00:00:00
She could have told the truth a million times and saved all these women untold trauma, but she isn't because she's a
00:00:06
monster and deserves to stay in jail the rest of her life.
00:00:14
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Carara Swisser
00:00:19
and I'm Scott Galloway. We've got a lot to get to today, including uh the FCC greenlighting the Sky Dance Paramount
00:00:25
merger. No surprise. And what Trump is saying about a pardon for Gilain Maxwell, the sexual abuser. I'm going to
00:00:32
say that with everything. It's incredible that they're Well, we'll get to it. But first, the Coldplay Kiss Camp
00:00:37
Sag is not over. Astronomer, the tech firm at the center of all the drama has a new temporary spokesperson. Let's hear
00:00:44
from her. Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. Hi, I'm Gwyneth Paltro. I've
00:00:49
been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300 plus employees at Astronomer. Astronomer has
00:00:56
gotten a lot of questions over the last few days. Yes, that's Gwennneth Paltro, Oscar winner, entrepreneur, and ex-wife
00:01:02
of Coleplays lead singer Chris Martin. The tongue-in-cheek video, she pivots from a kiss cam questions to
00:01:07
highlighting the company's AI tools in its upcoming conference. Forb said the video offers a crisis playbook for CEOs.
00:01:14
I was really curious just just for people know that the co why not take advantage of a terrible situation for
00:01:20
one coalplay is also benefiting streams of their songs are up 25 uh%. I just I
00:01:26
was sitting there I'm like I wonder what Scott thinks. I liked it. My friend uh Brooke says straight women don't like
00:01:32
it. Gay people and straight men like it. I don't know if that's true. Um how do you how do you what do you think about
00:01:38
it as a marketer? Well, first unfairly I don't think much I I for some reason I don't love Gwennneth Paltro. I wish she'd run into
00:01:44
a snow plow in that accident or she calls herself her thought leader, but I think her only thought should be I
00:01:50
should have finished college. But anyways, okay, move along. I think it's genius. Absolute genius. I
00:01:56
think the CMO I think that is probably the best marketing move so far of 2025 just to lean into it. Um, you know, just
00:02:04
to own it. She's been perfectly cast. She is I think she is she is a great actress and the connection with Chris
00:02:11
Mar I genius and we live in an age where it is so crowded out there everyone's
00:02:17
trying to grab if you think of the marketing funnel we always talk about the marketing funnel but it kind of distills down to awareness intent
00:02:23
purchase and loyalty and one of the hardest things that uh both Trump and
00:02:30
uh Musk have weaponized and I think the reason that they're president and the wealthiest man in the world is they
00:02:35
really understand the power of awareness turn us even if it goes against traditional instinct of making you look
00:02:40
bad. You'd rather be known um uh for something not great than not
00:02:46
known at all. The worst thing you can say about someone after you meet them, what's the worst thing you can say about them? I forgot them.
00:02:51
I don't remember them. I don't know who they are. What? Who? And them leaning into this. I bet the
00:02:58
company astronomer has gone from zero literally 0% awareness. It wouldn't
00:03:03
have even registered statistically if you did an awareness from two or something for like to probably 20 or 30% right now. I bet
00:03:10
one in three Americans have heard of this company called Astronomer. So will it translate or is it just a oneoff
00:03:17
clever good handling of a bad situation? If they had spent $200 million on awareness campaign, they couldn't have
00:03:24
got this type of awareness. And I don't think people hold the company doesn't make I don't think people hold the
00:03:29
company liable. They think, "Oh, an old, you know, a rich white dude thinks he can start banging his head of HR and get
00:03:34
away with it." Like that, okay, that's not a shocker. That's not like, that doesn't mean their their AI platform
00:03:40
isn't good, right? People aren't saying, "Well, that's it. I'm not I'm I'm going, you know, I'm I'm going to, you know,
00:03:47
whatever dystopia AI now." Uh, so all of a sudden, everyone's heard about it. I doubt their existing customers are
00:03:54
leaving. And when they hear from one of their 40 inside sales reps pinging
00:04:00
people on LinkedIn to try and get a meeting, people are like, "Oh, wait. Is it a data astronomer?" It's a conversation starter. People have heard
00:04:06
of the company. Sense of humor. Shows a sense of humor. Sense of selfworth and brilliant casting
00:04:11
and and she did a good job. It's a she's excellent in it. I have to tailorade for her. Um so they handled it really well,
00:04:18
I think. Um good job, Astronomer, although we're not going to buy any of your products. You know, she was at
00:04:23
Code. We had a problematic appearance at code with her. Really? Say more. Spill the tea. Come
00:04:29
on. You know, she did a really great essay on she got very badly attacked online in
00:04:35
the early days of Twitter and everything else. Like crazy bad. And it was incredibly sexist. And you can like her
00:04:40
or not, but it was over the frigin top with her. And so she wrote this essay saying, "Look, I'm getting attacked a
00:04:46
lot. Can you imagine if you're a teen girl?" And you know, I can handle it. She was like, "I can handle it, but what
00:04:52
the [ __ ] is happening here?" And so I it was very precient very early she was making this point. So I invited her to
00:04:58
code uh to talk about this essay and to do one of those five minute talks you know in front and she came and I just
00:05:06
was like just wear jeans like which how she appeared in this thing and she was overdressed and she um she got nervous
00:05:12
and wasn't able to really articulate it and was reading from a script and I think she just got nervous because she
00:05:18
was very lovely. I mean, she was she handled it really, but it just didn't the essay was so good and her
00:05:24
presentation there was not. And I was sorry because I think she had an excellent point using her celebrity to
00:05:30
make a point about teen girls very early on in the in what you talk about now,
00:05:35
you know, about teenagers and self-esteem. She was one of the earlier people to do that in in in Facebook and
00:05:42
Twitter and stuff like that. So, it was unfortunate because she was great and I was thinking, "Oh, she she's really good
00:05:47
with scripts is what I should have done is just talk to her about it and not let her give a speech." So, it it rambled.
00:05:53
It didn't It didn't And then all the men were acting like [ __ ] cuz she's very pretty. So,
00:05:58
I don't know. I think she's what happens when a Birkin bag gains sentience and overdoses in Iawaska.
00:06:04
No, she's very pretty. It is such lateage capitalism. It's like put the term detox in front of
00:06:09
everything and charge 75 bucks on it. That's a different thing. Anyway, let's not beat up on a woman anymore.
00:06:15
Oh my god. Can I like can I can I can I sell my ball sweat and call it detox for
00:06:21
75 cuz nobody would buy it. But hers perhaps ball sweat candle from the vagina candle. I do have the is bought it for
00:06:29
dog aroma for my son. I think I bought vagina candle for my son. Oh god. Anyway, um we're going to move on.
00:06:35
Speaking of vagina candles, President Trump announced that the US trade uh US reached a trade deal with the EU on
00:06:41
Sunday, shortly before the August 1st deadline. He made a deal. The deal imposes a 15% tariff on most European
00:06:48
goods to the US, which is higher than the 10% baseline tariffs the EU was hoping for. President Trump called the
00:06:54
agreement, quote, "The biggest deal ever made and quote, satisfactory to both sides, although the EU will not be
00:07:00
imposing a tariff on American imports." President Trump called the agreement the biggest deal ever made. What he never
00:07:07
can just satisfactory to both sides and satisfactory to both sides. Although the EU will not be imposing a tariff on
00:07:13
American imports. Trump said the EU also agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of
00:07:18
US energy. An additional 600 billion worth of investments in the US and hundreds of billions in military
00:07:24
equipment. The 50% tariff on steel uh uh from Europe remains in place though.
00:07:29
Meanwhile, Trump also filled his weekend with something else. golfing at his golf resorts in Scotland. It's estimated the
00:07:34
golfing trip will cost American taxpayers over $10 million and to talk his golf club. That brings the total
00:07:42
golf cost of his second term to at least 52 million. He spent 152 million golfing in his first term. Um but those Fed
00:07:49
renovations, right, Scott? Um so anyway, talk about the EU deal. The golfing thing is just grotesque the way he does
00:07:55
this, but it's part we're sort of used to it unfortunately. Well, just I don't
00:08:00
I don't like to give Trump any wins, but just trying to call balls and strikes.
00:08:05
Look, I the guy plays too much golf. In my opinion, he's not focused on the
00:08:10
wrong. He's either thinking about a calm strategy around avoiding Epstein or making big bold declarative statements,
00:08:16
not putting in the real work that a president in my opinion is supposed to do as evidenced by the fact that he's golfed whatever 50 times. Having said
00:08:23
that, presidents need to take time off and when they take time off, it's going to cost a lot of money because there's an infrastructure around protecting the
00:08:29
president. So, I don't fault him for that. The EU deal so far, I need to dig in, but I actually think the EU deal is
00:08:36
a pretty good deal. I I mean, I'm not sure we needed to start this nonsense to begin with. Right. Right. But it so far looks like a pretty
00:08:43
reasonable deal. What's interesting is that in some instances it actually lowers tariffs. So, it's like, okay, so
00:08:48
Trump is actually a free trader now, which I like. I think that, you know, I would like to see just zero
00:08:55
tariff zones and I think um free trade is absolutely inextricably linked to our
00:09:00
prosperity. Comparative advantage is just at at at the end of the day, the reason why we have all these talented
00:09:06
people around us is there are some people who are better at things than we are and we exchange what we're good at and we all end up better off. And so I
00:09:13
kind of like this deal. The number one or number two exports from the US into the EU are oil and or energy. And I
00:09:21
think we sell them a lot of jet planes. They sell a lot of pharmaceuticals into
00:09:26
us. So I I didn't It seemed pretty Here's the thing. It felt like a press
00:09:31
release cuz now the the Vietnamese and the J Japan one don't seem to be as full
00:09:37
as you know. I mean like he's so into the press release of everything. It seems like a lot of wasted time when
00:09:43
this could have been done quietly and behind the scenes and you know. Yeah. 100%. And I don't even know like a
00:09:50
lot of the the the stuff he signed is not clear if it's signed, right? And again, our own American companies are
00:09:56
complaining about the alleged Japanese deal, although that's not clear where that is. Um, and so I just feel like
00:10:02
this is a lot of just press releases. Maybe that's what all the presidency is, but I don't think it is. I think there,
00:10:08
you know, these things should take time. They should be well thought out. It shouldn't, you know, poor Ursula on
00:10:13
Leiden. You saw her, the head of the EU had to sit there like was going off. Internal the internal stuff in her head
00:10:20
would have been fantastic. Yeah, there's some good memes on that when it just went off. Yeah, but they
00:10:27
So, look, they uh we import nuclear actors, boilers, machinery, mechanical
00:10:32
appliance. 15% of cars and other non- railway vehicles, 10% of imports. Uh
00:10:39
what's interesting is the tariff on EU cars dropped from 27 and a half% set in May to 15%. And the tariff on US cars
00:10:46
imported to the EU dropped from 10% to 2 and a half%. But here's the problem, folks. People don't love our cars. We have a We don't have a tariff problem.
00:10:52
We have a product market fit problem. Yep. And then but I look I I hate to give it
00:10:58
to him, but I actually think this deal is better than I would have thought it would be. I I'm glad it's taken its
00:11:04
security off the table. The EU is people think China is our largest trading partner. Our largest trading partner by
00:11:10
nation is Mexico and our largest by region is actually the EU. So having
00:11:15
this kind of settled such we can get back to work, people can start planning their businesses and stop spending time
00:11:21
trying to guess what is going to come out of his office next. I think this is a I think this is a good thing.
00:11:26
Well, you know, Wall Street had called this, right? Wall Street had sort of been like just been no yips from Wall
00:11:33
Street whatsoever this whole couple of weeks. My bias is always to look for what's
00:11:38
wrong here. I actually think that there's a lot that's right here. Now whether we needed to do this at all,
00:11:45
whether it should have been done done by the Secretary of Commerce, a really talented Gio Reundo type figure, I think that there's a lot
00:11:52
of merit to that that this is more about performance than it is about actual economic growth. But I like the the way
00:12:00
I see this is that it's essentially gone the other way that it's reducing tariffs and increasing free trade, which I like.
00:12:07
So I you look I give this I hate to do it. I give this I give this a thumbs I give this a thumbs up. I give it a
00:12:12
medium thumbs ups only because it didn't have to happen this it's just like a lot and it's like grandpa knocked over all the chairs and then set them up slightly
00:12:19
better. Okay, great. Thanks, Gramps. Like could have been done in so many other ways and kind of
00:12:24
I know it is and here I just said it. I just said it. Grandpa knocks over a lot of [ __ ] chairs and he needs to stop.
00:12:30
Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back as Sky Dance's Paramount deal clears another hurdle. South Park
00:12:36
takes aim at Trump and its parent company. Support for this show comes from Upwork. Navigating today's economy
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00:13:50
Scott, we're back. The FCC has approved Skyance's merger with Paramount uh with the commissioners voting 2 to1 along
00:13:56
party lines to give the $8 billion deal a green light. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr
00:14:01
uh said uh the agency signed off after Skynets committed to unbiased journalism and agreed not to establish any DEI
00:14:07
programs. That guy's such a waste of space in many ways. The merger was approved just days after Trump said he
00:14:13
received his $16 million settlement from Paramount. He also claimed to be getting an additional $20 million from Sky Dance
00:14:18
in the form of ads and PSAs, though Sky Dance has not confirmed that. Um so talk
00:14:24
a little bit about this because I think you think it's like a nothing burger of a company. Trump is setting now setting his sights on ABC and NBC now calling
00:14:30
them political pawns for Democratic party and saying their licenses should be revoked. He also went after Oprah and
00:14:36
Beyonce at some point. Um and while it was happening, South Park, which is a Paramount property, just did finished a
00:14:42
big deal. Um uh kicked off its 27th season last week with a premiere that skewered Trump and Paramount
00:14:48
beautifully. The episode showed Trump in bed with Satan, referencing another one of uh uh Trump's favorite topics. Let's
00:14:55
play a bit. I'm not in the mood right now. Another
00:15:00
random [ __ ] commented on my Instagram that you're on the Epstein list. The Epstein list? Are we still talking
00:15:06
about that? Well, are you on the list or not? It's weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.
00:15:12
I'm not telling everyone to relax. Relax. It was worse than that. Um, they also
00:15:19
had a naked Trump. They had his penis had a penis with eyes eye on it. I And they talked about how they
00:15:24
these guys do a lot of edibles. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. The South Parks creators just signed a new $ 1.5 billion
00:15:30
streaming deal with Paramount. They should have got 1.6. I know. These guys are genius. I I just Please, let's let's just we'll
00:15:37
get to Epstein, the bigger Epstein issue in an instant, but talk about this. I thought this was hysterical. This is 27
00:15:44
seasons and these guys are still, you know, a lot of people don't like them because they're so politically incorrect, but I don't I love My kids
00:15:51
love them. I think they're amazing. Your thoughts? I I think it's heartening. Not only because well I enjoy great comedy but
00:15:58
it's heartening that something that's built into our society I think is a certain level and I think this is really
00:16:05
encouraging a certain level of irreverence and commercial opportunity and irreverence and just as the
00:16:11
president has convinced you know Bob Iger to bend a knee and certain law
00:16:16
firms to bend a knee and gotten you know said okay Sherry if you want to maintain your status as a billionaire I I'm going
00:16:23
to get you to bend a knee uh fine. But the moment a wonderful
00:16:29
thing about America is that people are pretty fearless. Creatives are pretty fearless and they come out with
00:16:34
something like this. And also all of the 60some late night talk show hosts that
00:16:41
are, you know, making a hundred times more than their folks behind the camera who see any threat against Co Bear. I
00:16:47
mean, they're just so [ __ ] precious. And I realize how cynical that is, but people love these people. But you guess what? They're not going to be silenced.
00:16:54
They're they're going to do podcasts. And I'm not saying that I'm not saying it's that we shouldn't take this kind of
00:17:00
move towards fascism and this attempt to intimidate journalists. We that we shouldn't take it seriously. But what I
00:17:07
find is examples like this, and there's examples everywhere are basically the American culture, the creative community
00:17:13
kind of say, "Fuck you." And and find, you know, it's like remember Jurassic
00:17:18
Park, it said that life finds a way. Well, guess what? the truth and the truth and humor and satire, it finds a
00:17:26
way. And and it made me feel good that as as much as they're going to attempt to silence critics, it's not going to
00:17:32
work or I don't think it's going to work because same same station or same
00:17:37
broadcast network that agreed to basically pay off the president was intimidated, benton, and then as soon as
00:17:44
these guys sign a deal, they put out something like that. I just found it very encouraging. Weren't you like, "Oh my god." Like I
00:17:50
was like, "Wow." Like, "Oh, these guys went for it." Went for it. They just went and they talked about it. They talked about and
00:17:56
they that they approved it. One of the things that I liked about it, you know, a lot of people when I say I like South Park's like, "Oh, they're anti." You
00:18:03
know what? If you liked this one, you have you have to like being offended all the time by these guys, they are. They
00:18:09
do do like really heinous stuff, but it's funny. It's or or just laugh about
00:18:14
it. They're they're comedy. And again, actually when Babylon B happened, um when when um what was it anti-trans
00:18:21
thing? It was just not funny is what it was. That's my issue with it. Whenever it's not funny, but I think we have to
00:18:27
give huge leeway to comics and satists and all that stuff. The stuff that does
00:18:33
make me nervous, I'll tell you, is like accu I I know this is a distraction and you talk about Trump like this, but
00:18:40
accusing Oprah and Beyonce of taking millions for their 2024 Kla endorsements and saying they should be prosecuted.
00:18:46
the continuing Obama videos, which are really disturbing and not funny, and I
00:18:52
get the idea of he can do whatever he wants, but and Trump's legal team asked a judge to order Rupert Murdoch to sit
00:18:57
for an expedited deposition in that lawsuit or that $10 billion lawsuit, citing his age as the reason to do this
00:19:04
sooner rather than later, although I think Rupert will outlast Trump by the long stretch. But do you that stuff
00:19:10
really is disturbing the idea that he's getting free ads or that he's I love
00:19:15
these guys but not everyone can be these guys and a lot some of it is serious and some of it is just funny like that they
00:19:21
stick it in his eye kind of thing or the eye of his penis I guess. Yeah. Look this was um I think satire
00:19:28
plays an important role. I think the left has shot itself in the foot by becoming so sensitive that we have
00:19:35
seated irreverent comedy to the right and people love irreverent comedy and
00:19:41
it's and we used to own it. If you think about the real social, you know, comedians and social commentators,
00:19:47
George Carlin, they were, yeah, they came from the Lenny Bruce, these were offensive people and they said really off-color things
00:19:53
and then we decided, oh, you can't say that. And then the kind of the right sort of usurp, you
00:19:58
know, comedy, comedy is legal again. So I like when Kamina that's why I love Ricky J. I think that's changing though. I do
00:20:04
think I think there's more of a sense of humor coming through. When you see when I'm starting to interview Congress
00:20:10
people they're more like yeah whatever like they seem to feel a little looser in that regard. And these guys I
00:20:16
wouldn't know what these guys these guys aren't left or right. I don't know what they're just funny. They're just funny.
00:20:22
And so I think that's critically important. But the other ones where he's attacking like law firms or, you know,
00:20:28
putting those Obama things up, those are just incredibly deletterious to our society, I think, and they're weird and
00:20:35
they're threatening and they're creepy. Um, and speaking of creepy, um, President Trump says he's he's allowed
00:20:41
to pardon Gelain Maxwell. We know this President Trump, but nobody's approached him about it. Deputy Attorney General
00:20:47
Todd Blanch met with Maxwell for nine hours across two days last week at a Florida prison where she's serving her
00:20:53
20-year sentence. It should be a hundred years. Maxwell was asked about a hundred different people, according to her
00:20:58
lawyer, and she reportedly granted limited immunity for the interviews. Essentially, immunity that applies only if she doesn't lie. Let's listen to what
00:21:06
else Maxwell's lawyer said about the meeting. This was the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions um
00:21:13
about what happened. And so so uh the truth will come out about what happened with with Mr. Epstein and and she's the
00:21:20
person who's answering those questions. Dear lawyer, this is not the first opportunity she's ever been given to
00:21:26
answer questions. She just refused to do so and she almost went up for perjury cuz she's a liar. She's a sexual
00:21:32
harasser. She's convicted sex tra. You know, just stop it. This is a person who deserves no. I know we do immunity deals
00:21:40
with these people to get stuff, but this cynical, horrible monster, as I said last week, is the fact that they're
00:21:47
focused on her and not the victims continues to astonish me. And the idea that the Republicans are suddenly like,
00:21:53
"Oh, she's our hero or a version of our hero. If she tells the truth, then it's good. She could have told the truth a
00:21:59
million times and saved all these women untold trauma, but she isn't cuz she's a
00:22:04
monster and deserves to stay in jail the rest of her life. I mean, the 20 years to me is not at all long enough. I don't
00:22:12
know what you think, but I'm just like, are you kidding me with this lady? I So, before we get back to that, you
00:22:18
know, my favorite Cartman line is what I say this all the time and then I have to say it's Carman cuz people look at me
00:22:23
like, what the [ __ ] I'll say I'm not just sure. I'm HIV positive. And people are like, what?
00:22:32
Uh, he also says, you know, you can actually die from secondhand smug. Uh
00:22:38
anyways, um love Cartman. Love look when something get becomes a really
00:22:44
big problem, it can shut down the government. The deficit has gotten so big that Republicans who claim to be
00:22:50
fiscally conservative or get mad at social spending. And in my opinion, the Democrats should have done it the last
00:22:56
time around. They will threaten to shut down the government and the the world and the markets freak out temporarily at
00:23:02
the idea that the deficit or our fiscal irresponsibility might result in second order effect of the government being
00:23:07
shut down. Okay. A pedophile, a convicted pedophile just shut down the government. Epstein and specifically the
00:23:14
attorney general and Trump's Trump's efforts to shut down the release or or
00:23:20
inhibit the release of these files resulted in Speaker Johnson excusing
00:23:26
Congress early. Epstein shut a dead pedophile shut down the US government.
00:23:33
So this is having all sorts of second order effects here. And your point is
00:23:39
exactly. It's ridiculous to think that someone uh accused, tried, convicted,
00:23:44
incarcerated of one of the highest profile crimes of the last decade that
00:23:51
there weren't people all over her asking her questions, offering deals. But now
00:23:56
they said, "No, we don't like what she said, so we're taking a moment to give her a chance to be part of our political
00:24:04
fodder for the protection of the president." So this is this is hugely
00:24:09
political. It's unprecedented. It's unethical and it raises whatever comes out of this
00:24:15
will just be poisoned fruit. I think not valid. It just won't even if they did it by the book and they found no
00:24:20
information or whatever. It's just not the whole thing is tainted. We talked about this at the last show.
00:24:26
The fix is in. So I don't but I'm just very curious what happens. I think it's going to be a
00:24:32
very long and hot summer at these town hall meetings for Republicans who show up and say,
00:24:37
"Okay." And you know who's been really on point here is Representative Roana. He's been very pointed.
00:24:43
I just was texting at the moment and very um very accurate and really uh really puncturing around this stuff. And
00:24:49
Tom Massie. She's she's trying to get like some Here's the thing. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files and should not
00:24:56
be conducting he should remove himself from an from every point of view cuz
00:25:02
everything he does is going to taint this entire thing. Plus, he's using it as a political cudgel. They'll only name
00:25:07
Democrats, not maybe a few Republicans he doesn't like. Uh this is just so grotesque. And it what's more grotesque
00:25:14
is watching that little nebish uh like Johnson shift. He doesn't care about
00:25:19
pedophiles. He doesn't care about the women. He what he cares persecuting pedophiles. He cares about protecting
00:25:26
President Trump over anything else. And that's like creepy. It puts you right
00:25:32
adjacent to pedophiles is what it does. A pedophile enabler is what it reminds
00:25:37
me of. And I couldn't say it any stronger. This woman is a criminal and she belongs in jail and whatever she
00:25:44
says is very tainted at this point because she had every opportunity to make people's lives better by coming
00:25:51
through even if it meant uh her being put in jail longer. She did things that
00:25:56
deserve that and therefore I think help getting her doesn't settle anything. And
00:26:02
by the way, the victims who've talked up and the ones that are being interviewed, I did an interview with Julie K. Brown
00:26:07
uh this week. Um, they are beside themselves. They're ret-raumatized. And it has nothing to do with stopping
00:26:14
pedophiles or helping women. It has everything to do with helping someone on the Epstein list, and that would be
00:26:19
President Trump. There you go. There you go. All right. Uh, we'll see what happens, but it's going to be,
00:26:25
you're right, it's going to be an ugly summer for a lot of people and some of people it deserves to be an ugly summer. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick
00:26:31
break. When we come back, another AI lawsuit. Scott, we're back with more news. motivational speaker Tony Robbins
00:26:37
has sued the makers of an AI tool, Yes Chat, accusing them of using his name and reputation for a series of chat
00:26:42
bots. Robbins says the bots ingested his seminars and copyrighted material and are reselling it under his name, which
00:26:48
he has trademarked. Yes, Chad has several paid subscription tiers and offers bots such as Talk to Tony Robbins
00:26:53
and Tony Robbins GPT. Robbins has his own authorized AI clone available on by subscription on his website, as he
00:26:59
should. The suit is seeking $10 million in damages for unfair competition, $2 million for each trademark violation, of
00:27:05
which there could be a number, and punitive damages for willful and malicious misconduct. Um, these are
00:27:11
going to be more and more. It's interesting that Tony Robbins, but it makes sense. He has so much material out there, it's so easily AI. Um, he
00:27:17
sometimes sounds like AI, honestly. Um, do you talk a little bit about this like they could ingest a lot of your stuff,
00:27:23
my stuff, I don't know, but you do a lot of like prescriptive stuff like that. Um, how do you look at these kind of
00:27:29
things? Well, so I've been thinking a lot about this. I I believe what Jensen Hong said that everyone should have rights to
00:27:35
their digital twin. And first off, only in America could you have a guy who's 67 and like a pure alpha energy screaming
00:27:42
at a traum screaming at traumatized accountants. I mean, just I think Tony Robbins is is a phenomena. Um, there
00:27:51
needs to be pretty serious in my opinion legislation. I think and part of the problem about having part one of the
00:27:56
problems about having a really old electorate is I just don't think they understand these technologies. I I think you really need immediately some IP
00:28:03
protection that as as Jensen Hong said said you own your digital twin and uh so
00:28:09
I'm working with a large company uh that has a very big search engine and they're
00:28:14
creating uh this thing called portraits. Portraits are profiles where you give them permission to scan everything. I
00:28:21
get a lot of questions, a lot of emails as I'm sure you do. And a lot of them are really thoughtful emails from people
00:28:26
asking about their sons or looking for advice. And you don't want to answer everyone. I just can't. I want to and I can't. And
00:28:33
so I'm working with this company and I'm giving them permission to scan absolutely everything I've done such that they get an automatic response and
00:28:40
if they want they can ask this AI to give them an answer in my voice. And
00:28:46
that's coming. And do you vet it? How do you what if it says like well things? Well, first off, I mean, I
00:28:54
I think people have to recognize, all right, it is AI and there there'll be problems, but they do I'm hoping we do a
00:29:01
pretty good job of of QA and we spent a lot of time asking questions and we've been tweaking this, you know, I would
00:29:07
never say this, what happened um or you know, it's okay to say I don't know, what have you. But but the bottom line
00:29:14
is I've given them permission and I want to so that's fine. But but people if they don't give permission I don't think
00:29:21
should have anything crawled or anything mimicked about them. In addition I think
00:29:27
it's really I think there's a big opportunity for the creative community to kind of extract and I don't want to
00:29:33
say their pound of flesh but uh the royalty they're they're entitled to. There's just no reason if if you one of
00:29:41
my favorite songs, someone I that I used to know, a singer wanted to use a lot of samples, so he preemptively paid out
00:29:47
royalties to avoid copyright disputes. That's the way it should be. And uh this
00:29:54
has been a big deal in the specialty retail community where, you know, companies ranging from Pottery Barn to
00:29:59
whoever, Restoration, Hardware go essentially go to artisans and quote unquote say their work was inspired by
00:30:05
them. uh what is the line between copying something when you owe people money because the best economic look the there
00:30:12
the two best economic business models in history are one tapping into people the flaw and their instincts right I
00:30:18
couldn't find sugary food so we can massproduce a sugar bomb in the form of cereal give it to people they don't know
00:30:24
when to stop oh only 40% of men have reproduced lack of mating opportunities create porn oh okay great uh people are
00:30:33
dying for social connection are so freaked out about shame create algorithms that make them feel bad about themselves so they have to come back
00:30:39
every two minutes to see what someone commented on. Okay, Instagram. The other second best business model, hands down,
00:30:44
first is tapping into an instinctual file. The second best business model is IP theft. The Americans in the 18th and
00:30:51
19th century stole British and European textile manufacturing technology and built built manufacturing plants up and
00:30:58
down the eastern seabboard based on European IP. Even stole some artisans, kidnapped some artisans. And the most
00:31:04
ascended economy over the last 30 years, their core competence is really elegant IP theft. Whether it's letting Tesla
00:31:10
come in and manufacture and then propping up BYD, whether it's letting a Google long enough to figure out their
00:31:16
algorithm and then propping up by do. So IP theft is the ultimate business model.
00:31:21
And what do you have with meta and AI? You have one, a comp companies that are able to tap into our their flaws and our
00:31:28
instincts. and two uh massive and Trump just signaled we're going to let them engage in massive IP
00:31:34
theft. He said it wasn't it wasn't a big deal. Now your book is coming out. You remember they did my book and they made those porny weird versions of me and
00:31:41
books of my They're still there. They haven't been able to take a lot of them down. Your book is coming out. They're going to try to rip it off. There'll
00:31:47
probably be a workbook for your book. You know the men you know a a man workbook or something that isn't yours.
00:31:54
Do you have any I mean you'll spend your time playing whack-a-ole with these people. That's my feeling is that they
00:31:59
don't there's no protect. You have copyright protection but to in order to enforce it is another story.
00:32:05
I'm not worried about that stuff. There's there's purposeful leakage, right? You want a certain amount of
00:32:12
it's like, you know, Netflix wants you to share a certain number of the passwords, right?
00:32:17
And you want a certain amount of mimicry or IP theft or what have you. But what I'm more worried about is that
00:32:25
at some point AI can say, "Take uh my book, Notes on
00:32:32
Being a Man, and give it to me in 60 pages, not 400." And they give it to you in 60 pages, and you don't get
00:32:40
compensated. Neither me nor my agent, nor my You should put that one out, though. You should put out a 60page version. Well, I
00:32:47
mean, it's an interesting idea, but I think there's something to forcing people to do the work.
00:32:53
I always thought I always was like, I wish I could do a 20page, 60 page, 100page version of my books. I used to
00:32:59
say that and publishers used to like vomit on the floor whenever I'd say that many years ago. Um, anyway, we'll see
00:33:05
what goes with this. Uh, to good for you, Tony Robbins, but everyone's going to face this issue. Everyone who has enough material out there, people like
00:33:11
me and Scott, Tony Robbins, there's a lot of people with lots and lots of material. Um anyway, lastly, President
00:33:17
Trump doesn't want the federal government agencies to contract with Elon Musk's XAI. What a surprise. According to White House press secretary
00:33:23
Carolyn Levit. However, Trump took to social media saying he is not trying to destroy Musk's companies, saying,
00:33:29
"Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon's companies by taking away some if not all of the large-scale subsidies he
00:33:34
receives from the US government. This is not so. I want Elon, all of our businesses within our country to thrive.
00:33:40
In fact, thrive like never be before." Elon was not comforted. responded like, "These aren't subsidies. I'm providing
00:33:46
them with good products for cheap prices." Um, you know, he's going to continue to do this and Elon's going to
00:33:53
continue to whack at him, I assume, throughout the rest of the term. Any thoughts? I'm curious what you think here, Cara.
00:33:59
I mean, if you really if you look back, did did Musk start this whole Epstein
00:34:04
thing? He's the first one that said, "Yes, remember Trump's in the Epson." Remember when I said he's going to keep at it because he's obsessed with this
00:34:10
topic when he when he took it down first? He said it, I think. Yes. No. Elon Elon started this. Absolutely.
00:34:17
Started it and then insinuated Bannon if you remember. And he took down the Trump one and I remember at the time I said
00:34:23
no. No, he's going to put it back up cuz he this is sticks in his craw. This Epstein stuff. Yeah, he did. He did
00:34:30
start it. It feels like SpaceX right now is bigger than our government. And that is I I
00:34:37
think he would love I think Trump wouldn't and I wouldn't put him past him. is willing to go after companies asymmetrically would cancel contracts
00:34:44
and I think the defense department has come back and said SpaceX is our um
00:34:49
program. I mean, the the media is so obsessed with itself, it can't stop covering Paramount,
00:34:57
you know, whatever it is. Um, Yellowstone, it's relatively cold bear.
00:35:03
I'm sorry folks, it's relatively unimportant. The fact that we have one company that controls almost all of the low orbit
00:35:11
satellites, that is much more important. That is where the FTC should be focused.
00:35:16
So this stuff is uh I find we're kind of we're we're focused on the wrong things.
00:35:22
And the fact that that Musk I mean think about this. Musk got the president you could argue played a big role in his
00:35:28
election. Musk is now playing a big role in what may be the dethroning of the
00:35:33
president. Musk is now critical to our infrastructure and in some ways bigger
00:35:38
than the defense department or the defense department has if the defense department wants to bring home astronauts from the international space
00:35:45
station they have to call Elon right if they want communications battlefield technology to work really well they have
00:35:50
to call EO I mean this is we are there are certain individuals who are becoming
00:35:55
Thomas Freriedman said this and it was insightful or appreciated at the time and he said that you have the rise of
00:36:02
the super super nation state individual and he was using the example of Bill Gates is now more powerful than most
00:36:08
nations and I wonder if in many ways this is kind of showing that Elon Musk
00:36:14
at first I thought Trump's much more powerful than Elon but basically I think
00:36:19
Elon if he keeps at it I don't know if he's going to take the president down but he's going to severely diminish his
00:36:25
his power or distract him it's not a good enemy to have remember when I said it's not like you know
00:36:30
fighting with Omar Rosa or Michael Cohen this guy has a set. He's not Michael Avanati.
00:36:36
Yeah. You know, he has a set and he has money. He's got means. He's he also when he apologized and everyone's like there
00:36:43
it's over. I'm like not this guy. Not this guy. And what what'll be interesting to see is if he
00:36:49
can strike a side deal because a lot of his acolytes have stayed in Washington and are trying to make deals with the
00:36:55
Trump administration. I suspect he will reach out to someone. I mean, he was, I think, close to JD Vance. And even
00:37:01
though JD Vance is such a like a suckup to Trump, he's got a I've got a I I'm
00:37:06
really interested in what's actually going behind the scenes with Vance and the rest of them because they're all
00:37:12
preparing for a postTrump world, right, at this point. And so, they've got to figure out, they cannot make an enemy of
00:37:18
Elon, for example, going forward. Um, even if it angers Trump, they've got to do it in this sort of subtle, quiet way.
00:37:26
So, the jocking behind the scenes has got to be fascinating. Like, this is just my guess. I'm not I'm completely
00:37:32
making it up, but if I were Vance or any Republican, I would start to figure out
00:37:37
what the world post Trump looks like because he's obviously decaying in real time. Some of these pictures of him, he
00:37:44
looks like really unhealthy, but that's okay. He can go on forever like that. Um, I think he's been unhealthy his
00:37:50
whole life. But I I'm really interested in what I'd love to know what Vance is actually thinking versus what he says in
00:37:57
public, which is obese obsequious to Trump because he's got a he's got more ties with these guys than Trump
00:38:03
certainly did. And he was sort of the person who introduced them to Trump and you know what I mean? Like that was
00:38:08
their link. So it'd be interesting to be with Teal and Vance and Musk and those people to figure out what they're up to.
00:38:15
I think they're all trying to cosplay the president. And that is the the Americans got so sick of this
00:38:21
politically correct, starched, whitewashed, you know, vanilla speak that then this
00:38:28
guy came along and and started like mocking the disabled or calling people horsearface. And as offensive as it was,
00:38:35
a lot of America found it refreshing and they thought, "Oh my god, for the first time, someone's speaking honestly like
00:38:41
that's them. They're actually speaking who they are." And but that cruelty and
00:38:46
that coarseness, I think all of these guys, Ted Cruz or JD Vance, they never used to say the kind of [ __ ] they're
00:38:52
saying now because they're all cosplaying him. And what I think they fail to realize is that the cadence of
00:38:57
presidential cycles is we always go for someone different. We go way different.
00:39:03
We're like, okay, we tried that for 4, eight years. Now we are ready for something. I mean, Trump just couldn't have been more different than Obama. And
00:39:10
you know, Obama couldn't have been much more different than Bush. And I think the future, and we've been talking about
00:39:16
this with various Democrats, I think a guy like James uh Taler Rico or Mayor Pete
00:39:22
who talks about family. Yeah. Um and has a cool beard. Do you like his rocking beard?
00:39:27
Yeah. But I I think Mayor Pete's I had Ezra Klein on today and he made a great point. I think Mayor Pete to a certain
00:39:34
extent kind of is this great ad for why America works, right? Here's a guy who
00:39:40
who couldn't have been public about his family and instead talks about how wonderful and meaningful it is to have a
00:39:46
healthy relationship and kids. And it's sort of like you hear me talk about it, you're like, "Wow, progressive America
00:39:52
works. It it means something for people." And you can talk about it when James Terico talks about his faith and
00:39:59
loving thy neighbor. I mean, he's going they I think the next president is
00:40:04
literally going to be the 180 of Trump. I think he's going to be kind. Uh kind
00:40:10
or she kind thought thoughtful. Probably a Oh, Scott, you're sick.
00:40:17
Yeah, I know. It's so weird, right? I'm going to bring you some balm. There you go. Yeah. Um I just want to rub it lovingly on
00:40:23
your chest. I just want a big like a big Filipino nurse with well moisturized hands that calls me king.
00:40:29
I want I want a nurse that calls me king and I want a I'll call you king. All right. Anyways, um I'm thinking
00:40:36
about having more plastic surgery. I'm going to need a nurse. We'll discuss. Anyways, uh but I I these guys I think
00:40:43
the next one's going to be, if you will, I think the strategy for Democrats is uh uh to not even mention the
00:40:50
president. I think people are so sick of hearing the the rest of the media world would do a job. Yeah, he's dead. I mean, for to them and
00:40:56
he should be as it this is something Rah Emanuel said. He's like until the midterms. midterms you say what you're
00:41:02
going to do and even if it's not for reals and after the midterms he doesn't exist. He doesn't. I think that's right. But I think the I
00:41:08
think America is so desperate at this point for kindness, for decency,
00:41:13
for family, traditional value, you know, traditional but like values. Go ahead. I'm going to run that.
00:41:19
Yeah, I can see that. No, but you you let's use you as an example. You're an example of like of why progressive
00:41:28
politics work. the fact that you can be married, have a great career, have children, have a healthy family, you're
00:41:34
sort of the American success story. These progressive ideals work.
00:41:39
And you can speak to with credibility the importance of family and what it means to have a traditional, you know,
00:41:46
family means people you otherwise wouldn't hang out with and care with. And when you can get it, when you pull
00:41:52
down barriers to people loving each other, they're less likely to be attacks on social society.
00:41:58
their taxes. They're more likely to develop good humans who turn into good citizens who can be great military,
00:42:05
nonprofit, and business leaders. You know, this should this [ __ ] works. I agree. I mean, one of the things I
00:42:10
think I I think it'll be hard to elect a gay person, even a man, and who's as
00:42:15
pleasant as Pete Buddha Judge. Um, but one of the things that a lot of people say about him and some of the other
00:42:21
Democrats I've been interviewing lately is like, you know, even if you disagree with them or you have different
00:42:27
problems, what it's like sort of I like the cut of your jib, like, you know what I mean? I like how you're living your life kind of thing. And I think that's
00:42:33
the appeal for a lot of u progressives. And I there's a lot of them now. There's a lot of them now increasingly who are
00:42:40
very appealing. And I think you're right, being appealing and and feeling genuine is going to be important. You
00:42:46
got to like watch out the Schumers and the rest of them. They got to go. And not being afraid also not being
00:42:52
afraid to be offensive. Yep. Exactly. Say, "Yeah, I don't I I I I'm don't
00:42:57
think trans athletes should be able to play sports or I think that this guy I think this guy is a is is a pedophile
00:43:04
and that he's clearly covering up." I I just things that might might be wrong. It's okay. You might be wrong. You might
00:43:10
offend 20% of the audience in front of you. That's okay. I think people are people are ready for it. I agree. All
00:43:16
right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, we're gonna do some wins and
00:43:21
fails. I guess I'll go first. Okay, fail. RFK Jr. again. He's quietly like
00:43:26
wrecking everything. He's planning to remove all 16 members of a cancer screening and HIV medication task force
00:43:32
because he believes they're too woke. He is I say this again and again, he's killing people. He's going to kill
00:43:38
people. I get the need for change in the healthcare area. I'm doing a whole docu series on it. I understand this. But the
00:43:45
way he's going about it is so political and so nothing to do with science. It's he's just and because Trump is so loud
00:43:51
with all this Epstein stuff, you're not paying attention to this guy. And I I
00:43:56
just think we need to really focus in on the stuff he's doing to wreck science. I have talked to so many scientists. I've
00:44:02
gone to so many great places and they're all like doing amazing work and are in fear of getting cut. It's ridiculous. I
00:44:09
was in one lab this week in in Stanford and it's this incredible breakthrough. And I'm not going to go into it, but
00:44:14
it's this incredible breakthrough. And it this lab was run by I by it was so
00:44:20
full of really amazing people here from other countries. It was also Americans,
00:44:26
nativeborn Americans. It was so important that this group of people were here and it's somewhere like Stanford
00:44:32
getting funded to do something amazing. And so what RFK Jr. is doing is killing people and and and and setting back
00:44:40
important um research uh for for even five years is too much like at all. Um
00:44:48
and for win I I I do feel that like there is a push back and I loved what
00:44:54
Trey with with with what the South Park guys did. I just and not just cuz I liked it. It was funny. It was actually
00:45:00
funny. It had a lot of resonance. I think they appropriately push back and
00:45:05
you have to like them even if you don't agree with them on stuff and I thought that was just one of the biggest baller
00:45:11
moves of all time to do that. I just thought it was like good for you and it
00:45:17
had to have been approved by I'm assuming Sky Dance knew of it or at least had some knowledge of it and the
00:45:23
executives who let it through um who want to stay there I think at at um
00:45:28
Paramount. uh whether they get let let go because of it. I don't think they will. I think they they hit it they hit
00:45:34
the target perfectly and Trump richly deserved and so did Paramount all the attacks they did. So kudos to them. It's
00:45:41
kind of a basic one but kudos to them. Uh I like it. Um I I don't have a fail.
00:45:46
I'd have two wins. My first win is the I I just didn't I was not on my radar
00:45:53
screen. Uh my win is the great city of Chicago. um about 3 million people,
00:45:58
third largest in the US. I hadn't been there in a while. Uh GDP over almost 800
00:46:04
billion, headquarters of United Airlines, McDonald's, Walgreens, great universities, University of Chicago,
00:46:10
Northwestern University, UIC, Dep Loyola, all nationally ranked.
00:46:15
Um doing a really I spoke at this quantum event. I don't know why they're going all in on Quantum, but they are.
00:46:22
Obviously, tremendous center for architecture and culture, music and the arts, parks, nature, great food scene,
00:46:30
obviously love sports. I just really u in terms of recognition, it was ranked
00:46:35
the number one big city in the US by condoness traveler and frequently ranked among the top 20 global. I just hadn't
00:46:41
thought about going to Chicago. My son said he wanted to go to Chong Choy or Chicago. So, I said, "Okay, we're going
00:46:46
to Chicago." Um, but I really I really enjoyed it and I I don't I don't think it gets I don't
00:46:53
think it gets the attention it deserves. And also the governance there is pretty is clearly pretty good because it feels
00:46:59
like the quality of life. Uh I have a close friend, my closest friend since the fourth grade, my friend Adam
00:47:05
Markman, and he could live anywhere um and chooses to live in Chicago and he says
00:47:11
it's basically New York for a lot less money and my quality of life is really nice here.
00:47:16
And I like the people. I like the people. I like the food. So anyways, I was just very I kind of came
00:47:22
away from Chicago. Chai town. I love Chicago so much. Anyways, and then my my other win is I just think the whoever
00:47:29
the CMO or the marketing or the ad agency for astronomer is uh that was the marketing move literally of of uh of the
00:47:39
year. And it's also launched Gwennneth Paltro's run for Congress where she's going to outlaw taxes and pants suits.
00:47:45
Um, so I think this is step off of her. Come on. It's such latestage capitalism.
00:47:50
It's literally like you know what? Like you have all kinds of friends who sell supplements and all kinds of nonsense and you don't like
00:47:56
attack them in similar ways. Yeah. Anyways, it's it's uh she's like a
00:48:02
Bond villain who runs a yoga studio. Oh my. All right. Well, okay. Sorry,
00:48:07
Gwennneth. Too sorry. I don't know what to say. Nice job, Gwyneth. Yeah. No, the the Gwennneth Falls
00:48:12
version of self-care is firing your nanny because she made eye contact during a Mercury uh
00:48:18
retrograde right now. Right now. Anyways, but I got to give it to
00:48:24
astronomer. I whoever you are, I don't know if it was the agency, I don't know if it was the CMO. Uh that was You want
00:48:30
to talk about uh turning chicken [ __ ] into chicken salad? That was uh genius.
00:48:36
Chicago and astronomer are my are my wins. I don't I don't want to fail. Um, I
00:48:42
Yeah, that's that's where I am. I'm so off today. I'm sorry, Cara. Sorry, listeners. I was so off. You're
00:48:48
not. You're fantastic. What are you talking about? Don't I'll come and rub some bomb on your chest. All right. We want to hear from you. Send us your
00:48:54
questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or
00:49:00
call 85551 pivot. Elsewhere in the Cara and Scott universe, this week on On with Cara Swisser, I spoke with Julie K.
00:49:06
Brown, an investigative reporter with the Miami Herald, whose 2018 series on Epstein led to a second arrest. A really
00:49:12
kick-ass reporter. Let's listen to what she said about how Epstein's victims are responding to the increased attention
00:49:18
surrounding the case, something I've talked about, and why they won't be coming forward. It's sad, but they've
00:49:24
been through so much that they're now at this point thinking, well, if the president of the United States is, this
00:49:31
is their thinking, is covering up for Epstein, I'm not going out there on a limb and trying to say what happened to
00:49:37
me because that's big. In fact, one of the that's exactly what one of the victims told me. This is big. The
00:49:44
president of the United States is essentially putting the lid on this case. Shameful. Shameful. Anyway, that's the
00:49:51
show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on
00:49:56
Friday. Scott Gwyneith is going to be sending you a candle to make you feel better. Okay, read us out.
00:50:02
Today's show is produced by Larara Neon, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie or Todd entry of this
00:50:07
episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros. Mia Seo and Dan Shalon. Nishak Kura is Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make
00:50:13
sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine
00:50:20
at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and
00:50:25
business. Are you having problems? Do what Gwennneth would do. Just look into a mirror and ask yourself, are you micro
00:50:30
doing your shame?
