G-7 nations' historic tax reform, Bitcoin 2021, and Friend of Pivot Jon Meacham on de-platforming Trump

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: So just one question.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Queer 50? Question mark? I get it every year. It's not like... Queer 50?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's right. There are 50 important queer people. I'm one of them.

Kara Swisher: There's 51 of them, actually. We always throw one at them. Queer 50. And I want to know the methodology. You were number eight. Why are you not number seven or number nine?

Scott Galloway: I have no idea. I get on these lists. I like literally never. When I was married to my ex-wife who was the CTO of America, we were always on the couples list, right? Like they have to always have a bunch of para-lesbians in there. So these are just these lists. I think they're fine, whatever.

Kara Swisher: You wanted to be part of the queer 50, didn't you?

Scott Galloway: Well, I'm part of the hot 50. I was 51. But I heard I was very close to making the hot, straight, erectile dysfunction 50.

Kara Swisher: You are number one with a bullet, as they say. You are number one. It's just these lists. I don't, you know, Vanity Fair had one. I used to be on it. And it just, I don't understand them. I don't, I don't, they're fine. This one's Fast Companies. I get on every gay list. There's not a gay list I don't get on. There's just not that many, you know, loudmouth lesbians.

Scott Galloway: You're big on the gay list. It's like me, Kate McKinnon. You got your Rachel Maddow.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I have the same thing. In media. Like there's, there's like a list. Like Roxane Gay is on it. You know, just like, it's the same. I mean, there was this charity show through the early part of the aughts called Dressed to Kilt, where they would invite the most famous Scottish people. And it would be Sean Connery, number one.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: And then the guy from Succession would be number two.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, for sure.

Kara Swisher: And then they like, number three was like the guy who ran the convertible debt desk at Credit Suisse. I mean, they're just not. Hey, did you see there's a Scottish show, Men in Kilts? I think it's on HBO.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's on one of the streaming networks.

Kara Swisher: I'm glad you finally brought it up.

Scott Galloway: Okay, why?

Kara Swisher: It's a great show. It's going to be great.

Scott Galloway: Is it? Who is it? I think the Scottish have been, it's time we got, we've been vastly oppressed and overlooked.

Kara Swisher: Oh, come on. It's a lot of like eating haggis and wearing kilts and showing off your naughty bits. That's, it literally is like one of those, like, here's what we think of Scotland in the ridiculous narrative. It's a spectacular country. It is. I have spent much time there. I've driven all over Scotland. I love Scotland. It's beautiful. With a proud legacy that some of the smartest people in the world have the same thing in common. And that is they were Scottish and they left. We all watched the Mel Gibson movie, as you know. He was Scottish, right, in that movie? William Wallace, yeah.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that guy.

Kara Swisher: William Wallace, yeah. In real life, he's an Australian racist. But after that one, he was Scottish.

Scott Galloway: All right, listen, we got to get to business besides me being a famous lesbian and you being a semi-famous person of Scottish descent.

Kara Swisher: Jeff Bezos is going to space, Scott. Your dream has come true just 15 days after the McCulloch's richest man leaves Amazon. He will fly to space on a ship manned by his space exploration company, Blue Origin. What do you think of that?

Scott Galloway: Here he goes. Okay, first off, I got to give— He's beating Musk to space. I got to give the guy credit. In terms of midlife crises, this guy came to play. I mean, this guy came to play. First off, I used to—I mean, I got a lot going on here. I got a lot.

Kara Swisher: You're going to have to give me some—

Scott Galloway: Okay, go.

Kara Swisher: I'm giving you space. I'm giving you space.

Scott Galloway: First off, I'm now convinced the guy isn't just on HGH and testosterone. He's got full Android metabolic steroids.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: In addition, he has pumped his face full of fillers. He looks like he's heading to the friends reunion. Allegedly. And, okay, so, look, if these— It looked like it.

Kara Swisher: Okay, let's be honest, it looked like it.

Scott Galloway: If these billionaires really want to add big tech, but really want to add value to society, the way you really add value to society is through great original scripted programming. So I've thought of this reality show called Trillionaire House.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: They all live together in the Salesforce building, which, by the way, is leaning. So they're kind of on a regular basis. They fall. They lose their balance. One of them falls off, right? Always. And we take the big tech. Give me some running room. We take the big tech CEOs and their girlfriends or boyfriends. And we put them in a place. And next door is the friends people, the reunion. And so episode one, right? So Bezos and his girlfriend, who, by the way, I'm sure is a lovely woman, but let's be honest. She looks like she was built in a factory from lesser parts of other mistresses of billionaires. She just seems cliche for me as a billionaire girlfriend. I'm going to get a lot of shit for that anyways. They have crazy sex like every episode. She comes rolling out, dresses Dorothy with a llama. That's episode one. All right. Episode two, they bust in next door and they steal Matthew Perry's opioids and we all get ridiculously fucked up. I am the guest. Episode three, Bezos goes into space and on the launch pad, the thing blows up because they find out instead of rocket fuel, they filled the tanks with gorilla semen. Because this guy, this guy, I mean, if they really want to change the world. Will come in and solve the mystery. What do you say? Oh, and Tim Cook and Lisa Kudrow just walk around really judgmental saying things like, I wouldn't have put myself in that position. They are just disgusted with everybody. They are just judgy and disgusted. Lisa Kudrow looked great. She did not look. She looked fantastic. I like her. I think she's a very talented man. I love her. I want to get her on my podcast at some point.

Kara Swisher: Listen, here's the deal. He's doing a lot of pictures in front of rockets in little outfits like Richard Branson does. And I think Richard Branson is going to space, so Musk has to go to space. This is like amazing, these three guys.

Scott Galloway: Oh, God, come on. I mean, seriously, what is, what is, as far as I'm concerned? You should be like a stowaway.

Kara Swisher: All right, Bill Gates. Could you be a stowaway? Bill Gates, well, you can bid on it. That would be so good for this podcast if you stowaway. For $2.8 million, we should do a GoFundMe, and I get to sit next to Bezos going into space.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. Can we please?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. All right. That would be pretty good, right? Let's do it.

Scott Galloway: Really? Because if you going into space with Bezos, the two bald guys taking him.

Kara Swisher: That's so cute, Mom. I'm scared. I am so scared. Would you do it? If I got on that seat next to him. I could do it. I could raise the money. I could do it. I would just, you know what I would do? I would just inappropriately flirt with him, like grab his hand, grab his hand a lot and just stare at him and wink. Come on, that'd be good. The straight 51. The straight 51 goes to space with Jeff Bezos. What do you think Musk thinks about this? Because he kind of wanted to go.

Scott Galloway: I don't know what any of these people are thinking. I don't know. I mean, my life is so hetero fucked up and I look at these people and I feel grounded.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: I feel like, what is going on with this guy? He used some Latin phrase in his Instagram. I don't even, I got to look it up. But you look at it, you think about all the, I'm sorry. It means move forward forcefully, whatever, something like that. I think space travel is expensive and dangerous work. And then I look at Bill Gates and I decide, okay, here's a guy who's decided instead of like, instead of sword fighting with his penis in space and going to Mars and Neptune.

Kara Swisher: Hold on.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but I've decided that's okay. He's trying to make a better toilet. So I'm going to get a job at Microsoft and accept his dinner invitation. Pivot, narrator, it's not okay what Bill Gates did. I'm going to get a job, and if he wants to take me to dinner, I'm going. Editor's note, it's not okay. Anyway, anyway. All right, so he's going to space. And then I heard from Vox HR for the first time. You know who is not going to space? Mark Zuckerberg, who possibly should be launched into space. But Facebook finally announced the ban of Donald Trump on his plasma will extend at least two years.

Kara Swisher: Oh, wow, they made a decision. They, of course, kicked the can down the road. This weekend on a show, I think in Britain or something like that, Nick Clegg called me that commentator. I wrote a big comment. He calls me that. They're doing exactly what I said for them to do every time. That queer 50 commentator. That commentator. Nick, we've spoken. We know each other. I'm not that commentator. That's like saying that nasty woman who we actually are doing what she says to do. What, you mean that sellout, that lipstick on cancer, that narration on lies? Anyway, what do you think of the thing? We're going to have John Meacham on later in the show to talk about Donald Trump and social media and different things. But initial thoughts. What are your initial thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Well, you wrote an article in the New York Times about how you portrayed Mark Zuckerberg as being – that his naivete is really dangerous. I actually don't think he's naive. I think he knows exactly what he's doing, and he creates all these sideshows where they wring their hands. We're like, oh, my gosh. You mean people are being pulled out of cars because of rumors circulated on WhatsApp and hanging them? I don't know what we should do. I know. Let's run newspaper ads. That'll solve the problem. I don't think he's that stupid. I don't think he's naive. I think he's generally a sociopath.

Kara Swisher: Okay. All right. We're going to differ on that. Look, I think this is a concerted decision. They figured out, they run tests, they're not losing money, and they get to wrap themselves in a blanket of saying, after 1,449 days of havoc into a 1,460-day tenure of lies and misinformation, we want to be commended and lauded for doing the right thing three years and one months into it. They didn't get commended. They said it was too short a time, that the time frame was, you know, that they couldn't just make a decision like Jack Dorsey did, which is interesting. I think it's, you know what I said, this is just them not making, saying they're not going to make a decision and then waiting too long, causing havoc. And then they're doing it, like doing what, I don't mean to be rude, I said all along they were going to do. The same thing was on Holocaust deniers, the same thing was on Alex Jones. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming into it. And of course, then you get all the right wing doing their, you know, their little censorship dance, which, of course, it's not. It's just what it is. It's a corporate decision here. Now, whether they're too big, that's another issue. Maybe they shouldn't be so big so they're able to make these unilateral decisions. In any case, it was long time coming. And, of course, they only did two years, which brings us past the 2022 elections. So he won't be on for that. And the question is if he runs for president. You know, from his performance this weekend, he looked a little slow, a little slow.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I forgot. Episode five. I forgot about episode five. The Trillionaire Club. Okay. So Elon Musk and Grimes. Grimes goes full Yoko Ono and figures out a way to break up SpaceX because he decides she's so brilliant. She needs to be the lead engineer for SpaceX. All right. But where do Musk and Bezos and Branson come together? That's what I want to know.

Kara Swisher: I don't think Branson qualifies for the Trillionaire House.

Scott Galloway: Oh, come on.

Kara Swisher: I don't know. Come on. Put him in there. Like, how about two parachutes, three people kind of thing?

Scott Galloway: That's how I would go. That would be test of the test.

Kara Swisher: But wouldn't it be fun? Speaking of Scotland, the test of strength, right? The test of strength, that kind of thing. But I love the idea that the apartment would be angled and getting more slanted every day and they keep falling over each other. Like they make big and jignant speeches about going to space and then they stand up and trip and they start sliding.

Scott Galloway: Oh, God. Keep your day job, Scott Galloway. They owe it to us. Scott Galloway, keep your day job.

Kara Swisher: Now we're going to talk about serious things, okay? I'm sorry, go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Okay, time for the big story.

Kara Swisher: The G7 Summit of Nations has come to a historic agreement on global tax reform. Over the weekend, the finance ministers from those advanced economies have backed the U.S. proposal. It calls for corporations around the world to pay at least 15 percent tax on earnings rather than the zero percent tax or the very low taxes most of them spend. The nations included in agreement are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, U.K., and the U.S. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tweeted that, quote, "The global minimum tax would end the race to the bottom in corporate taxation and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the U.S. and around the world." Now, not included here are all the low tax jurisdictions like Ireland, I think Malta, Cyprus. There's a couple of them. I forgot. I talked to Marguerite Vestager about this today, which was interesting, who's coming to the Code Conference. But one of the things is that they didn't include the low tax jurisdictions who object to this. So I don't know if it works if they continue to exist, these low-tax jurisdictions. But what do you think, Scott?

Scott Galloway: I think this is really important and fantastic leadership on the part of the G7 and specifically Berkeley professor Janet Yellen, who just quietly does the work and does a great job. This is important because the effective tax rate for Amazon over the last 10 years, 20 billion profits, 4.5% tax rate, Apple, all kinds of double Dutch sandwich and tax avoidance. And when the G7 come together, they can – first off, a lot of those tax havens are – I don't want to say UK controlled, but UK influenced, the Isle of Man and Ireland. And so I think that when the G7 say, okay, this is the global tax rate, they will have the ability to speak with a pretty big stick and go into these jurisdictions and say overnight, say, well, okay, we'll put you out of business. We'll figure out a way to stop this. And this is not only going to – I think a fantastic thing in terms of global cooperation. It's kind of almost like a modern-day NATO where the enemy isn't Russia. The enemy is organizations that have overrun government and aren't paying their fair share. The thing it will lead to is an interstate tax treaty in the US. But I think it wonderful I think it demonstrates incredible leadership and coordination I love it when nations democracies join hands It used to be the G8 and then we kicked out that gas station posing as an economy called Russia.

Kara Swisher: Gas station posing as an economy. You mean mafia-run gas station.

Scott Galloway: There you go. But I think, look, I believe that our ability, I think we've been so divided internally because of bullshit, just divisiveness, being propagated by algorithms of amplification and bad actors. I think that any news where we, as a nation or as a confederacy of democracies, do things like this, I think it's wonderful. I'm excited about it.

Kara Swisher: The tax at 20% was negotiated down to 15. Is that a big deal? He's going to have to just take lower numbers, right? Is that correct?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but it's more than they're paying. So I think it's a great start. And then when they see it's effective, they might decide to raise it. I read this. I thought this was one of those stories that is much more impactful. It's going to create, I think, $350 billion to half a trillion dollars a year in incremental revenue. You know, this is money these nations need. And so the pandemic, you know, we talked about that one time tax on wealthy people or wealthy corporations. One of the things that's interesting here is that the U.S. returning made it happen like that. This would not have happened under Trump, obviously.

Kara Swisher: 100%. And so, you know, he wanted to find social media companies and sort of in a retaliatory way. And this is actually a fair way. This is governance. Pays their fair share, which I think is actual governance.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: So what do you think how tech companies are reacting to this? Is that a good thing?

Scott Galloway: You know what? They have no choice. What are they going to say? They could get their money repatriated under Trump and everything else. What are they going to say? We should pay lower taxes than a nurse? I mean, what are they going to do here? They'll come up with reasons. They're strangely quiet here because even Nick Clegg can say, well, that commentator, even he can't come up with – even he can't wallpaper over this and say – and Facebook, of course, came out and said, we welcome this. But look, this is the largest, most profitable, successful organizations in the world should be the biggest taxpayers, not the smallest taxpayers. And this is a great first step. And as exciting as it is about equity in the tax system and the tax code, it's just exciting to see us joining hands with our brothers and sisters over in Europe. I love this, Cara, almost as much as the trillionaire house.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's interesting what happens now. Now, besides the G7 leaders, there's going to be a meeting of the G20 finance ministers in Venice in Italy in July. So that'll continue it. So, you know, and then, of course, there's negotiations with all the countries, with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 140 countries. There's a quote here. "If G7 agrees and then the G20, the likelihood of a broader agreement is probably pretty good," says Elke and Sinead Policy and it's the Tax Foundation Center for Global Tax Policy. But there's operations – there's opposition from, as I said, Ireland, which brings in U.S. tech firms with a corporate rate of 12.5 percent. They had problems with it. There's other jurisdictions. And, of course, Wall Street's always worried about a global standard of taxing across the world, cooperation. They like it best when it's all messed up. You know what I mean? They like it best when it's confusing and difficult.

Scott Galloway: Complexity is a tax on the poor in a small and medium-sized business. And like I said, if you can navigate by Starlake, you want to race boats at nights with a lot of islands and obstacles. And the reason banks don't like this is they like to be able to do these ridiculous things in the Cayman Islands and figure out a way that they pay lower taxes than someone who owns seven dry cleaners. So this is a great move. And it's a sign of the immunity is kicking in. I just – I absolutely – I love this.

Kara Swisher: We'll see if they push it through correctly. It does have momentum, though, and it does have momentum because Biden's talking about it. And they need the money from the pandemic. They need it. And these corporations have never done better. And they need to pay their fair share. I think that's 100 percent.

Scott Galloway: All right, Scott, let's go to a quick break. We'll be back to talk about a giant Bitcoin gathering in Florida and friend of Pivot presidential historian John Meacham to talk about Trump on the platforms.

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Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. At least 12,000 people streamed into Miami over the weekend for the Bitcoin 2021, a gathering celebrating Bitcoin. The conference has been postponed last year, but this week the biggest post-pandemic business conference took place in Miami, near where you live, to discuss all things cryptocurrency from Bitcoin to NFTs. The Winklevoss twins were on stage, of course, and told the crowd, "If you own Bitcoin today, you'll be a millionaire in the future. For sure. Congratulations." Then Jack Dorsey came on stage and said, "If I were not at Square or Twitter, I'd be working on Bitcoin." Square has added over $170 million worth of Bitcoin in February. Over the weekend, Dorsey also endorsed and announced that Square is considering making a hardware wallet for Bitcoin, which makes sense. And of course, Elon Musk is sort of an anti-Bitcoin, I think. I think. I can't tell. I haven't followed his latest tweet. So go ahead and rant about Dorsey being on stage and not do this. I can't get him to come anywhere and he goes to a Bitcoin conference.

Scott Galloway: He summed it up. He put out a tweet saying there's nothing more important in my lifetime than working on Bitcoin. I thought, well, what about ensuring the platform you're in charge of doesn't continue to be a handmade decision? What about getting a similar return to the shareholders of your second family that's living in a trailer park versus your first family at Square? I mean, this is, I think, a very authentic tweet. He's obsessed with alternative payments and Bitcoin. And by the way, that's his right. But okay, that just tells you who he is and what he's focused on. He didn't say the most important mission in my life is to ensure healthy dialogue for democracies. He didn't say the most important thing work I can do is to use great media as a platform to unite people as opposed to divide them. I mean, nothing he is thinking about in his sleep from nine to five has anything to do with this microblogging platform called Twitter.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: And more power to him. I think the guy's a genius. Have you seen the product innovation? By the way, what did Square just announce? A cold storage hardware wallet to compete with Ledger and Trezor. And by the way, it's smart. It'll probably drive the value. But what is he doing at Twitter? Oh, we can change the color of the app icon. Okay. Oh, my God, the innovation. I'm blown away. Anyways, I didn't. He wrapped a gift that he bought for the Square kids and gave it to the Twitter kids. That's sad.

Kara Swisher: Did you hear anything? I didn't pay any attention to the conference. Did you pay any attention?

Scott Galloway: I didn't.

Kara Swisher: You didn't go? Like, you're such a, like, I could see you swanning around Miami like that.

Scott Galloway: Well, I do like the swan.

Kara Swisher: You like the swan.

Scott Galloway: I do like the swan. And they would know you, too. They'd be like, oh, there's that guy. No, the crypto guys don't like me because I've gone after Musk.

Kara Swisher: That's true. But now they don't, the Bitcoin guys don't like Musk right now, I think. I can't tell. They don't know what to do. They're just, they're just so torn. What do you think about this? But on a real level, we are having it. By the way, we're having an event in Miami in 2022. I don't think maybe we should buy the Winklevii. What do you think? We should. What does Bitcoin 2021 event say about Miami as a cryptocurrency hub?

Scott Galloway: Interesting. Yeah, that's a smart move, right? To try and identify, to get the iconic. That's what Suarez said to me. To try and get the iconic event for Bitcoin down in Miami. Look, Miami's having a moment. Miami's no doubt about it, having a moment. And good for them. I think it's smart. And you can pay for your, I don't know, your suntan lotion and your parking fines and crypto now. But I think it's great for Miami. I don't know if there was anything that interesting at the conference.

Kara Swisher: Right. There was a lot of partying, it looked like. It looked like it was a party. What's interesting about this is it reminds me of really early internet gatherings, right? So there's all these really skeevy people and unctuous, oily, unctuous is oily, unctuous people. And then you sort of see glimmers how important it is. And, you know, speaking of the global tax stuff that's going on, there's going to be global regulatory issues around all these cryptocurrencies now. The focus, that's their next focus, the international financial regime, regulation regime will start really – they're already doing it, squaring in on this stuff.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, and I mean, bigger news was El Salvador said that it's now legal tender down there. And if you look at the transfer payments, the amount of money that's transferred back to people in Central American and Latin American countries and the fact that this could do away with a lot of the onerous fees that people have to pay, that's exciting. That's a great use of crypto. It's going to be – I think this is going to be the year of regulation, I think, for crypto.

Kara Swisher: Now, you're not in cryptocurrency. You're in the pickaxes, right? You're still not buying cryptocurrency.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I'm a no-coiner in the sense I've never owned a coin, but I do think there's something here.

Kara Swisher: No-coiner, is that what you call yourself?

Scott Galloway: That's what they call people who don't get it. Like when I'm on people's call me. You get it. You don't want to buy it though, right?

Kara Swisher: I just, one of my many flaws as an investor is I always want to buy stuff on sale. So when Michael Saylor told me to buy it at $18,000, I said, I'll wait until it's below to $10,000. And then it rocketed to $60,000. And it's come back, I think, to $35,000 or $38,000. You know what I don't want to do? I don't want to be in any asset class where I have to depend on the blood sugar level of Elon Musk. That's the bottom line. I don't like investing in things where I have to hope that Elon has decided whether or not he needs to wallpaper over an earnings miss at Tesla and sell it and go on Saturday Night Live. I just don't need that stress in my life.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Well, maybe if he goes to space, you could do it during that time period.

Scott Galloway: Oh, God. You know I'm holding Jeffrey's hand. I am bidding $2.9 billion, and I'm literally going to show up in a fucking dress and start just eyeballing them just to make them really uncomfortable.

Kara Swisher: Well, I have to say, if Square does a wallet, even though there's lots of wallets available, it becomes a feature. It becomes a thing you have. It's going to be more and more popular. There's just no other way around it. And I don't know about the prices rocketing up and down, but it's certainly going to be an asset class that everybody's going to have to hold, I think. despite the fact that it's kind of ridiculous. Like Winklevoss guys like swanning around.

Scott Galloway: Oh, you mean the guys who claim they're William Watt? Like the, I mean, it's amazing they present themselves as mavericks and outsiders, like two rowers from Harvard.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they're mavericks. Take it, stick it to the man. They were early. I literally have insulted them so much in my life, but they were early to this. I remember them talking about it. They were super early to Bitcoin. They were-

Scott Galloway: No doubt.

Kara Swisher: You know, they've got a nose for things. They certainly were super early to social media. They fucked it up and let Mark Zuckerberg pull a fast one on them. And then Zuckerberg, you know, went on to glory or whatever you call it. And then they were early to this. They were one of the first people talking, first people I heard talking about. And at first I was like, oh, those idiots. But then I got to say they were early to it. They were early. Actually, the first person was someone I actually do respect, talked about it. But he was from a country that had, you know, they had currency problems there. And it made total sense. So it'll be interesting to see where it goes. But it was apparently a big success. A lot of people there were excited to come to Miami in early 2022. Should we have people paying Bitcoin? What do you think? You think we can get Jack Dorsey to come down and talk to us?

Scott Galloway: Doubtful. There's no way Jack Dorsey.

Kara Swisher: I mean, I hate to say this, but I have ruined the relationship between Jack Dorsey and that commentator.

Scott Galloway: That is a tax.

Kara Swisher: Oh, he'll come on. He'll eventually come on. He'll do it. Him and his beard will drag himself down and he'll be fine. Anyway, we are going to bring on our friend of Pivot next. We're joined by John Meacham. Meacham is the Pulitzer Prize winning historian and a New York Times bestselling author. He's also the host of a new podcast series called Fate of Fact. Oh, I want to hear about what that means. So, John, I've talked to you many, many times, and we've been talking a lot about the platforms, Facebook and Twitter, dealing with former President Trump's presence. This is, I don't know if this is unprecedented or not, given you're a historian and as a presidential biographer. What do you think the significance this week of Facebook essentially banning Trump for the near-term future, at least?

Jon Meacham: Well, it's an unusual moment for Donald Trump because he's actually learned that actions have consequences.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Jon Meacham: And, you know, Facebook and Twitter, and I'm a layman on these things, but they are publishers kind of. Right. And so I know that their business model and their philosophy is that they are not exercising editorial control. But as it says in the Bible, to whom much is given, much is expected. And I think that these decisions make all the sense in the world in a commonsensical way. And I think that the steps these platforms took in the wake of January 6th have had an impact.

Kara Swisher: Right, on Trump.

Jon Meacham: A positive one, but a negative one for Trump.

Kara Swisher: Has there been any president where this has happened with another not being able to communicate in the communications vehicle of the day? Like, has there been any precedent for this?

Jon Meacham: No, I don't think so, because if you think about that, the American presidency dates from 1787. Washington comes in on the 30th of April, 1789. He had access to the printing press. You know, our friend Al Gore would tell you that democracy was a direct result of the printing press by democratizing information and leading to the empowerment and agency of certain individuals. You know, when Thomas Paine wanted to publish Common Sense, his barrier to entry was just a very minimal one. He went and found a printer and published it. And it went out. And so I can't think of a president who... The only thing I think of is there have been moments where networks have said, "We don't really see why this deserves prime time." But if a president summoned a press conference, they'd have to come. So I think it is unprecedented. But I would argue that with the exception of Andrew Johnson and some of his actions during Reconstruction, Trump is unprecedented. So we shouldn't be surprised that an actively undermining force to the institutions of a free and popular government, and that's Trump, would face some consequences in that sphere.

Scott Galloway: John, first off, nice to meet you. I'm a fan of your work.

Jon Meacham: Thank you.

Scott Galloway: As a historian, when you observe President Biden's tenure so far, what other presidents does he remind you of? And what does that say possibly about the way he's going to govern?

Jon Meacham: It's a great question. I should say he's a friend of mine. I'm proud of that. And I do help out occasionally on a volunteer basis. So I have no policy influence, whatever. But I do help him with some speeches from time to time. So all that said, this is like 1933 in some ways because of the scope and scale of the crises that he stepped in to have to deal with. The divisions in the country are as profound as the ones that LBJ stepped in after Dallas in '63 and Nixon in '69. We sort of skip over that one, interesting as an analogy. But 1968 was such a cataclysmic year. You know, 47 Americans on average died every day in Vietnam, not captured, not wounded, died. 47 a day. Dr. King, Senator Kennedy, Chicago Convention, and the fact that George Wallace on Election Day 1968 carried 13.5% of the popular vote and five states. So Nixon was not coming into a circle where we were all singing Kumbaya. Here's the fearsome, the fearful answer, the troubling answer to your question. To me, this increasingly feels as though we're living in 1850s America, where you have a minority of the country, in this case, the Republican Party, in that case, the Southern slaveholding interest, driven by an aristocracy of economic power, structural advantages within the Constitution itself, and a self-created theological and philosophical doctrine of justification for the course they wanted to pursue. Now, what's troubling about that, so that makes Biden Lincoln, right? What's troubling about that is that Abraham Lincoln, and we sort of skip over this sometimes when we're talking about it, Lincoln didn't solve our problems in a vacuum. 750,000 people died from 1861 to 1865 in order to create the country that at least continues to be worth defending. So I'm not predicting civil war, but the divisions feel, and I want to be very clear, this is not a both sides thing. It's the Republican Party that has gone off the rails. The Democratic Party could go off the rails by this afternoon, but they haven't yet. They are having a coherent conversation about the relative role of private enterprise and the public sector, a coherent conversation about the role of the state. You can disagree with that. I disagree with a lot of it. But it's a conversation that would be recognizable to Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. The conversation that the Republican Party is having, which is not even really a conversation, but this passionate elemental argument about the will to power, is not part of that coherent conversation.

Kara Swisher: Can I ask you a question then? So what fuels it? Is it just Trump or is it the social media, the polarization itself? So your podcast centers on American cultural polarization, which is not a new thing. There's been so much polarization if you go back at every period. So where does that come from now and how do you combat it? Because I think these social media platforms have become the fuel of that, or at least partially, or it's one of the dots. It's certainly part of the infrastructure of polarization, right? There's no doubt about that. Did it exacerbate existing divisions? I would say yes.

Jon Meacham: My argument that I make in the podcast, and this is just my opinion, is that one way to understanding Trump as part of a coherent, if troubling American narrative is pretty straightforward. He's George Wallace. He's Strom Thurmond. You know, he's Pat Buchanan. Maybe Huey Long. So he's a populist figure. So if this is just about Trump, that's one conversation and a coherent one. And it's Joe McCarthy, right? Joe McCarthy had become president in 1956. That's what this is, what this was. So that's a coherent sort of almost straightforward conversation. What I have come to see, and I wrote a book about this three years ago, what is different today is that one of the two parties that we depend on to create a politics about the mediation of difference, the conciliation for a given period of time of conflicting interests, is no longer a coherent, good faith actor within that system. And that is a difference of kind, not degree. And so my argument in this podcast was, why is that? So why was the Republican Party so vulnerable to this takeover, to this manifestation of itself? And I think part of it has to do with conservative Americans who believe that the establishment itself, including their establishment, has failed to deliver on fundamental promises and premises of the movement. So Eisenhower becomes president after a 20-year drought. Imagine the psychology of being out of power for 20 years. And he preserves the New Deal. He says any party that tries to undo Social Security at this point would be committing suicide. He appoints Earl Warren to be Chief Justice of the United States. Warren, within two years of his appointment, arguably the inflection point of the last 100 years is May 17th, 1954, when Brown v. Board of Education was handed down by a Republican chief justice 9-0. The court goes on, of course, to ban sectarian school prayer, goes on to the Miranda decision. Then what does the Nixon administration do? Well, Nixon appoints four justices, three of whom become moderate to center-left people. It was a Nixon appointee who wrote Roe v. Wade. Cut to Reagan, who's supposed to have been the true conservative against the accommodationist Nixon-Ford years. Reagan cut taxes dramatically in 1981, and then he raised them five times. Federal spending went up under Ronald Reagan. Anthony Kennedy was a Reagan appointee who ultimately is the deciding vote in the marriage equality decision. George Herbert Walker Bush's whole life is disappointing the right. And he loses the election because of it. And then George W. Bush would tell you if he were here that there's a direct line between TARP and Trump. So it's an anti-establishment, racially inflected reaction that puts passion in the place of reason. And again, I'm not, I like to say I'm a Democrat with a small d. I voted for both parties. I'm George Bush's biographer. I'm not a crazy lefty at all. But at a certain point, you got to practice what you preach. And people like me who believe in America, I think, have to believe in the capacity to change your mind when circumstances change.

Kara Swisher: Sure, sure. So how to combat it? I mean, Scott has a question in that area, but what do you do about it when you have this inflamed public or a part of the public, a small part of the public, but a powerful part, an inflamed party, and then it's fueled by persistent propaganda and misinformation that flows over all kinds of media, but a lot on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere. How do you deal with it? You can take Donald Trump off, but it doesn't really solve the problem.

Jon Meacham: It doesn't solve the problem, but it doesn't hurt it either. It doesn't make it worse. But I do think there are these structural forces. So my view is, I think of this as the 5 to 10 million project. Of the 81 million people voted for Joe Biden, 74 million people voted for Donald Trump. If you could convince five to ten million Americans that they were wrong, that in fact the worldview that Biden represents, the ethos, the temperament, the policies, that in fact that should be where the center of gravity is, as opposed to this entirely self-seeking, nativist, largely racist, disruptive force to democracy, which is what Trump represents. If you can get five to 10 million Americans, then you're looking at, in American terms, a pretty remarkable shift because 38, my baseline on this is 38% because the Washington Post published a poll in 1955, 38% of Americans after Joe McCarthy had been censured thought he was right. Okay, Scott? So that's the baseline. So if you can get to 55, 56% and the way you do it, I think you just have these conversations. You just got to tell the truth.

Scott Galloway: It just feels like at the end of the day, it's the white patriarchy saying, "We're going to hold on to it." And it feels to me like the troops are lining up. It's the white patriarchy versus a new generation that's browner, woker, and the white patriarchy, and they have a lot of supporters are saying, "This has worked really well for a long time, and we want to hold on to it." Anyway, that was more of a statement of a question, so I'll ask a question. The president's legacies are usually much different three decades out as opposed to three months out. If you had to guess what Trump's legacy will be in 2050, we'll put some color on it.

Jon Meacham: Well, if this is the end of the Trump story, so we have to caveat that. So if he doesn't run again, if he weren't elected again, what would the 2015 to 2020 Trump legacy be? I think it is... I sometimes think about this because you think what will the PBS American Experience producers of the future put together, right? What does the obituary package look like? And I think it will start with the escalator. And I think the next image is January 6th. I think that there are some dates, there are some moments that loom large in the short term, but which fade over time. And there are some events that grow larger. And if I were betting, I would say that January 6th grows larger. And you literally, he gives a speech and they storm the Capitol. And what people like me like to point out is the Confederates didn't even get to the Capitol during the Civil War. They got as close as about Silver Spring, Merrill. But they got in this time. So it will be that he was a disruptive force for democracy. It will be that the worst pandemic in 100 years went unaddressed in an efficient way. The vaccine development absolutely, but we knew that had to happen. We needed moral leadership. And moral, I don't mean ethical, moral in the sense of customary. FDR once said that the presidency is preeminently a place of moral leadership, by which he meant how we act. The root of the word moral is custom. So Trump will be this vivid, disruptive force, impeached twice. And I think that any conversation historically about him will begin at the end.

Kara Swisher: When you look at this, will these moves to stifle him? By the way, he did it to himself by the breaking of the rules. Will that work? Because he's failed. Being that internet is such an important part of reaching these people and polarizing them. Or is there enough, you know, are there a thousand duck-sized Trumps out there like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz and others? Is that available, is that as the Dibiase cast in terms of his influence online already without him being there?

Jon Meacham: I don't think so. But I'm not a digital native. I just visit. My sense is Trumpism is now part of the DNA of the Republican Party. That said, without his popularity, without his framing of it, I think it becomes – I could be wrong, but I think it becomes easier to fight. It's easier to fight Marjorie Taylor Greene than Donald Trump.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Jon Meacham: Right? Today. So if it becomes a guerrilla movement, right, if it becomes, let me put it this way, if Trumpism, even though it has this vast infrastructure with the Republican Party, becomes an insurgency as opposed to a general-led movement, I think that's good news. But I think that, again, I think what the tech platforms have done is right. I think that self-evidently Donald Trump was trying to undo a culture of the free exchange of ideas and fair play and the possibilities and opportunities that we strive to make real for our people. And he, to use the cliche, but cliches are cliches because they're true, he yelled fire in a crowded theater. So don't sell him any more tickets.

Kara Swisher: I really appreciate it. These are really terrifying things to hear about. John Meacham, host of a new podcast.

Jon Meacham: That's all right. Don't worry. We'll handle it.

Kara Swisher: Host of a new... We went through a civil war and a revolution and we came out in the end and now a pandemic. So John is the host of a new podcast series called Fate of Fact, which you can listen to and hear about all the polarization going on and maybe try to find a way away from it. John, we really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Jon Meacham: Thank you.

Scott Galloway: Thanks, John.

Kara Swisher: Thank you.

[Break]

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, that was terrifying. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, wins and fails. Do you have anything?

Scott Galloway: What?

Kara Swisher: Do you have anything? Do you have any wins or fails?

Scott Galloway: I don't. I don't have any wins or fails. I think I was glad Facebook made its decision. I think as usual, it was qualified. So I guess I'll give them a win for finally doing the right thing that everyone else has been suggesting forever. So I guess that's kind of a win.

Kara Swisher: What's it called? So it says that commentator, the clear 50. That commentator is glad that they did it. But that commentator also thinks what the fuck took so long. So that's what I would say. So my win is global cooperation, our superpowers, the species. I'm really excited about this G7 tax treaty.

Scott Galloway: My fail is, I think, one of the signals of a top or when an economy becomes vulnerable to a crash versus a correction is really poor corporate governance. And you see how it happens when everyone's partying, when everyone's making money. And when at the same time you couple that with our diminishing of our institutions and underfunding our SEC and our DOJ and this gross idolatry of innovators, we lead to companies totally disregarding corporate governance. And I think you see it around market manipulation from Elon Musk, but it's happening everywhere. A company called Coinbase has two insiders, not independent directors now, on its audit committee. And the audit committee, if you're ever on a board, there's always a dude in his 60s who thinks he understands business and pontificates. And you have to remind him, "Boss, you're just here because you're a partner in an accounting firm and you're the chairman of the audit committee." And that person plays a really important role because their job is to be the source of truth and go, "No, we're not going to give into our temptation to juice the stock and start double counting revenues." There's all kinds of games and shenanigans you can play in terms of what the audit committee approves or doesn't approve in terms of how a firm accounts for and reports its earnings. So Under Armour was found pulling revenues forward because they didn't want the stock to cross. The Cheesecake Factory, by the way, all this is based on a wonderful article by Lynette Lopez from Business Insider. Cheesecake Factory was basically inflating their numbers. And you're seeing this just being set up everywhere. Coinbase has two insiders on their audit committee. That is totally not cool. Why? Because they're in a lockup. So are they going to be sober and adroit about releasing accurate information? Or are they going to wait until their lockup's over and they've sold their stock?

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: You have Palantir. Check this shit out. Okay. Palantir is taking shareholder money and investing tens of millions of dollars in a SPAC in exchange for that company signing a long-term contract with that money with Palantir. And you think, "Well, what's wrong with that? That's an innovative way to finance customers." What's wrong with that is shareholders of Palantir don't need Palantir buying SPACs for them. They can do that on their own. And what that does is that creates related party transactions, which were everywhere in 1999. It says Palantir is not able, after 17 years as a company never turned a profit, to grow its revenues organically just based on the value of its product. It's got to lend people money. By the way, a lot of these SPACs won't be around. And so what it creates is related party transactions that when shit gets real, you don't have a correction. You have a crash. So poor corporate governance, all these financial engineering, what it does is it sets up an economy such that when things get ugly, they get really ugly, really fast. And I do think that the corporate governance here is indicative of a top where we've decided, "Well, as long as the lights don't come on, as long as the music's good, we're going to ignore that there's someone convulsing in the men's room." I don't know where I got that.

Kara Swisher: That was your weekend, I guess. But go ahead.

Scott Galloway: That's called a Tuesday night at Trillionaire House. So I think there's a lot of poor governance here at these companies. And I think the SEC, I do think we need guardrails. I think it's out of control. I mean, my sense is Michael Milken went to jail for less than a lot of the shit that's going on here.

Kara Swisher: Yep, yeah.

Scott Galloway: So, and it indicates, in addition to all the ratios as we look at, whether it's the multiple on earnings, the percentage of GDP controlled by the stock market, all these things are reminiscent of 2008 and 1999, as is really poor corporate governance, where companies are not acting as fiduciaries, such that they can keep their stock high until they get out. That's my fail.

Kara Swisher: That is an excellent fail. I would agree with that. This is, of course, not a new issue, but it sort of becomes, I think the levels of our temperature, just like the planet, get raised and raised and we adapt to them. And just what John was talking about is the constant horrification that these people bring to the table. It just makes you feel like, "Okay, they're doing that now. Okay, they're doing that now." And you get really, really...

Scott Galloway: You get numb.

Kara Swisher: You get numb to it. I mean, one of the things that happens is as they raise the stakes, it becomes more normal to be thinking in crazy ways. And therefore, Marjorie Taylor Greene gets elected right now. So I think here's the fail. I think 22 of the people running for Congress believe the election lie, like are running on that the election was stolen. Like, why would you run for office if you think elections are stolen? Of course, the minute they get elected, those elections will not be stolen. But you can't tolerate this kind of stuff when you're looking at it. Because there's a really good New York Times piece today, you look about the actual impact of when Trump was banned on social media. While it did lower the temperature quite a bit, he still, you know, in October, 20 statements with a half a million total likes. So he'd make a statement and they'd get lots of 253,000 shares on Facebook or 248,000 likes and retweets if he said something crazy. But now in March 2021, a statement has close to the same in other places because they've got Donald Trump fan page, Breitbart, Fox News. "I love my freedom." There's one called Jenna Ellis, it doesn't stop proliferating just because the main source of the disease is gone. And they quote their statements. You know what I mean? They quote them, whether it's Newsmax or Fox and Friends or whatever it is. And then people who are against him quote them too and make it go all around. So anyway, so that's, I think you're right. I think you're right that we could be, this is a really big topic and it's an important one and it's quite ethical. What are you doing this week, Kara?

Kara Swisher: This week, I am, I don't know, things. I'm writing, I'm podcasting, I'm doing all kinds of stuff. And I will be working on the Code Conference. I got you someone. I'm not going to tell you who it is yet.

Scott Galloway: Really?

Kara Swisher: I'm not going to tell you here because we're not going to announce it yet, but because it's not done, done, but it's someone you wanted to interview. And I got someone, a friend.

Scott Galloway: What does that mean?

Kara Swisher: I got someone that you wanted to interview for you.

Scott Galloway: Really? Barbara Eden?

Kara Swisher: What?

Scott Galloway: Barbara Eden.

Kara Swisher: Pam Grier?

Scott Galloway: Pam Grier. It's Pam, isn't it? Finally.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. I know Pam Grier, by the way.

Scott Galloway: Do you really?

Kara Swisher: Yes, I do. She was on The O'Reilly Factor. She's a lovely, lovely person. She was a lovely person. So I didn't know her very well. I just met her briefly. In any case, we'll be back on Thursday because there's going to be a lot more news. This is a newsy week. Apple just had its big event. We can talk about that a little bit more. And we can go from there. It's a lot of small things, but there's a ton of stuff they did that was sort of innovative. And yet they're still involved in all kinds of regulatory problems and cases. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. This is a very hefty show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit your question for the Pivot podcast. The link is also in our show notes. Scott, can you read us out?

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. If you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify. If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Kara Swisher: All it takes is $2.9 million, and the dog will be holding Bezos' hand as we launch into space as lovers. It could happen.

Scott Galloway: It could happen.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. I hope it does.