” – Kara Swisher [28:40]
• [29:02] Ed: “Race to the bottom of the brainstem, the lizard brain.”

The Palmer Raids Unfold

• [31:05] Ed: Attorney General Palmer (whose house was bombed) launches raids led by a young J. Edgar Hoover who creates the Justice Department’s “Radical Division.”
  • Quote: “He already had a growing reputation as a meticulous bureaucrat with a strong anti-radical ideology. Now with Hoover at the helm, things really spiraled quickly.” – Ed Helms [31:28]
• [32:00-34:00] Raids across U.S. cities—brutality, minimal warrants, thousands detained (most innocent), torture, denial of due process.
• Discussion: Does instant visibility (modern media/phone footage) heighten accountability or just outrage? Kara and Scott both warn about numbing and inflaming effects.
  • Quote: “If you’re inundated and flooded with information, you become numb... It can become outrage porn.” – Kara Swisher [34:16]
  • Quote: “The problem is we pay a huge price for fast [information], and that is slowing it down and fact checking things...” – Scott Galloway [35:15]

The Aftermath: Public Backlash and Legacy

• [36:30] Second wave: Thousands more arrested. Public and government eventually recoil; most deportations overturned.
• [38:10] Ed: May Day 1920 “revolution” fizzles — no uprising occurs; Palmer’s credibility collapses.
  • Kara connects to modern patterns: “The Antifa uprising ... The caravans headed our way... They try to scare people and then they’re wrong. And when they’re wrong, they go, ‘well, it’s because we talked about it, that it prevented it.’” [38:10]
• [41:34] Kara: In modern times, it’s often “minions” that bear the brunt of failed political crackdowns, not the figureheads.
• [41:53] J. Edgar Hoover comes out unscathed, soon leading the FBI for decades and perfecting surveillance and intimidation strategies, with long-term impact on American civil liberties.

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Deeper Reflection + Modern Parallels

• [42:38] Ed: Draws direct parallels between Palmer Raids and modern ICE detentions, targeting of immigrants, and breakdown of due process.
• [43:27] Key difference: Palmer Raids were about ideology (Communism). Today, trauma and fear are “weaponized” around grievance and resentment, not coherent ideas.
  • Quote: “There is no grand ideological struggle... it’s the weaponization of one man’s ego... Trump’s not offering an alternative worldview here. He’s just offering pure, unfiltered grievance as a political identity.” – Ed Helms [43:27]
• [44:11] Scott: “We’re a victim of our own prosperity and BLESSINGS... we don’t acknowledge or are not willing to make the sacrifices ... We have come to believe that these rights are inalienable and no, they can be taken away.” [44:11]
• [46:07] Silver lining: The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) is born from the abuses of the Palmer Raids, working to defend civil rights.
• [47:15] Ed reads a striking 1920 open letter from a group of lawyers protesting illegal abuses by the Department of Justice.
  • Kara: “Where are those guys today?” [48:36]
  • Scott: “The incentives are all fucked up... we aren’t rewarding people for being good men and good Americans and writing a letter like that.” [49:53]
  • Kara: “They’re so poor, all they have is money... This has got to come from below... they will not. You will not see a letter like that from any of them anytime soon.” [49:53]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Scott is the definition of SNAFU.” – Kara Swisher [03:06]
• “I get all of my information from Instagram, TikTok... my mind is being shaped by algorithms run by psychopaths.” – Scott Galloway [05:54]
• “Fascism is believing it’s the enemy within.” – Scott Galloway [10:23]
• “Enragement equals engagement.” – Kara Swisher [27:46]
• “Race to the bottom of the brainstem, the lizard brain.” – Ed Helms [29:02]
• “The problem is we pay a huge price for fast [information], and that is slowing it down and fact checking things.” – Scott Galloway [35:15]
• “He already had a growing reputation as a meticulous bureaucrat with a strong anti-radical ideology. Now with Hoover at the helm, things really spiraled quickly.” – Ed Helms [31:28]
• “This episode took a bit. Erotica is very good...We’re such dumb asses.” – Kara Swisher, closing banter [50:38]
• “Everybody get on your inflatable animal suit and get out there and protest.” – Kara Swisher, signing off [51:08]

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

• [03:06] – Banter about SNAFU origins; guest introductions and chemistry
• [05:19] – News consumption habits; current state of news and algorithms
• [06:28] – Introduction to the Palmer Raids; Espionage and Sedition Acts explained
• [09:43] – Pattern of targeting dissent, roots in fascist movements
• [13:13] – Bolshevik Revolution’s impact on America
• [15:22] – Capitalism, inequality, and cycles of rage/revolution
• [22:47] – Real violence vs. exaggerated threat; Red Scare context
• [25:33] – The profitability of polarization in media/tech
• [27:46] – "Enragement equals engagement" and social media’s role
• [31:05] – Palmer appoints J. Edgar Hoover; onset of raids
• [34:16] – Does instant media bring more justice or numb outrage?
• [36:30] – The “second wave" of raids; further rights abuses
• [38:10] – Fear-mongering then and now; false revolution panic
• [41:53] – Hoover’s rise, long-term consequences
• [42:38] – Modern echoes: Covid, immigrants, due process
• [47:15] – Reading/sharing of the 1920 lawyers’ letter

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Tone & Takeaways

• Language and banter are sharp, irreverent, and deeply informed, blending Ed’s comic touch, Kara’s biting wit, and Scott’s data-driven urgency.
• The episode oscillates skillfully between historical detail and contemporary analogy, illuminating repeating patterns of panic, suppression, and the dangers of unchecked authority.
• Strong critique of today’s media/tech environment and American political culture’s failures to reward courage or decency.
• Ultimately, the show underscores the necessity of civil vigilance, the danger of apathy, and the ever-relevant lesson: “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

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Closing Wisdom:

“Everybody get on your inflatable animal suit and get out there and protest.”
— Kara Swisher [51:08]

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This summary offers a structured, complete guide to the episode, including key developments, memorable moments, and timestamps for quick access to critical insights—a perfect primer for those who haven’t listened.

Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

I wanted to do this podcast because I was hoping to establish a friendship with you because I thought you'd be really fun to party with. And I'm no longer sure.

[Kara Swisher]

Don't. Stop. Stop.

[Scott Galloway]

You seem very serious and kind of, I don't know, very highbrow. So, sorry. Anyways, that's a bit of a disappointment.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, I. I can deliver on both fronts.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, good.

[Ed Helms]

Trust me.

[Kara Swisher]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ed Helms]

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[Scott Galloway]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Ed Helms]

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[Kara Swisher]

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[Ed Helms]

Try Greenlight Risk free [e-mail] iheart that's greenlight.com iheart hey there. I'm Ed Helms and welcome to SNAFU, the show where I take my guests on a delightful romp through history's biggest screw ups in a courageous and, let's be honest, largely futile attempt to better understand the human human condition. My guests today are two of the sharpest, funniest and most brutally honest voices in tech, business, culture and politics. Individually, they're award winning journalists, thought leaders and podcasters hosting fantastic shows like on with Kara Swisher, the Prof. G Pod, and Raging Moderates. But together, they co host Pivot, a show that is highly entertaining and profoundly insightful and basically required listening for anyone trying to navigate this insane moment that we find ourselves in. Welcome to snafu. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway.

[Kara Swisher]

Thank you. You know, Scott is the definition of snafu. That's, you know, how we got started. It was a snafu.

[Scott Galloway]

That's my stage name when I'm a stripper.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's your porn name.

[Scott Galloway]

Snafu. There you go, Snafu.

[Ed Helms]

How do you mean that you got started through a snafu?

[Kara Swisher]

It was a mistake. It was a mistake. We were. I was hosting. Yeah, I've told the story before, but I was looking for another partner and ran into Scott in German, of all places, where he was giving this speech about his trend speech, which is really cool. He had all these charts and I was watching it and I kept learning things and I think I know everything, obviously. Cause I do. But he kept giving me insights. I was like, oh, that was smart. But he was so obnoxious on stage. He danced around, he showed off his stomach, he did all manner of things. And the Germans were perplexed. But I was completely entertained and also horrified. And so I went up to him and I said, you really are a jerk, but, boy, are you smart and will you come on. Which is, you know, that's the, you know, meet cute kind of thing. And he did.

[Ed Helms]

Do you see yourself as a jerk or is this a fair characterization?

[Scott Galloway]

It was my first book, so to get on with Kara was a big deal. But just to finish her story, she called me and said, and Kara gets pretty high profile guests. She said, your episode is, according to our data, the most downloaded episode in our history. And we think it's a mistake, so we want you to come on a second time. That was my favorite part. We're pretty sure it was a mistake, so come on a second. Anyways, the rest is history.

[Ed Helms]

There's no conceivable reason we could make sense.

[Kara Swisher]

How did you beat Elon Musk? That's exactly what I was saying to him, and it was perplexing. But people seem to like our little dog and pony show.

[Ed Helms]

I am one of those folks. And you guys are like a Voltron of podcasting because you're both kicking ass in your own lanes and then you kind of stack up as this giant powerhouse on Pivot. And you're so well informed, but also clearly insanely busy. So I have been dying to ask you this. How do you keep up with the news? Like what are your news consumption habits? What are your go to sources? Kara, you first.

[Kara Swisher]

I've lately been using blue sky and threads to keep up with news. Like I watch them, but I do read the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post when things are suggested, the New York Times obviously. But I look everywhere, I find news everywhere, weird stories, people, things sent to me. But I have a pretty strong news diet. And then I watch a lot of TV and et cetera, trying to keep on cultural stuff and read people I like right, that are really smart, including Scott. I read his stuff that he writes all the time, no mercy, no malice. But I keep up with it rather actively and I think Scott does too.

[Scott Galloway]

So my media go to's the Economist, the BBC and the Financial Times. Ed, all of that is a lie. I get all of my information. I get all of my information from Instagram, TikTok threads and occasionally threads. And I hate to say it, but I don't. My mind is being shaped by algorithms run by psychopaths. Yeah, that tracks. I get all my news from social media now and it wasn't that way two years ago.

[Ed Helms]

I want to get right into today's snafu because it's, it's really a doozy. And I think you're gonna find some rather strikingly resonant story points here. Today we're gonna jump back to 1919 to one of the most insane and shameful chapters in U.S. history. The Palmer Raids. Are either of you familiar with the Palmer Raids?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm not, I'm not. There's so much of US history we do not learn.

[Scott Galloway]

It's basically police abuse, isn't it?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, that's essentially sort of the nugget. So let's start with a little political context. The US was pulled into World War I in 1917 and the national mood was very tense, to say the least. President Woodrow Wilson was worried about internal opposition to the war. So with the help of Congress, he passed two critical laws. First, the Espionage act of 1917 meant to stop spies and wartime sabotage. But it quickly became a catch all for just silencing dissent. You could be jailed for criticizing the draft or handing out anti war leaflets. Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs gave a speech questioning the war and got a 10 year prison sentence. Next came the Sedition act of 1918, which made it a crime to say anything disloyal about the US Government, the flag, or the military. Newspapers were shut down, teachers got fired, and ordinary citizens were arrested for nothing more than calling the war a mistake. So obviously this is a bit of a middle finger to the Constitution. Carol, why do we do this? Why do we keep convincing ourselves in scary times that free speech is the problem and that. That maybe silencing people and banning books will somehow make our problems go away?

[Kara Swisher]

Right. I think it was from the very beginning, John Adams wasn't. There was an involvement of another thing back then. There was whether seditious, you know, I think he sued a newspaper man for propaganda or whatever. So it's not a new thing.

[Scott Galloway]

We do it.

[Ed Helms]

We always do it.

[Kara Swisher]

I mean, we always try to find people of descent. And let me give you one example that people don't know about. But when the Gutenberg Press was created, everyone always associates with Bible and then the Renaissance scientific books. But the very first book of the Gutenberg era was a thing called the Hammer of Witches, which was a treatise on women and Satan and witches. And before, women did a lot of herbal remedies around Europe. And afterwards they got killed because they linked them with Satan. And there was one example that he used, which is that there's these women that go around and put men's penises in a basket and put it at the top of a tree, steal penises, and we have to stop this at all costs. And there was a story in there where a man went up and got a different penis that was bigger. But it's a crazy book. And then there were all these laws passed to try to stop people from being dissent. They were either women that were practicing or different or people that were different. And so there were all these laws passed and they were murdered, really. So I don't think this is a new thing. It just. It's such a. Like after the attack on January 11, there was those laws passed that were really, I think, dangerous in the United States out of fear, I guess. I don't know. Scott, what do you think?

[Scott Galloway]

If you think about socialism as the pursuit of equality, liberalism is the pursuit of liberty and certain inalienable rights at birth. Fascism, or the juice of fascism, is to convince people, usually for political means, that the enemy is within. You know, people say Hitler declared war on Poland. He first declared war on his own people. And the most hopeful thing you can take from this nafu you're talking about, it's sort of coming back from senior class or AP History. By the way, I never took an AP class.

[Kara Swisher]

That's a lot no, you didn't. I was like, what are you talking about?

[Scott Galloway]

I took AP Spanish, and I literally. I got two on the test, so I didn't get credits for it, but I'm. I'm a ton of fun at a Mexican restaurant. Ed, meet me at El Coyote when we're in la.

[Netflix Series Narrator]

Anyways.

[Scott Galloway]

Donde sala biblioteca, Kara. Anyways, so fascism. Fascism is believing it's the enemy within. And the most hopeful thing we can take, a secret police. I think they rounded up and incarcerated 10,000 people. Some of them.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, don't get ahead of me here. We're gonna.

[Kara Swisher]

But if I remember, he's been Googling right now.

[Ed Helms]

We're gonna get there, okay?

[Scott Galloway]

We're gonna get there.

[Ed Helms]

I'm just wondering right away, right out of the gate, before this even happened, free speech was just sort under the bus. And it is, to Kara's point, it's something we just keep returning to.

[Scott Galloway]

But that's what's hopeful, is we've been here before. And I would like to think that America, when people protest in a civil way, a peaceful protest exercise at the voting booth, similar to the Red Scare, where they discredited McCarthy. My guess is they discredit. And our democracy came back stronger. So what I tried. The only way I don't go fucking crazy and go from 10 milligram edibles to 40 every night is recognizing that we are not. It is not the first time America has faced what is going on right now.

[Ed Helms]

Amen.

[Kara Swisher]

Except, Scott, during that time, the Red Scare, so many people's lives were ruined, right? And at the same time, by the way, for people who don't understand what was happening there, there was really significant Nazi propaganda that there was. There were things to fear, right? Like Hamilton Fish and all these different senators. So there is real stuff happening that then gets people to overreact to the rest of it. And so you can't ignore the real attempts, even today by Iran, by China and others to try to fuck up this country. They're actually real and something we should be concerned about.

[Ed Helms]

That is spot on. And this is what we're about to dive into is actually the first. What's referred to as the first red scare, the McCarthy era was. Was the second Red Scare. Let's jump ahead now to 1919. The war has ended, which sounds great, but the national mood is actually very dark. In fact, America is basically a pressure cooker with the lid barely holding on. Factories that thrived in wartime production are shuttering everywhere. Wages are plunging, prices are soaring. Four million soldiers are limping home, wounded, traumatized, and finding themselves jobless, wondering what the hell they'd fought for. Add to all this, a monstrous pandemic. The Spanish flu has torn through cities and rural communities alike, killing over 675,000 people, which is more than we lost in the actual war. So the whole country is basically a powder keg. And then a spark from overseas really lit the fuse. Any guesses what that might have been?

[Kara Swisher]

I don't know. A memo that was leaked.

[Ed Helms]

The Bolshevik Revolution. Oh, that.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, that.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, of course I saw that movie.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

Here we go. In Russia, Lenin and his followers overthrow through the Tsar. They executed the royal family and declared the birth of a communist state. A government where the working class held all the state power, in theory, at least. Now, to struggling American workers getting terrible wages and monstrous working conditions, that may have sounded kind of intriguing, like maybe a ray of hope. But obviously to the American elite, the power brokers, the dealmakers, it sounded like an existential threat. I see this as basically the collision of two very primal emotions. It's rage versus fear. You have the workers raging about inequality, and then, of course, elites are afraid of losing their status and their fancy things. Is this dynamic just baked into capitalism, or is there a better way? Is socialism kind of trying to have both sides?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, I think. I mean, Scott can talk more about this because he talks about sort of the rage. But one of the things. I just interviewed Bernie Sanders. He was very good. He was very mad about the oligarchs. He's a book called Fighting Oligarchy. And, you know, so I think this isn't a new thing, but one of the things that's important to keep in mind is that it's usually preceded by an area where lots of people get really rich, like really, really rich. And we're in that. And many years ago, when this income inequality started to really. And then the tech people are the new winners, essentially the tech moguls. When they started to get ahead, I went to one of them and I said, we have a real problem with income inequality. You could see the number, the minimum wage hadn't been rising. And I said, you're either going to have to deal with the inequality and give people a better wage, like solve it, or you're going to have to armor plate your Tesla. And I looked at him and I realized he wanted to armor plate his Tesla. That was okay. Like they. They thought that they had gotten all their money by their own doing and not by help by the government, et cetera. And they didn't care about people. And you could see that.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah. If I were to try and think of one piece of data that explains the epicenter of many of our problems, it would be the following. For the first time in our 275 year history, a 30 year old American isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. And that not only creates rage and shame among a young group of people who are more likely to pick up guns, specifically young men, it creates rage and shame across the household. The algorithm or the pattern you're referring to plays out over and over in a capitalist society. And it's the following. A group of very talented, very hardworking and very lucky people gather a disproportionate amount of assets and then we talk ourselves into believing that it is patriotic and not a bad thing to create tax policy, legislative policy and regulatory capture such that corporations can have their lowest taxes since 1939 now, such that the 26 wealthiest families in America pay an average tax rate of 6%. That is now. The bad news about income inequality is it always happens. The good news is it's always self correcting. And more bad news though is that the means of correction are usually war, famine or revolution. And I would argue that as revolutions take on new complexion, we're in the midst of a series of small revolutions. Black Lives matter and the MeToo movement were both righteous movements that had real justifiable components. But they weren't going after the sexual harasser owner of a taco truck. They weren't going after someone who was racist in a small company. They were going after rich people. And at some point, when the bottom 52% of America have the same amount of wealth as Elon Musk, they figure out that the fastest way to double their wealth is to go after that person. And that's where we are. At some point, we are having a series of small revolutions to try and correct income inequality.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Heavy.

[Ed Helms]

That's a good break.

[Kara Swisher]

Heavy.

[Ed Helms]

That's heavy.

[Kara Swisher]

It's a good breakdown and people are getting it. I'm sort of shocked. We haven't had much more of a revolution or anger over money.

[Ed Helms]

The crazy thing is that back in 1919, these workers were in like really horrendous conditions and still trying to make it work. But it's sort of, it's all relative, right? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what, like what the actual conditions might be. It's the disparity itself that is so. That just feels so.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, that's a great point just to interrupt you because there's something to the notion and this is a true statement, a middle class person right now is living better than the richest person on the planet 100 years ago. And middle class Mississippi is our poorest state. It has a higher household income than the UK or Germany or France. So America is actually, you could correctly say a middle class person in the US is thriving and doing really well. But that's not how the human brain works. The human brain sees 210 times a day that if they're not on a gulf stream or don't have a boyfriend with ripped abs that they're failing. And also they're living with roommates because the price of a home went from 290 to $420,000 during COVID because we flushed the market with so much stimulus. Because me or you or Kara getting less wealthy would be a crime greater than a million people dying. And the natural cycle of redistributing income and destroying capital during crises that seeds economic advantage back from the capital owners to labor we didn't allow happen. And what was most criminal about it was we used their credit card to pay for our incumbency. So these people, you can understand people say young people are entitled. No, they're not. They're entitled to be enraged. And you have just this incredible shifting of economic prosperity and they're reminded several hundred times a day on their phones that they're failing. So try to tell. It's like the mistake Democrats made trying to tell people inflation's not that bad. Well, okay, it feels that bad to me. And I also want to be clear, this is a bipartisan issue. What Trump has effectively done really well is like, okay, Republicans and Republican donors, I'm going to divide up TikTok, I'm going to give you AI legislation that makes you richer. And Democrats who are really rich and hold the power, there's a really uncomfortable silence of conspiracy that says don't get too angry cuz you're gonna make bank if you're a rich Democrat. And one of the most disappointing things about this is good Democrats who are in positions of powers have been fucking silent on all of this. Why? Cuz stop, stop. It hurts so good. My taxes are going down.

[Kara Swisher]

I would agree. Yeah, absolutely brutal. And also, you know, it's often at the expense of the young toward the, you know, you see it in Congress where they're, you know, antiquated and they're making rules that benefit the top groups.

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[Ed Helms]

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[Ed Helms]

All right, I'm going to barrel through a big chunk here. Bolshevik revolution has happened and it's just sort of rippling through America. Strikes were breaking out all over the country. Steel workers, coal miners, even the Boston police. And newspapers are screaming of red plots and foreign agitators. Senators are thundering about a red menace. Immigrants from Eastern Europe, southern Italy and Russia are branded un American. And we find ourselves smack in the middle of America's first red scare. Now, while the communist threat was wildly exaggerated in the press, agitators were still making a lot of noise from the margins. Mail bombs were sent to some of the most powerful men in America. J.P. morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and even Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Remember that name? Most were intercepted by postal workers. But one summer night in 1919, an Italian anarchist named Carlo Valdinocci blew himself up on Palmer's doorstep, badly damaging the house and shattering windows for blocks. It was part of a coordinated attack. Bombs in eight cities, each accompanied by a flyer that read, in part war, class war. And you were the first to wage it under the COVID of the powerful institutions you call order. This is wild to me. There was certainly communist sympathy kind of rippling through America, but the actual threat of a full blown revolution, according to most historians, was greatly exaggerated. What do you think about this moment we're in? Because we're hearing a lot of chatter about civil war. I feel like sometimes I'm seeing the drumbeat in some mainstream conservative news.

[Kara Swisher]

They want that. They would like that.

[Ed Helms]

Is it overblown? Does it feel close or is it sort of?

[Kara Swisher]

No. Well, I don't know. I'm in Korea right now and the person I was interviewing was like, how can you let people be National Guard be on your street? We push back martial law here. And they overturned the President of Korea. They were like, why are you putting up with that kind of thing? And I'm like, well, the ones in D.C. are laying mulch. They're not really.

[Ed Helms]

Right.

[Kara Swisher]

The ICE raids to me is where it all surrounds, which is most people aren't affected by it.

[Scott Galloway]

I have two thoughts. The first is I wanted to do this podcast because I was hoping to establish a friendship with you because I thought you'd be really fun to party with. And I'm no longer sure.

[Kara Swisher]

Don't stop.

[Scott Galloway]

Scott, you seem very serious and kind of, I don't know, very high brow. So sorry. Anyways, that's a bit of a disappointment.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, I can deliver on both fronts.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, good.

[Ed Helms]

Trust me.

[Kara Swisher]

If you need a restraining order, call me.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay. My second second thought we're actually not that divided. What we have is the most profitable companies in the world that have attached stakeholder value to dividing and polarizing us.

[Ed Helms]

Yes, Amen to that.

[Scott Galloway]

If you go out, it sounds like you travel a decent amount. I don't care where you are. You can be in deepest, reddest America. You can be in the most overly liberal place generally. You're going to find, no matter what side of the political spectrum you are, when you meet people, they're lovely, people are friendly, people are nice, people are courteous, people want you to win. Amen. And the biggest tragedy of AI Is that it's crawling the online world. It's not crawling the offline world. And America's not as divided as people think. What we have is an administration that wants to take on a series of actions that are so upsetting and sometimes divisive. We could have a biometric technology and a clipboard and go into every business that has undocumented workers and figure out a way to very elegantly and nonviolently deport them, if that's what we wanted. Of course, if we wanted to stop, if we went into an organization and said, you're going to get fined $1,000 a day for every illegal immigrant here until they leave, they would leave. They're not here for our Chick Fil A and our civil rights. They're here for money and jobs. If the jobs dry up, they'll leave. But instead, we send in massed secret police that divides us and really upsets us. In addition, 40% of the S and P by market cap is companies that are trying to keep us so engaged that we don't leave our phones or our search bar or our social media platform. And unfortunately, we used to think that sex was the number one means of engaging people. Sex sells. What we found out or the algorithms found out, unfortunately, is that even better than sex is rage. And so they consistently try and convince us that these people are bad people and this comment is bad. Let me elevate this incendiary comment beyond its organic reach because it'll piss off people. So we aren't actually that divided, but unfortunately, we have connected material wealth to.

[Kara Swisher]

Division and these companies that polarize. What Scott was referring to is a phrase I used in my book, which was enragement equals engagement. They figured that out, right? Especially Facebook.

[Ed Helms]

It's so primal. We're such lizards, but it works.

[Kara Swisher]

But it's also addictive. It's got the addictive element and the enragement element and a lot of it is, is started by bots, by the way. It's not started by people. And there's been lots of examples of that, like that it creates anger and then people like a traffic accident show up. And one of the things that's important to keep in mind is, as Scott said, it's in their financial interest to do this. However, they can keep your attention. And for example, ChatGPT just announced a browser. But among other things, they also announced, you know, they had Talked about how ChatGPT was gonna solve cancer, that, you know, this is the marketing of it. Oh, we're gonna do this. We're gonna do all these high minded things. What did they announce, an erotica service? Cause that's the other thing that attracts people. They need to make money. And so whatever Mark Zuckerberg or Sam Altman or any of them can do to grab onto your brain stem and hold it as much as you can, they're gonna do.

[Ed Helms]

I love Tristan Harris. Race to the bottom of the brainstem, the lizard brain.

[Kara Swisher]

And it works.

[Ed Helms]

I want to really get to the juicy stuff. We're still almost. We're still in the setup, the bomb.

[Kara Swisher]

We're not at the juicy stuff. Okay?

[Ed Helms]

We got to plow ahead. So now imagine you're Attorney General Palmer. You're a pillar of the American power structure, a man of the law, a man who is already suspicious that radicals might be crawling out of every shadow. And now your home has been bombed. And how far would you go to reign this shit in? Well, it turns out really damn far. And that's. That is where the story of the Palmer Raids really begins. So let's be clear. The bombings were acts of political terror. They're horrific and completely indefensible, full stop. Investigating them and bringing the perpetrators to justice was a worthy and just goal. But as we will soon see, and as is often the case with government overreach, reasonable and just intentions can very easily warp into horrendous abuse, where the original crime becomes less a wrong to be righted and more an excuse for new and far greater injustices. Now, Palmer himself is a very interesting guy, and like all of us, a barrel of contradictions. He was pro women's suffrage and anti child labor, which is not exactly going out on a limb of awesomeness. But it was a different time, and that was a bit progressive. He was raised as a Quaker with pacifist leanings. Palmer had actually turned down President Wilson's offer to serve as Secretary of War. But he wasn't shy about his own presidential ambitions. And he was well aware that a few high profile wins as Attorney General could help pave the way. So he declared radicals and communists public enemy number one. Which, to be fair, probably wasn't too hard considering they just bombed his actual house. He moved very quickly. He created a new division within the Justice Department called the General Intelligence Division, later nicknamed the Radical Division. And he tapped a 24 year old justice Department clerk to run it. I'm gonna give you one guess each.

[Kara Swisher]

Who this might be again.

[Ed Helms]

He's Coney, he's Conesque.

[Kara Swisher]

Conesque, okay.

[Ed Helms]

This is a 24 year old J. Edgar Hoover.

[Scott Galloway]

Oh, Hoover, of course.

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, that guy.

[Kara Swisher]

Speaking of Roy Kohn.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

This new division's mandate was to gather intelligence on radical organizations and their members, which of course was a perfect fit for Hoover, who basically fetishized the accumulation of secrets and data on people.

[Kara Swisher]

What is with these closet cases anyway? Sorry.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah.

[Ed Helms]

He already had a growing reputation as a meticulous bureaucrat with a strong anti radical ideology. Now with Hoover at the helm, things really spiraled quickly. That fall, the Justice Department began arresting suspected radicals, citing, of course, the Espionage act and the Sedition act. But on November 7, 1919, the second anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, which was no coincidence, Hoover and Palmer took things to a whole new level, launching a coordinated blitz across a dozen American cities, including Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles and many others. And these raids were brutal. In New York City, agents stormed a building on East 15th street known as the Russian People's House, a modest community hub that doubled as a union office, cafeteria and school for immigrants. Inside, workers, teachers and young students were finishing their day as federal agents laid siege to the building in a storm of violence. One journalist described it as, quote, one of the most brutal raids ever witnessed in the city. Men, women and children were beaten and dragged out into the cold. The feds took 200 immigrants from the Russian People's House that night. Nationwide. The tally varies depending on your source, but it's safe to say many hundreds and likely over a thousand people. People were arrested that night. Now here are some very disturbing details. Reports from the time indicate that the Feds had very few actual warrants during the raid. Moreover, roughly 75% of those arrested were not even related to organizations under surveillance, nor had they committed any crime. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And sadly, of course, many couldn't speak English to defend themselves. Now, once captured, the detainees faced a complete breakdown of due process. Many were severely beaten, interrogated with torture, and packed into filthy, overcrowded cells where they were held for weeks or months without charges, access to lawyers, or contact with family. What began as a legitimate hunt for very real bad guys quickly devolved into a broad system of indiscriminate, lawless abuse. At that time, people were relying on newspapers to kind of learn about these things. And newspapers were, of course, beholden to some of the major power brokers of the day. Now we see videos of ICE raids online before the agents are even back in their cars. Does that kind of instant visibility, do you think that enhances accountability or does it just feed the noise machine, the outrage machine that you're talking about? Are we more informed or just more inflamed?

[Kara Swisher]

I think it can become like, you know, outrage porn. Right? I mean, it's a version of like staring at it and also numb you to it. But, you know, all those videos of people of color getting. Getting beaten by cops didn't seem to change the equation. Right. We're sort of back where we started. I mean, ultimately, if you're inundated and flooded with information, you become numb to average people. People become numb. That said, the civil rights movement, I think, was changed by a lot of those photographs and a lot of those videos of people being attacked by hoses and dogs and stuff like that. I think that made a difference, but that was in a wholly different information environment where it was shocking. Like, it was shocking to see that in your information diet. And you know, it takes journalists to do that and get it out there.

[Ed Helms]

Absolutely. I still check X every once in a while, but every time I go into X, I'm just flooded with the most violent stuff.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, it's engagement and an example. There's a couple examples. And some of it's good, some of it's bad. The naked girl running from a napalm bombing or Agent Orange that probably expedited our withdrawal from Vietnam. That imagery is incredibly important. We get it faster now. But the problem is we pay a huge price for fast, and that is slowing it down and fact checking things and deciding what's responsible. Reporting and traditional media, which is in the business of slowing shit down and having an editorial voice around what is worth reporting and not algorithmically elevating beyond its organic reach or value. That business is wildly unprofitable and a shitty business.

[Ed Helms]

When America sort of weaned itself off of cigarettes, it was like a great victory for sort of like general health of the population. But now we're in this situation where so many people, including kids, are ready to wean themselves off of their phones, but we can't because we have to use them for so much stuff. It's like if you were trying to quit cigarettes, but you had to, like, use a pack of cigarettes to do your online banking.

[Kara Swisher]

It's so we all work for RJ and Reynolds. Remember, they all had a smoke during.

[Ed Helms]

When they worked there. We just got through the first wave of the Palmer raids. We're about to jump into the second. With the encouragement of Palmer, In January of 1920 came the mother of all raids. Federal, state, and local agents swept through more than 30 cities, arresting between 3 and 10,000 people, again mostly without warrants. And again, jail cells overflowed. The mistreatment continued and due process eroded even further. Palmer claimed that these arrests were obviously critical and just the tip of the iceberg, that there were 300,000 cops, communists still out there, they needed to chase down. But by now, fortunately, even his own government was starting to recoil from this stuff. Acting Labor Secretary Louis Post reviewed the deportation files and found most of them completely baseless, overturning more than 70% of the 1600 cases. By spring of 1920, the horror stories of beatings and illegal detentions were headline news. And the tide was turning again, the raids. And then came the nail in Palmer's professional coffin. He had been warning and using this as justification the whole time, that on May 1, 1920, the Communists across the country would rise up, torch cities, and topple the government. So on that day, the country braced itself for a revolution. Police nationwide were on high alert, troops were on standby. Headlines were screaming the apocalypse. And then, of course, nothing like zero. No uprisings, no riot. Just a traditional, lovely May day with parades and picnics.

[Kara Swisher]

The Antifa uprising or the caravan. Right, we've had that. The caravan's headed our way. Antifa's gonna invade my town, this and that, you know.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, wasn't last weekend supposed to be a Hamas rally? A violent criminal?

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, Hamas, yeah, the Hamas rally. You know, they try it, they try to scare people and then they're wrong. And when they're wrong, they go, well, it's because we talked about it, that it prevented it.

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[Ed Helms]

Using Venmo without cash back is like leaving your wallet open in a wind tunnel. Pick the right card, the Venmo debit card, and let the cash back roll in. It's not a financial miracle, just avoiding a classic everyday snafu. Because with Venmo Stash you can get up to 5% cash back at your favorite brand. Just pick a bundle of your go tos to shop with your Venmo debit card and earn cash back at them and you're free to mix things up. You can easily swap out your bundle of brands every 30 days. Earn more cash when you do more with stash. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms.

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[Ed Helms]

Well, Palmer's credibility evaporated overnight. His presidential ambitions collapsed by summer. Newspapers that once hailed him as a patriot were now mocking him. Palmer's grand crusade had collapsed under the weight of his own paranoia, and he basically is done for as a as a political figure, which is a little bit reassuring, I must say. Like, it's nice that to see that credibility built on fear and panic might actually be quite fragile I will say Trump seems to be proving otherwise.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, it's not gonna be Trump. It's gonna be Bondi. It's gonna be all his minions that get the shaft. And when this is over, it's not him. He'll sail away or die, you know?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, you're right. Well, guess who sneaked away from this whole affair? Squeaky clean. Yeah.

[Scott Galloway]

Yep.

[Ed Helms]

Palmer's downfall left zero stink on J. Edgar Hoover, who was truly the organizer of these raids. He would soon become the head of the Bureau of Investigation, which, of course, would become the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where Hoover would spend the next half century perfecting the art of collecting secrets, intimidating enemies, and rewriting the rules to suit himself. The Palmer raids faded from headlines, but their DNA certainly lived on. It reemerged in McCarthyism, in Cointetism, Intel Pro, in the Patriot act, and in basically every emergency measure justified by fear. Enemies come and go, right? But the playbook stays the same. It's manufacture, panic, suspend rights, call it patriotism.

[Kara Swisher]

The only thing is here, it's a pervasive, on steroids media system that's very different. That's different. And these people, as Scott pointed out, make money from.

[Ed Helms]

There are so many parallels, obviously, to this modern moment. They were just coming out of a pandemic. We have Covid right behind us the targeting of immigrants, as Scott was pointing out, the kind of targeting of the other. We're not mad at foreign sort of states abroad that might be threatening us. We're just mad at ourselves internally. There's a breakdown of due process that we're seeing in these ICE raids, the detainment in poor conditions. We're seeing Alligator Alcatraz getting a lot of terrible press.

[Kara Swisher]

They're so heinous.

[Ed Helms]

But I have to say, I think what's most striking about the Palmer Rays isn't how much they resemble today, it's how much they don't. Because in 1919, America's paranoia was at least tethered to an idea, right? The specter of Communism, Bolshevism, and this global ideology that was challenging capitalism. But today, there is no grand ideological struggle. We're just living through something pettier and, I don't know, smaller. And it's the weaponization of one man's ego. Right? Trump's not offering an alternative worldview here. He's just offering pure, unfiltered grievance as a political identity, that's for sure.

[Scott Galloway]

I think one of the unfortunate things is that we're a victim of our own prosperity and BLESSINGS and that is, back then people remembered the robber barons, World War I, the Depression, and so many people had sacrificed so much for the country. I mean, effectively our generation, you know, civil rights, prosperity, have all gone up into the right over the medium and long term for us. And our prosperity has been extraordinary. And none of us have had to go to war. None of us have really had to sacrifice. We haven't served in the same uniform. I'm not saying things haven't been hard for special interest groups, but generally speaking, things have just. There's never been a place or a period in history where things got this much better this fast. And we've gotten used to that pattern. And we don't acknowledge or are not willing to make the sacrifices and don't even recognize when all of a sudden overturning Roe v. Wade was the first time, I think, in history that rights had been taken away by the Supreme Court in our country. And we're just not used to it and also aren't used to sacrificing for it. We didn't have to go to war. I think we forget how many people have sacrificed so much to give us the rights we have. And we have come to believe that these rights are inalienable and no, they can be taken away. And since Japanese families were interned in World War II, I feel like we haven't had this sort of existential threat to the Constitution. And we're a bit flat footed as to how to deal with it because I mean, to summarize my TED talk here, we've become fat and happy as it relates to not only food and calories, but to rights. We're under the impression America is going to get better even if we don't have to, even if we continue to not sacrifice for it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, 100%.

[Ed Helms]

There is a bit of a silver lining that emerged that from all of.

[Kara Swisher]

This J. Edgar hoover died finally, 50 years later. Scott always says, biology is undefeated. It wins in the end.

[Ed Helms]

That is accurate. In the wake of the Palmer raids, we saw the emergence of the American Civil Liberties Union, which formed in 1920. The ACLU began as a scrappy band of lawyers and journalists determined to defend free speech, due process, and together with the National Popular Government League, In May of 1920, they published a remarkable letter which I want to read to you. This was written by 12 prominent lawyers of the day and it was called the Report upon Illegal Practices by the United States Department of Justice. Here's the letter. For more than six months, we the undersigned lawyers whose sworn duty it is to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States have seen with growing apprehension the continued violation of that constitution and breaking of those laws by the Department of Justice of the United States government. Under the guise of a campaign for the suppression of radical activities, the office of the Attorney General, acting by its local agents throughout the country and giving express instructions from Washington, has committed continual illegal acts. Wholesale arrests of both aliens and citizens have been made without warrant or any process of law. Men and women have been jailed and held incommunicado without access to friends or counselors. Homes have been entered without search warrant and property seized and removed. Other property has been wantonly destroyed. In support of these illegal acts and to create sentiment in its favor, the Department of Justice has also constituted itself a propaganda bureau and has sent to newspapers and magazines of this country quantities of material designed to excite public opinion against radicals, all at the expense of the government and outside the scope of the Attorney General's duties. We make no argument in favor of any radical doctrine as such, Whether socialist, communist or anarchist. None of us belong to any of those schools of thought. Nor do we now raise any question as to the constitutional protection of free speech and free press. We are concerned solely with bringing to the attention of the American people the utterly illegal acts which have been committed by those charged with the highest duty of enforcing the laws. Acts which have caused widespread suffering and unrest have struck at the foundation of American free institutions and have brought the name of our country into disreputed.

[Kara Swisher]

Wow. Where are those guys today? That should go right to Pam Bondi from Bob Igers and the law firms that keep. And the university presidents. And all of them should be writing letters like this to the Justice Department. But they want their gimmicks. Yeah, it is because they want their gimmes. And we have a coin operated president who if you put a coin in, you get what you want out of it or get more. So you know, it's all about money, Ed, in the end for this group of people, for sure. Don't you think so, Scott?

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, look, the Delta between. I was thinking, I think we're older than you, Ed. And Cara's much, much older than both of us. But when I was a kid. Where did you grow up, Ed?

[Ed Helms]

Atlanta.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay. You grew up in Atlanta. My dad's boss had Thunderbird. We had a Torino. He had a bigger house but lived in the same neighborhood. They had more money, but not much more money. The Delta between having money and not and being middle class, of which was the pig in The Python. It was the biggest part of our economy and most people we knew were middle class. And the difference between quote, unquote, wealthy people was not that great. The incentives are all fucked up here and we aren't rewarding people for being good men and good Americans and writing.

[Kara Swisher]

A letter like that. You aren't going to see it from these people and you're definitely not going to see it from tech people. I mean, I always use this phrase with Scott and all over the place, places. They're so poor, all they have is money. They don't want to help you and they don't care. And they've shown it again and again by the lack of safety on their platforms, introducing products that are dangerous and having no strictures because they paid off our legislators. And so they're not. This has got to come from below. Like, it's not going to come from these people. They will not. You will not see a letter like that from any of them anytime soon. Soon.

[Ed Helms]

Well, Caris Wisher, Scott Galloway. No, I, I, this is, yeah, this, this kind. This episode took a bit.

[Kara Swisher]

Erotica is very good.

[Ed Helms]

It's super fun.

[Kara Swisher]

We're such dumb asses.

[Ed Helms]

I promise, next time I, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll bring the, the, the, this, the, the Silly. A little more Scott for us.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, be like hot ones without Helms or something. No, this is not what I.

[Kara Swisher]

He's a brainy guy. He's a brain.

[Ed Helms]

I don't know, I sort of. Yeah, I dip back and forth and for some reason I really wanted to, like, dig into your brains a little bit and I'm so glad that you came on.

[Kara Swisher]

So everybody get on your inflatable animal suit and get out there and protest. That's what I say.

[Ed Helms]

There it is. Thanks so much for coming on. I hope to see you soon. Cheers.

[Kara Swisher]

Thanks, Ed.

[Ed Helms]

SNAFU is a production of iHeart podcasts and and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post production studio is Good Egg Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by Matt Gossen and the Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welch, Megan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart podcasts. But especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman and Niki Ator. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, snafu the Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com thanks for listening and see you next week.

[Netflix Series Narrator]

Have you heard of this new Netflix series, His and Hers? This new mystery series stars Tessa Thompson as Anna, a journalist in Atlanta, and John Bernthal as Detective Jack Hart Harper. When Anna catches wind of a murder in Dahlonega, the sleepy town where she grew up, she pounces on the case and searches for answers. Detective Jack Harper is strangely suspicious of her involvement, chasing her into the crosshairs of his own investigation. It's a show that reminds you that small towns are often filled with the most secrets and no one is who they seem. Seriously, with every twist, you're left wondering, can you trust anyone in this town? Can Anna and Jack trust each other? Or is one of them hiding something?

[Scott Galloway]

Something?

[Netflix Series Narrator]

The closer they get to each other, the closer they get to the truth, and we cannot wait to see how it unfolds. Don't miss the suspense and the drama. Watch his and hers now only on Netflix.

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[Kara Swisher]

Guaranteed human.