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No one has ever described me as openly heterosexual. No one has ever said openly heterosexual podcaster.
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Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Carara Swisser and I'm
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Scott Galloway. Where are you Scott? You just you just you're somewhere strange with the wallpaper situation going on. I
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am at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach where I just returned from getting from
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the Department of Motor Vehicles at Palm Beach Gardens where my son is now a licensed driver. How exciting. That's
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great. I thought you were at Mara Lago or something like that. No, the uh I ran into my friend Me Oz yesterday and and
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he came over and he introduced me to RFK Jr. They're hanging out. Oh, no. And he
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gave me the cold shoulder. I think it's cuz I refuse to have him on my pod. I don't know. He was like cold to me. Who?
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RFK. RFK. No, Me and I are friends. RFK. Yeah. Was s was noticeably cold to me.
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He's very handsome though. I can because he's a crank. Cuz he's a crank. Did you see the latest? He's putting I don't
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even want to go into it. That four months until autism is solved. That not just that all his stuff he's taking
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information off. He's saying vaccines aren't necessarily a good thing on the I just he's such a [ __ ] disaster. These
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people are setting themselves up for a lot of pain years from now. Um it's just
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the the murders he is committing right now as far as I'm concerned. In addition to the additional death, disease, and
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disability across our populace, it's made traffic much worse for me. That's what I'm really upset about. Okay. All
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right. Okay. All right. The traffic is awful down here. But anyways, I'm at the Colony Hotel, which I affectionately call I think there's a whole cadra or
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cohort of what I call 64 hotels and service establishments. And that is because of the unprecedented
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prosperity that we've started to believe is a normal operating system in America and a series of fiscal and monetary
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policies that literally tax policies cram all this prosperity in the top 1%. And the fact there's a lag time. You
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can't build a four or fivestar hotel in a year. It takes 10 years. These places
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are over capacity. And so I describe them as 64s and that is six-star prices
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with fourstar service. Oh, okay. And these places are so expensive. And I
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don't mind paying a lot of money if you get great service. And you do get great service at the Beverly Hotel or I don't
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know at the Langum in London. I mean, there's just a ton of great hotels with great service. This is not one of them.
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This is not one of them. All right, Colony Hotel with RFK there. That's all I need to know. I'm not Is not here. I
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don't want to I don't want to spare. It's a be It's a beautiful hotel in Palm Beach, by the way. It's 74 and sunny.
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God, it's so nice here. Good for you. It's very nice here in Washington, too. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today.
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There's also a lot of tech stuff going on, including Meta's big anti-rust trial and of course, women in space. I we'll
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get to that. Um, but first let's let's get to tariffs because first uh President Trump now says nobody is
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getting off the hook on tariffs despite granting exemptions for smartphones, computers, and other electronics late
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Friday, which is a lie apparently. Trump posted on True Social on Sunday that products are just moving to a different
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tariff bucket. He also says that semiconductor tariffs are coming, but tariff exemptions or whatever Trump
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wants to call them are good news for Apple, Nvidia, and Dell, at least for the time being. Of course, Scott
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predicted Apple's reprieve on our Friday episode. Let's listen. You want to enrage a cult, take iPhones to 3,500
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bucks, and then you're going to see the largest, the most valuable company in history, an American company, lose the
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value of the German GDP over the course of a year. You're going to take push back people's
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retirements. Apple's going to have to withdraw all sorts of growth plans. And you want to piss off every every
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millennial and Gen X in the world. Take their iPhones to 3500 bucks. Apple is
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not going to have any tariffs here. So in the interim for that, you were absolutely correct. Very good. But what
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was I mean I was not correct, right? Yes, I know. So what is the deal? Because Letic started it. Everyone thought Letic was off script, but then
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Trump uh underscored it and added more confusion to something that was already confusing and seems very oligarchic and
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sudden and shifting. Um they were Apple was trying very hard to deal with this.
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They're airlifting 600 tons of iPhones from India last week to reportedly beat the tariffs. Uh this flip-flopping is
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really bad. Um Carolyn um Levit, of course, it goes against what they were saying. We're going to make things in
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the US. Karen Levit, Tracy Flick said over the weekend that Trump is still committed to seeing more products and
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components made in the US. She noted Trump's direction. Tech companies are hustling to onshore their manufacturing
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United States as soon as possible. This is Caroline, sit down, you 27year-old ignoramis. But um what do you
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what do you uh think about this flippity floppity flippity flop? brand US has become toxic uncertainty is um there's
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several organizations including Pew and Ipsos that track an uncertainty index and that index has reached its highest
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level since the 80s the level of uncertainty in the US right now is greater than co think about that and I'm
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by the way I'm going to give you some anecdotes I'm not going to name the people because they didn't want to be named but what I would tell our
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listeners is that unlike is that unlike the Trump administration my anecdotes
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are true. I'm not lying. Over the weekend, I talked to several CEOs. One
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is the CEO of a huge catalog and retail company that does a lot of housewares.
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This person has he thinks about $60 million in outdoor furniture waiting to
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hit the stores for summer that are on ships on route from China.
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All of a sudden, he has to figure out a way to get to the port of Long Beach
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when they arrive and write a check for $85 million that he wasn't expecting to
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write. And he has to call his CFO. And this is a this is a publicly traded multi-billion dollar company. He's like,
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I I can't just like find 85 million bucks. The 85 is for what? To pay for
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the things now or what is the 85 for? That's the correct question. Because the way tariffs work is the importer, the
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catalog, the retailer company taking delivery of outdoor furniture from China. If these products quote unquote
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cost 60 million, you have to with 145% tariff, you have to the person receiving
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the items, the retailer in the US has to pay $85 million to the US government in
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the form of a tariff payment. So, this individual has to come up with $85
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million to get the [ __ ] off the boat in addition, unless they're given a reprieve, but he can't he can't just let
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[ __ ] sit on a boat. And right now, he has to plan for what the government is
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saying. In addition, he's got to find hundreds, if not thousands of people to go down to the port and when the stuff
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comes off the boat, retag and repric everything. Because now the majority of retailers that order their stuff out of
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China have it tagged and priced and attached to the actual physical item in
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China and wrapped, right? Whatever if there happened to be clothing or something like that, whatever it is. And
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and so in addition, he's like, "Okay, so I have stopped all shipments from China. I've told them stop producing, which is
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going to take my inventory levels way down. And the only way I'm going to get anywhere back to even is if I raise
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prices, which I'm going to have to do in addition to more expensive prices, i.e.
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inflation. my earnings call is going to be a [ __ ] show when I have to explain that, oh
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yeah, I wasn't expecting to pay an $85 million unexpected straight from the bottom line
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payment for tariffs that didn't exist 7 days before, right? And he has to go
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into his office and and the CFO goes, "All right, if we've got to go borrow $85 million against the line, we can do
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it. But if every retailer is hitting their line, the interest costs are going to go up. And this is how what played
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out last week and why this guy blinked yet again. Mhm. The president has access
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to more information than any individual in history between our security apparatus, the brightest people in the
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world, a ton of data that's digested, distilled for him. He is the helm of the bobsled. He technically has more insight
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into what is going on in the world than any individual. And I'm sure two pieces of data were presented to him in fairly
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stark terms. Consumer confidence is plummeting. Uncertainty is skyrocketing
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which all adds up to a decline in spending and hiring and insecurity which
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has taken the economy down. Now traditionally when an economy goes down people don't want to borrow money,
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people don't want to invest. So interest rates come down and that makes people more confident. It's sort of a self-healing mechanism. In this
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instance, we have a reduction in consumer spending and the economy slowing down, but the 10-year spiked 50
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points. So, you have everything getting more expensive as the economy slows
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down. That's called stagflation, which is a bridge to a depression. The 10-year
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went up 50 bips in five days. And let's let's bring that down to a number. Okay.
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All right. We have a $34 trillion deficit. Meaning every basis point
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increase in the cost of the tenure. If it goes from 4% to 4.1%. It's another $3.5 billion in
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interest payments we have to make on our national debt. I'm not even talking about the incremental cost to consumers
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of their student loans, their mortgages, and their credit cards. I'm just talking about the interest on the debt we have
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to pay. So when it spikes 50 basis points, right, on $3.5 billion per basis
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point in incremental interest expense, all of a sudden in a few days, America
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has to come up with another $175 billion in interest payments to foreign
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creditors. Our entire veterans affairs budget is 300 billion. So they have
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figured out a way to reduce the economy, send the economy into what looks like a lowgrade coma while interest rates are
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going up. This is the worst. They're not getting and and the 85 billion million
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dollars this guy has to pay is going to the government, but it's now going to be sucked up in interest rate payments. This is just it's just like so we're
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going to lose so much money every which way you lose. So there's how companies proceed is impossible at this point.
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What do you do? What do you just stop payments? That's what you stop doing. And then you lay people off and then you
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hunker down until this lunatic is either he loses at the midterm and he gets investigated out the yin-yang, which he
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should be honestly. Um or and then he's, you know, he's rendered it's rendered impossible for him to do anything. That
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say, his lawlessness continues. He's defying the Supreme Court on immigration. He's defying the he's
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defying everybody on every single thing. And also, by the way, he doesn't weigh 224 pounds. He weighs like at least 250
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pounds. Anyway, that was just his thing. Um, what let's talk China then because President This is an opportunity as
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we've talked about with President Xi. Uh, he currently is visiting Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia,
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presenting China as a reliable ally and trading partner. China also spended exports on a wide range of critical
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minerals and magnets. Uh, China is holding steady here and and and they are
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willing to endure pain, but they're also doing the correct thing, which is to visit partners and show themselves to be
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reliable partners. What will Trump do next? Because I see him more and this this this press conference in the Oval
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Office, he's defying the Supreme Court. He's defying the Fed. He's defying every
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anyone he can defy. And when he makes a good decision, he defies his good decisions. So what what do companies do
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and how do you look at China's role here? Because I think they're benefiting enormously from his idiocy. I don't know
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what else to call it. Stupidity. So I never miss a chance to boast. The
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the CEO of one of the most iconic German automobile manufacturers reached out and said, "We'd love to
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come. We'd love to host you and come come up to speak to the management team of the board." And I said, and I was trying to arrange dates. And then he
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called me and he said, "Can I ask you something?" I said, "Of course." She goes, "What would you do if you were us given what's going on in the US?" And
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Cara, as a guy who is always willing to run other people's lives and tell them what they should do, I'm like, "I have
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no [ __ ] idea. I have no idea. No idea
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what to do here other than, and I hate to say this because I love America, other than figure out um a series of
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partners that are more reliable." I said, "Oh, we're doing that." And going to that notion around, let's talk about China now. China since co or since 2019
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has reduced its percentage of its total exports the US from 24 to 17%. We have
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reduced ours by 4%. So we're both diversifying away from each other. They have diversified at nearly double the
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clip we have. The basic premise is that we can hurt them more than they can hurt
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us. So they will cry uncle. So let's let's assume we could hurt them more
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than they could hurt us. That is a pretty shaky thesis because while the administration wants you to believe that
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we're the only customer at the country club and they have to be nice to us, the number one trading partner with China is
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the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN at 1 trillion. Who's
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number two? The EU at 900 billion. We're number three. So yeah, we have a lot of
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power, but if they wanted to, and you want to talk about restraint, if they
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wanted to go into the market and take the tenure from 450 to 550 and create
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inflation while the economy is going down, they could do that. But what they
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realize is that if they really hurt and kneecap their third biggest customer, it
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would be bad for them as well. They are not stupid. In addition, let's discount
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all of that and let's take the administration at its word that Howard Lutnik that we're the biggest consumer
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and they would be [ __ ] without us. China has its own troubles. Here's the issue or the piece of calculus they are
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missing. When Americans find when they're watching the Logan Paul, Mike
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Tyson fight and it starts the bandwidth slows down. They go [ __ ] ape [ __ ] and
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they call their cable company. I just did that today. When you talk about women are born with a much higher
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tolerance for pain because they have to endure childirth. Men have much lower tolerance of pain. We're the man in this
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relationship. China starves tens of millions of people when they think it's good long term for the
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country. Do you realize the pain threshold of America relative to China?
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And we think we're going to strongarm them. Yeah. into doing a decision they don't want to do. It's nuts. This is
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just absolutely nuts. You Bow and Yang did a very funny thing on SNL. This idea they are they are made for pain and we
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are not made for pain. But wait, I'm just wondering which side is more willing to endure hardship for the glory
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of their nation. The one that's been around for thousands of years or the one that's sending Katy Perry to space.
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Look at us in the 70s when we had a much higher tolerance for pain. When we didn't have Netflix and shows on demand
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and couldn't get a pack of gum delivered to us within 15 minutes, we left Vietnam
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after we had we had decided we can't take anymore. When we had lost 58,000 servicemen at that point at the
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Vietkong and North Vietnam, they had lost a million people and we cried
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uncle. to think that. I mean, the calculus here is just so incredibly
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ignorant. The the the performative defiance of on everything like there's
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not anywhere they're not losing and being performatively defiant and then
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dragging people who were not like this like Marco Rubio into this performative
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defiance. That's what I would call it. And it's just it's like it's like Saul, my son, this, you know, I'm not going
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to, you know, he he does this thing where he does his arms. You ever you know, when you see a toddler like I'm
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not going to do anything. And that's what it feels like. I feel like I'm dealing with like a three-year-old or or
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something like that. First off, it's corruption all all over the place
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because, okay, you give me a million bucks. You're the cult of iOS. Uh just
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kidding. the the tariff route well way back they're not 98% of the companies in America who are dependent upon exports
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for their well-being are small and medium-sized business another CEO I spoke to this weekend a friend of mine
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from my fraternity at college he has a specialty products company you know when you go to a conference and all the cups
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the fleces the banners sign it I have a lot I'm wearing one right now there you go okay that's a big business he has a
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familyrun business that he's worked at for 30 years since He got out of college. He's built probably a 10 or 12
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million business, 130 employees, has put three kids through college, lived a really
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nice life, right? Slowly but surely over the last 30 years, everything's gone to
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China. About 80% of his products are produced out of China. He also has to go
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down to the to the to the port and sign a check for a couple million bucks, which he doesn't have to get the [ __ ]
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off the boat. He's told China to stop shipping everything and he doesn't have time to figure out new rooting new
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rooting relationships. He's basically said, "Scott, this is COVID times 10.
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I'm not going to get any relief. I don't know when this is coming to an end." And literally, my business has come to a
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halt right at campuses. And I know this firsthand. Some of the biggest organizations, companies, recruiters
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have said the following. We're putting a pause on interviews and hiring. And a
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pause, a pause sounds benign, but when you pause hiring for three months for new grads out of college, in 3 months
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when they resume, they don't double the pace. They basically reduce hiring for like 25 or 50% for that year. It's not
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as if they decide now we're going to go crazy with hiring when we start again. So you have a reduction in the number of
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jobs for kids coming out of college. You have stocks are going to get the [ __ ] acted out of them. You have small and
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medium-sized businesses that don't know what to do. You have earnings calls which are going to be an absolute shitow
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and you have the threat of stagflation. And all of this is the chickens coming to roost because countries don't go out
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of business because they're invaded. They go out of business because they go broke. And we have borrowed so much
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[ __ ] money. We are so debt laden that we no longer have that bullet to fire.
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I mean, one of the things that's very that it's astonishing here is that we think we have choices. And that's the
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problem with this entire thing is we do not have the choices. We This is not being an America like is a bunch of
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losers. This is self-inflicted damage that we're doing to ourselves, you know,
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on right. We could we should be running like just three months ago, you were talking about how the US is dominating
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everything, right? when the transition was happening three or four months ago. Now we are just doing it to ourselves
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and I think most people understand that. But we have to move on. But this is just what a [ __ ] disaster. Now Apple stock
00:20:06
and Nvidia stock is up today because they're hoping that these things stay in place but they might not. And so you
00:20:14
might see an impact. Lots of shares are down right now. Apple and Nvidia are up because they've gotten this break. Who
00:20:20
knows what's coming? Because he this is this idea that he wants to continue to hold over people's head that he could
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grab these anytime. What he anyone who can't get in on this gravy train, you use the Vietnam thing. I used it
00:20:32
yesterday on one of our socials. This is like if you're not on the helicopter out of Saigon, you are [ __ ] Like everyone
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else is [ __ ] We'll see what political implications that has, but uh we'll see
00:20:44
where it goes. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the antitrust trial that Mark Zuckerberg tries so hard to shut down and he looked
00:20:50
so nice at the inauguration. We'll get to that. Scott, we're back. Apparently, putting on a tie and kissing up to Trump
00:20:56
didn't do the job. The FTC is facing off against Meta in a blockbuster antirust trial getting underway this week. The
00:21:03
case goes back to Trump's first term in 2020, if you can believe it, with the government alleging Meta violated
00:21:09
competition laws by acquiring Instagram. And WhatsApp for its part, Meta says regulators should be supporting
00:21:14
innovation and it also faces fierce competition from Tik Tok, Snap, and other platforms. I find this to be a
00:21:20
little bit of a weak trial. Uh be honest with you, I think there's others that are stronger, but the trial is expected
00:21:26
to last about 7 to 8 weeks. Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Samber called to the stand among others. Uh this is the
00:21:33
case that Mark Zuckerberg has been trying to stop. Uh it's interesting that Trump has not intervened. Zuckerberg has
00:21:39
visited the White House three times since Trump took office. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural
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fund and settled a lawsuit with Trump for $25 million back in January, of which they did nothing. It also just
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named former Trump adviser Dena Powell McCormack to Meta's board. Very, she's also the wife of Senator David McCormack
00:21:59
from Pennsylvania. FTC head Andrew Ferguson has been vocal about reigning in tech, but also said he'd obey lawful
00:22:06
orders if Trump asked him to drop the suit. I think he would. He's been wearing the Trump Have you seen the gold-headed Trump that people are
00:22:12
wearing? I think it was him. Yeah, I think it was Ferguson that was wearing it. Anyway, oh, Brendan Carr was wearing it. Excuse me. The head of the uh the
00:22:19
FCC. Um so, so he said he would follow what Trump says. And any thoughts on
00:22:25
this? Uh if the metal loses, the remedy could be divesting Instagram and WhatsApp. Um the judge who will decide
00:22:31
the case for the remedy is uh James uh Boseberg who's been clashing with Trump over deportations and many other issues.
00:22:38
So talk about this case a little bit and what you think will happen here. It is it's going on. So it's not been stopped
00:22:45
by any means. Well, Zuck is the most disliked person in America under the age of 30. He's got a twothirds unfavorable
00:22:52
rating. He's even less kind of crazy. He's even less popular than Musk. And think about think about when you're the
00:22:57
most disliked person amongst a group of people who who is literally ground zero
00:23:03
for your product and twothirds of those people use your product and yet you are the most disliked person
00:23:09
um in America. I'm I'm hopeful. I had Jonathan Caner on Prop G and Jonathan
00:23:16
said he was the former head of antitrust at at the was he at the DOJ? He's a justice, right? And I said I'm really
00:23:24
sad that you and Lena are gone. I just don't see anything happening. And he said, he actually said, you know, you underestimate some of the people that
00:23:30
are just that are still there. There's still some people there that are pretty committed and quite frankly sort of, you
00:23:35
know, antitrust badasses that are going to make a very powerful argument. I've become so cynical, Cara. I know what I
00:23:41
want to happen. I think that they're going to play slow ball. I mean, look at how strategic Zuckerberg is. He put Dana
00:23:48
White on the board. He's put this basically this Trumpite on the board. He
00:23:54
he's figured out the existential threat to my business isn't distribution, isn't
00:23:59
innovation, it's political. And so I am absolutely musling up with all sorts of
00:24:05
contacts into the White House. And the reality is this White House can be bought. And not only can the White House
00:24:11
be bought, so can the Democratic caucus with enough money. So I believe they
00:24:16
have become masters at slowing these things down and letting them die a slow death. I hope I hope I'm wrong. These
00:24:24
companies have figured out a way to to avoid all regulation. I don't see why
00:24:29
this would be I think they're surprised the trial is going forward. Let me just read from the opening statements by the two lawyers. Uh this is Daniel Mat, the
00:24:36
FDC's lead litigator. Um for more than a hundred years, American public policy has insisted firms must compete if they
00:24:43
want to succeed. The reason we are here is Meta broke the deal. They decided that competition was too hard and it' be
00:24:49
easier to buy out their rivals than compete with them. This is the buyer bury argument. Now Meta's lawyers, this
00:24:55
is a guy named Mark Hansen from a big law firm, Kellogg Hansen. Um, this case
00:25:00
is a grabag of FTC theories at war with fact and at war with law. The facts are going to prove the FTC's theories are
00:25:06
all wrong. Um, you know, it's it's a very it is a difficult tri. I've talked to a lot of lawyers. Um, the FTC would
00:25:14
like it to divest these companies. Um, legal experts say it might be hard to
00:25:19
win. I'll read directly from the New York Times. That's because the government must prove something unknowable that Meta, formerly known as
00:25:25
Facebook, wouldn't have achieved the same success without the acquisitions. It's also extremely rare to try to
00:25:31
unwind mergers approved years before. So, that's one of the difficult ones,
00:25:36
even though this is somewhat of a bipartisan effort. Um it's the just for people to know there's three going
00:25:42
around um uh to go to trial. The DOJ won its case against Google. A federal judge
00:25:48
is hearing arguments about remedies and a potential breakup. And there's a separate trial with the DOJ for
00:25:55
monopolizing ad technology by Google. That's still going on. Justice Department has also sued Apple and the
00:26:01
FDC has sued Amazon accusing the companies of antitrust violations. Those trials are coming up later just for
00:26:07
people to get a background. But if if they if they do spin it off, it would be unprecedented.
00:26:14
Well, I mean, the baby bills were broken up. The aluminum, the sisters, the seven sisters or whatever. It does it does
00:26:20
happen. And generally speaking, when we look back in economic history, there's never been a breakup that hasn't turned out well for everybody. So, it's one of
00:26:27
the few things that kind of always works are breakups. The problem is to your point, we should have a much higher bar
00:26:34
for approving mergers because quite frankly the job of the government is to prevent a tragedy of the commons and the
00:26:39
easiest way to do that is preventive and that is not let these companies be acquired to begin with. I mean even
00:26:44
there's been a lot of officials in the government say we screwed up letting Meta acquire Instagram. They probably
00:26:50
should have never let um Google acquire what was it doubleclick andor YouTube.
00:26:55
So that was that was Google. Yeah, Google. Yeah. Mhm. But so there probably
00:27:01
needs what this says is it is very un it is very difficult to unwind a merger and
00:27:06
force a spend. What is easier is to block an acquisition. And I think the
00:27:11
bar should be pretty low to block an acquisition for a company once it gets above a certain dominance in its own
00:27:16
category. I think that's what and what people what the argument they make so effectively that resonates with the
00:27:22
public is that capitalism means making more money and they should let just be capitalist and the market do its thing.
00:27:27
What they don't realize is that the concentration of industry has led to massively higher prices. Whether it's
00:27:34
chicken, whether it's pharma, whether it's healthcare, this is harder. And think about the way I'd look at it is
00:27:40
the hard part is some of these costs are non-economic, but for God's sakes, look at the rents and the increase in
00:27:45
emotional prices that Meta has levied on every parent globally. Add add businesses that have been destroyed
00:27:51
because they've dominated and stuff like that. There's those these are just harder to to do. Just for people just a
00:27:56
little more, we're going to talk about it. They Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for a billion dollars. I covered
00:28:02
this. Um, and then 2014, it paid $19 billion for WhatsApp. Both were crazy
00:28:09
prices at the time, although Instagram certainly has yielded a lot. Um, there is a paper trail of emails between
00:28:17
executives talking about the startups because they were threats. I have I wrote about that at the time. they they
00:28:23
were the the the one of the lawyers mentioned the documents. Um he
00:28:29
Zuckerberg was so paranoid and he he talked about in emails neutralizing a
00:28:34
potential competitor. Um and then uh he wrote to Samberg, Zuckerberg wrote to
00:28:41
Samberg, "Messenger isn't beating WhatsApp. Instagram was growing so much faster than us. We had to buy them for a
00:28:47
billion because they're such bad product people at Facebook." And I cannot underscore this enough. they had to buy
00:28:53
or bury. It's a very famous phrase in tech. Buy or bury. Um and so that's what
00:28:59
they that's what the government is alleging here. Um and also keeping it out of other competitors hands is
00:29:06
another one to build a moat around the monopoly. And so WhatsApp was that for
00:29:11
them. Um so it should be really really interesting. I think um we'll see what
00:29:16
happens in this trial. But so far the Trump administration is not doing pay or play here. They're just letting it go,
00:29:22
which is to me interesting. I don't know you have any thoughts on that. Well, yeah, he doesn't he doesn't like these guys. And it's I mean
00:29:30
these one it looks as if Instagram would be worth about a hundred to$200 billion
00:29:36
right now. Now granted, it might not have had the same level of success had it not been able to cooperate and share
00:29:41
data, but what's interesting is within about 40 days of one another was the
00:29:47
best and likely the worst acquisition in tech history. And they looked remarkably similar at the time. And the best you
00:29:53
would argue maybe maybe other than the acquisition of YouTube which was I think
00:29:58
less than a billion. But Mark Zuckerberg bought Instagram for a billion dollars. It's worth a hundred to 200 if not more
00:30:04
now. And within a month or 45 days the worst acquisition in tech. Do you
00:30:11
remember what it is? I'm thinking it's Yahoo. Exactly. Tumblr. I broke that
00:30:16
story. Mr. Scott Galloway. I know you did. And so, so Facebook acquires
00:30:23
Instagram for a billion. It's worth 1.2 billion. I'm sorry, it's worth 100 to 200 billion. Yahoo/Marissa Mayor
00:30:30
acquires Tumblr for 1.2 billion. And I believe about 7 years later, they sold
00:30:36
it for $3 million. Yeah, it's worth nothing now. I just to some Tumblr people. What a great site that was,
00:30:42
though. You know what I mean? It really was. I like Tumblr a lot. It was a very innovative site. But you're right. It's
00:30:47
just this is just come on. This is what Mark Zuckerberg played from the Bill Gates buyer
00:30:54
uh playbook. Sorry. It's this is what this is. We'll see if they can decide if
00:31:00
Facebook will make the argument Meta will make the argument that there's plenty of competition and that that
00:31:05
there's lots and lots there's you know whatever blue sky whatever there's. But the fact of the matter is that two
00:31:11
things both for Google and for Facebook. When have you seen a new fresh social
00:31:16
network get built if not buried? Like you know Snapchat is doing its level best, but Mark keeps stealing his things
00:31:24
because he can't buy it. He couldn't buy it and so he decided to bury it. That's what they did with Snapchat. And when
00:31:30
have you last seen a new search engine that really had any kind of traction? And you you were close with a guy who
00:31:35
did the one who left Google and tried to do it. It's impossible. Nobody's going to be Nobody can switch. The switch
00:31:42
costs are too high. And then when Apple does a deal with these companies and makes them the de facto map or um or
00:31:50
whatever map or search engine, it sort of puts the the nail in the coffin for every other competitor. And the similar
00:31:56
thing we just talked about with the tariffs. If you can get the an out like Apple did, you're great. If you can't like your your furniture guy, you're
00:32:04
[ __ ] Like that's really it. And this is it's corruption. It's corruption everywhere. Corruption. Yeah. It's be it's an autocrat. It's not systemic. And
00:32:10
also just to put a fine point on the concentration of industry. This is happening up and down
00:32:18
industries. US higher education is a cartel. There's two great universities in every city. And the people who give
00:32:25
you accreditation such that you have access to student loans are run by the incumbents. Right? My company, my old
00:32:32
company L2 got acquired by a large research company that everybody hates and everybody
00:32:38
uses. And I couldn't figure out after they acquired us the series of decisions they made. Every I felt like it was
00:32:44
George Castanszo. Everything I thought they should do, they did the exact opposite. I just didn't understand the
00:32:49
decisions they were making. And it finally dawned on me about 18 months later. And I'm just speculating. I'm like, I think they thought, okay, we'll
00:32:56
pay 3% of our market cap for this company because they're nipping at our heels around
00:33:01
CMOS and if they'll squeeze them for cash flow and then we'll put them out of business. It was I think I'm like I
00:33:08
think I've just been aqua killed. Yep. Yep. Aqua killed. That's what it is. Yeah. That higher barrier. And And it's
00:33:14
like okay, a competitor goes away. They they get some cash flow back. And quite
00:33:19
frankly, for 2 or 3% delilution, just not having someone running around
00:33:24
nipping at your heels establishing a wedge in your business. And I remember thinking, why on earth are they doing
00:33:31
nothing with us? Why are they not driving the business? Why do not they understand me? I'm a genius, right? I've
00:33:39
been there. They they they've domesticated me. Me, not them. I mean,
00:33:45
poor me. Poor me with poor me with my big [ __ ] bag of money. But I know, right? Yeah. But this is what happens.
00:33:50
They get a bag of money. The conspiracy. That's what they have. They have bags and bags of money. Everybody, they show
00:33:55
up to an entrepreneur and they say, "Tell you what, we're going to make you rich. Just stop bothering and competing against us. Stop bothering us and stop
00:34:02
competing." In this case, Trump ain't playing. So, we'll see where it goes uh from here. Um I I think the the one of
00:34:10
the things that Meta is doing, I was I got texted by a Meta person today. They're like, "Can you believe this?" And I'm like, "Yes, yes, I can. Sure we
00:34:17
can. Sure we can. Sure can." And by the way, you know what? If they take off um
00:34:22
Instagram, good for the go, good for capitalism. If they do, if they take off WhatsApp, good for capitalism. If they
00:34:29
spin off YouTube, good for capital. We're capitalists, Scott and Cara, because we think that's good for this
00:34:35
country. It's good for competition and maybe you'll do a little better in your other things if you have to not just
00:34:40
Yeah. If you can't just buy your buy your wife or husband or whatever, it's good for everybody. All right, Scott,
00:34:47
let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Blue Origin sends an all female crew into space. We must be very careful
00:34:53
here, but nonetheless, it's he'll find out what Scott has to say. Oh, I can't
00:35:00
wait to see what you have to say. Anyway, uh we'll get to that next. Scott, we're back. El Salvador's
00:35:07
president says he won't order a return of the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported. President Bule, who I'm just
00:35:13
going to call sleazy club owner, appeared with President Trump at the White House. By the way, he wasn't
00:35:18
wearing a tie. I'm I think it was very um it wasn't very stately of him to appear looking like he's about to, you
00:35:25
know, do an ecstasy uh dance or something. Um the two appeared as Trump
00:35:30
administration was digging into its heels refusing to bring uh G uh Garcia's
00:35:35
Garcia back to the US. Uh at one point um Salvador and uh President uh Boule
00:35:41
called him a terrorist. There's no proof of that. How could I bring how can I smuggle a terrorist back into the country? Stop it, you anxious piece of
00:35:49
[ __ ] Uh a Supreme Court ruling is directing the government to quote facilitate the return. That's a weird
00:35:54
word. Now Trump administration is arguing that what facilitate means saying they just need to remove any
00:35:59
obstacles to return him not actually bring it back. Also the agenda for today's White House meeting political
00:36:05
reports a team of defense contractors is pitching the White House on a plan to expand deportations to El Salvador. Uh
00:36:12
I'm not sure what's more frightening the legal implications. The administration coing up to another unsaavory leader
00:36:17
which this guy is. Um this one calls himself the world's coolest dictator.
00:36:22
He's certainly the world's most oily dictator I've seen of late. Um I uh he
00:36:28
just seems just completely just in it for the money. He's very popular, let me say, in El Salvador. I know a lot of
00:36:34
people from Salvador and they like him because he cleaned up a lot of the gang violence there by just arresting
00:36:39
everybody. Very similar to um the Philippines uh with Duterte. Uh but of
00:36:46
course he's gone overboard as they all do with in limited power. Um and uh and
00:36:52
so they're just pretending this guy's a terrorist and just you know when when reporters were justifiably asking about
00:36:59
this, Trump mocked them. He uh then Rubio jumped in about the that that the
00:37:04
Supreme Court has no purchase over uh over um the way the government decides
00:37:10
to do foreign policy only the president does. What a what a what a waste of
00:37:15
breath that guy has become. Um, so anyway, thoughts, legal implications,
00:37:20
world's coolest dictator. Look, El Salvador was was the murder capital of
00:37:26
the world. And so this guy's very popular. But basically, basically, he
00:37:31
just started rounding up people who had, you know, a tattoo that said they had a gang affiliation. So, there's tremendous
00:37:38
collateral damage there. And you have to decide, do you opt for rights and with
00:37:44
some crime and inconvenience and cost or do you go full autocrat? And we said
00:37:49
this on the last show, when you round up people, it takes a different complexion. This is a form
00:37:55
of rounding up people. This is there are there just some innocent people being rounded up. And what is just
00:38:01
insane is these people supposedly, you know, are are are Christians, right?
00:38:06
They they all they're all very fond of holding the Bible. If you know that you have taken an innocent person and sent
00:38:14
them to a hellscape and Bill Maher summarized it perfectly. We can bring a man back from space but you don't. We
00:38:20
can't get someone back from El Salvador. Of course we could get them back. Of course we could get them back. And then
00:38:27
the weirdest moment was this weirdo Christy Gnome posing with guns after
00:38:33
having a Sephora explode all over her face. It felt like a [ __ ] Cinemax film where she was going to start having
00:38:40
sex with all the prisoners. It's like Yeah, I agree. It's like this is just a snuff film. This is weird people. And
00:38:49
also, you can't don't hold Bibles when you start taking people and sending
00:38:55
them incorrectly, unjustifiably. It's like, for God's sakes, have you no sense
00:39:00
of decency? It's just And why wouldn't Boule take our money and create a Guantanamo there? That's what he's
00:39:07
doing. Why wouldn't he take our money? It's good for him. Um, and he doesn't care who who is innocent. It's, by the
00:39:13
way, it's not his business to care who's innocent or not. But if we send someone who's innocent there, and it looks like
00:39:19
many of them were or had no criminal background that were sent to these prisons, Venezuelans in particular,
00:39:24
because Venezuela won't take these um the their their people back, you can't
00:39:30
send them to prison. You just can't put them in another country and let them go, I guess, if you have to do with this
00:39:36
this heinous stuff you're doing. But to put them in a prison and they had they're guilty. I mean, was was it 60
00:39:42
Minutes showed up? They had 75% of them had no criminal background whatsoever. They just had a tattoo to their mother
00:39:48
with a crown on it. Um just really just look I mean I'm sorry if that was the
00:39:54
case. Pete Hegzepth would be in a Salvador in prison. He's got a lot of tattoos. Um so I just just it's really
00:40:01
the the worst thing is them trying to parse what the the the after Trump
00:40:06
promised he would follow what the Supreme Court said, he's not following what the Supreme Court said. the same
00:40:12
thing they're doing. They were supposed to let back in AP into the into the into the cycle into the press cycle. They're
00:40:18
not letting they're barring AP even though it was they were ruled against. They just don't do it. They're lawless
00:40:24
as as a as a government essentially. Yeah. But I think you summarize it
00:40:30
perfectly. I don't I don't understand the whole idea of roundups. Uh we slasho
00:40:36
just be careful when you tolerate this. Just wait for the knock on your door. And the other theme this goes to is the
00:40:42
following. The only thing I know about these people is who's not being deported and that is rich people. Mhm. I can
00:40:48
think of a lot of criminals, rich criminals and stuff. Well, you're you're again in America, the whole idea of a
00:40:54
constitution and laws is to protect the most vulnerable. The the rich are protected by the law. They're not bound
00:41:00
by it. And the poor are bound by the law but not protected by it. And I don't I
00:41:06
can't name a person. I can nobody nobody in the top quintile of income earning Americans or who was here illegal who
00:41:12
has money has been taken. This is this is what is so mendacious so uncchristian
00:41:19
so unamerican such a violation of our constitution is that the basis the basis
00:41:25
of your quality as a government is how the poorest and most vulnerable are treated. You could take the top 10 fast
00:41:32
food companies, do a statistically significant sample of raids, and say 22% 25% of McDonald's or Jack in the Box
00:41:40
workers are undocumented. We're finding you $100,000 a day per percentage. And guess what? You'd end
00:41:47
it. Here's the se here's the dirty secret. Immigration is the secret sauce
00:41:53
of America. But the most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration because they pay social security taxes,
00:41:58
but they don't but they don't collect social security. They pay taxes for our cops and firemen, but they don't call
00:42:04
cops because they're worried about being deported. So, we have turned a blind eye. If we wanted to stop this problem,
00:42:10
we would find the employers, but we're not interested in doing that. We want to pretend that this is a runaway problem.
00:42:17
And to be clear, it did get runaway. It got out of hand. 250,000 people crossing the border in December 23. But folks, we
00:42:24
have purposely ignored this problem because illegal immigrants are super
00:42:30
[ __ ] profitable. Except you know what, Scott? They're profitable in terms of creating prisons and putting them in
00:42:36
it. That's it's profitable for a very different group of people is that we round them up and we put them in these camps. Uh which is what we did with the
00:42:43
Japanese and we a shameful part of our history. You know, a lot of these people are also like, let's figure out who like
00:42:50
the woman who got grabbed off the street. Remember that video with all the people in the masks coming up to her? She has not done they found out she's
00:42:57
done nothing wrong. She's done nothing wrong except write an op-ed that was vaguely and politely against what was
00:43:03
happening like she just and now foreign students here in this country are so scared. Um, and I I I've heard from many
00:43:11
are scared of saying anything or doing anything. And if you have even a minor like weed violation, you're getting
00:43:17
taken. Like whatever excuse they can have, something you wrote or or something else, you can get taken. And
00:43:24
you know, this is you should be you have you should have to appear. It's called habius corpus. Everyone requires a
00:43:31
person in custody to appear before a judge. It's one of the core fundamental rights that protects against arbitrary
00:43:37
state uh action. and and he is trying to suspend Tabius Corpus for for ridiculous
00:43:43
reasons, for ridiculous and nonsensical reasons that we're all in danger and we're not. So anyway, uh world's coolest
00:43:49
dictator, you're not cool. You're uncool. If you have to call yourself the world's coolest dictator, you're not
00:43:55
cool. And speaking of not cool, let's move on to some lighter news. Other wastes of time and money. Uh in a giant
00:44:00
publicity sump for Jeff Bezos, six women are launched uh into space aboard a giant penis. Lauren Sanchez, Kate Katy
00:44:07
Perry, Gail King, and three others uh made uh made a 10-minute trip on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket and returned
00:44:14
safely to Earth. Thank goodness. Uh noted science afficionados Oprah Winfrey, Chris Jenner, and Khloe
00:44:20
Kardashian watch from the launch site in West Texas. It's the first time an all female crew has been in space since
00:44:26
1963. And yes, Scott, they did fly uh above uh above the Carmen line. Um just
00:44:32
so you know. Um, so reaction, Scott, that I don't know if you heard. I don't
00:44:38
know if you heard, but they called Houston and they said, "Um, Houston, we have a problem." And Houston said, "What is it?" And he said, "Well, you should
00:44:44
know what it is." Actually, that's your joke. Actually, Cara, I was hoping that we'd get to see
00:44:51
them uh masturbate because I'd like to see them def I'd like to see them defile gravity.
00:44:58
I could keep going. I could keep going. Look. Hey, look. At the end of the day,
00:45:04
such a Yeah, fine. Good for them. We do a lot of stuff. I get it. But this is
00:45:09
not I What? Here's what I'm fine. They can fly up there with their outfits or their slinky outfits, whatever they want
00:45:14
to do. Here's what I don't like. Pretending it's a feminist movement. It's just not. It's just a bunch of
00:45:20
ladies put and and their interviews show that because they're talking about their eye shadow and their eyeliner and etc.
00:45:26
They're going up there. It's a total PR stunt. You are not here to save women. I'm sorry. If you wanted to save women,
00:45:32
you'd be saving the woman who was grabbed off the street. You'd be saving all kinds of things. Uh or you'd be
00:45:38
you'd be pushing up against Facebook and saying really shouldn't be doing things to young girls that make them feel bad.
00:45:44
Like this is not that's all of all the things you could do to help women. This is not one of them. And that's how I
00:45:49
feel about it. You want to know what a Have fun. Sorry. You want to know who a real female astronaut is? Sally Ry, a
00:45:55
PhD in physics. PhD in physics. learned how to operate that crazy robotic arm.
00:46:02
Uh, and as Megan Kelly would say, openly lesbian and spent a ton of time in
00:46:07
space, openly. Didn't didn't make a lot of money. I mean, Sally Ride is our is
00:46:12
our astronaut. These folks I hate the idea. There were there were some science people on board. There were worse than
00:46:18
science. Science people, whatever. There were, but still, it's just a stunt. It's a stunt. It's not feminist. It's just a
00:46:25
stunt. and how how have how much fun Oprah and all the rest of you have. But there's some serious [ __ ] happening. So
00:46:30
maybe stop pretending you're doing have I don't resent him for it. Have at it. Have fun. Don't Yeah. I just don't like
00:46:37
the feminist thing. Okay. Okay. Last thing. Uh Sally wasn't openly lesbian,
00:46:42
just so you know. No, she wasn't. Well, I meant I was a play on Notice how No one has ever described me as openly
00:46:49
heterosexual. No one has ever said openly heterosexual podcaster. That was my favorite part about her attack on
00:46:55
you. As if as if you're you're not allowed to be openly lesbian. I am
00:47:00
openly lesbian. I tell you, she's openly lesbian. At least she at least a real At
00:47:06
least, good madam, you'd have the dignity to be a closeted lesbian. Closeted lesbian. I haven't been a I was
00:47:12
never really in a I was in a closet. That's not true. I was not openly lesbian at the beginning of my journey
00:47:17
of lesbianity, but which started at age four, but we're not going into it with Megan Kelly. What a what a sheevil she
00:47:24
is. Anyway, last thing. Bill Maher says he wasn't high at his White House dinner with President Trump, even though he
00:47:31
also claims that Trump was quote gracious in measure. The comedian described his March 31st visit with the
00:47:36
president uh uh during a monologue at the top of his Friday show. People were felt it was controversial. The cader was
00:47:43
organized by illustrious statesman Kid Rock. Uh, Bill said that he and musician quote share a belief that there's got to
00:47:49
be something better than hurling insults from 3,000 mi away. Although Bill's pretty [ __ ] good at that. Um, here's
00:47:55
what he had to say about his interaction with Trump. He's much more self-aware than he lets on in public. Look, I get
00:48:02
it. It doesn't matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage.
00:48:09
I'm just taking as a positive that this person exists because everything I've
00:48:14
ever not liked about him was I swear to God absent at least on this night with
00:48:19
this guy. Okay. I I'm going to be on Bill Maher's show in a couple of weeks. I think you are too. Are you going to be
00:48:25
on soon? No, I was supposed to be on Friday and I'm I I I had a tough time trying to figure out a way to be on with
00:48:31
Steve Bannon and I'm something about the idea in a little way normalizing Nazi salutes. I just I don't know. I didn't
00:48:37
know how to thread the needle there. You talked about I called you and I asked your ad. I called you called you and asked your advice. Yeah, you're a great
00:48:44
panelist there. Go ahead. You start. You start. I have some thoughts, too. Look, I I I think Bill Maher did and Joe and
00:48:51
Mika did the right thing. I think when the president calls you and says come to the Oval Office, I think you go I and I
00:48:56
think that him trying to show him not immediately going to the to the kind of
00:49:03
polarized this guy's a [ __ ] idiot and and and acknowledging that he's a charming guy or that maybe trying to
00:49:10
provide some comfort that he's not he's not as crazy as we think and he's self-aware and he listens. I think
00:49:15
that's important that the only thing and this might be my bias is that someone
00:49:21
who, you know, is so angry and aggressive uh and I'm talking about the president now against people. I've heard
00:49:28
this about President Trump that when he meets you, he's nice and he's charming and then a few minutes later he'll basically say vile things about you to
00:49:35
his 200 million followers. I think someone who's nice to you to your face and then [ __ ] posts you behind your back
00:49:42
in a way that really hurts your reputation. I think there's a word for that.
00:49:47
[ __ ] I much prefer someone and I think you're like this. I I think you're more likely. Who do you want if someone
00:49:54
if it's like if you're going to be critical of someone trying to do it in a constructive way to them personally and
00:50:00
then speak well of them or at least gently behind their back. I I just I think that is the worst role model for
00:50:06
our young people. Yep. I agree. I agree. I But Go ahead. But I'm glad I'm glad he
00:50:12
did it. I think he was smart to do it. I think you you I think it's a dignified thing to do. I thought it's an
00:50:18
impossible needle to thread because people who hate Trump are angry at him for going. They're angry at him for
00:50:23
acknowledging the president has some positive qualities. I think it it's kind of an impossible position or needle to
00:50:30
thread for Bill. Well, here's what I think happened. He was getting very uh sharp on Trump, very sharp, very tough,
00:50:37
and they decided to neuter him a little bit by being charming. I think he has been doing some really, you know, he has
00:50:43
been, he tries to do the downthe-middle contrarian thing a lot of the time, but he has been does some the sharpest
00:50:49
attacks on Trump among comics and which there are many, by the way. So, I think they were trying I thought they were
00:50:54
trying to neuter him and it worked in that regard. Now, you know, look, I think it's right to go to the dinner that would be really interesting, but to
00:51:02
say, "Oh, look, he's charming in person." Like, I'm sure Gobles was thrilling at a cocktail party, my friend. Like, are you [ __ ] kidding
00:51:08
me? Like, sure. Yeah, lots of people, by the way, that was great to party. Molini
00:51:13
was so much [ __ ] fun. He'd put a hat, he'd put a lampshade on his head and we'd dance all night and you know, and
00:51:19
you know, the Tarantella I like I don't know what to say. Like I don't I just am like So So Bill, I I will bring this up
00:51:26
with Bill if he lets me on now. But um was he was he lying to you at dinner or
00:51:32
to the world? Which one? Because he is a terrible person publicly. Terrible. The
00:51:37
stuff he did today, terrible. Um, and it's not there's nothing charming about keeping a a person who is unjustly
00:51:44
jailed in jail and then laughing about it and then heranging reporters about it. There's nothing, you know, charming
00:51:50
about most of the things he's there's nothing charming about ruining your friend's business. There's nothing charming about it. So, I just honestly
00:51:58
that's what I kept thinking of like I'm sure like any nasty piece of [ __ ] is charming in person and there are a lot
00:52:04
of them that I have dealt with but you should have gone but you don't give me this he's charming because he's not he's
00:52:11
just not charming and he's he'll probably the minute you go after him again which I hope and pray you will and I know you will actually because
00:52:17
because he doesn't pull punches a lot sometimes he does but he doesn't really as a comic. So the minute you go after
00:52:24
him again, he's like, "I was so nice to him. I made him dinner. I was I showed him off the White House. I showed him my
00:52:30
bedroom." Whatever. He's going to come after you. So that's I don't know. Whatever. Anyway, but I I probably would
00:52:37
you go to dinner if he asked us? Do you think he'd ever ask us to? He doesn't give a [ __ ] about us. But well, I agree. We're not on his greatest train. I I I
00:52:44
said this about Joe Mika. I believe this about Bill Maher. I think if the president calls you and asks you to come
00:52:49
to the White House, you go. I just think you go. I just wouldn't be as polite in person. I wouldn't be like, "Oh, hey,
00:52:56
can I have a roll?" That's the kind of thing. Anyway, we'll see. Um, we'll see what happens. I'll tell this to Bill's
00:53:01
face when I see him. Anyway, Scott, one more quick because I do that, Bill. I say things to your face that I say in
00:53:06
front of your back, behind your back, anywhere near your back. He's my hero. That guy's my hero. I know. I'm glad you
00:53:12
didn't go, Scott Galloway. Now I like you even more. Go on. Is that possible? Good for you,
00:53:18
Scott Galloway. Good for you. I know you like being on that show, too. I do. I love it. I know. Well, have him back,
00:53:24
Bill. Don't be a Don't be a douche and also have him back. Uh, all right, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott,
00:53:32
let's hear some wins and fails. Can I start? Yeah, you go ahead. Sorry, let me
00:53:38
start. Let me just say two things. Television is so happy place for
00:53:45
me these days, watching different things. And this weekend there's two shows. G20 with Viola Davis where she
00:53:52
plays a kick-ass woman president who like kicks ass. She act they go to the
00:53:57
Jesus summit. There's a South African guy who takes over all the G20. It's called G20, excuse me. And um and she
00:54:04
kicks ass and wins. It's like Harrison Ford's Air Force One. And let me just say I love Viola Davis. I love her
00:54:11
kicking ass and killing uh South African terrorists and or maybe they're from Australia. I don't know. They had that
00:54:18
accent. So good. It was so bad and so good at the same time. It was Air Force
00:54:23
One but Viola Davis. So there was some good acting in there too. Fan fuckingastic. Second one, Hats the
00:54:30
season premiere again. Two women um Hannah Ein Bender and um uh oh god Jean
00:54:39
Smart. Oh my god, it it has risen a level of like it was already one of my
00:54:44
favorite shows this season. The two of them go at some point I'm like just kiss you two because they're going their
00:54:51
insults of each other and the going back and forth and then there's a poignant moment in the first two episodes about
00:54:57
heartbreak and I just love this show so much. So winw win with these badass
00:55:03
women I have to say and they're just they're they're they're just wonderful. The fail is obviously Doge falling short
00:55:11
of its goal. It was supposed to save uh$2 trillion dollars, then it went to one trillion. Now he said, Elon said in
00:55:17
a meeting um that it's 150 billion. Dave Dave Fenhold as always he's now at the
00:55:24
New York Times showed the math to be wrong again that it's probably even less money that he is uh that he's saving.
00:55:30
But we don't even know how much he's costing for for the savings. That's not in in this. So he's not saving any money
00:55:37
and he's causing incredible harm and cutting things without thinking about it and doing it surgically. So we're not
00:55:43
benefited as a people on stuff we should reform government as everybody thinks.
00:55:48
So what an incredible waste of our time and energy to have this ridiculous
00:55:53
person prance all over the place saying he's saving money and then of course he's not delivering. It's the same thing
00:55:59
that this is a theme of his life right now is promising under overpromising and
00:56:04
underdeling whether it's the cybert truck whether it's autonomous cars this is just such a such a ridiculous thing
00:56:12
that this doge thing um given how much energy and time and pain it has caused people unnecessarily. That is my fail.
00:56:20
Uh I like it and I'm I was going to do a prediction but I'll try and reshape it as a win and a fail. Um the the fail is
00:56:28
what you I'll just piggyback off what you said. Essentially uh if this audit proved
00:56:34
anything, it's that there's a lot less inefficiency and waste and fraud than we thought. I mean, this is about as clean
00:56:40
a bill of health as anyway because they were dying to find fraud and they just didn't they just didn't find very much
00:56:47
and most of their claims of fraud and savings ended up to be fraudulent themselves and that they were lies. And
00:56:53
we predicted he would exit. He's gone. I think he's already gone. I think he's already figured out. He was He was with
00:56:58
Trump the other night at that stupid WW. Yeah, but that's proximity to power. I think Doge I think Doge is basically the
00:57:04
curtain is closing on Doge. It just didn't work. It was a distraction. Fine, but they it's not it's not working. The
00:57:11
the reality is Americans again see above not willing to endure pain. They have to face a hard decision here. You know,
00:57:17
it's the hard thing about the hard things. And that is if we're serious about being a c being a country that
00:57:22
doesn't spend seven trillion dollars and take in5 trillion in tax receipts, there's only two things you can do,
00:57:29
folks. You either have to cut entitlements or raise taxes. And the answer is yes. And at some point, we're
00:57:35
going to have to figure out a way to do that. and or or just wait till we get, you know, shoved in a corner and uh the
00:57:43
people who own our debt can basically start calling the shots, which they're doing now. In a company that gets so
00:57:48
highly levered, basically the bank owes you. And this is what's happening to us.
00:57:53
Our creditors are beginning to owe us. This is Doge. Doge was a was jazz hands.
00:58:00
It didn't a clean bill of health. when we decide to elect a grown-up, we're going to have to make some very hard
00:58:06
decisions here. My win, and it's sort of win, but this really was my prediction. You're going to see a flurry of deals.
00:58:14
You know, the art of the deal, the basic premise was, okay, we're we're he's a
00:58:20
negotiator. He's bringing these people to the table. First off, we just need to dispel the notion this guy's a good
00:58:25
business person. He's a rich kid that would have made more money if he'd given taken all of his massive inheritance and
00:58:30
put it into ETFs. His business career is basically a series of bankrupted companies and unpaid subcontractors. So,
00:58:37
let's just stop this nonsense that he has any [ __ ] clue what he's doing in terms of business. He has unwittingly
00:58:45
inspired unbelievable an unbelievable torrent
00:58:50
tsunami of deals, crossber trade deals. But it won't be with us.
00:58:57
The EU is talking to Latin America. Japan, South Korea, and China are talking. This has set off incredible
00:59:05
incentive for a ton of nations around the world to start thinking about free trade zones to become more dependent
00:59:11
upon each other, to take the cost of reconfiguring their supply chain and
00:59:17
excising America from the supply chain. They're thinking, how can we make up for some of that lost economic growth that
00:59:22
this is going to cost us? I know. Let's lower each other's trade barriers. The
00:59:27
unwitting unintended consequence of this is that the US is about to trade off a
00:59:34
lot of its own prosperity and it's going to leak to other Western nations who are talking to each other and cooperating
00:59:41
and coordinating. Now, you're going to see trade deals between Mexico and Canada. You're going to see trade deals
00:59:47
between the EU and China. This is going to the the intended what they pla what
00:59:53
they claimed they were going to accomplish for America they have accomplished for everyone else but
00:59:59
America true where they're going to get all the avocados in Canada and and Mexicans are going to get all the good
01:00:04
maple syrup. Do you hear that people? It's finished. Avocado toast and pancakes are done for us as Americans.
01:00:11
Much less lumber or or gypsum drywall. You want to talk about the cost of building right now? gypsum drywall from
01:00:18
Mexico or lumber. By the way, just renovated my house. I'm so pleased that I did it last year. My my my contractor
01:00:25
said it would have been double to I'm interviewing Mark Carney this afternoon. What would you ask him? What? What?
01:00:32
Galloway. He reached out for what? Which what show? Which show? Uh is I wanted to do it for Pivot of Raging Moderates. He
01:00:38
said he wanted to do it for Profit Conversations. I think he wants to talk about Young Men. Yeah. Good. Well, that's I heard you have, by the way, you
01:00:44
have another podcast you didn't tell me about. Which one's this? The with the man the men thing with Scaramucci and
01:00:51
that's a limited series. He called me and said, "Let's do four pods." Yeah, it was good for your book coming out. Just remember Scott's good. I'm very excited.
01:00:58
You You cat around on me quite a bit. That's okay. I don't mind. I just want to know about it. I didn't know about it's alcohol. I hope it has nothing to
01:01:05
do with our relationship. I just like to wake up with a strange man's lipstick all over my face. I want to make I want
01:01:10
Okay. Put that in there. I know you did. I'm ignoring it. I would like to make your book. Defile gravity. Defile
01:01:18
gravity. Katy Perry. I like I want to make Let me hear you roar. You 90s pop
01:01:24
star wanton [ __ ] Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. She defied gravity. All right.
01:01:30
Okay. There you have it. Um, those are good. But please, for the love of God, watch Viola Davis kick some ass. It's so
01:01:36
good. I think that's just an attempt to address your PTSD and pretend that Vice President Harris won the election. No,
01:01:42
no, no. She could certain couldn't have done this. This was just trust me. Watch it and then call me back. Just I'm just
01:01:49
telling you. I'm just telling you. You'll love it. It's so much fun. Like cuz she's won she's won an Oscar, isn't
01:01:55
she? She won an Oscar. Whatever. She deserves an Oscar. She won an Emmy an Oscar. Whatever. This woman is like top
01:02:01
actor just chewing up the scenery. It's so enjoyable. She did one a TV show years ago called How to Get Away with
01:02:07
Murder, which you should watch again, where she also chewed up the scenery with her Oscar-winning acting abilities.
01:02:13
Anyway, very talented. She's so talented, but I love that she's doing this and just punching people in the face with the machine, the whole thing.
01:02:19
It's fantastic. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever is on your
01:02:24
mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 8551 pivot. Also, Pivot
01:02:32
is up for a Webbby award for best business podcast and we are asking for your vote and some of other yours your
01:02:38
other podcasts are also up. So, vote for Prof. Uh I don't know if is but in any
01:02:43
case uh vote for us. Go to vote.webbyawwards.com to cast your ballot. We won last year and we're
01:02:50
hoping for a twofer. Um, elsewhere in the Scott and Cara universe, I just did
01:02:55
a whole panel on tariffs with trade law expert Raj Bala, Pucks, Bill Cohen, and Katherine Rampel from the Washington
01:03:02
Post. Uh, let's listen to a quick clip. The only way I can explain it is that we're dealing with the madness of King
01:03:08
George type moment. M maybe Trump is trading on the volatility and certainly
01:03:14
there's a lot of money to be made if you know what he's going to do from one minute to the next, which only he seems
01:03:20
to know. But all of his explanations for what he is trying to do are completely
01:03:26
incoherent and self-contradictory and come back to well he's just like tariffs for a really long
01:03:33
time. Anyway, it was a great interview. All of them had different things to add. Just FYI, just I think Katherine RPL is
01:03:39
a total comer. I think she's going to be I think you're going to hear her name a lot. I think she is exceptionally
01:03:45
talented. She had she had an outstanding moment on that show. I think it's a
01:03:50
[ __ ] food fight. Um, whatever Abby Phillips show and one of whoever the
01:03:56
Republican is was trying whoever the Republicans was trying to prevent the I call him bad Scott. He's
01:04:02
bad Scott. You're good Scott. He's trying to defend Bannon saying it was a wave and Katherine Rampel goes, "Give us
01:04:08
that wave. Give us that wave." And he just sat there like someone had just been caught masturbating or defiling
01:04:13
gravity. Yeah, defiling gravity. Yeah. Anyway, we love her. Um, all right, Scott. Uh that's another show. Uh thanks
01:04:20
for listening uh to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe uh our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott,
01:04:27
read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Neman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie Intertoder
01:04:34
this episode. Jim M edit this video. Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Miss Aario, and Dan Shalon. Nishak Kurwa is
01:04:42
Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcast. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New
01:04:48
York Magazine, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this
01:04:54
week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Care, have a great rest of the week.
01:05:01
[Music]
