How Trump Will Impact the Economy, Big Tech, and Social Media

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Kara Swisher: Which one do you think is going to die first? I'm banking on me.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, me too.

Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I have my annual cold where I sound like Brenda Vaccaro. Good to see you, Scott.

Scott Galloway: It's good to see you. I just want to kick off the pod today with one question, one query, one inquiry, Kara.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, what's your inquiry?

Scott Galloway: What the actual fuck?

Kara Swisher: Fuck! We were so wrong.

Scott Galloway: The actual fuck.

Kara Swisher: Scott, how wrong were we? Let's discuss.

Scott Galloway: Oh, you know what? As someone who is wrong a lot, this was especially wrong. Spectacularly wrong.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. I got it. I'm not sure I could have been more wrong, Kara.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I know. I know.

Kara Swisher: I got to say, though, on the morning after we taped, the morning of the election, I started to get a bad feeling. I don't know why. Maybe it was just the yips from the Hillary Clinton thing. But I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. Something like that. It was weird. But I never said it. But we were wrong. Describe your day. And then, which is my way of saying I want to describe mine, but I'll let you go first. By the way, where are you? You look very nice. And it's a very nice hotel room.

Scott Galloway: I'm in Vegas, baby. I'm going to drink myself to death here like a la Nicolas Cage.

Kara Swisher: You're in Vegas.

Scott Galloway: I'm in Vegas. I'm giving a speech so I can make money because I'm going to make more money under the Trump administration. While others who voted for him will not. In any case, I am here for a speech.

Kara Swisher: What hotel are you at? I love Vegas.

Scott Galloway: MGM Grand. Everything is green. All the lights are green.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, you kind of missed it on that one. You kind of missed it on MGM Grand.

Scott Galloway: I know, I know. Which one do you like? Which hotel do you like?

Kara Swisher: Well, I'm getting old, so I like to stay at the Wynn, specifically the Encore. When I was younger, I used to stay at the Aria. Also, the Cosmo is kind of cool.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I've stayed at all those places. I'm going for F1 next weekend, and I got a speech there next Wednesday.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there's a lot of F1 stuff in all the shoppies and stuff like that, a ton of F1 stuff. You like that. I haven't been to that. Do you actually watch the race?

Scott Galloway: No, I go to hang out with hot people and basically party. I mean, I'll go to the race one night, but I've been to F1 in several cities, and the city really does come alive. I've been to F1 Miami, Montreal, which in my mind is the best. I've been to, where else? Look, we're trying to talk about anything else but the election.

Kara Swisher: Okay, this is my day very quickly. How did it play out for Kara Swisher? Okay, took the kids to vote. We went to our area voting. We voted.

Scott Galloway: So election fraud. Is that what you're saying? Your kids voted?

Kara Swisher: Yes, exactly. They did several times. And we showed them the whole thing.

Scott Galloway: I've done that. You've done that with your kids. Who did your grandparents vote for?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, right. And so then I went. Clara and I hung around for a little while. And then she got the day off from school because she's in public school to vote, obviously. The five voted. And then I did some work, I did a bunch of work. And then I just hung out. I worked out. I was trying to feel better. And then I kept getting the yips. I really did.

Scott Galloway: Was there a moment during the night where you like, oh no?

Kara Swisher: No. When she gave her speech, even though it looked beautiful, her last speech in Philadelphia, I thought, oh, no, no, no, no, no. She's not going to connect. This is not going to connect with people. I don't know why. I just felt like, oh, this.

Scott Galloway: See, I felt that way about Kamala's speeches every time she opened her mouth. But you felt it was especially non-resonant?

Kara Swisher: I don't know why. I thought it was really beautiful visually, and I was worried about the message. I was like, huh. And there wasn't enough time. I also didn't think there was enough time. But at what point during the evening did you go, uh-oh, there's trouble in Mudville?

Scott Galloway: Right away. Right away. I was watching, and I'm like, no, this is, something's happening here. I don't know what it was. Chris Wallace actually said there was something when the independents came back in his favor in one of the states, and it was where they might have gone to her. Even it was a state he won. I can't remember what it was. There was something like that. And when they were talking about economy so much, Chris Wallace said she needs a miracle very early in the night. I think Chris is a very astute watcher of these things, having done so many.

Kara Swisher: But then I started to feel really sick because I got this cold and I was feeling, Clara and Saul had had this same thing. It's like a 24-hour nausea thing. And I went to sleep and I woke up at 5:30 the next morning and I knew.

Scott Galloway: So what did you do?

Kara Swisher: So I knew. I had this sort of deja vu of 2016. I remember when they were showing a map of Florida, county by county, because back then Florida was considered potentially a swing vote or a swing state. And it was just so obvious. I like math and I'm fairly good at it. And right away, I thought she's not only going to lose Florida, she's going to lose by a lot, which means she's done.

Scott Galloway: For me, this was when, and it happened fairly early, it happened at 1 a.m. my time, or I think about 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, is when they announced the results of Georgia because he came in 2.2 points ahead of her. I thought that's not a blowout, but that's pretty significant for a state. There were some hopes she might be competitive in and that Biden won. I thought that she was done. And then the next day, I was very stressed out about it. I was more stressed than I thought I was going to be, or more upset than I initially thought I was going to be. I'm a huge fan of Dan Harris. I thought he had that method, that straw breathing method to relax, where you go in for two seconds through your nose and then like you're blowing on a straw for twice as long. So I did that. And just to be clear, that shit does not work for me, Kara. It did not work. So I went to my method of relaxation and I waited till noon. I had a Peroni, then a Xanax, and then another Peroni, or as I like to call it, Panics, the Panics method. I find it not only relaxes me, but gives a little insight about the dog. I become an outstanding dancer on prescription grade pharmaceuticals. And I listened to 80s music and I danced around. The dogs are very upset. The dogs do not like me dancing. They totally freak out.

Kara Swisher: So you turned off the TV.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I went on. Actually, I went on Amazon's live election coverage, which I really love, by the way. Ryan Williams is the right host. He's a mix of really credible, but really comfortable at the same time. And who I saw was our good friend, Jessica Yellen, who did a great job. Anyways, the next day I'm like, I don't want to hear the analysis. I don't want to hear anything. I don't want to hear everyone contradicting each other as to what went wrong or what went right. But it was, I just literally 10 minutes ago upgraded from pajamas to athleisure. So I've been in pajamas. I've been drinking a lot. I've been watching Netflix, and my stocks are up. It's COVID again. It's literally, I'm in COVID again.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. So I'm not going to ask you what I think, but how do you think of the reaction? And how do you think our audience should process this?

Scott Galloway: Well, look, what Dan also said, my new Yoda around anxiety, action absorbs anxiety. I think one of the keys to success is the ability to mourn and move on. So I've given myself 24 hours to mourn. And then the next day I thought, OK, should I be giving money to Planned Parenthood? Should I be getting more involved in Wes Moore's campaign? I did a call with a guy named Seth Moulton, the Democratic Congress person who I'm really impressed with. Should I be giving money to Amy Klobuchar? I imagine already there's a 2026 candidates. I'm like, okay, that's it. Let's get on it because the ray of sunshine here, if there is one, is it traditionally a midterm is a huge opportunity for the non-incumbent party. So I'm spending time with my boys. I'm doing things I enjoy and I'm going to say, OK, I didn't like the way this turned out. What can I do to make sure it turns out differently in 24 months? So I'm already trying to take action, if you will.

Kara Swisher: What do you do, Kara? I wrote a really long thing at 5:30 in the morning talking about a lot of things. Like, we don't have to. Everyone's like, oh, the American people have spoken. I'm like, 50 percent. I was looking at all the things and I get it. He won in all the right places. Winning is winning. Right. But that's different from everyone. The polarization is absolutely even, Stephen, very close. If you look at various things. What I really want to understand is what was the messaging that didn't work. What was the message that didn't get through? What was the calculation in their head? How did they vote for someone found liable for sexual assault? And what was the calculation and why did that message not resonate? And why was it okay, given all the evidence that he's crazy, he's deranged, he's obviously addled? Why did none of those things matter to people? The two choices are, they don't believe them, they don't believe all those cabinet members, they don't believe all these things about him and his history, or they are fine with it if they can get lower grocery prices or they felt better than they did before. Do you feel better today than four years ago? I think that trumped it. I just couldn't get past those things, but a lot of people can. Maybe that's why we got it so wrong. You can't believe that they could say okay to that, especially women, a lot of white women voted for Trump again.

Scott Galloway: Well, just, I'm not talking about the way the world should be or our version of it, what it should be, but the way the world is. I put out a thread on this, and immediately I'm going on CNN, MSNBC, and Smirconish in the next 72 hours to talk about what I think. My bottom line is I think the Manosphere won here. I think this was the bro vote that won the election. If you look at the age group that had the biggest swing from 2020 in terms of who they voted for, hands down, there was an 11 point swing towards Trump among 18 to 29 year olds. If you're a self-appointed social justice warrior, or you're making judgments on someone's character, or you may not think they acquit themselves well personally or professionally, but you can't afford a home. The government or the left is lecturing at you about bailing out people who went to college where you have absolutely no prospect of going to college, either because of inability to get in or inability to afford it. If you can't see a way to having anything resembling the life your parents had, you're not interested in being lectured about who's a better person. You not only want change, you want disruption. You don't even want conventional Republicans. You certainly don't want Democrats. The other age segment that swung the furthest was, in my view, their parents, 45 to 64 year olds. If you're a single mother and you're everybody, this is what did not show up. Everybody vastly overestimated the role that bodily autonomy would play in this race.

Kara Swisher: You're right.

Scott Galloway: Because Trump was able to distance himself by convincing people, I'm actually not as crazy as some of the people here. So people had some comfort that even if they voted for Trump, it wasn't necessarily a vote against bodily autonomy. But what they do see is if you're a mother or you're a parent and your kids, specifically your sons, are doing terribly, you just want change. You want to burn the whole place down. So if you look at what really drove this election, it was one, bodily autonomy was not the referendum, the motivator that people thought. And it's not only young people that are struggling, 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago, where seniors are 72% wealthier. If you complain, it's bad. But if your son or your daughter are doing really poorly and can't afford their rent and see their lifestyle going down and are more depressed and more anxious, you want to burn the whole fucking thing down. And so you do.

Kara Swisher: I think if you don't have the luxury of caring, the issues become a luxury.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's what I mean. You don't have that. And so I get that. I completely get that. What I don't get is the raising of darkness that he has. I guess they just don't believe that he really is like that.

Kara Swisher: Right. I think that's what it is. Although, then you get all his crazy followers who are like Nick Fuentes today on Twitter. Someone had sent it to me, tweeted, "your body, my choice forever." That kind of stuff is terrifying to lots of people. So I think the emboldenment of this is, maybe they're overstating it, maybe, I don't know. I find them terrifying, these people, I do. And I do have the luxury of finding them terrifying. I think that's why, especially to my kids, to my marriage, everything else, and other people don't. I guess I'm not angry at them for that, but there is going to be a real split in people who can be scared of it, who can live with fear. And of course, that is a motivator too, because fear does motivate everybody rather than just joy. She was trying with joy. She was trying with forward. Let me just say, I know everyone's piling on the Democrats. I thought she, in the short, the error they probably made was not to have a primary, a short primary so that we could pick if she had even been picked. I thought she did do a really nice campaign the best that she could, but she was dragging Biden behind her the whole time. She was part of that administration. I think that's what people were reacting against was the Biden administration and how they felt. Even if lots of stuff was up and to the right for a lot of people. I think she couldn't shake him unless she shook him. Another candidate that wasn't a Biden person might have been more appealing, but I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure that would have worked either.

Scott Galloway: I think you're zeroing in on the fatal flaw here. It was very difficult. First off, Vice President Harris should hold her head high. She should. Given the hand she was dealt, given how much pressure was on her, given how outstanding she was in that debate, I think she can feel really good about herself and we should feel good about her. President Biden should be buried in a crypt along with Senator Feinstein and Ruth Bader Ginsburg that says fucking narcissists that ruined their legacy. If we had had a competition, the primaries are outstanding at producing battle-tested candidates that people get comfortable with and who are really good on their feet. She might've been that person, but if she'd been that person, she would have been better prepared. Or the nation might've said, who wins in a primary is who rises to the moment. And voters get to decide in this moment, maybe we don't want, fairly or unfairly, the incumbents. Maybe we've just decided two thirds of people think America is going in the wrong direction. So we want someone a little bit outside of the party who has a D but says, this is not working.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, like Jared Polis. Colorado did amazingly well, across the state, Democrats. Or a Shapiro. Or someone we haven't heard of. Someone could have risen up and been there at the right moment in the right time.

Scott Galloway: This is absolutely, in my view, on Biden and the people around him and the Democratic establishment, including many of our friends who are emailing me saying, you're hurting by not supporting Biden. He's going to be our nominee. It was insane that he didn't live up to his promise in 2020 that he was going to be a transition candidate. If there's any blame here, it's the establishment and on President Biden himself. She did her level best. They also vastly overestimated the role bodily autonomy would play in the election. Do you realize more women or fewer women voted for Harris than voted for Biden?

Kara Swisher: It's not quite the number because all the California votes aren't in yet. Her votes will rise with California. But yes, I know she didn't. He didn't get that many more votes. I think it's pretty even Stephen with him. He just got the votes he got. He kept his votes and he increased in certain places among everybody except for a small group. What was it? What I was looking at was Colorado, where Democrats did astonishingly well. So what Polis is peddling over there is working. Like economy. Let's stop fighting over ideology. Let's get things done.

Scott Galloway: Or not self-appointed social justice cops.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Let's be reasonable with strong economy.

Scott Galloway: But actually, he did better across every group in every region, except for Black women who are 6% of the population. Any other demographic group, any other region, he won every swing state. If you look at this really is, and I don't think this is a good thing. You had the New Deal Democrats in the 30s who had a mandate and a pretty serious sweep. This wasn't a landslide, but it was a distinct, decisive win. You had the Republicans in the 80s. I do think that this signals a shift in policy around immigration, around foreign policy, around trade. There's just no getting around it. This is America saying we want to go in a different direction. I do think this was a pretty big statement from the American people.

Kara Swisher: Although let me just say, people are like, oh, it's a huge landslide. You know what a landslide is? Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964, 61% of the vote. FDR, 60%. Richard Nixon, 60%. Warren G. Harding, 60%. Reagan, 58%. Herbert Hoover, 58%. Roosevelt, 57%. Eisenhower, 57%. T. Roosevelt, 56%, 55%. This was not that. It just wasn't that. It wasn't a landslide. It's not even in the top 10. But that means half the country is dissatisfied. So who do you want to bring over and how do you bring them over to the other side? How do you make them feel like they're like, although we may just be polarized, right? It may just be that. It'll never be that way again. Back and forth. It'll never be 60.

Scott Galloway: The three issues that showed up or the most important were inflation, immigration. And the issue that I think was the biggest issue where the Democratic establishment made a huge error here around some of the things we were talking about was incumbency. If you look at every democratic nation across the globe, from India to Japan, they've gotten slapped hard. The incumbents have been getting kicked out. To think that we were going to buck that trend in a nation where two thirds of people saying we're headed down the wrong track was just incredibly naive. And then the big shocker for both, I'll speak for you, for you and me, I was convinced bodily autonomy was going to play a bigger role than it did.

Kara Swisher: Me too. There were some interesting videos of people saying, oh, Trump is for abortion rights. Let me say the last thing and then we'll have to move on and talk about some of the real impacts. I think there was an enormous amount of propaganda in this pushed by Elon and others that really worked in a way that they often do. So many exit interviews were so incorrect. It was crazy. They were just doing interviews. And I have to say the interviewers were just saying what do you think of this. They weren't guiding them in any way. There was this one woman where she's like, yeah, Trump isn't going to do this. He's for abortion. There was tons and tons of just misinformation all over the place. I think the role of propaganda where people had different facts going in was really quite extensive. I had a lot of people telling me things. I was like, no, that's actually not true. That's actually not true. It was sort of pervasive, the misinformation and the constant lying about things. I think what she spent a lot of time doing was whack-a-mole. That's a bad position to be in. To be right and to tell people they're wrong is a bad thing because they don't want to hear that. I think 10, 20 years from now, we're going to study the propaganda uses propaganda by foreign and domestic. And it's going to be something else, including Russia and others. But that's something that's been building for a very long time.

Scott Galloway: Just outside of the big three we mentioned, immigration, inflation, incumbency, was constitutional democracy. Constitutional democracy was a big issue for people. But what was so strange about that is that Republicans were more worried about it than Democrats. And I go to, quite frankly, misinformation. You genuinely believe that there's a conspiracy across our electoral officials and that the election was stolen. That's where your misinformation really came in. Republicans were more worried about constitutional democracy than Democrats who had seen their representatives cowering in fear because a guy still hasn't conceded the election. There's no getting around it. People are now getting two-thirds of their information from platforms that have a vested economic interest in spreading misinformation because it's just more novel and it's more interesting. There's going to be so many forensics, but I think where the Republicans tactically did really well was I think Trump's embrace of the manosphere. He went on the top five or six manosphere podcasts and basically said if you're a young person or a young man or someone who sees how a young man in your life is struggling, I got your back. I think people are really turned off what they view as self-appointed social justice police on the left. There's such an enormous shift taking place demographically. One of my role models, Peter Drucker, used to say demographics are destiny. It's no longer true. If you look at the border states, Latinos in border states actually swung very much towards Trump. A lot of immigrants are like, I came here legally. I'm not down with what's going on here. Or they don't have the same empathy for other immigrants.

Kara Swisher: Let me read something. There was someone who was doing some research around Filipinos and other immigrants in Hawaii that are Republicans. The sources of information are nothing like we've ever heard of. Yes, there is still the staple of Fox News and Newsmax. There's also a lot of reading of Epoch Times, One America News and Rumble. But I had a deep conversation with a native Hawaiian, let's call her Lily, who regards Trump as a demigod. She showed me on her phone the stuff she reads and listens to every day. I have never heard of them before and we listened to them together. The conspiracy theories in these sites are wild to say the least, but she is convinced they are true. This is, it really does work, these things of where people are getting their information. So that'll be, I think, the information environment. And now I understand why Elon bought Twitter. That's my feeling.

Scott Galloway: You had a really interesting, you popped up in my feed, something you said on CNN about your thesis around Truth Social and Twitter. I thought that was really interesting.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I thought someone very big wrote me that, who was right before about him. And they think they're going to merge Truth Social with Twitter and then take it public.

Scott Galloway: Well, it's already public. You're saying it'd be a reverse merger. You have a public vehicle with Truth Social.

Kara Swisher: Yes, exactly. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway: That would be a massive dilution for Twitter shareholders who would basically be getting $3 million in revenue and have to give up a third or half the company. But it would be a way, to your point, of funneling billions of dollars from Musk to Donald Trump legally, as far as I can tell.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it was interesting when someone brought that up to me. All right, well, let's get to everything now. And by the way, again, we're sorry we were wrong, audience. I don't know what to say. I think we live in a different place and have different values and different things that are important to us. Anyway, let's move on. There's a lot to get today. We're going to dig into what the victory means for tech and business. We're going to look forward including the impact on the economy, big tech regulation, and social media. Let's start with the market. Stocks soared on Wednesday following the news of Trump's victory. The Dow had its biggest single day gain in two years on Wednesday, up 3.5 percent. The S&P was up 2.5 percent and the Nasdaq 3 percent. Trump Media shares spiked to around $44 a share, though not quite as high as predicted. You predicted if Trump won, you thought $80. Tesla went up nearly 15%, making Elon Musk richer than ever. NVIDIA and Goldman Sachs hit all-time highs. The net worth of billionaires led by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who we'll talk about shortly, surged by over $63 billion. Other winners, private prison company GeoGroup and CoreCivic rose 42%, which is depressing, and 27% respectively, likely anticipating detainments tied to Trump's immigration policies. Talk a little bit, Scott, about the stock reaction.

Scott Galloway: So to be fair, the market's actually bifurcated here. The stock market likes it because stocks are basically the present value of growth opportunity and what the earnings or projected earnings are of a company. There's a belief that they call it growth, but basically what they're anticipating is an extension or even additional tax cuts on corporations, which will increase their earnings and increase their stock price. So the markets love it. But the first person I heard from who said it's over, the first person to call it, and he was right, was a friend of mine named Justin, who's the chief investment officer for Millennium, which manages $70 or $80 billion. He was the co-head of Goldman Sachs' fixed income department. This guy has a very big brain. I said, how do you know? And I said, I immediately went to, because of Georgia? I'm like, what are you, you're watching the map?

Scott Galloway: And he said, no, the credit markets, the 10-year is spiking, and the markets understand that Trump, whose policies will be much more inflationary, is about to win. And I thought that was really fascinating, because if you look at the credit markets, they believe that Trump's policies will be inflationary, and the 10-year actually spiked in terms of the yield.

Scott Galloway: So companies, the equity markets like it because they think earnings are going to go up because of a lower tax burden on them. But the credit markets right now don't love it because they think his policies are going to be inflationary. But the S&P had its best day in nearly two years. I mean, the markets, the equity markets like this.

Scott Galloway: And again, I hate these signals because they're false flags. Because the vast majority of equity, of stock market equity in this country, is held by a small number of people. So basically what the market was telling us is that one, his policies are likely going to be inflationary, and two, the rich and corporations are going to do really well.

Kara Swisher: Yep. Yep. That sounds about right. The price of Bitcoin also rocketed to an all-time high of $75,000 on election night, crypto-related stocks also ticking upwards. Trump has previously floated the idea of a government-owned Bitcoin Reserve and pledged to fire SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who's considered an enemy by the crypto industry. They've spent a lot of money trying to get rid of Sherrod Brown and others who are opposed to their sort of wild lifestyles, essentially. What do you think will happen if he strips back any regulation? There's hardly any, but any regulation?

Scott Galloway: Well, the bull case is that they have been somewhat remiss to embrace innovation in trying to protect the dollar and that they're getting in the way of true innovation across what is the biggest asset class in the world, and that is the dollar. So we know we're going to get less regulation, which will be, if you're a bull on Bitcoin and innovation around this stuff, there'll be more investment into the category.

Scott Galloway: You can already imagine Andreessen and some other funds starting to deploy capital again into the crypto world. You're going to see more fraud, more people lose money, more shit coins. You probably will see, to be fair, more innovation. You'll see less regulation. You'll see soaring prices, I believe, across some of the mainstays. It's already happened with Bitcoin, maybe ETH. But you're also going to see a bunch of people... basically, Gensler will be gone.

Scott Galloway: You'll see what you also might see, though, is actual stimulus or support. I wouldn't be surprised if these guys were money good on being publicly very supportive of him and in exchange, their payback now or their compensation is he's going to say, each year we're going to take a hundred billion dollars and put it into this asset class called Bitcoin. I wouldn't be surprised if he basically comes up with something that not only blesses it and reduces regulation. He's talked about it. That creates stimulus for this sector. So you're about to see the go-go days again, I think, in blockchain and crypto, and funds pop up and start deploying capital again.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, we see. And lots of problems, of course, if there's no regulation. Moving on to the bigger picture of the economy, voters cited the economy as one of their top concerns in exit polls. And clearly, they think Trump is the man to manage these things. Reminder, Trump has proposed high tariffs and targeted tax breaks. He's also floating ending federal income tax and replacing it with revenue from tariffs. He said the economic plan will rapidly defeat inflation, which most people think the opposite, quickly bring down prices and reignite explosive economic growth. How soon before inflation goes up? You just mentioned it. Talk about that. What do you think? The tariff thing is terrifying to most economists.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but to be fair. What he said about tariffs. So he's proposing anywhere from like 60 to 100 percent tariffs. To be fair, what the market is saying, and so far the market's kind of gotten it right... I thought PolyMarket, these betting markets, were way overestimating the probability that he would win. Very early in the evening, if you went on PolyMarket, it had him at 90-10. And I thought, what? 90? There's no path?

Scott Galloway: But basically, the market is saying that they believe, if I tried to interpret the market, that they believe there's going to be a split government and he won't be able to push through these economically disastrous tariffs. Because the market does not seem that spooked. The credit market does think there's going to be inflation, but we live in a consumer economy. And if you saw these tariffs actually implemented, I do think you'd immediately see a recession. And the market, I think, is saying we don't think he's going to get these through or he's not going to go through with it. Because these actual proposed tariffs are just insane in terms of what they would do to the economy. Markets don't buy it. Markets don't think it's going to happen. They don't think he can do it, even though he talked about it.

Scott Galloway: I think in general, the market basically had a big yawn and said, other than cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy, we think this is going to be a split government and there aren't going to be any radical changes to fundamental...

Kara Swisher: Well, not if he wins the House also, which is still up for grabs, although it looks like...

Scott Galloway: I don't see... I can't imagine several Republicans. I think several Republicans are going to go Joe Manchin and love the limelight and say tariffs are a tax on the consumer and I'm not comfortable with this. I do think you see some Republicans defect. Because he really can't come and get them the same way because he's almost dead right. He's old. He's not going to be able to affect them quite the same way. He's not going to have the energy. He's not going to have the discipline.

Scott Galloway: 88% of Christmas gifts under the Christmas tree are from China. You don't see some guy from the South saying...

Kara Swisher: No one's really scared of the ants, are they?

Scott Galloway: Yeah. There's no... Making a populist argument saying, no, we can't have our Christmas gifts for our little ones go up. I mean, I don't think he's... the market is saying they don't buy these tariffs, at least at the scale he's proposing.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah, because he's more enervated and he doesn't have the... he can't target people as well in the next... he doesn't have that power that he had over the last four years. Well, isn't he technically a lame duck president starting in about a month?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's interesting to think about. And Vance certainly doesn't have the juice that he does. He's going to try to grab it, but I don't think he has the juice.

Kara Swisher: Big tech leaders are taking to social media, of course, to congratulate Donald Trump. This is typical. Let's just start off with that. The ones that stuck out: Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and Sam Altman wished Trump well. I thought they were pretty anodyne. So did Mark Cuban. He was like, "Godspeed." You know what I mean? He was like, "You won fair and square," which I thought was fair. I thought that was classy of him to do so.

Kara Swisher: The person who did not, Jeff Bezos, was quite different from the others. He was the first to kiss the ring, calling Trump's win an "extraordinary political comeback" and "decisive victory." It did not have the tone of someone who owns the Washington Post. He's the only one who actually has another thing he's got to think about, which he didn't at all in any way. So I thought that was problematic. And it was much more effusive than the others.

Kara Swisher: You know, they all want to work with this administration. They've done it before. They don't want to be in his crosshairs, and they'd like to get rid of all the different investigations and things like that. Although a lot of Republicans like these investigations very much, and so that's a really interesting pushback. Talk a little bit about these CEOs, obviously. More than anyone, tech CEOs weighed in.

Scott Galloway: They're smart to do it, Kara. He responds to this type of obsequious flattery. And if they're focused on their shareholders, they're smart to do it. And you kind of have to throw up a little bit in your mouth when it's more than just a polite congratulations. But if you reverse engineer it to shareholder value, they're smart to do it.

Scott Galloway: It's like foreign leaders pretending that he's really interesting and that they're fascinated with him. He's going to get more... when you're courting someone and they tell you that they're really into jewelry or baseball trading cards and that they will like you if you buy them these things, you buy them these things. And he's made it clear that if you say nice things about him, it works. So I think they're smart to do it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I agree. But I thought Bezos was a little bit abusive. If you could put them next to each other, it's really quite a different tone. And he does also own the Washington Post. He might have been a little less ass-kissing, I feel.

Scott Galloway: It's all about money. The Washington Post is nothing but a nuisance farm right now.

Kara Swisher: He shouldn't own it then.

Scott Galloway: He shouldn't own it then.

Kara Swisher: Stop owning something where you have to... We're talking about "should" versus "is." Jeff Bezos is all about money. He already did that already with the dumping of the endorsement. So I just felt like he should have maybe been a little less kiss-assy. That's my favorite. But you're saying he's the wrong owner and we've agreed.

Scott Galloway: Yes, that's correct.

Kara Swisher: Anything about the Peter Thiel factor? I think he's the quiet one here. Musk gets all the attention—we're going to talk about Elon in a second—but I think Peter Thiel is the real mastermind here in so many ways. I think he clocked Trump early and was in there at the last election. I think he clocked Vance. I think he's been quiet. He doesn't need all the attention the way Musk does. I think he's far smarter than Elon Musk in many ways. And I think all roads lead to Peter Thiel in this regard, even though it seemed like he was out of the election, right? But I feel like every one of his tenets is present here.

Scott Galloway: You first highlighted this to me and it struck me as something I hadn't... I just hadn't thought about it. At least I hadn't connected the dots the way you had. And I've thought about it more and more. And I think what you're saying makes sense because, I mean, here's the scary thing. With Trump's age and body mass index, there's about a one in three chance he leaves the White House feet first in four years and two months. An obese, 78-year-old man... it would be very hard to get life insurance.

Scott Galloway: And that puts a guy in the White House who will never utter one word to Peter Thiel, and that word is "no." He owes everything to Peter Thiel. That's how he got to be a senator. That's how he got the VP spot. And so if Peter Thiel calls him and says, "I need you to do this tax, or put a tariff here, or deregulate this, or create a floating island where billionaires don't have to pay tax, or we totally ban the following activities," Vance, if he can, will do it. I just don't think Vance could ever say no to Peter. He is where he is. He is one heartbeat from the presidency, not because of an impressive business career, not because he's a great politician, but because of Peter Thiel.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's the one to watch. And even though Elon, as usual, the circus clown, likes to take all the attention... As Bloomberg put it, "Elon is about to find out what $130 million for Trump gets him." We mentioned the Tesla stock surge. That's added $26 billion to his net worth. But Elon stands to benefit in a number of other ways, including a government efficiency commission role, EV and autonomous driving policies that benefit Tesla, and more government contracts for SpaceX. Trump has previously pledged his support for Elon's goal of sending a rocket to Mars. That one I don't mind so much. I honestly don't.

Kara Swisher: And as I mentioned, I think Elon merges X with Truth Social. So I also think they're going to have a falling out. I really feel like this is coming. If I had to make any one prediction, that's what I feel like. Peter is very quiet in the background and gets exactly what he wants. Elon can't help himself and neither can Trump, and Trump's the president. So, thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Well, look, this arguably... you could say that Musk's $119 million in donations to Trump were one of the best investments that's ever been made. He made it over approximately three or six months, and in exchange, his net worth has gone up $15 billion just from his Tesla shares, which skyrocketed on news that Trump was retaking the White House. So if someone said to any billionaire or any institution or any hedge fund, "Here's $119 million. If you give us $119 million, we think if the markets are right, there's a two-thirds chance you're going to get $15 billion back." So you've got to give it to the guy. It was going to be long the whole time. Best investment of the year was Musk's $119 million investment in the Trump campaign.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, because if she had won, he was never going to get dinged for it either.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's exactly right. $15 billion on $119 million. That's the best trade of 2024.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. So, what's going to happen next? Now, I need to disclose, we talked about this. I was planning... you know, I saw the above and got it wrong. I thought PolyMarket, the gambling site which had it at 40-60... which is owned by Peter Thiel, FYI, or is invested in by Peter Thiel.

Scott Galloway: I didn't know that.

Kara Swisher: So 40-60, Harris to Trump's likelihood of being elected. So you were going to get two and a half to one. I saw that as asymmetric upside because I thought it was a coin flip, according to the polls that I saw. So I was going to take $400,000 and put it on Harris thinking I could get a million back. And I want to be clear for people listening, this is not investing, this is gambling. And I can afford to lose that and it would ruin maybe an afternoon, but it wouldn't have any impact on my life. And I don't want to in any way tell people that they should be doing this.

Kara Swisher: But I was planning to do it. So I went to the site, signed up for it, waited till Harris went down to 38, then up to 42. And the site said, "You can't be a US citizen." And then it said you can't transfer money in from the UK. So I could not figure out how to get one of these betting sites up. So I went to a different strategy. I decided to sell... I did a call or call strategy on Donald Trump Media. And that is, I thought, if this stock, if he loses, the stock goes below 10. If he wins, it could skyrocket. But I also thought if he wins, this is no longer a prediction vessel. It's just a shitty company. And I actually thought there's a chance it might go down even if he wins.

Kara Swisher: So I sold calls at $20 a share, way, way into the money, thinking this thing could crash. There's a good likelihood it could crash. But I was worried, well, what if something fucking crazy happens and it goes to $400 and I owe someone $8 million who I sold these calls to? So I bought calls way out of the money at $60. I got $20 in premium for selling calls at $20. I got six bucks. It cost me six bucks to buy calls at $60. So my downside was limited to like two and a half million bucks. My upside capped at one and a half million.

Kara Swisher: And what's happened is he won. The stock spiked. I'm like, "Oh, fuck, bad day for Scott." But since then, the strategy around it... it's no longer a tracking stock. It's just a shitty company now. It's come down. I think it opened at about $31 bucks today.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's gone down.

Kara Swisher: So I got very lucky. It's better to be lucky than good. I was going to make a straight wager on Harris and couldn't because I'm in the UK and I'm impatient with websites.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, probably you can't use it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's right, yeah. So this kind of... I think it's called a collared call strategy. So far, so far it's working out because Donald Trump Media, I think people are waking up and going, "Okay, now what?" This is a shitty little company that is no longer a prediction machine or gambling. It's basically shares or ownership in a company that has no revenues but is hemorrhaging money.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Interesting. We'll wait and see for you. But anyway, Peter Thiel, along with the founder of Ethereum, raised money for PolyMarket earlier this year. Just so you know, he's involved in that one too. It's interesting times. But Musk and Trump falling out... thought, real quick thought, then we'll go on. You know more about this than I do, Kara. It's an interesting theory. Why do you think?

Kara Swisher: Because there was a movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme where the future and the past person could never come together. It was called *Time Cop*. I recommend it to everybody. And you couldn't ever be in the same room with your future self and your present self or your past self, whatever, because it would blow up. The world can't take that in the same place. And at the very end, the villain gets them in a room together. And then everything breaks loose and they blow up, essentially. I don't quite understand it. Whatever.

Kara Swisher: I think these people can't coexist together in the same room for much longer. That's my sense. Maybe I'll be completely wrong, but I feel like Trump likes the attention and Elon likes the attention and there's only so much attention to go around. And if you remember when Bannon got kicked out when he got all the attention as being the puppet master of Trump... and then Bannon got... I know he didn't get totally kicked to the curb, he kept getting brought back, but kicked to the curb and brought back. He kicked Bannon to the curb very early. We forget this in the Trump administration because he sucked up all the oxygen. So Elon might be very smart to not suck up all the oxygen. That's my feeling.

Scott Galloway: So I don't have a view on this other than a better version of *Time Cop* is the 2012 movie *Looper* starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis.

Kara Swisher: Oh, yeah.

Scott Galloway: Also with Emily Blunt, Piper Perabo, and a vastly underrated actor. He's one of the best actors out there who should have been nominated for his role in *Escape from Dannemore*, a guy named Paul Dano, who was also in *Little Miss Sunshine*. Anyways, that's a great movie in the same concept.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Would you like to go back and meet your past self, Scott?

Scott Galloway: I've thought about this a lot. I would like to go back to my past self and just say, "Trust me, everything's going to work out."

Kara Swisher: Really?

Scott Galloway: I could have used to hear that a few times.

Kara Swisher: Interesting. How about you? Would you like to go back... I am the same person, so no, not really.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but would you like to go back and say anything to yourself?

Kara Swisher: Maybe invest in something. "Buy NVIDIA, bitch. Buy NVIDIA." Take that job that you were offered. Sell the Subaru Impreza and put it all in NVIDIA. No, actually take some of those jobs that were offered and then have the money to become the Elon Musk of presidential politics. Anyway. Take some of those jobs I was offered.

Scott Galloway: Well, I was offered jobs at all the big tech companies. I would have been very wealthy. I would have been a billionaire.

Kara Swisher: You are very wealthy because you discovered podcasts with the dog.

Scott Galloway: That's right. Everyone asks on Reddit why she puts up with me. Three words: Ben-ja-men.

Kara Swisher: Benjamin. That's it. No, I like you. I like you. You're one of the first people I want to talk to after this.

Scott Galloway: I like you too.

Kara Swisher: All right. Let's go on a quick break. We come back, we'll talk about what regulation of these big tech companies will look like under Trump, plus the future of the TikTok ban. Remember that?

[AD BREAK]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back with more on what the second Trump era means for tech and business. Let's start with antitrust regulation. We talked earlier about Gary Gensler. Let's move on to FTC Chair Lina Khan. Elon Musk wants her fired. J.D. Vance has said he's a fan. I'm guessing she'll probably go. But the FTC, if people don't forget, is currently suing Amazon and Meta. And the Meta case was launched originally under Trump and would lead to Meta unwinding Instagram and WhatsApp. I don't really know what's going to happen here. There's all these conflicting people in the Republican Party about her. As you know, there's conservatives. I think J.D. Vance is one of them. Thoughts on that?

Scott Galloway: I actually am betting she's going to stay. She's one of the few... I mean, think about it. She's one of the few individuals that has fans on both sides, even if she has more fans on the Democratic side. She's not offensive. She strikes me as quite politically astute. And also, Trump is not a big fan of some of the companies she's going after. He doesn't have the attention span to stay that focused on this. And doesn't it kind of soften his image to leave the existing younger, wonky woman as chair of the FTC?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I don't know. I have to do more reporting on it to find out. But I mean, a lot of these tech companies are hoping that's what will happen and these will go away.

Scott Galloway: They should be kicked out.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but I'm curious what your thought is.

Kara Swisher: There's competing forces here.

Scott Galloway: Right.

Kara Swisher: Vance particularly and Matt Gaetz... he's still here with us, unfortunately. You know those people are quite fans of hers and they don't trust big tech. They have to kowtow to Elon now, but I think in general they're not tech fans.

Scott Galloway: But if he's just playing poker and thinking about leverage, why wouldn't he let these antitrust actions and trials continue? And then right when it gets to the eve, when he has real power, maybe call him and say, "I want this and I'll kill it." I don't know. Why wouldn't you play poker and continue to turn the screws on him?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's cool. He loves that "two dogs in a box" thing. He likes that. He does that all the time at his other company.

Scott Galloway: A knife fight in a closet?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, something like that. Let's move on to the DOJ, which is suing Apple for monopolizing the smartphone market. Then there are the two Google anti-monopoly cases, the one over ad tech and the other over search. The search one was originally launched by Trump's DOJ. The district court judge ruled this summer that Google has an illegal monopoly over search, but remedies won't get decided until the summer. I'm not so sure he has control over this at this point. He seemed to switch gears on breaking up Google, saying, "If you do that, are you going to destroy the company? What can you do without breaking it up to make sure it's more fair?" Again, same thing. I'm not sure he has as much control over this as that because the case has already been decided. But certainly, you know, we'll see what happens. There'll be another antitrust person. It'll be interesting to see who he picks. That'll matter rather than John Cantor.

Scott Galloway: This is a guy that supposedly every person that presented to him was coached by the people who knew Trump. Just a few words and pictures. So I think anything that's complicated and exhausting, like the nuance of a DOJ trial, I think ultimately he just moves on and forgets about it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. These are going forward, I think. I don't think he's that... I think he's like a cat chasing... "Oh, look over here," a cat chasing a red dot. So I think this stuff... my guess would be this stuff... to explain why we're not doing it, bringing someone new, all the meetings required, all the economists he needs to talk to. I think he'll just get exhausted by it and say, "Oh, fuck it, just let them do it."

Scott Galloway: They may try to slip it by him, right?

Kara Swisher: That's... I don't know. I feel like Vance will be important here in this. Or he could be. He could insert himself in this. We'll see. He might give that work to Vance.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's interesting.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. But obviously everyone is focusing on TikTok. Trump is the first president to own his own social network, as shitty as it is. He tried to roll back portions of Section 230 during his first term, rather clottishly. Didn't work. He wanted to ban TikTok in his first term. Back in September, he wanted to put Mark Zuckerberg in jail. He seemed to change his mind on TikTok. Do you think the ban is off the table? It's been passed, though, by Congress. So, where does this go, this case?

Scott Galloway: There's so many moving parts here that we're not privy to. One of his biggest donors is this guy, Yas. Jeff Yas.

Kara Swisher: Jeff Yas.

Scott Galloway: Whose biggest position is in TikTok. He has a lot of probably people who are big investors. Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic Partners are in TikTok. He claims that he's angry at Meta and TikTok is a threat to Meta. He could get on the phone with Xi and say, "OK, stop this bullshit around tariffs. You do this, I'll do this." And they come to some sort of agreement. Or he could decide to let them continue to do their work. And maybe Ellison calls him and says, "If you ban it, I'm going to buy it." I mean, there's so many moving parts and backroom dealing that's going to happen here that I think it's very hard to predict. But Congress did pass the ban. So the ban, it's not a maybe thing. It's a "they have till this time to do something."

Kara Swisher: Can he reverse it, though?

Scott Galloway: I don't think so.

Kara Swisher: By executive order, could he extend the stay?

Scott Galloway: I don't think so. We have to find out. The honest answer is I don't know.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. But where do you imagine he'll go? And talk a little bit about Meta when he threatened to put Mark Zuckerberg, who's kissing his ass now, in jail.

Scott Galloway: I don't think he's going to go there. I mean, I'm turning into one of these people. I don't want to be one of these people that finds his threats cute or says, "Oh, he's not going to actually do that." I think it would be very difficult. And I think of Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg is very powerful. If Mark Zuckerberg actually believes he might go to jail, you want to see someone put their thumb on the scale of certain types of content? If someone was coming for me for jail, I would very elegantly, quietly, and in a disciplined fashion put that whole ridiculous governance board, shove them to the side and say, "I'm going to show you what it's like when you threaten to put me in jail." And you know what?

Scott Galloway: People aren't even going to know what's going on because I control two-thirds of their news feed. And if you think the CCP has turned up polarization and division within America amongst our youth, wait and see what I do to you, boss.

Kara Swisher: Well, I don't think he has the set to do it, but okay.

Scott Galloway: That Zuckerberg has the set to do it?

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I don't know. I think jail is pretty fucking scary.

Scott Galloway: I think the prospect of jail, or let me put it this way, the opportunity to stay out of jail, if this guy really starts threatening you with what I'm sure Mark believes is a legal incarceration, he's going to say, "All right, all right, bitch, you want to dance? Let's dance." Because people forget Mark Zuckerberg is hands down one of the most powerful people in the world. When you control—back to what you're saying about misinformation—more Republicans were worried about the peaceful transfer of power than Democrats. If anything brings home to you the power of social media, it's that. And to think that Mark Zuckerberg could make life very difficult for Donald Trump is to acknowledge the fact that two-thirds of Americans are now getting their news from Meta.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because Elon's explicitly aggressive and Mark certainly could be. It's not his style to be threatening, I would think. Anyway, it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting to see who they try to go after. You know, I was joking with Mark Cuban that we're going to share a jail cell and we can call ourselves the Menendez brothers, except with 100 percent less murder. But I don't think he's going to.

Scott Galloway: Who wears the wig? And who starts dating, who starts eyeing the hot guy in the shower? That's what I want to know.

Kara Swisher: Boy, that guy's a tall drink of lemonade. Have you been watching that? He's very sexy.

Scott Galloway: He's very sexy. Now, the last thing, what do you think it means for content moderation in general?

Kara Swisher: They're not going to do it. They're tired. They're not going to do it anymore.

Scott Galloway: No, it's the fucking Wild West now. I mean, the lack of content moderation got him elected. Republicans are worried about the peaceful transfer of power and democracy. Thank you, misinformation.

Kara Swisher: Yep, exactly. They now know they don't have to do anything. And I think, again, we're going to be studying this in 10 years. The propaganda is such an important part of what happened here.

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

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. We're going to do wins today. Only wins. We're going to skip fails because there's a lot of them and focus on the positive. Why don't you go first?

Scott Galloway: So I have one about the election and one just more about economics. So I have two wins. I think one way to feel, if you're feeling bad about this, is—and I want to highlight—I think a lot of people should feel some consolation because I know so many people who just left it all on the field, so to speak. My friends Robert May, my partner at PropG Media, Catherine Dillon, her husband Jeffrey, Liz Plank showed up at a rally in Philadelphia. My friend Whitney Tilson. These are people who got on planes from L.A. or trains from D.C. They went to Philadelphia and started knocking on doors. And while I imagine they're devastated, they can feel like, "I showed up. I tried." I think there are so many people that really tried hard. So my win is people who left it on the field.

The other win is I really do believe that we're about to see disruption amongst local television stations who got hundreds of millions of dollars in spending—actually three to one from the Harris campaign towards the end—thinking that old people decide elections and they can find them all on local news, which I describe as a depiction of what stupid people did today. "Oh, two people in a car in a bad part of town got robbed today." You're going to see most of that money not even go to digital. It's going to go to podcast, Kara. This was the election of the manosphere, as brought to you by podcasters. And when you think about it, when's the last time we had a political ad? We haven't.

Kara Swisher: Right.

Scott Galloway: You're about to see a disruption in the local news broadcast television advertising market, and all of that money is going to go to podcasts. If you look at graphs of attention versus revenue, 20 years ago, the internet was a third of time and 8% of revenue, and newspapers were 8% of time and a third of revenue, and it flipped. Money always follows attention, and attention is skyrocketing. In 2025, we're going to see podcast revenue accelerate faster than TikTok, Meta, or Alphabet. And then in '26, we're going to see a massive disruption and transfer of advertising dollars from local news stations to podcasts, because that's where voters are hanging out.

Kara Swisher: This was no. Yeah. Amongst seniors. Yeah, they voted. And actually, interestingly enough, seniors was the only age group that went more Harris, where Harris actually picked up votes versus 2020. But what they're going to find is the swingiest of swing voters are young people. They're the ones that are most impressionable and most up for grabs. And guess what? Where's their medium? Podcast.

Scott Galloway: I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I was already talking to people who are like, "Well, here's what we're going to do. We're taking advantage of this and building our own." If there's a bro sphere, there's another sphere, right? That you can really do well on and motivate and excite people. And not a bubble, but really bring people together in a really interesting—I think it's an opportunity.

Kara Swisher: I've been thinking of podcast ideas all day. I agree with you.

Scott Galloway: In two years—

Kara Swisher: Do you have a second one?

Scott Galloway: In two years—22 months from now—our advertisers are not going to be ZipRecruiter or Athletic Greens or LinkedIn. We like them. We love them. It's going to be so-and-so candidate for senator, congress, or president. You watch. You're about to see billions of dollars flush into the system. Economics always ends up catching up to attention, and attention is skyrocketing. And not only that, the great white rhino of advertisers is the individual they no longer can reach. And that's a young, wealthy male. Where are they? Podcasts.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I'm just saying it doesn't have to be just bros. There's other spheres. The bro sphere isn't the only sphere. That's all I'm saying.

Scott Galloway: Profitee is 80% male. Pivot is 70%. Median household income, $150,000. That's called an advertiser's dream because those people are stupid and spend money on high margin products like watches and cars and supplements and all this crazy high margin shit. They're all on the demographic. The average viewer age on MSNBC is 70 years old. The average podcast listener is 34, which means for every person my age, there's someone who just became a voter.

Kara Swisher: Sure.

Scott Galloway: And those people spend a lot of money on high-margin, irrational products, which is Latin for "advertisers love those people." I think all the moons are lining up.

Kara Swisher: What you're telling me is you're going to turn into a Joe Rogan suddenly over the next couple of years, and I'll have to kill you, right?

Scott Galloway: Well, I hope we both turn into Joe Rogan in terms of our reach and our money. Reach is different than our attitude. You're talking to the guy who pulled his podcast down from Spotify because of vaccine misinformation.

Kara Swisher: I know, I know, I'm just watching. I have to watch you, because sometimes it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I've had several friends who've turned in ways I really can't abide, I have to say. So it's an invasion of the body snatchers. Don't fall asleep, Scott. Don't fall asleep.

Scott Galloway: What? You never saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Donald Sutherland, and the—

Kara Swisher: If you fall asleep, you become a snatched. You get snatched.

Scott Galloway: What was that name? That was one of my first crushes. Who was the female lead in that?

Kara Swisher: Oh, Brooke. Oh, very good. Brooke something.

Scott Galloway: Ah, we're not going to. She was amazing. What happened to her?

Kara Swisher: Like all female actresses, she hit 40 and couldn't find another job. She was amazing. Brooke Adams.

Scott Galloway: Brooke Adams. She was very good. Actually, Jeff Goldblum was in that. God, is that funny?

Kara Swisher: Was he? How?

Scott Galloway: Really? My guess is his agent called the director and got him in it.

Kara Swisher: Leonard Nimoy was in it. Oh, my gosh. Well, let's go back and watch that together, and then we'll wear our pajamas.

Kara Swisher: All right, so here's mine. I know everyone's feeling bad, and I do. And I wrote, as I said, a long thread. I was walking, and at least 50 people hugged me for my thread, which was fascinating to me. But one of the things—they're always—I got a lot of right-wing people like, "Now you see we're right." I'm like, "You're not that right. It was 50%." And they really want you to feel bad about feeling the way you do. Your opinions are just as good as anybody else's. If you have them, if you feel that abortion is important, if you feel that whatever you think is important is important, because it's what you think about it. And so don't give into the "now we have to understand them." They don't want to understand us either. And I don't mean not to get along, but everyone's going to try to bring you to heel now. And don't. We don't have to like it. You don't have to cooperate. I think a lot of what Trump was appealing to was rancor and selfishness. Fine. I get it. But you don't have to be easy. You can resist. You can say no. Don't feel the need to be nice. In fact, be disrespectful. They do it and it works for them. And I don't mean all the time. Be the person you are, and also lose people who tell you to accept this. If you are not on the same plane, lose them. I'm sorry. It's okay to feel angry, fed up, disappointed. It's required. And so I'm not going to—just like they don't apologize—I'm not apologizing. And so I feel like there's always moments where you can get together and understand and listen to each other 100 fucking percent, but you do not have to agree. You do not have to knuckle under. You just fight for what you believe in and listen to what they have and try to build coalitions in that regard. But this election said anything: we do not agree. So how do we figure out a way to get somewhere where we're all moving forward? That's my feeling. Thank you very much. That's my speech.

Scott Galloway: I like that. And just to add on to that, something also very important is that we talk about Brooke Adams' filmography. She was not only in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She was so good. She was in what I believe is one of the most underrated films from one of the greatest authors in history: Stephen King's The Dead Zone, starring Christopher Walken. That is it. And also Martin Sheen. That is a fantastic film. And a quick fun fact here: she is married to Tony Shalhoub of Monk fame. What an interesting couple.

Kara Swisher: What? Oh, my God. Brooke Adams. Wait, she is?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, they've been married for 32 years.

Kara Swisher: I just met her because he came up to me in Nantucket and said he loved the podcast.

Scott Galloway: Really?

Kara Swisher: Yes.

Scott Galloway: That guy's a real talent. He's really good.

Kara Swisher: Yes, the guy who was Monk. Yeah, and then he was on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Oh, my God. She was with him. I didn't know that. This is...

Scott Galloway: See, that's a victory for every guy. She was standing next to him. I didn't recognize her. That's a victory for every guy who's not that attractive, but is very talented and funny, who can get a very hot woman.

Kara Swisher: He is attractive. Not so.

Scott Galloway: Very hot woman.

Kara Swisher: He's totally attractive. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Then I actually met her and I didn't know it. This is nuts. What an interesting couple. I love you, Brooke Adams. Let me just say, I love you, Tony Shalhoub, too. Anyway, let's move on from the Brooke Adams love fest. Go back and watch her movies. They're great.

Kara Swisher: I want to also mention that on the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher, I spoke with two presidential historians today to get some perspective. It was really helpful to all of us as we try to anticipate what's ahead. One of those historians—

Scott Galloway: Oh, stop it.

Kara Swisher: No, these things do amazingly well on the—I'm sorry to tell you, Scott, they do well. Lindsay Chervinsky offered a helpful reminder of how people can take action. And then Grover Cleveland said to the Secretary of Interior... She works, she does George Washington, the other guy does Nixon. And let's listen. Quiet, Scott Galloway.

[Audio clip plays] Lindsay Chervinsky: There are still ways that even if Trump can't always be held accountable, the people around him can be, whether it is through the rule of law, through our court system, through public accountability. And we have to continue to try and use every mechanism of accountability possible, which is, I think, the legal side or the public side of the "don't obey in advance." But the best and most long-lasting way to combat authoritarianism is through accountability. And so we just have to keep trying, because the most pernicious thing will be if we do give up hope. So we cannot give up, and we have to keep trying to hold people to account. [End clip]

Kara Swisher: That's perfect. And the word you're looking for is—oh, no, you didn't. Anyway, it was a good interview. You should listen to it. We do an incredible role with those historians.

Scott Galloway: He also had a presidential historian on property markets, and I'll let you guess who it was. He cited the following fact about presidents from George Washington to George Bush: total deficits, $7 trillion. In four years with Donald Trump, $8 trillion. Guess who that presidential historian was?

Kara Swisher: Beschloss?

Scott Galloway: There he is. Anthony Scaramucci, who is shockingly knowledgeable about history.

Kara Swisher: He is. He is. He's a funny guy. I love that.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, smart, too. You know when you were gone in August, that show when we had him on did incredibly well by the way. He does well wherever he goes. He literally is the fan favorite of any podcast he goes on.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's very funny. I think people are expecting him not to be quite as sharp. I don't know why, but they do because of that time in the White House. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT. Before we go, I want to share a clip from Amazon's election night special with Brian Williams, where, as you mentioned, you made an appearance. Brian had some fun with a classic Scott Galloway catchphrase at the end of your segment, and I think our loyal listeners will enjoy. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays] Brian Williams: Those of you playing our home game, that was the first mention of champagne and cocaine for the evening, and the circle gets the square, it goes to Scott Galloway in London. Thanks for that. [End clip]

Kara Swisher: I didn't know you were going to do that. That's nice. Yes. Champagne and cocaine. Did you watch any of it on Amazon?

Scott Galloway: I did not.

Kara Swisher: Oh, it's really good. I still think CNN did the best job, but Amazon was really slick.

Scott Galloway: I went to sleep. I told you I went to sleep.

Kara Swisher: No, I didn't have the energy. No, but champagne and cocaine, that's the next four years. I think that kind of says it all.

Scott Galloway: Champagne and cocaine. Splashing the cash, flinging the bling. Champagne and cocaine.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I can't believe you have to look at that son of a bitch for four more years. The ridiculous hands, the tiny hands, the whole thing. I thought that was gone. Oh, it's not.

Scott Galloway: Okay. Here we are. Stuck in the middle with each other.

Kara Swisher: Stuck in the middle with each other. We have each other. We have each other to deal with small hands and bad makeup.

Kara Swisher: All right, we'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Driscoll. Ernie Jutat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Averio, and Dan Shulon. Nishat Karwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you 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.

Scott Galloway: Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems.

Kara Swisher: But sometimes it is.

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