Elon vs. Trump: The Feud That Never Ends | Pivot

Scorched earth is his kind of policy in lots of ways. He doesn't care. (instrumental music) Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and this episode is sponsored by IBM. Scott is off today sailing in some place, maybe Ibiza. Who knows? So in his place, I brought someone actually smart, a fantastic co-host, uh, Kristen Soltis Anderson, who is a pollster, a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and co-founder of Echelon Insights. I was on the Chris Wallace Show with her, um, and she is a Republican pollster. I am obviously, well, I don't know what I am. Anyway, welcome, Kristen.

Thank you so much for having me. I miss our weekly get-togethers, uh-

I know.

... with, with Chris Wallace refereeing.

Yes, I know. They're, they're quite good, but you're never really. Like, you're always so reasonable, and then you convince me of things I don't want to be convinced of. So, that's why (laughs) I'm having you here today. Um, but there's a ton going on. What, what are you up to mostly right now? I mean, obviously, you've been inundated with information as a pollster, right, because there's so much constant information.

There's a ton of stuff going on. So you've got, uh, the tariffs that next week we will see. 90 bill- 90 deals, 90 days, does that work out? So, lots of people interested in what's public opinion on tariffs and the economy. Everything that's going on in the Middle East. Do people feel safe? Do they feel unsafe? What's their reaction now that we've had a little bit of time to digest what happened? Um, and then, of course, what's going on with one big beautiful bill, and the many different ways you can try to gauge, do Americans even know what this bill is? And from what they've seen, do they even like it?

Right, which they don't, right? I mean, we'll get to that. We'll get to all those things. Um, do you... Right now, when you are doing polling, there's so much polling out there, and there's so much internet polling and everything else. Talk just a tiny bit about the business 'cause people, like, don't trust polls, but they're glued to them at the same time. So, give me an idea of how you figure this out when you're in, in this pool of info.

You're right. It's very much one of those, like, the portions are terrible and so small kind of situations where people will say that, "I hate polls. I don't trust polls." But they seem to know exactly what's going on in the polling averages. Uh, look, distrust of polls or skepticism of polls is completely natural. I, I understand it. Um, oftentimes polls are used to do something they are not built to do. They are not actually great at predicting down to within a point or two how a fluid situation might turn out a week or two down the road. And so, uh, uh, I get why people are skeptical. The other challenge we're facing is technology makes it easier for me as a pollster to find you and ask you questions, and it makes it easier for you as a respondent to evade me, ignore me, block me, and so on. And then you add to that the way that AI is gonna change our industry. Um, it's gonna make it so that you have, uh, more hurdles to jump through as a pollster to try to make sure, are the people that I'm contacting and surveying really legitimate, or are they bots? Are they bots that look an awful lot like people digitally? Um, these are challenges that we as an industry are facing, um, and really right now the big thing that I am watching is, uh... There was a great Atlantic article I think a week or two ago that was about how teenagers are asking for landlines again.