Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast and welcome to the Daily Beast, the new abnormal.

I'm a left-wing pundit and an editor at large at the Daily Beast.

We're here to have fun, sharp conversations with some of the smartest people in media, politics, and science

that help make what's happening in the country and the world clearer.

Our world has been turned up to a down.

On the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and figure out how to get ourselves out of it.

And I'm producer Jesse Kennan. I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails.

Today we have an amazing episode where we'll be talking to Patrick Ratting Teeth, New Yorker staff writer,

and author of Empire of Pain, the secret history of the Sackler dynasty.

Then we're going to have a great conversation with Anna Gifty, an African-American economist and editor of the Black Agenda.

But first, we have one of my favorite podcasters and writers, the host of Sway and Pivot, as well as New York Times writer,

Kara Swisher. Welcome, Kara Swisher. Thank you.

Back to the new abnormal, one of my favorite guests, I have to tell you, like, I do think you are one of the smartest people we've ever had on the show.

Oh really? That's a little bar, though, I suspect.

Thank you. I'm not sure. We have doctors.

Doctors, okay.

We'll learn it. And you have people who did book learning.

I'm the director of the program.

We love those doctors.

First of all, we have to talk to you about the Facebook decision, though. I think you're the go-to for this. What's your take on this?

Well, I mean, there's a lot of different takes. There's some really amazing work that's being done by a lot of writers,

sort of analyzing it. There's a lot out there that's being the Casey Newton, Ellen Duwack, and Andrew Marens.

...