00:00:00
Let me give a news flash to every pivot listener. Okay. Okay. News flash. Anybody close to Trump hates his guts.
00:00:11
Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Carara Swisser and guess
00:00:17
what kicks off today? Scottree August.
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[Music] That's right. It's the first week of Scot-free August when the dogs away and
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the jungle cat gets to experiment with a bunch of different co-hosts. And today
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I'm with the one and only Anthony Scaramucci Mooch uh the mooch, a lawyer,
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podcaster, founder, and managing partner at Skybridge Capital. And you remember uh that he did a quick 11-day stint in
00:00:48
the White House during President Trump's first term. But that's in the past, actually. I I don't think about that as much. Anthony, welcome.
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All right. Well, I'm very I'm very flattered. I appreciate that you you're never invited into my apartment or my
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kitchen. Carara, you'll have to stay in the living room when you come over. I just want to make sure you know that.
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No, I'm going to look through all your things in your That was incredible. That was A+ trolling car.
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I was in He's referring to a video of me in Scott's apartment looking through his things, which I do constantly.
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And if I came to your apartment, I'd be right up in your medicine chest, just so you know. Yes. And you would you would learn that
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I have a lot of skin products. Uhhuh. Okay. Lots of moisturizer shrimp semen. What do you have? What is your
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No, I don't No, I haven't gone into that yet. I I probably should talk to some of the actresses about that. But no, I just
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general stuff. Retina, retina, and things like that. All right. Well, what would be the craziest thing I would find in your
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closet? H the man there's too many cra I mean the craziest thing that you would find
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in my closet is the original hood from Batman
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the 1966 uh television series with Adam West with Adam West. Yeah. I p
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you know I'm a I'm a superhero kid. You I grew up with comics and superheroes and was four or five years old when he
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was on TV and I thought he was hip and cool. Um I used to own the Batmobile. Uh, I
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had I I owned the Batman Returns Batmobile, the one where uh Danny DeVito
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played the Penguin and Michael Keaton uh was in the movie with uh Michelle Feifer. She was the cowboy.
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I know this. What What do you mean you owned it? Where did you put it? Uh you have to store Well, that was the big issue. So, I had it uh for many
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years. It cost a lot of money to store it. Lots of What did it cost to buy? What did it cost to buy? So, that car is probably worth about $3
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million now. I bought the car for 150 and I sold it
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Yeah. 150,000. This is 20 years ago. I sold it for 300. Uh but if I kept it, it
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was a little It would have been a great investment, but you know what? I didn't keep it. And uh life goes on. But I Did you drive it?
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Uh yes, I did. Yeah. It's on It's on an F150 frame. It does not drive well, frankly.
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There's a little propane tank in the back. Uh it's not registered. You can't insure
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it. It's a show car, but there is a there is a button that you can click and it shoots the propane flame out of the
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battery. That sounds dangerous. That sounds very dangerous. You know, if you're an overgrown 12-year-old, it's one of the funnest
00:03:18
things you can own. Can I ask you a personal question? Do you put on that outfit? The bat. Did you
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get it dry cleaned? Yeah. I'm going to bring my wife on the podcast. She'll let you know. I I chase her around in the bedroom with the hood
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and the cape. I actually don't do that, but I wish I wish I did that, but I don't do that. Yeah. You know what I love most? I like
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when he used to dance. You didn't buy the Robin outfit. You didn't do that. I didn't buy the Robin outfit. No, I
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Bert Ward was obviously a very colorful, fun guy, but I I uh I identified more with the aloof Batman.
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All right. When I come over, you're putting that thing on and we're having some fun. We're having some fun. I don't know what we're going to do. Definitely hiding that from you.
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No way. That is so Now that I know. Anyway, uh I'm so thrilled you're here. There's so much to talk to you about,
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but we've got tons to get to, including MAGA's war chest, which is huge. uh nuclear submarines and the latest on the
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Epstein saga. I'm excited to hear what you have to say. But first, Democratic members of the Texas House of
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Representatives have fled the state in an attempt to stop Republicans from adopting a redrawn congressional map.
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Republican state legislature has been pushing for a map that flips five Democratic congressional districts in favor of Republicans. Governor Greg
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Abbott called the Democratic uh the departure of the Democrats an abandonment of or forfeite of an elected
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state office, saying he would take steps to remove the missing Democrats if they don't return. Uh and then of course a
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lot of Democratic governors, including Gavin Newsome, are threatening to do the same in their states. Thoughts on this
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strategy? Terrible terrible strategy. They should get together and declare a dant
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statewide dance. uh uh people like you and me, it's very important for us uh to
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explain to the American people what they're doing. Okay? Gerrymandering everybody is when the politician picks
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the voter. In a liberal democracy, the voter is supposed to pick the politician. And so these guys have
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totally corrupted the system. Uh the Republicans did this better than the Democrats early on. There was something
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called Operation Red Map. Cara, you probably remember that. They went into the state and local legislators. the
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Koch family was big big donors to this and they influence the local elections to get the local elections to redistrict
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the congressional districts. Trump is looking at the map and he's thinking to himself, I'm going to lose the house. Uh
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I'm not a popular president. He's below 40%. Uh I'm going to lose the house. He calls up Governor Abbott. It says, I
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need five Republican congressional seats. Uh and this will cause an escalation of complete nonsense. You and
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I both know that the American leaders were once public servants. We're now in the age of public selfervants.
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They're serving themselves and they're and they're doing terrible things to the American people. And this is an example
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of that. So what happens here? What is the game? If if if they do this and they get these
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Democratic legislators back, they can't take them out of office. Or maybe they can in Texas. They probably can. No, but
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they'll re they they'll get them back to force the vote and cause the redistricting, which is legal and is
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allowable to cause the redistricting of the of the districts, which will allow
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more Republicans on a percentage basis into those districts. And then the Democrats will probably lose those House
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seats. And so Nuome is saying, "Okay, I can do that. There's some Republican districts here in California. Let me get
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the chainsaw out and let me redistrict." And so, uh, I mean, this is something people should know. That is what's been
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going on for about 150 years. Uh, very very bad. We we we we would need a
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constitutional amendment, frankly, to end gerrymandering. Maybe AI could pick the districts, make the districts flat,
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make the districts even. It would cut the extremist in the society, but it would also end the in redundancy of
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incumbency. Right. Okay. So, that's what's going If Abbott does this, should Nuome do the same
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thing? Just Well, he will do it. No. No. So, if Abbott does it in New York, he will definitely do it and then you'll have an
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escalation and you'll have a you'll have an escalating war. You're asking me if he should.
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In a normative world, they should deescalate. They should cut the nonsense. They're not serving the
00:07:25
American people. But, you know, there's something that someday we're all going to have to write about. Uh maybe you and I won't be here.
00:07:32
I don't know. But 50 years from now, someone will write, "What the hell? How did this orange spray tanned maniac get
00:07:41
a hold of one of these parties like this where everybody is crippled with moral
00:07:47
weakness, moral depravity and just literally allowing him to do whatever the hell he wants. Uh, and he and he
00:07:54
laughs at these. I know the guy. So when they're kissing his ass, Cara, he's
00:07:59
laughing at them, right? you know, he's picking up the phone. He's calling his friend Car Swisser say, "Can you believe
00:08:05
Governor Abbott is actually willing to do this for me?" Yeah. You know, he's doing that, right? So, speaking of which, he he said he
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planned to appoint a new commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics over the next three or four days. He fired the head of the agency last week
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following a jobs report that showed weak hiring in July, a major downward revisions to jobs created in May and
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June. These revisions happen all the time, by the way. Trump called the jobs numbers phony and rigged, his favorite
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two words, uh, and offered no evidence except my opinion. His economic adviser, Kevin Hasset, who's quite a minion,
00:08:35
defended the move in an interview with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. Let's listen. Is the president prepared to fire anyone
00:08:42
who reports data that he disagrees with? No, absolutely not. The president wants his own people there so that when we see
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the numbers, uh, they're more transparent and more reliable. And if there are big changes and big revisions,
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uh we expect more big revisions for the jobs data in September, for example, then we want to know why. We want people
00:08:59
to explain it to us. Yeah, they need to be explained to. We've seen this firing regune from Trump many times as you well know. Um but is
00:09:06
he taking it to a whole new level here? Your thoughts on this because this you you and your Wall Street pals must be
00:09:11
freaked out by this one. Well, I mean you listen I I don't think I don't think anybody on Wall Street's
00:09:17
freaked out anymore. I mean, that was a freakout moment in 2018. And in this
00:09:22
moment, now you're going to expect anything from Donald Trump. You may remember this is sort of obscure now,
00:09:27
but Jack Welch, the very high-profile CEO of GE, questioned the job reports
00:09:33
numbers under the Obama administration once. And so, this is a political tactic. Uh, I find those statistics,
00:09:40
like the CBO, to be very nonpartisan. The numbers are the numbers. Uh I will
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say that they can be antiquated though car you know like you know the the cliche statistics are lies there are
00:09:53
damn lies and then there are statistics we can make statistics look any way that we want and so I I don't think it's the
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right thing to do to to do that he would be better advised to say okay how are we
00:10:06
getting this data now and can this data be sourced better and sourced in real
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time given all the great technology we have in the country to make the data a little bit less laggy and a little bit
00:10:18
more accurate uh in real time. And so he's not going to do that. But here's the irony and I push this back to you
00:10:24
for a second. Uh this data supports a rate cut. And so he's railing on Jerome Pal. I
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what I don't understand is why didn't he take the data and say this is purely voracious data. It's absolutely
00:10:39
accurate. And this more emphasizes that the Federal Reserve chair uh and the
00:10:44
board there is on the wrong side of where rates are. And so so why didn't he, you know, it's it's an interesting
00:10:50
question because I think his knee-jerk reaction was, "Oh the economy is doing way worse than it did under Joe
00:10:57
Biden." And of course, I can't let my minions because these people will believe anything I say, can shoot people
00:11:03
on Fifth Avenue, deny him on the Epstein list. I can do all these different things. And so let me keep the narrative
00:11:08
going that there's another conspiracy a foot and that they're lying about the statistics because it's an Obama/Biden
00:11:17
legacy appointee in their group in there doing the statistics. But he would have been better served actually to say,
00:11:23
"Hey, this is accurate. Where is Jerome Pal? Why is he not cutting rates?" Because Trump clearly wants a rate cut
00:11:29
for various different reasons. So right so that that that's the irony there. I'm surprised it didn't go in that direction
00:11:34
here that would satis will Wall Street freak out about this or not at all. I don't I don't think so. I think I
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think Wall Street has said to themselves and this is the weird thing about Wall Street. Wall Street says that this guy's
00:11:47
gone in three and a half years. Uh but I submit back to Wall Street, do you know
00:11:52
anybody that builds a $200 million ballroom onto their house and then moves out in three and a half years? I'm just
00:11:59
pointing that out to people. a guy's making expansive renovations to the White House. Doesn't smell like a guy
00:12:04
that wants to leave anytime soon. So, I think we're going to be up for a potential fight there. But, I think Wall
00:12:09
Street looks at this and says, "Okay, this guy's leaving in three and a half years. There'll be a cleanup on aisle 7.
00:12:14
He's breaking all the pickle jars at the local supermarket. There'll be a cleanup. There'll either be a Democrat
00:12:20
that comes in or a non-personality cult member because I do believe this is a
00:12:25
personality cult and it will die off with Trump. someone else will come in and be a little bit more normal. Won't
00:12:32
be able to g get away with the nonsense that Trump is getting away with. And so Wall Street's like, "Okay, we can live
00:12:38
with this for three and a half years. Tariffs are ridiculous." Guys like Jamie Diamond are saying, "So far so good."
00:12:44
But, you know, they're mumbling in the back room saying, "What a disaster." uh uh you know Jason Ferman actually had
00:12:50
a great piece in the New York Times over the weekend describing that the tariffs are not going to put a cause a great
00:12:56
recession or a potential depression but they are slowing down the economy and
00:13:02
they are slowing down capital allocation decisions in the economy and it's frankly starting to show up in the data.
00:13:08
So uh you know this is the again the MAGA narrative is ho ho ho still got a
00:13:14
strong economy despite our tariffs but the real narrative should be no the tariffs haven't fully kicked in yet
00:13:20
right so speaking of that he's continuing his mission to upend global trade he launched a new round of tariffs targeting over 60 US trading partners
00:13:27
and set take effect August 7th they keep moving the these dates these tariffs range from about 10% to 40% Canada is at
00:13:34
35% India is at 25% which Trump says he's going to Greece because India is buying oil from Russia and somewhat
00:13:41
inexplicably Switzerland is at 39%. He's already signaling more tariffs to come including pharmaceuticals,
00:13:47
semiconductors and critical minerals. The markets initially fell on the tariff news as well as in the jobs report they
00:13:52
seem to have rebounded as Monday morning. Um, as you say, they're just they're just sort of a wait and see kind
00:13:58
of thing or or are they is Wall Street actually concerned even if they're
00:14:04
trashing? I think Wall Street thinks that all of this stuff ends up at about 10%. Possibly 15. Uh, terrible but
00:14:13
tolerable. I think that's how Wall Street looks at it. I don't think that 39% number that you're referencing in
00:14:19
Switzerland is going to stick. I think that's a remnant number from April 2nd. You remember when he came down, you
00:14:26
know, he's like orange Moses coming down from Mount Evil with the tablet. You know, he's like walking in. No one knows
00:14:32
what the hell he's talking about. I think that's one of those things that's like left over uh the 39% and I think that's going to
00:14:38
get reversed. I know the the Swiss government is frantic about getting that reversed. They're working on it right
00:14:45
now and I think that will I think these things settle out 10 to 15. Uh the person that's handled Trump
00:14:51
better than anybody my opinion is Mark Carney. Mark Carney has held the
00:14:56
ground there. Uh there's no way that the American economy can have a 35% uh
00:15:02
reciprocal tariff with Canada. It's just not not not sustainable. You'll you'll knock you'll knock everybody out of
00:15:08
business. You know, you have lobster men that are buying they're they're catching lobster in US waters, but they're
00:15:14
sending it across the border to have it processed in Canadian processing fans and then sent back. So you'll you'll
00:15:21
knock the price up 70% in terms of the way the tariffs work. You'll put everybody out of business. You hurt the
00:15:27
restaurant industry, which most businesses have been absorbing until now, right? They've been
00:15:32
Look at the Look at the GM print. GM lost a billion dollars by absorbing the cost. But you know who isn't absorbing
00:15:38
it car is uh Las Vegas. Las Vegas not absorbing it because they've lost the
00:15:44
Canadian tourists. They've lost the UK tourists. They've lost the guys coming
00:15:49
in from Australia that used to gamble and go crazy in Las Vegas. uh you have no tax on tips, but you have a 50%
00:15:56
reduction in revenue for the people that are receiving the tips. So, so Trump's nonsense, his rhetoric has really hurt
00:16:04
tourism. I mean, there's an estimate of about 80 to 90 billion of tourist revenues that have been lost in the US.
00:16:11
And so, and so rhetoric matters when you're the president. These tariffs though, Wall Street again saying 10 to
00:16:17
15%, somebody smart will come in and revise these things. Now,
00:16:23
who who's smart? Who in that administration? I know you probably are not a Lutnick fan would be my guess.
00:16:29
Well, you mean Howard Butnick? Butlick. Nutn Nutlick. You allowed to say Nutlick
00:16:34
on the loud. Whatever. Coward. Coward Nutlick. Is that what you're talking about? Is that who we're talking about?
00:16:40
That's who I'm talking about. I mean, you know, the guy's unbeliev I mean, and I I know Howard a long time.
00:16:45
Yeah, I bet. But Howard, if you said to me, there's a picture in the dictionary of PTOIC fever.
00:16:53
Mhm. Okay. It would be Howard Lutnik. Okay. PTOIC fever. I'm in the mix. I'm driving around in
00:17:00
the Secret Service van. I'm an important guy. I'm an important guy. The phone calls are coming in and I'm going to have this
00:17:06
very smug, arrogant, jerkoff smile on television every time I'm talking. I'm going to be pedantic and I'm going to be
00:17:13
demeaning to the interviewers. I mean I mean come on I don't know what you took the wrong pill. The side
00:17:20
effects of PTOIC fever are are career ruining. Uh and he's he's heading in
00:17:26
that direction. He should really calm down and get a grounding wire up his ass. Calm himself down a little bit.
00:17:32
Who do you like there? Who do you think? Besson. Yeah, I like Kevin's a good guy. Hazard's a very smart guy. He's
00:17:39
reasonable guy. He steered the president away from some of the really bad things. Bes Bessent or how you pronounce his
00:17:46
name, I know Scott a long time. Uh I think he is a person if you talk to the
00:17:52
Wall Street guys that really know him, he's blocked Trump on a few things. Uh even to the point where I think he said,
00:17:58
you know, I can't do this. Uh and so you may have to find somebody else. Of course, Trump capitulates when you tell
00:18:04
him that, particularly somebody like Bent where he needs him. Uh remember something about Treasury. Trump doesn't
00:18:10
give a about Treasury. Uh Trump wants the trains to run on time. He wants the bills for the American
00:18:15
government to be paid and he wants the taxes collected. The places he really
00:18:20
cares about are justice. That's a place he really cares about. Secretary of
00:18:26
State and Secretary of Defense. Okay. So, it's very important to him that he has full-on sickance and those roles,
00:18:34
right? Uh but Bet he's smart enough to know that he needs somebody that Wall Street is going to accept
00:18:41
and of course you know uh it's been reported so it's worth talking about. Jamie Diamond is now in direct
00:18:47
That's correct conversations with the president and he's a very moderate guy and he's trying to guide the president towards
00:18:54
doing things that are less stupid frankly. That's what he's there for. Yeah, that was an interesting I was like oh I see.
00:19:00
I like Jamie. He's probably the smartest of all of us. He's probably giving very
00:19:05
good advice to him and and and Trump probably looks up to him in a weird way or in some level uh has not respect but
00:19:12
just is probably thinks he's smarter than him and so we'll listen to him. So one of the things though that doesn't feel too smart speaking of State
00:19:18
Department, he's ordered two US nuclear subs to reposition near Russia just in case. That move was in response to a
00:19:25
series of fiery social media posts from former Russian President Medved. Medvev
00:19:30
warned in one post that each new ultimatum Trump issues over the Ukraine is a threat and a step towards war. And
00:19:38
the Kremlin has responded to Trump's move saying, "We believe everyone should be very careful about new legal
00:19:43
rhetoric." I would agree with that. Trump is also threatening sanctions unless Russia ends the war by August
00:19:48
8th, which is ne the end of this week. Uh but Putin has dismissed pressure for
00:19:53
a ceasefire. Talk about what he's doing here from your perspective. Well, I mean saber rattling. I don't
00:19:59
think I don't think it's it's a much to do about nothing. I think it's a good news story. It shows his base that he
00:20:06
has some muscularity. The Iranian hit showed some muscularity. His base likes
00:20:11
that. Why he is threatening them when he spent his almost both administrations sucking
00:20:17
up to them is really interesting to me. Why now? Why here? Why Well, he doesn't have Well, well, okay.
00:20:23
I can answer that. So, so what's happening to Trump is that the the lame duck clock is ticking.
00:20:29
Uh, he's 18 months away from being a full-on lame duck. And there's a little bit of flex by some of the conservative
00:20:36
Republicans that are for Democratic freedoms. And there's also some institutional memory in the Congress,
00:20:42
particularly the Senate, related to the security guarantees that President Clinton signed in 1994 when the Ukraine
00:20:50
government gave up their nukes in exchange for these security guarantees. So there are a group of
00:20:55
institutionalists in McConnell's theun that have gone to Trump and said, "Hey,
00:21:01
you you're you're not being tough enough. You've gota you got to help these guys more. can have a defeated
00:21:08
Ukraine government at this point. And so Trump is under the gun. He's afraid of Putin. I think we have to state that
00:21:15
publicly. Uh I always tell people if the windows open, Cara, and you hear clippity clap, it's it's a horse. It's
00:21:22
not a zebra. You got to look at the obvious. They've got something on him that scares the living out of him.
00:21:29
And he won't move against Putin. And you'd have to say to yourself, well, Putin's got a declining country. his GDP
00:21:35
now is 14% smaller than Italy. Uh he's got a failed defense department or war
00:21:41
department. Just look at what's going on there. Uh and so how could a very rich man, which Trump is, who runs the
00:21:48
largest military and arguably one of the most powerful nations in the history of the world, be cowtowing to Vladimir
00:21:55
Putin? And the answer is they got something on him. And they got something on him that scares the living daylights
00:22:01
out of yet he rattles the sabers here. Why? Just for because he has to because I know Trump's personality. So he's a great
00:22:08
compartmentalist. He's got pressure on him from these congressional leaders. And so he has to do something.
00:22:14
But he never does the thing. He'll say 50 days. He'll say 10 days. He'll say 22 days. But he never never
00:22:23
does it because he's so afraid of Putin. You know, he could he could bitchlap
00:22:28
Putin super hard. He could send those high mars. He could send more Patriot batteries. He could get permission to
00:22:36
launch a few ICBMs into Russia from Ukraine territory. He could do all those
00:22:42
things and it would probably collapse the Putin government and it would probably cause a
00:22:48
replacement of Vladimir Putin. Of course, we'd have to worry about that from an intelligence perspective. There could be harder right radicals. Maybe we
00:22:55
don't want Putin necessarily replaced as much as we want him contained. But there's a lot of things that Trump could
00:23:01
do. He's not willing to do them because he's scared of Vladimir Putin.
00:23:06
Yeah, they're using words like that. Okay, Anthony, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's super PAC ras in the cash and we'll talk
00:23:13
Epstein as well. Support for the show comes from Framer. Kids today, they
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apply. Anthony, we're back. Mega Inc. uh Donald
00:24:18
Trump's main super PAC is currently sitting on a war chest of nearly $200 million according to a new FEC filing.
00:24:25
Donors include Elon Musk, who gave $15 million to MAGA and the other GOP packs just weeks after his spat with Trump,
00:24:31
venture capitalist Mark Anderson, who's always creepily around the basket, and Tik Tok
00:24:38
investor Jeffrey Yas. Contributions also came in from crypto executives, an energy, which makes sense to me, an
00:24:44
energy company, and a mother seeking a pardon for her son who got one. A spokes uh spokeswoman for Maga, Inc. rejected
00:24:51
claims that the donations were exchanged for access saying Trump quote cannot be bought and the works and works toward
00:24:57
the best interest of the country. Uh it feels pay to play to me. New York Times had a pretty devastating piece about
00:25:03
that. Um but does the money go towards helping Republicans in the midterms or is Trump really considering that uh
00:25:09
third term which you referenced just a second ago? Well, I think you have to take Trump seriously about him wanting a
00:25:17
third term, and I think you have to take Steve Bannon seriously about him running for a third term. Now, up against that,
00:25:23
he'll be 82 years old. It looks like he does have some vascular issues. I mean,
00:25:28
they've reported that, so let's say that that's probably true. And he's got an unsteady gate, and he is he's getting
00:25:33
older. Uh, but I I don't think a guy like him leaves power
00:25:39
easily. I just don't think that. And so I hope that and I hope that uh my
00:25:45
buddies who are institutionalists in Washington say that that's the last stand for them. Uh that they will fight
00:25:51
that tooth and nail. Those are Republicans saying that who I'm still a donor to several of these Republican senators. But I don't I don't know. I
00:25:59
you have to take him literally and seriously when he's thinking about these things. Uh I don't think that money goes
00:26:05
to lots of people in the midterms. Trump is for Trump. He's not for other people. He doesn't give a And so I think
00:26:12
this is something very smart that he's done though and I think people should understand this. He's not a traditional
00:26:18
politician. A traditional politician, an Obama, a George W. Bush stops raising money in their second term, right, for
00:26:26
their own packs. He didn't do that. And I think he's now setting a precedent for future politicians to not do that
00:26:33
because that will give him, let's say he was a normal politician. Oh, I got leverage now in the system long after
00:26:39
I'm lame duck and I can pick and choose who I'm going to give this money to in different congressional races. I don't
00:26:45
think Trump's going to do that. Trump will figure out a way to use that money. And this is what Trump is doing with the
00:26:51
corruption. You know, uh I think the the pardons are going up now probably $und00 million now for a pardon. I think you
00:26:57
they started at the $3 to5 million level and Trump should just put out a retail
00:27:02
price list, you know, say, "Look, here's here's the list for all the that you can get from me." You know, you want to come out dinner with me, you're a
00:27:08
crypto guy, 5 million. You want a pardon now? It's got to be 100 million. Cuz you didn't go to that dinner, did you?
00:27:13
Did you go to that dinner? No, I haven't I haven't seen or been around Trump. You want to know the last
00:27:19
time I talked to Trump? What? When? That was It was April. It was Easter Sunday. uh April of 2019, he called me.
00:27:28
I thought he was calling me to wish me a happy Easter, but he wasn't. He was calling me to lay into me because I had
00:27:34
written an article that said that it was an open letter to the president. The press is not the enemy of the people.
00:27:41
Stop saying that. The press is there to protect the people, but it's also the font of our financial innovation. You
00:27:47
and I have talked about this. Being able to speak freely in a society, you teach second grade children that they can
00:27:53
speak freely. they go on and become Caris Swisser or they create a Facebook or they create an iPhone. Uh other
00:27:59
countries that don't do that, they have to steal our technology. And Trump got really pissed at me, laid into me
00:28:06
and he and he told me that I was deep stater and some other that he said. And that was the last time he spoke. So
00:28:11
no, I haven't been around Trump since. Happy Easter. Yeah, happy Easter. What do you say when someone says that?
00:28:17
Okay, I disagree and I think you're being wrong. I think you're wrong. I think history is going to judge what I'm
00:28:22
saying to be more right than you, right? And then he more or less abruptly hung up the phone. Oh wow.
00:28:28
By but I got in the happy Easter. By the way, he did he did the rightly say happy Easter back to me.
00:28:33
He's a miserable dude. You know, he's a miserable dude. Let me give a news flash to every pivot listener. Okay.
00:28:38
Okay. News flash. Anybody close to Trump hates his guts. Okay. If you're in Trump's orbit, you're
00:28:44
in the first electron orbit. Laura Loomer seems to like him. Who does? Laura Loomer. Laura Loomer seems to
00:28:51
you know I think Laura's not in the I don't think she's in the first electron orbit I'm talking about you got to be in
00:28:56
the first electron orbit you're Melania Trump you move out of the goddamn white house you know you got to get if you're
00:29:04
Ivanka and Jared you got to stay away because he eviscerated Jared after the Abraham Accord thing and so you got to
00:29:11
get out of his electron orbit but if you're in the vortex of the orbit General Kelly orbit
00:29:17
HR McMaster You pick the person, they hate the guy's guts. Uh because they see how malevolent of a
00:29:24
guy he is. They see how dishonest and how ruthless he is and and that that rubs off on you,
00:29:29
Cara Swisser. If you're sitting around it too long, you start toxic. Sounds like it. Speaking of Speaking of toxic,
00:29:36
let's do a quick rundown of latest happenings with the Epstein saga, which I predicted would continue, and it is.
00:29:41
Uh Charlemagne the God suggested the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein information is causing a political coup among Republicans on Fox
00:29:48
News. Trump reacted on Truth Social, saying the radio host knows nothing. Gelain Maxwell has been moved to a
00:29:54
minimum security prison camp in Texas against sexual offenders aren't allowed there, but she has been allowed. And
00:30:01
Republicans are still split on which side to take as polling shows almost 80% of Trump voters in favor of releasing
00:30:08
the files. I I have not talked to you about this. um thoughts on what's happening and how long it lasts because
00:30:14
everyone felt it was a distraction. I never did because it's at the core of QAnon. It's at the core of the deep
00:30:19
state stuff and he himself has has fed these toxic creatures uh for far too
00:30:25
long for them to just give up. Well, I I think he's going to survive
00:30:31
this, too. I mean, maybe I'm on the other side of this trade than you. I think he survives it. Well, I think he survives it. I just think it's damaging. That's what
00:30:37
Well, I think I think it's damaging. And maybe Charlemagne's right. It sets up a 26
00:30:42
divergence. Meaning I there could be conservative Republicans that say I'm MAGA light or I'm a little less MAGA.
00:30:50
I'm MAGA without Taylor Green doing it constantly. Yeah, maybe I'm MAGA without pedophilia. I don't know. That could be a good
00:30:55
bumper sticker. I don't you know I'm I'm you know I'm I'm 18 plus. I'm not 14 and
00:31:02
below. These disgusting sons of But but Trump is, you know, he's where
00:31:08
there's smoke, there's fire. Okay? You can't see him with Epstein. The letter
00:31:13
has got Trump so crazed because the letter plus the doodling on the letter
00:31:19
is implying something that Trump does not want out there in the marketplace, which is why he's put a $10 billion
00:31:26
speed bump together against Rupert Murdoch and his in News Corp. But, you know, and Rupert doesn't give a
00:31:31
You know, Rupert hates Trump like everybody else, and his attitude is, "I'm 94, have at it. Let me drop a few
00:31:38
more bombs on you. We have the bombs." Okay. So, now again, you have to tell me
00:31:43
if there's something unthinkably nefarious. I'm not going to say what it is, but you know what it is, and your
00:31:49
viewers and listeners know what it is. If that comes out and it's in incontrovertible, it's not AI generated.
00:31:56
It's not any of that. It's incontrovertible evidence of something unthinkably nefarious. Is that enough to
00:32:02
remove Trump? I think you think it is. I just think that he never get, you
00:32:08
know, oh, the McCain thing is going to ruin him. Doesn't ruin him. Oh, we're going to grab him by the, you know what,
00:32:13
in the in the bus with Billy Bush. No, it doesn't. Nothing hurts Trump. Mhm.
00:32:19
It could damage him. the insurrection. Yeah, the insurrection. I mean, to get people are dying. He fermented the
00:32:26
violence. They have him on tape doing it. They had his former chief of staff.
00:32:31
Uh, basically was going to be their key witness. He wins the election. I think we should stipulate for the pivot
00:32:37
people, he's one of the luckiest son of a on the planet. Every time he flips the coin, it comes up his way. So,
00:32:44
you know, I don't I don't think he gets knocked out by this, but I do think that
00:32:49
just Galain thing is interesting. See, so the Galain thing is like, okay, let me send my lawyer who I trust. Hey, let
00:32:57
me knock on the Gain, are you there? Hello, are you there? Okay, listen. I
00:33:03
know you know a lot of bad stuff. Keep your mouth shut. We're going to move you to a minimum security prison. We're
00:33:09
going to make it easier for you. You listening? And then in about 6 months when this blows over, we're going to
00:33:16
commute your sentence or we're going to give you work relief or we're going to do something for you, but you got to
00:33:22
keep your mouth shut. It's a it's a great mob move. They're doing it right out in the open like the way the KGB
00:33:28
would do it. So, it's keep your mouth shut cuz if she starts to just tell on Democrats, that's a problem, too. Correct.
00:33:34
No, no, no. You got to keep your mouth shut. You got to keep your mouth shut because because as us Italians, you and me know
00:33:40
as you got to keep your mouth shut. That's like a full-on Sicilian move. The code of silence. And uh and by the way,
00:33:47
with Omera, you keep your mouth shut. We're going to take Remember, when a mobster went to jail, keep your mouth shut. We're going to take care of your
00:33:53
family and they're going to get vig from our operations to take care of your sons and daughters and your wife. And when
00:33:58
you come out of jail, we're going to get you a job. Now, you could end up like Sylvester Stallone in Oklahoma, but you're going to get a job, right? And
00:34:05
so, so that's what it is and that's what Trump and Todd Blanch are trying to do. I think that's pretty obvious. And but
00:34:11
this is the thing that makes me laugh. You know, John Thun, you're an American jellyfish. I mean,
00:34:16
you should write, you write such great books like burn book and like that. You should write the American jellyfish,
00:34:22
you know, starring John Thoon and Mitch McConnell starring, you know, the
00:34:27
American jellyfishes. What are you guys doing? You're really this big of cowards. You got a guy that's morally
00:34:33
depraved. He's bringing down your party. He's a millstone on the morality of the
00:34:39
American people. We always like when you and I were growing up, we like to think of America in our
00:34:45
patriotism as benevolent and generous and goodnatured America that was going
00:34:51
to help other nations. And now we have this morally depraved lunatic in the
00:34:57
White House that's stealing our thunder and is reducing our soft power all over
00:35:02
the world. Okay, which is never a good thing for a superpower. By the way, you can go throughout 5,000 years of history
00:35:08
and know that's never a good thing. Uh and yet he's doing that. We're allowing him to do that because we got a
00:35:14
bunch of bozos that are supposed to check him, the American jellyfishes. Uh
00:35:20
what are you guys doing? And the answer is no. We're going to wait Trump out. Wait him out. We're so afraid of him and
00:35:25
we're afraid of his MAGA base. Yeah. So why when when do they turn there? Is there a Scott?
00:35:31
Well, the midterm that's that's why Trump has got all that money in the war chest. You know, he he knows they're coming for him in the midterms. Uh you
00:35:39
know, you remember that scene in the Wizard of Oz where the witch gets accidentally hit by the water bucket and
00:35:46
she starts melting. It's actually like an orange witch, though. He's not really like the green wish, but he's like an
00:35:51
orange wicked witch of the West Wing. The water's about to hit Trump. Okay. And that's like a November 2026
00:35:59
water hit. And as he starts to melt, these guys, oh, you know, we we didn't mean this or oh, we didn't realize this
00:36:05
or oh, we're sorry about that. If he melts, if in fact water hits, like, let me let me say this to you. I
00:36:11
want you to really think about this. Okay. All right. They're running around saying they're going to arrest Clinton,
00:36:16
Hillary Clinton. They're going to arrest Barack Obama. Okay. It's all contraindicated from an intelligence
00:36:23
report that the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Marco Rubio,
00:36:28
signed off on, which was irrefutable that everything that they're saying is not true. Why are they doing that?
00:36:35
They're doing that to distract you. They're doing that to rev up the MAGA base. They're look they're doing that to
00:36:41
say don't look at the man behind the curtain that's flapping behind the curtain. Focus on this which is
00:36:49
important to you. Obama is bad. There's underlying racism to that. By the way, I
00:36:54
think you know that honestly I just don't think it works. I don't think it works. I think the Epstein stuff is much No, it hasn't
00:36:59
hasn't worked yet. He's he's he's tried with the Washington commanders and the Cleveland Guardian Indians. He's
00:37:07
now going at it with the young woman who was in the Jean commercial. I think her name was Sydney Sweeney.
00:37:14
And yeah, so he's definitely trying stuff, you know. He's a Remember, he's the Napoleon of the culture war.
00:37:20
Like the the best thing that Trump has going for him are the Democrats. Yeah. Because he knows how to drop a bomb on
00:37:26
the battlefield and they run towards it and then he's doing something over here. You know, he's master of deflection.
00:37:32
All right, we're going to get to that now. Next, actually, um, we're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as
00:37:39
it winds down operations because there are very real repercussions to everything he's doing with these distractions. Anthony, we're back with
00:37:46
more news. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it will begin winding down operations following an over $1 billion cut in federal funding. The
00:37:53
move, it's not a very big, it's about 100 people. The move will, what they do is they distribute funds out to local
00:37:59
stations, a lot of them rural, by the way. The move will severely impact local operations of PBS and NPR. Both NPR and
00:38:06
PBS say they're committed to maintaining service after the closure. The CPB told employees most positions will be
00:38:12
eliminated on September 30th. Um this is a loss of uh local news in rural
00:38:17
communities. Uh this is a closing not of the big NPR stations or not of PBS
00:38:22
stations, but the small ones um which provide all kinds of news and other things like that and places that don't
00:38:28
have them. Um, and I'm going to link it with uh institutions worried about losing funding. The Smithsonian will
00:38:34
restore information about President Trump's impeachments after removing a placard on the topic in July. This was
00:38:39
reported by the Washington Post. The museum says the placard was removed after a review of legacy content which was demanded by the Trump administration
00:38:46
and was meant to be a temporary addition to a 25-year ex exhibition. The exhibition in question notes that only
00:38:52
three uh presidents have seriously faced removal. Andrew Johnson, uh, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. It's not true. A
00:38:59
person familiar with the plans told the Washington Post the content review took place following this pressure from the White House to remove an art museum
00:39:06
director. Um, so museums altering history, uh, closing down of long
00:39:11
institutions, which is something Republicans have wanted for a while, but it will actually affect uh the small the
00:39:17
small uh local news and rural communities more than anybody else. Um, this is more than a distraction because
00:39:23
it actually things happen. Things actually happen. I mean, this is this is Trump. He's the,
00:39:29
you know, look, there there were certain rules in Washington. Uh, the sacred cow of the left was the
00:39:36
public broadcasters. Uh, Ronald Reagan railed on it, but he never did anything. Remember, Ronald
00:39:42
Reagan railed on Roie Wade, but never did anything. And Trump has come into
00:39:47
town and he's basically now saying, "Hey, those sacred rules where we rail
00:39:54
on, you're on the left and you rail on something on the right and we and you don't do anything and vice versa, we're
00:40:00
ending that." And again, I just think it makes for a coarser society. Uh if
00:40:06
you're asking me practically, will the society survive the end of that? It will. Uh does it suck for those rural
00:40:13
areas? It does, but it will survive it. Okay. And could something else creep up
00:40:18
or could there be a publicly funded or non-publicly funded a charitably funded
00:40:24
replacement? It's all very possible. Uh but I think it it it to me it's more
00:40:29
about the rules, Cara. It's more about okay, we're going to smash people. We
00:40:35
don't want any civility to our government. We don't want anybody having lunch in the cloak room or the
00:40:42
cafeteria. They can barely work. Apparently, they can barely work out with each other in the gym. Now, they're in separate areas of the gym. And it's
00:40:50
just bad for America. That's that that's not how we got here, right? The idea was that we were going to have
00:40:56
some consensus. We're going to have some compromise and we're going to have some civility with each other. And Trump
00:41:03
doesn't like that because remember, uh there's nobody that Trump hates more
00:41:08
than himself. Nobody. Uh, which is why he's always got three things of a
00:41:13
self-hater. Humiliation rituals for people that you're insecure around. That's every world leader. He tries to
00:41:21
bring him into the White House and ens snare them in some type of humiliation ritual. Public humiliation
00:41:26
or Yeah. Or he'll bring him to Scotland even though he's the head of state, Kier Stormer. He's showing up at a guest in
00:41:32
his home country to be humiliated. Uh, where Trump is railing on the London mayor. And so what what self-haters do
00:41:40
is they they create and ferment hatred. They excoriate and try to humiliate
00:41:47
through humiliation rituals. And then the third thing they do is they want to
00:41:52
leave a stain and legacy of that. They want people to be turned on each other
00:41:59
because it makes them feel better. They get satisfaction out of seeing people turn on each other.
00:42:05
Right. Trump gets off on the idea that we're going after each other. He likes it.
00:42:11
So, those are things he's a I mean, he's he's a he's a you know, a lot of weird things about the guy. He's like a
00:42:16
weirdo, but like the self-hatred thing. Do not underestimate the self-hatred
00:42:21
thing. I don't. But there could be the side effects of all the orange that's going into his bloodream. You know what I mean?
00:42:27
But you you everyone talks about these are distractions. You've said it several times. These are actual things that
00:42:32
happen now. like we're changing things in museums, we're closing down this. And
00:42:38
so I was I was at a at a at a book fair this weekend and Jeff Goldberg, who has
00:42:43
had some good licks in on Trump with at the Atlantic, was saying, you know, that he does all these distractions. And I
00:42:49
almost got up and said, "Well, here's six things that actually happened because of the distractions. They aren't
00:42:54
they're not minor. They're we use that term a lot like but they're actually distractions with results, right? Like
00:43:02
this is something that the right has been trying to close down PBS for years or the corporation for this the years
00:43:08
decades. Oh, okay. But I let me just take the line. Think about what I'm saying
00:43:13
though. Uh we're going to close down PBS cuz it's going to make people sore and
00:43:21
it's a sacred cow that the Republicans always talked about but never did anything about. So now we're going to
00:43:27
drop a bomb here to widen the divide between us. Mhm. I see Trump wants to do that.
00:43:32
So, you have to understand that yes, there are distractions, but there's also I want to leave a legacy of disrepair
00:43:40
and hatred and I want you guys to hate each other after I leave. You know, cuz
00:43:45
by the way, Jackie O f her. I'm going to pave over her rose garden. Okay? Because
00:43:51
why am I going to do that? Cuz you're going to get triggered and pissed about that. And I want you triggered and
00:43:57
pissed because I hate myself so much that I want hatred to be an exponential
00:44:03
force for my personality. Like you know, Monroe had a doctrine, stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Truman had a
00:44:09
doctrine, we're going to contain communist communism. The Trump doctrine is a manifestation of his own
00:44:16
self-hatred. And once you see that prism clearly and you see, oh, okay, he hates
00:44:22
himself, so this is what he's going to do. Oh, wow. He's really afraid of Putin. Putin must really have something
00:44:28
on him that's scaring the living daylights out of him, which is why he's immobile and paralyzed against a guy
00:44:34
that's running a failed state with a declining population and high alcoholism. But I'm going to go I'm
00:44:40
going to go in that direction. But everything is through the the prism of selfhatred. So if he can hurt you, Cara,
00:44:46
he will. If he can humiliate you, he will. Uh, if he can put JD Vance in a meme where he
00:44:55
looks like a big fat Cabbage Patch doll riding in a separate clown car from him
00:45:00
as they're chasing Obama on the freeway in the OJ Bronco. He will. And by the way, JD says, "Haha, this was
00:45:07
funny." He's crying on the inside. He's crying on the inside. That's another episode for
00:45:12
No, but but Carrie, you have to understand is he because Trump is going to put him through. You remember that scene in Fargo where the guy's going
00:45:19
through the wood chipper? Yeah. That's JD Vance. Okay. Trump is going to throw him so definitively into the wood
00:45:26
chipper. Yeah. Because he doesn't he doesn't want a younger guy replacing him when he does a
00:45:32
total fiasco. So, who does he want? Just very briefly, who does he want? If you had to guess, who would you pick? Nobody.
00:45:37
Nobody. No. Remember when he fired that blonde girl? can't remember her name. The plond woman from the first season of
00:45:43
Apprentice. He replaced her with Ivanka. Remember she got a few speaking gigs and pissed him off.
00:45:49
Yeah. Right. And so that then he put Vankas. So if Ivanka and Don Jr. are not replacing him or Eric not replacing him,
00:45:55
nobody, you know, remember what remember what I know I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler,
00:46:01
but just remember this piece of history. When they told Hitler he was losing, he said, "Okay, great. Flood the coal
00:46:07
mines. bring down the electrical grid in the country, right? And they looked at him and said, "What?"
00:46:12
Yeah. Well, if there's not going to be a thousand-year Reich, there's not a Let's destroy the whole thing. If you had to pick one of the kids that
00:46:18
he would pick to run very briefly, which one would it be? Uh, well, you know, Ivanka is very
00:46:24
smart. She's very talented. She's capable. Eric is a very smart guy. You know, when I listen to Eric talk about
00:46:30
things like the blockchain, he understands it. Okay. But the heartbeat of MAGA is Donald Trump Jr., okay? They
00:46:38
they like him. Okay? And so I don't know, you know, I don't know which of those three, but I think Trump would be
00:46:45
happy with all three, but they're three different flavors. You know, Ivanka is basically a Democrat, right? So, you
00:46:51
know, probably no on her. Uh Eric is not politically motivated, uh, but he's
00:46:56
probably smarter, you know, than most people think. But it probably it would have to be Don Jr. Don Jr. is beloved by
00:47:03
the base. If you if you ever see him with the base, you'll know uh they hold him in very high regard.
00:47:10
And do you? Okay. So, I have a peace agreement with those guys. You know, when I got into
00:47:16
the fight with Trump, I always got along with them and my agreement with them was don't say anything bad about me on
00:47:23
Twitter. I won't say anything bad about you. Caris Swisser is going to ask you about me on the Pivot podcast 5 years
00:47:28
from now. Don't say anything bad about me. Yeah, and I have lived up to that agreement and they have lived up to that
00:47:34
agreement. So, I'll simply say I get on with those guys. Eric wanted to come to my uh Bitcoin conference in Wyoming. I
00:47:41
invited them. No problem. I think they know that their father wants to pick fights with lots of lots of people and I
00:47:48
don't think they want to be fighting with all the people that their father wants them to fight with. Got that makes sense. All right,
00:47:53
Anthony, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Anthony, let's hear some wins and fails. you go
00:47:59
first. Okay. So, so, so wins. I'm going to say this, you're probably not going to like
00:48:05
this, but I I think Elon Musk is winning. Uh, I think he's backed into business. I
00:48:10
think he raised a lot of money on XAI. I participated in that. I will fully disclose that I'm an investor.
00:48:16
But I think Elon Musk is winning. Uh, and I think so much so and I think Donald Trump is so afraid of Elon Musk
00:48:23
that he started the Epstein thing. He started the Epste thing and he tweeted out, "Oh, I love Elon. I'm not coming
00:48:28
after his businesses, you know, blah blah. Okay. So, I think Elon Musk is winning. So, that's a big win. He got He just so people know, Tesla
00:48:35
just granted shares to Elon $29 billion describing. So, that's another big that's another
00:48:40
big win. Less than the 55 billion. That's correct. I was like, it's a half. It's a half. But, but you know, that's also a win.
00:48:46
But I think Elon's winning whether people like that or not. I think that's a definitive objective win. So, you invested in XAI. You think
00:48:52
that's a winner or I think I do. He's a real He's a real behind. He's really quite behind in the race compared to
00:49:00
Google or Chat GPT. You think he's behind? I don't know. I'm I I I put $300 a month into Super Gro. I
00:49:06
think the thing is phenomenal. Okay. And and I think it's distinctive. But again, that's me. I'm not an AI
00:49:12
expert. I'm just I use it for different things. I I'm I'm a I'm a cloud claude, I guess it's called, subscriber, a chat
00:49:19
GBT subscriber. You use them all. You use them all. I I do I do spend a lot of time say if if Elon goes and does his
00:49:25
businesses, he's better off, that's for sure. But I do think he is quite involved. He was the one that started
00:49:31
the Epstein stuff. So that was I'm going to tell you I'm going to tell you another winner. I'll give you three winners and I'll
00:49:36
give you three losers. Okay. Another big winner with controversial Jerome Pal. Uh because Jerome Pal's legacy is
00:49:43
intact. Okay. The guy's done a decent job. Not perfect. He got transitory inflation wrong. it was more secular,
00:49:50
but he's done a decent job. He's a good human being and he's one of the few guys that have stuck stuck it to Trump a
00:49:57
little bit and he started in a very diplomatic way with some level of a plum and I think people need to learn about
00:50:03
it that way. And then the third the third winner, believe it or not, is actually the UK government related to
00:50:09
the US. uh because they got the deal. They moved first, took advantage of
00:50:14
Trump's love affair with uh uh the monarchy and the Angolofile nature of
00:50:20
Trump and his mom from Scotland and they got a 10% trade deal done before anybody else. And I think they're a winner. I
00:50:28
think the three failures, okay, are Vladimir Putin, huge failure.
00:50:33
Uh he's coming to the end here, Vladimir Putin. I don't I don't think Vladimir Putin will survive what's coming because
00:50:42
you can't do what he did, declare war on Ukraine, lose the war and stay in power
00:50:47
in Russia. And you say, well, he hasn't lost the war, but he also hasn't won the war and it's 3 years into it, and you
00:50:54
know, he may be able to stalemate this because of the compromise he has on Trump till 28, but I think I think
00:51:00
you'll see Putin out to the great surprise of people. So, he's he's a
00:51:05
failure. Uh, another big failure, uh, is the American car industry is going to be
00:51:12
slammed around by these tariffs. They won't be able to absorb all the prices. They're making good cars, but they're
00:51:18
not making great cars. The tariffs on the European cars are not going to overly help them, frankly, because a lot
00:51:24
of Mercedes and BMW are being made in the country now. And so, I think there's
00:51:29
a problem there for the American car company. I think that's on the side of failure. And last but not least, the
00:51:37
biggest failure that I've seen in the five years, uh what I would say if you
00:51:42
put out the the yard markers and said, "Okay, last five, there's been 10 years of Trump. Who's been the greatest
00:51:48
failure in the last five years?" That's the American Congress. The American Congress had a responsibility to check
00:51:55
and balance the American system. And uh to use an Italian expression,
00:52:01
they did ugats. They did ugats. Okay. And your your viewers and listeners could look look up what UGTS means, but
00:52:08
they've really done nothing and they're they're going to be judged very poorly by history. So So those are the three
00:52:14
winners. Those are three failures. All right, I'm going to do mine. Um I'm going to do just two failures actually
00:52:20
that I were really striking in two different places. One, the Israeli government just voted votes to remove
00:52:25
the attorney general who's a Netanyahu critic. I think they have done more to diminish their standing especially among
00:52:31
young people and they have only themselves to blame especially with what's happening in Gaza. More and more people are calling it a genocide. We can
00:52:38
see with our eyes what's happening there. Um and so I think this government is hurtling towards um illegality you
00:52:46
know what I mean in the things they're doing. And I think the thing that holds up a country is a country of laws. And
00:52:51
you know you believe in the stock market, you believe in the laws, you believe in the courts. And uh I think there
00:52:57
he's going to see a lot of push back from people in that country at some point. Um and I think they've done it to
00:53:02
themselves. They have lost a generation of young people who would have been supportive of Israel. So I think that's
00:53:08
that especially this um voting to remove the attorney general which is I think the at the heart of things like that
00:53:15
because because he's a Netanyahu critic and Netanyahu is sucked up into corruption that is so obvious. Um and
00:53:21
he's bad at it by the way. Trump is quite good at corruption. Um and uh Netanyahu is bad at it. The other thing
00:53:27
is Nancy Mace running for uh governor of um South Carolina. I think I've never
00:53:33
seen a po politician just sort of run herself into a wall on so many things.
00:53:38
Uh someone who seemed promising for sure um has has become really a joke to
00:53:44
everybody in Congress that I talked to. Um I think she's looking for her exit uh to try to run for governor. She'll
00:53:50
certainly be ahead in the beginning uh because of her name recognition and the the antics that she pulls. Uh but I
00:53:56
think she's uh probably like a lot of men can do it a little better but there
00:54:01
there not necessarily and I think she has ruined what could have been a really interesting political career. Um but I
00:54:08
think she's got a lot of personal problems that are on top of that. Um if I had to say I I agree with you about
00:54:14
Elon if he gets back to business I think he's I think Trump should be everyone was talking about him being uh he should
00:54:20
be scared of Trump. I think Trump should be scared of him. That's my feeling. I think he is he's not Omar Rosa like I
00:54:26
say he's not Omar Rosa and he he is the first person who mentioned the Epstein stuff he has enormous power around the
00:54:32
world and so uh I think if he gets back to business and and and uh and focus is
00:54:38
there he has a lot of levers to pull not not not to interrupt but just remember this one tweet which was very
00:54:44
insightful Elon said you're going to be around for three and a half years I'm going to be around for the next 40 and I
00:54:51
think I think Elon whatever ever his weaknesses are. And I'm sure we all have strengths and weaknesses. He's got a lot of weaknesses.
00:54:58
Okay. You're very kind to him. I think we have to stipulate that he's a smart guy. Absolutely. And he sees he sees the egg. He sees the
00:55:04
hair on the egg. Particularly as it relates to By the way, I I you know, I told his buddies he was going to get
00:55:10
blown out of there. Elon lasted 12 Scaramucci. He did. Okay. 12 times longer. By the way, it
00:55:17
was exactly 11.8. But I'm the official score of Scaramucci. I think I should be. And I'm
00:55:22
a generous guy. I round up. So he lasted 12 scaramucci. Yeah. And it was 12 times longer than me.
00:55:30
But here's the thing. Elon has seen the malevolence because you don't write you're on the
00:55:36
list. If that that's a code for you're a really bad
00:55:42
FG. You're a really bad FG. Mhm. Yep. I agree with you. I think he's
00:55:47
someone who's going to endure. And if he cleaned himself up, I mean, a lot of what he's done is unforgivable, but he
00:55:53
will be forgiven, especially if he creates economic value, uh, and he will be around a lot longer. I don't think that's necessarily a win, but I think he
00:56:00
definitely is in much more of a commanding position than Trump realizes, and I think he was wrong to, um, to
00:56:07
fight to to do what they did to him. Uh, I think they there would have been a nicer way to part anyway.
00:56:13
But you can't do that with Trump. You can't do that. You can't do it. That's right. I I would see Trump maybe embracing him again. Anyway, I don't
00:56:18
know if Elon will embrace Trump, though. I think he's moved on. Uh, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions
00:56:23
about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 pivot. Over on Carara
00:56:32
Swisser. This week, I spoke with former labor secretary Robert Wright uh about why Democrats are struggling right now.
00:56:38
Let's listen to a clip. The reason Democrats are so unpopular is they don't have a a coherent and authentic message
00:56:48
that translates to average people as authentic and real
00:56:53
because the corporate Democrats, the financial Democrats, the the Wall Street Democrats uh don't allow them to. Uh,
00:57:00
you know, a lot of Democrats I know are scared. They don't want to bite the hands that feed them.
00:57:06
I think you'll probably agree with that, Anthony. I agree that he he is a former professor of mine. I have an enormous
00:57:12
amount of respect for him. But I al he also gave an interview in one of the Sunday news magazines.
00:57:18
Uh I can't remember if it was the New York Times or the FT, but I read the interview and he's calling for the
00:57:24
Mandamis and he's calling for these sort of harder left people to coales the party. I think that'll be a 1972
00:57:32
McGovern like nightmare for the Democrats. And I and I think it's a big mistake because it's a center-right
00:57:38
country. Uh we have we have religious orthodoxy in this country. Uh it's uh
00:57:44
you know you and I might be secular. I'm not saying you are but I I'm more secular than the religious orthodox. So
00:57:50
and I but I I I think that Europeans in general don't understand this because they by and large now the majority of
00:57:56
the population is secular. But this country has a lot of religious ferocity
00:58:02
to it still. Yeah. And I think that I think the Democrats have really missed the mark on that. You know what Trump
00:58:07
once said to me? This is an important thing to tell your viewers. Trump said to me on the campaign plane,
00:58:12
he says, "You know, you're an idiot." I said, "Yes, I know I'm an idiot, but why am I an idiot?" He said, "Well, you're a Wall Street
00:58:18
guy. You're fiscally conservative and you're socially liberal." Am I right? I said, "Yes, I'm fiscally conservative,
00:58:25
socially liberal." He says, "My base, Anthony, my base fiscally con fisc
00:58:32
excuse me, my base, Anthony, fiscally liberal. They are socially conservative." He's correct. That's how that is
00:58:38
actually. I just was talking to Kristen um Saltus Anderson. She said that exact it is true. That is
00:58:44
he said that to me in 2016, right? The Democrats wake up. Wake up. He he he
00:58:51
understands his base. And believe it or not, a lot of his face used to vote for you.
00:58:56
Okay? And so wake up and get in the middle before it's too late. Well, I I have a different take on this.
00:59:01
I think everybody should be who they are and authentic of where they are. If you're Abby Spanberger, you're a centrist, right, in Virginia or or
00:59:07
Mickey Cheryl in in New Jersey or and if you're Mom Donnie, be mom. Be yourself.
00:59:13
I think be yourself is and it may be different across the country. And I'm not sure anyone should stand for
00:59:19
anything with the Democrats. I think they should stand for a lot of things. Uh, and I know that sounds crazy, but if
00:59:24
you're genuine to who you are, I think you do well where you are. We're always looking for someone who represents
00:59:30
everybody, and that's impossible in this day and age. I think it's well said, but I just think if you're going to go hard left in this
00:59:35
country right now, uh, particularly with the wokeism ending, go hard left, you're going to lose
00:59:41
elections. That's what I You may You may win in New York and you may win in Minnesota. You may win the mayor's race in Minnesota, Minneapolis, but you're
00:59:49
going to lose the g big general election if you're not for the general election for the larger country. That's absolutely true. But we'll we'll see.
00:59:55
We'll see where it goes. Um can I ask you one last question? Right now, I want to do a prediction. Who is the who are
01:00:01
the two presidential slates in 2028?
01:00:06
So, I think Nuome is going to be the nominee for the Democrats. I I think he'll pick a Midwestern moderate. uh
01:00:13
he'll probably pick a white guy. I know that sounds crazy, but I think he probably will. Uh it'll end the virtue
01:00:20
signaling that's going on on the left and he'll get the same policies and they'll be more acceptable to some of
01:00:25
the uh anti-woke moderates that are out there. So, I think it's Newsome
01:00:30
and not Wesmore. Not Wesmore. No, I don't think so. I don't I I I don't think so. Uh I think
01:00:37
but you know I mean I don't know how honest you want me to be on this podcast, but I think I want you to lie. But I think Obama has hurt the ability
01:00:45
for an African-American to get the nomination. I don't think people realize the existential damage that Obama did.
01:00:51
Uh Van Jones called it a white lash. That's that was the apotheiois of Donald Trump. And so I think the way Obama
01:00:59
handled the presidency has hurt that if I'm just being brutally honest. And I think I think the last two women that
01:01:05
were the nominees for the Democrats have hurt the women standing in the party for now. And people could be very mad at me
01:01:12
for saying this. I'm talking about this as a realist, as an analyst, not as not a normative thing of what ought or
01:01:18
should be. I'm just talking about what actually is. I think Newsome gets it. Newsome has shown some muscularity.
01:01:25
Nuome did a good job in LA in terms of the way they defended themselves against Trump's brown shirted lunatics. And
01:01:32
Lucim is standing up on the gerrymandering. And Lucim is putting a finger in Trump's eye. and he's doing a
01:01:38
better job trolling him in social media and and I think I think he wins. And by
01:01:43
the way, I was on Gavin's podcast. Yeah. And I read to Gavin. He's he's gotten to every white guy, but
01:01:48
go ahead. I joke with him. I'm like, "Another white guy today. How interesting." And then the other the other thing I
01:01:54
would tell you just quickly is that it will not be it will not be Marco Rubio.
01:02:00
It will not be JD Vance. Mhm. Uh but I think there will be a candidate
01:02:06
that comes out of the woodwork that surprises people who I know this is crazy. It could be a
01:02:11
Charlie Baker who's now running the uh uh NCAA. He was the former governor of
01:02:17
uh Massachusetts popular governor. Uh it could be a John Thun. Okay. Although I think he's a jellyfish.
01:02:23
I think he's a well jellyfish to you. Go ahead. Yeah. President jellyfish to me. But I
01:02:28
think he's a guy that could uh could help the Republicans get back to something that's more normal
01:02:34
to their principles and their philosophy. Mhm. Uh and but I don't think it's going to be Vance and I don't think remember the
01:02:42
MAGA ends with Trump. It's a personality cult that people have more or less accepted that even though they don't
01:02:48
like pedophilia, they're holding their noses, lots of them. Uh but they won't be able Vance won't be able to command
01:02:54
that or Rubio. And uh and so I think it's it's like a thun baker sort of a guy uh going up
01:03:01
against news. It'll be white males. Yeah. White males as far as you could see. Going up against white males. Gary
01:03:08
males are as high as an elephant. I can say I can hear the derision in your voice. But I just think that's
01:03:13
what's going to happen. Yeah, I agree with you. I have to say I do agree with you. Although I'm I'm not sure it's news, but uh there's a number
01:03:19
of choices in that regard. Um okay, that is the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe
01:03:25
to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Anthony, as usual, thank you for joining us
01:03:31
and I appreciate being on. Give my regards to Scott. I will and thank you so much. I will read us out. Today's show was produced
01:03:38
by Larara Neon. Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdott engineered this episode. Nad
01:03:44
Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks
01:03:50
for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Fox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at
01:03:55
nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and
01:04:00
business. And Anthony, I'll be right over to look in your closet and put on your Batman outfit. Thank you.
