00:00:00
Whoever did this was like, I'm gonna take my gun. I'm gonna climb up on that roof. I'm gonna murder someone. And
00:00:06
thinking it was the right choice. You know what I mean? Like, this is your only choice. Why did you go down there
00:00:11
and ask him a [ __ ] question and yell at him?
00:00:19
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Fox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser and I'm Scott Galloway. So today we
00:00:27
should start very much saying what happened yesterday in Utah was a terrible and tragic situation. Um I
00:00:35
think there's been a lot of like a lot of anger, a lot of accusations, a lot of really ugly stuff going on. Um but uh
00:00:43
being able to speak even if you disagree with someone and and as you might imagine, we we Scott and I have
00:00:50
disagreed with Charlie Kirk many times. You can say what you want, but getting having this happen is probably the most
00:00:56
heinous thing uh that could occur in a country like the United States where we're supposed to be able to say the
00:01:02
most horrible things and continue to debate. Scott,
00:01:07
well, that's all. Um yeah, look, I I I
00:01:13
I've been thinking about this a lot as most people have over the last um whatever 18 hours. Look, he
00:01:23
I mean this at the end of the day or the beginning the beginning and the end is the following. A 31-year-old father of
00:01:29
two was needlessly murdered. All right, that that that is a tragedy. Full stop.
00:01:36
Should not happen and we should be thinking about
00:01:41
tangible actions to make sure it it it happens less. Um Charlie Kirk in my view
00:01:47
and we said this and just to be honest in my you know I won't speak for you in
00:01:52
my view said a lot of divisive hateful things. Mhm. Absolutely. At the same time his format was really
00:02:00
powerful and productive and that is a lot of people on the far left and the far right go into their echo chambers in
00:02:05
a studio somewhere behind a mic and only listen to or respond to people who are supporting them. He went on campus and
00:02:14
he would have these open mic, you know, you know, challenge me or debate me or prove me I'm wrong.
00:02:20
Prove me I'm wrong. Yeah. Prove me. And I thought that was really productive and courageous because he was subject to a lot of Tik Toks and
00:02:27
videos that made him look bad. And a lot of times he would make great points and
00:02:32
show that a lot of young people weren't being critical thinkers about their progressive views. And a lot of times
00:02:38
young people would show up and say very intelligent things that that uh
00:02:43
counteracted in critical thinking and showed that he was wrong. That is a productive dialogue we should have on
00:02:50
campus. Campuses are supposed to be and this is one of the most upsetting things about a very upsetting thing. University
00:02:56
campuses are supposed to be an incredibly safe place physically but a
00:03:02
dangerous place intellectually and that is and unfortunately this reduces both
00:03:08
people I don't know about you I'm rethinking some of the campus appearances I've committed to it they
00:03:14
are supposed to be physically safe spaces not only for the speakers but for the students and and I won't even get
00:03:21
into you know some of the high school stuff but you have to appreciate he was a great businessman at a very young age,
00:03:28
a father of two and he his dialogue in his format I felt was a productive brave
00:03:37
dialogue. Right? This is a this is a tragedy. Let me get
00:03:42
to some of the second order effects and I want to get your thoughts. Just so disappointing that universities
00:03:49
are becoming a place because of violence in schools. this should be the safest
00:03:55
places in the world for discourse. That's just super super upsetting. What
00:04:00
I find, and this is this is where as progressives, I feel a pressure to feel
00:04:06
the other side. I think the reaction from the far right on this is so [ __ ] [ __ ] Every person on the far left
00:04:15
has said something along the I don't care if it's Secretary Clinton, Vice President, everyone has said basically,
00:04:22
we condemn this violence. Our this is never the solution. Our hearts and
00:04:27
prayers go out to uh Charlie and his family. The far right has had a very
00:04:34
similar narrative for half of it. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Charlie and his family. And this is the fault of
00:04:39
the radical left. Yeah, that is political violence only begets
00:04:45
political violence. And Trump, our commander, our divider and chief immediately goes on
00:04:51
highlights political violence against every Republican forgetting to mention the violence against Speaker Ammer
00:04:58
Pelosy's husband, against the lawmakers who were murdered in their home in Minnesota. you know, accidentally slips
00:05:07
past every Democrat and says political violence has to stop and then goes on to
00:05:12
ferment political violence. Yes, I would agree. I was sort of like, what? I was like, okay, good. Yes, no
00:05:18
political violence. And then shifting into the radical left thing immediately was shocking, especially cuz there's
00:05:24
nobody knows. They haven't caught this. I don't know what it's a guy apparently. What a shock. But
00:05:29
um but it's, you know, uh they have they've got the gun now. They've have videos of the person who did it. Um they
00:05:36
believe it's a college age student. I don't know how they know that. Um but they must have videos of some sort. So
00:05:44
the question is why would you immediately without any proof say something like that at the worst. Now I
00:05:50
let me give him one tiny little out. They were very close and you could be very very angry and very upset about
00:05:57
this incredibly violent death. And it unfortunately it was all over the internet. Um extraordinarily it was it
00:06:06
was an execution really was what happened here. And and everyone saw what happened. It was murder. And for him to
00:06:14
shift to that the only thing I give him is okay he was a friend but this you're also the president of the United States.
00:06:20
Right. That's the that was what I kept thinking is like what in the world would possess you to immediately start with
00:06:27
the vengeance? Like I don't know. I I was sort of like shocked myself and I'm
00:06:32
I am usually never shocked by Donald Trump, but this one was sort of shocking to me. If you go online right now onto any of
00:06:38
these platforms and you see the stuff that's getting 70 80,000 likes, it's someone saying, "That's it. It's war on the [ __ ] radical left." Someone who
00:06:45
is understandably outraged and upset and like, well, okay, do we know the radical left was responsible for this?
00:06:52
Are you forgetting what's happened to Democrats? And the far left wants to feel
00:06:57
Yes, they are. The far left wants to feel empathy and a call for taking the temperature down. I get it. The far
00:07:04
right, not everybody. Let's be clear, there's some stupid people saying stupid things online about him.
00:07:10
I haven't seen any. Not about him, about his death. Oh, no. It's just usually like anonymous
00:07:16
like they're cherry. The right is cherrypicking some dumb stupid. I haven't seen
00:07:21
I haven't seen any famous person from the left has any credibility saying anything but our hearts go out to the
00:07:28
family. Violence is not the answer. This needs to stop. Yeah. And then you have very famous very
00:07:34
famous right-wing host saying this is it. This is war and it's the radical left. It's
00:07:40
the f I I laid this at the feet of the radical left and the president has said this
00:07:45
and that is that just begets um that just creates more violence and
00:07:50
the problem is the solution is is the following
00:07:57
in we have two very famous and people
00:08:02
should own their grief. I I get upset a lot and emotional on this podcast. I like it when people are vulnerable. But
00:08:08
I heard two very famous right-wing pundits yesterday crying over this on air. Fine. I get it. You may have known
00:08:14
him personally. You have the right to your own grief and emotions. We didn't seem to be as concerned.
00:08:20
There were two students in Colorado with the students in Colorado or or the student the students who were shot and
00:08:26
murdered while praying. And if we're if the left and the right are serious about
00:08:32
this, I mean, if they're serious, it all comes down to this. I live in the UK. In
00:08:37
the next year, in all of the UK, there will be approximately 30 gun deaths.
00:08:43
In the United States, in the next 6 hours, there will be 30 gun deaths.
00:08:49
Yeah, we don't know much. We don't know the motivation of the shooter. We don't know who he he is. I'm comfortable saying he
00:08:55
because let's be honest, it's always a he. What we also know is the government is saying that, just so you know. Just just they're they're
00:09:02
saying it's a man. We we also know that this person used a high-powered rifle
00:09:07
and there's too many goddamn guns. And Charlie Kirk used to say, "You have to
00:09:12
pay a price for certain rights." And he said, "Look, there'll be a certain number of deaths." I buy that in theory.
00:09:18
I I'm comfortable with an increase in prevalence in crime with protection or
00:09:25
or certain search and seizure rights that someone can't show up at my home and just say, "We suspect you." So, I
00:09:30
get the concept, but it's an it's an issue of scale. At some point, does a total fidelity to gun rights begin to
00:09:37
come at such an unbearable cost. And this is an example of this. And I don't hear anyone saying, well, that's not
00:09:43
true. I heard AOC say this. If we're serious about this, we can talk about gun rights. We can talk about dialing down the
00:09:49
rhetoric. Good luck with that. You know, Jesse Waters was already out yesterday saying this is war, right? Okay. That
00:09:55
the rhetoric, good luck with trying to get people to dial down the rhetoric. And with social media that makes hundreds of billions of dollars by
00:10:01
enraging people with their algorithms, if we're serious, we have to reduce we
00:10:06
have to have sensible gun control laws. Yep. 100%. So, just to update people, as
00:10:12
it's as of this recording, and that could change, uh the manhunt is still underway for the person uh who the
00:10:17
government is identifying as a man who shot and killed 31-year-old conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley
00:10:23
University on Wednesday. Officials, as I said, said they've recovered the gun and believe was used in the shooting in the
00:10:29
woods nearby, a high-powered bolt-action rifle. Investigators also a video, as we
00:10:34
say, uh of of the as we said, of the suspect. They're trying to use facial recognition to identify the person. Uh
00:10:41
the FBI was pretty clottish at the start. They had fired the head of the Salt Lake City office because she was a
00:10:47
Pakistani woman, apparently. Um and they were they were very clotted. They said there were suspects in custody when
00:10:53
there weren't. Um Kosh Patel is not really exactly seeming very sharp here,
00:10:59
but we'll see though. This these things are very chaotic. At the same time, the government is not supposed to feel chaotic. Um in terms of reactions, as
00:11:06
you said, a lot of people did denounce the the violence and uh linking his
00:11:12
words to his death. He is not to blame for his death. Let's be clear. I'm sorry
00:11:17
people. I know you were angry at some things he said, but just then be angry at things he said. That's pretty much
00:11:23
where it stops. Um uh although uh President Trump, as we said, is blaming the radicalist rhetoric um and others
00:11:30
calling for war. Uh one of the first things out of the gate was Elon Musk saying the left is is murderous
00:11:37
essentially. If they won't leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die. That is he is that was possibly one
00:11:43
of the worst. Steve Bannon and Jesse Waters, same thing. um we're not at war with them and nor
00:11:50
this is this is really irresponsible for high-profile people. Um Utah's
00:11:55
Republican Governor Spencer Cox took a different approach. Now, it's a little long, but I think it's well worth listening to. So, let's listen to what
00:12:02
he said. Our nation is broken. We've had
00:12:10
political assassinations recently in Minnesota.
00:12:15
We had an attempted assassination on the governor of Pennsylvania
00:12:22
and we had an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate and former
00:12:28
president of the United States and now current president of the United States.
00:12:35
Nothing I say can unite us as a country. Nothing I can say right now can fix what
00:12:41
is broken. Nothing I can say can bring back Charlie Kirk.
00:12:47
Our hearts are broken. We mourn with his wife, his children, his family,
00:12:54
his friends. We mourn as a nation. If anyone in the sound of my voice
00:13:03
celebrated even a little bit at the news of this shooting,
00:13:08
I would beg you to look in the mirror
00:13:14
and to see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere. I don't care what his politics are. I
00:13:21
care that he was an American. I thought that was so eloquent and actually really
00:13:28
just perfectly done. Political speeches are so important at times like this or or from from leaders, political leaders.
00:13:35
And I thought this was just exactly the right sentiment. And he was he was acknowledging the anger. He was
00:13:41
acknowledging the um difficulties of of someone disagreeing with Charlie Kirk uh
00:13:47
on some of the things he said. uh but he also would was pointing out we just have
00:13:53
to we we have to get beyond this and noted he has was a father with children and at the same time um talking about
00:14:02
assassinations of Democrats essentially um and trying to equalize them. I thought it was fantastic. I don't know
00:14:08
what and I I I wish it had gotten more attention than it was followed by Trump
00:14:13
which was so non was the opposite of leadership. I thought yeah he gave what what felt like a
00:14:19
presidential speech right acknowledging
00:14:25
that was I think he did exactly what you would expect um from a leader so you
00:14:31
know kudos to him and again the thing that really struck me as someone who's on campus every day between
00:14:39
people being uh you know conservative voices being shouted down on campus between
00:14:46
uh intimidating certain students or getting in the way of their learning, between
00:14:53
this is the whole point of a university is we put it outside the city center for
00:14:59
a reason such that people could say provocative upsetting things and they were they were
00:15:05
they were allowed to do that. and Charlie Kirk. Um, I think the, you know,
00:15:11
in my view, one of the most positive things you could say about him was he was he was endorsing that and and
00:15:19
I thought what he was doing on campus, regardless of what you think of the rhetoric, was actually a positive. I'd
00:15:25
like those videos and a lot of people a lot of people felt
00:15:30
were ob you know I think that people who were angry at him were angry that we didn't have as strong a voices going on
00:15:36
campus in saying and presenting a different viewpoint um he was just very good at what he did but it there is
00:15:44
something you know the Australian the I think it's a newspaper magazine kind of summarized it said that
00:15:50
there is a real we're having culturally we are really struggling
00:15:56
uh in the US and it really stains our amazing accomplishments and this is an
00:16:02
example of that that these places that are supposed to be places of critical thought and free speech something like
00:16:09
this that happens and also just the fact that we have normalized there are so
00:16:14
many uh I'm not in any way saying this is less heinous or excusing what happened here when you're a public
00:16:20
figure and you are you decide to go into politics ics. Someone say Charlie Kirk, when you decide to run for president,
00:16:26
the bottom line is one out of three presidents the last 50 years have been shot at. You know, there are certain
00:16:32
risks. If you're going to school, you don't have a choice. You don't enter
00:16:38
into a high-risisk. These are supposed to be the safest places in the world. There's been 24 shootings on college
00:16:44
campuses and school and high schools. And that's just colleges,
00:16:49
right? And we're talking 40,000 people a year, 121 people every day. And I've
00:16:55
said this over and over, the the free gift with purchase coming to the UK is I
00:17:00
no longer have these horror fantasies around getting up in the morning and seeing my kids high school on CNN.
00:17:06
No, I was, you know, I was thinking like what is this idea of what a college is? I I interviewed, you know, Jordan Kipper
00:17:13
actually his recent documentary was about Charlie Kirk, you know, about people how he went there and it was it
00:17:20
was a really interesting discussion because in many ways, you know, he was saying it's sort of the reason why he
00:17:26
was successful is he actually showed up and talked to them, right? That was the thing. Um even if they and and that's
00:17:32
why he was able to convince them. And he goes he goes it was sort of no a little bit different but not that much different as people that came to campus
00:17:38
and gave out free hats and beers, right? like, hey, let's like whatever it happened, whatever the marketing thing
00:17:44
had to be, but he really did market the ideas. Um, and he was just before he died, he was throwing out hats. He was
00:17:51
creating a situation. And I would I would agree with you, it was I was always sort of where was a a a version
00:17:58
of this for Democrats making their case. And again, let me say stuff that came
00:18:03
out of his mouth was so upsetting to hear for for me and many others. I think
00:18:09
I I kind of stopped. I started ignoring a lot of the stuff he said because I knew he was doing it to get people's
00:18:14
goat. But if you were a college student, that would be I don't want to use the word trigger because it's gotten so abused. But it was it was not nice,
00:18:22
right? Like if you were a gay person, the things he said or w woman or a black woman or whatever. And I I yet, you
00:18:30
know, there's a sort of hide park corner kind of idea of our world where, you know, the idea of the hide park is a
00:18:36
park in um uh in London where people can say whatever. They get on a soap box and say whatever they want and some of it's
00:18:42
really just heinous at I've been there and it's really like what did you just
00:18:48
say and I think we've lost the ability to it's not not react because you should
00:18:54
react and get angry. You should um push back. you should be incensed, right? I I
00:19:00
think all those things are kind of good for the development of minds, right? Like what did they what
00:19:06
did they just say? But it's almost like being in a bar. Like you don't then hit someone. You don't then you're like you
00:19:14
you could even call you you're an [ __ ] when that happens. I mean it happens a lot actually. And I just I I I
00:19:21
don't know what the problem is. And I I talked about this is that I think I do
00:19:26
think online gets it even worse. Like it gets into people's heads in a way that I
00:19:33
I don't know what would cause you to do this to like get on climb yourself on a
00:19:38
roof and shoot someone like in execution style. Like what is the what is the jump? And sometimes I
00:19:45
think you know this you know sort of the stew of hate speech that's available to people sits in their brain especially
00:19:51
online especially as it goes viral. What is that leap from you know if you said
00:19:58
something to me offensive Scott I'm not going to use uh Kirk as an example cuz he just I mean he just died but if you
00:20:05
said something terrible to me why would my first thing be to get a gun and shoot
00:20:10
you? Like what hap where is that moment? And I think I think a lot of the stuff online does get people. You can see it
00:20:17
in the notes from shooters. You could see it in the pe the guy who shot the people in Minnesota. There's something
00:20:23
that turns with the constant steeping online especially and in videos and
00:20:30
things like that that creates that jumping off point. I don't know what it is, but there is a moment where they
00:20:37
say, "I think what I'll do is get a gun and I think what I'll do," and that's not a new thing. Look, we've had that
00:20:42
happen throughout history, but it seems like just so much of an easier leap than
00:20:48
it used to be. Maybe maybe I'm wrong. I I think it's But see, I do think you can disarticulate it down to a few
00:20:53
things and that is one um
00:20:59
people are spending more and more time online and that does a couple things. One, the algorithms have connected
00:21:04
engagement with enragement. So if you if you want if you go online,
00:21:10
it tries to figure out if you're conservative or progressive and then take you to the extreme and start making
00:21:16
the other side look bad, look evil, look dangerous. And so there's there's a culture of rage
00:21:24
dividing us, being fueled by the deepest pocketed god-like technology with paleolithic institutions to regulate
00:21:31
them. So that's incredibly well said. Our profit motive in the United States and 10
00:21:37
companies driving the entire market have a rage motive that divide us. Maybe they
00:21:44
didn't intend to, but that is what's going on. to the social the social isolation of young
00:21:50
men. And that is too many young men are going into those bubbles getting enraged
00:21:55
and they because they're not going into work because of remote work because they're not getting as many economic opportunities because they're not doing
00:22:01
as well in school because their prefrontal cortex doesn't develop as fast as a woman's because they don't
00:22:07
have as many romantic opportunities. They're not connecting with friends. They're not connecting with work. They're not connecting with romantic partners. They're isolating from their
00:22:13
family. And when that happens, when those guardrails are no longer present, they don't have the ability to see, oh,
00:22:22
I just met a a Trumper at work and you know what, he seems like a pretty cool guy
00:22:28
or he enrages me and I'm not going to talk to him, right? Yeah. But I learn how to deal with it and I realize that or my girlfriend or
00:22:35
my mother or my father says, "What the [ __ ] are you doing and saying? Stop that. No, that's not right." or they
00:22:42
start asking you questions that that help illuminate that what you are thinking makes no sense. So we have a
00:22:50
people we have profit connected to rage. We have the social social isolation of
00:22:57
young people who have no guardrails and start becoming increasingly
00:23:03
um prone to irrational behavior that if they were more social they'd have greater guard rails. And then the kicker
00:23:11
is we take an enraged public and young men and men who have no guard rails and
00:23:17
are much more prone to irrational thoughts and behavior and then we make weapons of war easily accessible
00:23:24
to them. Yeah, it it really is. It's you know there again there have been shooters over all of history, right? There's not
00:23:31
this is not there's always someone somewhere but it just feels like that leap is so much smaller for so many
00:23:38
people, right? I think I'll take a gun. I just kept thinking, what? Whoever did this was like, I'm going to take my gun.
00:23:44
I'm going to climb up on that roof. I'm going to murder someone. And thinking it was the right choice. You know what I
00:23:50
mean? Like, this is your only choice. Why did you go down there and ask him a [ __ ] question and yell at him? Like,
00:23:55
you know what I mean? Like, what? That to me, it's just there's I don't maybe
00:24:01
this person's mentally ill. I don't know. One of the things that we should talk about very quickly, the offshoot of this is all these conspiracy theories
00:24:07
around this guy's death. Um, murder. I'm going to say it's a murder. It is. Um,
00:24:12
uh, which is like they have, what's incredible is they have all these videos every it looks like they have videos of
00:24:18
almost everything. Um, and that's an interesting thing in law enforcement. But now there's all these conspiracy
00:24:24
theories of there's now a video of two guys making hand signals looking like they're telling the shooter to shoot.
00:24:31
Then there's other people talk saying it's a you know it's an intelligence op from Russia or Israel or this and that
00:24:37
and then another person arguing oh if it was that they wouldn't be seen on the roof which kind of makes sense if you're
00:24:42
really good at what you do you don't get seen essentially. Um, and it just that
00:24:47
this conspiracy stuff is, you know, who who's in whose interest is it for Charlie Kirk to be dead and move away
00:24:55
from the Epstein files, right? And you just sit there and you're like, what if
00:25:00
you were a young I kept I'm confused by all this stuff. I'm like, oh, huh. And
00:25:05
then I you get I get dragged in and then I'm like, no, no, stop. We don't know anything right now. Right. But if you're
00:25:11
a young person, boy, is all this postmurder conspiracy theory is even
00:25:17
worse to have to deal with. I don't I just find it very upsetting in that regard. And I can't imagine being a
00:25:22
young person who's who's not quite there on judgment on any of this stuff.
00:25:28
Well, and we don't have, and I'm a party to this yesterday, we
00:25:33
don't have anything resembling fact-checking or anything that's measured. So, you know, it's again these
00:25:39
socially isolated young people with a profit motive around spreading conspiracy theory. Typically, typically
00:25:45
these types of shooters fit a tip, not always, but typically they're young men
00:25:51
who are hoping to regain social capital with what they see as a heroic act of violence. They're, you know, isolated,
00:25:59
feel like people don't respect them, are looking to gain back social capital and think they can get it because they've
00:26:04
been convinced this person or this movement is truly demonic and that they would be heroic in killing this person.
00:26:11
And oh, by the way, dad's got a sniper rifle. I mean, its
00:26:18
I find the whole thing again, I don't I I was I was it it was
00:26:24
strange. I don't know if you felt this way. I felt unnaturally hit in the gut by this. I just thought,
00:26:30
"Oh, [ __ ] This is just so bad for everyone and everything."
00:26:35
And I feel bad for him. I feel bad for his family. I feel bad for the the the chilling on dialogue this is going to
00:26:41
have on university campuses. I I feel that the dialogue is immediately going to go to be
00:26:48
politicized and blaming the radical left, which happened right away, the whole road ahead. Yeah.
00:26:53
And oh, I'm already seeing stuff. I'm like, uh, you know, oh, was it a trans
00:26:58
shooter? And I mean, you're already seeing this [ __ ] right? And was it an EP? I'm seeing now, was it an
00:27:04
Epstein shooter? Cuz he backed off on the Epstein stuff. You know what I mean? Like, and you sit there and it's like, it could be anybody cuz they're all
00:27:10
[ __ ] crazy. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're like, "Oh my god." And I think the fact that
00:27:17
we one of the things I hate about this in a weird way is I we have so much information and so much of is bad,
00:27:24
right? I have refrained from saying very much about anything online because I'm like I don't know. I want to wait and
00:27:29
see who what what happens where I was going with this is and I immediately took it down and I need to be more
00:27:35
careful. I saw this video of Marjorie Taylor Green who has been in my opinion very courageous around all of the
00:27:42
Epstein stuff. I saw this video of her coming outside of her office and putting up a picture of that um card, right, and
00:27:50
putting it on her the front of her office and then hitting her hands together. I'm like, "Wow, you know, and
00:27:56
I I immediately posted it and said, you know, I have a lot of mixed emotions looking at this and then immediately my
00:28:02
files are like, Scott, it's AI." I'm like, "Oh, fuck." And I immediately took it down, but not before it went but
00:28:09
not before it went out to 1.2 million people. I know. I know. I know. Oh, I that's why I did said I have posted very little
00:28:16
except for the that Spencer Cox. Can can I ask you one more question and we have to move on, but you said you'd nervous
00:28:22
about appearing on college campuses. You said it as I'm not, but I have someone in very
00:28:29
close to my life who knew I'm supposed to speak at a public university. I don't have nearly the footprint and popularity of this guy. though I don't I don't mean
00:28:35
to sound I don't mean to create a false equivalence but I'm supposed to speak at a university a big public state university
00:28:41
and someone very close to me is like no you're not going you know obviously this this evokes an
00:28:47
emotional reaction and this person has said well yeah I I don't give a [ __ ] you're not going
00:28:54
and and comedians who used to be the push back here I think a part of the anger from the left with Charlie Kirk
00:28:59
was quite frankly because he was just more effective we did not have an equivalent Charlie Kirk going on campus as organized, as youthful, quite frankly
00:29:06
as courageous. He was not afraid. He got in front of people. Sometimes he made a great point. Sometimes he looked stupid.
00:29:12
He didn't care. He played a huge role in Trump's election. And I think part of the venom from the left around how
00:29:18
pissed off they were about Charlie Kirk was quite frankly he was just more effective than us. Part of it, part of some of the things
00:29:24
he said were terrible. 100%. But he did it on purpose. Well, he did it like a lot of people, he would say
00:29:29
incendiary things to get a reaction and get more YouTube videos. even if he even if I don't know you know maybe he
00:29:34
believes this [ __ ] maybe you know hopefully he doesn't but anyways the you know who used to be on campus doing this
00:29:43
was comedians and now comedians won't go on campus because they're like I don't need anyone
00:29:49
shouting me down or waving a Palestinian flag in my face or I just don't need that [ __ ]
00:29:54
and so we on the left I just I remember I remember at UCLA
00:30:00
when I was there everyone from Bill Murray tom to you know I'm dating myself to Carl
00:30:07
icon used to show up and I I knew a lot of people like I'm not going to [ __ ] campus do you hear what happened to my
00:30:13
friend on campus and by the way it happens just as much to people on the far right far left too far left it happens both if
00:30:20
someone's upset and they feel on campus emboldened to interrupt them try and make them look stupid or worse
00:30:27
right and it's really I mean we're we're probably headed to an environment where we're going to have I
00:30:32
would think at some point we might have metal detectors on campus. I don't know. I don't know. It's It's How would you feel if you were invited
00:30:38
to speak at a campus right now in a large crowd, two or three thousand people outside of the square like that?
00:30:44
How would you feel? Nervous because nervous just basic areas of disagreement
00:30:52
that I you or I might say strongly because we're we're always like making
00:30:57
jokes and saying rude things. I mean, we we said um
00:31:02
who someone had a micro dick. I forget who it was. Um you know, stuff like that. We're always well, we're always
00:31:07
saying that, but um I was like, who if one crazy [ __ ] online incensed person
00:31:15
with a gun shows up? Yeah, I could see it now. And I before I could never see it, like they got mad at one little
00:31:20
thing I said. It makes me nervous. It does. It does because it's not because I think uh I don't want people to disagree
00:31:28
with me. It's that I think some people have something's happened to some people
00:31:33
online and they have access to a gun. That's Yeah, it's nerve-wracking. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:39
I could see it% for a second. I definitely think about it. Anyway, very quickly, I I want to talk about the political violence the other side of the
00:31:45
world in Nepal, which is really sort of shocking in a lot of ways. The country is now under nationwide curfew after
00:31:50
mass protests led by teenagers and young adults turned deadly. Uh the unrest began after the government banned social
00:31:56
media, but protesters also were calling out unemployment, corruption, and inequality. It was a bigger thing than just social media, but social media set
00:32:03
it off about this sort of culture of elitism. Um and it sort of manifested itself. And the only reason I talk about
00:32:10
it is because what I'm I'm hearing from lots of sources that they're about to announce the Tik Tok deal. It's going probably going to Larry Ellison and a
00:32:16
bunch of investors. I I noted this online um and one of the things of course was it was supposed to be banned
00:32:22
right and this is supposed to be the solution to it and I wondered what if it did get banned would something like this
00:32:28
happen with young people probably not in this country but I don't know if you have any thoughts on what happened Paul
00:32:33
it was sort of social media is what set it off I don't think it was the root cause but nonetheless
00:32:38
I don't know that much about it other than typically it's young people that start revolutions because young people
00:32:44
are more risk aggressive and willing to go to a a square and risk getting shot and but I mean quite frankly I I don't
00:32:52
I'm not trying to obviously loss of life is anywhere is a tragedy but I just
00:32:57
thought it god they got their Instagram that's that was the final straw they got their Instagram taken away it just feel
00:33:03
it felt like I would not have guessed that I don't know anything about the Nepalese culture I don't but that's
00:33:08
you know the countries not countries not this country use social media as
00:33:13
everything like it's it's TV it's and So including business, right? Basically like shutting down the
00:33:19
newspapers and the TV stations when they take away your social. Yeah. Yeah. So I for people that don't understand it and I think this was a
00:33:26
hugely corrupt sort of nepo economy where these people just about had it and then they were like now you
00:33:32
can't say anything and so and it's has a culture of free speech this country. Anyway, it's just just interesting to
00:33:38
watch these movies. You just summarize it. I don't even know what happened and I think I know what happened in that this was the excuse but
00:33:44
I'll bet you anything it's a lack of economic opportunity for young people. That was the kindling and them taking
00:33:49
away their social media was the spark. If you reverse engineer almost any
00:33:55
uprising among youth, it's that they get pissed off that there's a group of people sucking oxygen
00:34:01
out of the room from them and that that okay, we're fed up. We don't see we don't see a future for us to to find a
00:34:08
family, be treated fairly, and it's a group of it's a group of old people who are aggregating too much information or
00:34:15
I'm sorry, too much too much power. You know, I often don't say this because I do think some speech is indeed hateful
00:34:20
and damaging. Um, but the solution to a lot of this is more speech and more dialogue. And I think one thing that
00:34:27
really kind of stuck in my crow was that NMSSNBC let go of Ma Matthew Dow who
00:34:32
said some very factual things on the air perhaps not good timing um uh about Kirk
00:34:40
and he seemed to blame Kirk for his own death. I I listened to it I wasn't really clear if he actually said that.
00:34:46
Um what he was talking about was you know what we were just saying is that there's so much hate that he was
00:34:53
essentially saying you put hate out in the world don't be surprised if you get it back which is probably not the nicest. He said you raise the temperature he
00:34:59
said you raise the temperature like on that you might get you might get burned right I felt like this was when I saw
00:35:04
his comments I felt that MSNBC was essentially um the Democratic party virtue signaling
00:35:12
and kicking out Al Franken. I just thought, "Okay, good for us. Good for us." I I
00:35:18
Yeah, I don't I mean, I don't get it. I I didn't get that. I I wrote that some people there and I was
00:35:24
like, I'm sorry. I just like again, this is whatever you think about Charlie Burke, he was about saying
00:35:30
things, right? As provocative as you want. And I just I don't find that particularly provocative. And maybe we
00:35:38
should be a little nicer, right, when someone dies. Absolutely. But it seemed over like it was an overreaction in such
00:35:46
a way. The good news is we we can trust that no matter what Fox says and and falsely accuses Democrats of being responsible
00:35:52
they will not get fired. Yeah, I know that. I was like Jesse Wat have you looked over at Jesse Waters?
00:35:58
Like what in the He's like we're at war. I'm like I'm not at war with you Jesse Waters. What in the hell? Like what is
00:36:04
he talking about? And I know when I first saw this clip I thought there must be another clip for why he got fired. I I think that was I think
00:36:10
that was a [ __ ] move. And I love the I love the leadership over at MSNBC. I think they got this wrong.
00:36:16
Yeah, me too. Anyway, uh uh I actually told him this, too. Anyway, uh let's go
00:36:21
on a quick break. When we come back, Larry Ellison becomes the richest person in the world as Oracle stock soarses.
00:36:27
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upwork.com. Scott, we're back. Oracle founder Larry
00:37:33
Ellison briefly became the world's richest person this week, edging out Elon Musk. His net worth climbed to uh
00:37:39
$393 billion Wednesday after Oracle shares skyrocketed on a blockbuster earnings report, up 42% at one point.
00:37:46
Oracle said it won several billion dollar contracts in the latest quarter, quadrupling bookings from a year before.
00:37:51
The company also is forecasting that revenue from its AI powered cloud business will jump from 18 billion to
00:37:57
144 billion by 2030. On top of all that, Open I just signed a deal to purchase $300 billion in computing power from
00:38:04
Oracle. And again, I am understanding he's going to get control of Tik Tok or somehow be the lead uh person in that.
00:38:10
And he's obviously very close to President Trump and they had been involved with Tik Tok before. Let me be fair. Um they were part of when they the
00:38:18
last time they were trying to figure out what to do about Tik Tok. Who knows? We'll we'll talk about that when it happens. Um but you know this is sort of
00:38:24
Nvidia 2. I I don't know this is Oracle is now a major AI player. Um what do you
00:38:30
what do you think about this? U I think Ellison is a visionary and he
00:38:36
doubled down. I think he figured out that okay there should be one the most valuable company in the world Nvidia. Uh
00:38:44
it would be okay to be the the second biggest infrastructure company centered around AI. and he made a massive
00:38:50
investment and it's paying off like crazy. Their cloud revenue is projected to increase 77% to 18 billion. Um they
00:38:59
expect their cloud revenue, it was their projections that got the market excited. They project that their cloud revenue will hit 144 billion by 2030. That's a
00:39:06
14-fold increase versus the 10 billion it brought in last year. It said credibly the CEO said we're going to
00:39:13
increase our cloud revenue 14x in the next four years. Now, what's interesting here is a great deal of that comes from
00:39:20
a deal with Open AI who will purchase $300 billion computing over five years. So, get this. Essentially, Open AI has
00:39:28
said we're going to pay Oracle $60 billion a year for compute despite
00:39:33
the fact we are currently Open AAI only making 10 billion a year. They are so
00:39:39
confident in their growth that they've just committed to spend $60 billion a year on compute.
00:39:45
Yeah, I noticed that. despite only currently making 10 billion. So he became the richest person in the world
00:39:51
for a brief moment. Biggest one day gain in history, 36%. He owns approximately
00:39:56
40% of Oracle. And and this is a good bridge to to Apple. What he has done is
00:40:04
Larry's gangster move was Oracle was becoming a mature company, very profitable, and they were buying back
00:40:10
shares. When the company went public, he owned 34%. Now he owns over 40% because they've used that excess cash flow to
00:40:17
buy back shares. Until two years ago when he said, "Uh-uh, the future's in
00:40:23
AI. It's an arms race. Y I'm going to massively invest in AI."
00:40:29
Who did not do that? Cara, trivia question. Apple 100%
00:40:34
correct for 20. One guy said, "It's time to put back on our growth pants, so to
00:40:41
speak, and start massively investing in AI." And this was the gangster strategic
00:40:46
move arguably of the last 5 years was an old company saying, "Fuck it."
00:40:51
And an old guy and an old guy and an old company. We need to start dancing again. You may have gotten used to our dividend. You
00:40:58
may have gotten used to our share buybacks. Uh-uh. I'm going large because there's no number two to Nvidia, but
00:41:03
there's going to be. And now squarely Oracle is has basically put their elbows
00:41:09
out and crashed the party and said, "Oh no, you may think we're old and dodgy or
00:41:14
whatever. We're not. We're hip. We elephants can dance and now you know I
00:41:20
mean this was an incredibly smart deaf move of Larry Ellison. I would never count him out." And also
00:41:26
his CEO Saffricat um she is really also very sharp. I mean I think it's really interesting. I think of course they did
00:41:32
also see the writing on the wall with the Trump administration backing AI. You know, they've been very aggressive at
00:41:38
showing up at these AI events and you remember he showed up at that event with Sam Alman with the president that pissed
00:41:44
off Elon Musk and everything else. And at the same time he he put a big investment into Twitter and probably
00:41:50
he's about to double cross Elon by owning Tik Tok, right? Or or at least controlling Tik Tok. So this guy just
00:41:57
whatever it takes. And of course his son he he funded the son's purchase of Paramount. And so this guy is just very
00:42:05
vibrant for an for an elderly man, I'll say. Okay. Well, just in the price increase
00:42:10
from yesterday, I mean 36%. What is that? Um I don't know what the increase
00:42:18
I'm pretty sure they could buy 30 or 40 Paramounts with just the increase in Ellison's net worth yesterday.
00:42:26
I mean, he said to his son, "Go play in traffic. Here's five or seven billion dollars. I've just increased my, you
00:42:31
know, I've just increased my net worth by a hundred billion, right?" So, yeah,
00:42:36
go have fun with Paramount. I mean, the numbers here are so staggering.
00:42:42
It's I mean, let's do the ba math. He's worth about $400 billion. He he the stock was up 36% went up a
00:42:51
third. So, he made $130 billion yesterday. I know. What did they buy Paramount for? Five or
00:42:57
seven? Yes. Yeah. So, they could go buy 20 Paramounts with this incre his son. He could if he has 20 kids out there, which
00:43:03
is a possibility given what I know about Larry Ellison. He could say to all of them, go buy your own Paramount with the
00:43:08
gains from yesterday. I think it'll actually increase the chances. And I know you think it's small ball Paramount. I know you do. And I
00:43:14
think you're right. Um uh but uh I think that it'll increase the chance they might buy Warner. they might, you know,
00:43:20
they might do something to to, as you say, consolidate and milk um and maybe maybe have some growth
00:43:26
somewhere along the lines. It gives them the the heft to do so. Yeah, you're going to see some I think very
00:43:31
aggressive moves from Paramount. Um so, uh you know, we'll see. Larry
00:43:38
Ellison, well done, Larry Ellison. He's I had the mo the strangest evening with him.
00:43:43
I don't know him at all. Have you had any interface with him? I know. Oh, yeah. I've interviewed him many times. We had him at code several
00:43:49
times. Actually, I have no sense of him. Oh, he's very funny. He's I mean, sometimes he's awful, sometimes he's
00:43:54
funny. He's um I have always I hate to say I enjoy spending time with him, but
00:43:59
I do. I have to say he's really interesting. Um because some of his views are not my views at all. Again,
00:44:06
someone I don't agree with who I really enjoy talking to because he's so smart. Um and people will fry me for that, but
00:44:12
I don't care. Um he he he I interviewed him once at once several times at at
00:44:19
code and all things D. One was just about his business. Um and it was interesting. And then when Steve Jobs
00:44:25
died, he we talked about Steve. He was very close friends. He was his best friend, I would say. Um and Ste when one
00:44:31
time I said to Steve Jobs, "Larry Ellison's your best friend." He's like, "Yeah, I know. It's so weird." Like, you know, they were very different in their
00:44:38
political outlook, etc. And were very close friends. They had a very similar I know why you like him. You relate to
00:44:44
him. He's 81 and he married a 33y old. I get it. You guys have double married a lot of people. He's married a
00:44:50
lot of people. I know. Um I'll tell two very quick stories about their so so he was on
00:44:56
stage and then we when he was doing the sailing thing I met him over near where his sailing stuff was in the regata in
00:45:02
the San Francisco Bay and we spent the evening just he was talking about his kids which was really interesting. David
00:45:08
and uh his daughter Megan. Um and you know he was like they're really actually pretty okay and it's nothing due to me.
00:45:14
It's the mothers and it was it was super super interesting. And I'll tell the all I'm going to tell one more Larson story.
00:45:20
So he had this house in San Francisco that he threw a party at for something or other. And I went cuz it was one of these stunning San Francisco Pacific
00:45:27
Heights houses. And he didn't live in it I don't think. I think he just had it for parties. And um and I like looking
00:45:33
at houses. I'm like I like seeing what what they look like and so whenever I go to a party I wander around and look at
00:45:39
things like I shouldn't do that. I do that at your apartment. Sure. Um I do that a lot. And so I was I was
00:45:46
wandering um wandering around and he has I think he has Israeli security. I think
00:45:51
that's what he has. He's very he's a big uh supporter of Benjamin I think Benjamin Nu and and Israel. And um and
00:45:59
they caught me uh upstairs. upstairs and and they bring me
00:46:05
downstairs to him and and he looked at me. He goes, "Gh, I knew it would be you." You know what I mean? Like he was
00:46:10
wondering and he goes, "What were you doing?" And I said, "I was looking for the the the the hooker and stripper
00:46:16
room." I just said a joke like that. And he goes, "That's in the basement, Cara." And it was like I just think he's funny.
00:46:23
He's funny. He's a funny guy. He's also He's definitely I I mean rich.
00:46:28
Well, not only that. He became the richest man in the world. He's like, who who thought that? Like who saw that coming? Yeah.
00:46:33
Anyways, yeah, he also spends the money, you know. He had that h that house that looks he imported it from Japan. He's
00:46:38
got Yeah, he's he's he's a very stylish billionaire. He was always the original. You know why he spend you know why he
00:46:45
spends that kind of money and married a 33y old. All right. Because he can.
00:46:52
Anyway, um anyhow, uh we'll see what happens. We'll watch for that Tik Tok thing. Uh also obviously we just talked
00:46:57
about Apple. It rolled out its newest iPhones this week, including the iPhone Air, which Tim Cook is calling a gamecher. I do not agree with this. It's
00:47:04
the thinnest phone ever, about a third slimmer than current models, though there are trade-offs in battery life.
00:47:10
Um, Apple also unveiled a new watch models as well as AirPods that can translate foreign languages. That was
00:47:15
pretty cool. Meanwhile, AI barely came up with the event. A big shift from last year when Apple intelligence took center
00:47:21
stage. Let me say this iPhone with the bump on the back. I saw it. I ran into Eddie Q at this morning show event and
00:47:28
he showed it to me and I was like, it has a bump on the back. It's a big bump. It wobbles like it's skinny but then it
00:47:34
has this big bump. Um, which I people are making um they're making a People
00:47:40
are talking about it online a lot. There's also it doesn't I I don't want to buy it. I have to say I don't know
00:47:46
why. Maybe I'll buy the 17, but the skinny one is not attractive because it has the bump. I don't I don't know what
00:47:51
to say. Anyway, um, do you think it's a game changer from what you saw? I'm just sitting here thinking, am I
00:47:56
allowed to be crude the day after a murder? Yes, go ahead. Whatever. I mean, okay, the announcement
00:48:04
what Cook called a game changer. I would call a hand job and an Advil. It was like, yeah, all right. I don't
00:48:10
That's good. Yeah, fine. I I was anyone begging for a thinner phone?
00:48:15
I don't. If it was without if it was a thinner phone with with capabilities and without the bump, sure, why not?
00:48:22
The most exciting thing and it's available on other platforms is real time language translation for the
00:48:27
AirPods. I think the AirPods are the most underrated tech product of the last 10 years. I think essentially they're not even a
00:48:33
tech product. They're the most ubiquitous, expensive, high margin piece of jewelry in history. People are now roaming around full-time with a pair of
00:48:40
earrings called an AirPods that cost $300 and probably$undred last night.
00:48:45
Yeah. I just leave them in now. They're just everywhere. The what this signals though and where
00:48:50
they will get scrutiny per our most recent conversation is that over the last decade essentially jobs is Jobs was
00:48:59
a builder. He did not believe in share buybacks. He wanted to amass a huge cash horde and then such that they were
00:49:05
durable and enduring and if they wanted to they could take big swings either acquisitions or go very deep after
00:49:10
certain product development. Tim Cook is an operator. And by the way, you got to give it to Tim Cook. He's taken the
00:49:16
company from 300 billion to three trillion. The question is have those seven or 800 billion in share
00:49:22
buybacks to date, they have bought back approximately 40% of their outstanding shares, meaning over a 25-y year period,
00:49:28
they're effectively taking the company private. The question is when you have these meh product announcements, have
00:49:36
they gotten to a point where they quite frankly should be a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more promiscuous, and be spending some of
00:49:42
that unbelievable cash generation and taking more big swings? Cuz yesterday there were no big swings.
00:49:48
There was nothing that compelling. And this is the difference. It's easy to play money quarterback, but let's do it.
00:49:54
The difference between what Ellison did was a couple years ago he said, "Oh my god, AI is a once-in-a-lifetime
00:50:01
generational tech innovation. I am shifting from being a share buyback
00:50:07
company to uh an R&D company and I'm going to take a massive swing here." And
00:50:13
he became and the stock was up 30 38% yesterday. Apple has basically said we
00:50:18
are a mature company and the problem with Apple being a mature company is that its stock right now does not trade as if it's a mature company. It trades
00:50:24
as if it's a growth company at a PE of 33. So where there will be a lot of second guessing as I'm doing now is Tim
00:50:31
Cook quite frankly not keeping up with his peers because he's decided we're going to go into kind of a rest home.
00:50:38
We're going to continue. Icon started this by putting pressure on them for share buybacks and a dividend. They did
00:50:44
both and unfortunately they aren't taking the big swings they used to under the jobs tenure.
00:50:50
Yeah, this phone I'm like no. Like no. I mean, I'll wait for the fold phone. I'm interested in the fold phone, that's for
00:50:56
sure. Um, that kind of becomes an iPad. I'm going to look at that, but it's going to be heavy. Like, I just don't
00:51:02
see a compelling need to change my phone with these things. And I like changing phones, by the way. We'll see where it
00:51:08
goes. One of the funnier ones was people made social media was also joking about I knee pads for Tim Cook, referring to
00:51:15
last week's Well, here's a stat. Over the last decade, Apple has spent $500 billion
00:51:21
more on R&D. I'm sorry, $500 billion more on share buybacks than on R&D.
00:51:28
That's crazy. And what do you know? Their products, their products are feeling kind of meh.
00:51:34
I have to say one, some people think the bump on the iPhone is preaging some glasses, some sort of glasses thing
00:51:40
that's happening next. So, it's sort of a signal. what's in there apparently would work quite uh elegantly apparently
00:51:47
with glasses. But we'll see. We'll see. Let's see. Let's see some products that really wow us. Tim, I have to say this didn't. Um next up, uh uh let's talk
00:51:55
about very quickly President Trump's contributions to Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday book. Obviously, the murder of
00:52:00
uh Charlie Cook has sort of pushed that off, but it was getting a lot of attention. As previously reported, there was a letter from Trump to Epstein
00:52:07
featuring a cryptic conversation within a handdrawn woman's body. I would say a teenage girl's body is what it looked
00:52:13
like. There was also a photo of oversized check appearing to be signed by DJ Trump with a notes uh Epstein
00:52:19
saying showed early talents with money and women and had sold a fully depreciated woman to Trump for $22,000.
00:52:27
Um President Trump is calling it a dead issue when asked. Um you know, I think
00:52:32
probably this Charlie Kirk situation is going to push it out of the headlines, but at the same time, I still think this
00:52:38
Epstein thing has staying power. Um there really Thomas Massie looks like he has the numbers to uh force uh force a
00:52:45
release and in fact Kirk before he sort of went backwards a little bit had said there should be I I was watching a
00:52:52
speech where he said it should be full and full release of unredacted release uh to the public. Um so I don't know
00:52:59
what you thought. I thought it just Trump pretended he didn't draw and then they showed him drawings. He pret he
00:53:05
said this birthday book didn't exist. It exists. He said he didn't write a letter. It looks like he wrote a letter.
00:53:10
Um, I think the idea that it's fake is kind of ridiculous. But way back then, someone knew he was going to be
00:53:16
president and decided to do a fake thing. This seems ridiculous. Um, I think he did it and he should just say
00:53:22
he was sorry and he won't do that. Um, and they're doubling down on hoax and whatever. I still think it's very
00:53:28
damaging to him. This remains damaging. What do you think? Well, the question is, is there a red
00:53:33
line? Like, we knew he was a rich kid. Okay, that's a reason not to like him. We knew he was not a very good businessman. We knew who took companies
00:53:39
bankrupt. We knew he didn't pay subcontractors. Um, we knew that he was accused of
00:53:44
sexual assault. We know he's an insurrectionist. I mean, is and now there seems to be
00:53:50
evidence everywhere that he was at a at a minimum cohorting with a known and convicted pedophile. And the notion that
00:53:57
this is a forgery, it's like, well, okay, you mean somebody 21 years ago, broke into the Epstein estate, and
00:54:04
decided to frame the president who at that time was a Democrat thinking when he's president, this will embarrass him.
00:54:13
I mean, it's just like the logic, unbelievable. The math ain't mathing here. And I liked
00:54:19
what um representative Moscowitz I think said in the one of the congressional
00:54:25
hearings said why don't you guys this is outrageous. Why don't we why let's move to bring in
00:54:30
um forgery experts and have them opine on this. I mean the whole thing is just sort of
00:54:36
like at what point are we going to find find out the guy is literally the dark lord? I mean what gets look at the
00:54:41
things every time you suspect it of something uh we find out it's true
00:54:46
and it doesn't seem to matter. The question is is this is this the you know is this the red
00:54:51
line and I am convinced that I'm going on the Times of London radio tonight.
00:54:57
I'm convinced the only reason he's supposed to come to the UK. I typed into AI last night name if I
00:55:04
were a president trying to keep Epstein out of the news. please name actions and policies that would push Epstein out of
00:55:11
the news cycle every 48 hours. And it gave me a playbook for everything he's doing. Some of which he's already done,
00:55:16
some of which he I think he's he's going to do. But he's coming over here to talk about free speech and which I think is
00:55:22
ridiculous. But anything that pushes um Epstein out of the news cycle is what
00:55:28
he's doing. But I I don't know. I don't have a I think this is it feels like this is the one thing that is sticking
00:55:36
to the guy. Yeah. Um Yeah. But cuz it's cuz he was a friend of his.
00:55:42
Like I don't what I don't get. Now look, I have no idea what happened. I don't have any idea if he's guilty of
00:55:47
anything. But why not just say gh I was so was such bad judgment. I'm so sorry. Profane. Stupid locker room talk.
00:55:54
Gross. That was dumb. I locker room talk. Yeah, that worked last time and I
00:55:59
shouldn't have written this and it was before anybody really knew and I didn't know. I wasn't paying attention and and
00:56:04
and just say I'm so sorry that was so dumb. Like I that's what Gates did. That's what like everyone who's been
00:56:10
there had Linton said it um and it doesn't I mean it sort of sticks to them but not like this. This is and I know
00:56:17
he's president, but just the drawing was so like I absolutely think he proved
00:56:23
like I looked at it, I was like, "Yes." The creepiest thing about the creep I I don't know when I first saw it,
00:56:30
everything about it supposedly being pubic hair, supposed to be a an underage girl. I didn't even get it. I looked at
00:56:37
it, I'm like, and the thing the creepiest thing about it is he clearly hired creatives. He organized resources
00:56:46
to put this thing together. It wasn't like a stupid note between friends
00:56:51
where you you an error in judgment. He gathered creative professionals around and said, "This is what I want.
00:56:58
This is what I'm thinking." And then they came back with a subtle image of a
00:57:03
preubescent girl and your signature will be pubic hairs. And he went bingo.
00:57:12
That's exactly what I'm trying to get across. That is now laminate it. Frame it.
00:57:18
Wait, what about this? What kind of paper should we use? You could tell that there was real thought that went into
00:57:24
this. Thought into it. I agree. A similar thing for my birthday, everybody. Just so you know.
00:57:30
Okay. I agree. Anyway, it's going to stick to you, Donald Trump. No matter what happens, you're it's going to be on your
00:57:37
it's it's it's going to be on your record no matter what you do. All right, Scott. Let's go on a quick break. When
00:57:42
we come back, we'll talk about Kla Harris's sizzling upcoming book, which is sort of getting lost here with all
00:57:47
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00:58:49
Scott, we're back with more news. An excerpt from former Vice President Kla Harris's upcoming book, 107 Days, was
00:58:55
published in The Atlantic, and it is spicy. In it, Harris has says, "Recklessness allowed President Biden to
00:59:02
make the decision to run again." She also said the decision should not have been left to an individual's ego. The
00:59:08
former vice president also said the president staff fueled negative stories about her performance and often refused to defend her. That is true. I saw that
00:59:15
in real time, you know. Um uh what do you think? I mean, I'm going to interview her, just so you know, at a
00:59:22
live event in Washington in a couple two weeks, I think. Um I'm excited to talk to her. This book was also written with
00:59:28
the help of a very good author who's also a friend of mine, Geraldine Brooks, who is also a Pulit surprise winner and
00:59:34
everything else. Uh she's sort of going the agassy route by hiring a really great writer. Um so thoughts. Uh she
00:59:41
really went there. I did not think she would, but there she did. Well, okay. Thanks, Captain Obvious. I
00:59:48
feel the same way about Vice President Harris as I feel about all these Republicans who grow testicles after
00:59:53
they leave office. We don't need you to decide it's reckless. Now, had you demonstrated the
00:59:58
leadership capabilities we hope from a president, you should have walked in and said, "I don't think you should run again, and I'm not going to support you
01:00:04
to run again. Maybe you don't anoint me." Fine. But I have an obligation duty to the pre duty to the country and you
01:00:11
should not be president. This is [ __ ] ridiculous. And she saw up close and personal. But instead, like a lot of
01:00:17
people around him, she decided to whistle, you know, whistle past the graveyard. Uh, and quite frankly,
01:00:24
she does talk about it in the thing. It's like I think there is when you're in those situations,
01:00:30
everyone's like, "Well, it's up to Jill and Joe, right?" You know what I mean? Like even if same thing with Trump if
01:00:35
there's something and no one will do anything like those those environments
01:00:41
create overly cautious, very reticent people saying it's up to him. Like even,
01:00:46
you know, Nome did it. They all did it. Newsome also did it. So did like all the
01:00:51
Democratic everyone did. Also, someone who probably deserves uh
01:00:58
more credit than they deserve was uh Representative Dean Phillips who very early said um I'm running because I
01:01:04
don't think President Biden is fit to run again. And he got pretty swiftly pillaried and swept away. He didn't get
01:01:11
a lot of traction, but he does deserve some credit for coming out early. I'd like to roll with that dude.
01:01:16
Representative Phillips. You met him? We met him at the DNC. He came over to us. Came on my pod and came out. I actually
01:01:22
seem like a nice man. He also he might be a good man. Look, if two podcasters can say a year
01:01:29
and a half before he's too [ __ ] old, the vice president and the people around him should have enough fidelity to the
01:01:35
White House or Democratic ideals to realize pop. It's time for pop to to get a gold
01:01:41
watch and retire. This is I know. I mean I know. But you and and not only that, imagine that environment. everyone
01:01:47
engaged in it. You remember the emails we were getting? Sign up. You don't understand the assignment. I was like,
01:01:52
"Oh my goodness. You don't think you don't think the world sees this? We need to stop Trump." I'm like, "Not
01:01:59
like this. This isn't going to stop Trump. He's going to fall over dead and then we're fucked." You know what I mean? Like
01:02:04
Yeah. I don't I agree. Look, I don't the I I think the vice I've said this
01:02:09
before. I I think the vice president given UK style election format in a an
01:02:15
American environment uh she was short changed and President Biden, Supreme
01:02:22
Court Justice or Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Senator Feinstein have stained their legacy because they let their
01:02:28
narcissism outweigh what was right for the country. Full stop. And and for her also, um,
01:02:36
quite frankly, you know, you can't blame an 80-year-old because he's 80 and his family, which can't see clearly because
01:02:42
that's their dad and their husband, but the people around him, uh, Secretary
01:02:48
Blinken, Vice President Harris, they all should have sat him down. All of them, the entire Democrat
01:02:53
establishment, to his credit, I think it was Senator Schumer and Speaker Emirator Pelosi, he,
01:02:59
by the way, he didn't exit voluntarily. He's not talking to Pelosi. I think it's Pelosi who did it
01:03:04
because she went in there and said, "I'm really sorry. We're both old. We both need to go home. And if you don't announce, you're getting out of the
01:03:10
race. Every 3 days I'm going to have someone, a Democrat, announce her not supporting you."
01:03:15
He didn't want to leave. This was not his decision. Supposedly, he's going through all this rumination and contemplation. But all his rumination
01:03:21
and contemplation isn't about how badly he [ __ ] the country. It's about it's about could I have won if I'd stayed in
01:03:29
the narcissism here of these folks and again it goes back to what we were talking about before with the shooter people need guardrails and what I mean
01:03:35
by guardrails is people who have the balls and the credibility to sit in front of you and go no you're wrong you
01:03:41
have to stop this you have to stop this you're not thinking right you're not thinking clearly
01:03:47
yeah yeah I have no doubt that that none of them did that none of none and
01:03:52
including her and so what should I ask her give me a question for her In 10 years, would you if someone could say to you in 10 years you can be a Supreme
01:03:58
Court justice or be drafted to run for president again doors one or two? What would you rather do?
01:04:04
Oh, good one. I like that. That's a good one. Yeah. Any quite frankly, did you really let down the country by not have
01:04:11
show Oh, God. I Yeah, I I'll be there in your ear like a producer with Anderson Cooper.
01:04:16
Yeah. You'd also never ask her. I'm I have the guts to ask. You'd be like, "Oh, no. You're much nicer in person than me. You're much nicer in person
01:04:23
than me." No, but I on stage I'll ask her, you know, I'll ask her. Well, you can get away with it. Everyone's like, "Oh, that's her. There
01:04:28
goes that cara. There goes that car. She's sassy." Cara h
01:04:35
once again. And isn't she charming? Um, but uh yeah, I think it's I think the whole establishment did it. But I do
01:04:41
like that she wrote it anyway. I'm kind of like, "Good. Just tell us what happened and then we don't do it again."
01:04:46
Um uh All right. She She didn't have to do this and she did it. So she's running
01:04:52
books. They're all I know, but probably means she wants to be drafted to be president again. They all write books. They get a big Everyone needs to
01:04:59
make a living. She got two or three million dollar advance to write a book and she wants to make it interesting so
01:05:04
people read it and Okay. Wow. What a revelation that it was reckless. Okay.
01:05:10
No [ __ ] No [ __ ] And now that doesn't help Vice
01:05:15
President Harris Scott review. No [ __ ] Really? Really?
01:05:22
Really? It wasn't the right move for him
01:05:27
to stay as long as he did. It was reckless. Wow. Anyway, we got one more quick break.
01:05:34
We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Well, it's the boring stuff that moves
01:05:40
the needle, but um we have become
01:05:45
kind of the master. We are the messy of own goals. And for those of you who don't know, Lionel Messi, greatest
01:05:51
football player in the history of the game. And the most recent one barely got any coverage, but uh earlier or last week um
01:06:01
uh I think it was okay on September 4th, the Hyundai Motor Group uh Meta Plan in
01:06:08
America was raided by ICE. about 475 people were detained, including 300
01:06:14
South Koreans who were here on a B1 visa, visitor visa, which don't normally
01:06:20
authorize certain types of manual or long-term work, but they're used all the time for the type of work they were
01:06:26
doing, and legal representations argue that many workers contracts had the required specification. So, it's up for
01:06:33
debate whether they had the right visa or not. and they're saying that Homeland
01:06:38
Homeland Security, Georgia State Patrol that they actions followed a warrant and investigation into unlawful employment
01:06:45
practices at the plant. So what happened? Uh these people who are incarcerated, South Korea immediately
01:06:51
chartered a plane has brought them all back to South Korea. And by the way, this factory is part of a you know this
01:06:58
was going to be a 7.5 billion dollar factory. This is exactly what the president claimed he was going to do.
01:07:04
bring manufacturing and greater investment into America. South Korea is a fantastic ally. What if we what if
01:07:11
Germany said, you know, the US US, you're just cleaning up with an AI. We need some of your great American
01:07:17
companies to invest in Germany and we opened an NVIDIA plant there and we had people over there under what looks to be
01:07:23
a legal visa and then German police raided it, incarcerated our engineers.
01:07:28
How would we respond? So, this is how this is how South Korea is going to respond. LG, Samsung, Hyundai, they're
01:07:36
going to substantially curtail any plans for capital investment in the United States. Th this was not only stupid, but
01:07:44
it's basically going to set us back economically. So, this was again yet again another own goal. And then my
01:07:51
other one is um Russian drones. Russia is everybody says, you know, Trump is
01:07:57
fond of saying, "Oh, I they they would Russia would have never done this if I was president." Russia is poking Trump
01:08:03
in the eye right now. First, a cyber attack on an EU plane with an EU minister. Fine. That's a test. And most
01:08:10
recently, they have flown attack drones into Polish airspace. Seeing what we do
01:08:16
and and to see how how we or the EU respond. And I'm not going to get my prediction
01:08:22
isn't a geopolitical prediction. My prediction is the following. The best stocks for the second half of the year
01:08:28
or the last quarter of the year are going to be European defense stocks because Russia sending attack drones
01:08:34
into Poland. By the way, Poland is protected by Article 5 of NATO, meaning if they're attacked, all 32 member
01:08:41
nations of NATO are attacked. What does this mean? Russia is contemplating or toying with
01:08:49
military action against NATO. So, what is the economic implication of that? You're about to see Poland has already
01:08:55
increased its percentage of GDP going to defense spending. By the way, Poland is an economic miracle is going to go to
01:09:01
defense. Oh my gosh, you're going to see uh an increase in defense spending
01:09:06
coming out of the EU nations and they're going to say, you know what, we're not spending it on Northre Grumman. We're
01:09:11
not going to spend it on Andreel. We're not going to spend it on Boeing. We're going to spend it on European defense
01:09:17
companies. And guess what? There aren't that many of them. So the publicly traded the 10 or 15 publicly traded
01:09:23
European defense stocks are about to see the mother of all capital inflows. So the best performing stocks for the last
01:09:29
quarter of the year are about to be European defense stocks because of these drones that Putin sent into Polish
01:09:35
airspace. Yeah. Wow. You you're going geopolitical investing. That's really good. I love
01:09:40
it. Um uh we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever is on your mind. Go to
01:09:46
nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 8551 pivot. Elsewhere in the Cara
01:09:52
and Scott universe this week, Prof. Scott spoke with Justin Walers. I love Justin, professor of public policy and
01:09:59
economics at the University of Michigan. Let's listen to a clip. I happen to think that AI is the most
01:10:04
interesting technology of my lifetime and we may be on the cusp of one of the great technological revolutions. I also
01:10:11
might be wrong. That's fine, too. That debate is arguably the most interesting and
01:10:17
most important economic debate. How to regulate AI, what role it will play in our lives, how to cushion people for its
01:10:23
impact, how to turbocharge it so that we get everything we want out of it. May be the most important economic debate of
01:10:29
our lifetimes and instead we're sitting around talking about tariffs. Ah, fascinating. Fascinating. You've interviewed Russell Crow. That's great.
01:10:35
Uh, okay. That's the show. Thanks for listening. I am Maximus. Whatever. He's coming out
01:10:40
with a new movie where he plays I think Guring Herman Guring during the Nermberg trials. It looks amazing with Rammy
01:10:47
Malik. Oh, it looks so good. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe
01:10:52
to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Laram and
01:10:58
Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Aliyah Jackson engineered this episode. Jim M edited the video.
01:11:03
Thanks also to Jubo Misso and Dan Shalon. Rashad Kuras, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to
01:11:09
follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. You can subscribe to the magazine
01:11:15
at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great weekend.
