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ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald Trump the suit Senator on
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comments that ABC's George stephanov made against a in a civil suit against Trump brought by egene Carroll he said
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he was found liable for rape when he actually been found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming
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Carol uh the judge had had had mentioned that it was in most terms that would be
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considered that and that's I think why he said it um but in fact the the jury had found him liable for sexual assault
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uh defamation under the terms of the settlement ABC News will donate uh the money $15 million uh to a future
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presidential vation of Museum and Stephanopoulos and ABC Al also issued a statement of regret for the mistake um
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many experts thought I I've talked to a dozen lawyers they thought ABC would have won and Trump is typically does
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this a lot as a as a and so does speaking of Elam mus we just talked about him they use legal uh threats as a
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means of of of uh having people acquest so talk a little bit about this I mean from a business point of view again it's
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using censorship it's using legal means it's using anything but actual competition or just like things work out
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it's more than that what we're seeing is that I mean some of us had warned that um that uh a trump ad second Trump
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Administration would be one in which the uh coercive power of the government uh against business would become huge that
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it mean that we're in a a mixed economy the government plays a big role uh private sector plays a big role a lots
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of things in the private sector depend upon government decisions that are reasonably favorable um as long as you
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have rules Norms rule of law um then that kind of works okay but if you start to
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have arbitrary exercise and then one of the things we're worried about on tariffs um it happens to be the case
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that the way that our trade laws are written the president has enormous discretion in tariff setting and in some
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ways one of the worst things about Trump tariffs will be not the tariffs he applies but the ones he doesn't because
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he can play favorites with who gets to get Exempted from a tariff there's some evidence he did that even on the
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relatively small tariffs he imposed in the first term so if you were ABC and you're looking at uh at all the ways
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that Trump can hurt you if he wants to uh then you you know pay protection money that's what just happened and this
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is a much bigger thing than just competition this is basically um big business already acknowledging that
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we've become a uh uh a protection racket pay pay for play and uh that's that's scarier than anything I mean it's uh it
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that's uh uh is one of those reasons to wonder whether you know uh 2024 was maybe the last real election so talk a
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little bit about because from a business from an economy point of view you can have a very robust economy even with
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this cooperation or does It ultimately end this oligarchy and in lack of innovation which has been the Hallmark
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of the US really um dominance and Innovation and new fresh ideas we it's really been a remarkable Run for the
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United States over the last 40 we've had an extraordinary the last 25 years you know the uh in 2000 roughly all advanced
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countries seemed to be about on the same level technologically the US has now pulled well ahead um and there one of
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the pieces I've written recently says a lot of that is actually just geography there's probably room for only one
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Silicon Valley anywhere in the world and it happens to be here but the um but a lot of it is also yeah
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openness uh rule of law uh success depends upon upon actually producing stuff that people want and can use um on
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being able to attract the best and brightest from around the world to work and all of that is at risk you're in a
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situation where uh you we know that there are people with influence on Trump who who think of tech jobs as being
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goodies to be handed out and don't not don't let foreigners have those um we know that uh we're May well be heading
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for a situation in which um in which success in business depends upon pull with the administration depends on
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whether you're in or out of favor um and we even have I mean uh for what it's worth uh regimes like that according to
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an IMF meta study um it subtracts about 1% from growth year after year in year after year how do you look at with all
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these billionaires around him and they certainly are just one it's mostly Tech that's going there but Disney just did
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this right this is Bob Iger doing this uh making he he had had to approve of this settlement and uh he has not you
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haven't seen him at Mar but this is his version of that right yeah um how what is that what are were you surprised that
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it's been the tech people who had mostly stayed out of government right and until
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they realized there was there was an interview that Mark andreon did who I've known for a long time I and largely a
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Despicable character but um uh one of the things he said he was terrified by what Biden was going to do and he was
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scared and that's what drove him into Trump's arm which I think is absolute Insanity
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unlikely I mean I am actually not surprised because I'm I'm a cynic and the thing about tech by the way is you
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know these are no longer upstart innovators that we're talk about now we're talking about people who you know
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who were who made their their billions very very young but they're now middle-aged and um and
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they're sitting on in many ways on on these uh Monopoly positions created by by their past efforts um and of course
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they're going to try and Curry favor with the government the the libertarian IDE ideology was never more than Skin
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Deep um but I also think that some of the backing Trump you know this is the classic error uh oligarchs it's funny in
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a in a democratic rule of law Nation great wealth brings a lot of power with it uh and it's natural to think well if
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I help elect an autocrat who will uh you know will is sympathetic to my interest
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that th I'll have even more power but you very quickly find out that actually all of the power is on the other side
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that the uh uh and you know I don't think analogies with Putin I mean I'm hoping that we're not going to go full
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Putin but the analogies are really clearly there and the oligarchs who helped put Putin in power thought that
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they had bought themselves a government and they found out that they were working for him not the other way around
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right and if they didn't uh work for him they were you know their Fortune can disappear quite quickly Windows started
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to look very well and then falling out of Windows I hope we don't get to the falling out of Windows stage but it
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could right and so no this is a and that's going to happen very very fast I mean I'm I think there's a reasonably
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strong case to that that Elon Musk and Trump will have a falling out and uh musk will not be the winner and I don't
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know that for sure but I'm actually kind of looking forward to it to be honest okay to that where do you where does it
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where does that break is because rich people have always been quietly running the country right the the whole idea of
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whoever down degrees and degrees yes but what is this unprecedented I don't think
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so right it's totally precedented this is about this the story of Putin's Russia this what about in our country
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that there have been wealthy people behind the scenes they just aren't as performative they don't jump down at a
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rally and show off their belly and stuff like that what how is this different I actually have had been wondering about
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that and planning to do a little you know I'm not a historian but I think it it really is an interesting question you
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we had a Gilded Age um in which there were enormous fortunes and and a lot of raw corruption and yet Democratic
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institutions were not corrupted too much I mean there a lot of purchased votes and all of that but in the end when
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people voted for something different those votes were honored uh we we didn't lose
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um uh in some ways the essence of what America's about despite all of that and it's an interesting question to ask why
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why didn't the uh the JD Rock fellas and the JP Morgans um you know go to the Limit why were they willing to allow you
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Teddy Roosevelt to be elected um FDR wealthy person JFK wealthy like billionair well FDR brought us closer to
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than we like to think but yeah um but the but the you know how did the Progressive Movement manag to flourish
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in a time when the wealthy also had that and I don't quite know the answer although it's possible hard to believe
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it's possible that people actually had at least some values and ideals enough to say that okay I will go this far but
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not beyond that point I'm not so sure with this crew we'll see I'm not so sure either we'll
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see I know I'm certain they will go as far as they take because they are perpetually grieved they're grieved Paul
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because they're very VI they're the victims just so you know oh yeah that it's one thing I mean you would know
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better than me but my my my really strong sense is that particularly the the tech Bros um I mean everybody loved
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and admired them 10 15 years ago and now they're they still have more money than
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God but yeah they're not loved and admired universally and I think that really you know I do spend enough time
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in meetings with uh people of of various people at the top of multiple status hierarchies yeah and everybody wants to
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be what they aren't yeah and uh and these These are people who can buy anything except except love and
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agulation that's correct it was funny funny you say that because one of them uh was in touch with me and that like
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see we won and I said you're still an I still think you're an and so I'm sorry can I say this but I I
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apparently somebody used uh grock to search for the most the word most commonly used to characterize Elon Musk
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yeah and it was