00:00:00
This was a bust of a parade. It just was. I got to be honest, I enjoyed it cuz it was just so sad for the
00:00:05
president.
00:00:11
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Fox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser from France
00:00:17
and I'm Scott Galloway and this episode is presented by IBM. How are you doing? I was worried about you this weekend.
00:00:22
Are you doing all right? Yeah. Why? Why? Why about me? A lot of stuff. Although good news, what some compensation when I
00:00:29
get worried about you. You know, there's this amazing new anti-depressant targeted at lesbians. Oh, really? Oh,
00:00:35
no. What is it? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's I'm sure you've heard of it. It's called Tricoxan. Tricoxan.
00:00:43
Word is Word is it works for about a day and then continued usage makes you worse
00:00:48
than you were previously. Oh, baby. Look at these. That's not good. Should I get a Tricoxan? Yeah, I have been waiting
00:00:55
all weekend to say this joke. Many First of all, it's a terrible joke and many lesbians have never tried that. Just so
00:01:02
you know, I have. Yes. Many have not. But so I was able to make my conscious
00:01:08
choice, which was a good one. I think I feel good to this day. Yeah. Apples, pears, no contest. Uhhuh. Exactly. Or
00:01:13
bananas, pears. [ __ ] I don't know where we going. The fruit thing. By the way, just as a segue here. Oh my god. All
00:01:19
right. Good. You do not have to spend You do. We're both in France. We're both literally near each other. We're both
00:01:24
doing the exact same thing. You do not know how to spend your money. I do. Look at my hotel room. Look at yours. Okay.
00:01:31
Your place literally looks like a Hampton Inn near the airport where you end up naked and and googling, can you
00:01:38
get chlamydia from the karaoke mic? Look, look at where you are at the very
00:01:44
fancy hotel on the quaset right now. Just so you know, I'm not everybody. Okay, hold on. Here's Cara Hotel. Here's
00:01:51
Cara for the YouTubers. Here's Cara who does not know how to spend her money. And here's daddy. Here's daddy. Daddy
00:01:57
has an assistant. You're so worried about me, you could put me up at the hotel where you are. Anytime. You know,
00:02:02
I love to shower you. I love to spoil you. You're like a hot young woman I'm trying to have sex with. I spoil you all
00:02:08
the time. Speaking of tricxin, that's never happening. Just for the listeners, that's an upsetting and triggering
00:02:13
thing. It's never happening. Huge disappointment on my end. Anyways, we're in France. Explain why we're in France.
00:02:19
Explain why we're in France. We're We're at our favorite event. We're at K. We love it here. Yes. Meaning I had dinner with you. It's con according to my wife
00:02:25
who speaks. No, it's not. It's 100. You totally mansplained at me. But it's con
00:02:32
just and I've illuminated you. I'm saving you from yourself and your pretentious friend who thinks that if
00:02:38
they go gone, it means they took French in 11th grade at some overpriced private school. It's fluently. But go ahead.
00:02:44
It's why is it can but not to the French. That's how you pronounce it. But it's not. It's not. Okay. Okay. Cara
00:02:50
swisher. No. No. No. But anyways, we're here at Can. We're doing a bunch of events. We
00:02:56
love it here. Did you just get here? Did you take the red eye? I just got here. Yes. That's why I'm looking like a little haggard here. Yeah. Yeah. Cara, I
00:03:02
have to carry the Take a red eye. I left at 5:00 at whatever time day it was. That's called the worst red eye in the
00:03:08
world. That means you get no sleep. It was British Airways. It was lovely. And I went through London. Yeah. Oh, you got
00:03:14
it. You're There's no flight from Washington DC. I got I got to speak to your brother. This is enough. I'm doing
00:03:19
an intervention. Okay. You need to learn how to take better care of yourself. You need to come Friday. You need to hang
00:03:25
out at the pool. Oh, no. I can't do that. I can do that. Have a little rosé. No. Couldn't bring Do you know how
00:03:30
daddy's getting into the pallet tonight? He's taking a Zodiac. I'm putting on a jacket. I'm crashing Meta Beach. And
00:03:36
they'll all be freaked out. I'm like, I have a meeting with Cheryl Samber. Here. I'm going where you are tonight supposedly. Oh, yeah. To the iHeart
00:03:44
Party or something. Is that the C? Is that Iheart? Is that party? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good. I like Michael. Just mentioned
00:03:50
Michael. Yeah, they're all competing parties at your fancy hotel, but go ahead. Yeah. And then I got a Salesforce
00:03:55
thing and then a Google thing. Um, yeah, I got a bunch of stuff going on. All because of you. Oh, see. Well, you
00:04:02
should fly me here on a private plane. That would be nice for all the money I've got you over the years. It's probably not a big amount of money, but
00:04:08
it's a substantive amount. Anyway, we're in France because we're here shilling Advertisers Group. We're going to do a
00:04:14
live pivot and people are very excited and I met many people on the airplanes uh who love pivot. I love it here. I
00:04:20
love the south. I love I'm warming to French people. I love the food here.
00:04:25
It's so nice. Yeah, that craw is like a great world leader right now. I think France is a spicy wife. He's got a spicy
00:04:33
wife. Occupying the space he commands. I like it here. Isn't he not here? He's with the G7, right? Is he in Canada?
00:04:39
Yeah, they're in Canada. So, he's not here. France. Canada. Same. France. I
00:04:45
said in France can can in France. Let's go to can in France. Oh my god. It's con
00:04:50
and France. Anyway, it is. You're so incredibly [ __ ] again. You You're off
00:04:57
your meds. Okay. All right. You're off your meds. We're going to be getting together a lot and we're going to have a good time here. We always do. But we've
00:05:04
got a lot to get to today. There's actually some very serious things happening besides the rain on Trump's military parade which was a big he he
00:05:11
caught the L train on that one. Uh the no kings protests which were actually quite substantive in the United States
00:05:17
and the missile attacks between Israel and Iran. But first I mean this story is
00:05:22
you know dominated the headlines this weekend. A Minnesota man has been charged after the murder of two
00:05:28
Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses. The Democratic lawmakers were shot early
00:05:33
Saturday morning in their homes. Officials are also considering federal charges against the suspect, 57year-old
00:05:40
Vance Bolter, um who wore a weird mask and pretended he was a cop. Um Senator
00:05:46
State Representative Melissa Hortman, who sounds incredible, and her husband were killed. State Senator John Hoffman
00:05:52
and his wife were seriously injured. Authorities uh found a list in Bolter's car naming around uh 70 potential
00:05:59
targets, including Democratic politicians and abortion providers. A 2020 state report lists Boulder as
00:06:06
having no party preference, but his roommate says he voted for Trump and was a strong supporter. Elon Musk had his
00:06:12
own thoughts as usual, inserting himself grotescally into the proceedings of this
00:06:17
writing. He said the far left, but he didn't think he called them Marxists. Is that right? The Marxist. That was Mike Lee from Utah who was also a heinous
00:06:23
piece of [ __ ] He said the far-left is murderously violent in response to an expost about the shootings and other
00:06:28
attacks. He's absolutely wrong. This guy, I'm sorry. Democratic state senators are murdered and Democrats are
00:06:34
murdered. Someone who is very clearly disturbed and also Trump supporter. Uh I
00:06:41
want to uh discuss these shootings, the implications. But first, let's listen to Minnesota Senator Amy Clolobashar, who
00:06:46
both of us know, talk about her friend who she had dinner with the night before she died, Representative Melissa Hortman
00:06:52
on Meet the Press. We started out together in politics, moms with young kids. And somehow she was able to
00:07:00
balance getting to know every door knock, every house in her district while uh raising two children, Girl Scout
00:07:07
leader, she was uh she taught Sunday school. And maybe all that juggling made
00:07:12
it easier for her as she worked her way up in the legislature and became this extraordinary speaker of the house,
00:07:19
ushering in everything from uh free school lunch to working with the governor and other leaders um to do some
00:07:26
landmark legislation on paid family leave to this year working with her Republican counterpart when we pretty
00:07:32
much had a tied legislature to get the budget done. That's Melissa Hortman, my
00:07:37
friend. And when you think about political violence and the statistics of political violence, you've got to
00:07:43
realize the people who are behind it. Anyway, uh she's been he's been quite
00:07:49
broken up about it, obviously. Um violent threats against members of Congress uh hit an record high last
00:07:55
year. I've been I've been told this by very well-known people, congressional people, that they've gotten a huge
00:08:01
amount of death threats this year, Democratic ones, for the second year in a row, according to Capitol Police. There have been other recent incidents
00:08:08
in the last few months. There was a killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in DC. An arson attack on uh Governor
00:08:14
Josh Shapiro's home. We saw obviously the two Trump assassination attempts last year. Um one got very close. Um
00:08:23
what do you think about this rhetoric? Will it get worse? I mean I'm I I I I don't know what to say. People are in
00:08:29
their homes. It's easy to find people. Um the a lot of the people who are state senators and local politicians do not
00:08:35
have the protection that uh US uh national people have but even those
00:08:41
people are pretty exposed. Um what what has to happen here? Uh Pam Bondi thank
00:08:47
god made the appropriate response and so did Trump although light I would say. Um
00:08:52
so what what do you what do you make of what's happening here? You've talked about this, you know, you were talking
00:08:57
about civil war obviously recently, but this is something that I guess is not a surprise and yet is horrifying at the
00:09:04
same time. Yeah. Well, look, the there's no getting around it. It's a tragedy for the family. Senseless death,
00:09:11
senseless murder. I thought Senator Clolobashar was very uh states personlike in her comments. Um I thought
00:09:18
Governor Walls did his best to address the situation in a in a in the correct
00:09:24
tone. If you think about I was I was thinking about climate change and that is we've created a context or
00:09:31
atmospheric such that we might have mass migrations super fires terrible weather events that hurt the economy hurt the
00:09:37
poorest and the two big puffs of carbon into the air that created these atmospherics were the industrialization
00:09:43
of China and the consumerization of the car specifically Americans moving to the suburbs and the embrace of the car and I
00:09:51
think we've created an atmosphere for a lot of political violence balance and the two puffs of carbon into the air, if
00:09:57
you will. I do think social media uh which has a profit motive around pitting us against each other has just
00:10:03
created an atmosphere where we're convinced the enemy is within and then polarization at the hands of
00:10:10
income inequality. People are just generally angry, you know, when they wake up and they feel like they've worked hard and they have medical debt
00:10:17
and then social media convinces them that their enemy is their neighbor. And so I look what can be done. This is a
00:10:24
multi-prong problem. This talks about access to guns. This talks about mental health. This talks about, you know, the
00:10:30
strain of of lack of job prospects. This obviously political political violence.
00:10:37
What you hope you get from our leaders is thoughts around bold solutions that that decarbonize the atmosphere as
00:10:44
opposed to trying to take advantage of the moment and start issuing blame on the other side because there's been
00:10:49
political violence against both parties. But I other than saying we all have an obligation to try and take the
00:10:56
temperature down, I do think it's time probably for some sort of and you've been talking about this for a while,
00:11:01
legislation around hate speech that says you you this rhetoric, this tone when
00:11:06
you call someone when your first reaction is to call these people Marxist, right? That's not helping.
00:11:12
Yeah, that's also inaccurate. It's not helping. It's also inaccurate. But go ahead. So I you know I don't I'll
00:11:19
finish where I started. I your heart goes out to the families of these people who were murdered and then you hear
00:11:24
about this guy's background and I he's a murderer and I I trust and
00:11:30
hope he's brought to justice but you you know the whole thing is just awful. The whole thing it just puts it leaves you
00:11:35
with a pit in your stomach. Yeah. He sounds like someone who's been drifting but although not your typical profile of
00:11:42
sort of these sort of loner angry people. He has five kids. um very
00:11:48
religious, which is no no thing against him. Um tried to do tried to make it like we sort of pretend being a cop and
00:11:55
his business apparently didn't get off the ground. He was working in a funeral home. He was collecting eyeballs for um
00:12:02
operations for people. He had a series of sort of jobs and he was living in Minneapolis or in near in Minneapolis
00:12:09
and he lived his family lived in rural uh Minnesota um but was living with this
00:12:15
why this roommate knew him uh so well but like struggling struggling of someone who was struggling obviously had
00:12:21
become more and more religious um and had uh had become born again which is
00:12:27
nothing to do with this but he just he got sort of um very politicized around
00:12:34
his religion, abortion specifically. Um, and just this is someone you wouldn't
00:12:40
necessarily think of cracking, right? That would do. It reminds me a little bit of the Luigi Manion thing, too, who
00:12:46
seemed to be in a That's what it reminded me. I was like, why did this guy Yeah, but that kid was high school
00:12:52
valadictorian. I mean, that was really strange. that was he was angry and he was had a back pain and he had all kinds
00:12:59
of again no excuse zero explanation like you can sort of start to see how this
00:13:05
pieces together but what set him off to say this I mean looks like he was going to target some of these no kings rallies
00:13:12
it looks like what's what got him was it mental illness was it um you know there
00:13:18
just what was it you know that he was cosplaying a cop and had to do this and um you And this woman sounds wonderful.
00:13:26
Like did all these astonishing things. Um helped people enormously like one of
00:13:32
these wonderful public servants who just was service service to other people and
00:13:38
brought them all all manner of things protecting kids from gun violence, free
00:13:43
lunch, um abortion access, etc. So, it's just I just I really would like to I
00:13:51
this is it's sickening. It's sickening because it's not I don't maybe he was mentally ill. I don't know. I don't
00:13:56
know. But it seems like everybody's mentally ill now in that regard. Um and not your classic loner gunman kind of
00:14:02
thing. I mean um and you know his his he's got five kids to take that step is
00:14:10
really I I I don't even I don't even I couldn't even begin to understand it. It's it's it is this rhetoric. It's the
00:14:16
polarization. It's um you know, religions getting too political like
00:14:22
right the Southern Baptist deciding they're going after gay marriage now. What is wrong with them? Like you know,
00:14:28
you thought that was sort of settled and it's not obviously. Um but creating levels of anger and um ways that were
00:14:36
different rather than ways that were same. I don't know. It's just it's just sickening. And I am scared for a lot of
00:14:42
people. I have to say I'm very scared for and I've been told by a number of
00:14:47
politicians that the death threats have gone up substantively for them. Yeah,
00:14:52
for for me it I mean it's a tough one, but we don't have a monopoly on mental
00:14:57
illness. We do have a little bit of a monopoly for a nation as prosperous as us around income inequality and
00:15:03
polarization, but I still think almost all of this comes down to easy access to
00:15:08
guns. It it just you know when when there's a mentally ill guy who goes on a rampage in Britain
00:15:14
he stabs two people and one of them surv Australia they do I mean excuse me Austria they just had an attack but go
00:15:20
had a school attack but it the just the prevalence of
00:15:26
this is just this is just awful all the way around. It's very hard to find um a single cause. It's very hard to
00:15:34
outline a solution. U but again I think the politicians on both sides you know
00:15:41
it's just so upsetting when you see people try and politicize it and use it as fodder to blame the other side and Mike Lee were repulsive were repulsive
00:15:48
like even Trump knew not to right he may do it in the coming days um but both
00:15:54
Mike Lee and Elon Musk just exa reacted in exactly the way they're not supposed
00:16:00
to as always because they're you know and of course look at me you know in a situation has nothing to do with either
00:16:07
of them. Should keep their mouth shut. That's what they should do. But anyway, our heart goes out to their this these
00:16:12
families. And there's two people recovering supposedly the the people who were shot, John Hoffman and his wife.
00:16:19
But to come to people's homes and do this is just a height of depravity. I
00:16:24
don't know what else to say. Um anyway, uh speaking of weirdnesses, being in
00:16:31
Washington this weekend for this military parade was a hod, I have to say. Um this town was empty. It really
00:16:37
was. He had his birthday military parade. Uh Trump did. Um which event
00:16:43
included over 6,000 soldiers and 100 tangs, reporting far less than the expected 200,000 attendees. I would be
00:16:49
surprised if there were 100,000 there. Um it was it was a ghost town. It was really interesting. The parade was
00:16:55
sponsored by several brands with close ties to the president, including Palanteer and Coinbase, meaning
00:17:01
pay-per-play. Um, the whole thing was overshadowed by over 5 million people attending over 2,000 No Kings protests
00:17:07
around the country, which looked like a lot of fun. Um, uh, let's read off some
00:17:13
of the fun signs people had. They seemed largely peaceful, I think, and quite, um, festive almost and also determined,
00:17:20
which was interesting. I don't know if it makes a difference, but if a dictator throws a military parade and no one watches it, did it really happen? Off
00:17:26
with his toupe. If Kamla were president, we'd be at brunch. Donnie the quicker [ __ ] uper. We're all on the couch now.
00:17:34
We're all the couch now. You sucked in Home Alone, too. There were tons of them. One was um a picture of Melania
00:17:40
Trump dressed in the Handmaid's Tail of of Taco, which I thought was very funny.
00:17:45
Um I I Here's the one thing. There was a piece by Max Booth that got a little negative attention I think was about the
00:17:52
military looked good. It looked like they they you know we should honor these
00:17:57
people that serve but doing it at the beast of Trump and making it a pathetic kind of parade was you know there was
00:18:04
some really interesting revolutionary stuff. if it's the 250th anniversary of the army which was you know founded to
00:18:11
by at the beginning of our country at the same time and so um they do deserve
00:18:16
you know attention and being treated with respect and everything else. Um there were all kinds of sort of
00:18:23
conspiracy theories all over the place including that they were marching they weren't marching correctly as a as a
00:18:29
protest which was odd. I just don't think there were a lot of people there. I don't know if people people might have cheered if there were a lot of people,
00:18:35
but it was it was empty as as could be. Um, which was just interesting. I
00:18:42
thought I thought there'd be more people there. Anyway, your thoughts? I It's like when I've heard of friends getting
00:18:47
a a bar, a Bob Mitzvah late in life and like no one everyone shows up and pretends this isn't strange. I I just or
00:18:54
you know they get a Christmas or my favorite that I've never been to which
00:19:00
says I'm banging my assistant a recommmitment ceremony. Those are my favorite. Um I I I got to be honest, I
00:19:08
enjoy I I thought it was so [ __ ] I just enjoyed reing in how stupid and lame this thing was. And there's no way
00:19:13
he didn't know it. I turned on the TV just to see some footage and actually I thought to myself, you know, actually it
00:19:20
looks pretty cool. And then I realized I was watching the Mexican Independence Day parade. Oh wow. Like I I love when I
00:19:26
was in San Francisco, which is the most liberal city in the world, the the whole place loved Fleet Week and F-15s used to
00:19:33
buzz like planes. And you go and you kind of just look up and regardless of your political affiliation, you think
00:19:39
the Blue Angels. Yeah. Yeah. You think, "Wow, it's pretty cool to be American and I like the fact that if anyone [ __ ] with us, they got to deal with these
00:19:45
guys." Yeah. There's a lot of fun in San Francisco. You're right. It really is. Yeah. And it and it's great and it's a
00:19:50
show off of military hardware, but doing it, you know, the whole thing I you
00:19:56
know, I got to be honest, I enjoyed it cuz it was just so sad for the president. The Russian state um the
00:20:01
Russian state media was laughing at Trump's parade. They're like, they don't know how to throw. They do. The Soviets
00:20:06
know. My favorite was the the no kings ones looked really fun. I didn't go to
00:20:11
any, but um they looked really fun. Especially the smaller cities, they looked like kind of festive and
00:20:17
everything. There was tons and tons and tons of them. Really well done. That was the contrast. I think that's what No
00:20:22
Kings did correctly from a marketing point of view. And the other the whole um No Kings with with people in on the
00:20:31
beach in San Francisco in Ocean Beach spelling out No Kings but with bodies which was cool. And they had a drone
00:20:37
shot. Very creative, very fun. Um and again the smaller cities were were very
00:20:43
moving. I know. and all these all these people were really coming out. It was, you know, from a marketing point of
00:20:50
view. I don't know, Scott, thoughts. You're exactly right. It was the not
00:20:56
only were they really successful, but the key was the contrast. Mhm. They were creative. the sign. It looked like it
00:21:02
looked like a good time and and generally speaking, there are three
00:21:08
firewalls between what has traditionally been, you know, a
00:21:13
constitutional democracy and the things we've come to, I think, take for granted in this what I I think is this slow,
00:21:20
increasingly fast burn to fascism. And the first is the courts. And I would argue the courts are mostly holding.
00:21:25
There's been some controversial decisions down from the Supreme Court because they're not used to a criminal
00:21:30
president. But most of the most of the issues that have been presented before the court, the court says no, we can't
00:21:36
do this. Unfortunately, he can move faster than the courts and a lot of the damage can't be undone. The second
00:21:42
buffer is the media. And I think, you know, I'm mixed on the media. I think it it's doing its level best. I think it's
00:21:49
the lack of coverage around this multi-billion dollar crypto scam has been very frustrating for me. But they
00:21:54
are unafraid. I do think there's been good coverage of a lot of especially around the immigration issue and the illegal deportation trying to be too
00:22:00
fair on this thing. This was a bust of a parade. It just was. There was no other way. That's called the New York Times. I
00:22:06
know. But it was the self-hating New York Times. They can't ever have moral clarity around anything. No. CNBC did
00:22:12
it, too. I was like, I know you're trying really hard, but this wasn't good. Even Marco Rubio looked bored.
00:22:17
Well, CNBC has anchors that speak. They tuck in the president every night. Yeah, it was. But the contrast from a
00:22:24
marketing standpoint, it was Coke versus Pepsi and Pepsi just clean Coke's clock
00:22:31
because the moment they went from one image to the other, it was like Trump sitting there like the supposedly as a
00:22:38
high schooler, the best thing you can do to establish social capital is to throw a rocking party. You can be a near cool
00:22:43
kid and elevate yourself to cool them by throwing an amazing party when your parents are out of town where they show up and the garage is on fire and the dog
00:22:50
is pregnant, right? have like a [ __ ] crazy party. And this was, okay, I have
00:22:56
more money. I'm more powerful. And I threw just the lamest party. And then the the the juniors, the kids who aren't
00:23:03
as cool, had impromptu parties all over, and they were much more fun and they were much bigger and everybody showed
00:23:10
up. But where where I was headed was the third firewall here is citizenry and
00:23:16
citizenship. And I do think that Americans have become somewhat fat and happy and that a lot of us take for
00:23:22
granted the incredible prosperity and rights that we have we have inherited. Many of us have not earned. And to see
00:23:29
citizens take their weekend day from their kids from relaxation from making
00:23:34
more money and go march with several hundred thousand of their fellow citizens, it's really inspiring. And
00:23:39
there's there's some data on this actually. I guess about 1.8% of Americans turned out. And there's actual
00:23:46
research that shows if you get to three, there's never been civic activity or
00:23:51
protests where more than three or more percent or more of the population shows up where there isn't significant change
00:23:58
around the policies there. And so we're getting close. You know, Paul Krugman wrote an interesting piece. He he went
00:24:04
to one of the rallies um and it was titled Trump's parade flop. No kings was a hit. Right now images largely
00:24:10
determine the outcome. And he wrote something. He goes, "Trumpists, however, haven't fully consolidated their hold.
00:24:15
America stills a chance of reclaiming itself from the grip of brazen corruption, mindless destruction and contempt for both the rule of law and
00:24:22
for our earthwile allies. We don't have to become country bullied into submission, but we're teetering on the edge. One of the most important ways we
00:24:28
can step back from that edge is for ordinary Americans to engage in mass protests." And I think he's right. I
00:24:35
think it's um I think it's just not just that because crowd size does matter. I
00:24:41
mean, we all joked about Trump making saying that he had a bigger inaugurate initial inauguration than Barack Obama,
00:24:48
which he didn't, but um but it's it's like this it make it it has the feel of a loser to it. And and I think it sort
00:24:55
of makes people feel more bold if that's the case. But doesn't mean that
00:25:01
difficult times aren't ahead. Um because these people aren't going away. I mean, they they're bringing their guns.
00:25:07
they're bringing their like they're bringing their threats and everything else but it is important you know as
00:25:13
several politicians like Pritsker and others have saying this is what has to happen and there is a weariness that
00:25:18
comes with this kind of thing. Um but it was I think you have that juxtaposition
00:25:24
of this bad parade and this enthusiastic. Um it it it gives him it
00:25:30
it it it affects his image I think of being old and a loser kind of thing like
00:25:35
and I think that does stick with people maybe not there there is a correlation
00:25:41
between people's ability to bring signs to any public place and have free speech
00:25:46
and at the same time there's an inverse correlation the nations the nations that are more prone and op to have tanks and
00:25:54
military hardware on public streets generally speaking have a citizenry that
00:26:00
has few rights and so gen you're just signaling to the world an erosion in
00:26:06
individual rights of its citizenry the more often you have tanks on boulevards
00:26:12
where we're there are laws built in you know a couple hundred years old that said for example the military can't be
00:26:18
weaponized to arrest citizens there's the whole point is our military we're
00:26:23
not even very good our fine young men and women aren't very good at marking ing. Why? Cuz they train to kill people
00:26:29
and defend our shores as opposed to They are good at marching. That's what several army people were like that was
00:26:34
on purpose, just so you know. And I was like, I don't know. Okay. I I would rather they'd be good at killing bad
00:26:40
guys than practicing marching all the time in Pyongyang. It just that that's that's not an indication. Your ability
00:26:46
to throw on a parade and march by dear leader in unison is not an accurate reflection of the strength and fighting
00:26:52
power. And again, when your tanks when you see your tanks on Wilshire Boulevard
00:26:58
or on Fifth Avenue or marching up Northwest 17th or whatever the street is, that's a bad sign. You're not
00:27:05
supposed to have that. That's a sign of a society where you're the leader is
00:27:10
either not focused on the well-being, the psychological and material well-being of the citizens and has
00:27:16
decided to in some way try and intimidate the local populace. Like no one's no one's scared of that. I
00:27:23
don't was scared of this. I'll tell you the best part of this was sort of the old costumes, the old tanks, the old the
00:27:28
old weaponry, the vintage stuff. The vintage stuff was interesting and and so were the outfits, even the revolutionary
00:27:34
ones. And then um I like the feats of strength on the everyone was making fun of this. I'm like, why do you care if
00:27:40
they're doing feats of, you know, they were hanging off of things doing a lot of hell stuff. I thought that was fine. I know Pete Hess loves that stuff and
00:27:46
it's the only part that I think was cool. Well, anyway, Trump, you're a loser. And Elon, whatever. Leon even
00:27:53
tweeted a a no kings thing. It was interesting. Uh, we'll get to that in a second, actually. Okay, Scott, let's go
00:27:59
on a quick break and when we come back, uh, Trump tries to make peace between Israel and Iran. Oh dear.
00:28:07
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00:28:26
we're back. President Trump is urging Israel and Iran to make peace, saying the two countries should make a deal and will make a deal. The long-standing
00:28:32
conflict between the two countries escalated late last week with Israel's surprise attack on Iran, although Trump
00:28:37
signaled it pretty clearly. The attack targeted Iranian nuclear and military facilities, killing tough generals and
00:28:43
nuclear scientists. Iran retaliated and missile stripes from both sides of continued force strike js rising
00:28:49
civilian casualties. The White House is denying any US involvement in Israel's action though Trump reportedly nixed a
00:28:55
plan to kill Iran's leader over the weekend. He's also warning that Iran will face the full strength it might US
00:29:01
armed forces if the US is attacked in any way. Oh god, this feels like golf.
00:29:07
The golf again. I don't know but what have you what have you been thinking over the past few days and what do you think about his role in all this? A lot
00:29:13
of people feel that it it was you know stopping these Iranian um centrifuges
00:29:20
from spinning up was a very good idea. At the same time Trump seems
00:29:25
way past his depth and there's a fight within MAGA over over this. Marjorie Taylor Green and others don't think we
00:29:31
should be there at all. So it's also politically problematic for him. Uh well obviously I think a lot about this. Um I
00:29:38
think the Ukrainian army and the IDF are doing the dirty dangerous work uh for the west. I I think I think of the
00:29:45
presidency and leadership is around capital allocation. And I think there's few things that have shown a greater return than backing
00:29:53
um the Ukrainian army and also the intelligence and military support of the IDF. There America has four quoteunquote
00:30:01
enemies or perceived enemies. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. I would argue China is actually not an enemy.
00:30:08
They're a competitor. And if a competitor is doing really well and getting in striking distance of America, America tends to think of them as an
00:30:14
enemy, which I think is a little bit unfair, but that's another talk show. But three of the four have a nuclear weapon. And I just don't think there's
00:30:20
any getting around it. I I think the West uh the US and especially Israel are
00:30:26
closest ally in the Gulf and in my view the only ally we can count on given it's a democracy and shares our values if
00:30:32
[ __ ] gets real over there. We are just better off if Iran does not have a
00:30:37
nuclear weapon. And the Atomic International Agency just last week issued a statement and its 35 member
00:30:45
nations, many of whom are not pro-Israel, saying that Iran was barreling towards a nuclear weapon and
00:30:51
had engaged in massive deception and that Biden had tried really hard through diplomacy to to to take them back or get
00:30:59
them to step back from the uh the development of a nuclear bomb. I think
00:31:04
Trump trashing the agreement in 17 probably didn't help, but it was clear despite the bluster and Trump thinking
00:31:11
he's a dealmaker, they were barreling towards a nuclear bomb. And Israel in
00:31:16
what again is what will go down as a remarkable military operation took out
00:31:22
what is the equivalent of the joint chief's staff, the head of the army, killed them all within minutes of each
00:31:29
other. And then because essentially the Iranian air defenses have been totally
00:31:34
obliterated, Israel not only controls the skies, but what became clear here,
00:31:39
they control the ground. And that is the MOSAD has so deeply penetrated the intelligence arm of the IRGC that
00:31:45
everyone is vulnerable. And just as interesting as who they killed is who
00:31:50
they didn't kill. They didn't take out any political leadership. But this is essentially in my view taken back Iran a
00:31:58
year, two years, hopefully three years from nuclear capabilities or nuclear bomb capabilities which I just think
00:32:05
it's hard to argue that that's a bad thing. Now having said that, having said that,
00:32:10
war in the Middle East rarely turns out as you would hoped. It's just I mean
00:32:15
there is there is a real risk here anytime there is war in the Middle East. This wasn't a military operation. I do
00:32:21
think these two nations are at war right now. I also want to acknowledge that there is a legitimate concern that this
00:32:28
is a wag the tail situation where Netanyahu, similar to Trump, is running to stay out of prison. And
00:32:34
unfortunately, and this is tragic, if we had better leadership in the White House
00:32:39
and a president who didn't see his ability to get reelected based on a war footing, that Trump wouldn't be taking
00:32:46
planes from Qatar. He'd be putting pressure on Qatar to put pressure on Hamas. and that Netanyahu would be more
00:32:52
sincere about trying to end the ongoing, let's be honest, death and destruction
00:32:58
in Gaza. So, this is I mean this is a complicated situation, but if you look
00:33:04
at the IDF, they took more terrorists off our most wanted list in 6 weeks than we had done in 20 years. And Iran not
00:33:11
having a nuclear bomb, I just failed to see how that is anything good, anything
00:33:16
but good. Anything but good for the West. So quite frankly, again, I'll I'll finish where I started. I believe the
00:33:22
IDF and the Ukrainian army are doing the West's dirty and dangerous work and
00:33:27
should be celebrated for it. Mhm. Well, that may be, but now what happens, and I
00:33:32
think it's really interesting that there is a real shift in the MAGA coalition in terms of America first. And of course,
00:33:39
Trump said America first is whatever I say it is, cuz I invented it, which he didn't, of course. Um, but it's a real
00:33:45
it's a question of what now? and how do you stop it? Like I think a lot of people I admire um who I pay attention
00:33:52
to are like okay it's the right thing to do but you don't know the right way to stop it right how how because they're in
00:34:00
their fourth day of heavy strikes and the attacks are not going down they're going up right and this is obviously a
00:34:06
volatile area open to any kind of like continued fighting in the Middle East is
00:34:12
something that cannot happen and I think it's um you know especially with it's in
00:34:17
Netanyahu's interest. Um I think Nyo has other ideas besides peace, right? He
00:34:24
doesn't want peace. Legitimate concern. So this is like I I get that you want to take out these generals. I get that you
00:34:30
want to take this. The fact that we managed to get him not to kill the the main leader is something I guess. Um but
00:34:37
it's it just seems like any number of bad things could happen here. And that's
00:34:42
Trump is not the president you want in this situation, right? He may you may agree with him but boy is he nuts. And
00:34:48
so I think that's the the problem we have here. And a lot of you know a lot of the smart thinkers are like good butt
00:34:57
good butt kind of thing. Sure. This is a bad decision between bad decisions but you you described it. It distills down
00:35:03
to one fulcrum or one decision and that is the risk of going to war against Iran. Mhm. Is a real risk. There there's
00:35:11
going to be unintended consequences here. The the calculus is the following. are those risks outweighed by the risks of Iran being closer to a nuclear
00:35:17
weapon. Right. Right. And I would argue that the former risks are the ones worth taking. And I do believe that unlike a
00:35:25
lot of people in the Republican party and some in the far left, I do believe there is a bad piece and I believe there
00:35:30
are good wars. And uh uh it was clear a lot of nonpartisan agencies were saying
00:35:37
that Iran was engaged in deception and moving closer and closer to a nuclear weapon. Mhm. And while their air
00:35:43
defenses were down, they have been pretty, you know, there really hasn't been a lot of civilian casualties in Iran. So I think what they're saying is,
00:35:50
okay, if you continue to have a clock in the middle of Tran that's counting down to our destruction and saying what the
00:35:57
equivalent of saying amen in the US is death to Israel is a common common phrase at the end of every sentence that
00:36:04
we are going to take preemptive action against you. And what what I don't know what is interesting here
00:36:12
is whether or not Israel said to the US, "We're doing this. We feel that this is
00:36:17
too big a risk to ignore." or and or they were totally coordinated with the US who was claiming they were supposed
00:36:23
to have talks today and whether it was a coordinated head fake and the US engaged
00:36:28
in it cuz without US at least cooperation the Israeli air force is
00:36:34
flying F you know F-15s and I think it's F-35s they can't even repair them if the US were decide to not support support
00:36:41
Israel so some level of cooperation is probably uh taking place here
00:36:47
especially around propaganda around Iran was caught totally flatfooted. They thought they were about to head into
00:36:52
negotiations on Sunday, but they made their point, right? And so one I'm sorry, who's made their point? Israel in
00:36:58
terms of doing this. So one of the things there's no it's called I guess it's called deconlictation
00:37:05
is a word. Um but both deescalation, it's like that, but it's deconliction.
00:37:10
Deconliction I guess. And obviously apparently one of the key sites, the enrichment site is buried deep
00:37:16
underground. And so it's, you know, it's one of these things that might be impossible to do, but you can cause it
00:37:22
damage or slow it down, etc., etc. I mean, I don't know a lot. This is not my area of expertise, but um but the the
00:37:30
thing is it all it depends on on President Trump again. Um because we
00:37:35
have the ability to help them do that, right? To really destroy the nuclear bombs that are being made there. Um uh
00:37:43
and whether the United States intervenes is I think a big decision and has a huge
00:37:49
consequences. Um uh anyway, he probably wants to avoid direct crime since his
00:37:54
whole thing was let's not get the wars everywhere. Um so and now with these
00:38:00
he's he's been negotiating with Iran, by the way. Um, so it I it's all come down
00:38:06
to Trump and I'm like, "Oh, the the military parade guy." As people who, if you're like me, who doesn't believe the
00:38:11
president and his national security team are top-notch, what better ally to have that that can do this, I would argue, is
00:38:19
strategically and as effectively. What was what was interesting here is that or what I found interesting is to your
00:38:26
point, these hardened targets. So we have bunker busters that can go about 20 or 30 m down, but if they dig deep
00:38:31
enough and have, you know, these centrifuges, the question you're bringing up is how much can you decap,
00:38:36
you know, decapitate of their nuclear programs? Within minutes, they killed
00:38:42
um, you know, several very top ranking military officials. They also killed two or three top of their of their top
00:38:48
nuclear scientists. But what I think what is so must be so chilling about
00:38:55
uh the RGC right now or the Iranian leadership but they made me thinking is that essentially the Mossad now has
00:39:01
control of the ground and that is they basically demonstrated we can kill anybody here and if you're a mid-level
00:39:08
security part of the security apparatus in Iran you got to be thinking okay what did I sign up for here because nobody I
00:39:17
mean imagine in the US If all the joint chiefs had been murdered or killed, the
00:39:23
head of the navy, the head of the army, and our top six scientists and AI were all dead within 30 minutes, we would
00:39:30
recognize, all right, we had been totally our security apparatus had totally broken down. And that's what's
00:39:36
happened in Iran. I think today the Middle East is actually a safer place than it was on Thursday. Interesting. I
00:39:43
just think escalation of this war is so disturbing. Anyway, uh we'll see. It's It's up to Trump. Maybe he'll do a
00:39:50
better job than this military parade. All right, Scott. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the White House reviews SpaceX contracts and the
00:39:57
fallout of the Trump Elon feud. Scott, we're back with an update on the girls who are fighting. I don't care if you're
00:40:03
mad I say that. It's funny. By which I mean Donald and Elon. Um the White House directed the Defense Department and NASA
00:40:09
to gather in details on billions and contracts with SpaceX. And they should. This is a good thing. You shouldn't have
00:40:15
one person running things. The Panama is reportedly thinking about scaling back SpaceX's involvement in the Golden
00:40:20
Goome, which is this protective shield whatever the heck thing. Meanwhile, President Trump said he was amazed Elon
00:40:26
ever endorsed him. Let's listen to a clip, which literally does sound like a breakup. Now I know why Elon doesn't
00:40:32
like me so much, which he does actually. He does. And he never had a problem. You know, it's very interesting. This was
00:40:38
this is not something new. This has been there from day one, speaker, right? We're going to abolish the EV mandate.
00:40:45
And Elon still endorsed me because honestly he never ever spoke to me about
00:40:50
that. And I used to say, "I'm amazed that he's endorsing me because that can't be good for him. I'm abolishing
00:40:57
the EV mandate." And I once asked him about it. You never talked to me about that. He said, "Well, as long as it's
00:41:04
happening to everybody, I'll be able to compete." It's a very interesting answer. I thought it was a very honest answer to be honest with you. So
00:41:11
strange. Please do. Honestly, they should just [ __ ] get stopped. I mean, I don't know what to say. Um, we'll see.
00:41:19
I mean, obviously Elon's under threat by Trump, who knows if he'll ever carry
00:41:24
through. Um, I I think one of the things I've always thought is, you know, even when Elon got contracts from Lockheed
00:41:32
and and others, I thought that was a good thing because of competition and better, cheaper things and this and
00:41:37
that. So, they certainly have an an upper hand here and shouldn't there
00:41:43
should be lots of competitive bidding on this stuff as competitive as it can be because it's the government. Um, but it
00:41:49
was uh it's just so it's such a strange relationship. I think Trump's past him. I do think Trump's past him, but I don't
00:41:55
know about what you think. He keeps trying to kiss up to Elon keeps trying to kiss up to I think this is kind of
00:42:01
over. Well, what is it? Aams AAM's razor. The the obvious answer is usually the right one. I I think it's pretty
00:42:07
obvious what's happened here and that is Elon got the president elected or at least played a major role in his
00:42:13
election and as a result believes he should have input you know was comfortable usurping congressional power
00:42:19
and the power of the person making not even administrative suggestions around cutting costs or trying to root out you
00:42:25
know waste and fraud but making political decisions that we should cut off USA ID which supposedly or
00:42:31
reportedly according to the the Boston University is already responsible for 300,000 incremental deaths
00:42:36
He was comfortable doing that and then felt that he should have input around the picks around the IRS, the CIA, NASA,
00:42:44
and people in the White House got sick of an unelected co-president. Uh Elon got very angry and started and then to
00:42:52
his court of a billion followers accused the president of being a sex criminal. Didn't bother him before when he was
00:42:58
allowed to be in the White House in his Hot Topic outfit with a black eye. But when he got basically kind of shoved out
00:43:04
of the White House, decided that the president was a pedophile. And then what hasn't been reported, but I believe will
00:43:10
be reported because it seems fairly obvious to me is somebody, whether it was Speaker Johnson or a go-between, I
00:43:16
don't know, Peter Teal, I don't know who the kind of emissary, there's always a go-between, called Trump and said,
00:43:21
"Okay, I'm sorry, called Musk and said, "Okay, I don't think you realize who you're [ __ ] with. This is what he
00:43:26
could do in about 30 to 90 days. cancel every contract, every subsidy across
00:43:32
SpaceX and Tesla, respectively, which would take the value of SpaceX from 300 million to about a hundred and probably
00:43:39
put Tesla out of business. He could threaten to deport you. He could start looking in he could sick the IRS on you.
00:43:45
He could rehire and triple the number of inspectors generals who are trying to put in safety standards around your your
00:43:52
autonomous driving. And then Tesla goes from being worth 900 billion to being worth 50 billion. I mean they he could
00:43:58
do that in about 90 days and somebody communicated that to Musk and Musk
00:44:04
realized oh maybe I went too far and that was his next tweet. He didn't all
00:44:09
of a sudden in a fit of sobriety coming down from K decided that he had lost control of his id. Somebody called him
00:44:16
and said listen [ __ ] this you [ __ ] with the wrong cowboy. Whether you like this cowboy or not, he's got the biggest
00:44:23
badge in town and he can literally put you out of business and deport you. Uh,
00:44:29
somebody made that call because that's the truth. The president of the United States though
00:44:35
he's let me just say though so so far on his Twitter he was sort of supporting him on the protests and stuff but that's
00:44:41
out of the news right now, right? All the all those protests. What is interesting is all he's doing is Tesla
00:44:46
things and things self arandizing how good he is and people complimenting him on Twitter and then every now and then
00:44:53
he's put up these no kings no gods or kings only men no gods or kings only men
00:44:59
which he's acting like a drug addict I know but I was like what's he doing cuz he's not just say it like we keep
00:45:06
looking for we keep looking for reason and rational behavior here why is he putting those up he didn't put those up
00:45:13
Cara Uh, he's a [ __ ] drug addict. Okay. All right. And I'm like, he can't help himself, right? I mean, most of it
00:45:20
is like, uh, isn't the future with Elon Musk or rockets and cool cars and like
00:45:26
he he just has all this complimentary stuff up, which is sad, but the same like, can you imagine? I'm so great.
00:45:32
Look how Pete really think I'm great. But I think Trump is going to just put him put baby in the corner and keep in
00:45:41
but keep somebody somebody called Musk and said, "Okay, uh Elon, are are you
00:45:46
relatively non high right now? Call me when you have 10 or 15 minutes where you feel like relatively not out of your
00:45:52
[ __ ] head and I'm just going to break down what the president, this president
00:45:57
who is corrupt and willing to avoid the courts or bypass the courts.
00:46:03
This guy will deport you, Elon. This guy will this guy will this guy will cut off
00:46:09
all subsidies the next day to you. How you going to explain that? Do better with the Democrats either. It's just
00:46:14
like Oh, no. He would because the Democrats will honor the Constitution in courts. I don't know. I think they're
00:46:20
going to target him. Like before he was like, "They're targeting me." I'm like, "They're really not." And I'm like, "I
00:46:26
think they're going to this time." But what you But what you're highlighting I'm sorry I didn't interrupt you. Go
00:46:31
ahead. Go ahead. I'm just thinking. What you're highlighting is why autocracy is so dangerous. Cuz quite frankly, in the
00:46:36
short run, it's so much more effective. Because if you believe Biden would never do this to me, Biden would never
00:46:43
threaten to cut off my subsidies or do an illegal asymmetric targeted attack
00:46:50
against my companies or me individually. I am safe to [ __ ] post Biden. But be
00:46:55
careful. Don't come out and say anything bad about the autocrat who's willing to bypass the courts and prosecute his
00:47:03
perceived political enemies. That's the danger of an autocracy is it is very effective. Either way, he's in trouble.
00:47:08
I don't know who could win that wants a visa him. I think he's I think he really overplayed his hand really rather badly.
00:47:15
Not I see. I wonder if it could go the other way. And that is that they're nicer to him. No. Well, I I just wonder
00:47:20
Cara I wonder if a decent strategy and the again just about controversial. Yeah, but go ahead. And I think you know
00:47:26
what you're going to say. Go ahead. Uh try and invite Elon back into the Democratic party. No, that's just you
00:47:31
should. Roana sort of brought it up, but he didn't exactly even. And and I to be
00:47:37
fair to him, he didn't actually say, but Andrew Yang said it. Um and they got
00:47:42
like run over like a mower, like a like a power mower. It was interesting. But but you said something occasionally you
00:47:49
say things that do resonate with me. And you said something a few weeks ago or a couple weeks ago that that didn't made a
00:47:55
ton of sense to me and I've been talking about it. We got attacked mostly you online for suggesting that Obama come
00:48:02
back. Oh yes. And people angry Quest Love
00:48:09
the amazing artist. I'm sorry. Quest Love. Anyways, but basically they said look it's not up to Obama. We need new
00:48:15
leadership. It's insane of you to expect him to come say I mean but and I I think that's a valid opinion but the the
00:48:23
attacks got personal and I thought to myself what you said is exactly right.
00:48:28
The Democrats are just the first to attack allies that are imperfect. And I
00:48:34
thought and I don't weigh in anymore on I don't weigh in anymore on the comments. I just don't do it for my own
00:48:39
mental health and I find it's not productive. People don't want to have a civil conversation. You're reading my comments now. He just walked over. No,
00:48:46
but people attacked you. People People started strafing me because I I host the co-host of the show with you. And I
00:48:51
thought, you know what, folks? We're not going to regain the White House with a Democratic party that is less popular
00:48:56
than a party head by a fascist. If we start saying to the guy next to us, [ __ ] you. You're holding the gun wrong.
00:49:02
You're my ally, but I don't like the way you're holding the gun. I I It was interesting. Let me just weigh in just I
00:49:10
did get attacked and Quest Love really did attack me. Listen, I get I get your arguments. I don't want a magical black
00:49:16
man to come and save us. That's not what I was saying. And actually, I'll tell you, I had a great talk with uh Karen
00:49:21
Atia, who just wrote a great piece called Barack Obama is not your emotional support president. And she and
00:49:27
I had coffee this week. She's wonderful columnist. Uh was also Jamal Kosogi's
00:49:32
editor, by the way. Um uh just terrific, terrific columnist and a really wonderful person. Um, and she wrote a
00:49:39
great piece about it, but she listened like, you know, and I'm like, I'm not saying I want, you know, this magical
00:49:45
person to come save us. I'm saying we don't have someone and this is this is out of enormous respect for him. Not out
00:49:52
of, you know, let let that guy who's given up so much take care of it. I I we
00:49:59
had a great talk. We ended up having a great talk, right? And she she was hearing what I was saying and stuff. So
00:50:04
I think it was it's easy to say white lady say bring you know Obama in to fix it. He's a very he's the and and Karen
00:50:12
wrote look I get it was a culture icon is perhaps the only Democrat the star power to take on a star power of Trump.
00:50:19
Um but this is the thing about political power. Trump is the one who has it now. I agree. I agree. I just am waiting for
00:50:27
other people are not. He's the only one with the gravitas in my opinion. But,
00:50:33
you know, I get I get why you don't think he should. But when you say the only argument I don't get is like let
00:50:39
George Bush do it, let Bill Clinton, they are so stunted in comparison to um
00:50:45
Barack Obama, it's not it's it's that to me is laughable. Let them do it or
00:50:50
they're not capable nor are they talented. But anyway, I I think the other the the argument without the
00:50:56
personal vitriol against allies attacking allies, which is how we managed to lose the White House again,
00:51:01
is is that okay, we need a new generation of leadership to step up here. And presidents do have a a
00:51:07
storied, dignified habit of not weighing in on politics once they're out of the
00:51:12
White House. I think your point, and I agree with it more generally or more broadly, is that a lot of wealthy
00:51:18
Democrats are clutching their pearls in private and not speaking up in public. whether it's Fortune 500 CEOs, former
00:51:24
presidents, people who have a platform because right now in the autocrat's
00:51:30
playbook is to disincentivize you from saying anything because you will become
00:51:35
a target and he will punish you unfairly. So the smart thing to do is just to stay quiet or just to give him
00:51:41
$10 million to his library and neuter the free press. I mean the incentives
00:51:48
are just to stay quiet and stay out of his way. And there are a lot of people, and to your point, including former
00:51:53
presidents, that have a really powerful platform that if there was a time to speak up, it feels like now is that
00:51:59
time. And I think that only goes for former presidents, whether it's Bush or Obama, but also, and I've said this, the
00:52:06
people I'm most disappointed in are really wealthy Democrats. I agree. The CEOs, I agree. I agree. I agree. Look,
00:52:13
we're not going to have if Jamie Diamond, we're going to have 14% mortgage rates, and you know this, if we
00:52:19
continue to be this fiscally irresponsible, you know, Bob Iger, a free press is super important. You can't
00:52:25
give $10 million just to make a pro a problem go away to his library. that has that has literally unleashed a a a ton
00:52:33
of of kneebending across all of media and set a really ugly precedent for what
00:52:39
is the most important cop push back against fascism and that is a free press. You know, the CEO of Nike, you
00:52:46
have a huge opportunity to come out and talk about how important immigrants have been to immigration or to uh sport and
00:52:54
competitiveness and American values. And all of these guys, 499 of which of the
00:52:59
Fortune 500 CEO wake uh Fortune 500 wake up every morning, look in the mirror and say, "Hello, Mr. President." Well, the
00:53:05
key to being president is leadership. And leadership is doing the right thing when it's really hard. And I recognize
00:53:11
all of you are worried about about you know your shareholder value. But Tim Cook, if you believe a man should be
00:53:17
able to marry another man, guess what? We are headed to a very ugly pa place where your kids should they decide to
00:53:23
marry someone of the same sex won't be allowed to. So I respect the fact he did not go to the Gulf. I respect the fact
00:53:29
these these guys and let's be honest 430 of them are guys are in a very difficult spot. But there were a lot of people who
00:53:35
were in a very difficult spot who made very hard choices such that we could have incredible prosperity and rights
00:53:42
and live with an absence of fear that if we say something that the current administration doesn't like, they're not going to bankrupt us or deport us to
00:53:48
some hellscape. So gentlemen, grow a [ __ ] pair. This is exactly the time to speak up. I would love that. I would
00:53:56
love that, too. I The only reason I'm saying Obama is because I think he's uniquely gifted, loved by a lot of
00:54:02
people that are Trump supporters. Absolutely. I don't think I can't say if you listen if you disagree with me come
00:54:07
up with other people maybe all of them together but don't tell me George Bush sorry compared to Obama is stratospheric
00:54:15
compared to George Bush. Uh well it's kind of all of the above isn't it? I mean yes it would be maybe all of them
00:54:20
come together. Look at the no kings like a couple million people decided they were going to take the risk in and paint
00:54:27
signs. I those are the most important people. I just you just need a little you know I believed in the hope thing so
00:54:34
I just that's where I'm I'm with them. I saw all these women wearing like 80 of them marching in unison like a freaking
00:54:40
panzer division or they were and and I'm like these women got up. They spent all
00:54:46
week putting together these frighteningly beautiful handmaids tales outfits. Yeah. Because they want to send
00:54:52
a message. Yeah. They the citizens are you know let me tell you right it shouldn't be Obama. It should be all the
00:54:57
citizens, but it would be a whole hell of a nice All of the above. All of the above. That's kind of thing. All of the above. And I just It's a compliment to
00:55:04
Obama. Just so you all know. By the way, my son took the ACT last week, and I've decided that standardized tests, Cara,
00:55:09
are really culturally biased against kids that don't give a [ __ ] I hate those tests. I always Oh my god,
00:55:17
I didn't do I am much more anxious about the ACT than my son. That's the problem. He's like I'm like, "How'd it go? How'd
00:55:23
it go?" And he's like, "I think it did okay. Math is hard, but you know, I think it's all right. Hey, do you think
00:55:28
the pub will serve me a beer for a donation from the Galloways? But I will the one thing I will say is the danger
00:55:34
of anyone Obama or whoever public figure speaking out is very high now,
00:55:39
especially with these deaths of these very That's the autocrat's playbook. That's when you got to speak up is when
00:55:45
it's dangerous. I guess we all have to do it together. Okay, Quest Love, you're right. We all have to do it together.
00:55:50
Quest Love, come home. Anyway, and I like your turn. Let's embrace our imperfect allies. Yes, let's embrace
00:55:57
them. When you get attacked and you're like, you say to people, you know, like, aren't at the end of the day, isn't there like an 80 or 90% overlap on the
00:56:04
really important [ __ ] that we agree on? Yeah. So, we going to spend all our time [ __ ] posting each other on the 10% we
00:56:09
don't appreciate my talk with Karen. It was great. She's a great everyone. I urge everyone to read her piece about that because I I see her point, too.
00:56:16
Anyway, um one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott.
00:56:21
Let's hear some wins and fails. Why don't you I can go first or you can go first. You go first. Um I'm going to do
00:56:28
something happier for my win. Um which is besides We've talked about the the the No Kings. I thought that was a total
00:56:35
win and everything else, but I'm going something silly. Lilo and Stitch. I see why it's making a bajillion dollars at
00:56:40
the box office. You saw that? I saw it and I loved it. Did you take Claire? I took Clara and Saul and Amanda and I
00:56:47
went and the popcorn was floating and everything else. It was completely charming. What a charming charming
00:56:54
wonderful cast. Um, star maggot was diverse in a what great way. It was it
00:57:01
was just heartfelt. It was great to look at and I know I can I was first like how
00:57:08
is it making so much money? I didn't like the cartoon version. I didn't It's huge. It is. I didn't I I never liked it
00:57:14
of all the many movies I watch with my kids, my older kids. But this is it's a huge movie. Um it's a great movie. It's
00:57:22
totally worth your time and I enjoyed it. Every bit of it. It's utterly charming and the ma two main characters,
00:57:28
the two sisters and the side characters are all great, too. But are are
00:57:33
wonderful. Just I I didn't know either of them. And they were both wonderful. And what a great job, Disney. Good job.
00:57:40
Even though you shouldn't have [ __ ] paid Trump that money also. Um but great movie. Um and um my fail it has to be
00:57:49
the figure out a way to join together in in the lessons of this no kings um to
00:57:55
protect people cuz I I am so disturbed by how many people have told me who are
00:58:00
public servants that they're terrified um and they and they should be as evidenced by what's happened. It was
00:58:06
some guy gets in his head to be angry and take it out on people. It's just there's I don't quite know how to
00:58:12
prevent that and it's really um it's scary. It's a very scary thing for
00:58:18
people who are who are outspoken. And so I would uh I just I'm not sure there's a
00:58:23
a solution to that except you know I don't just to bring it down the temperature. Um and it's very hard when
00:58:30
there's a president who loves raising the temperature almost continually into a fever that creates all kinds of um bad
00:58:39
impulses on all sides. Um but although I do I blame most of a lot of this on the
00:58:45
polarization social media and um and gerrymandering and and Trumpism in many
00:58:51
ways because it's so it's always dunking constantly dunking and it's gotten the rest of us dragged along into its ugly
00:58:57
wake. Anyway, that's my go. So, you know what my favorite line from uh Leela and Stitch was? What? It's can, not gone.
00:59:06
It's gone. Please. It is not. It's right in. It's not can. It's not. But look in
00:59:14
my hotel room. Look at yours. It's can. Okay. You can call it. Hi. Can I have the French fries? Get it. French fries.
00:59:21
I'm about to go have a 62 club sandwich. Yeah. $62 club sandwich, which you don't finish. That's my favorite part is you
00:59:28
never finish your I know but why would you pay that much money? I would just go because I can. I can. Because I can. You
00:59:36
can't. Yeah, I cannot. It's like why does a rich man get [ __ ] in his Rolls-Royce? Cuz he can. Uh anyways, uh
00:59:44
I have two wins. My first already talked about. I do think that the IDF and the bold like courageous
00:59:51
in my opinion attack. I think the world is safer. I think there's risks in any war, but I do think uh Iran barreling
00:59:57
towards a nuclear weapon was just a bad idea for everyone. And I I think again
01:00:02
the Ukrainian army and the IDF continue to do the dirty, dangerous, courageous work of the West who spends 800 billion
01:00:08
on the military and yet has intraparty fights on whether we should or shouldn't do stuff. I'm not entirely sure why we
01:00:15
would spend this kind of money. No one's invading the US. So unless we're going to make this isolationism from the far
01:00:21
right, it's like, okay, if you're an isolationist, then let's take some of that military spending and put it back into Medicare or Medicaid. But to want
01:00:29
to increase the military budget from 800 billion to 1.1 trillion and then ring your hands over trying to take a stated
01:00:36
enemy who says death to Israel, death to America back from the brink of nuclear armaments. Okay, then fine, then cut our
01:00:43
military budget in half because no Mexico or Canada are not invading us. Anyways, my win is what I feel was a a a
01:00:50
an attack, a courageous attack on the nuclear facilities of Iran by the IDF that makes the world a safer place. My
01:00:56
other win is yours. I just think this no kings these protests are just inspiring.
01:01:01
I think that Americans who decide to give up a weekend day and go join hand
01:01:06
with their brothers and sisters and and peacefully protest creative signs, creative outfits. I just thought it was
01:01:13
inspiring. And uh as someone who's living abroad, it made me it made me feel really good
01:01:19
about moving back. I'm look really looking forward to moving back. I think that we have endured worse than this.
01:01:25
And it's the citizenry, the media, and the courts that are the firewalls here. Up until this point, I think a lot of
01:01:31
people were worried like where is the citizenry here? And we saw it on full display this weekend. I thought it was just wonderful and hugely motivating,
01:01:39
inspiring for the rest of us. Uh, so those those are my uh those are my two
01:01:44
wins. And and also I'm excited to see you. We'll we'll be together tonight. What are you doing? We will. Why are we
01:01:50
doing Okay, great. Sounds great. Are you coming? Oh, you're coming in. Oh, you're coming in for the dinner, right? Yes, dinner. Yeah, I got We got You're coming
01:01:57
over to my hotel for this uh I later thing. I'll be there later. I'll be going through your room to celebrate to
01:02:03
celebrate the club sandwich, but go ahead. To celebrating just how dominant the radio business is. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
01:02:10
yeah. But we're doing okay. We're up. Come on. Well, you can see. Oh, no. We're podcast. Oh, I guess I heart is
01:02:16
podcast. Yeah, they're doing pretty well. We'll have a good time. Don't worry. We'll have a really good time. I know. My favorite. This is my favorite
01:02:21
conf my favorite conference in the world. The we're still relevant conferences. Advertising execs give
01:02:27
awards to each other and we all realize that a Pepsi commercial doesn't really mean anything anymore. Anyway, I like I
01:02:32
like ad awards. Usually, they're pretty good. The ads are pretty good. I I like ads. No, they're wonderful. They're just irrelevant. the awards ceremonies. I
01:02:40
like the ad awards best cuz I like them. Although I have to tell you the Tony awards were funny were fun. The other the Tony's Tony I know the gain again.
01:02:47
You need that Tricoxan that tricoxan will take you off Tony's or Broadway. I've never taken Tricox.
01:02:54
That's good. You got to admit that's good. We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever is on your mind. Go to
01:03:00
nymag.com/pivot to send a question for the show or call 8551 pivot. Elsewhere in the Cara and Scott
01:03:07
universe, this week and on with Cara Swisser, I spoke to a panel of millennial leaders about how to rejuvenate the Democratic party. Let's
01:03:13
listen to a clip of Representative Greg Casar. Uh, it's pronounced Casar Scott from Texas. There was an actual real
01:03:20
debate, and I know you cover this a lot, Cara. There's a real debate in the Democratic caucus about whether to play
01:03:25
footsie with Elon Musk or actually go toe-to-toe with him because sometimes people didn't want to list his name or
01:03:31
call a specific person out. That used to be seen as uncou. the Republicans beat up on an individual immigrant or an
01:03:38
individual activist or an individual queer American, we've got to be willing. They've got a populism of punching down.
01:03:44
We've got to be able to catch people's attention by having a populism that pump punches up. That when the secretary of
01:03:50
education was in my committee the other day, Linda McMahon, she's worth $3.2 billion. They didn't want No. The committee
01:03:57
started like hissing at me for asking her how many millions of dollars she's going to make when we pass this
01:04:03
billionaire tax cut bill. That was seen before as like rude. But if it's the only way that finally our voters can
01:04:11
hear us, maybe we picked the right message, but what if they don't even hear it in the first place? They can get
01:04:16
filled with all the Republican propaganda on their phone without us competing. Anyway, it was a great it was a really interesting group of young
01:04:22
people and they actually had some great ideas and they're pretty ballsy. I really I really am not like sensitive, which was great, which was terrific. And
01:04:29
they they mixed it up a lot. I appreciate it. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube
01:04:35
channel. We'll be back on Friday and next time you hear us, we'll be live. Scott, get on your Zodiac and come find
01:04:42
me. But before that, read us out. You know it the most. Today's show was produced by Larara Neman, Zoe Marcus,
01:04:47
Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie or Todd entry into this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Miss Severo and Dan,
01:04:52
Shalanda Shakuros, Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.
01:04:58
Thank you for listening to Pivot New York Magazine, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine mag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for
01:05:04
another breakdown of all things tech and business live from can
01:05:10
[Music]
