00:00:00
If you want to know what you look like when you were 17 and you got caught masturbating, that is literally the
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facial expression of these people.
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[Music] Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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I'm Cara Swisser. And Cara, if you're texting and you see the emoji of a
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Makers and Ginger, a guy dancing an Olympic, I am in the chat. That means I
00:00:32
am in the chat. Oh my god, I am here. I can't believe this happened like right after we taped
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the last show. Let's get right into a fallout from Signal Gate. I'm Some
00:00:44
people are calling it Whiskey Leaks. Do you like Whiskey Leaks? Do you like Whiskey Leaks? Just before we get into the serious stuff, I think people want
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to hear more about me. Yeah. Okay. I'm a little slow today. Um, so, uh, I think,
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as you know, for the first time in my life, I had something resembling a non-outstanding physical where he said, "You're borderline hypertensive." I
00:01:04
didn't tell this. Statin time. Yeah. 140 over 80. And I'm like, "What? Take it again." I made him take it like eight
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times. I'm like, "Sorry, we're not doing it ninth time." And so immediately had my urine, my blood drawn, my fecal
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matter, like everything uploaded to Chat GPT. And they all come back with the same [ __ ] thing. Drink less when they
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started asking me questions. So, right. Anyways, what's happening? What are we going to do? Are we going to dry out
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clinic with you? What are we doing? What fun thing can we do together? Dry out clinics. I don't know. Something I don't
00:01:36
know what it is. By the way, just a quick side note, I think this anti-alcohol movement is the second worst thing behind remote work to happen
00:01:43
to young people. Your 25-year-old liver, the damage or inability to process or
00:01:48
ability to process alcohol at 25 is dwarfed by the risk of social isolation and anxiety. I understand you're looking
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for. So, anyways, well, no, it makes sense for me to tell it to Pete Hegathth, Whiskey Lakes, the head of
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Whiskey Links. So, I took my blood pressure over the weekend. I hadn't
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taken it in a while. I was becoming obsessed with it. It's 127 over 72. It's dropped dramatically. And I'm like, I
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kept taking No, it's not. It's perfectly healthy. You're not going to ask my blood pressure. I just had it taken two
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days ago. Do you want to know? That's your blood pressure. Sure. 106 over 68.
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I'm like a corpse. Yeah. That I think that means you're a vampire. Anyway, I'm a corpse. I'm a corpse. So, I'm trying
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to figure out what's going on. And I figured out that I'm drinking
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dramatically less because Chilurn Firehouse burned down. I was going there
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once or twice a week. That hotel in London in your house. You didn't know that? No, I went there. Oh my god. My
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mecca, my cathedral. Oh my god. Okay, I'm sorry. There. That's scary. Geopolitical disasters are going to have
00:02:55
to hold on for a minute. So, I go there. I'm never able to get in there. It's total face control. The coolest people
00:03:01
in London, the coolest room, greatest bartenders, greatest vibe. The door woman ends up, she has a podcast
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called I forget what it's called. Oh [ __ ] I'll find out. Uh really talented young creative woman and she came up to
00:03:13
me and said, "Hi, I love your podcast. Would you willing to have lunch someday?" I said, "Sure." We had lunch. End of the lunch, she goes, "Here's my
00:03:19
WhatsApp number. If you ever want to come by, here it is." This is like Charlie getting the golden ticket in
00:03:25
Willy Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. And whenever I go with my friends, everyone's like, "Wouldn't it be great to go to Chilton?" And everyone's like, "Do you know anybody?" And I'm like,
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"Yeah, no problem. I'll just text my friend." Anyways, right. Okay. This is I'm there twice a week. And the world
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clearly decided that the universe was out of order with me having access to this level of hot, cool people this
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regularly. The place [ __ ] burned down. No one was hurt. No one was hurt. But it's gone. It's out of commission
00:03:50
for three years. And I figured out I'm It's got a janky inside if you stay there. It's like a really old hotel.
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It's made out of a firehouse, but it's it's all these twists and turns. It does feel it's a total Andre Balaz special.
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It's a shitty hotel with decent service and hot people and amazing cool vibes so he can charge $1,100 a night for a $400
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room. Anyways, more power to you, Andre. Yeah, that's what happened to me. By the way, uh met the mother of my children at
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a Raleigh hotel controlled by Andre going way off the whiskey leaks. My son's middle name is now Raleigh.
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Anyway, so what are you doing with your health? Let's move away from children. What I'm doing with my health is the
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children firehouse burned down and I figured out that I think somewhere between I'm drinking somewhere between six and eight fewer drinks a week cuz
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children burned down. Anyway, so I need to find a new place. So last night there's a bunch of new contenders last
00:04:43
night and I'm checking them all out. Last night I went to this new place called Soho Muse, which is a Soho House, but Soho House has figured out they let
00:04:50
in too many people. So now they have now they have a one that you can't get into
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that you have to have. There's always another room. There's always another level that you're not in that you're not. So I found somebody who knows
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somebody who knows somebody. Went there last night. Pretty good. Not sure. Daddy went deep in the paint. And tonight I'm
00:05:07
going to Kensington Gardens. You just got a thing that said stop drinking. What are you doing high blood pressure
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man? Where's the statin and the sitting around watching hugging hugging and watching? As Winston Churchill said,
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I've gotten more out of alcohol than it's gotten out of me. I would not have kids and I'd likely still be a virgin
00:05:24
and I'd have very few good friends if it wasn't for alcohol. Listen to me. Alcohol is a plus. Drink more. Listen,
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Pete Hexth of this podcast. Let's go back, you know, uh n Whiskey leaks.
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Let's go to Whiskey Leaks. Uh the Trump administration is denying and downplaying the wrongdoing. Even though the next day Jeff uh Jeffrey Goldberg
00:05:44
from the Atlantic, the editor-inchief, of course, released the texts from the signal group uh that he was mistakenly
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added to. The newly released, this is so unreal what happened here. The newly released messages show defense secretary
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Pete Heg says sharing a timeline of the Yemen attack and a description of the aircraft involved, which is classified,
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Pete. Sorry, it is. They're pretending it's not, but it is. the latest White House strategies, insisting these were not actual war plans, which they were.
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Um, and as Pete Haggath told reporters on Wednesday, he knew exactly what he was doing. Let's listen. There's no
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units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no
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classified information. You know who sees war plans? I see them every single
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day. I looked at them this morning. I looked at attack plans this morning. What a an idiot. Just one. Meanwhile,
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national security officials were on Capitol Hill getting questioned about the signal leak and hearings becoming contentious. Democratic Congressman uh
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Jim Heims noted the worst case scenario of the whole incident at one of these hearings. Let's listen. Everyone here
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knows that the Russians or the Chinese could have gotten all of that information and they could have passed
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it on to the Houthis who easily could have repositioned weapons and altered their plans to knock down planes or sink
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ships. I think that it's by the awesome grace of God that we are not mourning
00:07:08
dead pilots right now. Among other things, where were they? Who
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was listening? what with what item what devices they aren't. So talk about what your initial thoughts and hearing the
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story and what you think about the White House strategy here arguing about semantics of what war plans and
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classified is and making Jeffrey Goldberg the enemy and he keeps just dropping the receipts every five minutes
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and they they're caught out lying. Um are they making things worse for themselves by not owning up to it and
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taking responsibility? Uh, press secretary Karen Levit, who I like to call Tracy Flick, did say in her briefing that Elon has offered to put
00:07:42
his technical experts on the case to go figure out how Goldberg got out of the chat. Oh my god. Stop with the Elon
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solution. It's he doesn't know anything about this. Uh, talk a little bit about this. Um, and then we'll get to the
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repercussions. Well, these are these are some of our most senior and most
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impactful and most important people in government. And I think you have to take them at their words. So, let's just look at a few of their past quotes.
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any security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and
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criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information. That's that's uh Secretary Hexath
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referring to um Hillary Clinton's uh emails being on a server. More from
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Secretary Hagath. How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that
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our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence or their recklessness in handling information?
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Again, that was Secretary Hagsath when they found emails on a server that he
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decided were classified. Let's let's keep going. The fact that she wouldn't be held accountable for this, I think
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blows the mind of anyone who's held our nation's secrets dear, Hexth added back
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in 2016. And who's had top secret clearance like I have and others who
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know that even one hiccup causes a problem. Uh, what about Secretary Rubio?
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Nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton, Rubio said at Fox, even though she thinks she is. Well, let's
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talk about CI Director John Ratcliffe. Mishandling classified information is
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still a violation of the Espionage Act. That's a criminal charge so serious that
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it can bring the death penalty. Close quote. When you have the Clinton emails
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on top of the fact that the sitting president of the United States admitted he had documents in in his garage, uh
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Director Waltz or National Security Adviser Waltz told CNN, "But they didn't prosecute. They didn't go after these
00:09:42
folks." exasperated. "Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation
00:09:48
of the law and will be treated as such," said direct director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. And my
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favorite quote on the You know, my name for her is Kruella to text, but go ahead. Go. And my favorite quote is
00:10:03
actually from the text message chain. We are currently clean on OBSEAC from
00:10:09
Secretary Hugsath, meaning we are clear. You can trust that the security protocols are in place. And this
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reflects a couple things. One, this administration as led by
00:10:20
Donald Trump, President Trump, believe that the government of the United States, which is the most impressive
00:10:26
organization in history, ask yourself for all the [ __ ] posting all of us do about the US government, who's provided
00:10:32
more rights and more prosperity at a lower cost at taxes this low? Best
00:10:37
product for lowest price brought to you by the US government? the most impressive organization in the world.
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And these folks have decided that any protocols, no matter how established or how important, they're bigger than that.
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They just they don't need to pay attention to this stupid [ __ ] that people before them were doing. It's a
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gen it's the ultimate Dunning Krueger effect. And then the last thing I'll say before I get your comments
00:11:02
is when someone is pulled over and convicted for a DUI on average on
00:11:10
average they have driven drunk 80 times previous to that. So the question isn't
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what happened here because fortunately Jeff Goldberg understands security protocols. He didn't release the
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information till after the attacks had happened when he realized he was privy
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errantly to classified information. He voluntarily exited the Chad. He
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understand security protocols. I mean, make him [ __ ] defense secretary, right? He knows more about national
00:11:39
security than all of these people together. By the way, the scariest question is we found out they got a DUI
00:11:46
here. What are the other 79 times that secure information has been leaked to
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bad actors who aren't going to follow security protocols? Maybe work for the CCP or the GRU. When you put pee-wee
00:12:00
little eager incompetent ass clowns in positions of this importance, there are
00:12:06
going to be unforced errors. But the problem is we don't see 79 of the 80
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unforced errors. Right? What they're not doing 100%. And you know what's incredible is of course Trump uses his
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let me a couple things. One, they're morons. Let's just be clear. They're also liars. They're liars about what
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they're morons and liars and then they're hypocrites because of what those things you just read. They literally were making a big case on a much less
00:12:31
egregious violation. Right? So that's one. Two, who knows what phones they
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were on? Were they on person? They were not using, you know, my ex-wife worked in the government. I saw the phone she
00:12:42
had. She didn't like it, but she used it cuz it was secure, right? She couldn't use her iPhone. She You can't sideloadad
00:12:48
signal on these things. By the way, the signal CEO is like our wrote me. She's like, I cannot [ __ ] believe this
00:12:55
[ __ ] Like, this is crazy that they were using our our our stuff. Now, PE journalists use it to talk to sources.
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Lots of people use it to to to to be to have encrypted communications. But these are not impenetrable systems, by the
00:13:09
way. It's a commercial app. It is not to it shouldn't be low. They were definitely doing them on personal phones
00:13:15
and they also were definitely um doing them from places. You don't know what network they were on. They were
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definitely not in skiffs doing this, which is these protected little tents that they make. They weren't on
00:13:26
protected communications. And they were talking about war plans. Like I whatever word you want to use, it's information
00:13:33
that should not be on a commercial app. The second thing is the way they put Jeffrey Goldber. I think what happened
00:13:39
is there was someone with his initials that they brought in because that's happened to me with several tech companies. I've been brought into emails
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at Facebook by Cheryl Samberg one time I think. Um I've been brought into seeing
00:13:51
the earnings of a of a tech company before they were released to the public once because someone with my name was
00:13:57
similar to to someone at the company and I just got emailed I got into the email
00:14:02
chain. It happens. People do that. Um but the fact that they're doing this not on a secure line and doing this with
00:14:09
such cavalierness um was just so moronic and then to lie
00:14:15
about it afterwards and then get caught again. It's the second time when he releases what was there. I just I don't
00:14:23
think anyone will get fired because the people in charge of the Justice Department will not do their jobs because they're very busy protecting
00:14:29
Elon Musk. So it may be Mike Walls will get because he also apparently his Venmo
00:14:35
is open too. Like it's just they're being sued by the government watchdog
00:14:40
group that you for using Signal Discuss military plans by the way and you can't make this up. Trump's not so favorite judge, the one overseeing the Venezuelan
00:14:46
deportation cake got assigned to the Signal case. But is there any It looks like Trump is just going to defend his
00:14:52
people and maybe throw one over. But but is there any recourse here? Do you see
00:14:59
anything at all? How what do you make of their response like from a just from a marketing point of view trying to get
00:15:05
this, you know, this move on? Everyone was at the right after. Let's move on. Let's move on. Let's move on. That was
00:15:11
the sort of the message from rep all Republicans. Um, now there seems to be some cracks in it because it's so
00:15:16
serious what they did here. This is a crisis and there's only three things you have to remember in crisis management. I
00:15:21
don't care if it's Martha Stewart, Exxon, or what's happened here. One, you have to acknowledge the problem. this
00:15:27
was a [ __ ] up. There's just no getting around it. This is unacceptable. That should have been their three words. This
00:15:33
is unacceptable. Two, the top guy or gal needs to take responsibility. The person
00:15:38
either the defense secretary, someone needs to say, "I take responsibility." And then the third thing is, and this is
00:15:43
the hard part, you need to overcorrect. when Tylenol when it was found out that some crazy person had put cyanide and
00:15:49
Tylenol uh capsules uh Johnson and Johnson cleared all of the shelves of
00:15:55
all Tylenol nationally at huge cost to them to restore trust. They're doing
00:16:00
none of these things because President Trump comes from the Roy Conn zeitgeist of never never acknowledge that you're
00:16:07
wrong and just continue to lie. And if you lie long enough, you in fact will, you know, people um will start to
00:16:14
believe you. But the the real damage here is that if you think about within
00:16:22
the greatest organization in history, the US government is arguably the most successful organization in history or the most impressive and that is the US
00:16:28
military. that has turned back fascism, that has turned back turned repelled armies out of Gulf nations in days
00:16:35
because of our ability to deliver violence anywhere in the world really effectively, efficiently, and because people are willing to put their lives on
00:16:41
the line. And when you can't trust the people at the highest levels that they are taking when when you when you're
00:16:48
flying an aircraft, you're trusting some guy from Omaha or some gal from Nebraska
00:16:53
that she is obsessing over every [ __ ] part on that plane before you have to
00:16:58
skirt along the atmosphere at two times the speed of sound avoiding surfacetoair missiles and then trust that the agents
00:17:05
on the ground risking their lives would never have anyone not follow protocols
00:17:10
and might unmask So what does this do to the effectiveness, the morale, the willingness to join these security
00:17:16
forces and also this there this stuff around the phone and the app? It's a misdirect. I've had some I've had some
00:17:23
interaction with our our security apparatus. When you go into a building of uh of the NSA or the CIA, you can't
00:17:30
even bring a phone in. Right. I I you know, I'm not talking about highle classified information.
00:17:37
Yeah. And then this conversation was why skiffs were invented because the idea is
00:17:43
you have a secure room that no one how are our allies going to share their sensitive information with this clown
00:17:49
car. So the damage here we don't know the damage here is like an iceberg. The
00:17:55
majority of it is below the surface. We will never know about it until there are military operations that fail. They will
00:18:01
blame it on somebody else. But this is this is an enormous the astonishing
00:18:07
reaction of well nothing happened. They the the operation was a success. I'm
00:18:12
like I don't care. We don't know. Who knows? Well, I don't I don't trust any of you people to tell the truth on
00:18:17
anything. And then misdirecting it towards Goldberg. Goldberg two things. Let me make two points. One, you're a
00:18:23
bunch of morons. Again, lying morons. Two, Goldberg was doing the right thing here and he's a [ __ ] badass for doing
00:18:30
all he did everything right ethically. He did. And then when they challenged him about whether it was true, he
00:18:36
released he didn't release the text initially, but then he's like, "Fuck you. I'm going to release the text." The third thing is, let me just tell you, do
00:18:43
you know who's who's also a quiet hero here? Lorraine Powell Jobs, owner of The Atlantic. It is letting this keep going,
00:18:49
right? Because there's a lot of corporate people who are pulling in their horns for Trump. Whether it's Disney paying that settlement with
00:18:55
George Stephanopoulos or Paramount considering it around Paul Weiss bending
00:19:01
the knee. [ __ ] Paul Weiss. Like all these people are doing this and Lorine Pal Jobs is running the Atlantic. If you
00:19:07
don't think they're going to come at her or or or they've already come at Jeff Goldberg over that Nazi piece he wrote
00:19:13
about Trump if you remember um Jeffrey had did that story that in infuriated
00:19:19
the Trump people. Let me just tell you if if you're look I was just thinking who's the Katherine Graham of this issue
00:19:25
this era people like her like that that are not backing the [ __ ] down. And there's a billionaire you want. Not all
00:19:31
billionaires are bad. She's a billionaire. She's she is have got a lot of bravery to put up with this stuff and
00:19:36
to be able to take the pressure. When I think of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and the and and the rest of them and Musk
00:19:43
sitting and sort of prostrating himself to Trump and what she just did, just a again just a real differential. And this
00:19:50
this is puts people in danger. And I think it's again a good topic for Democrats to attack on. you're
00:19:56
incompetent and you're liars over and over again. Um do you do you remember when you accident and then the other
00:20:02
excuse they're using on Fox News which are also complicit in trying to defend this after attacking Hillary Clinton
00:20:08
relentlessly for years um over over something that was much less serious by
00:20:13
a factor of 10. Um do you remember when you accidentally added a random person to our pivot text chain? Do you remember
00:20:20
that? Uh, I don't. You did. You added some guy who he's like, "Hey, I'm here
00:20:27
with Okay. If Scott does that, that was [ __ ] annoying enough, but they the the media on the on the right is saying,
00:20:33
"Well, everyone knows about that. Everyone's done that." I literally like So, what's the Jesse Waters? You're a
00:20:40
[ __ ] You're a [ __ ] [ __ ] But, you don't need to be a national security adviser to know what happened here. And
00:20:46
that is when I establish an ongoing relationship with a male prostitute, I change the name and the number or I
00:20:53
change the name to Cara Swisser. No, I change it to Asian accountant. That way if it ever comes up, it throws it throws
00:21:00
the people in my life off the scent. So it's clear. It's it's so obvious what is
00:21:05
happening here. Walls is [ __ ] Jeffrey Goldberg. That's it's obvious what's going on here. and he had the wrong name
00:21:12
purposely on the wrong number to throw the folks in his life off. Oh, interesting. Little geopolitical humor
00:21:19
to like I think it was someone with a JG on the staff that he thought he was adding. I think he thought he was adding
00:21:24
someone else. That's what I And Tulsi Gabbert refusing to acknowledge it was her and and Senator Warren's like, "Uh,
00:21:30
so TG isn't you? Isn't you?" And she's like, "Uh, well, no. Well, I it's under
00:21:37
review." And he's like, "What does that have to do with anything?" And then and then she says there was no classified information leaked and he's like well then share it if it wasn't classified.
00:21:44
She looks like I think he was good. Warner was good. Oh my
00:21:49
god. So was Osaf. Oh Senator Bennett. My man. They all were all were. They were
00:21:54
all my man who I supported for president in in 2020. Anyways, you know what? They they all had the same attitude. What in
00:22:00
the actual [ __ ] That was that was the tone. What in the actual [ __ ] The only person who's conducted himself kind of
00:22:07
like better than all of them is Trump because he's like, "Yeah, they think it looks like they [ __ ] up." But then he of course defends them by attacking the
00:22:13
reporter, which is I love watching these hearings. I If if you want to know what you looked like, if you look at these
00:22:19
people, if you want to know what you look like when you were 17 and you got caught masturbating. Yeah. That is
00:22:24
literally the facial expression of these people. Literally the But do you think
00:22:30
someone's going to pick? No. Oh, there's I I actually One of them's gonna go down. Peg Seth or Walls? Not Heg Seth.
00:22:36
He seems to like Heath despite the fact that it looked like he was drunk texting. That's what it seemed like to me. Uh I think it's the Oh my gosh. I
00:22:44
think Look, I don't think Trump cares about national security. I don't I don't think he had documents in his bathroom
00:22:50
that he's putting Trump that he's putting warriors in harm's way. I really don't think I really don't think he cares. What I do think he cares about is
00:22:57
I think this is very embarrassing for him. It makes him look incompetent. Yeah, there's going to be a blood offering. It's a tossup between
00:23:05
uh I think it's got to be walls. Well, I don't know. It could be walls. He could also decide Hex Seth. This DUI hire just
00:23:13
makes us look bad. Hexath getting off that plane and being so indignant. No, no attack plans were shared. I see
00:23:19
attack plans every day. And then you see these text messages and they have the equipment, the cadence, the sequencing,
00:23:26
the targets, the time. I'm like, what do you want? Colorcoded tabs. I mean, right. I know.
00:23:32
He He came across He's handled himself so poorly. So, I Gabbard. I don't know.
00:23:38
And then they're trying to come up with schemes of how he got on there. Someone's got to go. I think someone's going to go. Like their schemes of how
00:23:44
he got You're more It was a hoax. It was a hoax. It was a hoax. He's a
00:23:50
spy. I've never met him. And then of course, inevitably the P when he goes I'm I've never met Jeffrey Goldberg.
00:23:56
literally picture of them standing talking together. They have met. They of course he's a national security person.
00:24:01
Jeff Goldberg is known for national security reporting. They know each other like literally it's sort of when Trump
00:24:07
always goes I've never met Maggie Herman or I've never you know I don't know that person who worked with me for five 10
00:24:12
years. It's such a like a a really easy prediction. This is my prediction. A
00:24:17
really easy prediction at a very big DC event in the next 30 to 90 days.
00:24:26
Jeffrey Goldberg and his wife are gonna walk in somewhere, there's gonna be a pause and he is going to get a standing
00:24:32
ovation. Yeah. Yeah. He really, if there's a winner here, it's journalism
00:24:38
and it's Jeffrey Goldberg. We are so annoying. Journalists are so fantastically annoying these days. I love it. This is But this guy just did
00:24:45
the right thing. He just he he's like protected people. He he resisted the temptation to just continue listening in
00:24:52
because he understands uh you know defense and security protocols. He didn't release it till after the attack.
00:24:58
He's been he has handled this perfectly perfectly. Perfectly. We'll see if it
00:25:04
matters. Actually the snap polls are people are like what in the act cuz one thing that it does I do think it's more
00:25:10
this is pro a real crisis is because everyone understands this. It's very easily understandable what they did cuz
00:25:16
everyone has been in the one thing they're telling the truth is everyone has been in these things and they're like you did what you did you know what
00:25:23
I mean like this this is something understandable to the average citizen of
00:25:28
incompetence like um even my mother at first and of course my mother immediately went when she didn't know
00:25:34
about it because Fox wasn't covering it properly and then I explained it she was like well that's not good and I was like
00:25:39
no it's not and she goes but Hillary did it and I'm like mhm that's where you go really. I was like, "Not really." And
00:25:44
then she Biden did it like, "But that's where they're going." I Here's one of my Let me just finish this by one proposal.
00:25:51
I was thinking about what do you do about this? Like this [ __ ] has been going back and forth between Republicans
00:25:56
and Democrats. This this this leakage of information, right, in this highlyformational age, I think we just
00:26:03
decide from this day forward, everyone else before this, you get off the hook for it. You are the government is sloppy
00:26:10
around everyone in the government whether it's Democrats or Republicans have have been arguably sloppy around
00:26:16
communications and especially classified communications. Everyone gets a pass from now on. If you do it again, if you
00:26:23
have you've sideloaded [ __ ] or you're using your personal phone, you're going down. From now on, we're going everybody
00:26:30
nobody gets a pass from it's not going to happen in the Trump administration. Let's just clear the playing field and
00:26:35
from now on these are the rules and if you break them you're going to jail. That's that's what I would do. What do
00:26:42
you think? Yeah, I like it. But I think it runs deeper than that. I think these guys look we we'd like to think that you
00:26:49
can put people I mean for God's sakes we got a Fox host as defense secretary and
00:26:56
we're surprised that there's amateur errors morons. Uh so it's not okay you
00:27:02
can have protocols and fine put them in jail. That's not the problem. The problem is an environment where you have an autocrat who values loyalty and falty
00:27:09
over competence. The other thing I think they were doing and I think people haven't talked about enough is they're on signal because they're trying to
00:27:15
avoid accountability and they don't want people to see these things. And so what they're doing is they're all this stuff
00:27:21
just for people who don't know the government is supposed to preserve all their communications on things like this and they're trying not to preserve them.
00:27:27
And the only last thing I would say Walls did that was astonishing to me on Signal, you can have disappearing
00:27:33
information. This stuff can disappear and usually people set it to an hour or a day. He had four-week disappearance. I
00:27:39
was like, are you an idiot? Like if you're going to disappear, disappear it right away. But I think what they were trying to do is avoid accountability.
00:27:46
Disorganized crime. That's correct. They're not even they're not even competent criminals. But that's what at the heart of it. They were trying to
00:27:53
abregate their responsibility to preserve accountability. And I think that's why they were on that chain. And
00:27:59
so they were hiding. They were hiding and then they got caught. Essentially the US military, our ability, our near
00:28:06
monopoly power on the ability to deliver violence all over the world
00:28:12
in a lethally devastating expert competent way. I don't think especially
00:28:18
people on the left, I don't think they realize how much prosperity that delivers to us. that fear when when the
00:28:26
attacks of October 7th happen and Hamas is hoping to inspire a multiffront war on Israel, Biden sends these amazing
00:28:34
things called US carrier strike forces that literally take a city to run and
00:28:40
massive massive capital expenditure and skills and 5,000 sailors who are just so highly
00:28:47
trained, so committed, so willing to put themselves and he parks them off the coast of the Mediterranean and says to
00:28:52
Iran, sit the [ __ ] down and we don't have a multifront war and we don't have a
00:28:59
nuclear power backed into a a corner. Israel. America doesn't realize it
00:29:05
doesn't miss what it doesn't have. And that is a level of it. It has so much prosperity, so many freedoms that they
00:29:12
don't recognize are a function of a military that trusts each other. That trusts that the people back in Langley,
00:29:19
Virginia, will not accidentally share who I am and I will be tortured and then murdered. that if I am flying with a
00:29:26
package of armaments and a cash to deliver that I have the right coordinates and the and the air defense
00:29:31
systems and the Russians don't know it and the Chinese don't know it and the Iranians don't know it. This is this is
00:29:37
so it's it's just moronic. It's moronic and they're liars and they're trying to hide at the same time. Anyway, Scott,
00:29:43
let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump unveils his latest tariffs. Scott, we're back. President Trump
00:29:48
announced a 25% tariff on imported cars and car parts. Let's listen. This is the beginning of Liberation Day in America.
00:29:58
We're going to take back just some of the money that has been taken from us by
00:30:05
people sitting behind this desk or another desk that's not quite as nice, but they have their choice of seven as
00:30:11
you know. Uh and uh we're going to uh
00:30:17
charge countries for doing business in our country and taking our jobs, taking
00:30:23
our wealth, taking a lot of things that they've been taking over the years. They've taken so much out of our
00:30:28
country. The tariffs will go into effect on April 2nd and will apply to finished vehicles shipped into the US, including
00:30:34
from American brands that assemble outside the country. Almost half of all vehicles sold in the US are imported.
00:30:41
But lo and behold, Tesla will be spared. While the Musk company does import parts, it makes vehicles in the US.
00:30:46
However, Elon posted on X saying, "Important to know that Tesla is not unscathed here. The tariff impact on
00:30:51
Tesla is still significant." Again, a lie. Um, do you think Trump uh will pull
00:30:56
these back? And what does he keep doing here? Because it really spooked the markets were covering a tiny bit and
00:31:03
then they didn't. So, um, any thoughts on this? Well, I had a few thoughts
00:31:09
listening to the speech. That's the first time that I have in my view or
00:31:15
that I've really noticed cognitive decline. That's the first time I thought, "Oh, wow. He's getting old." Um, and you've been saying it for a
00:31:21
while. That's the first time I really saw evidence of it. He just sounds not flight of foot, so to speak. Look, he
00:31:26
and also his speech writer clearly is mimicking what Nigel Farage said about Brexit. Claimed that it was this is our
00:31:33
independence day. And it's like, well, folks, you realize that people declare independence from Britain, not Britain doesn't declare independence like
00:31:40
declaring independence from who? But we've just said this all along. If you were looking for the most elegant, clear
00:31:45
blue line path to increasing prices and reducing the competitiveness of our
00:31:51
products overseas as reciprocal tariffs are are implemented. There's no more elegant way to reduce prosperity in
00:31:58
economic history probably than tariffs. And it comes down to so I teach strategy
00:32:05
and if you try to distill strategy down to a few basic tenants two of them would be the following. In strategy you're
00:32:11
trying to answer one question. What can we do that's really hard either with
00:32:17
spending $18 billion a year on content is really hard but we have access to cheap capital. Okay we're Netflix.
00:32:23
Building the most robust supply chain in the world because of access to cheap capital is really hard. Hi Amazon. what
00:32:30
can we do that is really hard? And then the second thing is the biggest mistake people make in strategy organizations is
00:32:37
believing that they're boxing against a speed bag or that they're in that twilight zone where when they move they
00:32:45
stop time and no one else responds. And this is the the the strategic here is so
00:32:51
basic and that is he's under the impression the US is so powerful and superior that we can just levy tariffs
00:32:58
errantly without any rationale and that they won't respond and levy reciprocal
00:33:04
tariffs. As a matter of fact, you want to talk about people who are doing it strategically. Canada and Europe have
00:33:12
said, not only are we going to uh implement reciprocal tariffs, we're going to be especially hard on the
00:33:19
tariffs affecting red states. We're going after your heart and lungs,
00:33:25
President Trump. I mean, they're they're being quite strategic about it. And I
00:33:30
it's this basic error. Companies make I see companies make this all the time. We're going to do this. this like okay you realize that Adidas and an will do
00:33:38
the same thing I mean they will respond and that is the biggest strategic error is assuming that you are operating in a
00:33:45
vacuum of strength and that your competitors aren't going to respond and every nation has levied reciprocal
00:33:52
tariffs no one has said President Trump you're so big and bad and America so we took from you like whatever and the
00:33:59
notion somehow that we are not on the I think there's an argument that you could say we have unfairly subsidized a
00:34:05
military umbrella for the second and third largest economies in the world, specifically Japan and Germany and maybe most of Europe. I think that's a real I
00:34:12
think that's a valid argument. But the notion that we don't get the better end or as good a deal on any trade agreement
00:34:21
on any business relationship is just not true. I I have done business in every
00:34:27
large western nation and there is a brand halo by rule of law, innovation, the fact that we are willing to enforce
00:34:33
laws, the fact that we don't take [ __ ] from anyone, that we attract the best and the brightest. When you walk into a
00:34:38
room, even as a small firm, I ran small strategy firms, you benefit from the
00:34:43
halo of the American brand. And to think somehow that people were taking advantage of us is just it's this weird
00:34:50
victim complex. It's this weird notion of again I make decisions in isolation,
00:34:56
no one will respond and somehow I'm the victim. It's incredibly immature and it
00:35:02
it it lacks all what I call forward-leaning thinking or real kind of blue flame thinking around strategy and
00:35:09
game theory. Well, it's just I think it's just moronic. I don't know what else to say. He's just and speaking or
00:35:16
that Trump's crypto venture world liberty financials announced plans to launch a stable coin. This is this guy
00:35:22
is just literally like he's like octopus. He like goes everywhere. It's like a handsy guy who's everywhere at
00:35:28
once. Stable coins are tied to assets to maintain more stable prices. US uh USD1
00:35:33
as it will be called will be pegged to the value of the US dollar. That's what stable coins often are pegged to. GOP
00:35:39
lawmakers that means they have to hold a dollar for every coin. That's where anyway GOP lawmakers are currently
00:35:44
working on legislation to regulate stable coins. Uh World Finan Liberty Financial said it has brought in over
00:35:50
$500 million from previous coin sales. Trump Media also announced a partnership with Crypto.com this week and is to
00:35:55
launch a series of uh ETFs. Um there's I know there's a fire hose of news every day, but what in the actual [ __ ]
00:36:03
Speaking of what in the act there's so many what in the actual [ __ ] but he should not be doing crypto. he should
00:36:09
not be doing crypto and his family shouldn't be doing crypto and they're doing crypto which is such a like an
00:36:14
opaque area. Thoughts? Very brief thoughts. it it's grift and there's so when you're
00:36:21
trying to chase down or respond to national security breaches of
00:36:27
incompetence and recklessness it kind of unfortunately wallpapers over the fact that he's engaging in a level of griff
00:36:35
for his kids that if Obama did it there might have been a move to impeach him and some Democrats would have voted to
00:36:40
impeach him. I mean the standards have just been lowered so dramatically. I was
00:36:46
thinking about when I I remember going to China a few times uh with a group of American
00:36:53
businessmen and we would or they would bring up the notion of human rights and like can you imagine us even having the
00:37:00
gall or the gumption to bring up human rights violations now when we go abroad? We can't. We can't. I mean, or to accuse
00:37:05
them of grift and corruption. I know. It's just we have lost all moral high
00:37:11
horse. All the high horses are gone. We're down off the high horse. This is just rid. He should not be doing this.
00:37:17
And it and people, we should look into this. Like there there's no power to look into it, but this is just grift
00:37:23
pure and simple. And especially in an area that is about to be GOP lawmakers
00:37:29
are working on legislation. This is so like he cannot he shouldn't even sign the freaking thing. Like he should like
00:37:35
uh he won't do it. It's this is and then it's open for so much uh fraud for
00:37:40
regular consumers. Just buyer beware in many ways. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back, we'll talk
00:37:46
about whether Disney's Trump donation is paying off in the newest podcast network. Scott, we're back. The FCC
00:37:51
plans to investigate Disney's DEI practices. They just are moving from company to company doing this. Uh Disney
00:37:57
shareholders rejected an anti-Dei proposal earlier this year. By the way, Apple and I think it was Costco also
00:38:03
did. Um last fall, Disney settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump uh after the and after the election agreed to pay
00:38:09
$15 million donation at Trump's presidential library. I mean, the sucking up to Trump isn't even paying
00:38:14
off, right? That just isn't working. I I don't know what to say. They're going to go to every DEI thing and just keep
00:38:21
litigating one after the other. Whether it's law firms who are against Trump or
00:38:26
whatever they happen to do, whether it's DEI or just pure revenge, they're going to keep doing this shakeddown. It it
00:38:33
feels like I'm in the middle of the the early scenes from the Godfather movie with Robert Dairo wandering from Italian
00:38:39
owned store to Italian owned store. I don't know what to say. Thoughts? Well, there's two things here. There's the policy around
00:38:45
whether DI practices should be legal or illegal. That's in their current form.
00:38:51
That's that's a that's a valid argument. But the problem here, and you introduce
00:38:56
this word to me, is systemic change versus non-sistic change. And that is when the president goes after
00:39:03
Colombia, you know, I I it tickles my sensors. I like that. I think that the Ivy League has tolerated a level of
00:39:09
anti-semitism they would not tolerate across any other special interest group. But the way you address it is you pass
00:39:14
laws that affect everybody. You don't decide who you dislike the most. Correct. And start going or or who you
00:39:20
like the most and and host a hi, I'm Cal Warthington, 10% off your Tesla right now. You're supposed to pass laws that
00:39:28
show a lack of favoritism because there's no way to implement targets or enemies or favoritism for your allies
00:39:35
without it just becoming, you know, an autocrat, you know, an autotocracy and corrupt. So before we even start here,
00:39:43
when he starts targeting individual firms or the head of the Department of Justice calls out or or the or the
00:39:50
attorney general calls out Disney by name, if he were to say the media the
00:39:56
media is going to not have certain protections around certain slander and it's true for everyone, okay, you might
00:40:02
disagree. You might think that puts a chill, but when they start going after specific universities and specific
00:40:08
companies, law firms, specific law firms, specific, then all you're trying to do is say, "Okay, we're Paul Weiss or
00:40:14
we're Perkins or we're or we're or or we're Scatteren Aarbs or whoever or Lay
00:40:20
them Watkins. So, this is what we're going to do. We're going to work for their kids for free on this new Trump stable coin thing because then we'll
00:40:25
stay out of his crosshairs." and you end up in a downward spiral of corruption
00:40:30
where and for corruption folks that's the biggest tax because people get unfair advantage and it's taxed on
00:40:36
everyone else that doesn't have proximity to the president or isn't willing to pay him and we talked about this on CNN there is a domino of
00:40:43
cowardice Bob Iger your cowardice inspired Paul Weiss partner to say okay
00:40:51
we'll pay or we'll settle rather than fight your cowardice inspires Jeff Bezos
00:40:57
to go the quickest way for me to get to 110 to 150 billion is to get rid of the opinion section of the Washington Post
00:41:03
until one of these guys and let's be honest they're all guys says [ __ ] you
00:41:08
and the public and shareholders in business rally around this person this is just going to continue he's just
00:41:15
going to have these one-offs and everyone's going to go I don't want to be in this crosshair so just give him a couple million bucks for his
00:41:20
inauguration or come out and say you'll work for the stable coin or you'll buy wink wink they think about these
00:41:26
Cryptocoins is effectively what the family has done. They have under our
00:41:33
watch opened a Swiss bank account and anyone could put money in and Trump gets
00:41:39
to know who's putting money in but no one else knows it. It is it is such incredible
00:41:46
like grift and I don't think it's an accident they announce it and decide to move forward when it's like oh wait
00:41:52
we've had a national security. How do we turn how do we turn lemons into lemonade? Everyone's going to be focused on Hexath, so let's announce the stable
00:41:58
coin. But can you imagine Sasha Malia Obama and Chelsea Clinton launching a cryptocoin? I mean, everyone would be
00:42:07
going [ __ ] crazy, right? I This is And here's the thing, it's not their
00:42:12
fault, it's our fault. And the way we got to get back to this is to be brave for companies to stand up to them. Yeah.
00:42:18
And we need to begin immediately pushing back, being fearless, and also Yeah.
00:42:24
2026 is not that far away. Yeah, exactly. It's not that far away. Let me give you an excellent example of what
00:42:30
The Atlantic is doing. And by the way, they are [ __ ] badasses. Carol Levit, Tracy Flick, lying again on the stand at
00:42:37
the White House goes, "The mainstream media continues to be focused on a sensationalized story from the failing Atlantic magazine that is falling apart
00:42:43
by the hour, which is not true. Literally, everything comes out of her mouth as a lie." Uh, fact check Nick
00:42:49
Thompson, who's the CEO of Atlantic, which is doing really well. We have more subscribers than ever before. Ads are
00:42:55
up. We're profitable. We're expanding print issues and podcasts. We publish everything that is new to the reading. We're hiring more and more great
00:43:00
journalists to cover you fairly. And then he put fist um flag uh and the and
00:43:06
the fire symbol, which is what um which all these idiots on this tech chain put
00:43:12
that as their emoji, you know, in terms of the attack. Um it's just I pushing back is the best way to
00:43:19
go here with these people. You have to both be factual and you have to also punch back at at this nonsense. And what
00:43:26
really interesting is they can't get this story out of this news cycle. And it's day five and he hasn't been able to
00:43:33
change a subject by all manner of diversions. So don't let him don't let him change the subject kind of thing.
00:43:39
And so we'll see where it goes. But Disney should stand up. All these companies should stand up and stop and
00:43:45
find their you know find whatever you want to say their backbone or their or their set. Um, so very quickly, Megan
00:43:51
Kelly is launching a podcast network. Um, lots of people are doing this. MK Media launching next month. We'll have shows from Mark Halpurn. Uh, Marine
00:43:58
Callahan and, uh, Link Lauren. I think the company she's worked with was sold to Fox, the Red, whatever you call it.
00:44:05
Um, let's listen to what Megan has to say about this. So excited about these three. Aren't these a great three to
00:44:11
launch with? They cover the gamut, right? It's like Link has got such a following amongst young sort of right
00:44:18
leaning people or independent-minded people who have just had it with the weird left. Anyway, her podcast which
00:44:25
launched in 2020, I was one of the first people to talk to her about doing a podcast, as I've said before, is consistently one of the most popular
00:44:31
news uh podcasts in the country. I don't know if it's news exactly. Uh you're kinder than her. I think she's just a
00:44:36
rage machine and she has a little act that she takes on the road and screams at women, a lot of women. Um but the the
00:44:43
idea of what's happening here is a bigger thing is there's a lot of really interesting independent companies being created whether they're on conservative
00:44:50
or liberal and it really is this idea of doing these podcast networks is going to be really interesting and how you do
00:44:56
them and keep them entrepreneurial. I know Scott and I have talked about it um especially the voices on the weird left
00:45:01
like ourselves. What is wrong with her? Um uh anyway, it's really it's an interesting
00:45:08
time for this idea of industrialization of podcasting and some of these other things as they move into video. Any
00:45:13
quick thoughts? Um first off, I I just White House spokesperson Levit married a 59year-old
00:45:19
when she's 27. So I'm kind of a fan, but it gives me I think it means I have a shot with AOC. I'm just saying. I'm just
00:45:26
saying. You so don't have a shot with AOC. It's crazy. Well, you know, my criteria for my criteria for every every
00:45:33
spouse I've had, it's very simple. Go ahead. What is it? Go ahead. Let me It's simple. Two things. A badass or a great
00:45:40
ass. Okay. Oh, we're going to hear it on that. Okay. I kind of like that. We're going to hear it in the comments. I like
00:45:45
that. I like that. I'm going to say I like that. Okay. Megan Kelly. Okay. Megan is very talented and
00:45:52
you got to separate the person and their talent from their political views. No, it's not political views. It's performative rage. But go ahead. Go
00:45:58
ahead. And fine, fine, whatever. Very talented. Okay, so one of my big one of my big predictions in October of 24 was
00:46:05
25. I have tech of the year, media of the year, stock of the year that the media of the year, hands down, podcasts,
00:46:11
and it happened on election day and that is so much money pours into local news
00:46:16
stations because old people supposedly determine elections and old people still want to get the weather on their local
00:46:22
news station. So local news stations are hemorrhage money for 22 months and then for 2 months every two years they jack
00:46:28
up the rates by sevenfold and they sell out because the local guy running for Congress just plows money into it. That
00:46:37
typically is a 60-year-old the average person is a 60-year-old white woman uh watching cable news or listening to
00:46:43
local television. Local television is probably even older. Trump realized he zagged when everyone
00:46:49
zigged. went on the manosphere, went into podcast, went on every [ __ ] testosterone laden podcast, and it was
00:46:55
brilliant. And the average listener to a podcast is a 34 year old male. And a 34-y old male is Latin for swing voter
00:47:03
because they care about economics. And who is seen as better on the economy is dynamic. Sometimes it's Democrats when
00:47:09
they realize, oh, they've created 50 million jobs in the last four decades and Republicans have have uh created 1
00:47:15
million. And sometimes it's people go, "Oh, Republicans are acknowledging inflation. They're speaking more.
00:47:21
They're business people. Trump's a businessman." So, it goes back and forth. So, they're the swing voter. In
00:47:26
addition, you have you're having you're seeing a flood of advertising into this young male demographic because, by the
00:47:33
way, those people are the great white rhino of advertisers because they're stupid. They spend money on things like shoes and watches and coffee and their
00:47:41
decision makers and their companies around technology. They buy high margin products and you can't reach them
00:47:47
because they're watching Netflix and Spotify. So where do you reach a 34 year old male? You reach him on podcast. So
00:47:55
reaching a young male wealthy audience is an advertiser's dream and you can't reach them anywhere else. In addition,
00:48:02
50% of people say they listen to at least one podcast a month. The medium is growing
00:48:08
faster than Alphabet or Meta right now in terms of ad revenue. In addition, there's a built-in moat and that moat is
00:48:15
the following. Because we started seven years ago, we have a huge subscriber
00:48:21
base on Apple, on Spotify, on YouTube. And anything we drop gets downloaded be
00:48:29
when you subscribe and advertisers base their advertising and CPMs based on your
00:48:35
built-in installed base. So, if you have been in the podcasting game for a while,
00:48:40
you almost have a natural mode around you because advertisers will only advertise on pods who have a certain
00:48:47
amount of scale. So, the little guys, the 699,000 podcasts that aren't in the top
00:48:54
1,000, it is difficult for it is difficult for them to make it out of the crib. Mhm. So you have a plethora you
00:49:01
have a a tectonic shift in the flows of rivers of advertising capital into this
00:49:08
new medium and you actually strangely enough despite the fact there's low barriers of entry and 700,000 podcasts
00:49:14
put out something every week. There's really only five or six hundred of them that have the scale that advertisers
00:49:20
want. Meaning like almost every other medium where digitization comes in, it's become a winner take most if not all
00:49:27
environment. What's interesting about podcasting is the two newer platforms
00:49:32
are YouTube. More people listen to uh podcasts on YouTube now than on Spotify
00:49:38
or Apple. 20% of my listens at PropG because the Prop G market is very visual
00:49:43
is on TVs. It's on YouTube that people airplay to their TV. You're seeing our
00:49:49
revenues here at Pivot are comping up for the last seven years at probably 28 or 30% a year. Mhm. So, this is
00:49:56
attracting a ton of talent, a ton of capital, big growth up a small base. And
00:50:02
Megan and Oh, and by the way, I forgot. You know who's just decided they're getting into the podcasting game?
00:50:08
Netflix. Mhm. Yeah. Right. So, if they put Steve Bartlett or or Pivot or on
00:50:13
with Cara Swisser on their front page for a hot minute in front of 300 million people, that podcast is going to go into
00:50:20
the top 10. They're getting into the game. So you're going to see advertisers switch to the small number of companies
00:50:26
that have scale. You're going to see a dramatic increase in advertising spend. You're going to see some multi- some 9
00:50:34
figure plus deals in podcasting. You're going to see some really really big
00:50:40
deals. This is the medium of 2026. Do you do are you worried? Let me ask you a question because I was just thinking
00:50:45
about this. like things were on par with advertising to do really well this year and now this tariff thing that Trump's
00:50:50
doing is [ __ ] with everybody's business and ads. They're showing a little bit of now they're like gh maybe
00:50:56
not so much because things were really sort of the juice was going for a minute there but they're noticing like when
00:51:03
people pull they're going to pull from this. Is that a worry? Okay. In the Okay. In the short term, yes. It hurts
00:51:10
everybody because people go onto a standstill and we've seen this and they say just just, you know, cool your jets,
00:51:17
stand down until we figure out what's going on. However, if you look at the shifts in mediums, everyone knew people
00:51:23
were shifting money and ad spend from traditional media into uh searchbased
00:51:28
media or social based media. We all knew that. But what happens is whenever there's an economic shock and media
00:51:34
planners of big agencies are forced to rethink their bud budgets, they typically they typically take everyone
00:51:41
down but then they come back in the new mediums. Exogenous shocks give a company
00:51:47
pause to rethink their entire media strategy and that almost benefits the
00:51:53
new guys. So actually in recessions and in economic shocks in the short term it
00:51:58
hurts everybody but in the medium-term it massively expedites the transition that was sort of already happening at a
00:52:05
low speed. It expedites it and Google and Meta when they take their advertising budgets back it gives them a
00:52:11
chance to think should we be spending this much on newspapers or broadcast television maybe not let's go we know
00:52:17
we're going back into Tik Tok and Meta and Alphabet. So while we will absolutely with these tariffs see a
00:52:24
reduction in our growth when the economy comes back. Yeah. It's going to expedite
00:52:29
the disruption the shift. Yeah. People are thinking you're right. Okay. I wanted to understand that. All right. Scott, one more quick break. We'll be
00:52:35
back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Uh oh, look. The the Chinese uh see this
00:52:44
void. We had spent decades and 70 to $80 billion a year on US aid helping fund a
00:52:50
hospital in Cambodia. Tremendous goodwill in Cambodia. Set up this infrastructure. It was working well.
00:52:56
Money was being put to good use. We just cut it off. You know who showed up literally the next week. And this is a
00:53:03
true story. The Chinese. Chinese. And they are taking advantage of all the good work that's been done to usurp soft
00:53:08
power. Mhm. And I believe this is going goes back to the notion that we have a monopoly on our ability to deliver
00:53:14
violence. We have I think 700 bases in 70 or 80 n I think China has two or three. You're going to see a dramatic
00:53:21
increase in the number of Chinese military bases on foreign soil because they are they are filling our shoes and
00:53:28
getting massive benefit from the organizations, the relationships in the NGO sector that we were funding and
00:53:34
they'll just slip into those shoes and say no no no you don't need to close the hospital. the good guys are here and
00:53:40
that is gonna and and nothing's for free. The next time they show up in a year, two years, three years and say,
00:53:45
"Look, we'd like to have a naval base here. We'd like to be able to refuel our planes here. We'll pay for the revenue.
00:53:52
And by the way, how's the hospital coming? Is it still working?" Great. So, we're going to see for the first time a
00:53:59
dramatic increase in Chinese military bases overseas, which to date the US
00:54:05
really has had a monopoly on. this soft power translates to hard power and
00:54:11
people don't realize again these people don't think long term morons well the whole basis of an elected
00:54:19
official at the end of the day it goes back to strategy what are you do what are you supposed to do that's really
00:54:24
hard what are you supposed to do that's really hard you're supposed to prevent a tragedy of the commons over the medium
00:54:30
and the long term you're supposed to ensure security doesn't go an interjection here because there's just a
00:54:35
new story from New York Times say that Trump administration abruptly cuts billions from state health services. This is across our country. States have
00:54:42
been told they can no longer use grants that were funding infectious disease management and addiction services. They've cut 12 billion in federal grants
00:54:49
to states are being used to track infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment, and other urgent health issues. That means these
00:54:57
state health departments who are already underfunded are are in real trouble. They received notices Monday the funds
00:55:04
which were allocated are being terminated. Um and let me just say in Leach, Texas, public health officials,
00:55:10
this is not to these are red states, just so you know, red state people, their leopard's about to eat your face.
00:55:15
Public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by these three grants that helped fund the response to the widing measles outbreak
00:55:22
there. According to Katherine Wells, on Tuesday, some health departments were praying to lay off dozens of epidemiologists and data scientists.
00:55:29
This is this is the same thing. This is goodwill and the things that the government does that are effective for
00:55:35
people and it's going to be the same issue in this country. The question is who's going to come into the into the
00:55:41
breach, right? And which is what you're talking about with the Chinese doing that. I don't know if you'd like to link those. I mean, I like that. No, I think
00:55:47
that it's that makes sense. It's the same attitude across this country and it will have repercussions. Uh but but the
00:55:55
the the the people or the entities that will fill the void abroad are foreign
00:56:00
nations, some of which have do not have our best interest at heart. I don't think of China as an enemy. I think of them as a competitor, maybe even an
00:56:07
adversary. The the organizations that'll fill the void in the US are for-profit
00:56:13
organizations that over the medium and the long term will probably demand margin. So what happens when the
00:56:19
government vacates from these services is private and this is what they want. They want private enterprise running all
00:56:25
prisons. They want private they want to privatize social security because then corporations will insert themselves in
00:56:31
the middle. In some ways they're more innovative. In some ways they're more productive. But this way they're just interested in making money. That's what
00:56:38
they do. Yeah. I know. And that's not good for the public. They'll get monopoly power on the jails in whatever
00:56:44
this part of the county or this part of the state. they will slowly raise the rates and we will end up paying more for
00:56:51
less. There are certain things that should be delivered at scale. The electricity in a city needs a monopoly
00:56:58
and in order to have monopolies you have to have regulators such that they don't enact monopoly pricing power. So this is
00:57:06
abroad our adversaries will fill the void domestically with these businesses that they're cutting. You'll see private
00:57:12
enterprise move in and over the medium and the long term the consumer will lose. Ex. Exactly. All right. Elsewhere
00:57:18
in the Scott and Cara universe this week, um, on Prof, Scott spoke with Karsten Brazesi, a chief Eurozone
00:57:26
economist for ING. Scott's been talking a lot about Europe, uh, what's going on in Europe. Let's listen to a clip. In
00:57:32
German, debt means the same as guilt. Yeah. So, and then and I think that is
00:57:38
not the only language. Um, but but that is an important one. Yeah. Um so somehow debt like government debt always had had
00:57:45
a negative a negative connotation. So Germany was clearly the fiscally frugal
00:57:50
country which could tell the southern European economies to also do asterity.
00:57:56
So interesting discussion uh about what's happening there. I thought it was I listened to it. It's good. Yeah. I'm
00:58:01
convinced if my um co-host on property markets was German, we just wouldn't be successful. Yeah. Let's look let's talk
00:58:08
about the AI and Z market. It just doesn't have the same ring as when a
00:58:14
British guy is talking about it. Oh, it's a good German joke, huh? But the thing he was talking about, I don't
00:58:20
think it got fully across. The German word for debt translates to guilt in English. Isn't that interesting? They
00:58:25
have and they're about to kind of unchain their their fiscal strength for infrastructure spending and military
00:58:31
spending, which I think is going to be a big deal. But you know, and you've been talking about the European and now
00:58:37
suddenly I'm seeing stories in the Wall Street Journal how the place you shouldn't um should invest in is uh is
00:58:43
Germany. Just what was my stock pick? What was my stock pick for 2025? You were great in the Europe. You got European value. Just for people who
00:58:49
don't speak German, which I do. Should uh the shield is debt. The debt uh
00:58:54
suddenly means blame, guilt, fault, liability, trespasses. So shield,
00:59:01
you know, and when you say excuse me, and shuligan or something like that. Something like that. My favorite German is farfanugan. Farf. You love that word.
00:59:08
You love it's the best. Great ad campaign. All right. Uh let's um that's
00:59:14
our show. Uh thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on
00:59:19
Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Laura Neon Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Todd
00:59:26
engineered this episode. Ronnie Paladaro edited this video. Thanks also to Juvaros Mero and Dan Shalon. Nishak
00:59:33
Kerwis is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcast. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New
00:59:39
York Magazine Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week
00:59:45
for another breakdown of all things tech and business. That's right, a whiskey
00:59:52
emoji dancing and Olympic. The dog is in the chat.
