TDS Time Machine | Jon's 2024 Interviews
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Hey everyone, Desi Lydic here. The Daily Show is on break for the holidays, but in the meantime, we put together some special highlights for you. We'll be back in the new year on January 7th with all new episodes. It's lovely to see you. You run the Federal Trade Commission.

That's right. The whole shebang. And you are in charge of... It's protecting Americans from monopolistic company practices, but also dealing with pricing and things like that, protecting consumers. That's right. I mean, the short of it is we want to make sure that the American public is not getting bullied or coerced in the marketplace or tricked. And so we enforce the nation's antitrust and consumer protection laws. And how is... Whoa. Please. Please.

Now, I just want to make very clear, very, very clear. You were not bullied or tricked into applauding, no? I don't want to be accused of monopolistic. How much pressure do these companies exert on the Federal Trade Commission? In other words, how much do they fight whatever regulation you're trying to put into place to keep them from becoming monopolies or from...

these types of business practices? Well, look, monopolies are not fans of enforcing the anti-monopoly laws. And so that type of pushback is baked in. But we have a fantastic team. We're a small agency, but we're mighty and we play to our strengths, being entrepreneurial, being strategic and getting real wins for the American people. What are the companies? So these are separate things. Monopolies

The way I always viewed it was, oh, that's only one company. But don't we have oligopolies in this country? Aren't there industries? Consolidation has made it. For instance, the entertainment industry is controlled by like six companies. Is that considered not a monopoly, but a problem?

Yeah, look, we've really focused on how are companies behaving? Are they behaving in ways that suggest they can harm their customers, harm their suppliers, harm their workers, and get away with it? And that type of too-big-to-care type approach is really what ends up signaling that a company has monopoly power because they can start mistreating you, but they know you're stuck. And what would be the metrics of that? Like, how would you judge that? Because I know you've sued Amazon.

that's right and and that's for those practices so our lawsuit does allege that amazon is a monopoly uh that they've maintained that monopoly through illegal practices and look there are a variety of ways that you can show a company is a monopoly and has monopoly power one is you can try to figure out what's the exact boundary of the market what's the market share but again the most direct way is to look at how is the company behaving

And as we lay out in our complaint, Amazon is now able to get away with harming its customers. So just to give you a few examples, over the last few years, they've littered their search results page with junk ads, ads that internally executives realize are irrelevant and unhelpful to consumers, but they can just do it and it milks them billions of dollars in money.

They've also been steadily hiking the fees that small businesses have to pay to sell through Amazon. And so now some small businesses have to pay one out of every two dollars to Amazon. It's basically a 50 percent monopoly tax. Wow. And so those are just some of the behaviors that we point to to note that this company has monopoly power. Is there anything in the company's leader that also suggests that? Like, for instance...

If you were to go from being like sort of a nerdy dude who sold books out of a garage into, let's say, a jacked Lex Luthor type, does that also suggest either monopolistic practices or some type of injections? You know, we haven't tried to make those arguments in court, but it would be interesting to see how a judge would respond. I think quite favorable.

How many lawyers do you like, for instance? So what are you up against? So you've got government lawyers. I'm assuming you've got a pretty good cadre of them. But like, let's say you're going after Amazon. How many lawyers are they at?

I mean, you know, if they have monopoly money, they can buy as many lawyers as they want. I mean, the FTC is around 1,200 employees. But when we're going up against some of these monopolistic companies, they can outmatch us, outgun us, sometimes 1 to 10, just if you're looking at lawyers. If you're adding paralegals and support staff. If you're just looking at lawyers, they outnumber you 10 to 1. Sometimes they can, yeah. I mean, we have lawsuits against a whole bunch of big companies.

And just in terms of sheer resources that they can pour into the litigation, we're pretty outgunned, but not outmatched, right? And this is where it comes to playing to your strengths, being entrepreneurial. So this isn't about just getting a fine. This isn't about going after Amazon and saying, so, because this is what the SEC does. The SEC, I think, is overmatched as a government agency. And you don't have to comment on that, but just nod your head. LAUGHTER

Utterly overmatched. So they go after groups, and then they can't really prove it in court. So then they're like, how about this? You give us a cut of your profit, and we'll all be done here. How do you handle that with Amazon? It's not just about a fine.

That's right. I think we've seen, look, over the last couple of decades, we've seen how businesses can treat fines just as a cost of doing business. Right. And we need to make sure that we're actually deterring illegal behavior. And so that can mean naming individual executives. We in our some of our lawsuits. Oh, snap. You just did not go there. I like that. So.

Have you had success with this? We have had success with this. I mean, we had a lawsuit against Martin Shkreli a couple of years ago. Oh, suddenly it turned into a pro wrestling match here. What's going on?

And he went to jail. Do you have to refer things to the DOJ or do you have an enforcement arm? So you're right. We don't have criminal authority. But the remedy we were able to get against Martin Shkreli was to effectively ban him from doing business in the pharmaceutical industry. Right. Now, I imagine that the practice that he did in the pharmaceutical industry, which was taking a life-saving drug and like jacking the price up by I don't know how many thousands of percent. I mean, he did something crazy, right?

How do you keep that as a normal practice in the pharmaceutical industry? I mean, are they colluding as a group?

to keep prices high? Why are we having so much trouble with them and prescription drug prices? I mean, look, there are a whole set of reasons why, for too many Americans, drugs are unaffordable, right? I mean, I hear weekly, monthly about American families who are having to ration life-saving drugs. Absolutely. And shortages of those drugs. Shortages of those drugs. And there can be all sorts of tricks and monopolistic behavior that is leading to that. Just to give you one example...

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the patents that had been listed for these inhalers were improper. They were bogus. And so we sent hundreds of warning letters around these patents, and in the last few weeks, we've seen companies delist these patents, and three out of the four major manufacturers have now said within a couple of months, they're going to cap how much Americans pay to just $35. So is it... Is their gain, like...

So you being entrepreneurial is their game. We're going to see how far we can push this and get away with it and do these different things in the hopes that we don't run up against an entrepreneurial or crafty FTC. Are they waiting you out?

Look, it's possible, but that's why you need to think about tactics that are going to be around deterrence. And so one big area of focus for us is understanding what is the root cause of these problems, right? Let's understand who is the mafia boss here rather than just going after the foot soldiers. Right. And I think you'd probably, there's probably a biblical sin in there that's probably the root cause of the whole thing. But I want to talk about the tech company because they are

The new oligarchs, it would seem. They are the companies that, and you see this especially in Europe, where they are fined considerable amounts of money for monopolistic practices or Apple just had to pay an enormous fine. Microsoft has always been, you know, found guilty of certain monopolistic practices when it comes along.

How do you handle enforcement for these new, incredibly consolidated and enormous oligarchies? So we have a lawsuit against Amazon. We have another one against Facebook. What is the one against Facebook?

So that one was filed before I arrived at the agency, but basically it alleges that Facebook, when it was watching the transition from desktop to mobile, it realized it really couldn't survive in mobile, and so it ended up buying out Instagram and WhatsApp

And the lawsuit alleges that those acquisitions were anti-competitive, that they violated the antitrust laws. Right. That instead of competing organically, Facebook instead bought its way to maintaining its monopoly. Now, why is that considered monopoly? Wouldn't they say, well, that's a sign of our success? We're so successful, we have extra money. And with that extra money, we make bets on certain companies and we turn those into successes.

So, look, one key tenet of the anti-monopoly laws is that you can't go out and buy one of your biggest competitors. Oh, you're not allowed to do that. You're not allowed to do that, in fact. Can I tell you something crazy? So I had put in an offer for last week tonight. I had come out. Now, it wasn't... And I'm going to tell you something. And because it's Oliver, I offered to him in doubloons. Is that what British people use? Yes.

obviously didn't take it. But you have to make the decision then of whether or not they are cornering the market. They used to call it cornering the market. But couldn't you say like Apple, Microsoft, they are kind of working together to corner markets, no? So look, we're...

investigating to understand whether some of the investments and partnerships that they're entering into right now in the AI space may in fact be giving them undue influence or giving them special privileges. If we get any hints that there is actual collusion happening in the marketplace, we take that extraordinarily seriously and won't hesitate to take action. One trend that we're especially

CONCERNED ABOUT IS THE WAY THAT ALGORITHMS MAY BE FACILITATING PRICE FIXING. AND SO IF YOU HAVE A WHOLE BUNCH OF COMPETITORS IN A MARKET, BE IT HOTELS, BE IT CASINOS, AND THEY ALL DECIDE THEY'RE GOING TO OUTSOURCE THEIR PRICING DECISION TO THE SAME ALGORITHM,

they may in effect be fixing their prices even if they're not getting in the back room and making secret deals. If that would be like if a hotel says, oh, you can get us on Expedia or you can get us on Kayak or you can get us on, but all those companies are using the same algorithm, would that mean that it flattens those prices and you are not getting the competitive advantage that you might get

from those 10 to 15 apps that are searching for the cheapest hotel rooms? Is that the idea? That's right. You may collectively see inflated prices because all of these companies are using the same algorithm. They're inputting the same data, and that algorithm is an effect

allowing them to collectively raise their prices so Americans are having to pay more. And it's not just paying more. I mean, you could look at a company like Walmart, where you would say, OK, they came into areas and they dominated all the competition. They didn't buy up the mom and pop shops. But because they had access to cheap labor and overseas goods and those types of things, they could undersell them and put them all out of business. And even at that moment, they might not raise their prices. But boy, could they.

And boy, could they exert their influence on supply chains. And boy, could they depress wages and make sure that people, even if they're working long hours, still have to have social assistance. Is that something that you could go after?

Look, monopolies harm Americans in a whole bunch of ways. You're absolutely right that it's not just higher prices. Yes. It can be lower wages. It can be suppliers getting muscled out of the market or seeing their own payments drop. It can also be shortages. I mean, we've seen over the last few years... Sure. Baby formula. Baby formula, IV bags, um... Adderall. Adderall. Um... Basic forms...

I see the audience has no use for baby formula, but has an interesting predilection. What do you do in that instance?

So, look, we want to understand, are there dominant players here that are using their muscle to coerce in ways that's contributing to shortages? We've also seen historically when you concentrate production, that concentrates risk. And so a single disaster, a single contamination, a single shock can lead the entire supply to be wiped out. I mean, the short of it is don't put all your eggs in one basket.

And then you guys are the ones that have to separate the eggs. It's curious to me that the government wouldn't have other methods of working with these corporations to ask them to curb their excesses in exchange for what they get, which is the stability of the American system.

So look, we have a whole bunch of policies and laws in place that are actually designed to ensure our markets are more competitive and not as subject to these massive shocks. Without killing innovation. Exactly. Right. That's the balance. But 40 years ago, under President Reagan, we radically veered off course and undertook a much more hands-off approach. And now we're living with the consequences of those decisions. Is industry more consolidated today? I mean, my...

GUT WOULD TELL ME IT IS MORE CONSOLIDATED. YOU HAVE LARGER COMPANIES THAT SWALLOW UP IN THE PURSUIT OF GROWTH.

SWALLOW UP AND CONSOLIDATE. IT FEELS THAT WAY TO ME. DO YOU HAVE THE METRICS THAT SUGGEST THAT THAT'S ACTUALLY THE CASE? ON THE WHOLE, YES. I MEAN, YOU ALWAYS WANT TO DO A MARKET BY MARKET ANALYSIS, BUT IF YOU LOOK AT AIRLINES, IF YOU LOOK AT TELECOM, IF YOU LOOK AT MEAT PACKERS, IF YOU LOOK AT, YOU KNOW, HUGE PARTS OF OUR ECONOMY, ACROSS THE BOARD, YOU SEE HUGE WAVES OF MERGERS. LESS COMPETITIVE. YOU GO FROM DOZENS OF COMPANIES JUST TO A VERY SMALL NUMBER.

And again, that hurts Americans and American communities in all sorts of ways and even leads to, for example, planes falling apart in the sky. Wait, what? I always thought that was just I always thought that was all just D.I. Are you telling me this gets us to our final point? So now they're saying this new algorithm, this new algorithm.

kind of machine learning model called AI, that's going to transform every aspect of American life and the American economies. It's already being consolidated. Apple has bought 30 AI models. Microsoft has probably bought. Google has bought. They all buy AI startups and put them behind their paywall. And they're already having an arms race to see who will be

either the monopoly or this will be an oligopoly. I got to tell you, I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it, to have you. They literally said, please don't talk to her. Having nothing to do with what you do for a living. I think they just, I didn't think they cared for you is what happened. They wouldn't let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act on AI. Right?

What is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?

I think it just shows one of the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of companies. I mean, going back all the way to the founding, there was a recognition that in the same way that you need the Constitution to create checks and balances in our political sphere, you also needed the antitrust and anti-monopoly laws to safeguard against concentration of economic power because you don't want an auto-corruption

of trade in the same way that you don't want a monarch. But then it took them, I mean, it wasn't until the Sherman Act in what, 1890-something? Yeah.

I mean, when did they first decide? Was it the beginning of industrialization when they finally decided, like, oh, we should probably put a halt to this? That's right. You initially had some state-level laws, but the first federal antitrust law was the 1890 Sherman Act, and it was absolutely a response to the Industrial Revolution and a lot of the power that that had concentrated. Can we just hold on for one second? Can you take the camera real quick? I want to take a single real quick, if I can. I don't know which one. Let me take this one.

I nailed that Sherman thing, didn't I? I know I did. It came out of nowhere. I think I might have learned that in like ninth grade. Stuck. Has that been updated since 1890? - So we had some follow on laws in 1914, another follow on in the 1950s. And then since then it's been a bit more sparse. So for the most part, our lawsuits are still based on those laws going back a century.

What would you posit? What would you put forth to control this new AI technology that is looming? And I'm not talking about censorship. I'm not talking about government deciding you can't say that or you can't print that. I'm talking about in terms of business practices, these few companies controlling the entire mechanism. Look, the first thing we need to do is be clear eyed that there's no AI exemption from the laws on the books.

We see sometimes businesses try to dazzle enforcers by saying, oh, these technologies are so new, they're so different, let's just take a hands-off approach. And that's basically what ended up happening with Web 2.0, and now we're reeling from the consequences.

And so we need to make sure all of the Web 2.0 is, you know, the rise of social media, you know, in the early 2000s, the initial set of companies that ended up innovating, but ultimately becoming monopolistic, ultimately adopting business models that are premised on endlessly surveilling people. And so and hoovering up data.

and creating algorithms that are clearly harmful, not just to children, but to political discourse. And there's... It's pretty wild how they're able to do that. And every now and again, they get called in front of Congress, and Mark Zuckerberg, you know, doe-eyed, goes like... Like and subscribe. You know, I don't know. But it...

Are you optimistic that we will be able to catch up to this in time before something truly catastrophic happens through AI? Well, look, there's no inevitable outcome here. We are the decision makers, and so we need to use the policy tools and levers that we have to make sure that these technologies are proceeding on a trajectory that benefit Americans and we're not subjected to all of the risks and harms. Right. Boy, would you stay forever?

Because it's incredibly impressive what you're doing. Thank you so much. FTC chair, Lena Kahn. First question, obviously, how are you? This was obviously a traumatic experience. How are you feeling? I'm okay, you know. I mean, surprisingly. Yes. But sometimes there are good surprises. This was one. I'm pretty much recovered.

I have to say, and I know this-- it sounds peculiar to say this because of the traumatic experience that you endured. I love this book. It's a beautiful work of introspection. I feel like I know now how your mind works. You know, I've read other of your books, but you really do a wonderful job of taking us through how you think.

Yeah, it's weird how I think. I mean, I have this kind of free associating mind, which goes from the moon to a movie, to a book, to a piece of mythology, to a joke. I had to read this book with another book next to me to get just some of the references. But it allows you, you know, sometimes you read an author's memoir and there's a certain self-consciousness to it.

but maybe because this is about a traumatic incident, I feel like your defenses were down, and it was very revelatory. Yeah, I mean, there's a subject. Right. I mean, it's... What I felt is that it starts off... There's a love story which turns into a murder story

which turns back into a love story. Yes. The love story, by the way, is with his wonderful wife, Eliza, who is really the hero, maybe, of the book. Yeah. No, I mean, she did a huge amount. And I wouldn't be here in good shape without her. And plus, she's an amazing writer.

There's that, too, I say with a certain amount of gritted teeth. Yes. Is there competition in writerly families? No, not really. Actually, one of the nice things about this is there isn't. We're enormously supportive of each other's work. I thought a really interesting part of the book is, spoiler alert at the end, when you go back to Chautauqua. Chautauqua is the famed community in upstate New York where they bring in speakers and where this unfortunate event happened. Yeah.

and you go back to revisit the scene of it, but also the jail... -Yeah. -...where they are holding this person... -Mm-hmm. -...that attacked you. Yeah, it was a last-minute decision. We were actually on the plane flying up to-- 'Cause I had this desire to go and revisit the scene of the crime and show myself that I was standing up where I fell down. -Right. -You know? Sort of important for me. But then on-- And the flight up there, I thought,

Jatok was a really small town. And if he's in the county jail, how far is that from the institution? And it turned out it was like five minutes drive. So I thought, well, let's go to the jail. It blows my-- but you didn't have a desire necessarily to see this individual. No, I just wanted to see the jail.

You get there, it's a really boring jail. It's a little cell block and a wall with some barbed wire. But I thought, you know, he's in there, I'm out here. That feels good. You win. And what happened is a weird thing happened. My feet started dancing.

You were dancing. No, my feet were dancing. But what does that look like? It's just shimmying, but the body stayed. Well, Eliza, my wife, said, stop doing that. I can imagine this gentleman just glancing out the window for no apparent reason going, is that the... Yeah, and he's dancing at the car park.

You know, you talk a lot about your thoughts about this gentleman and whether you wanted to confront him. There's actually a really wonderful section of it, almost like a Socratic litigation that you do in four parts. Yeah, I make him up. You make him up. But you don't make him defenseless. No. The litigation that you... And the dialogue that you have with him is challenging. Yeah. Well, I thought, you know, you've got to give the enemy an even break.

If you're going to have a serious conversation, then it can't just be me yelling at him, telling him what a bad person he is, which I think. Yes. But he wasn't... It makes you wonder about, you know, you spent since 1989, this fatwa is put upon you, and it's these fundamentalists

And these are religious extremists who have decided they're going to punish you for whatever their reasoning was. You write, though, that this gentleman is sort of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of that. He's 24. He wasn't even born when this thing happened. And he, by his own account, had read nothing I'd written. And yet he was willing to commit murder. I mean, that's stupid. Yes. But it's...

I wonder if you think of it, does it strike you as a change in fundamentalism? You know, you say he was radicalized by Iman YouTubey. That he watched YouTube videos. And do you think this attack had more to do with

like John Lennon's attack or with a religious attack? No, I think in some ways it's a very American attack. Right. He spent four years in a basement playing video games and watching videos. And it kind of messed with his head. And also, you know, I mean, he's born and bred in New Jersey. Slow down. I think I know where this is going.

Well, then, you know, you're ahead of me. But, you know, we live in an America where people kill each other every five minutes, you know? And I think maybe in his New Jersey brain... Yes. That is how we describe it as well, by the way. He's got that New Jersey brain. Exactly. Do you think that there is a shift... You know, we think of fundamentalism as primarily a religious artifact...

Have the algorithms made fundamentalism something different from that? I think maybe they have. I mean, I'm too old to know, really, because I don't... Algorithms don't know what to do with me. Right. Give them a chance. No, I do. But they don't know what to do. So I'm not algorithmically influenced. Right. But people are. People are all the time. And, yeah, I mean, I think he was... Something happened in him

which made it possible for him to decide to murder a total stranger. Right. And that has to be brainwashing of some kind. Right. Whatever you want to call it, but I call it brainwashing. Yeah, as I read the story, I started thinking, you know, we're so used to this idea that of violence with a cause, this idea that these, you know, there is something deep inside them that can almost be noble or understandable. Yeah.

This is not that. It struck me more as more in common with the school shootings we see here. Yes, exactly. Or the other things, that you were just this thing he saw. And you know what's so strange about it is, first of all, he must have known that he was messing up his own life as well. Right. You know, not just mine. At 24. At 24. And you know the last thing he did before he got on the bus from Fairview, New Jersey to Chautauqua, the last thing he did, he canceled his gym membership.

Because he knew the prison had waits? He wasn't coming... He knew he wasn't coming back, and why should he keep his standing order going? So he's going through it and going like, I don't need Sirius Radio anymore. So this...

Was he suicidal or was he... I don't know. I mean, maybe we'll find out. If whenever... If this trial happens, we might find out more about him, but... Do you dread something like that? Is that something that still visits you? No. I mean, I think, you know, if I... If they need me to testify, I'll go testify. And I'll be in the courtroom with him, but my view is he should be scared about being in the courtroom with me. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you wonder sometimes...

You know, and this is not to get, but you and I are both getting older, and you write a lot in the book about... Speak for yourself, John. Saddle down. I was just on jury duty, by the way. I don't know if you saw the picture of my doppelganger. But there is mortality. You write about Martin Amis and Paul Osher and people that you've lost, even during the writing of this book, lost to esophageal cancer, cancer,

You had a cancer scare in the middle of rehabilitation. Yeah, in the middle of all this repair work, suddenly, apparently, I might have prostate cancer. I thought, that's not fair. No. Well, you're right. He writes, he goes to the doctor. Well, you can tell. Yeah, I mean, I went to the doctor, and examining your prostate is not fun. Again, speak for yourself. It's...

It depends on if you have a Jersey brain. Anyway, the first examination, they thought they found a bump on the prostate. And then I had to have an MRI scan. An MRI scan, you know, it grades from one to five, and five is really bad. And I came out as four. And it said cancer probable. And then it turned out that it was not probable, that it had this bump and had been caused by some other infection.

And a medicine that they had actually given you. Yeah, exactly. And so then a second doctor, the first doctor's boss, also examined my prostate more thoroughly. Were they lined up down the hallway? What are we doing here? No, this was very thorough. And also he was an Indian doctor and he was a fan of mine. So he was like, thanks.

Nothing more uncomfortable than that. Extra thorough. Yes. And he said, no, I think this might be caused by this other infection and so on. So they had to go back and have another MRI scan. And it said one to five, one, no cancer. So I had cancer for two months and then I didn't. It's so incredible because you face this, as you write in the book, this 27 seconds. Yeah. It was just 27 seconds. And yet, do you think about...

And pardon the question, but do you think does it matter how you die? As you watched your friends and you thought about your fate and your brush with mortality and then to have this cancer scare, did it make you think it mattered how you die? I prefer not to. I've got some bad news. It's coming for all of us. Bad news for all of us. Yes. But I mean, I don't know. I've

My wife Eliza and I have decided we're planning our 100th birthday party. My 100th birthday. And I think it has to be a dance party. Yes. Just your feet, though, not the whole body. So we tried to decide who should DJ. I'll pick somebody. But it strikes me because you, whether you've wanted this mantle or not, and I'm assuming you don't, you represent something. You represent something.

a courage and a freedom of artistic expression, of the importance of artistic expression, and of the danger that artistic expression often visits upon the people who do it. It's a noble shield to carry, but not an easy one, I don't imagine. Not an easy one. In a way, there's bits of me that would prefer to be well-known for being a good writer.

Well, I have to tell you, I'm pretty sure that's in there, too. Is that in there? Thank you. You know, it used to be, when I started out as a writer, when people would write about my books, they would mention that they were funny. And then, after the attack on the Satanic Verses, everybody stopped saying I was funny. Really? Because that book is satirical. Yeah, and people who read it, I get two reactions to people who read it now. One is...

Where's the dirty bit because we can't find it yeah, and the second is who knew it was funny, and I say people who read it But it's you know with that on you Do you feel there's an idea that that you have to wear that heroism? I don't know the heroism, but I think I have to be part of the fight No, I mean I mean there is a fight about free expression in America too at the moment and I'm

I feel like I'm in that fight. I have a dog in that fight. What do you think how the nature of fundamentalism has changed and how that affects artistic expression? Like, even now when we see all the protests, you know, up at Columbia University, some students protest this, others think that's going too far and they're threatening people. And we're crossing all those difficult lines. You spoke at the Penn...

banquet, yes? Yeah, last year. Last year, which is a consortium of writers and poets and a lot of people, truly defenders of free speech. I just got a text today, they've cancelled... They've cancelled the prize giving because they have people attacking them for not being sufficiently...

anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian or something. I mean, everybody's so angry right now that nobody can listen or talk to anybody else. So people have shouted at each other. Listen, there was a critic, and this is going to sound like a joke, a critic of Taylor Swift's new music album, The Torture Post Society, they had to remove the critic's name

from the critique because of death threats. Because he didn't like the record? I didn't read it. Because I love the record. I don't want to hear any negativity. But so do I, John. But...

But it speaks to, in 1989, there was an Ayatollah and a Fatwa and a group of religious muckety-mucks who delivered the law from high above. And now we're all fundamentalists. Everybody's an expert. Everybody's got an opinion. And hostility. And hostility. The level of anger is crazy right now. Do you think of, you know, you have a dog in the fight

in that creative, how do we, and I think about this a lot, how do we manage that? And is that just a function of the algorithm? It might be. I think to an extent it is. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, frankly, I don't know. I'm glad you asked me because I'm the answer, have the answer to the world's problems. It's actually on page if I would. Exactly. But you are thoughtful enough and you've been through it enough that I know you have an opinion. Yeah. I mean, I just think

People have to get draw and stop having such thin skins You know at the moment we're all very easily offended and what's more is we also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for attacking something right, but actually everything offends somebody and

Always. Always. I mean, occasionally you. What? How dare you, sir? I am offended. You see, and then if you go down that road, then we can't talk to each other anymore. Right. But haven't groups always had a way of...

policing language or behavior. I think I'm trying to think, has my perspective changed on it or has the dynamic changed? I think what's happened is the temperature has got risen. Right. I mean, yes, of course, people have always disagreed and people have always said, you can't say that, you've got to say this. That's not new. What's new is the volume and the heat.

And so what do we do about taking down the volume and taking down the heat? That's the question. I mean, and again, not to make you the avatar of this, but this is coming from a man who, because of threats from fundamentalists, had to basically alter your entire life. Well, it did certainly have an impact, yeah, yeah.

I mean, what is sad is that I'd actually got my life back, really. I mean, I've been living in New York City for getting on for 25 years. Right. Well, you had made a decision. I'm going to come out of this and make myself available. And for 23 years, it was fine. Right. You know, I mean, I, you know, I mean, I was doing everything that writers do. Book tours, readings, lectures, you know. Oh, I know. I'm a writer. Don't stop. Oh.

I've been there with the coffee clutches. Yeah, and Oprah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I haven't been with Oprah None of us have But anyway, so it was a shock when this thing out of a quarter of a century ago More than that 30 years ago sort of came out of a crowd at me, you know It was I really was very surprised. Do you find yourself now?

Freed of that fear or is there still that PTSD like what where's your what does that do to you? Well, I mean it doesn't you know nothing good, but but it's now been about 20 months or something I think I'm pretty much back to myself at this point Do you feel like you're in that writing rhythm again? Does your has your mind started to dream again finish this job? and by the way, let me tell you something and I and and I

We don't have people on where I don't either, you know, read it or take a look. It's such a beautiful and incredibly interesting and revelatory book. I really thank you for writing it because you had to endure something awful. But your insight into that experience is incredible.

is really a remarkable gift to give to other people. And I really do appreciate it. And it's got funny bits. A couple of funny bits. For a writer, not for a comic, for a writer. But it really is a fantastic piece of work. And I thank you for doing it. The book is called Knife. It is available as we speak. Salman Rushdie. It's so nice to see you.

Everyone is aware there was a huge viral moment in sports reporting. And you, Monica, were at the center of it concerning an appearance on Stephen A. Smith's show and a young basketball player on the fever. Mm-hmm.

who's apparently generating quite a bit of controversy. Tell us a little bit about that viral moment. All right. So the conversation, John, it started about this foul over the weekend that Kennedy Carter for the Chicago Sky fouled Kaitlyn Clark of the Indiana Fever. And I'm not going to lie to you, John, if I take you through my day that morning, I get the call or the text rather than I'm like, are we really leading sports with this?

A person got knocked over in a basketball game. In sports. All right. I'm like, fine. Let's just do it. So we have the conversation with colleagues and friends, Stephen A. Smith, Shannon Sharp. And my larger point in the conversation was the tenor and the prevailing narrative that has been created around this season's WNBA play is that it's the league versus Kaitlyn Clark. And that is just absolutely false. It is unfair to the women that have been there building this league to this moment so that Kaitlyn Clark's popularity could take it to the next level. And so, by the

show John this the tone and changed and I just kind of need to put my foot down a little bit. There was some defensiveness on the part of the individuals you've covered basketball for many many years. You played basketball. You follow the NBA for many years. You know what you're talking about. The tenor of the conversation as I could tell was they were saying to you no we know what we're talking about even though we just tuned into this whole thing last Wednesday.

And there it is, right? And so, as I have said about this, it was a little bit of a challenge, right, to a gentleman that I admire in terms of what they've built. Because if you haven't been here, I need three years. I need you to kind of have jumped in when Sedona Prince went viral for calling out the NCAA. I need you kind of to be here as this league has seen its best viewership year to year. Now, yes,

It has absolutely been taken over the top this year, but this has been a snowballing effect to get to this moment. And so, while Caitlyn is fantastic and I think she's gonna have an incredible career in the WNBA, there are women that were worthy of coverage prior to her arriving, and I just will not be silenced when it comes to that. -Right. - Beautifully said. Now...

And I'm going to tell you this. Tell me. I have not particularly followed the WNBA on a day-to-day. I follow women's basketball sometimes more in college, I think. And in the old days, Dawn Staley and those players, I did follow that. Yep. But I have incredibly strong opinions about it anyway. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. But what did strike me when I started watching the highlights is,

You know this is a very physical league, you know so many people complain about the NBA now as the league is soft and they don't play like they did like the Knicks did in the 90's with oak and with all Mason and all those guys and then you see this physical league and now they're saying hey. And I guess I'm struggling to understand is it because

So many new fans are being introduced to this who don't have the context bingo nailed it. You can First take

First take! All kidding aside, yes, right? And listen, again, I am by no means gonna be naive to the popularity of Kaitlyn Clark, but there is a contingent that followed her. And let's expand it out to bigger other women's college programs that have been terrific. South Carolina, LSU, we'll just go with those three. Stanford, if you will, right? If you've only watched the college game for however long and not followed the WNBA, you don't know that not only are these 144 of the best women basketball players in the world, most of them in their off-season...

they're not kicking it. They're in Europe playing in leagues that are more physical. And so the brand of basketball just has a level of toughness. Now, to me, I think the part of this conversation, John, that has been daunting for me is sports is about competing. It is literally the foundation. We need score. We got to compete. And in the conversation around how we navigate the attention on the women's game, somewhere in there, competition should be watered down to protect the athletes.

Yeah. No, that's... But you know in your heart there is another layer of conversation going on beneath this that has been introduced onto the stage, and that is, look, we all know everything that underlines society in many ways goes along race, class, and gender. Mm-hmm.

and race, class, and gender has entered the conversation. In a very large way. And I think what is interesting, and I'm hoping that more folks are like, "Yo, this basketball is great. Like, I want to learn more about these women." Race, culture, gender are things that the women of the WNBA have never shied away from. -Right. -Right? A part of the bubble in 2020, they impact the election that goes down in Georgia in terms of standing on their values, right? But if we have a conversation about the societal totem pole, if you will,

Black women, a large representation of queer women, like, these are all things that sit at intersectional identities

we just opened up your show. Talking about valuing these things, right? That's exactly right. And so there are all these isms that have made the WNBA beautiful for 28 years, including this season. And even the WNBA has had to have its arc in terms of growth and leaning into who they are and who these women are both on and off the court. But it is at the base of it. If we for a second can take all that out, you're really about to tell women how to compete and you just got here? Right. What are we doing? And what's so amazing about it is

What I have heard from some of the commentary are people who just got there saying, this is so unfair to the sweet white girl. Now, first of all, Kaylin Clark looks like a competitor. She looks like somebody who's really a competitor. But the odd part is I'm always interested in this idea that sports exists now.

outside of the fault lines of regular society and isn't a reflection of those things and a continuation in some respects of those battles. That existence is for probably like

20% of men's sports. And then you gotta deal with race. And then there's other things that you gotta deal with. But like we said, women's sports sits right in the midst of all of that. We could be not talking about basketball and we got plenty of women's issues that we know have our country on fire, right? - Right. Right. - Um, and so, I think it's a beautiful time. And I don't think anybody that is a part of this league or has covered this league, sure, we lament kind of keeping this little thing that we love to protect it from all of the noise, right? - Right. Well, that's interesting. - But in the same breath,

The eyeballs and the visibility and the growth is better for all involved. I mean, frankly, John, like, Caitlin Clark got me here, right? You know what I mean? Not true. No, let me tell you this. So I am going to tell you this. The viral moment maybe brought you to some national attention. I have been loving what you do. You are such a good basketball analyst and announcer. I've been following you on the New York Dates, you and O'Keefe. Some of my favorite moments are the two of you. O'Keefe is the... Pat O'Keefe, my partner. The play-by-play guy.

I mean, you're so knowledgeable. I love basketball. I've been following the Knicks for 130 years. Okay. All right. Yep. I was in the stands in Madison Square Garden at the very top of it when they played the Celtics in double overtime when they won the championship in 72 against the Celtics when it looks like all was lost. I've loved it for a long time.

Your voice your knowledge your passion has cut through it for me. It's very rare that I turn on the radio or hear a new voice and go oh that person they can explain this to me and you really do. I appreciate your wonderful.

I had you on every day during the playoffs. Oh wow. Yeah, we had fun. Is it is there some sense of like a little bit of like when an indie band hits it big are there people within the WNBA community who feel like I don't want this to belong to everybody. I want it to belong to this band of of sisters that have worked so hard to make it something.

Monica McNutt, one of the bands. I have had that moment a few times. Right. Because as much as the conversation has been dictated by the audience, right,

we still haven't really sat up and talked about the actual basketball of it, John. I don't know how many people just joined the WNBA understand that the Las Vegas Aces are chasing down a three-peat, which hasn't been done since the formative years of the league on the Houston Comets. I don't know how many people know that the Connecticut Sun just lost their first game the other day. They were 9-0 to start the season, right? What names can I help introduce you to? I mean, if you pick up a Rolling Stone, Aja Wilson and Brianna Stewart are part of the next issue, I believe. And so, we've opened the door...

But we're still, like, looking in instead of walking in, if I may. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely. And so I think it's a really unique time. And even with this Olympic team stuff, right? Kaitlyn Clark, who you had mentioned, is a tremendous competitor, said herself, that's the toughest team to make. Right. Not surprised. And she's a rookie. She's just coming out of Iowa. She can say that, and she can also feel as if...

something in her has been awoken in terms of making that a goal of her own, right? -Right. -Like, I would hope-- And I know this is not a thing in sports. We gotta remember that two things can be true, right? She's been great for the league, but there were 144 women prior to her and this class that had gotten this thing up to year 28.

No, no question. And I think one of the difficulties of it is because it's a small league. I think people don't realize as small as the NBA is, there's still two rounds of a draft and there are guys that get picked up out of a G League and there's space on a team. There's a big roster when you're in the WNBA. Boy, there's just not that many teams. And you're talking about a draft.

Even when it's eight deep, 12 deep, some of those people may not make the team. These are women that have been playing the game for a very long time. To that point, John, like, the conversation about marketing, yeah, sure, got it, makes sense, right? But there's also got to be a realization that these women that have made this thing their living, they are not necessarily chasing the financial benefit. The WNBA highest paid player makes $250,000. Right.

You know what I mean? And so there is room. Isn't that how Brittany Gruner ended up in Russia? She was playing overseas because it doesn't make the money. That's exactly it. So many of these women supplement their income in the league that they play out of love to play at home with their teammates in front of their families, and they go get their real money overseas. That is changing. I do think that this class and Clark is all a part of it changing. But I think just to slap on, do this because of the money, again, is disrespectful and unfair to the women that have gotten this league to this point.

As a broadcaster, your story in some ways mirrors the story of the WNBA in terms of having to fight for attention with people who, in some respects, are not particularly humble about their position and slightly defensive about those who may come at it from a different perspective.

Do you see that reflected in what you had to go through and your journey to get to the desk that you're at now?

And does that give you hope for the WNBA's future? First of all, I'm thrilled about the WNBA's future. And yes, right? I didn't go to the WNBA, but I played sports all the way through college. Shout out to my Georgetown Hoyas, right? And so that foundation, that base, that understanding, hard work, improvement, that understanding of competition, all of those things have helped me to be able to stand 10 toes down in these various rooms and these various conversations, right? It's intimidating.

It is. And in the same breath, the people that I'm having conversations with, whether they are well-established television personalities or former athletes, they have done the same in their own way, right? But it is a reminder, because of my background in sports, shout out to Keeping Young Girls in Sports for this exact reason, I too can be confident in the work that I've done to get to this place. And for me, that has been beautiful. Who... It is beautiful. And it really brings up the interesting question, who does have the worst takes? Yeah.

Final question. I am a enormous Knicks fan. Yes, we know. And I want desperately to know if what I'm seeing, if the love that I'm feeling, I have opened my heart again. You know, Monica, it's been so long. Thank you so much. I've opened up my heart again to a basketball team. I never thought it would happen again. I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you. That was a big move. But Monica, I have to tell you something. Tell me. I'm afraid to be hurt. It's okay.

And will the Knicks hurt me? Life is full of surprises. That was a hesitation, Monica. That was not. That was a hesitation.

I want them to be great. Listen, I think they are on the right track. All right. But you got to play the games. That's why we go to the games. And I don't want to be a sad meme anymore, which is always what happens when I'm at the games. Monica, what a delight to meet you. And I'm such a fan of yours. And I wish you all the best and continued success. Monica McDonald of ESPN and We Are Rich Radio.