Biden's Cancer Diagnosis, U.S. Credit Downgrade, and Trump Bullies Walmart

Kara Swisher: I'm so glad to be doing more years with you. I love our show, I love our team, and I mostly love you, Scott Galloway.

Scott Galloway: I appreciate you saying that. I reciprocate all of those good emotions. Kara, thank you.

Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. So I'm an adolescent. When I wake up in the morning, I immediately grab my phone. And the first thing I do this morning is I open the New York Times app. And what do I see? I see this big, colorful picture of a seven-year-old boy on a climbing wall. I look at it, and granted, I'm a little misty-eyed. The edible is just trying to, you know, no coffee yet, pre-coffee, post-edibles. And I'm like, I recognize that climbing wall. And then I look, and I'm like, that's my climbing wall.

Scott Galloway: That's your climbing wall.

Kara Swisher: In my place in Soho. And that's my seven-year-old, specifically my co-host. That's my seven-year-old boy, specifically my co-host. And then the next, I didn't even read the article. I went down to the next picture. The next picture is you looking very professional in my studio.

Scott Galloway: That's correct.

Kara Swisher: Are you going to start banging my wife? Are you literally assuming my identity? Seriously. What's going on here?

Scott Galloway: Well, someone was blibbity-blabbity with the New York Times or someone because all this news got out, so they moved the story forward. I was supposed to have a picture taken in my studio here, and I said, oh, we were doing it at Scott's, because that's where I was last week. And so it turned out well. It meshed with the headline.

Kara Swisher: Can you say puff piece?

Scott Galloway: Well, let me—

Kara Swisher: Okay. What was the title? Climbing, future climbing.

Scott Galloway: No, the title—I'm sorry. The title of the article was "Kara Swisher Scales Her Empire Even More." I mean, it was like, oh my God, it's going to be that. They literally like "scales her reach even more."

Kara Swisher: Wow. I like your quote, though. I like they call this a screwball comedy. I like that. That was nice.

Scott Galloway: You're feral. Apparently you're feral.

Kara Swisher: Feral. That was kind of rough.

Scott Galloway: I know. But it's true, though. It's accurate.

Kara Swisher: Feral? Feral. You're like rah.

Scott Galloway: You know, I'm sort of calm and I'm like, oh, like that.

Kara Swisher: Oh, yeah. You're just very chill.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's right. You're just mushroom chocolates come to life.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. I did like your quote about making me a billionaire. I really appreciate that. That was an interesting insight of our copacetic relationship. You don't like that I text you at all times? I had no idea.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I know. Most of the time it's fine.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, most of the time it's fine. Most of the time I just ignore it. The pivot text thing. If I see pivot come up, I'm like, pivot team. I'm like, don't read it. I do sometimes text you directly. It's just all these stories about the latest in Wokistan.

Scott Galloway: No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. It's so untrue.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, thank you. It was a very nice article. And the photographer was amazing. Her last assignment, I think, was doing the West Village Girls for New York Magazine. And then she did that beautiful Bill Burr picture. She's known for her blue framing.

Scott Galloway: I thought it looked like an ad for a lesbian girl animals.

Kara Swisher: Thank you. It's just like in the new girl animals section.

Scott Galloway: I love girl animals. The young lady in your life that's decided she likes Joan Baez or Katie.

Kara Swisher: Melissa Etheridge.

Scott Galloway: Melissa Etheridge. Like, it's OK. Dockers in a color. Dockers.

Kara Swisher: I was wearing Jordans. What are you talking about?

Scott Galloway: Tommy Bahamas and Dockers. That's how you should request to be buried in. Seriously.

Kara Swisher: I have no—

Scott Galloway: And the hearse needs to be a Subaru or some lame EV.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. I'm already planning. How many lesbian tropes are you going to pull out of your little hat?

Scott Galloway: They're so good, though.

Kara Swisher: They're not good.

Scott Galloway: It's called a lesburu, first of all.

Kara Swisher: A lesburu. That's better.

Scott Galloway: A U-Haul. You forgot the U-Haul one. There's so many you're missing. You have to get to.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, it was a nice piece. And more to the point, thank you again for letting me stay at your beautiful home. I had a great time. And Louis really appreciated it. They have driven across country, the two boys. And they're stopping at all kinds of places, which are very funny. And it was really helpful for our family. I really appreciate it. And thank you for letting me use your climbing wall to become even more egotistical. I really appreciate that, to climb to further heights.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Yeah, that was a good article. You must be happy with it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it was good. It was good. It was nice. It was very nice. And I like the, it had news of our, we're staying at Vox. That's really what the news is, correct? And we're happy that deal is done, aren't we?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Swisher: But most importantly, my girlfriend said that if our podcast gets next year's weppy, that we'll try anal. So please don't vote. Her strap-on is huge, and it really scares me, Carol.

Scott Galloway: That's how you would put it. I've been looking up lesbian jokes, and I couldn't find anything, but I thought that one was pretty funny.

Kara Swisher: We're going to move you on today because we've got a lot to get to today. Anyway, we'll be here for four more years, everybody. So just remember, at least this podcast, who knows what Scott's cooking up. I loved it. Clearly everyone was going on background, correcting each other about the deal, trying to make each other look better or worse.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: It's a good deal. It's a good deal, and it's a good deal for everybody. Well, you know what I said? I said, I told you when we were talking about how to do this deal. I'm like, you've got to start thinking like a billionaire about the people you cover.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, you did. You did.

Kara Swisher: And we have gotten to a good place. We are very happy to stay here. We do like working with Vox, but we did talk to some interesting people. It was an interesting insight into the podcast universe and where things are going. And you have to be creative and try different things. We did a lot of things that are really interesting in the deal. And hopefully it will yield us both many, many, many, many more riches to come and good shows mostly. Because I think our fans tend to like us. Hopefully we'll get even bigger and then I'll have another piece in four years. I don't know where I'll be in your apartment. Maybe I'll own your apartment at that point.

Scott Galloway: I'll see about that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. It's all yours.

Scott Galloway: Well, you kind of own it now.

Kara Swisher: I kind of do own it now.

Scott Galloway: You don't want to own a boat. You want a friend with a boat. That's kind of where you are right now. I love that. Well, you can stay at any of my homes. I'm not sure. I wonder if you've been there more days this year than I have.

Kara Swisher: I think I have. I think I actually have. If you're anyways, congratulations on the article. Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited for your FT Pink Bitch or Salmon Bitch article. You have to send it to me when it comes out. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. There's a lot going on, including Trump bullying Walmart and Apple. How ridiculous. And Meta delaying the release of its new AI model. But first, President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. Biden and his family are reviewing treatment options with doctors. A statement from his office notes, the cancer appears to be hormone sensitive, which allows for effective management. Messages of support have come in from across the political spectrum, including from President Trump. Though Don Jr. and other MAGA-adjacent folks are already spreading theories about cover-ups and conspiracies. All this is a new book, and audio recordings are raising questions about his mental fitness over the last few years. Any reaction to this news except sort of sad? Why don't you go first on this one, Cara?

Scott Galloway: I'm sad for him. I don't feel like, you know, there's been a lot of people like, you should talk more about this Biden book. Look, it's in the rearview mirror. He obviously shouldn't have run Scott in particular, and then I jumped on the same wagon as him. I thought he should have stepped down much earlier. We talked about it a lot. We got a lot of attacks for saying that. I don't want to say we were right. We just felt we needed it wasn't so much. It was that he was older, but that we needed a fresh start and someone who was up to the task of the presidency. And by the way, we said the same thing about Donald Trump. He's too old. He's just simply too old and is not headed in the right direction mentally or physically. So I feel, but I do feel badly this guy has devoted himself to service. I think on the whole, he will be judged well by history. I think he's done a lot of important things as an interesting evolution. I think the last couple years of his life have not gone well for him. And this is bad news. As for Don Jr. and other MAGA people doing this, go fuck yourselves. It's really grotesque. He wasn't hiding cancer. He may have had it. Maybe he didn't get checked. I don't know. But given that the MAGA people who were pushing the Epstein suicide conspiracy theories and now Dan Von Gino, who did that, one of the people who did it, is now saying it was suicide. It's just these people, all they want to do is spread theories to create a mess. And it's sad that they're doing it in the fact that this guy probably is in a little more, it's probably not a very good cognosis for Joe Biden, would be my guess. I'm not a doctor, but it sounds like it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I mean, I had a bunch of thoughts about it. My first thought was, how did the president of the United States, I get scanned all the time now. And it was shocking to me that his first kind of quote diagnosis that we know of had a Gleason test of nine. I mean, and it spread to his bones. Typically, I would have thought that he'd be getting scans all the time and getting PSA tests all the time. And I was shocked that it went so, kind of the first, what sounds like the first recognition of it was that it was this advanced. So he's already seven years past the life expectancy of the average American man. He's had a wonderful life of service. It's a tragedy for him and his family, not nearly the tragedy that he has endured losing children. But he's had an incredible life and best wishes to him. But it does bring up some really big issues. First off, the cover-up. Yeah, it was a cover-up. And guess what? Anyone with aging parents, we all are co-conspirators in this cover-up because your parents, their brain shrinks and they don't realize, they think it's insane that you take their driver's license from them. Were you kidding? I beat Trump. I'm pushing back on Russia. I passed the Infrastructure Act. Of course I can be president for another four years. I mean, that was a less crazy statement than a lot of the shit my dad said at 70. I mean, you're going through the same thing. So, and not only that, the people around you have tremendous goodwill and affection for you and they get co-opted into believing, oh, maybe he can go another four years. So there wasn't anything sinister here. There's what happens a lot. And for me, this all goes to the same place.

Scott Galloway: Very good point, Scott.

Kara Swisher: And that is we need age limits, folks. Biology is undefeated. It's absolutely undefeated, no matter how. So I was the first to come out of the closet as an ageist and say this guy was too old. And Bill Maher called me an ageist. And I said, I am an ageist.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, you got a lot of shit. I'll tell you that. You did get a lot of shit.

Kara Swisher: You know who was also an ageist? Biology. Biology always wins. And the reality is this would have put the nation in a real pickle because you would have had a president who probably wouldn't have handed over the mantle. Say he'd been reelected, who probably wouldn't have handed over the mantle to Vice President Harris because, quite frankly, Joe Biden is a wonderful man. He's also a narcissist. And would have made the country's leadership less robust. We need, we have made a decision that 34-year-olds don't have the experience, the cognitive abilities, the reasoning and the judgment to be president. A 74-year-old probably doesn't. Now, I'm sure there'll be, I'm sure there's a hundred-year-old that will do the marathon and does the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. We need age limits at the upper limit.

Scott Galloway: What's your age limit again? I forgot.

Kara Swisher: I would probably say 75, 70 or 75.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of places are 65. Like the New York Times editor is 65, right? There's like, I would say 70. Well, and this is the thing. It's not only, there's so many benefits to this. One, we're about to, the Trump administration is about to pass through a ridiculous tax bill. And all the goodies go to old people. Why? Because our Congress is a cross between the Golden Girls and the land of the walking dead. So they keep voting themselves more money and great young people who understand technology and have a tendency to think more about climate change and the deficit because they're going to be around for 50 years. Do you realize in 30 years, three quarters of Congress is going to be dead? So this creates a lack of vested interest in forward-leaning future investments. In addition, you end up with a situation where I see this happen at universities where tenured faculty won't go away, creating a lack of opportunity.

Kara Swisher: You've been talking about this for a while, about the tenure system.

Scott Galloway: And not only that, it's the kindest thing to do because, and I'm bragging here, but I'm oftentimes on the board. People go, he's the asshole. Let him have the hard conversations. I've had two conversations with CEOs who were aging to say, it's time for you to step down. I've also had conversations with other directors who stepped down from the CEO of their company. And the only thing they have is that fucking board directorship where they show up for free dinner every three months and speak big thoughts. And they love saying, I'm on the board of this public company. And here's the thing that's wonderful about term limits and age limits is you can send people off and say, you've been amazing. Here's your gold watch.

Kara Swisher: Right. And then it's not the excuse. But there is a sense of, like, people want to hold on. I was at one of these, like, clubs on the Upper East Side. It was full of those guys. And I kept thinking, they just can't let it go. You know what I mean? Like, it was interesting.

Scott Galloway: You see why? I had one of these conversations, not with a CEO, but with a director. And he was like, he said, I remember he was very gracious about it. He said, I know this was a hard conversation. He goes, and you know what he said? He said, you know what? At the end of the day, he's like, it's time for me to go home and die. And that's how people see this is, wait, you want to send me home? This is all I have.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they know it. You know, that's the issue with my mom, too. She knows, right? They know this is it. This is if they have to stop or they stop getting decision making power or power or whatever. In Biden's case, it's just tragic because it puts a I want to get it back to Biden, but it puts in the ending of this is not good. It's not a good thing. And especially when you have crazy fucking MAGA people they were going on about Jill Biden not knowing about she not a medical doctor people She his wife really And so she going to hold on

Scott Galloway: But she does call herself doctor That was a mistake

Kara Swisher: She does call herself doctor She has a doctorate, whatever. In any case, this has not ended well. And this is how it often happens. People don't end well.

Scott Galloway: Can you make me a promise? Can we end well?

Kara Swisher: So to be clear, I mean, I'm not obsessed with death, but I'm looking. I think a lot about it. I have set aside money. I know where I want to die. I know the drugs. I know the people. I have set up, I want to watch Apple. I want to live my life again. I've thought about the Apple Reels. I've thought about the music. And I want to, like that great Mexican artist, Frida. Frida Kayla. I want my death to be glorious and I don't want to come back. I purposely, and also I've decided at a certain age, I'm done. I'm off of social media. And I'm just going to enjoy relationships and do just fun shit. Because you know what? You have an obligation at some point to make room for other people. To say, okay, it's time to give fresh voices an opportunity here. It's time to create some room at the top of the pyramid. There are so many outstanding young people.

Kara Swisher: I feel the same way. Except I'm not going out like you. I'm just going to let nature take its course with Carol Swisher. But I'll be there for you if you want that.

Scott Galloway: I appreciate that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I'll do an interpretive dance in front of you just before you die. You'll have to start climbing on my climbing wall. Anyway, we have to move on. This is getting dark. But anyway, not today. By the way, let me just say Mission Impossible is coming next week this week. I'm so excited.

Scott Galloway: Speaking of aging.

Kara Swisher: Speaking of aging. I like Action Heroes 63. You know what? He looks good.

Scott Galloway: He does look good.

Kara Swisher: I don't really care. It's supposed to be a great movie. He does look good. All right. Speaking of something that's not doing so well, Moody's has officially downgraded the U.S. credit rating. You wrote me right away about this. Stripping the country of its last AAA rating of the three major agencies, Moody's blamed the downgrade on successive administrations in Congress failing to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs. The credit downgrade comes as Republicans try to pass Trump's big, beautiful bill.

Scott Galloway: I wish you would not call it that.

Kara Swisher: A sweeping tax and spending package estimated to increase the deficit by about $4 trillion. The bill cleared the House Budget Committee late Sunday night after initially getting blocked by some GOP deficit hawks.

Scott Galloway: They never hold on, these hawks. It sucks.

Kara Swisher: In terms of the market reaction as of this recording, stocks are down and the 30-year Treasury yield just hit its highest level in a year and a half. You texted me, this is big, when the Moody's news broke. Explain to people why this downgrade is more than a symbolic move. Scott Besant was all over the TVs on the weekend calling it, calling, dismissed Moody's, calling it a lagging indicator on Meet the Press. He also said it's no big deal that consumers have to pay tariff money. Of course, he admitted they will have to, and it won't be China that's paying. And by the way, there's a new acronym for people ditching American investments, which you've talked about a lot, ABUSA, anywhere but the USA. So talk a little bit about this, because you wrote, this is, You do not respond to a lot of stuff when we text you or I text you. This one you did. Everything just got a little bit more expensive for every American.

Scott Galloway: We were talking about corporate boards and companies. We spend a lot of time assessing the marketplace and trying to figure out when we go out and borrow money for growth, how we ensure we get the highest rating possible from these agencies whose job is to do the diligence that most investors don't have the time to do. And then based on the rating they give you saying, what is the likelihood of default? What is the likelihood of the risk that this entity won't be able to pay back the money? And based on the rating, it's the interest rate you have to pay to people in order for them to take the risk and loan you money. And if you get a good rating and you say, you know what, let's not borrow as much money. Let's borrow less such that our multiple, our debt to call it EBITDA ratio is a little bit lower. and we get a better credit rating and we can borrow money at a lower cost, meaning that the interest on that debt is not as big so we can make more investments in forward-leaning growth-related investments. And oftentimes, if you get to a point where you keep borrowing more and more money and then start borrowing money to pay the debt, which we are doing now, it causes a downward spiral where at some point you begin to look like a Donald Trump enterprise where he's done the following. I'll borrow money from anyone who's stupid enough to loan me money from my casino. And if it works out and all the projections hit, I can pay it back and make a lot of money. And if it doesn't work out, I'll just declare default. Okay. Declaring default in the United States would be really bad for all of us. I mean, people, I can't even imagine what might happen. You might see ATM stop working. And so essentially what has happened here is the third and final agency of the big three has said, our ability to pay back our debt based on the reckless fiscal policy, our reckless spending and inability to raise taxes or raise revenues means that we are now a larger risk than we were just last year. And as a result, every American is going to have to pay more on their student loans, their credit cards, on their mortgages, and companies will likely have to pay more, meaning we will have less money to invest and grow. This is a big deal. Along with the tariffs, which Besson was admitting finally. But the deficits here, they're talking about adding $4.5 trillion to the deficits. And again, see above catering to old people in America. They're not cutting Social Security. They're not cutting Medicare for old people because even old rich people like their Medicare. They're cutting Medicaid. Supposedly about 8 million people are going to lose their Medicaid. So a sicker populace. We'll have a sicker populace. They're cutting SNAP payments, which, by the way, show a 2% to 7% return on investment as little kids don't grow up to have diabetes and need hip replacements and kidney dialysis. So let's cut. It's as if we're literally in a movie here and America is Nicolas Cage and leaving Las Vegas. And he's thought, I'm just so fucking rabidly addicted to alcohol as American old people are too addicted to spending above their means that I'm just going to ignore the future. And I'm just going to drink myself to death because all of my debts and all of my relationships don't matter because I'm going to be dead soon. This is literally how we're behaving in the United states right now because we are borrowing, according to this tax plan, $5 trillion from our kids. The chickens won't come to roost while we're still alive, but they will come to roost and our kids are going to have to pay this shit back.

Kara Swisher: Right. Or do it, pay it forward again, which is what happens. And at some point it does spin out of control. The fact that when people understand Donald Trump is the one that has increased the deficit more than any other president in the history of the presidency. George Washington to George Bush, $7 trillion. Donald Trump, $8 trillion. And by the way, Biden continued it with $5 trillion. And now everyone, it's like that number, I think of negative 40. Negative 40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet. That is a really inhospitable bad environment. And whenever the far left and the far right meet, that means it's an inhospitable bad idea. The far left and the far right meet on anti-vaccine craziness, they meet on anti-Semitism, and they meet on reckless spending and tax cuts such that we can explode the deficit. This is negative 40. Why don't these GOP deficit talks ever stick? I mean, seriously, they never stick. I'm like waiting. Chip Roy, get yourself a fucking backbone. You say it out loud and you say, I'm not going to do this. And then every time you get Mike Johnson, I don't know what he's doing to you, but it's like you're the only people that can stop this and you won't. So really what you're saying is crap. I mean, I hate the moral argument I'm going to make. It's so cruel because no, they're not talking about, I could sort of at least theoretically get on board with the following. We have to make really painful cuts. I would make them around social security. I'd make them probably around some of our military spending. You know, I'm sympathetic to the argument of we are fiscally irresponsible. We are robbing from future generations. So we have to make really ugly, painful cuts. It's terrible, but it sucks to be an adult. But we're going to match every dollar cut one-to-one or two-to-one with an increase in revenues by increasing the taxes on corporations. We're going to have an alternative minimum tax on anyone saying making more than a million dollars. I could hold my nose and get on board with that. But all these quote-unquote fiscal hawks aren't saying we need to talk about the other side of the ledger and raise revenues, what they're saying is these Medicare cuts, I'm sorry, these Medicaid cuts don't go deep enough. And I mean, this shit is really scary for some people. And it's not only immoral, it's uneconomic. It's economically stupid. If you appeal to the degree, you're going to have a sick, fat, struggling, angry population under you who can't earn and have no economic opportunities. You know where that's going to go. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump gets pissy with Walmart and Apple.

[Break for ad]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. President Trump spent the weekend bullying Walmart after the company's CEO said some of the prices could rise within weeks because of the tariffs, obviously. In a post on True Social, Trump told Walmart to eat the tariffs and warned, I'll be watching and so will your customers. Scott Besson said that he's spoken with Walmart's CEO and the company will absorb some of the tariffs and some may get passed on to consumers. About one third of Walmart's products come from outside the U.S. with large share coming from China and Mexico. And it's not just Walmart. Trump's taking aim at Apple, too. He says that he had a little problem with CEO Tim Cook after hearing the company plans to ramp up iPhone production in India. Apple's trying to cut its reliance on China and aiming to make most of the iPhones sold in the U.S. at factories in India by the end of 2026. Apple announced that $500 billion investment in the U.S. back in February. But apparently that's not enough for Trump. Let's listen to Trump recount his conversation with Tim Cook. [Audio clip plays] I said, Tim, look, we've treated you really good. We put up with all the plants that you built in China for years. Now you've got to build us. We're not interested in you building in India. India can take care of themselves. They're doing very well. So two things, very meddlesome with the companies in terms of how they should price it and putting reality. Tariffs cost money and they're going to pass them on to consumers. What is this I'll be watching strategy and telling people where to build and thoughts?

Scott Galloway: We've talked about this before. We've seen a separation between church and state where that separation begin to erode. And just as important from an economic standpoint is the separation between business and state. And that is Obama shouldn't have been picking winners. I agree with that. And he shouldn't be deciding based on his blood sugar level or who he likes or doesn't like, he shouldn't be singling out companies because that is a form of corruption because everyone lines up to just kiss his ass. And not only that, he's a terrible business person. Do you realize that since the iPhone was launched, Apple has trained over 28 million Chinese workers on high-tech manufacturing? And also they make about 500 bucks a month, at least an entry-level assembler in China. We're not bringing those jobs back to the US. They've also invested about, they invest about $55 billion a year into the Chinese economy, which you could argue was the wrong investment or stupid. That's, I mean, they've made these extraordinary investments. And if you were to bring back, which you feasibly just can't do it, but let's just say for shits and giggles, we brought back manufacturing the iPhone to the U S that's a $3,500 iPhone.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Well, you said it, there's a statistic, we need to spend $30 billion over three years to move just 10% of its supply chain to the U.S., according to one estimate. And you had noted that the tariff was going to help India. It's not going to happen. It's just simply not going to happen. But talk more about this, I'll be watching. At some point, do they just ignore him or what?

Scott Galloway: I would bet. I think Tim Cook is very savvy. Also Walmart. I'd love you to hear about Walmart. I think what they say is, "The president is right, we need to build more manufacturing in the US, we're announcing," and just say, okay, the supply chain here is the most complex supply chain in history. We're going to start to build stuff. I know what it's like to get zoning and NIMBY, it's going to take a year, da-da-da, and just wait until he's out of office.

Scott Galloway: To bring the supply chain of Apple to 50% of the capacity they would need in the US, I mean, it would probably crush their market share by 50 or 60 points and probably take the most held stock in the world down 40 or 60 percent within a year if they ever really said they were going to try and do that. People can't afford a $3,500 iPhone. The market for a thousand dollar iPhone is probably five or eight times what the market is for a thirty-five hundred dollar iPhone. And then all the stories would be, "Oh, that's a huge gift to the Korean company, Samsung." So that's just not going to happen.

Scott Galloway: So what I bet they do is a couple of press releases about how he's right, we're going to invest more in American manufacturing. The real opportunity here, going to solutions, in my view, is to kiss and make up with China and to convince them to use some of their manufacturing prowess to build factories in the US, similar to the way Japanese automobile companies have built Japanese car brand plants in the U.S. But even then, it would have to be super high-tech manufacturing because to justify the cost of our labor. Anyways, this is a distraction.

Scott Galloway: Walmart gets about, I think about a third of its products from China and Mexico. They are imported. They will just... If he wants to take on Walmart and Apple, I think that is crazy. And then this ridiculous notion that Scott Bessent is saying, "Well, Walmart is going to eat the tariffs." Walmart's whole value proposition is that it passes on cost savings to the consumer. They operate at a business of scale with very low margins, but it's got more scale than any company in the world. I think it's the biggest top-line company in the world. So the notion that they can absorb these costs and not pass them on to consumers, it's just not... Okay. Say they decided to do that for the benefit of consumers. That takes their earnings down, which takes their share price down. Which takes their hiring down. Which means the wealth of American households goes down, which means they make fewer investments, fewer hires, less money for bonuses. You might argue, "Well, that hurts shareholders." Fine. You can make that argument. But folks, they've got a business to run, and they will figure out a way to optimize their margins.

Kara Swisher: Correct. And it'll—

Scott Galloway: He is living in a different era. He's a shitty business person. He doesn't understand economics. And he's living in an era that doesn't exist anymore. Anyway, we have to move on. It's just ridiculous. He shouldn't be meddling, putting his fat fingers in people's corporate decision making.

Kara Swisher: Meta is delaying the release of its behemoth, its largest Llama 4 AI model. Behemoth was originally scheduled to be released in April, but the company is now aiming for fall. This is something that seemed expected, that these AI models would run into problems as they move forward. Another problem Meta is facing, though, is fraud. According to documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Meta is the leader in the pack when it comes to Internet scams. The tech giant claimed nearly half of all reported scams on Zelle between 2023 and 2024. Regulators in the UK and Australia found that 70% of the new advertisers on the platform are promoting scams or low-quality products. Of course, they'll take their business. However, employees have reported a reluctance to limit advertisers, allowing up to 32 automated strikes for financial fraud before banning accounts. I mean, seriously. Seriously.

Kara Swisher: And meanwhile, over at places like Microsoft, they're laying off 3% of its staff. Over 40% of layoffs were in engineering. The cuts come after Satya Nadella announced up to 30% of the company's code is now written by AI. He himself is now listening to podcasts by AI. They synopsize them so he doesn't have to listen to the whole thing, which was a weird little fact that was in one of the stories. So what's going on here? Let's talk first about the difficulties that AI is running into and then the difficulties that tech companies are running into.

Scott Galloway: I'm involved in a company called Section which is upskilling AI for the enterprise, trying to help companies figure out how to leverage AI. The CEO of the company, my friend Greg Shove... My whole rap has always been that AI is not going to take your job, someone who understands AI is going to take your job. And he said, "Well, some of that's true, but AI is in fact taking jobs." And there's been a real kind of gag from a lot of employees. They are very suspicious of AI at the enterprise. Like, "Okay, are you asking me to cooperate in my own execution here?"

Scott Galloway: This will be great for Microsoft's bottom line. That is absolutely the nitro and glycerin of an explosion in earnings is when you can reduce these costs. And they claim that it's more about efficiency and not cost cutting. On a personal level, I've been... I don't want to call myself a victim, but I started getting text messages of a video and a few people said, "I didn't know that. Should I do this?" And I click on it and it's a video that was running on Instagram. And it was me saying, "Each week at my three best stock tips right now on the WhatsApp, I have a WhatsApp group." Fake Scott. And it looked pretty good on a phone. On a computer, you could tell it was AI, but it looked pretty good. And people were sending it to me saying, "Are you aware of this? Should I do this?" So someone, a scammer, had figured out a way to create an AI representation of me trying to get people into spending money to join a WhatsApp group where I would make stock picks.

Scott Galloway: We complained vociferously early and often to Meta. You can still find it, Kara.

Kara Swisher: Yep.

Scott Galloway: They don't care. It's like, "Oh, people are clicking on it."

Kara Swisher: Yeah. So these scams are... And what I don't get is, they could absolutely use AI themselves to figure this out and take shit down.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, they want more advertisers.

Kara Swisher: You remember when Amazon was doing books of mine that weren't books of mine? It's the same thing. But these companies don't want to fix this stuff. Otherwise, they would clean it up. They want more advertisers. It's the consistent record of this company to screw consumers before themselves, before fixing the problem or taking the cost that it would take to do this. Can you imagine that many knocks before you get thrown off? 32 automated strikes for financial fraud before banning accounts? Why isn't it two or five? Or why don't we investigate after five and then dump after 10 or something? It's a company that doesn't care about that.

Kara Swisher: And these companies will cut. Let me just say software engineers, they will cut you tomorrow. The minute they can have AI write this code, they are in love with it. They're in love with the savings, as Scott said, and they will do it because that's what they do. They are very good at becoming more efficient. And of course, people are hardly their concern. That's always been my impression.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, and to be fair, I think that's what they should do. But they should use technology to become more efficient and reinvest the capital in higher growth areas. The thing that struck me, just talking about the difference between new media, Meta, and old media, the New York Times... There's clear AI financial fraud. Trying to misrepresent people and scam people doesn't get taken down. Do you know how many times that reporter from the New York Times doing the story on you called me to fact check shit?

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God.

Scott Galloway: "Where did you get that? You told us this number. Where'd you get it?" And I'd have to walk him through the math and go, "Okay, are you sure?" "Yeah." And then he'd call me back and say, "But define the term profits." The guy spent three or four days going line by line such that he could look anyone in the face and say, "What we wrote here was as close to the truth and as accurate as we could be."

Kara Swisher: And then you have Meta right, putting out AI representations.

Scott Galloway: Really good. That is a really good point. He called yesterday or two days ago. He had like, "Can I call these 19 people to check something that didn't even make it in the story?" Some of them, you know, they got caught later. You're right.

Kara Swisher: That's a... Scott, once again you are insightful. And you're just feeling affectionate because I let you use my climbing wall.

Scott Galloway: I love your climb. Whose idea was that?

Kara Swisher: Take a picture of me on the climbing wall.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I look good on the climbing wall.

Kara Swisher: Be a dimwit. It was a good idea.

Scott Galloway: It was a good idea. You look like Hervé Villechaize summiting Everest for a fundraiser.

Kara Swisher: You're mad who was in your studio. Anyway, we're moving on.

Scott Galloway: You're Tyrion Lannister going up a man. And who was the hero of that series? He's the protagonist.

Kara Swisher: Although I did like Jamie. I did like Jamie. He loved his sister, but he also loved Brienne of Tarth. He evolved from a horrible man to a good man.

Scott Galloway: Yes, Jamie was good. Very complex. But the short guy, he was the hero of that entire thing.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Novo Nordisk pushes out its CEO. This is a topic I'm eager to talk to you about.

Scott Galloway: I so should have married a wildling.

[Break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk has pushed out its CEO as it loses ground in the anti-obesity drug market. Lars Jørgensen, who has run the company for eight years, will step down following the stock price dives and impatience from the nonprofit that controls the company. In recent years, the company has struggled with supply shortages in the production of Wegovy and the steep competition from Eli Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound, to say nothing of the knockoffs that are happening, which they're trying to rein in, but they're not being as successful. They're trying. Novo Nordisk shares have fallen over 50 percent since 2024 and had a huge upsurge when this became popular.

Kara Swisher: And we're on the topic, Weight Watchers filed for bankruptcy, which was another prediction win for you, Scott, by the way. Talk about what's happening here. We had talked about these industries going to the moon. It's sort of like NVIDIA going to the moon because of people interested in it. But it turns out, even if you have a successful thing, you have to keep in competition. Once competition jumps, same thing, see Tesla, see all these things.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but this was... I saw at the motor and basically said that Novo Nordisk is a good company, but it's not an exceptionally innovative company. And they kind of slipped and fell on a diabetes drug that also had use across GLP-1 obesity. But it wasn't this great innovation. And they wrote it up. And your job, when you're blessed with that sort of extraordinary luck and additional capital, is to create moats. And that either through distribution or branding or preference at the doctor level. And then in the U.S., I forget what it's called, a bunch of drugs were given clearance sort of off-label because of the shortages.

Scott Galloway: I imagine the board has just said, "Look, you had a moment to really take advantage of what is probably a once in a career lifetime moment and create some barriers of brand equity or lock up distribution to maintain." And my guess is their margins are just getting hammered by all of these competitors. I honestly, quite frankly, I think his loss is probably the world's gain, meaning that there's competition and they're not able to sustain their kind of usurious margins. I think one of the biggest unlocks for healthcare would be if GLP-1 drugs went down to $10 a month instead of $1,000 a month. If you look at the delta between $6,500 a year per capita health spend and $13,000, a lot of it is insurance, a lot of it is complexity of billing, and a lot of it is obesity. I was happy to see this, quite frankly, because I don't want to see... Novo Nordisk has been cut in half. But if it had quadrupled in the last year, that just would have meant additional penetration, but also that they were able to figure out ways to monopolize a market where they were charging people $1,000 a month.

Kara Swisher: Too much, yeah. So what about the Weight Watchers one? This is a prediction you made. Obviously, they were trying to get into this market. They have been with a CEO. I've interviewed her. They were trying to shift. They keep shifting. I have had so many interviews with so many CEOs of Weight Watchers, and the shifting has been really hard. And I think at heart, their business model doesn't work anymore in the new environment. But they tried to go to these drugs and they tried this and they tried that. They tried to call it WW. They tried to do a different thing all the time. Why did you predict that? And what do you think of what's happened?

Scott Galloway: At the end of '23, I heard from all of these companies. I said, "You do not want to be an investor in alcohol stocks, in the food industrial complex around sugary, shitty food, or in weight loss that doesn't involve GLP-1." And I had logos, including the logos of Weight Watchers. I typically make stock bets going long. And in November of '23, my big recommendation was to go short all of these companies. My technology of the year 2024 wasn't AI. I said that in '23, it was GLP-1. I think it's more revolutionary than AI, quite frankly. And while everyone's focused on AI, they're not looking at what America's economy has run on: addiction. And this is the biggest thing. This is scaffolding on our primitive instincts that haven't been updated to industrial production. And Weight Watchers was just, quite frankly, shitty technology that just shouldn't be in business. I love this. This is capitalism at work.

Kara Swisher: So where is this going to go? This is something you've talked about. You talked about this very early. Where do you imagine these businesses? It's just more competition, just the way EVs are doing that. And lots of people are... At the same time, EV is still a very rocky business. The uptake is still not there for consumers. It's growing, but not in the way people thought it would. This has such extraordinary potential. Who's the winner here?

Scott Galloway: Well, this is what I'm hoping. I'm hoping there's a lot of companies that make billions, but I'm hoping there aren't that many that make hundreds of billions. Because one of the biggest detriments to society is that there aren't more industries like the airline industry or jet manufacturing or PCs where no small number of companies are able to develop monopoly power through regulatory capture. And the cost to get from Paris to New York is only $400, which is an incredible unlock for the economy and for consumers. And I think an incredible unlock for the health of the world and ultimately lower taxation because we end up paying for obesity in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, or depression.

Scott Galloway: Do you realize that people who are good looking on average make 8% more per year in compensation?

Kara Swisher: Yes, I do.

Scott Galloway: And you get nine, right? Especially if they can climb. As you read in the New York Times. Especially if they can climb. "She scales her empire even bigger." And you know what? Overweight people... The industrial food complex decided it would be politically correct to tell people they're not finding diabetes, they're finding their truth, and that it's okay to be obese. Do you need empathy for them? Yeah. But also recognize they're more likely to be depressed and get laid off and have trouble finding a mate. So I would love to see... You want to talk about an unlock? Get people the money such that they can work out, get people the money such that they can eat good food. And if they start spilling over from being overweight to obesity, immediately get them affordable GLP-1 drugs.

Scott Galloway: In 2023, the neighborhood with the greatest concentration of GLP-1 use was also the neighborhood that's the thinnest in the nation, and that's the Upper East Side, kind of ladies of lunch looking to lose the last 10. Good news is the latest data shows that the state of Kentucky leads the nation in GLP-1 use now. But if you shove GLP-1 drugs into red states and rural areas where people, because they don't have enough money, have to ingest their calories...

Kara Swisher: They'd start calling themselves they/them then, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: What would happen? It would be a huge unlock. So I just hope, I really hope that we see a world where GLP-1 drugs have massive, bloody, ugly, full body contact competition that brings the cost of these things way, way down.

Kara Swisher: Good point. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

[Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's do wins and fails. I shall start today.

Scott Galloway: Please. Unless you want to. Would you want to start?

Kara Swisher: No, no, go ahead.

Scott Galloway: All right. So the fail is so obviously Amazon announcing that it will work with Humane, the AI company launched by Mohammed bin Salman to build an AI zone in Saudi Arabia. For people that know, a lot of the Arab states are trying very hard to become the data center. There's all kinds of privacy issues, et cetera, but they're trying really hard to do that. The only issue with something like Amazon is that in 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a writer for Bezos' own Washington Post, was killed and dismembered with the approval of the Saudi crown prince. This guy doesn't have... He was just appearing at his funeral saying how terrible it was. And then two years later, "Hey, no problem." And it's fine for other people. I guess they're all going to show up there for this guy. But it just was particularly vexing if you're a Washington Post person. And I know you don't feel bad for the Washington Post people, but dismembering and vivisecting a columnist is not something you should do business with.

Scott Galloway: I would say President Trump attacking Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen, and now apparently Beyoncé, Oprah... He wants to sue them all and investigate them for singing for Kamala Harris is stupid, but I don't really care. It's just ridiculousness. And for my win, well, obviously, it's going to be Tom Cruise for this week, for this movie, for Final Reckoning. I'm going to go by myself. I'll probably see it multiple times. I don't care what you think of me, but that is what I am. I'm so excited about it. It's a win that it's here and that Kara can finally be happy because I've been waiting for it for a while. I love Mission Impossibles. I love them, love them, love them. So that's it.

Kara Swisher: Nice. So my win is experts. And specifically, I'm obsessed with this woman. I hate to admit, I'm getting so much reward out of Instagram Reels and TikTok. And I found this wonderful doctor who has a PhD in nutrition. And I apologize if I got her name wrong. Dr. Jessica Knurik, I think is how you say her name. And I was one of these people that really fell into this notion that the government had always chosen the least expensive option and was spraying our crops with just terrible pesticides and that the food supply had been infected in America. And then I fell further into the trap because food does rot much more quickly here in the UK.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it does.

Kara Swisher: And I thought, "Okay, that means they're not being sprayed with pesticides." And then into that void slipped a lot of quacks pushing supplements saying, "Okay, you can find this chemical that they're spraying on this stuff at Home Depot and that's why you should buy my supplement." Or this basic thing, "You can't trust experts, you can't trust the CDC, you can't trust the NIH." And they were using this as a vehicle to create distrust amongst institutions and also for them, it's a lifehack or wellness experts to sell their shit despite the fact they have absolutely no credentials. And this woman has basically... She is so good and science-based and basically debunks all of this bullshit. And she acknowledges where they have some valid points and where they don't. And I just think she's fantastic.

Scott Galloway: Cool. I'd love to watch her.

Kara Swisher: That's great. And she talks about public policies that actually work. Expert-led campaigns at the CDC and the World Health Organization are actually responsible for multiple public health victories. The World Health Organization reports an 8% decrease in tobacco usage globally since 2000. The CDC's push for measles vaccinations has prevented 57 million deaths worldwide since just 2000. And her view, I'm so in line with her. Politicians want to create policy that is more effective and more trusted by the American public. They should step aside and let scientists and health professionals lead the charge. And I love her constant theme, which I have parroted, which is if these folks were really serious about health, they would address income inequality.

Scott Galloway: That's correct.

Kara Swisher: So anyways, I'm fascinated and I just love when someone is making experts cool again because she's an expert and she's so good and so facts-based and so reasoned. I'm going to try and get her on the pod. And then what is my loss here, Kara?

Kara Swisher: Oh, thanks to RFK Jr., vaccine misinformation is back in full throttle. Clips of Trump's pick for Surgeon General, Casey Means, discussing the link between autism and vaccines have surfaced. In addition, her claims of leaving medical residency because of disillusionment with the medical system, again, that you can't trust the deep state. Well, someone did some research and found out that's total bullshit. She left because she couldn't handle the stress. Not she just couldn't. And by the way, I've dated someone who was in her residency and I saw how kind of out of control it is.

Scott Galloway: I do think it's too stressful. Jeff Swisher.

Kara Swisher: Well, it's sort of... There's a certain amount of what I call hazing involved. She used to have to do 36-hour straight shifts. And I'm like, on your 35th hour, you're probably not giving very good medical care. But there's a certain abused children syndrome. But that's a different talk show. But our old Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, is exactly who we would want. Talking about loneliness, talking about the impact and isolation of young men, really thinking thoughtfully about health issues. And here we have a vaccine denier who claims she left the medical profession because of the deep state and she became disillusioned. No, own up, stand on your own two feet, you couldn't hack it. And this is who we have, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who couldn't hack her residency and is now jumped on this anti-vaccine train, which will create a tremendous increase in death, disease, and disability.

Kara Swisher: Vaccinations, according to the World Health Organization, who of course people don't want to listen to because they actually do science, it's estimated that essential vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives. During the same period, vaccination has reduced infant deaths by, get this, 40%. Before any vaccine is introduced in a country, the vaccine developed in a laboratory undergoes rigorous and stringent testing through multiple phases of clinical trials. Health authorities carefully evaluate the results of these trials to help ensure that the vaccine meets the highest safety and efficacy standards before being considered suitable for use. RFK Jr. is out there lying. These things are very safe. Like any medicine, sure, there's a risk in terms of side effects. They are so dwarfed by the benefits. It's almost like not even worth reporting. And they're usually very minor and in short duration, such as a sore arm or mild fever. More serious side effects are possible, but extremely, extremely rare.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: It's amazing how they benefit from conspiracy theories. I don't know how they live with themselves in that regard, but they do.

Scott Galloway: And just a cherry on top of fails. If this tax bill passes, it'll be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history. We have decided to borrow five trillion dollars from our kids, use it so we can go to Cabo and pay for our new Lexus. And then when we die, they have to pay it back. This is just stupid and immoral. This tax bill, according to several studies, it will be the largest transfer of wealth from poor to rich, which is Latin for young to old. Everyone calls me an ageist, but who do you think the rich are? What is the average age of shareholders who own more than two or three million dollars in shares right now? They're usually in their 60s or 70s. This will be the largest transfer of wealth. I uploaded my taxes into the LLMs, my W-2s, and said, "How will the Trump tax impact me?" And I uploaded it to three LLMs and one of the LLMs came back with the first two words were "good news." So the top 5% are getting a tax cut. The bottom 95% are getting a tax increase, all at the expense of future generations.

Kara Swisher: Yep. 100%. Very good, Scott. Nice. Well done. I like that.

Scott Galloway: Well, I'm trying to scale my business.

Kara Swisher: You're trying to scale my business. Scale it to further heights. Maybe if you got on that climbing wall every now and then.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. I thought there was going to be a picture of you in my bathtub using my salts.

Kara Swisher: Oh, that could be interesting. Like putting on my deodorant. I'm like, "What's next? Hitting my kids?"

Scott Galloway: I have to say your concierge likes me better, I think.

Kara Swisher: Who? Who's this?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, because we bring liveliness to it. We're fun.

Kara Swisher: Who likes you better? Your concierge?

Scott Galloway: The door people. The doormen.

Kara Swisher: Cheesy.

Scott Galloway: I get money. They like you. They like me more.

Kara Swisher: I get money. They like you. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about your business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on On with Kara Swisher, I talked to Barry Diller about his new memoir. Let's listen to a clip.

[Clip plays]

Kara Swisher: Did you enjoy your interview? I know you're a big fan.

Scott Galloway: I love him. He's very funny. He's one of the most forthright of the moguls. And he is who he is. People have a lot of complaints about Barry Diller. But I got to tell you, he's absolutely... I am the least interested in the gay part. I knew it. Everyone knew it kind of thing. But I thought this book is fantastic. It's a really gripping story about his family, which was very... There's a lot of incredible dysfunction there. But also his ideas around business and creating media. And I think he's been one of the more entrepreneurial members of that class, of the old mogul class. And so I enjoyed it. He's just a gas. He's really a gas.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Irtad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Vera, and Dan Shalon. Nishat Kerouz, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. You know we'll be back. Why? Because someone's scaling her empire.