Big Tech Earnings, Trump Media Stock Plunge, and Guest Margaret Brennan

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Kara Swisher: Well, it's hard for you to notice this, but being back in London and being in the U.S. for two and a half weeks, I was surprised.

Scott Galloway: Surprised?

Kara Swisher: Well, noticed. It is visibly, observably tense in the U.S. right now.

Scott Galloway: Yes, indeed.

Kara Swisher: I was at a fundraiser on Saturday for Jed, which focuses on—it's a wonderful nonprofit that works with high schools to help with teen mental health and suicide prevention. And I was giving a talk and out of the blue, someone from a corner yelled "Trump 2024." And then someone else on the other side felt compelled to start booing him. I mean, this is a fundraiser for teen mental health.

Scott Galloway: Right. Why did they do that? Why did that Trump person do that?

Kara Swisher: Well, I don't know. But everyone you talk to seems very tense, very polarized, very on edge. One of the things I really appreciate about the UK is that here elections run six weeks from start to finish. It does seem that everyone just sort of is kind of nonplussed a little bit by the results and then they just keep calm and carry on. I could not get over how tense it felt in the US. Do you feel that?

Scott Galloway: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Everywhere you go. It's really nuts. It's really crazy. It's very hard to find humor in it. Sometimes there's humor in political campaigns. But the ugliness level led by the Republicans has really gotten to a point, and then the Democrats respond. I don't think politics should be funny, but it also should feel like you're one country, I guess, in some regard. And it doesn't feel like that. On either side, they win, feel like the people have been ginned up so much that Kamala Harris is the devil, essentially. And the people on the other side think another Trump administration is disastrous for our country. I think it feels existential in some weird way.

Kara Swisher: I mean, it's not a weird way. It is. It feels existential, including people who are not that dramatic are saying that, are very worried.

Scott Galloway: Right. And I think the inclusion of the world's richest man, I'm sorry, with the money feels like he's buying an election.

Kara Swisher: Right. That's weird. You know, you say it's a podcast election. I say it's an Elon election. Can billionaires buy their way? I mean, rich people always have, but not in this explicit and naked an attempt to help their own interests.

Scott Galloway: I don't think people would say that about Kennedy and his father and what happened.

Kara Swisher: Yes, but it wasn't this naked. I guess we always knew it, but this feels so naked and explicit and transactional that it—I guess we kind of believed a little bit that we don't like that, but then here it is.

Scott Galloway: I think what really created the real tension in the situation is that the richest man in the world, who is an immigrant to this country, is displaying so much rancor, creating so much division, even more so than Trump. I can't believe it if that's possible. And I think that's what's getting on people's nerves.

Kara Swisher: It's ironic that a week before, on Halloween week, all the masks are off. I recognize that my kids know very little about elections, so I've been trying to teach them about democracy. Just as an exercise, last night I let them vote on dinner, and they picked pizza. But then I ordered Indian because we don't live in a swing state.

Scott Galloway: Very funny, Kara, trying to calm things down, trying to lighten the mood.

Kara Swisher: Trying to lighten the mood. Anyway, we had a lot to get to today, including the latest earnings from Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta. With just a few days until the election, Joe Biden creates a headache for Democrats, which I think is a nothing burger, but he did it. And Donald Trump makes some creepy new comments about women, which was par for the course, just another Tuesday. Plus, we'll get some last minute political analysis from our friend of Pivot, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan. But first, former President Trump's Truth Social was briefly worth more than Elon Musk's X, which has been declining in value, as we've talked about before. Truth Social's parent company was shortly valued over $10 billion, while X Holdings is valued at $9.4 billion, and that's probably being generous. The Trump Media stock was briefly halted several times this week for moving so sharply. It's gone up and down, really interesting. I'd love to really actually see the transactions. Meanwhile, the parent company lost more than $16 million in the quarter ending June and doesn't have very many people on it, which, of course, this is not about fundamental business issues. However, on Wednesday, Trump himself lost $1.3 billion in net worth after the worst trading day ever for the company. We do disagree on why this is happening. I think there's a lot of gaming going on here, and I would love to see the logs of who's buying.

Scott Galloway: Say more about what you mean by that.

Kara Swisher: Well, if you look at someone who wants to support Trump, like these Polymarkets, everyone's like, "Oh, Peter Thiel owns it." And it turned out there was one trade in France from one guy that made it go up. So we all like, "Oh, Trump winning," but not because one guy did it. I worry this stock is being manipulated by Trump-adjacent people, and who knows who they could be, to make it go up and down. I don't think this is a bunch of—maybe it's Wall Street gaming the situation. It feels very gamed, on some level, the way it's gone up, because getting away from the fundamentals of this company, which both of us absolutely agree is a piece of shit, right? It's a shit sandwich inside a shit pie, whatever. It seems unusual that this is happening. I don't think it's popular sentiment. It's some other sentiment. And you think differently.

Scott Galloway: Well, it's an interesting thesis, and that is that if a stock or a poll indicates that Trump is likely to win, that it gives people confidence or incentive or momentum on the Trump side. And then I've also heard a counter theory, and that is it's being manipulated by a wealthy Democrat who wants to give Republican voters a sense it's in the bag such that people stay on the couch.

Kara Swisher: Oh, interesting. I didn't hear that one. That's fascinating.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that was my friend Whitney Tilson, who sends out a really thoughtful email almost every day. So I can see someone manipulating—well, let me back up. This is what I think is going on. Polymarket, Kalshi—is that what it's called?

Kara Swisher: Something like that, yeah.

Scott Galloway: Anyways, there's a bunch of them that are basically wagering sites where you can bet on, amongst other things, every state. You can bet on margin of victory and you can bet on the election. Right now on Polymarket, it has Trump at 62, approximately 62 or 63, and Harris at 37 or 38 percent. That is a wide margin. I think the logical thesis, the most obvious one, kind of Occam's razor, is that the kind of person that goes to a site and bets on an election is probably younger, probably more male, and those people skew heavily Trump. Because if you look at the actual data, the majority of the data across the A-plus list polling sites says that it's pretty much a toss-up. So if you are a betting person—I'm actually thinking of doing this just for fun. I might put some money on Harris on Polymarket because this is what it means. If you bet $100 on Harris and she wins, you get approximately $287, almost triple your money. If someone said to you, Kara, bet on this coin flip, and you don't know—and I would describe the election right now from just the data I see, trying to be as unemotional as possible, as a coin flip. But if someone said to you, you bet $100 and you pick heads or tails, and if you win, you get $287, you would do that because it's asymmetric upside.

Kara Swisher: In fact, let's do it.

Scott Galloway: Let's do it.

Kara Swisher: Well, that's actually what I'm thinking, because not that I'm hopeful, but I'm not that confident. I think it's literally a coin flip. But if on a coin flip, you're getting $287, then you have disproportionate upside. So I think the thesis that these markets are driven by who bets which way or the other, the most obvious explanation is that the people—it's like, do you remember when Floyd Mayweather fought Conor McGregor?

Scott Galloway: I do not.

Kara Swisher: Anyways, this UFC fighter, this whiter than white guy, red hair, Irish guy, who's actually not that great an MMA fighter. He's just very loud and obnoxious. He fought Floyd Mayweather, who arguably has the fastest hands in the history of boxing. But the odds were much tighter because I think people still like the idea. I think there's some unconscious racism where people like the idea of the white guy beating up or winning, beating the black guy. There's always throughout the history of boxing a little bit of bias for the white guy, the great white hope, so to speak. And the best bet or the easiest bet was on Floyd Mayweather fighting an OK MMA fighter that has never boxed before. Anyway, my point is you're getting asymmetric upside to the notion of—

Scott Galloway: Who won that thing? I don't even know.

Kara Swisher: To Conor McGregor's credit, he fought a competent fight, but Floyd Mayweather dominated and won, as he should have. But the thing that I don't think is being manipulated for Trump's favor is the stock, because the stock was almost at 100 a couple years ago. It's been as low as 12. So I don't know if that's sending signals into the marketplace.

Scott Galloway: Why not? Why couldn't one or ten—listen to this. Fortune had a really interesting investigation, and separate investigations completed by the blockchain firms Chaos Labs and Inca Digital and shared exclusively with Fortune. Analysts found that Polymarket activity gives signs of wash trading, a form of market manipulation where shares are bought and sold often simultaneously and repeatedly to create a false impression of volume of activity. Chaos Labs found that wash trading consisted of around one third of trading volume in Polymarket's presidential market, while Inca Digital found that a significant portion of the volume on the market could be attributed to potential wash trading. The other ones, they're looking at those too. And I think you could do the same thing with this stock. Very little needs to trade to make it go up. And if you wanted—I was intrigued by the Democratic thing, make them feel confident. And then put $100 for each of us on that. Will you do that? Will you do that? And I'll owe you.

Kara Swisher: A hundred percent. I might do a little bit more than that. But anyways, I buy the thesis around the polls and around the betting sites, because a lot of media reports on the betting sites. And when the media reports that according to Polymarket or Kalshi that Trump is almost two to one favored, that sends a signal that's probably on the whole good for the Trump campaign. Where the stock is, I don't think does much around a signal or confidence or lack thereof. I don't think it creates much of an echo effect in favor of one candidate or the other. I would short that stock like nobody's business.

Scott Galloway: Well, you wouldn't—it could just rise.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you could rise. You got to be very careful shorting a stock like that, because if he wins—

Scott Galloway: It's a meme stock. It's a meme stock. There's a scenario where it goes to a hundred bucks on November the 6th. And the dangerous thing about short selling is your losses are unlimited.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's true. Anyways, I guess what I'm saying is I absolutely buy your thesis around manipulating and the incentive around manipulating the betting markets. I'm not sure I see the connection to the incentive around manipulating the stock. It doesn't need that many. I'd love to see it. I'd like to actually see the trading. Anyway, we'll see what happens when we go forward. Let's move on to other things. Apple released its first set of Apple Intelligence features for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac this week. The rollout includes notification and email summaries, text writing tools, image editing, and improved Siri—stuff we're kind of used to already. The response, of course, has not been overwhelmingly positive, with a number of views calling new features underwhelming. And I think they are, because we've been using them on Google and everything else. But as Tim Cook noted in an interview with WSJ Magazine last week, the technology will take some iteration. It's not about being first but best. Apple Intelligence will help iPhone sales. And how long do they have to deliver real changes to Apple phones to make the technology worth it?

Scott Galloway: Well, they aren't making the investment other people are. They're just using the investments other people are making. So probably a good bet from what I can tell.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, well, we talked about this. The concept that Apple—I think the reason that the stock is trading at an all-time high in terms of multiple on earnings, it's all-time high in terms of the actual stock price, is that one, it continues to be a safe place for growth and continued dominance, great execution, great management, unbelievable cash flows. The most profitable product in the history of mankind is on a gross profit level, the iPhone, and maybe the App Store on a gross margin basis. But what I think people got excited about was the business model. Basically, they said Apple is not going to get into this arms race. It's going to be a weapons manufacturer. It's going to be on the right side of this arms race. It will ultimately position their Apple Intelligence as someone who they co-brand and probably get some enormous licensing fee from, and they're not entering into this multi-10, 20, $50 billion arms race trying to develop their own unique LLM strategy. They're going to leverage every other one's CapEx. But in terms of the actual product offering, underwhelming is probably the right term so far. It really isn't. I mean, it's not like you pull up iOS and think, "Wow, AI is really changing things." It's not. Things like main features unveiled include graphic cues to indicate the presence of AI in apps, writing tools, an AI eraser in photos for editing, and notification summaries. If they hadn't said AI, you would have just thought these were small, incremental upgrades. Wouldn't have even noticed.

Scott Galloway: So, look, but it's the business model that's got people—that they don't have to pay so much for the benefits, right?

Kara Swisher: Well, they've said we're not getting into this arms race. To be viable in this thing, you have to be allocating $10, $50, $100 billion over the next three to five years. And Apple said, "I have an idea. Rather than investing $10, $50, $100 billion, why don't we collect a billion a year from whoever wants their logo in front of the billion wealthiest consumers?" Yeah. And Apple shares are up the last six months and year to date by quite a bit, 25%, because they aren't making these massive investments. We'll see how they roll it out. And of course, as most people know, these things get better as they're used, and they figure it out. I think they'll probably do the best job of deploying the usages. I find a lot of—I use Gmail, I find their "Can you want me to help you write this?" I find it annoying and not helpful. I wish I could turn it off for the most part, including in the search where they give me an answer that I wasn't looking for. I just don't think it's yet yielded what maybe it will help us do. And I suspect Apple will be the best place for doing that. But it is underwhelming so far. And speaking of all the investments, let's get to our first big story. Scott, it's been a big week for tech earnings, and we're going to focus in on tech earnings. First up, Microsoft's stock is down 4% after beating expectations for quarterly revenue and earnings, but forecasting slower than expected growth. The company's revenue increased 16%, net income rose 11%. Very strong performance. Microsoft said its AI business is on track to surpass an annual run rate of $10 billion the next quarter. But CFO Amy Hood says she expects Microsoft to take a $1.5 billion hit to income, mostly because of expected loss from OpenAI. As for gaming, Microsoft said Xbox content and services revenue grew 61% driven by acquisition. So I suppose we could ignore that pretty much. This AI, Satya said 70% of Fortune 500 companies use Microsoft 365 Copilot for at least some employees. Just a lot of big spending here for what they're doing, right, from what I can tell.

Scott Galloway: Well, why don't we do a quick round the world on the tech earnings here, because there were a bunch of them.

Kara Swisher: All right, let me go to Meta then.

Scott Galloway: Okay, Meta shares are down 2%. The company's revenue is up 19% to $40.6 billion, and profit was up 35%. Very impressive. The growth is driven by advancements in advertising targeting, which the company says comes from its investments in AI. That's the real plus here. But the company also raised its annual spending forecast to $38 to $40 billion. Incredible. It spooked Wall Street, the spending on AI, essentially.

Kara Swisher: Moving to Alphabet, the company's revenue grew 15% and its cloud revenue grew almost 35%. The company said its growth is due to, you guessed it, its AI offerings. Google's search business revenue is up 12.3% and remains the biggest contributor to revenue growth. A couple more. Snap stock is up 21% in the last five days after sales jumped 15% and the company's net loss narrowed to $153 million from $368 million. And Reddit shares really are on a tear, topped $100 for the first time after reporting a 68% jump in revenue and turning profitable. You recently talked to its CEO, and I just saw him at this event I was at with Reid Hoffman. Apple and Amazon will report earnings after we tape on Thursday, but that's a good look at some of these. Please, please go on, Scott.

Scott Galloway: Well, there's just no getting around it. It was an outstanding, just an outstanding quarter for tech companies. And what's become clear is that expectations are no longer expectations. Essentially, Meta exceeded revenue and earnings expectations. Its revenues are up 19%, its earnings up 35%, and the stock is down because now the expectations, Kara, in this market, in tech, the expectation is that you're going to beat expectations. So people are so used to quarters where these companies just blow away expectations that when they just sort of mildly beat expectations, that's not enough. And the thing that people love about Meta, if you will, is that its AI-driven feed and video recommendations led to an 8% increase in time spent on the core platform and 6% increase on Instagram. So when you take increased time on the platform, growth in the platform, and an increase in ad rates—nitro meet glycerin meet C4 or whatever it is. Ad impressions increased 7% year on year. And price per ad increased 11%. Also, in contrast to what we were talking about with Apple, people look at Meta and say, "What spooked it?" While it has much stronger earnings, much stronger revenue growth than a company like Apple, people are spooked by the fact that Meta has said, "No, we are entering into this arms race and we're going to take CapEx up and we're going to go after—we're not decreasing the spend in this ridiculous AR thing that everyone was hoping, but we're going to increase substantially our spending in these AI wars." Microsoft revenue and earnings beat, but the stock is down 4%. Total revenue up 17%. That's incredible. And the revenue mix is really—these are old companies, remember. These are old companies. Off a huge basis. When you grow a company 17% on $62 billion, you're growing your top line revenue. You have incremental revenue growth of $10 billion. The revenues from Azure, Microsoft's cloud offering, increased 33%, which probably increased their margin mix. And then the company that is probably the best performing IPO in tech of the last several years, Reddit, recognized revenue growth of 68%. The company became profitable. The stock soared 22%. The stock has tripled since its IPO a couple months ago. Daily active users increased 47% year on year. And get this, it was the sixth most Googled word in the U.S. It's now being translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German, going global. And international users grew 44%. And then even the little engine that's been struggling is doing well. And that is Snap.

Kara Swisher: That was interesting.

Scott Galloway: And what's interesting here is Snap didn't have nearly the quarter of the other folks, but its stock jumped 10%. Why? Because the expectations—everyone's kind of waiting for Snap to get crushed, right? And they occasionally pop up and say, "No, things are pretty good here." And when they do, the stock goes up. The sales were up 15%. Losses narrowed to $150 million from about $370 million. The reported daily active users were up 9%. And they also announced a stock repurchase program, which doesn't make sense to me when the company is losing money. But anyways, there's just no getting around it, Kara. Tech is eating the planet. And what you look at here, just to link it to something else, I had dinner with a household name, an amazing anchor on cable TV who makes tens of millions of dollars. And this person told me that all the negotiations that are coming up this year between the stars and the cable networks, they're being offered salary cuts of 50, 60, and 70%. Why? Because when every tech media platform is growing their top line by a billion, guess where that's coming from? The traditional media ecosystem. And the two are absolutely linked. This money isn't being invented. There is some growth in the economy. People are spending more time online. But more than anything, there is a bit of a zero-sum game here. And if you're in the ad-supported media game and you don't have an AI ad stack where a third of the planet is already on it, you are just fucked right now. And the only ad-supported medium that is growing and bucking the trend is what Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway do right now. Podcasts are blowing up.

Kara Swisher: They haven't AI'd us yet, Scott.

Scott Galloway: They haven't. They will.

Kara Swisher: So far. So far, we're holding our own. But the media ecosystem right now is really going under fundamental change.

Scott Galloway: And speaking of media ecosystem, the only thing I'll finish with here, because I don't think people really consider what's going on here. If you think, what is the number one streaming player? What do you think?

Kara Swisher: I don't know. Probably Netflix, right? I think everyone would say 90% would say Netflix, but it's not.

Scott Galloway: The number one streaming platform is YouTube.

Kara Swisher: Oh, YouTube. Yeah. You're right.

Scott Galloway: But it's funny, right? We don't even think of it that way. Their combined ad and subscription revenue over the past four quarters has surpassed $50 billion. That makes them the number one highest growing video app. Netflix is $37 billion. So get this: YouTube at 50, Netflix at 37. And I think there's a decent chance, if Alphabet gets really scared, they may offer as a peace offering, even though it's not what the DOJ wants. Well, if they spun YouTube and they got the same multiple that's been assigned to Netflix—

Kara Swisher: Oh, yeah.

Scott Galloway: This is a company—YouTube as an independent stock would be worth approximately a half a trillion dollars, which is real, real cabbage.

Kara Swisher: I'll tell you, my kids, that's what they watch. That's what they watch, YouTube. They use Reddit, they use YouTube, Snapchat. It's really interesting to watch their behaviors.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's really interesting. Very good analysis, Kara. We'll see.

Kara Swisher: So very quickly, two sentences. Would you buy or sell stock right now with the downward push around expectations?

Scott Galloway: I'm sorry, which stock, Kara?

Kara Swisher: Would you buy all of them, the basket of tech stocks?

Scott Galloway: Not only would I buy all of these companies, my financial advice is I wouldn't buy these six companies, I'd buy these six companies and the other 494 in the S&P. Buy them all. You don't need to be a hero. Don't try and find the needle in the haystack, buy the whole haystack. These companies are on fire right now, but they're also trading at really rich multiples, meaning if there is a recession, if all of a sudden a big company announces—

Kara Swisher: Tariffs, say, suddenly we have tariffs.

Scott Galloway: Or probably more realistically, if a big company that's been a big purchaser of GPUs or is a corporate user of AI announces they're reducing their purchases of GPUs or that AI is not living up to their expectations, you are going to see the water flow out like a tsunami is coming. The ripple effect across all of these companies would be dramatic. So, yeah, is Pepsi or Ford or Exxon—are these boring companies? Yeah, it's unlikely they're going to go down 40 or 60 percent. A company like NVIDIA could absolutely go up 50 percent. It could easily go down 50 percent. So you want to diversify and buy all of them.

Kara Swisher: So buy us some Kamala stock, OK?

Scott Galloway: There you go.

Kara Swisher: Buy us in the marketing markets. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, how Joe Biden created a last minute mess for the Democrats. We'll get some election insights and calm from Face the Nation's Margaret Brennan.

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Scott, we're back with our second big story. Inevitably, given next time we talk, it'll be election day, is what's going on on that because it'll affect technology. It'll affect everybody.

President Biden may be off the ballot, but he's back in the spotlight this week after appearing to say Trump supporters were garbage. He didn't quite say that on a call with Latino voters. Doesn't really matter. Biden later said he was describing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's hateful language as garbage. And it was. I think that's what he said. But he has a problem talking sometimes.

Kamala Harris has tried to distance herself from the remarks. She did indeed distance herself. But Trump sees on him dressing up as a garbageman, which I thought was a bad idea because he said he had garbage, too. So now I'm like, oh, now you're making fun of... I don't think any of them are... Well, Kamala Harris tried to get out of it, but both Trump and Biden look like crazy old men.

And also Trump stumbled, visibly stumbled when trying to get into the garbage truck, which has even got a lot of attention. He looks really old this week, I have to say. Suddenly he looked like my mother. I just, I don't know what happened. He suddenly, the flat, just older, just older. My mother's 90 compared to Trump's 78, I guess.

Are Biden's comments really matter? I don't think they do. I don't think anyone is thinking of Biden.

Scott Galloway: I don't know. It was a dumb thing to say. Late in the campaign, he should probably be saying nothing at this point. And so it was kind of an unforced error.

Kara Swisher: And I have to catch all of this. I'm really trying to moderate my bias. And I realize it's impossible at this point. But I think that Tony Hinchcliffe's comments may, in fact, have a real impact on the ground.

Scott Galloway: You've said that, yeah.

Kara Swisher: From what I hear. There are some Latino voters and Puerto Ricans who are pretty pissed off and they do see some early signs that some of these folks are more excited to vote for Harris than they were previously.

Scott Galloway: Comments Biden comments I don't know. I don't know. I was like, is he still here? What? Oh, there he is.

Kara Swisher: I don't think. But I have to say Trump did once again, because he's I think he's the real fucked up saying things person this in this particular part of the election. Biden was the winner on that when he was running. But now Trump is really kind of lapping him quite a bit.

With comments he made at a rally on Wednesday because women are scared of him. So what does he say? Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays: Trump speaking at a rally] Trump: Four weeks ago, I was saying, no, I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women. Sir, please don't say that. Why? They said, we think it's very inappropriate for you to say. I said, why? I'm president. I want to protect the women of our country. They said, sure, I just think it's inappropriate for you to say, pay these guys a lot of money. Can you believe it? I said, well, I'm going to do it whether the women like it or not. I'm going to protect them. I'm going to protect them from migrants coming in. I'm going to protect them from foreign countries that want to hit us with missiles and lots of other things.

Kara Swisher: Oh, creepy. That gave me the creeps. "Whether they like it or not," which is kind of his brand, right? "I'm going to grab them by the pussy whether they like it or not." I'm going to do whatever I want. There's two more allegations of groping, which is like just added to the pile of groping allegations, which I think are entirely true. Any thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I don't, you know, I talk about men's natural instinct should be a move to protection. This is not what we mean.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I don't think that's what you're talking about.

Scott Galloway: So, look, I don't think these things matter. And unfortunately, again, I believe that these outrageous comments actually help them because they crowd out any serious conversation around their policies, whether it's economic growth, whether it's what's inflationary, whether it's expanding services such that the sandwich generation can have an easier time taking care of their parents, whether it's trying to figure out a way to ensure the deficit does not result in massive interest rates on the next generation. And you reverse any serious policy discussion reverse engineers to "whether you like it or not" perfect it not on the menu that you should vote for Harris. But we don't have a serious conversation because all the oxygen is about fucking garbage trucks.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, interesting. Joe Rogan, you've been talking about it being the podcast election. I was saying it's the Elon election, has clarified that an interview with Kamala Harris is not off the table. Rogan posted on X that he declined the Harris campaign's offer to record an interview because he didn't want to travel to her and would have gotten only an hour to talk. He loves to go on for a while, which they should have known, honestly. He talks for like nine hours sometimes. He discussed it a little more on his podcast. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays: Joe Rogan speaking on his podcast] Joe Rogan: You could look at this and you could say, oh, you're being a diva. But she had an opportunity to come here when she was in Texas. And I literally gave them an open invitation. I said, anytime. I said, if she's done at 10 o'clock, we'll come back here at 10 o'clock. I'll do it at 9 in the morning. I'll do it at 10 p.m. I'll do it at midnight. She's up. She wants to, you know, drink a Red Bull, fucking party on.

Kara Swisher: I think she should try to talk to him still. Trump sat down with Rogan for a three-hour interview, which really didn't move any needle. I don't think he did very well on it.

Scott Galloway: I would disagree with that. If you listen to it.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I think he sounded old. I did listen to the whole thing.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but he did. I do think it softened his image. I think that was a win for the Trump campaign.

Kara Swisher: Well, I felt like he felt old. That's what I got from it. Old man. Old man talking. J.D. Vance recorded an episode on Wednesday. He was probably pretty good because he's sharp on those things. So you think she should still try to talk to him? Is it too late?

Scott Galloway: Well, whatever's required, she should do it. Because, look, we keep repeating this. Her going on, he's not a gotcha kind of person. I think she'll do well in that format. I think sometimes when she's hard pressed on the spot for a snappy, quick Obama-like or Buttigieg response, she's not good at that. In that format, in the fact that Joe, I think, tries to position people in their best light, present them in their best light.

Kara Swisher: No matter what they're saying.

Scott Galloway: No matter what they're saying.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, exactly. Measles? You know, measles vaccines? Don't worry about it. You're a good guy. Friend of measles.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: But having said that, the thing I find a little bit off-putting, quite frankly, is that as important as Joe is, as wealthy as he is, I do like valuing your time. I get it. If the vice president, if you've interviewed one candidate, you're about to interview the VP. You should go out of your way. If the vice president calls you and says I like to be on your podcast, you get on a fucking plane.

Scott Galloway: I do think that a little diva on his part. Now having said that, that's his right. And given that the conditions he laid out, her going on that podcast is the same exposure as if she went on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox every night during primetime for a week. So should he get on a plane? Yes. He not, which means she should get on a plane. It's worth it.

Kara Swisher: She should. She should have done it then. I think it was a mistake. I think it's a mistake. You know, he's very controversial. We get it. Doesn't matter. Just get on there and throw down with him. Drink a Red Bull. He'll love you. He'll tell you, oh, wait a minute. Maybe you all should vote for him. It'll definitely muddy the waters. That's for sure. That's what it'll do. And that's what you kind of want.

And a follow up to our discussion from earlier this week, Jeff Bezos has spoken out on the Washington Post decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in an op ed that was in desperate need of editing for the Post. Bezos said no quid pro quo of any kind was at work. We didn't necessarily think that. Acknowledge when it comes to the appearance of conflict, I'm not an ideal owner of the Washington Post. I called that a "no shit Sherlock" comment. He also called out podcasts and social media posts for spreading misinformation division. I feel like he was talking about us, Scott, but I don't know, maybe, maybe all of us. I feel like off the cuff podcast. That sounds like us. What did you think of his attempts at cleaning up the mess?

Scott Galloway: They've now lost 250,000 subscribers since the announcement that there would be no endorsement. $30 million in revenue that they've lost. That's about 12% of their subscriber base. Have digital subscriber base right now. But it's probably more. It's probably accelerated. Boy, has he shit the bed. And let me just tell you, it's not the reporters of The Washington Post, not some of the editors. Some of the editors have been sort of weak, weak need as far as I'm concerned. But boys, he made a mess of this man. And that piece was very obnoxious, I thought, and very old school. I was like, oh, really? The media is not liked? What did you just check into this problem we've got and never mentioned Trump's attacks on the media, never mentioned social and searches impact on the media. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

His response was well written. He attempted to debunk the notion that there was any connection between, he claims that he had no idea that Blue Origin was meeting with the Trump campaign. There's no getting around it. The optics are really bad. And generally speaking, in terms of governance, when you own a media property going into an election, and you're the owner, and you are not the publisher, you're not like Arthur Sulzberger in the building involved every day. You are just a quote unquote passive owner, you stay the fuck out of their knitting leading up to an election of this anxiety and importance. Where you have a lot of business interests that are clear. You have conflict. I love the term plausible deniability. So if they had screwed up and they decided to do this or not do it or whatever they did, he can say, folks, I spent $350 million of my own money because I think this is an important institution.

Kara Swisher: Is it $250? Wow, he got it for a song, didn't he? He did. Yes, he did.

Scott Galloway: Anyways, he spent $250 million to get a big fucking headache. Anyways, but if he'd said, I believe in this, and I think his initial motivation was actually pretty noble here. And I would argue he's been a decent steward because he's kept his hands out. He should not be making editorial decisions as a passive owner that occasionally shows up to talk to people, to flex his biceps and talk to people and give them a rally speech. He should be able to say what, you know, I get to decide who runs the thing. And then beyond that, they get to do what they think is best.

Kara Swisher: Let me just let me make a further argument. Owners do this. They do. They do insert themselves. But for one, he never had. And to do it a week before the, you know, 10 days before the election was astonishing. He never had, and then he does right now. And then he's like, oh, it was bad timing or bad planning. I'm like, you know what? You were at a Katy Perry party. I saw pictures of you at sunset. You had no time, sir. He had plenty of time to, if this really meant a lot to him to do it. I don't think he knew Dave Lemp was meeting with Trump. I don't necessarily, but I do know that there doesn't have to be a quid pro quo to understand that your business interests are problematic here at best, right? Not even at best. They are problematic.

Second thing is his tone in this piece was someone who has just checked into the media ecosystem. I was literally like 2008 is calling and wants its billionaire back, essentially. It was such an old idea of the media and without leaving in other factors that are so obvious to someone as smart as this guy was sort of perplexing. And then the tsk-tsk tone was really like, couldn't you have just said, oh, did I make a fuck up? Because this is my fault, clearly. This is all my fault.

Scott Galloway: I didn't read it that way. I read it as a solid letter with the right tone. The issue was as you read it though, given the... Nobody in media liked it, I can tell you that. It was like Daddy was lecturing us about his own fuck up. He smashed the car into the wall, not us. We didn't smash the wall into the car.

Kara Swisher: Well, okay, just one person's opinion. I read it...

Scott Galloway: No, everybody's opinion.

Kara Swisher: But go ahead. Go ahead, your person.

Scott Galloway: Okay, so far as I know, I do have domain over my own opinion.

Kara Swisher: All right.

Scott Galloway: So this person's opinion is that the tone, and it was well-written, and you made the points you needed to make. The problem is if you look at the fact pattern and you look at the timeline, you read it. And if you've been following this, as I have, quite frankly, Jeff, it sounds as if you're lying. And so I thought the tone was right. I thought he'd made the right points. But quite frankly, after reading it, I just don't believe him. I don't believe this was all a coincidence and that he kind of, it just, it all stinks. And again, for me, it goes back to governance. When you're worth $150 billion and you're off doing other things, which you deserve to do, have the right to do, and you buy a media company, you stay the fuck out of the vetting, especially two weeks before the election.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I don't know why he just didn't say, I made a mistake. The guy who ran PR for him says he has convenient principles. Class, he said, a longtime advisor to Bezos, who was around a long, he was very much right with Bezos, criticized his cowardly last minute decision by the Washington leadership to abandon presidential endorsements said he believes the move reflected classic Bezos business principle about protecting your self-interest by avoiding unnecessary mistakes. He said it was convenient principles. And I think he was right.

I think this guy's a business guy. He didn't, this is Bezos's, anytime there was a mistake at Amazon and an actual mistake they made, Bezos never apologized and never, and was indignant. And that's why I think I react this way because he used to do this all the time when they made clear mistakes, it was our fault. It was always someone else's fault but himself, which is very classic tech bro. But he can't do that here. I'm just saying here is the wrong place to do it.

Scott Galloway: But let's go meta on the notion or the concept of apologizing. Traditionally in business, when you said, I own this, I got this wrong, I'm going to make this right, that was an opportunity to increase trust amongst your constituents. Unfortunately, in this ecosystem, still with business, I do think it makes sense to apologize. But unfortunately, most of the incentives now are to never apologize. And because the people you pissed off don't forgive you, and everyone else is like, see, I told you. All the incentives kind of line up around not only not apologizing but quite frankly doubling down. And until people start saying, good on him, he apologized, I'm subscribing back. But they don't.

I remember when, and this is a totally different thing, but when I was doing the show for Bloomberg Television and they asked me to do promos and I went and did these, what I thought were funny and what they initially really liked. I thought they were funny. I appreciate that. And then they came out. They said, Houston, we have a problem. You've offended some people in the newsroom. So we need you to say that you did this without our knowledge and we need you to apologize. And I said, I'll absolutely do the former. I'm not doing the latter because I'm not sorry. And it wouldn't help anyone. So because apologizing, one, I do believe in apologizing. I just apologized to my kids the other day. And I do think that in business, you have to say, I'm doing a business meeting today. I bet on a concept for our company that took everyone off track. I was wrong. I'm not going to apologize, but I'm going to acknowledge the mistake and say, I own this. I think in business, good leaders do that. Unfortunately, with social media and the media, all you do is keep the cycle going. You know, admits mistake, admits it was a blunder. People attack you from both sides.

Kara Swisher: Could he have just taken it like this was my decision? I see the impact. I'm sorry to the, I see the internal, I've been called by dozens of Washington Post people. They really love this newspaper. And I just think he doesn't, he's acting like the Amazon CEO I remember him to be in a situation that he cannot do that in. This is a very different creature. He did not buy it to make a lot of money. He can't treat it like it's Amazon and just leave, get out, get out. Get out if you don't like it. Every billionaire that goes into media leaves regretting it.

Scott Galloway: They should. There's a wonderful movie, All Quiet on the Western Front.

Kara Swisher: Oh, it's a great movie.

Scott Galloway: And, you know, it's just such an incredibly tragic story about these 17, 18-year-old German kids who basically think they're going to play a sport and end up in just the most brutal trench warfare watching their friends be maimed as they fight over the same hundred yards or 100 meters of land. And this is I don't in any way want to diminish their experience but I can think of a billionaire that's gone into media and thought that was fun.

Kara Swisher: I mean, you own a football team, you might end up selling it.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, he should have bought the baseball team. You know, occasionally your fans don't like you, but on the whole, I think most billionaires who buy a basketball or football team think, yeah, that was a kick in the ass. And I got to hang out with players and it was fun and all my friends thought I was cool.

Kara Swisher: So name a billionaire, and there's probably been a dozen billionaires who have bought a media company recently.

Scott Galloway: Recently, yeah.

Kara Swisher: Name one who thought, wow, that was a great idea.

Scott Galloway: I agree. I agree. I think it's got to be in the hands. You know, here I'm giving a compliment to Rupert Murdoch. He runs his things because he understands media. He does not. You may.

Kara Swisher: Listen, he manipulates the Post, New York Post and stuff like that. I never had a problem with him. Never, never in a million years would he do this.

Scott Galloway: Well, he understands the journal. That's correct. He does. He understands media. These guys think if there's a nail, I'll hit it with a hammer.

Kara Swisher: And the last part is the problem is he's perpetrated a number of difficulties on this paper, including the hiring of Will Lewis with all that controversy. Right. So they've gone through that. They've now gone through this. This is in a very short amount of time. It's just like making trouble here for these people who are trying their very best in a very difficult, speaking of political partisanship environment. And he's just brought nothing but shame on them in that regard or mistakes.

And you know who's going to pay for this? Because he's not ponying up the money, would be my guess, because he's quite cheap in many ways, is they're going to lay off reporters. And then the quality of the product gets worse. And then, you know, that's, it's unfortunate. Jeff, you can do better. This is not your Amazon warehouse or the people. Don't make them work on a door, Jeff. That was his big thing. Remember, we work on doors because we're cheap. Don't do that here. And you don't have to over fund this, but don't be such a, just don't behave the way you're naturally inclined to here and maybe give these people a fucking break because they're doing a great job.

Scott Galloway: But let's just review a few of these purchases and purchasers and think, did this work out for them?

Kara Swisher: Remember when Jared Kushner bought the Observer?

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Do you remember when Sam Zell bought the Tribune?

Scott Galloway: Oh, that was a mess.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. He's also a jerk, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Do you remember that kid, Chris Hughes, who bought the New Republic?

Kara Swisher: He's a nice guy.

Scott Galloway: Oh, that was a mess, wasn't it?

Kara Swisher: I think Laurene Powell Jobs has done a good job. You know her better than I do. If she could go back in time, would she buy the Atlantic again?

Scott Galloway: I think so. I think she feels good. I think she's got some good people in place. I think if you had to pick one, she's the best one, but it's a small property, right?

Kara Swisher: Must be Twitter. I'm not sure he would do it again. He's immolated $30 billion.

Scott Galloway: I understand, but I think he loves it. He's got the attention. It's worth it to him because he has so much money. It's a good investment. It's a small investment.

Kara Swisher: Benioff and Time, maybe, but he bought that for scrap.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: These things are just... Patrick Soon-Shiong. Well done, Patrick. Daily Times. And we have a couple friends who we really like who just bought the Daily Beast or partnered with Barry Diller. I'll be curious what they think in a year or two years. Because you're trying to stem the flow of a river. I mean, you are swimming upstream in these traditional media companies.

Scott Galloway: And in addition, the few times I've been in a newsroom, I've been struck about how talented these people are, how hardworking they are, and how fucking precious they think they are. And that they shouldn't be subject to the same economic realities the rest of us are.

Kara Swisher: No, that is not true. They get it now. They have gotten it now. I don't agree. I left the post because of that. And I think every single person in media does understand that. They do not think they're special. They think they're less than special.

Scott Galloway: I would disagree with you on that.

Kara Swisher: In any case, we'll see where it goes. Maybe Kara Swisher will buy the Washington Post. That's what apparently it was written about recently.

Scott Galloway: The way the Washington Post, it should be a group of very wealthy people who see a civic value, which the Washington Post does add. They put together a trust of multiple parties so no one personality gets crucified. They get to hire and fire the guy or gal who runs it. And that's it. That's it. That's it. And if they want to raise money or if they want to sell the post, they have to come to this trust. But other than that, the trust is like a star chamber of people.

Kara Swisher: Safety in numbers, rich people.

Scott Galloway: Safety in numbers. And then, say, have people like Kara Swisher there to take the shit.

Kara Swisher: We're good at it. And we can push around other reporters, you know, stuff like that. I'm done being on boards. I'm done.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yes.

Kara Swisher: No, I was thinking more my assistant for you.

[Both laugh]

Kara Swisher: Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Margaret Brennan is the moderator of Face the Nation and CBS chief foreign affairs correspondent. Margaret, welcome.

Margaret Brennan: Thank you.

Kara Swisher: We brought you here because we need to calm the fuck down. And you are... We always feel good when we go on Margaret Brennan's show because you're so even handed and very clear and calming. So that's what your job here is.

Margaret Brennan: Thank you. I went to Catholic school in my life, so I just keep it all inside.

Kara Swisher: You keep it inside and later it comes. It's all sublimated. And then rage comes out later. You know, rage eat or rage exercise or whatever.

So Election Day is fast approaching. Do you think anything is going to change the minds of people who haven't voted yet? Everything is 50-50, 50-50, 50-50. And actually, it seems like it is indeed this time, 50-50.

Margaret Brennan: Right, that question, are there any unpersuaded voters left in a country that is this divided? I don't know the answer to that. What I can say is the fraction of the populace that I think the campaigns are most focused on are the voters who are on the line about whether or not they get in the car and they bother to go and show up on November 5th, the low propensity voter. So their minds might be made up, but they might feel fine just liking tweets or whatever from their couch. Whether or not they cast the vote is what particularly Democrats are concerned about. And that is where the campaigns are putting their emphasis, because it's going to come down to turnout in a 50-50 election and just an election potentially won on the margins, potentially here, one of the closest presidential races in history.

Kara Swisher: So why aren't the Republicans concerned about low propensity voters? Because, you know, there's the bro dude that doesn't get off the couch and may be in fact stoned. Like, you know, it's that gang who doesn't vote at all. Like, I know lots of those people.

Margaret Brennan: Well, what's kind of amazing, and it hit me in particular when I was out at the RNC this summer in Milwaukee, was realizing what Trump has done for his movement, not necessarily the Republican movement, which is to activate a lot of those low propensity voters. You know, the folks who are not Bush Republicans, but are the Kid Rock Republicans who were loving that at the RNC, who were chanting the "mass deportation now" chants with the signs. He has activated that. And that is that base vote that at least says they are going to show up for him even if they didn't show up in 2022 during the down ballot races, congressional races where traditional Republicans were perhaps more concerned about showing up. And maybe that is a way of explaining why there wasn't that red wave in 2022 but there could be a different factor at play, the Trump factor himself in 2024.

Kara Swisher: That they love him and want to vote for him.

Margaret Brennan: Exactly.

Kara Swisher: Good to see you, Margaret. So inflation, bodily autonomy, immigration, kind of the issues that have been getting the most attention is the premier issues in the media. Do you think there's any one of those that will play a bigger or smaller role than expected? Or is there anything we're not talking about, the media's not talking about, that you think is going to play a bigger role?

Margaret Brennan: We see in our polling data that the economy is the number one issue. That's not surprising to me. I mean, like any country I've ever gone to and covered social unrest or political strife, it's always a kitchen table issue. So that's not surprising. What is surprising is the degree to which it is in Donald Trump's favor and the fact that people are so frustrated with the moment they're in that they have a bit of amnesia as to what the last year and a half of the Trump administration was when the economy was shut down. That's surprising to me, the selective memory portion of this.

In terms of factors that people are voting around or could influence the vote, particularly in the past few days, I've been inundated with warnings and messages of concern about an exponential increase in attempts to manipulate the minds of voters. And we need to talk about that to make the public aware. I don't want to over-index that and make people somehow anxiety-ridden about their votes. But the degree to which there are foreign actors trying to hack people's minds, as some U.S. officials call it, is of concern and may be a real factor in the confidence level in our institutions and in the process.

Kara Swisher: That concerns me because that's a day after November 5th story. That's the do we see violence the 6th of November or the 6th of January question.

Margaret Brennan: Right, right.

Kara Swisher: Once again, whether they get manipulated, they feel like it was stolen. And they've been, listen, it's been articulated by podcasters who have been paid by Russia. It's been articulated by podcasters who haven't been paid by Russia. Right now, there's a story up about major podcasts on the Washington Post about major podcasts that are doing election denialism on repeat constant repeat which is a real problem.

In terms of early voting, over 58 million people have cast their ballots either in person or by mail, very strong. Are there takeaways or indications how things might go from these early voting numbers? Now, more Republicans are now participating because Trump isn't saying not to. In terms of the gender gap, women account for roughly 55 percent of the early vote, while men are at 45 percent, according to Politico. Anything you're seeing, or does this seem normal, this amount of early voting?

Margaret Brennan: Just there's more Republicans doing it. There are more people showing up early. There are also more states who have made that possible. So there are changes that have happened between 2020 and 2024 to just have people go and get this out of their systems before November 5th. That will be a factor just in terms of that early impression of the vote. You can't say which party is up or down necessarily based on this early snapshot. You just can't. Each county, each state, many places, processes things in a different way. So it can look like a blue wave that then turns red, you know, the next day. So I'd stay away from that.

But I would say, like, it is interesting to me to see people show up early because that would suggest they're activated, which would suggest they're not apathetic.

Kara Swisher: Or they don't want to deal with Election Day because they're worried about violence. That's one issue I have. I'm like, oh, I really want to be...

Margaret Brennan: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I'm like, who knows? Not here where I am, I guess. But it definitely went through my brain. Like what possible horrible thing could happen on Election Day?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I mean, that might be how my brain is wired, frankly, to worry about those scenarios. But I've been trying to make an effort on our program, at least lately, to turn to secretaries of state from these battlegrounds.

Scott Galloway: Great idea.

Kara Swisher: ...are going to be so heavily litigated, like Pennsylvania.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: And most of them are fantastic, by the way. I did an interview with Brad Raffensperger and Adrian Fontes, and it was great. And they both were the same in a lot of ways, which was fantastic in that regard. It gives you confidence.

Scott Galloway: It does.

Kara Swisher: It did. I was like, oh, phew. And Margaret, you've covered a lot of elections, and you're in broadcast, which is struggling economically, but it's still relevant. How has the coverage of this election, just using it as a marker of time, how has the business of covering elections changed? What's different about your day-to-day job and what does it say about the state of media and how we report and shape people's views on the election?

Margaret Brennan: It's a great question, an anxiety-inducing question. I mean, there are a few different ways of answering it, but in terms of how I think about my job on Sundays, I argue, and I believe, that the platform we have, the hour I have on Sundays, is more important than ever because, first of all, every single week I have to prove to the audience that they need to continue to have faith and trust in me. I'm really concerned about the winnowing away of trust in our institutions. And I make journalism one of those, the fourth estate, one of those that you need to be able to trust: that I'm accurately reporting to you what the Secretary of State in that state is doing and that your vote was counted, for example, or during COVID when there's a mass pandemic, and I can actually tell you what the CDC is saying or not. You need to have that faith in me. So that is what motivates me and concerns me. And it's also, frankly, the one way I can exert control in an environment where we don't have much over the media environment writ large. I can control what comes out of my mouth and the hour I have and the territory we have and just try to amplify truth. At the same time, it is now expected of me as a journalist to actively negate lies, right? It's not just amplifying truth. I have to do that. And then also this other job of being able to fact check on the fly. All of that environment that we are in, in terms of information at your fingertips, has changed the job that I have to do as a moderator, because it's changed the politics and how politicians seek to engage.

Kara Swisher: Right. You push back rather well, but it's still a waste of your time. You're not getting to actual things.

Margaret Brennan: It's frustrating. Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, absolutely. And you do it in a very classy way. There's so much screaming now that I find your program, I don't mean calming, but it's definitely clear-headed, right? But it still wastes your time. I sometimes think, why does Margaret have to deal with this shit? Like, stop. Let's talk about the thing.

Scott Galloway: Right.

Kara Swisher: So we are not likely going to know the results of Election Day on November 5th, that's what people think. But who knows? It could be days or weeks for winners determined. What is your sense of what will happen in terms of people challenging results? I don't know how much you have gotten out and how ugly it might get. What is your sense from doing a lot of these interviews?

Margaret Brennan: Again, I think a lot of the election officials are incredibly competent, both Republican and Democrat, especially on the ground, the really small localities. And they're trying their best, but you've got these... We've got very aggressive efforts by the Trump people in legal challenges, would be my guess, if they fall behind. And obviously, Kamala Harris is going to do the same. She's a lawyer by training, and obviously she's not going to let this one get away from her if she thinks she's won. So what do you imagine is going to happen? We've already been through one insurrection and some real ugliness. Where do you see it going?

Kara Swisher: I'm really concerned. I'm really concerned about political violence. We see it in our polling that we do here at CBS, concern not just if Donald Trump wins, if Donald Trump loses. Either scenario, the other party believes that there is potential for violence. There's some interesting data that Robert Pape, this professor at the University of Chicago, has done where he saw on the left, this polling question he put was, "Is violence justified to prevent Donald Trump from taking office?" And it was pretty remarkable to see the number of yeses he got to that question. So it just reflects the level of tension there is in this country. I've had some very concerning conversations with former officials in particular who were involved in 2020 and saw things up close who are warning that this is very possible, but local police should be able to mostly handle security. We shouldn't be back at a scenario where we're looking at 2020-like protests with violence in major cities.

Scott Galloway: Well, they're certainly organizing.

Kara Swisher: I've spent a lot of time recently on Facebook on the militia sites. They're quite preparing themselves. It's really, and of course, Mark's letting them go right ahead and do it.

Margaret Brennan: Well, that's a story, Kara. I mean, you know the space so well, but I've been talking to officials recently about that. How do you deal with the fact that after January 6th, you saw Twitter and you saw Facebook then try to take Donald Trump offline or actors who were promoting violence because they saw it actually realized? All that seems to be gone. Like there are no speed bumps there. And it's a cesspool. And I'm concerned when I read FBI bulletins out there warning that it's journalists, it is poll workers, these are election workers. I talked to these secretaries of state and they've got security. I mean, in Maricopa County, I asked the secretary of state if they were putting snipers on the roof in Maricopa County because it was a news story. In the United States of America.

Kara Swisher: Amazing. Astonishing.

Margaret Brennan: It is. And it concerns me, the information environment we're in, that there are voices who want to stoke that chaos and be chaos agents and can be amplified by bad actors. And so I think in terms of having a calm voice, we need to acknowledge that. We need to call it out. But it is concerning for all of us.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, taking down the temperature. Sure. Scott, question?

Scott Galloway: Margaret, where do you get your news?

Margaret Brennan: I'm a news junkie. So I'm constantly reading. I read the Journal. I read the Times. I read the Washington Post. I read Politico. I read, because of my time covering Wall Street, I still get some newsletters from financial analysts who I also really like. I like people who can bottom line things for me. So I read a lot of that. The FT. But I go to trusted journalists and journalism sources. I do have to use X as an aggregator, but I had to take myself off of it when we did the vice presidential debate because of just the vitriol and the hate.

Kara Swisher: You don't have to be on it. Trust me. I had probably four times the amount of followers. You don't need to be on it, but that's just me. Do you use it for intake?

Margaret Brennan: And it's violent, so I'm not interested in it. It doesn't help me or help me get more insight at all.

Kara Swisher: News reporters have got to get off of it like right away. That's my feeling. What are your plans for election night? There are all kinds of different ways people are getting their news, but what are you all doing? And is it, again as Scott said, the money is tight at your organization, although you've got a better new owner than others, let me say. I happen to know him. So, I mean, it's a low bar, but that's the facts. How are you preparing to cover it? And I assume you're assuming it's going to be a week-long thing.

Margaret Brennan: We do assume that. And in terms of allocation of resources, you still have to have reporters in the field. So we are doing that. We are going to have people in all the battlegrounds, the reporters. I'll be up in New York at our election studio that has been built out with all sorts of new technology to help us explain things more. I think we put a lot of deliberate thought into explaining to people, for example, in a super tight race, stop paying attention to the popular vote. Let's remind people the path to 270 electoral votes, right? Be very deliberate in reminding people of the benchmarks they need to watch in the battlegrounds in particular, the seven states we're watching. So we'll be doing that. I'm digging into, because I'm a bit of a policy nerd, into some of the things that are at play, like the 10 states where reproductive health care initiatives are on the ballot, the degree to which that'll impact voter turnout or not. Digging into the economy in particular. I mean, it's amazing that I was out in Erie, Pennsylvania last weekend, and you look at Western Pennsylvania and the perception of the economy is very different than what the economic data would tell you on a national scale. So understanding regionally what's impacting how people feel about the country we're in right now is something I've been putting thought into. And of course, national security. The world is on fire. So connecting those dots is something I'm going to be trying to do on election night with Nora O'Donnell and Maurice Dubois and John Dickerson and our whole team.

Kara Swisher: Right. Got a great team. And we're glad you're there, Margaret. We really are. You can catch Margaret every Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. And she'll, of course, be part of the CBS, as she noted, election night coverage. We look forward to watching.

Margaret Brennan: Thank you for having me. I love listening to the podcast.

Kara Swisher: Thanks, Margaret.

[Guest Margaret Brennan exits]

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, isn't she the best? I love Margaret.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, she is.

Kara Swisher: She really is a pro.

Scott Galloway: Total pro. Pro is how I think of her.

Kara Swisher: Absolutely. She just connects dots, which is why I like her. Not all these people do. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

[Break for advertisements]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction from you.

Scott Galloway: Well, I don't know. Prediction, aspiration, wish. I do think that Vice President Harris is going to win the election. I think there are a few things that will carry her across the finish line. One, when I look at the attributes of—this will be sexist—girls are more organized.

Kara Swisher: They are.

Scott Galloway: A little bit more meticulous. And I think when it comes to election day, I think a lot of young women are going to find a way to schedule time and get to the booth. And a lot of young men, just bottom line, as someone who's raising young men, I affectionately call them dopes. Their prefrontal cortex does not catch up until the age of 25.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they're not voting, right? Because they're too young.

Scott Galloway: Well, yeah. 117, I asked him, who would you vote for? And he goes, "Well, vote for Harris because you're voting for her." And I'm like, I hate and love that answer.

Kara Swisher: I agree.

Scott Galloway: Anyways, but my point is, I think that you're going to see more—I think women are motivated. Quite frankly, they're more organized. They're more meticulous. And I think, I don't want to say they take their civic responsibility more seriously, they're just more organized. It's like, girls do better in school. I think girls or young women are going to do better at showing up on election day. I bet more of them have already, and I don't have the data here. Two, I'd like to think that young men are getting the message around a need to protect, or I'd like to think that that's a theme that's resonating here, that they do see that there is a certain level of demonization and attack for special interest groups, and I'd like to think they're stepping up. And three, and again, I don't know, this might be confirmation bias. I'm just too emotional here, but I think this self-inflicted unforced error around Puerto Rico with four to 500,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania could be very, very problematic.

Kara Swisher: Could be a big issue.

Scott Galloway: And yeah, and it's so close to the election. It really is. So anyways, and again, my gut might be overridden by my emotions here, but my gut is that she's going to pull this out. That's my prediction.

Kara Swisher: Let me just read something. I'm going to pile onto your thing. By the way, everyone should read Scott's endorsement of Kamala Harris. It's essentially, if you want to have sex, vote for her. If you want to be an incel, vote for Donald Trump. I think I pretty much boiled that down, right? Is that correct?

Scott Galloway: It's a very funny... I lost more subscribers than I've ever lost in a single day.

Kara Swisher: Oh, well, I think it's very funny and fun to read. I love it. It's worth it. What's the point of being wealthy and having people who love you if you don't speak your mind?

Scott Galloway: I know, but it also is a really good read. I think it's a great text. Thank you for that. Even Amanda was like, "I thought, Scott, what?" And then I'm like, "Oh, good argument, Scott." She often goes, "Scott, what?" And then she's like, "I must give it to him in any case."

Kara Swisher: I'll tell you, I have—let me read this to you. "This Wall Street executive's political gamblers and cryptocurrency traders are piling on their bets that former President Donald Trump is returning to the White House. But the stock market may be telling a different story. U.S. stocks have been on a tear with the bellwether S&P 500 climbing more than 10 percent since August. Well, the stock market is not necessarily representative of the broader economy. The S&P 100's performance in a run-up to election has historically been a strong indicator of whether the incumbent party's candidate will retain control of the White House, correctly forecasting all but four presidential races over the last 96 years." So interesting. So that's the actual stock market, which is very hard to manipulate, is saying. And that's the one I would test. I have one quick prediction. I went and saw—I'm interviewing the director of Wicked soon, John Chu, who I love. I went to see Wicked yesterday and Amanda came with me.

Scott Galloway: The movie Wicked?

Kara Swisher: The movie Wicked. It is fucking spectacular. It's going to win every Oscar. I got to tell you, one of the best.

Scott Galloway: Who's in it?

Kara Swisher: Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are the main characters. I have to tell you, both of them—it's like Barbie times two. I don't know what it is, but it has so much weight. Feels very Harry Potter in a way. All the other characters are astonishing also around them. Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang is in it. There's all these astonishing characters. Jeff Goldblum. It's an amazing movie, and it's substantive. It is beautiful. The costumes, the special effects. And at the heart of female, speaking of females, bringing it, female friendship, these two. Ariana Grande blew me the frig away. Erivo is the anchor of this movie, but they are so electric together as a relationship. It's going to win all the Oscars. That's my prediction. Huge hit coming for Universal, I have to say. I did not expect it. I thought it would be good because it's a good story, but it is something really fantastic. I recommend it. And it's going to be like a Taylor Swift concert for girls. And I think a lot of boys will go because it's got a Harry Potter vibe to it too. Anyway, that's our show. I want to mention several people reached out following our conversation last week about a mother suing Character AI over her teenage son's death. A few of you pointed out a part of the story that was perhaps even more troubling. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays] Voice 1: While it was an excellent critique on Character AI, you failed to mention the role of the gun. The gun thing's a bit beyond us here outside the US, and for it to not even be part of the story really does send chills.

Voice 2: Kevin Roos' full story detailed how the parents knew prior to his death that their son was depressed, and yet his stepdad left a gun unlocked in a drawer in the home. Wasn't the stepfather a contributing factor in this tragedy for not properly securing the weapon in the first place?

Voice 3: The story could have been about a tragic suicide attempt connected to Character AI, but instead, he is dead. Parents can't monitor their kids' online activity 24-7, but they can and they must keep guns out of their children's reach at all times.

[End of audio clip]

Kara Swisher: Those clips were from Steve Sachs, Kate Darrow, and Sierra Fox, and we really appreciate it. It was a very good point to make in a terrible, terrible story, not just about AI, but about guns in this country. Thanks to everyone who called in. We want to always hear from you, and you're always incredibly thoughtful, most of you. So send us your questions about business, tech or whatever's on your mind, go to nymag.com slash pivot.

Scott Galloway: By the way, "most" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Kara Swisher: Well, those are just letters to you, Scott. And I'm glad you did that endorsement, Scott. Fuck people.

Scott Galloway: You know what? It was good. Go read it, everybody. And by the way, everyone, I just want to say, everyone who unsubscribed, full refund coming your way.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's right.

Scott Galloway: Full refund. And I endorse Scott Galloway. I have nothing to sell you.

Kara Swisher: There you go. You can't unsubscribe. You don't have to listen to Scott. If that's wrong, I don't want to be right. Also, go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. And don't forget to send us your photos of you dressed up as me or Scott on threads. One last note elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe. Scott, you talked with your favorite geopolitical expert, Ian Bremmer, on Prof G this week. Really smart guy. Let's hear a quick clip.

[Audio clip plays] Scott Galloway: Well, I'm talking in part about the relationship between China and the United States. That, I mean, we are heading towards confrontation, but both countries are trying to avoid sudden crises and ensure through a lot of high-level communication that the relationship doesn't deteriorate any faster than it needs to and any more broadly than it needs to.

Ian Bremmer: The Americans are doing that, I think, in part because we've got our hands full with a couple of different wars and an election cycle. The Chinese are doing that because their economy is performing worse than I've ever seen it, certainly since the early 90s, maybe since the 70s. I was just in Beijing a couple of weeks ago. I spent the week there. And every provincial government is bankrupt.

[End of audio clip]

Kara Swisher: That's very thoughtful. From his mouth to everybody's ears. We cannot get in a war with China, any kind of war. Nice guy, too. More importantly, he's a good guy to have drinks with.

Scott Galloway: Nice man. Yeah, great. It was a great show. It was really good. And I urge everyone to go listen to it because Ian's smart.

Kara Swisher: You're stressed and generous today. It's a unique cocktail. I'm not used to it. You are very high-strung and also generous.

Scott Galloway: I know. What do you want? Why wouldn't I be generous? If it was shitty, I would say it was shitty, but it's not shitty. Don't be shitty, Scott. That's all. Your take on Bezos is wrong.

Kara Swisher: That's good advice. On that essay, it was so badly written. And I'm going to go through it line by line with you.

Scott Galloway: Okay, just copy editing.

Kara Swisher: Just copy editing.

Scott Galloway: I just... That sounds like torture.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I know. I know. My kids hate it when I do that. All right, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Please read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andertat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severio, and Dan Shulon. Nishat Kerouac is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and takes stock of the blessings of the best decision they've ever made, and that is to live and vote in America.

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