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This is the live taping of the Pivot podcast with Carara Swisser and Scott
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Galloway
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or as they're also known as the dog and the jungle cat.
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And while Karen Scott may disagree with me on a few things, I think quite a few
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things here and there, we agree that we all love the big NYC, New York City,
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and that all the people and especially our animal friends and family members
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deserve to live their best lives here.
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We're honored to introduce them tonight at the Kings Theater in the Great Burrow
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of Brooklyn. Please welcome the dog and the jungle cat.
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Hi everyone, live from the Kings Theater in Brooklyn, this is Pivot from New York Magazine.
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and the Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser. And I'm
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Scott Galloway. And before we start, I want to set a big
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thank you to our sponsors, ODU and Upwork. Thank you. It's a business management software, Scott. So, don't
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There are lovely sponsors. We're thrilled to have them. We are taping this show for audio and YouTube distribution. You'll be able to hear it
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or watch it on Wednesday. Our special guest tonight is Curtis Siwa, radio
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host, founder of the Gardening Angels, and most recently the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City.
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Um, at Give him a cheer. Come on, Brooklyn.
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As you know, he didn't win, which is why he's here with us tonight. Um, we didn't even think of inviting Cuomo, don't
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worry. Um, we are not Quomosexuals. Let's just be clear about that. Um, I know this is crazy, but one of the
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things besides you loving New York, which is so clear. And the fact that you didn't withdraw was I thought took a
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lot. I bet you had a lot of pressure to withdraw. Correct. Well,
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first they started with the moola schmoola and the scar, the billionaires, you know, the masters of the universe.
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You think they control? Well, it started at 3 million. Oh, okay. Then five, then seven, then eight, then
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finally $10 million cash. Cash. They legitimately offered you $10
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million. Oh, no. These are legitimate billionaires. The masters of the universe. Yeah. And naturally, I told them, "No, no." I
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said, "You know, this is unethical. This is bribery. This could well be
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criminal." My wife Nancy, who is the animal rescuer, but also an attorney, said, "Curtis,
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you can't be taking these calls. You got to put them on blast," which I did. I
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said, "Any more attempts to bribe me out of the race, I'll be wired up like a Christmas tree, and the DA, Alvin Bragg,
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will be listening to your conversations." Right. That ended all the conversations. Excellent. Right. But
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but wait, but there's more. There's more. You see, they take that as
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an insult. You know, money rules the world. They think, right? You know what I always say, Curtis? They're so poor. All they have
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is money. But go ahead. Yeah. So then they figure, ah, we can't bribe him. We'll kill him.
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Oh. Well, that's been tried before by the guy Gambinos. That didn't work very well. Five hollowpoint bullets. But they
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knew go at his wife cuz that I mean my wife is the most important person in my
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life. It saved me time and time again. Threatened her, threatened me. And for
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the first time in my life, we had to have armed security because they're not used to being told no.
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Mhm. And I said, "No, no, no. It's not the billionaires, the influencers, or the insiders who are going to determine the
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next mayor. The people, one person, one vote. They chose Zorhan Mandami. the people have spoken,
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right? So, was there any minute that you thought about it? Not it obviously it doesn't
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seem like it. I mean, obviously Eric Adams took took the whatever. Oh, he was he was like Bob Barker. The
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price was right. One and done for them. It's tip money. These billionaires for five billion, launch a
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meme coin and run for president. But I was I came into this world with
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nothing. I leave with nothing. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We need selfless
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servants, not selfserving servants. This is what people deserve. Right. So, let's talk a little bit
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because I thought you actually ran a pretty joyful campaign which was really interesting and I loved you in the middle of those debates because you sort
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of called out both of them in a really I think relatively respectful way. Um, but
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I do want to ask first about your cats. This is the part that I loved. Um, and I'm a dog cat person. So, I'm pet
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sexual. Um, Scott's a dog person, just so you're aware. Um, it was it was
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talked about a lot. Let me read you a quote what you said about being a cat guy. Uh, people think if you're a man
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with cats, you've gone soft. You're not tugged, you're flaccid. I really like that you're using these words. They're
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excellent words. Now, since Scott has written a book, his latest book is about masculinity. I'd love to know why do you
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think it they think it's not manly to have cats? What is your determination? They associate it with what they call
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catwoman, like my wife, like others. Uh, and they do the majority of the rescuing, but they don't expect somebody
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like me who can hit you so hard your mother will feel the vibrations.
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So, I say, "Oh, what's wrong with being a cat person?" I love cats. You got a problem with that? Oh, no, Curtis. No,
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no, no, no. In fact, it goes beyond that. Pigeons, you know, there's a big debate about pigeons. Some people think
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they're rats with wings. I do. I and my wife, we love the street pigeons. You know, they put spikes up to
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try to impale them. So, my wife feeds the pigeons in the morning and people will scream at her. What are you doing?
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You know, they spread disease. And then I'll come up behind it. You got a problem with my wife feeding the pigeon. No, no, no, no. Curtis,
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so you did learn something from the goddies. Yeah. You see,
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you have to have men and women joined in solidarity because look, maybe the
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greatest man ever to walk the earth, Mahatma Gandhi said, "A society that does not take care of its animals does
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not take care of its people." On the way here, taking the two train to Church Avenue, homeless people in the subways
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because it's getting colder, emotionally disturbed, many of them veterans. That's a shondaanda. That's
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a stain on our soul that we don't take care of people in distress because we
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don't take care of animals in distress. All right, Scott, that's where you are. Masculinity. Talk about this idea.
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Well, no, I would um just if you had been elected and you were given license
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to do one thing without approval of a legislature or any other governing body, what is the one policy you would have
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liked most to see implemented as mayor of New York? Well, just to stick it to my critics, the masters of the universe,
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President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, you know, the trillionaire waiter. I've heard of him. I would have filled up every nook,
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corner, and cranny of Gracie Mansion with every animal we could rescue from the shelter who would not be euthanized.
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That's right. Every animal. I believe in no kill shelters. No kill shelters. No animal
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should be put to death. And we do unfortunately in New York City and other cities we do. We can have a society
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where we do not put animals to death. They are our friends. They are our family members. They are our equals. In
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New York State, they are they are thought of in the law property. Yeah. They're not property. They are our
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family members. They are our equals. And when I say, "Oh my god, an animal is
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your equal." What? Do you have all the furniture upstairs and rearranged in the wrong rooms? Yeah. No, that's You see, if we would
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treat people the way we should be treating animals, the society would be so much better. So much better.
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So, Scott, what do you think of his idea about cats being manly? Cuz you're a dog man. I think any any love for another mammal
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is wonderful. And I I I'd love to Why is that funny?
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I'm so over my head right now. Um, yeah. I think it's I think it's wonderful. I
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don't I'm I'm a big fan of animals and something that
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Mom, can I ask you a question about the Guardian Angels? You founded it 46 years
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ago. Is that correct? 47. 47 years ago. And up in the Bronx. And I don't know that much about it, but
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my sense is it does give people, younger people, disproportionately men, also women, a sense of protection. And we
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talk a lot about recently what it means to be a man and the trying to create an aspirational view of masculinity. And
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one of the things we talk about is protection and serving in the purpose of something bigger than yourself. Can you
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talk a little bit about the type of young people that were joining the guardian angels and where it intersected
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with purpose and your observations around young people, specifically young men, and what the guardian angels meant
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to them? Yeah. Uh especially when I started in the Bronx 1979. If people need to know,
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if you needed to identify a period piece about it, just check out the cult
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classic, the Warriors. Yeah. Yeah. So, they thought we were one of the groups in the Warriors. You know, they
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would get on the train and say, "Warriors, come out and play."
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Wow. It was filled with gangs. But what you had is dysfunctional young men coming
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from dysfunctional households in many instances where there was not a good male role model, poor male role models
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in the streets. And I knew we had to create an atmosphere where they could come in and understand that being a man
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means you don't have a weapon. We don't carry weapons. Now it's like a failix symbol. A weapon, a gun. You got a gun.
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I got a bigger gun. I got a bazooka. I got a howard saw. Hey, let's face off. High noon. No, no, no, no. A real man
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doesn't need to have a gun. A real man should be protecting the poor, the infirmed, the elderly, the children,
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people who can't defend themselves. And you inculcate these young men that this is your responsibility in this world.
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Women can take care of themselves. But the elderly, the children, the infirm,
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no, no, we have a moral responsibility to go out and risk their our life to protect them. Six guardian angels have
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been killed in the line of duty. Three dozen seriously injured. Some people wonder why do you wear that beret? I
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wear this beret in their honor. They did it because it was the humanitarian thing
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to do for people they didn't even know. And that's what our world needs more of. That's great. Thank you.
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So you got um you got 7% of the vote in this past election to Cuomo's 41.6 and
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Mani's uh 50.4. You've been a Republican in one of the bluest cities in America
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for decades. Um, talk about is it feudal to try to sell any conservative ideas to
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New Yorkers who keep voting Democratic? Well, didn't the president say Curtis Lee, is he a Republican?
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Yeah. Well, you're not his kind of Republican, right? They don't treat me like a Republican. Uh, I'm more of a populist.
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I represent workingclass people, especially in the outer burrows. So, call me I am. I was proudest to run on
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the first ever independent line created by my wife. First in electoral history
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in the United States, protect animals. I got a lot of votes on the protecting animals line. People would say, Curtis,
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you're a Republican. I can't vote for you, but you love animals. I can vote
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for you on that line. In fact, I come from a household, my father and mother, my dad was a merchant seaman 50 years.
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My mother uh was a dental technician. hardcore bluecollar Democrats. I'd walk
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into their bedroom. They had Jesus Christ, you know, Blessed Virgin Mother Mary. They had Pope John Paul cuz my dad
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was Polish. They had Barack Obama and they had JFK. And I said to my dad, "Dad, you grew up in Chicago. You taught
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me all about Abraham Lincoln. He kept the country together. I got a $5 bill. I'll put it on the wall." No Republican
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ever goes on my wall. That's the party of the privileged, the wealthy, the country club people. I was inculcated
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like that. My first vote 1972, George McGovern against Richard Nixon. That was
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the counterculture in the 60s. Don't grow your hair long. I grew my hair long. Don't smoke ragweed. I smoke
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ragweed. Don't go to a concert. I went to a concert. Don't go to the anti-war rallies. I was there a million strong
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for the inauguration of Richard Nixon in 1972 in Washington DC. You did not trust
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authority. You You didn't trust anybody over 30. And I was raised, always
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question authority. Always question authority. Never accept what they say.
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And free speech is the answer to hate speech. More free speech. Free speech.
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Free speech. Free speech. That's what I become a Republican then.
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It's a good question. My dad, speaking of a shonda to your parents, but go ahead. My dad raised me on Saulinsk's rules for
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radicals. Even my dad said, "How did you become a Republican? I tortured rules for radical
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Solinsky." Which I used effectively. I just identified with some of their policies. Right.
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I really did. But not now. Some uh some, not all. Right. Some, not all. So, New York City
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uh CEOs and billionaires, as you noted, businesses leaders spent more than $40 million to stop uh Mom, Donnie, and you
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too. Bill Aman spent $2 million to stop him. Uh, and now of course he says, "If I can help New York City, just let me
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know what I can do." Grossly billionaire and former GOP mayoral candidate John uh
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Cassim, I don't care. The Gracitis guy, the guy with the shitty supermarket uh
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once compared Mumani uh to Castro. Now he's saying to look to move to business of Florida. It doesn't seem like he's
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going. A lot of these billionaires have said they're leaving many times before and then they don't. Often they don't,
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but they threaten it as I'm like see you kind of thing. So, do you think we'll see that? What do you what do you look
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for in this administration? And what are you were the first person to uh congratulate uh the the mayor elect?
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Sure. This is what you do, right? What do you want to do to help him and New York? What is your
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Well, first off, in any adversarial situation, I remember playing football in high school. There was a team, manior
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foul on Staten Island broke my shoulder. I had to end up shaking the hand of the guy who broke my shoulder. You know,
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this is called good sportsmanship. Zoran Mandami and I call them the Zoronistas. They were out there
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everywhere. They were they were everywhere. Every time I'd be in the streets or subways,
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I'd run across the Zoronistas. They worked hard. They earned this election.
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They have gotten a mandate. You You need to call up and give congratulations.
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Hope for the best because if Zoron does well as a mayor, we all do well as a city. You don't want him to fail. But it
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was also But there was also a caveat because I
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said this is like leis to the barricades. If you if you become
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wind dined in pocket line like I've seen politicians over the years the only thing difference between politics and
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organized crime which I battled in my life is at the end of the day you don't have dead bodies. Other than that it's
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the same. I see no difference between organized crime and politics. It's a dirty dirty business. So, what are you
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going to do to help him accomplish that? Well, clearly you want a two-party
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system. Anytime you have a uni a uni party system, it's no good. You need a two-party system. So, I will be the the
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voice of the loyal opposition. You can't stifle my voice because my voice is in
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the streets, in the subways, and with the peeps. And uh I wish him the best. I
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hope he has good appointments, but I know what's going to happen. They're going to try to institutionalize him.
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He's a rebel with a cause. But watch how the institution tries to swallow him and
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then all of a sudden they all make their deals like Aman. What a fake phony fraudulent foray that billionaire,
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right? I I Yes. Yes. And then he's the after after just
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attacking Zoron and attacking me unmercifully morning, noon, and night. You would think, okay, you know Wall
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Street, you know hedge funds, but you know nothing about the streets, nothing about politics. Plus, you have a midlife
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crisis that you think you're a professional tennis player and you bumrush into tournaments and people boo
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you out. It's like, guys, stay in your lane. Oh no. Every day he's the first one in line. See, the billionaires
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always back channel. That's why they call them hedge fund monsters. They figure out the hedge. Oh, Zoron, I
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really love you, Zoron. whatever you need. Meanwhile, they got their pier dete in Manhattan. They have their main
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residence down in in Palm Beach, Florida. They got it figured out. Blueco collar workingclass people. You know
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what we have in Italian? We have a word for that. Ugats. You know what that is? Ugats. Bupkus.
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Yeah. Bupkus. Yeah. Yes. Fangul. You got that. That's right. Oh, yeah.
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That's what my mother used to do. Franchesca. You got arrested again, Curtis. Oh,
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fangul. Right. Like that. So, Scott, you asked the last. This is fantastic. I'm so happy. Um, we're going to get to this
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show, but I'm voting for you. Um, but uh I don't live
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in New York, but I I I last question. Uh, cats.
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No. Uh, so you've uh dealt with and have been involved with uh trying to police
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crime and protect the I don't know the disadvantage or the vulnerable. Any thoughts on what do you how would you
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describe the state of crime in the city? Has it gotten better? What do you think of the trends and what do you think of
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the NYPD and generally policing? Just thoughts generally on crime in the city
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and what you would have done as mayor to try and improve relationships between the community, the police force and
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crime. Well, this is not the police department I grew up. Remember, I got arrested 81 times when I fallen the guardian angels.
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They would give me a wooden shampoo and a concrete facial. Mhm.
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I'll never forget a sergeant on the number four train who arrested me and I say, "What's the charge, Sarge?" And he
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said, "Inhaling and exhaling." And then they lost me on Riker's Island
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for a few days. And let's face it, I was staying in a dormatory with 40 guys who didn't love me,
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right? So, I had to stay I had to stay awake with one eye open. Feet don't fail me
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now. So, I know what it's like to be on the abused side, but I also know the police department is different than when
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I was growing up. It's a minority majority police department now. The minorities are the majority now. It is
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changed drastically. The one thing we need to give the police though is they have this fancy term qualified immunity.
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It was really the insurance we give to all civil servants. There's 320,000 civil servants. so that if they get sued
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for anything they did, we're culpable, the taxpayers. They strip that from the
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police in uh uh 2021. And so they're very tepid. They don't
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get involved. They don't respond. And you need a responsive police department. I know what it's like when they are
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abusive. Stopping frisk towards the latter part under Bloomberg was totally
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excessive because he was playing a numbers game. And even the PBA chief at the time, Patty Lynch, said, "You're
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demanding that we have a quota of five stop and frisks a day. You're killing us in the community." And they did. They
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don't care cuz it's quotas. Just like now with ICE, they have a quot 3,000 a day. When they were going after the drug
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dealers, the bad ombres, the sex traffickers, the naroterists in the beginning, hey, people were applauding
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them. Then somebody in DC puts a quot. quotas are always horrible because these
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are people. You don't do that. If you have bad people out there who are
00:21:06
committing crimes, everyone is entitled to due process. Whether you're legal, whether you're a migrant, whatever it
00:21:12
is, we have a due process. There's no shortcuts. There's no easy
00:21:17
passage. So, I think maybe you understand why a lot of Republicans don't like that. I can see that very clearly. I'm I'm buying for your vote. I really
00:21:23
am. I'm really trying to comment them having masks. You never had masks. You never did that. What do you think of ICE
00:21:29
having masks? I I don't like it because in America, you need to be able to identify who the
00:21:36
people are. Uh remember now they give you business cards. You know, a police
00:21:42
officer has to have a business card to give because they cover up their shields. I I remember all the tricks.
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After I get a few wooden shampoos and I was like dizzy and I'm looking for the the the name plate, it was gone.
00:21:54
Everybody's got to play by the rules. But I also realize that some of them get doxed. Some of them get threatened. Some
00:22:01
of them are on the run constantly. We have to find the balance. Judges don't get masks.
00:22:06
Excuse me. Judges don't get masks. Politicians don't. Journalists don't get masks. No. But then again, some demonstrators
00:22:13
wear masks, too. And I happen to know some of them, you know, they don't want to be identified. They shouldn't be wearing masks.
00:22:18
Take the masks away. I say, let's take all the masks away. Who you are is whom
00:22:23
you are. You don't need to fear photo recognition technology. I know a lot of people are fearful of that technology,
00:22:30
but let's get rid of the mass. You You have a right to demonstrate. You have a right to be a law enforcement official.
00:22:37
You You should be identified. We got to get it back to uh I would say a balanced
00:22:42
area where everybody's rights are respected. Right now, they're not. I have one last very quick question. What do you say to Andrew Cuomo what he
00:22:49
should be doing now? Andrew ascend to
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fim. That snake will slither back under his
00:23:02
rock in the Hamptons. Hang out
00:23:07
with his billionaire friends. He ran the most dystopian campaign I
00:23:13
could ever remember. And that's saying a lot. Every time he would speak, I would listen like at 3:00 in the morning
00:23:19
because that's the time I would generally break the campaign. And I would say, I feel soiled, like I have to
00:23:26
take a hot shower. I mean, this guy was like a political
00:23:31
zombie. You know, you thought he's dead and he keeps coming back. He's more of an ogre than ever before. Could you be
00:23:39
any nastier and meaner? And by the way, if you were 30 and younger, he'd be very
00:23:45
flirty. If you were a senior citizen, don't let him put you in a long-term nursing home care unit because you'd be
00:23:52
dead. He was slapping fannies and killing granny's and he should never see the light of day.
00:23:58
All right, on that note, thank you, Curtis. Curtis, Leewa, everybody,
00:24:05
thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
00:24:14
Oh, everybody. Curtis, one more.
00:24:23
He's he's close to getting my vote. I don't live here again, but no. Um, but
00:24:28
still, he's fantastic. I love a person who loves New York, and that's the key part, and that's what we wanted to show here. Actually, we need to take a quick
00:24:35
break, and when we come back, we'll get to some news. Support for the show comes from ODO.
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00:25:42
Scott, we're back in Brooklyn.
00:25:50
Uh let's talk about the shutdown, which looks like it's close to ending. Eight senators in the Democratic caucus, none
00:25:57
of whom uh face re-election, voted with the GOP to advance the plan that funds the government through January only.
00:26:03
Snap Ben. I know. All right, we're going to discuss it. SNAP benefits would also be restored, although the Trump
00:26:09
administration is still fighting the battle through Scotas and the lower court. In exchange, there's a promise of a Senate vote in December on extending
00:26:16
expiring Obamacare subsidies. Uh Mike Johnson just said didn't promise any vote whatsoever. So, that's an issue.
00:26:24
The House and the Senate still need to pass the final bill. Scott, as you put it on threads, we're winning. We're
00:26:29
winning. We surrender. Is there a silver lining here? Well,
00:26:34
sometimes it's darkest before it's pitch black. This is [ __ ] pitch black.
00:26:41
This is such a just as I began hallucinating
00:26:47
that Senator Schumer had these two spherical objects between his legs.
00:26:54
I am brought back to reality that we are as Democrats
00:27:00
not worthy of of representing people who make sacrifices.
00:27:07
Surrender this is a let me just distill how I see it and I'm curious what you think. We
00:27:13
put a lot of people through a lot thinking that sacrifice might pay off
00:27:19
like any battle that we there's no moral clarity but we might have to make huge sacrifices such that we can ultimately
00:27:25
have a better nation and we folded and I think the world is
00:27:31
driven on incentives and what are the incentives now of the Republicans and that is they're General Zod in the first
00:27:38
Superman movie and that they've noticed or Zod has noticed that Superman's weakness or the Dem Democrats weakness
00:27:44
is that they actually care and that the more menacious they get, the faster
00:27:49
we'll fold. So what happens in the next confrontation? So essentially what
00:27:55
happened here is we put the American people through 40 days of real trauma
00:28:00
for dick. Literally nothing. Literally nothing. And this is just so I
00:28:07
find it incredibly upsetting. Even the machinations around getting the people
00:28:12
who are not politically vulnerable to vote yes because they knew the American people were going to be very upset by
00:28:19
this. So we have done nothing but put the American people through 40. There
00:28:25
are some, you know, we were talking about it last night in Boston that they they they snatched a defeat from the
00:28:31
jaws of victory after that amazing week electorally vote where voters were pro-de Democrats and anti-Trump and
00:28:38
anti- Republicans. But there are a couple of people who I respect, Tim Miller and others who are positing that
00:28:45
this is actually a trap. It's a strategic trap by Democrats. Now, let me let me walk it out. Let me Okay, the
00:28:51
idea is two things. One is that when Congress returns, uh, the representative
00:28:57
from Arizona, who's a Democrat, will get seated and they'll release the Epstein files. And apparently, they're pretty bad from what I understand. I mean, the
00:29:03
pictures alone. So, that's one thing. They get they get the Epstein files released. That's an import. I'm just
00:29:09
saying. I'm just telling you. The second thing is the Republicans were never going to extend the the benefits anyway.
00:29:16
And these are not what I think, but this is what they've articulated. And so this puts once the Republicans refuse to pass
00:29:23
it, it hangs around their neck for good and they own it completely. Now, on the
00:29:29
other hand, you could say um we uh we we said American people, we're here for one
00:29:35
and one important issue only, health care. We're here to protect your health care and keep the costs low. Oh, we're
00:29:41
kidding. Right? That's what I think most people feel at this point. But there are other ideas that this is a strategic
00:29:47
brilliance of hanging it around their necks going forward. I don't agree with that. I think this group of senators who
00:29:54
don't have anything to risk uh just decided to just take a dive and the others who may have been for this got
00:30:02
protected so they could vote no including Chuck Schumer who I think orchestrated the entire thing from what
00:30:07
I can tell. Yeah. Look, the American people, the rail politic of it is the American
00:30:12
people prefer strong and wrong versus weak and right, which is Bill Clinton's phrase. Exactly. And I see this no different as
00:30:20
if we were to say, well, the Russians will actually bomb and shell maternity
00:30:25
wards, so we need to surrender. I don't see how it's any different. This is war.
00:30:30
And the notion that somehow, oh, but wait, the free gift with purchase is we're going to get the Epstein files. We
00:30:36
told the American public, and this is one of the things I don't like about the Democratic party. I think releasing the
00:30:41
Epstein files is important. I think it's going to happen, but at the end of the day, the Democrats opt for social virtue
00:30:47
versus actually impacting the material and mental well-being of average Americans. And the basis
00:30:55
the basis of well-being right now in our country, happiness,
00:31:00
this isn't going to surprise anyone, I struggle with anger and depression, so I decided to write a book on happiness. And happiness isn't uh solely a function
00:31:06
of what you have. It's absence of fear of of uh things being taken from you.
00:31:13
And in Norway or Sweden or any of the G7 countries, six of the G7 countries that
00:31:18
have socialized medicine, which we absolutely need in this country, when your wife is diagnosed with lung cancer,
00:31:23
it doesn't mean you're going bankrupt. 40% of American households have medical or dental debt. Can you imagine as a
00:31:29
mother and a father, you got a 17-year-old at home in screaming tooth pain and you think, "I got to borrow
00:31:35
money to get a root canal for my kid." Almost half of American households
00:31:41
struggle with medical debt. And we told them, "We're going to put a lot of people through a lot of pain such that
00:31:46
we can prevent your insurance premiums from doubling." And then we [ __ ] caved. Stop the gymnastics. This was a
00:31:54
huge failure on our part. AOC, I will give you $100,000 in the
00:32:02
next 48 hours if you announce you're primaring Schumer. Enough already.
00:32:09
Okay. All right. We're going to hold you to that. So, what goes next? What happens next?
00:32:17
They're going to pass this. They're going to wait push it off again and not govern until January. It's of course all
00:32:23
about the midterms. all the strategery around the midterms presumably is what's happening here and who's going to who's
00:32:30
going to wear this mantle because at this point most people were blaming including independents Trump for all of
00:32:36
this Trump the Trump administration the Republicans same thing with affordability same thing with the
00:32:42
economy like some of these new polls coming out are devastating to Republicans so as Curtis might say why
00:32:49
not give them a wooden uh I mean a wooden shampoo I love that phrase I'm going to use it
00:32:54
all the time. Does that mean a baton today? Yes, a baton. Hello.
00:33:01
By the way, never been arrested, arrested twice. True story. Um,
00:33:07
by the way, you don't need to shampoos.
00:33:13
I'm sorry. I had to do it. Who wants to hear a lesbian marriage joke? That's coming up. That's coming up.
00:33:20
You'll have a chance. Go ahead. Look, I think at the end of the day,
00:33:25
we're being too cute and too political by half. We had an opportunity here and we made real sacrifices and we were in
00:33:31
the midst of a real battle that had cost a lot of people a lot. You know, our idea I I've been communicating with
00:33:38
Democrats around this and my big idea to put more pressure on them. I thought we were winning. 44% of Americans held the
00:33:44
Republicans responsible. 33% of Democrats, the rest were TBD. We were winning this fight. And my idea and it
00:33:51
was getting some traction. I got some calls on this was the air traffic control system was being strained. They
00:33:56
were going to shut down 20% of flights before Thanksgiving. I did the analysis and it was pretty straightforward. 16%
00:34:03
of tail numbers leaving airports in the United States are private planes carrying less than 1% of passengers. You
00:34:09
ground private planes. You want to see real pressure put on representatives and
00:34:14
senators. They're doing it. They announced they were doing it. Don't need to anymore. They don't need
00:34:19
to on Monday. That's right. We were winning this fight. What I mean, we didn't check back when we got to
00:34:26
Berlin. We we we made huge sacrifices. We didn't step back and say, "Oh, we're
00:34:32
winning this war. Maybe it's time for us to surrender." This makes no [ __ ] sense to me, Cara. I can't wrap my hand
00:34:38
around it. I don't care how many bloggers or anchors from MSNBC try to turn chicken [ __ ] into chicken salad. We
00:34:45
[ __ ] up. All right. On that note, um uh speaking of fuckups, in other Trump
00:34:51
administration updates, President Trump has granted pardons to an array of people accused of trying to overturn, uh
00:34:56
the 2020 election, including former lawyer and former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani. Uh who's next, Chilain
00:35:03
Maxwell. Um this is just, by the way, most of his judgments are in state court, so don't worry, Rudy will be
00:35:09
paying for the rest of his life. But they get they're pre they're pre-giving people all these because they're
00:35:15
expecting to lose and they're expecting more problems. Um like Sydney Powell, all the others. Um I as I told you
00:35:23
several Trump administration people who were rather pleasant at lunch, let me say although I understand they're
00:35:29
terrible snakes as Curtis said. Um were like I'm asking for a p pardon to me. And I was like why? And they're like
00:35:36
just in case. They're like even if they've done nothing, they feel that they're going to be This was an
00:35:41
astonishing number. This is 70 pardons. I remember once we had when I first
00:35:46
moved to New York, we had an instance where there was someone threatened workplace violence. And so I called a
00:35:52
lawyer and I said, "You need to bring the cops in." And he said, "Okay." And I'd had almost no interaction with the
00:35:58
man hat DA's office or the police force. And they said something really serious. They said, "You need to be thoughtful
00:36:04
about this and we'll come if you call us. that's our job. But once you get the law involved, it is a crude, blunt
00:36:10
instrument that lacks nuance. And that always stuck with me because when you
00:36:16
think about the law, there are a lot of people who get off scot-free and
00:36:22
shouldn't. And I'm bothered by the idea of these pardons of these people who are criminal. I think it's corrupt. I think
00:36:28
it sends the wrong signal. What I'm more worried about is that there are somewhere between 10 and 30,000 people
00:36:34
who have files under clemency review where somebody from the Freedom Project or another worthwhile organization has
00:36:41
said that because of the crudeness of the law, you have people behind bars who quite frankly stole a car antenna and
00:36:49
because it was their third strike, they're serving they've served 30 years of a life sentence. And there are a bevy
00:36:54
of really talented, wonderful legal professionals working on these clemency cases. And now all of those have been
00:37:01
shoved aside because all of our resources are trying to figure out how to let out basically this orgy of
00:37:08
corruption of people who are favorable to the administration. So yeah, these criminals getting out that bothers me.
00:37:15
What bothers me more is it's distracting attention and resources from the tens of thousands of people
00:37:21
who he's not letting out who are worthy of a real thoughtful examination around clemency. This has
00:37:26
made a mockery of a really wonderful component of our justice system where we recognize the judicial system is a crude
00:37:33
blunt tool and we made a mistake and occasionally we it's a paper play kind of thing obviously and they're letting out some pretty heinous people. Um, and
00:37:40
if they let out Gilain Maxwell, I don't Me and Curtis are going down to Texas and handling it. That's all I have to
00:37:46
say. Uh, she's a monster. She's a monster. Anyway, uh, we need to take another break, everyone. When we come
00:37:52
back, we'll talk about women ruining the workplace. Support for the show comes from ODO.
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00:39:00
Scott, we're back in Brooklyn.
00:39:09
Uh the New York Times is getting heat for a piece t uh a Ross uh duat opinion
00:39:15
piece uh conversation did women ruin the workplace? My wife calls him Ross ass hat but that's not neither here nor
00:39:21
there. The title has been changing has changed has changed I think three times. Um it's now did liberal feminism ruin
00:39:28
the workplace but not before a lot of memeing. They keep changing the headline, which is hysterical, including
00:39:34
one person on threads that joke that the Times had changed the headline again to did liberal feminism ruin slapping
00:39:40
abroad on the caboose. Uh, that made me laugh. Um, I love the word
00:39:46
caboose. Can I slap you on the caboose? As if you don't already, you little saucy minks.
00:39:52
Okay. Um, Scott, I thought I I listened to the entire thing and the two people he interviewed, he did a terrible job,
00:39:58
FYI, as an interviewer. It was insecure and unfunny interview but and badly done
00:40:04
in general but as a professional. Um but the people he interviewed were like they they just cannot stop talking about
00:40:10
woke. They are unqualified to talk about it. They were as reductive as it gets. They were a mile wide and a foot deep.
00:40:17
It was terrible. The whole thing was terrible as a piece of content. That said, it attract a lot of attention. But
00:40:23
Scott, did I ruin the workplace? What did you think about this? I don't think you're paying any attention to it,
00:40:29
but I don't know. I my the companies I've started have been in San Francisco and New York. Um
00:40:36
27 of the 35 people who become I did the analysis who had become millionaires
00:40:41
from my companies were either LGBTQ or women. I started and I realized I'm
00:40:47
virtue signaling, but it wasn't intentional. It wasn't like I thought I needed to advance people of a certain
00:40:53
group. just an unlock in the early 90s when I started my first company was giving some very talented people who had
00:40:59
exited the corporate workforce some flexibility which drew in a disproportionate number of women. So I
00:41:05
don't you know I don't I feel like the marketplace is actually working here. Uh
00:41:11
47% of our full-time workers are female. Uh seale executives have gone from 18%
00:41:18
to 27% female in the last 10 years. meaning in about two decades 110% are going to be female. I mean, it's on the
00:41:25
right trajectory, but I want to be clear. I don't I I don't think it's I'm not sure it's ever
00:41:31
going to be 50/50. And I think equality of opportunity does not always equal
00:41:37
equality of outcomes. But I've said this and I realize I'm pandering a little bit, but I believe this. Uh I think the
00:41:44
best thing I think a lot about struggling young men and the lack of economic opportunity and how it creates
00:41:49
a disproportionate impact on their self-esteem and also it creates a lot of
00:41:55
stress in the home because I still do think our society puts a disproportionate amount of pressure on
00:42:00
men to be economically viable. And I think the best thing we could do for
00:42:05
young men right now uh would be universal child care because if you think about I've unfortunately gone down
00:42:12
this rabbit hole. If you walk into a morg, five of the people who have died by suicide, four are men. And the zone
00:42:19
quote unquote of self harm among men is most prevalent the year after they get divorced. And young people get divorced
00:42:27
uh by the way 70% of divorce filings are by women. And young people get divorced not because of infidelity or lack of
00:42:33
shared values, but because of economic strain. And if you want to live in a place like New York or if you're really
00:42:39
aggressive and you want to be in a high-cost city, the reality is you probably need to have a dual income home. and not having um child care,
00:42:47
affordable child care just puts tremendous stress on the marriage which
00:42:52
disproportionately in my view impacts actually or as much men because what the
00:42:57
research shows is despite the cartoon of a woman in her 30s who didn't find romantic love and is crying and
00:43:04
listening to Melissa Ethridge looking out the window. Oh my god. With cats, it's Taylor Swift now, but go ahead.
00:43:11
That that is a cartoon. There's really wonderful research that is pretty conclusive and it's the following. Men
00:43:18
need relationships more than women. So if you want to invest and lift up men,
00:43:23
young men who are struggling, quite frankly, you want to remove economic anxiety from families such that they
00:43:29
stay together. And probably the easiest way to do that, which would create scale and affordability, would be to become
00:43:36
the last or finally join the other G6 or the G7 and have universal child care. So
00:43:41
I think we need to frame it not as a woke thing, not as a female thing, but as something that would really help
00:43:47
or a binary thing because it's always this binary thing. And I think that creates natural fighting, right? That
00:43:53
we're in this struggle. Now, absolutely throughout my career, let me just say, you know, I tell you things, you're
00:43:59
like, I didn't know that. Sometimes definitely as a woman, you face all kinds of [ __ ] nonsense every day of
00:44:05
the week. When I came back from my pregnancy, I was sort of the top tech reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and
00:44:11
I'm not going to name this editor, but because he's retired and probably dead, possibly dead. Um, and I think I think
00:44:18
dad, actually. Um, and and he said, "So, you're going to need more time." He said
00:44:23
that to me like, "You're going to need more time now." And I said, "For what?" And he silence. And I was like, "What do
00:44:29
I need more time for? What's changed?" And he's silent. And I said, "You have three children and you didn't need more
00:44:35
time, did you? Why would I need more time? What's their [ __ ] business of what time I need?" And he sort of stared
00:44:41
at me and couldn't deal with it. And I said, "If you say this to another woman again, I will sue your [ __ ] life back
00:44:47
to yesterday." Like, you know what I mean? Like, so it was a really interesting moment. So, we dealt with all kinds of nonsense. But to set it up
00:44:54
as this woman man thing to me is like wildly offensive. like wildly in and not
00:44:59
just wildly offensive because I'm not like one of these people who gets particularly offended. What it is is it's just stupid. It's just it doesn't
00:45:06
make a better workplace. But that applies to the other side of the argument and that is sure the genders have done a great job of
00:45:13
convincing themselves it's the other gender's fault. Right. I would and if you look at for example Title N
00:45:18
when it was 4060 uh male excuse me female to male and colleges and we recognize colleges a
00:45:24
tremendous upward lubricant for income inequality. We weighed in with Title 9. And when Title 9 was passed, 97% of our
00:45:32
elected representatives were male, which is sexism itself. But it also shows it's not men against women. It's what I'd
00:45:38
call liberal versus illiberal thoughts. There are a lot of women who support the patriarchy. 54% of white women voted for
00:45:44
Trump. So, this isn't about men versus women. The greatest alliance in history is the alliance between men and women,
00:45:51
and I would argue specifically liberal men and liberal women. But we keep couching it as though men are against
00:45:58
this and women are for it and all men are illiberal and all women are liberal.
00:46:03
That's just not true. That's a team approach and I think that's dangerous. Anyway, it was a stupid thing to I watched it for you. Don't. It's stupid. Um, couple quick
00:46:11
things and then we're going to get to audience questions. The Supreme Court just turned down a request to consider overturning its landmark decision to
00:46:17
legalize same-sex marriage. The court declined the petition filed by
00:46:23
Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue same sex too
00:46:28
bad, Kim, uh same licenses because of her religious beliefs. She has to now pay the gay couple $365,000
00:46:35
for her thing. Um the good news, and by the way, can I just say in the coverage
00:46:41
of the media, it's not gay marriage, it's marriage. So like, let's just it's the law of the land. The good news now
00:46:47
is we don't need to get married now, Scott. I thought we might have to. So, let's look at a pic. This isn't my opportunity. Let's look at a pic of my
00:46:54
lovely wife uh in the before. That's our That's our second date.
00:47:00
I know. She's really good-looking. So, hold on. So,
00:47:05
my understanding is lesbians get divorced at a much greater rate. So, did you bring a U-Haul to your second date?
00:47:11
Uh, we look good. No, we didn't. Oh, don't do the U-Haul. Gay couples get married for kids. gay
00:47:16
couples for aesthetics. Lesbian couples get married for that
00:47:21
mid-century modern couch they found on Pinterest. And when they
00:47:26
when they get divorced, who gets the couch? Who gets the Subaru? It's who has the loyalty card name at REI.
00:47:34
We get along very well compared to straight people. My ex-wife is amazing. Her name is Megan Smith. She's terrific.
00:47:39
Um, how it ended with this second date. Go. A
00:47:47
that's our four beautiful children also with Megan. Um that's Louis Alex who's 9
00:47:52
feet tall. Uh lesbians have very tall children. Can I tell my really nice marriage
00:47:59
story? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. So I was living in San Francisco, lovely woman, my wife, and I came to New York.
00:48:04
I'd never been here before. And people were drinking till 4:00 a.m. and trying to figure out a way to party and make
00:48:09
more money. And I went back and said, "I want a divorce. You can have all of our friends." True story.
00:48:16
Does she still talk to you? We're good friends. She was like,
00:48:22
"Anyway, we can't get married now. I know you're disappointed." What's that? Are you disappointed we can't get married? Cuz I would have had to.
00:48:27
We can get married. No. What is it, not Utah? We'll move to Utah. No, we're not moving to Utah. There's no
00:48:33
I like Amanda. We are never getting married. You keep This is her thing. She keeps
00:48:39
claiming we'll never have sex and yet she brings it up every seven [ __ ] minutes. Seriously. Seriously.
00:48:46
I would have to take so much ketamine. It would be like so much ketamine.
00:48:52
It's like a taffy pull at this point. Just don't worry about it.
00:48:57
Anyway, we're moving on. Can I ask you a last question? We're going to take questions
00:49:03
from the audience now, but um who is your Scott has a book called Notes on Being a Man. It's number one on Amazon.
00:49:09
We're hoping it's the number one book. Um we gave away some at the beginning. Who besides me? Who is your male role
00:49:17
model? Obviously me.
00:49:22
I get asked that a lot and I don't have a good answer. Um, I think there's one,
00:49:28
you know, the dude that gets up, works hard, absorbs more complaints than he gives, tries to create surplus value,
00:49:34
notices people, good good citizen, good patriot, there's good there's fantastic
00:49:39
role models. Um, how about in your life? in my life.
00:49:45
You know, I've had I had a lot of nice men uh when my when I was clear I became
00:49:53
or when people noticed it was just me and my mom. I had a a lot of nice men get involved in my life. Uh I had a guy
00:50:00
across the hall come across and say, "Hey, me and my girlfriend are going horseback riding. Do you want to come
00:50:06
with us?" And he took me horseback riding. I had a coach get involved in my life. I had a scout troop leader. I was
00:50:11
a boy scout. I wasn't very cool as a young person. I know that's hard to imagine. Um, buy me my baseball u
00:50:19
equipment cuz he he could just pick up that we didn't have a lot of money. I had a lot of wonderful so not
00:50:25
celebrities, but I had a lot of really wonderful men in my life. And this is sort of a a call out and an ask. The
00:50:32
single point of failure for when a boy comes off the tracks is when he loses a male role model. There's a lot of
00:50:38
research and that is we have more single parent homes than any country in the world and it's always the mom or 82% 82
00:50:45
to 808% of the time. And what's interesting is girls in single parent homes have the same outcome, same rates
00:50:50
of college attendance, same rate same income. Whereas boys the moment he loses a male role model through death, divorce
00:50:57
or abandonment at that moment becomes more likely to be incarcerated than graduate from college.
00:51:03
And so getting men involved in a young boy's life is absolutely critical. And unfortunately, men my age and men in
00:51:10
general aren't stepping up. And as someone who mentors young men, what I can tell you is that it is so easy to
00:51:16
add value to a young man's life. They make such terrible decisions. And just I
00:51:23
literally had to had to convince a kid 48 hours ago that he cannot survive on pineapple juice and creatine.
00:51:30
and and you just start asking a series of questions and just hanging out and just if they see that a good man trying
00:51:36
to live a virtuous life uh sees value in him, it's a huge difference. And in some
00:51:44
they're just good men everywhere. We just need to step up if we want better men. Uh we need to be better men. Apply
00:51:50
to be a big brother. Yeah, I would agree. So just me, I'm your I'm your big thing. I'll give you
00:51:56
my list. Who's your list? Louis Swisser, your son. Alex Swisher,
00:52:01
your other son. Saul Swisser, though he's on the bubble today. Um, no, Saul Swisser. He's just four. He's turning four on Sunday. Happy
00:52:07
birthday, Saul. Um, my brothers, my two brothers. I know one better than the other, but they're both
00:52:13
both my brothers, Jeff and David. Uh, my nephews here. He's amazing. Will Swisser is an astonishing young man. Um, and and
00:52:21
Walt Musber and you. I have to say you're one of my my you've done a lot for my kids actually for my older
00:52:28
especially Alex. You've he's been Scott doesn't brag about it but he's been an astonishing um help to him. Alex
00:52:34
really looks up to him even more than me which is really irritating. He's always like you know what Scott said this week.
00:52:39
I'm like yeah but I kind of said that and he's like yeah but Scott like he does it. So it's a real it's really
00:52:45
important and it changed his life for sure going. Just to just to comment on that, I I don't think masculinity or
00:52:51
femininity are sequestered to people born as males as as females. I think Cara demonstrates fantastic masculinity.
00:52:57
I've said before most of my close male friends are very feminine. I'm drawn to men who are more nurturing. And so when
00:53:04
I think of masculinity, I think it can be an outstanding code and gu and kind of guard rails for a young man who is
00:53:10
more likely to feel easier leaning into those attributes. that these are wonderful attributes masculinity and
00:53:16
femininity that can be adopted are not sequestered to anyone born as male or female. The point of my book is young
00:53:22
men need a need guard rails and sort of a code. This can be a tremendous code and then we need to celebrate uh both
00:53:28
femininity and masculinity. There's in my view there's no such thing as toxic masculinity. There's cruelty, there's
00:53:34
criminal behavior and there's abuse. Those couldn't be any less masculine. Let's celebrate the wonderful attributes
00:53:41
of being a provider, a protector, and a procreator, and lift our young men up and ask them to get more involved and
00:53:48
really use masculinity as a code. Uh, which requires a commitment and discipline and generosity and a kindness
00:53:55
practice, but let's stop demonizing it because I think there's a lot of young men out there that feel absolutely lost
00:54:00
and are getting a series of mixed messages and quite frankly just don't know how to behave.
00:54:07
All right. And that's Scott Gall. You should read his book. It's great. So, we need to take another quick break and when we come back, we're going to take
00:54:13
questions from the audience. So, bring some good ones. Last night in Boston, two people, there was a marriage
00:54:19
proposal, so you better keep up here, Brooklyn. Support for the show comes from ODO.
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00:55:25
Scott, we're back recording live from New York City in the lovely Kings Theater in Brooklyn. This is an amazing
00:55:33
audience. We're going to get to audience questions and we're excited to answer them. You're going to come down to the left or the right of the aisles. Um,
00:55:40
please be considering keep them very short because we want to get to as we we try to answer all the questions. You can
00:55:45
ask anything you want, but be short is what I'll ask you. So, I will cut you off. So, let's start. Let's go.
00:55:51
Let's see some questions. Is someone up? Let me see. Hey, Scott and Cara. I'm so grateful to
00:55:56
be here. Julia from Philadelphia. Hi. Seems to be in the air. Yeah. Um I left you a voicemail asking for
00:56:03
some marriage advice from my friend Meg here. Big fan. Okay. Who just got engaged?
00:56:09
Oh wow. To who? To DNE. Also a pivot lister and a fellow tech uh worker SAS. Works on websites. A
00:56:16
salesperson and they met at work which seems to be Yeah. most people do. One in three
00:56:22
relationships begin at work and 99.9% are consensual. So marriage advice, I don't know, Scott.
00:56:28
I mean, both of us have been divorced, so I don't suspect we're the best experts. I I feel like I
00:56:36
don't act like me sometimes, I guess. Um, I would say probably kindness and uh
00:56:42
it's called active listening, I think. Like not like listening. I know, but it's it's correct. I know
00:56:48
this is why lesbians have a higher rate of divorce because they're both listening. No, I They're both listening.
00:56:54
No, no. What I mean is, trust me, dudes, just don't listen. Just Okay, I don't have any advice except
00:57:00
really I'm still waiting for the calendar environment where my ex-wife of 20 years says we need to talk.
00:57:06
Okay. What I think you should do is uh be kinder to your spouse. I just I feel
00:57:11
like I could be a lot kinder. Um, and sometimes I get like busy or or whatever. And I think some days I I
00:57:19
really have got to think harder about being kinder would be Can I give advice to the dude? I'm not qualified to give advice to you. Is it
00:57:25
okay if I give advice to your fiance, the husband? Is he here? I've given three best man speeches.
00:57:30
They're always the same. Here's my advice. Three things. One, and
00:57:36
this is the biggest unlock in my life. Put away the scorecard. Decide what kind of husband you want to be and live to
00:57:43
that live to that benchmark. Don't keep score. Don't think, "Oh, her parents were in town and I spent time with her
00:57:49
dad. She needs to spend time with my dad. I did this." Just decide what kind of husband you want to be and hold
00:57:55
yourself to that standard because you will always naturally inflate your contribution and diminish theirs. So
00:58:01
just say, put a vision for yourself. This is the kind of husband I want to be and hold yourself to that standard. Two,
00:58:07
always express sexual desire and affection. Sex and affection say you, I choose you
00:58:15
and you are singular. And regardless of the fact we're in Brooklyn, I'm going to say it. I think women want to be wanted.
00:58:22
I think sex and affection are wonderful. And the third thing, and this is probably the most important, never let a
00:58:29
woman be cold or hungry. Pashmas and power bars at all times. All right, that's a Scott thing. Thank
00:58:35
you for that question and good luck. Good luck. We we think it's great. We love we love marriage because we've done it so much between us. Um uh right here.
00:58:44
Hello. Thank you for doing this wonderful live shows. I flew from Miami to come see you guys. Oh wow. Um so mine is a parenting
00:58:52
question. So parenting question slightly different for each of you. Cara, I have a 5-year-old JOLI little girl at home
00:58:58
with my husband. Um how are you? Are you doing anything different with your little girl? And by the way, my favorite
00:59:04
host that you've ever had on your podcast was your son. What a wonderful, thoughtful boy. And so, are you doing
00:59:12
anything different between the two groups of kids and now a girl? And first, Scott, I've heard you say a few times that you would have loved to have
00:59:18
a girl if you would have had a girl. Is there anything that you think you would have done different?
00:59:23
Yeah, he still could. Um, I thought about this a lot. I thought
00:59:30
this about when we had a daughter. Uh, I have two older sons and a younger son. Um, and first of all, she runs the
00:59:36
[ __ ] show like of all of them. She runs all the boys. Um, she has a lot of what they call executive function. Um,
00:59:43
and she's also, what's incredible is all my kids, everyone's like, uh, all your
00:59:48
my kids are all so cisgendered. It's crazy. It's like I was like, is there any they thems here? No. Like she's very
00:59:55
girly. She's very this. So, I kind of just lean in with all the kids. And the only thing I worry about is how there's
01:00:01
going to be a day when she's going to feel lesser than. I know it, right? Someone's going to say something to her. My guy, my older boys are always like,
01:00:09
I'm the best thing ever all the time. Like they turn in a shitty essay and I and I go, this isn't very good. They're
01:00:14
like, I think it's good. And I was like, why? Because it sucks. And they had a confidence that was born of being the
01:00:21
way the world is to them. And so I worry a little bit about that. But one of the things I do with her is I try to um of
01:00:28
and all of them I try to make them feel like what they're the choices they're making are good choices and I support them. I don't run them down. I don't
01:00:35
tell them they're stupid. I don't like rag on them. Um I just feel like they're the greatest things ever and I think
01:00:42
they feel and I actually think that I'm not it's not a fake thing. So I think I'll do this pretty much the same thing
01:00:48
with her. Although the the K-pop demon hunters thing, I'm about right to
01:00:54
[ __ ] here with that. Um, but Saul is the same way. And oddly enough, Saul, I
01:00:59
wanted to put on Sodapop for people who know, they know. Um, and he's like, "No, only the girl band." I'm like,
01:01:05
"Success." Like, he likes the girl band, the Huntress over uh whatever those
01:01:10
other ones were called. What are they called? Sasha Boys. Sasha Boy. Whatever. Okay. They don't like them. Anyway, um, Scott,
01:01:17
uh, so this is a New York story, but it's not a great one. I was living in faculty housing at NYU, two kids under
01:01:23
the age of three, and I've always been very, very anxious economically. I
01:01:28
didn't grow up with money. It's just something that's always haunted me, like a fear of not having money. and my um
01:01:35
three going on four-year-old applied to uh seven different preschools and for
01:01:40
the right to pay $58,000 to pay play with blocks
01:01:46
and we applied to seven schools at the time. My son was speech delayed and the story ends well. He's he's now, you
01:01:52
know, doing exceptionally well, but he got rejected from all seven schools. And
01:01:58
I remember thinking like, I've been single and an entrepreneur my whole life. I'm used to rejection, but not for
01:02:04
my four-year-old. And we left the city and moved to Miami, actually, just north of there, Delray Beach, where we cut our
01:02:11
cost of living in half. But that was one of the reasons I didn't want to have more kids was I we had two wonderful
01:02:18
little boys and I was economically not strained, but economically anxious. And it's one of my biggest regrets. I didn't
01:02:25
know at that time I would end up having more money, but um I really my biggest
01:02:30
regret and my partner wants to strangle me because she wanted a third and I said, "No, let's cash out while we're
01:02:36
ahead." But I Yeah, if I Are you the same way? I really wish I'd had more kids. I have four. Like,
01:02:43
yes. I actually wish I had more kids. I do. I wish I had gotten pregnant a second time. I had Louis. Um and I love
01:02:49
being pregnant. So, and 60% of 30-year-olds 40 years ago used to have a kid in the house. Now
01:02:54
it's 27%. I don't think it's because young people don't want kids. I think it's because they're responsible and they think I don't want to have the
01:03:00
economic strain that this inflation economy with with that keeps
01:03:06
transferring money from young to old. But I I my I don't have a lot of regrets. I've had a charm life. I really
01:03:12
regret not having a third. Yeah. I wish I had six kids. I do. I'd like a Brady Bunch for sure. And then I
01:03:18
all I know is I'm thrilled that I have one more child than JD Vance. But
01:03:23
he like lectured me on how le li liberals don't believe in the future and I was like well you have half the kids I do at the time. So I believe twice as
01:03:30
much and if you need any help lesbians are good at having children. Go ahead.
01:03:35
Hi. Oh sorry. I'm Yosi from Mexico. Hi. And you guys rock. Um my question is
01:03:43
given the negative sentiment around AI and like it seems like we're kind of
01:03:48
sleepwalking into Armageddon. Why are we actually doing that? That's number one. Okay.
01:03:54
And two, what is the steelman case for optimism in this
01:03:59
AIdriven world? That is Sorry, that is not like we're going to cure cancer kind of thing. That's a great question. I interviewed
01:04:05
Jeff Hinton today for about two hours. So, he is obviously the godfather of AI. He's been calling he's not a doom
01:04:11
scroller like about a doomer, but I interviewed him for a long time today. And he's of course the one that's in his
01:04:16
Nobel Prize. he won for a his essentially uh pushing AI forward. Um he
01:04:23
talked about um he's been the one warning and it was quite a dire prediction largely because he's been
01:04:28
asked about it. I think my big issue is why is it being run by seven companies
01:04:33
of heter homogeneous nature of of huge power driven by politics and driven by
01:04:39
the ability to hand Donald Trump money to build this ridiculous grotesque ballroom. This is not how we should be
01:04:45
running AI. Um, and so one of the things he said that struck me, and I'll just leave you with that. There's all kinds of things. We should have all kinds of
01:04:51
regulations and laws. It will not hinder us against China to have basic guard rails about things. We don't want killer
01:04:58
drones. Probably agree on that, right? Uh, that that autonomous killer drones. We don't want AI to be able. He was
01:05:05
talking about getting the stuff we're in alignment with globally, we should start passing rules about. And there's there's
01:05:10
dozens of things we're all in alignment for. The things we won't be in alignment are weaponry, our misinformation because
01:05:17
China kind of wants it. We kind of want it, right? We want to be able to misinform each other's populace in order
01:05:23
to win whatever war we're in. And one of the things he said is the thing I would like to have happen and it was really
01:05:29
interesting that he said this was a maternal not AI going to kill us, AI is
01:05:34
going to try to control us. The AI is going to try to take control. All of which could happen by the way and he's
01:05:40
just laying it out. We've got to build an AI that has a a maternal. He used the
01:05:45
word maternal, which was really interesting, has a maternal sense. And he says the one relationship we should
01:05:51
think about is a mother and a baby, right? And so we're the baby and AI is
01:05:59
the mother. And he said that's a relationship where the baby controls the mother for all kinds of hormonal, all
01:06:05
kinds of parental reasons, all kinds of emotional reasons. We have to train the AI to think of us as the baby and they
01:06:13
will do anything to take care of us. And I thought that was it's totally possible and the stuff I'm working on a secret
01:06:19
CNN documentary which I always call it the secret one but it's coming out in April. Um and it's great and it's about
01:06:24
longevity and one of the things that AI in healthcare is going to be mindblowingly amazing. You will not die
01:06:30
of cancer uh because of AI. So, so many of the applications are astonishing and
01:06:35
so many of them are are disturbing. And I think Jeff is one of the great thinkers that we have to do it without
01:06:41
having to pay off Donald [ __ ] Trump on AI that that we again as citizens have to rise up around safety, around
01:06:49
guard rails, especially with young kids. I've interviewed a lot of these parents whose kids have committed suicide, I
01:06:55
believe, because of the AI chat bots. Um, and so we have to start at a place like of safety and then move on from
01:07:02
there. That's a long-winded answer of that. So you're smart to ask what could go right because as a species we have a
01:07:08
tendency to catastrophize because we want to protect against the downside. But from an investment or a society
01:07:14
standpoint, the optimists over the medium and long term have vastly outperformed the pessimists. So the
01:07:20
steelman or the what could go right optimistic view of AI is the following and that is every technology in history
01:07:27
has ultimately um created growth in the economy and if it's a enduring
01:07:32
technology it's created more jobs than it's destroyed. Everyone was convinced automation was
01:07:37
going to decimate labor in the auto industry. And in the short run, it did clear out some jobs in the factory floor, but we didn't anticipate heated
01:07:45
car seats or car stereoss. And now there's more people working in the automotive industry. The steel man is
01:07:52
that AI creates all of this incredible margin of new opportunities in healthcare, in robotics,
01:07:58
in uh senior care, and that it creates thousands of new startups that create employment. There'll be different jobs,
01:08:04
more higher skilled, some people will lose their job. The biggest fear I have about AI is not something we talk a lot
01:08:11
about and that is loneliness. And I worry that 10% or 10 companies which
01:08:17
represent 20%, excuse me, 40% of the S&P by market cap have have unwittingly
01:08:25
but observably connected the success of our economy right now. Our economy is a
01:08:31
giant bet on AI right now. If we didn't have those 10 companies, the NASDAQ would be flat, GDP would be flat. So,
01:08:37
we're a giant bet on AI. And essentially, these companies have an economic interest, invested interest in
01:08:44
evolving a new asocial, asexual species of young male. And I worry that with
01:08:50
synthetic lifelike porn and relationships and friends and mentors, we're going to slowly but surely start
01:08:56
to sequester young people, specifically young men, who are having trouble establishing relationships, are more
01:09:02
dopa aggressive, that we're going to continue to see a trend along the following. Men aged 20 to 30 now in
01:09:09
America are spending less time outdoors than prison inmates. And I worry slowly but surely you're going to stop seeing
01:09:15
men, young men at things like this because they think I'm not attaching to work. I don't have money. I'm not
01:09:21
willing to endure the rejection and the effort and to demonstrate excellence to establish a romantic partnership and I
01:09:28
have what feels like 4K lifelike porn at home. So I think we have to be very
01:09:33
careful. No synthetic relationships for anyone under the age of 18. I think similar to content, any minor should
01:09:39
have an entirely different set of AI rules. No social media for anyone under the age of 16 and no phones in schools.
01:09:45
Loneliness and sequestering young people from society is our biggest risk of AI.
01:09:51
Thank you so much for all your questions. We love we love love love our
01:09:57
fans. Now we're going to say goodbye. You can catch selected shows from this
01:10:02
tour on YouTube and in your podcast feeds. That's all the time we've got for today. Scott, read us out.
01:10:08
Today's show was produced by Laren A and Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. earning or taught injury this episode. Jim M
01:10:13
edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Bros. Mia Seo Dantelon and Kate Gallagher. Thanks also to Trish Harnito,
01:10:20
Kelly Schwanter, Kayn Lynch and Nico Alvarez, Nishak Kas Vox Media's executive producer podcast. And a big
01:10:27
shout out to the Vox experiential team, Terara Riley, Courtney Given, Abby Aronowski and Kate Lyn Burla. Make sure
01:10:33
to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media.
01:10:40
You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for
01:10:45
another breakdown of all things tech and business. My life changed dramatically to the upside with one decision. I moved
01:10:52
to New York. You are so lucky to be here.