Mamdani's Victory, Iran Nuclear Damage Dispute, and Fed Chair Succession

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Kara Swisher: I don't know, Scott. I'm going to just film it, and we're going to have to see. There might be a colonic that might happen.

Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I have decamped to Scott's apartment in New York again. Here I am.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, by the way, I don't know if you noticed, but I've changed the wireless passcode to "please leave soon."

Kara Swisher: No way.

Scott Galloway: Not until you move back, and I may still stay with you when you move back.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, Kara asked me yesterday where she should put her dirty laundry, and I said in her car on the way home. Kara, welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Just hands off the edibles of my granola and my creatine chewables. Other than that, everything's up for grabs.

Kara Swisher: I am going to use all of them. We're doing some filming here. It's going to be, I'm not going to tell us for what, for the secret.

Scott Galloway: Oh, great. I'm getting a location fee, ISM.

Kara Swisher: Yes, exactly. I'm going to a rave with Louis tonight.

Scott Galloway: That has got to be, you just brought the lame factor of that rave way up.

Kara Swisher: I'm excited. Dancing with my son. I'm sure you're excited. I love that. You and Louis are going to a rave?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, we're going to a rave. It's a health rave, the longevity rave. We're very excited.

Kara Swisher: Okay, so first off, what you're saying is it's not a rave. It's something not that cool that's decided to call itself a rave.

Scott Galloway: Cool. No, no, it's by the cool people who do the raves, the daybreak people.

Kara Swisher: The health raves? What does that mean?

Scott Galloway: I don't know, Scott. I'm going to just film it, and we're going to have to see.

Kara Swisher: You take mushrooms and get a colonic? What does that mean?

Scott Galloway: No drugs. No drugs. There might be a colonic. That might happen. There's ice baths. I don't know. Scott, I'm trying to live in the moment like you tell me to.

Kara Swisher: You're trying to be a good mom?

Scott Galloway: Not just that. Louis is excited. He's very excited. He's excited about a lot of things, including the mayoral race here in New York. But we've got a lot to get to today, including what Zoran Mamdani's mayoral primary win means for Democrats. And President Trump wants to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell early. Good luck with that. Also, all kinds of things are going on with Trump. He's real mad at the press for not doing his propaganda. Anyway, we'll also talk about who's in the running for that. But other things. So where are you, London? You're in London, right?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I'm in London. Yeah. I have a really nice life. I'm really blessed.

Kara Swisher: You do, except where are you not now right now? Where you want to be.

Scott Galloway: Where I want to be? In Venice.

Kara Swisher: You want to be in Venice. You still want to be in Venice. Did you see like...

Scott Galloway: Yeah, them coming in. Oh, it's so bad. It's such a bad look. Even though I like a wedding. I like a big, ridiculous wedding, but I got to tell you, it's like, oh, come on.

Kara Swisher: Although Kim Kardashian was wearing a band across her boobs, which I kind of liked.

Scott Galloway: I didn't see that. All of a sudden, I'm much more interested. Oprah is there already and stuff like that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. I wish you went.

Scott Galloway: I wish. I'm so sorry that I prevented you. I had, I think I had a shot. I was with some guys. I think if I pushed for it, I could have done it.

Kara Swisher: I think one of those guys wrote me and said, "I'm one of the guys that's going to the place."

Scott Galloway: Oh, really? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, he's like, I'm like, pictures quietly, just send them to us. That's all. No, this is a flex. Those guys, generally speaking, want to be my friend because they think they're going to win me over and occasionally they'll reach out to a third party and say, "I wouldn't mind grabbing drinks with Scott." And I'm like, fuck no.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. They all go through me. Have you ever noticed that? Everyone wants to meet Scott. But it's so, they all think that everyone's dying to like have dinner or drinks. I can't imagine a more boring group of people to hang out with. Bezos, yes, because he's in his midlife crisis. And has, you know, a hot woman who must have, just be magnetic in terms of her personality. But the other tech executives that like reach out to and say, "I'd like to get a group together to talk about technology." Yeah, no.

Scott Galloway: Ugh, my vision for technology. I'm like, oh my God.

Kara Swisher: I used to do that a lot back in the day. They'd have dinners, and there were always really good restaurants, so you were like, mmm.

Scott Galloway: Another manscape with a weed whacker.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, exactly. You know what? The good thing about you not going to that wedding is this is what I imagine happening. You go to the wedding, and Lauren falls in love with you.

Scott Galloway: Mmm. It could happen.

Kara Swisher: I think it'd be much more interesting if he fell in love with me.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think that's—

Kara Swisher: Man him up.

Scott Galloway: We take our honeymoon in Capri, and we're spotted rubbing lotion on each other. Wearing a spidrow.

Kara Swisher: Why does that make me happy? Why does that make me happy? All right. All right. We have to get to things. All right. We have to get to real things. First of all, President Trump is doubling down on his claim that the U.S. obliterated Iran's nuclear program. That's in spite of leaked intelligence reports saying the strikes only set Iran back by a few months. Now, these are early intelligence reports, let's be fair. And, you know, we definitely just, I don't know why he's not happy with "we did a lot of damage" and he did something bold, but he's not. He's railing against the New York Times. He's railing against CNN quite a bit, including his reporter, Natasha. I think it's Bertrand. He got testy when an NBC reporter asked about the report during a NATO press conference yesterday. But let's listen.

[Audio clip plays: Trump speaking at NATO press conference]

Trump: We're talking about something that took place three days ago. I understand that. The report was done two days ago. Wait a minute. Yes. They didn't see it. All they can do is take a guess. Now, if you take a look at the pictures, if you take a look how it's all blackened, you know, the fire and brimstone is all underground because it's granite and it's all underground. You don't show it. But even there, with all of that being said, the whole area for 75 yards around the hole where it hit is black with fire. Blackened. Blackened.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, then he had a fired up pig head excess. You're drunk. Step in to back him up. Let's play that.

[Audio clip plays: Pete Hegseth speaking]

Pete Hegseth: We've all seen plenty of leakers. And what do leakers do? They have agendas. And what do they do? Do they share the whole information or just the part that they want to introduce? And when they introduce that preliminary, a preliminary report that's deemed to be low, a low assessment, you know, a low assessment means low confidence in the data in that report. And why is there low confidence? Because all of the evidence of what was just bombed by 12, 30,000 pound bombs is buried under a mountain, devastated and obliterated. So if you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordow, you better get a big shovel and go really deep because Iran's nuclear program is obliterated.

Kara Swisher: It's not clear if it's obliterated. Anyway, Hegs has said the FBI is investigating the leak. The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, is now claiming there's credible evidence that Iran's nuclear program was severely damaged. Trump is also saying that U.S.-Iran talks will happen next week but doesn't think a formal deal is necessary after the strikes. Today, again, Pete Hegseth, who is just really so unqualified every time he gets up, was saying that we should celebrate pilots. I mean, we do. I go to Top Gun, Pete. I love Top Gun. I love when they hit the spot, and I love it. And he also was saying that the press should go along with propaganda because daddy needs it. It's very strange. All they were doing was reporting on things. And before we move on, before I want to get your thoughts on this, I need you also to weigh in on this. At the NATO summit, Trump was asked about his ex-clive-laden rant about Iran and Israel the other day, and NATO's Secretary General also had some thoughts. This is the daddy reference. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays: Trump speaking]

Trump: You know, they fight like hell. You can't stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes, then it's easier to stop them. And then daddy has to sometimes use strong language. You have to use strong language. Every once in a while you have to use a certain word. So daddy has to use strong...

Kara Swisher: Anyway, Scott, I'm going to call you daddy from now on. Thoughts on all of this, on Pete, on Trump, why he's so insistent about this and sort of losing ground for some reason, even though he was successful.

Scott Galloway: Well, a giant hole that's on fire that just, I think that's a pretty decent description of how I imagine my honeymoon with Jeff Bezos.

Kara Swisher: Ooh, that's bad. You're thinking of that. You can't get out of your head.

Scott Galloway: Daddy, speaking of daddy. I just think it'd be worth the photos. I don't think that would be, you want to talk about something that would make news. Seriously. And not only that, it'd be really good for, I wonder if we'd lose IBM as a sponsor. We get Amazon. We get Blue Orange.

Kara Swisher: Okay. So first off, perception around foreign policy sometimes is more important than actual kinetic power. And the reason we choose a civilian to head the Defense Department is they're supposed to make decisions to allocate resources correctly and ensure that our fighting machine doesn't become generals who just consistently roam the earth. And there's a reason we usually pick a civilian to be the secretary of defense. And in an operation like this, when you're up there saying, "no, no, it was great," you lose all fucking credibility. And what they should have is they should have someone up there with broad shoulders, a general, a man or a woman who has actually spent their life demonstrating character and excellence from the most competent organization in history, the U.S. military, in a very sober way, describing the operation. And then when they say and then when someone says there's reports that it's not as effective as it could have been to say, "well, we don't know. We won't know. Our preliminary reports are the following."

Kara Swisher: The general did try to do that. General Cain, Raisin Cain. They shut them out of the way because they're also.

Scott Galloway: Well, he was. He did not want to be there. He had that look on his face. But go ahead.

Kara Swisher: They're also anxious to say, "check out my prosthetic penis." I mean, these guys should be in the background. The president should have announced the attack and then let the pros, the people who actually executed this operation and who have a reputation for not lying and exaggerating. And Secretary Hegg says should be nowhere near a mic around this. This is not his job. They should have generals.

Kara Swisher: Is it ruining the thing? Because, you know, it's a successful thing to set them back by months. It's a successful thing to set them back by a year, to set them back. You know, there's reports the uranium was moved. It would be really nice to know. And trust me, I bet our allies will have a lot of intelligence on this. And that's who the intelligence we're going to have to rely on is not ours, which is astonishing. And, of course, they've moved Tulsi Gabbard out of the way because she's saying maybe not. Like she's caused, you know, a lot of problems because she's questioning the intelligence. But to not rely on our own intelligence and to insult it seems like a waste. It just weakens us. It also is a waste. He's couldn't he just be successful instead of being angry at like CNN and The New York Times?

Scott Galloway: Look, the victory here is that the president did show leadership. Absolutely. The president, who has a lot of critics within his own party about foreign interventions, took this action. That demonstrates leadership. It demonstrates strength. We are the only nation in the world that has these sci-fi-like B-2 bombers that we can fly from fucking Missouri to anywhere in the world to drop an ordinance that no one else has. And is it effective? Yeah, it was effective when anyone looked up or we saw photos of these B-2 bombers rolling in. In addition, it also demonstrates that we support Israel. It also demonstrates that our memory is long and our reach is far. All of those things are good for America. But to get up there and start exaggerating and with no real credible evidence. And then attacking the press for doing its job, which is not being a propaganda. It just reeks of weakness. It's like, OK, let's figure out a way. I do think Trump has actually, in many instances, good instincts. And then he goes about it and he decides to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And that's what they're doing here.

Kara Swisher: If a general had just gotten up there and said, "we won't know for a while what the true effectiveness of this was."

Scott Galloway: He did. He did. They just stepped all over him.

Kara Swisher: He did. Cain did that. So did, by the way, J.D. Vance, right? Like, they were doing the right things at the beginning except for Trump. They just don't know what he's going to do. He started cursing. He started making messages. And then because he's so obsessed with the media and especially media he calls losers is the ones he talks about all the time. It's sort of like the guy who broke up with you who can't stop talking about you. If they're such losers, Donald, stop talking about them. If it doesn't matter, stop talking about them. But it clearly does to him. What's interesting, though, to me is, let me read this. He calls them, he called the New York Times and CNN bad and sick people. And, of course, CNN is backing their reporters. So is the New York Times. But this is something, I think I told you, the New York Times is pushing back hard now. And I was told by someone there that that's what they're going to do now. They're sick of saying "we stand by our reporting." This is what they wrote, which I was really, it was very pointed. "Trump called this fake news, but he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce a preliminary assessment described in the report by the Times and others. So their statement was fake, not the Times reporting." I think this just, the press has had it with this nonsense. I'm glad. I'm glad they said it that way.

Scott Galloway: I think that what we call more progressive media that spends the money to do fact checking. And I think the Democratic Party need to become the organizations and not fucking around.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, we're not fucking around.

Scott Galloway: And to say, you know, as is often the case, when the data is true, they go to attacking the institution and not the reporting or the data. And this is nothing but additional evidence that, in fact, our reporting is entirely accurate. I mean, they should just start. I'm down for this. And I think AG, is that his name, should start hitting back and saying, "as is the pattern here."

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that statement was not an AG-like thing, which I'm kind of glad. He's finally, like, not just sticking up for his reporters. But in general, just say, "history will show that there's a pattern that the more serious and personal the attacks are, the more accurate the reporting ends up being." They did that around the Elon stuff too. Their reporter was allowed to tweet "this is nonsense," like especially when they called her a fat liar and all this other stuff.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. So I don't, you know, when Elon Musk went about saying, "well, you mean the organization that got Pulitzer for you know describing Russiagate?" Yeah, the one that also got 141 other Pulitzers. Yes, I know. So I fully embrace this. I am sick of Democrats and progressive media saying we're going to take the high road. No, fuck that.

Kara Swisher: I like a low road myself.

Scott Galloway: We like a low road. We're low roaders.

Kara Swisher: The low road. Since you're the marketing expert, from a marketing point of view, what would you do here if you were Trump? You already outlined it. Be quiet. Let the general get up and say it. And let victory just show itself because people, well, Americans don't support this, which is interesting. Polling doesn't. But let the results speak for themselves, right? Correct? That's what you're saying.

Scott Galloway: The most impressive people in boards and the most impressive leaders in a corporate sense are very measured and thoughtful and are the first to say, "I can't take credit for that" or "I don't know." I think, again, was it General Kane? General Kane. You know, these people deal with life and death and the implementation of lethal force. And so when they're asked questions, they take them very seriously. And they want a reputation for truth because they know that other people are willing to put their own sons and daughters in harm's way based on that they'll get truth back. And in a situation like this, Secretary Hacks has to be nowhere near a microphone. It should be Sofia Koppel at the Oscars, and that is chained to her desk at home. I don't know where I got that reference.

Kara Swisher: Well, he's going to keep him now because he's Mr. Defensive, even if he looks ridiculous. He's making Trump look ridiculous. You know who was a great secretary of defense? William Cohen. Can you imagine Secretary Cohen ever getting up there and trying to exaggerate the impact of a military attack? He would have his generals doing it. President Trump should have just won. We stand by our allies. Iran attaining a nuclear weapon is unacceptable in our eyes. That's it. Win. That's it. Win. Win, Trump. That's it. You win. And then a bunch of photos release a bunch of photos and a bunch of information. Blackened. Do you realize these B2s, these B2s took off from fucking Missouri. I know. And got to Iran. And he was saying their feelings were hurt. The pilots' feelings were hurt by the press.

Scott Galloway: The pilots don't give a fuck.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, they're fine. Top Gun. Sorry, my friends. They don't give a fuck. They're fine. They don't really care. Anyway, speaking of this other thing, President Trump is also having some trouble with his one big beautiful bill. He says no one goes on vacation until Congress delivers. He's sticking to that July 4th deadline. I don't know why people make deadlines. I don't like deadlines. I always miss them. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says voting is on track for the end of this week, though major parts of the bill are still being rewritten and Republicans are divided over key provisions, most of which surrounds Medicaid. They just arrested some people in wheelchairs today for protesting. Medicaid is one of the biggest sticking points with deficit hawks pushing for deeper cuts. And of course, it's a political nightmare for the Republicans. There's also GOP infighting over the provision that prohibits states from regulating AI during the next 10 years. Marjorie Taylor Greene brought this up. She's absolutely correct. Although it would be great to have a national bill to not create this much chaos. That said, states should be able to do that. I assume they'll get it passed, but will it be reconciled? I can't tell from the reporting whether. I assume they always end up passing these things. It's just whether it's going to be acceptable because a lot of people are speaking up. I'm talking only about the Republicans against it. And they keep not tapping it down, it seems like.

Scott Galloway: It's just so disappointing that there's not only, it's such a cult now, the Republican Party, and also there's such a lot of leadership in the Democratic Party. You would think in the olden times that Tip O'Neill would call and say, "okay, could we potentially wedge off 20 or 30 reasonable Republicans and say, all right, tell you what, we'll help you pass this thing. But we and we'll go even deeper on the cuts if you match us on revenue increases on taxes on, you know, our most fortunate and take the deficit down from three and a half trillion to one." I mean, you'd think there'd be there'd just be some people in the middle here that would reach across the aisle and say, "oh, here's an idea. Why don't we try and make ourselves really unpopular across the extremes on both sides?" But that just doesn't happen anymore.

Kara Swisher: So why should the Democrats help? Why should the Democrats help?

Scott Galloway: Well, because if this passes as is, it not only is a budget buster and imposed the greatest transfer of wealth in history, it's also basically a move towards autocracy. There's things in this bill including, I mean, there's just so much, so many terrible things in this bill. Nobody in the administration can be found in contempt of court so they can never subpoena them and force them to come testify. They're talking about putting up 150 million plus acres of national land for sale. I mean, there's just so much, there's so much ugly shit in this bill.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, there is. So, anyway. I can't see it not passing, but I mean, he's losing, I'm telling you, he's losing the step. He's losing a step. I don't think he has a stranglehold that everybody thinks he does. And I think there's a lot of signs of that, including yelling at CNN. Like, what a waste of his time to yell at CNN. You know, I just don't, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. We're not experts in this, but we'll see. And the AI thing should absolutely not pass. States should have the right to do that. And again, we should have a national bill, but we don't have a national bill on anything having to do with tech. Okay, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, how New York's mayoral primary could rewrite the playbook for Democrats.

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Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. It's being called the biggest upset in modern New York City history. I'm not sure about that by one Democratic strategist. Zoran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens, is poised to win the city's Democratic primary for mayor. His closest opponent, Andrew Cuomo, conceded Tuesday night pretty quickly. It was a blowout. Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, campaigned on New York's affordability crisis. It was very canny. He's a very canny guy. Proposing free buses and a $30 minimum wage. You must love that, Scott. And higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires and corporations. Young voters played a big role in this election with 25 to 34-year-olds, comprising the largest share of early voters, although he won in surprising places, including with Jewish voters. Mamdani now heads towards the general election this November, where he'll face current mayor Eric Adams and possibly Cuomo again, although Cuomo looks like is pulled out because a loser doesn't win. Cuomo is too smart to lose again if the former governor runs as an independent. He's able to, but others like Bill Ackman, as usual, because he's such a crank, thinks there should be a write-in candidate. He's losing his mind because he didn't see this coming because he's always wrong about everything to do with politics. He's a great investor, but otherwise he's an idiot. Let's listen to some of Mamdani's victory speech from Tuesday night.

[Audio clip plays: Zohran Mamdani speaking]

Zohran Mamdani: We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford. A city where they can do more than just struggle. And it's where the mayor will use their power to reject Donald Trump's fascism. To stop mass ICE agents from deporting our neighbors. and to govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party.

Kara Swisher: Really interesting candidate. I think even the Republicans acknowledge, and actually the smartest Republican, I know Bill Stepien was like, "don't try to dismiss him," but MAGA is melting down over the wind with Laura Loomer, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others launching xenophobic attacks. They're pretty grotesque. So was Cuomo, by the way, that ad he did. I don't think those work. But talk about this lessons because this guy could have been really stained by some of his previous tweets and worries about things he had said with Jewish voters but a lot of Jewish voters voted for him which is interesting although people I have had many people very upset by it at the same time I have to tell you both my sons were very excited and they zeroed in on the affordability part and about the sensible stuff that he was doing more than anything And also, he's a very attractive guy. He's great at social media. He sounds great. He's handsome, etc., etc. Scott, I'd love to hear. I didn't talk to you about this at all, so I'd love to hear your take.

Scott Galloway: This is a political earthquake, and I got to be honest, and this will piss off a lot of my friends. I think it's hard not to be somewhat inspired by this. And there's a lot of, you know, I personally, I couldn't help but feel a little bit inspired by some of it. I love a younger generation of voters pushing back on money in the establishment. I mean, Bloomberg gave $8 million to Cuomo. Dan Lowe, Bill Ackman, the Democratic political machine was run over by a populist younger movement. This was, and to a certain extent, it has echoes of the Trump campaign in terms of tactics focused on affordability and weaponized social media. So while he was on social media, Cuomo was running TV ads. But just to give you a sense for the difference in the campaigns, you know, look at their Instagram followings, look at the platforms they weaponized and how they went about it. It was polling just at 1% four and a half months ago. And just as I think that Trump got Carney and the Australian leader elected, I actually think Netanyahu got this guy elected. I think that so many I think Israel is so unpopular right now You talked about this last show the brand it feels brutal the brand feels brutal There's just a general sense that Israel are no longer the good guys or the bad guys and standing up to them and he tapped into that anger is a very effective strategy right now

Kara Swisher: Can I ask you, he didn't talk a lot about that which was interesting

Scott Galloway: Well, he tried to run from that stuff. He did, but he talked about affordability and he talked about the win-win wage. One of the ideas, which I don't know what I think about it, the city-run grocery stores. I was like, probably not, but great, kind of interesting idea. Everything, even though if I didn't agree with several of his things, I was like, I like the cut of your jib, like that you're actually thinking of kind of some interesting ideas and stuff.

Kara Swisher: Well, let's talk about some of his policies. So he wanted to talk about housing and he wants to talk about, okay, so fine, we have a housing problem, right?

Kara Swisher: One idea makes sense. Constructing 200,000 units of housing over 10 years, you would want to activate and unleash the private sector with tax subsidies and private housing construction. You would want to motivate them through tax subsidies such that more housing development got built. You want to do away with nimbyism and make it easier to build. At the same time, rent freezes do exactly the opposite. They're populist bullshit because all you do when you freeze rent is you suppress the desire in the amount of money that goes into new development and new housing. You suppress housing stock. And it's just a transfer of wealth from entrants that can't find a place because there's no new housing to the people who were fortunate enough to move into a rent-stabilized place 40 years ago. So it doesn't work.

Scott Galloway: Universal free child care, I think it's a great idea and it shows economic return. And I was happy to pay 13% taxes in New York when I lived there. And one of the reasons I was happy to do that was because, one, it's an amazing city to live in. And two, something that made me feel really good about this city is my son was speech delayed. And the state had a state-sponsored, funded program to get these really wonderful young, mostly women to come into our home and give my kid occupational therapy. And these things pay off, and they make people feel really good about government.

Kara Swisher: Now, quote, unquote, so you run grocery stores. That's a, let me think, what's the term? That's a fucking stupid idea. I get that. I get that. But go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Go ahead. Well, hold on. But just, I mean, this shit makes no sense. You want the customer service of the DMV with the merchandising of your produce by the IRS. Grocery stores, the one business you would not want the government in is grocery because it's a low margin business. It's local bodegas who are very good at what they do, mostly immigrants. This makes absolutely no sense.

Kara Swisher: Now, taxing the wealthy. Before you get to that one, can I just say there's some co-ops that work there. The idea is to get people who are poor better food, right? So that's a great idea. That's where I was digging. And there are certain co-ops that work really well. There's certain innovative things to do in that area. But I agree on the... They not run by the government.

Scott Galloway: No, but there a way the government can encourage say a food co-op or healthier food. But go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Well, you could do that. But if you want healthier food outcomes, you should just put more money in the hands of poor people so they can find their own food and endorse the grocers. Grocery stores operate at like razor-thin margins. They do. The notion that government's going to figure out how to do this better than anyone else is ridiculous. So minimum wage. Free bus, fine. I love $30 an hour minimum wage. I think New York should lead the way on that. I think it's a fantastic idea. You need to see studies around raising taxes on the wealthiest because what he's talking about is raising taxes 2% on people making over a certain amount of money. Those people would now have a tax rate, an effective tax rate, including federal, state, local, and this additional tax of about 52%. At some point, raising taxes actually does exactly the opposite. It reduces the tax rolls. In terms of, I was quite bothered, quite frankly, by what I feel were some, I won't say anti-Semitic, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but some anti-Israel positioning in his background that made me uncomfortable. Having said that, what I said to my friends last night in a group chat is, I don't really care what a mayor thinks about Israel. I want them to pick up the trash and operate the subway. And I don't think it's, sure, you want to look at their view on international affairs and New York punches above its weight class. But at the end of the day, it's an operational role. And I got to be honest, I love the idea of young people and a new generation of youth. And by the way, this is a form of revolution. This is young people saying, whatever you folks are doing, the establishment isn't working. And we're going, we're picking someone new. And he weaponized newer mediums. He was very good on staying on message and affordability. He's a very attractive candidate. I think who's more freaked out about this is not the GOP, but the Democratic establishment. As they should be.

Kara Swisher: Let me, before you, before we move on, on his statements, he did go a long way to try to fix that in a lot of ways. And I think one of the things he could do is be a lot, like, give him the minute to try to do something that brings people together, right? Don't assume that what he said as a Queens thing that he might, I think he does understand that he would be the mayor for all of New York. And what to me is interesting is, so you have someone like Daniel Lurie in San Francisco, who I wouldn't say is conservative, but he's much more centrist, right? He's not conservative. And this guy is this. One of the things I find exciting, whatever you think of this, is voters are speaking. And, you know, the minute, of course, this happened, my mom goes, I'm selling my apartment in New York as a socialist, because that's what's on Fox News on frigging like whatever. Whatever. It's so racist over there at Fox News. Can I just tell you, they were like, you know this Zohan movie? They're like, he's Zohan. I'm like, Zohan was an Israeli commando. And by the way, he rocked. Like, are you fucking idiots? It's all about rich people trying to manipulate an election and make people of color hate each other. Like, it was like, they just don't even understand their references, but fine. But of course, my mom immediately said, like, I'm going to sell my apartment, which she's not doing. And all I said to her is like, the voters decided what they wanted. Every time Trump wins, you say the voters decided what they wanted. Well, they did. And she's like, oh, that's a good point. The voters wanted this. It's not some young people being stupid. These are the voters. You complain about them voting. They vote the way they want to vote. So respect their vote. Whether it's San Francisco bringing in Lurie, whether it's whoever it is, it doesn't matter. This is their vote and they count. And the Democratic establishment trying to shove Cuomo down our throats, and that's a gross thing to think about, what a repulsive, like, thing they did here. Like, so cynical, so repulsive, and so not listening to voters who matter, who really matter.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, he's going to run up against some blocks there. So first off, it's not a fit of complete.

Kara Swisher: No.

Scott Galloway: There's, if you look at the numbers, I think there's about 4 million registered voters. He got about 400,000 votes. So he literally got 10% of the registered vote. There is an opportunity for Eric Adams, potentially, if enough people.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's got his own issues.

Scott Galloway: This is something, this was a real anomaly. But it's not, you know, the speculation sites are saying it's a 70% chance of winning right now in the general. But on the whole, look, America has to deal with the fact of the following, in my view. Young people have had it. Young people have said, okay, I see all of this prosperity. I see all of this obsession with wealth. I feel like every streaming media program, whether it's sirens or friends and neighbors and social media, is just wealth porn being rubbed in people's faces all fucking day long, where it's impossible to feel like, okay, I'm only making $150,000 a year and living in Brooklyn and I'm broke. And every day it's just being shoved in my face that I am failing and it is so goddamn expensive. And these rich guys are at the trough. And meanwhile, Bloomberg's giving $8 million to a candidate who resigned from office in disgrace. I gotta be honest, a lot of what this guy has said is deeply troubling to me. Having said that, I like a new generation of voters in a populist way, just rolling right fucking over wealthy people who think they can buy incumbency. I thought it was, you know, he is not my candidate. Some of his ideas make no sense and they will not get through the assembly or whoever the governing body is. But Cuomo, his ideas, he doesn't even live here. Like, he doesn't even live in New York, which is even worse. He was not a good candidate. A good candidate, I was supporting, you know, anyone I support means they're not going to win. I was supporting a guy named Whitney Tilson, who's just a blocking and tackling smart guy and a good man and good on the issues. This guy captured lightning in a bottle. I think young people are saying we're fed up. I think this guy absolutely weaponized social media. And the fact that someone can get this far on ideas, on sheer force of character, he was fucking genius. For the rent freeze thing, which by the way is a shitty idea, he jumped into the freezing water. You're not gonna see Cuomo do that. Did you see the halal, the $10 halal? These are the four bills that are sitting in the city council right now, which would give these vendors their own permits and make your halal more affordable. But Eric Adams hasn't said a single word about them. If you own the permit, then how much would you charge for the plate? $7. $8. $8. Would you rather pay $10 for a plate of halal or $8? $8. $8. I think $8 is the way to go. If I was the mayor, I'd be working with city council from day one to make halal $8 again. How would you taste? Tastes like $10, but it should be $8. That was fantastic. It was so smart way to talk about affordability. It was so substantive in the silliest way, but it was hysterically funny and so enjoyable.

Kara Swisher: Two very quick things that I'd love to get your thoughts on, then we've got to move on. But immigrants, there's a story right now. Immigrants are driving population growth across America. This guy feels like America, like where it's going. I don't care. You can hold on to your white America all you want, but it is not. That is not what's happening in our country. He appealed to a lot more people. He appealed to, the numbers are so interesting of who he appealed to. He wouldn't. The winner here, this is the one guy, I have to say, Brad Lander, who if the Democrats are serious about someone with experience, and sorry, The New York Times, if you were serious, you would have backed out Brad Lander, right? controller. Great consolation or whatever you call it, speech. What did he do? I have to tell you, he and they cross-referenced each other. He hugged Mamdani. He hugged him. They crossed, they crossed, said, vote for each other, you know, rank each other one and two, depending on what you want. Then he, and he backed him. He should put Lander in an office if he becomes, in some.

Scott Galloway: I'm sure he will. He will. Like deputy mayor, whatever. This guy took a risk. He's Jewish. He's like, I've talked to him. I don't think he, like, gave him that cover. I thought Brad Lander, and then he became exciting because he got arrested. He's interesting. He made Mamdani more safe for people who are worried. And Mamdani made Lander more interesting in some weird way. So I love that pair. I love that pairing of the two of them. It's an interesting peanut butter and chocolate.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah.

Scott Galloway: If it's a choice between, I actually like Andrew Cuomo. I met him on Bill Maher. I actually thought he seemed like a competent, decent man to me. I think he would have been a competent, decent mayor. But if the decision was between a candidate backed by the establishment, in my opinion, who looked at the mayor's mansion as rehab for his political reputation, such that in 18 to 24 months, he could enter into consensual hallucination with his staff and announce his run for presidency, which is, I think, exactly what he was planning. or a 33-year-old that energizes young people and brings some fresh new ideas, some of them naive, some of them won't work. I'm cool with the 33-year-old. I think this is somewhat inspiring. His viewpoint and some of his rhetoric around Israel, I find deeply offensive and disturbing. Having said that, I don't really care what a mayor thinks about that shit. And a lot of my friends will get angry, but that's not their role. The role is to make sure the subways are moving on time. Affordability, I'm all for it. Having said that, I left New York in 2011 because I couldn't afford to live there. I had two kids. I was working my ass off. I was making what I thought was a lot of money. And I remember saying to my partner, I'm sick of feeling middle class while I make all of this money. And we moved. I don't think anyone has a birthright to live in New York. Having said that, if there are programs to maintain the diversity and the viscosity and let ensure that young people continue to populate these great companies by creating, reducing the NIMBYism regulation, unleashing the private sector in terms of new housing development. I'm all for it. And the universal or, you know, effectively universal pre-K and $30 minimum wage to set a tone to inspire the rest of the nation, recognizing if you pay people $30 minimum wage, yeah, some places will go out of business, but on the whole, It'll be stimulative for the economy. I'm down for it. It is time. It is time for these fucking older Democrats to get on an ice flow and give some new people a shot. Let them do their dumb ideas. They're good ideas. They're fresh. They're perfect. Perfect was not on the menu. This guy was not perfect for me on a lot of levels. But I got to be I got to be honest. He's also a handsome man.

Kara Swisher: You also like a handsome man, don't you?

Scott Galloway: Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Yeah.

Kara Swisher: They just did a profile of his wife, who's also pretty cool.

Scott Galloway: But it's time for a new generation of leaders representing young people who, for the first time in our nation's history, aren't doing as well as their parents. It is time for the next—it is time to shed some skin.

Kara Swisher: We need to get on an ice floe, Scott.

Scott Galloway: It is time for the next—it is time for the next generation. So I hope that this guy appoints really talented, thoughtful people, that he takes some of the rhetoric down, and that he's more thoughtful about some of his economic plans.

Kara Swisher: Can I? The GOP is trying to make him the face of the Democratic Party. That shows how fucking old they are. That's the thing. I was like, be careful, my friends.

Scott Galloway: Oh, the Democrats should take notes on how this guy ran his campaign.

Kara Swisher: I know, but one of the things the GOP rushing to do this is not working with young people. I can tell you that. It's not. They can see with their eyes, right, what an interesting and attractive candidate this guy is. If they make him the face of the Democratic Party, they're going to lose everything because they're old, creaky men.

Scott Galloway: But just one additional piece of data, and I haven't reconciled what this means, but this was sort of champagne socialism. You realize that Cuomo beat Mondani by 13 points if they made less than 50 grand? The lower income segment broke very hard for Cuomo, and it was middle and upper income that broke for Mondani. I mean, it's very interesting what happened here and how it's going to impact national politics. But the takeaway I get is that it is younger people are done and they're ready for new faces and they're weaponizing new mediums. And I think the best thing this kid could do if he gets through the general is immediately publicly listen to and meet with Bloomberg and meet with Jewish leaders and focus on blocking and tackling and everyday things that impact everyday Americans and our everyday New Yorkers. Shows he can work.

Kara Swisher: This is this idea with Sarah McBride. There's all these very exciting candidates. Imperfect allies. Imperfect allies. That's the way to go. I love that term. I use that a lot. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Trump already considering Fed chair replacements.

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Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back with more news. Let's go through these quick. President Trump reportedly wants to name a Fed chair Jerome Powell's replacement as early as September, October. Powell's term runs for another 11 months, a transition period typically lasts just three to four months. Trump's already on it. Listen to a clip of him at the NATO summit responding to a question about interviewing candidates.

Trump: I know within three or four people who are all going to pick. I mean, he goes out pretty soon, fortunately, because I think he's terrible.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, the year is not too bad, Trump. You can't force him out. The president's probably considering several candidates, including former Fed Governor Kevin Morsh and World Bank President David Malpass. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is reportedly also being pitched by allies very quickly. Why is he doing this?

Scott Galloway: Well, he just wants to neuter him and he wants the governors to have a bigger say. But Chairman Powell will go down in—

Kara Swisher: One of the greatest.

Scott Galloway: economic professors and economic theory will constantly cite Jerome Powell as somebody who was a steady hand. And the next Democratic president will give him the National Medal of Freedom and it'll be well-deserved.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I agree. There we have it. Well, Trump, again, weakness on Trump's behalf, I feel like. He can't have everything he wants, so he throws a little hissy. He's doing a lot of hissies lately. Hissies aren't a good look for an old man, by the way. Another one, the FTC has agreed to approve the merger of advertising giants Omnicom and Interpublic Group after the companies agreed not to collude on politically motivated ad boycotts because, you know, we don't love the First Amendment anymore. While the $13.5 billion merger will still allow the company's clients to choose from whether they want to advertise on certain platforms, which is their right, by the way. It's kind of so stupid that they had to agree to this dumb thing. Speaking of which, Liberal Advocacy Organization Media Matters has sued the FTC claiming the agency waged a campaign of retribution on behalf of President Trump and Elon Musk. The agency started investigating media matters last month over whether it illegally colluded with other groups to boycott advertising on X. Again, I'm glad they did that. I think, you know, it's really kind of grotesque that they aren't letting advertisers decide where they, even if they're talking together. Who cares? It's the First Amendment. I don't know what else to say about these two cases. You may have some thoughts about Omnicom and Interpublic doing is they just had to kind of do it just to get something approved, I assume.

Scott Galloway: Omnicom and IPG tying up, it's literally the second lamest wedding of the weekend. I mean, these are, the reality is, and I'm a can, and I, they're unimportant companies.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: They, Palantir will lose or gain the market cap of these companies in the next week. That's soaring, yeah. They're just not, they're a shadow of themselves. The conglomerate model no longer works. One and a half percent of GDP goes to marketing. And it's all every year. More and more of it goes to the guys we talk more about. And these folks, the fact that the FTC wanted to get in the way of this merger was insane. These guys, this is about survival. These guys need to consolidate, cut back office, do some spins. Figure AI out. It's tactical and not that important, but it's interesting. Kublai-C has actually done a better job than Omnicom, IPG, or WPP by embracing technology. They have Epsilon. They have Sapient. They've done actually a pretty good job. And now their market cap is worth more than I think the other three combined. But this is an industry that we talk about as if it's important, and it's not. It employs a decent number of people. The ad industry played a really important role in the advancement of women. It was one of the initial industries to have female CEOs, Shelley Lazarus. The character that Peggy plays in Mad Men was actually a really important woman. It was one of the industries that figured out and elevated women to their natural ability as opposed to, well, let me put it this way. The glass ceiling was still there, but it was higher in the communications industry. It's been an important industry for the United States, but these companies need to consolidate just to survive. The idea of, I can't imagine a worse job than being a salesperson for X right now.

Kara Swisher: Well, speaking of which, what do you think about this idea that the FDC is, this guy who runs the FDC is such a clown. It's just ridiculous. He's like an errand boy for Trump, from Daddy Trump. Not for Trump, for Musk. Musk's hands is so far up his ass, if he opens his mouth, you can see Elon's palm right now. The notion that you are, the notion that you are, what about that black hole on fire? Come visit us at our wedding. If I was on a honeymoon with Jeff Bezos, you would absolutely show up. I have no doubt. Okay. Anyways, it's insane.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: You're saying free speech is your ability to say things, but it's not free speech when you decide you don't want to advertise on a platform. Yeah. They're allowed to. I don't care if they have lunch and all decide to do it together. Who cares? You know, Linda, Linda Iaccarino, make a better platform. Don't have a shitty platform. Elon, sell better cars. Sell better cars. Perhaps you will do well. Otherwise, you know, step off letting advertisers do what they want. And by the way, they're already, as you say, suffering. They should do whatever it takes to do well.

Scott Galloway: Correct? Right? Well, okay. So the actual law is a boycott would only be illegal if the companies involved colluded with each other to obtain lower prices. And that's not what they're doing. No, they're just like, this is a shitty platform. They're basically saying as a service to their advertisers, this is not a safe place. You need to be careful here. And until they make it more brand safe, you shouldn't advertise here. That is entirely legal.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Anyway, one interesting case, though, I have to say, I was really struck by both Metta and Anthropic struck legal winds against the book authors this week. The two companies faced similar suits. In both cases, federal judge ruled that the training of AI models on copyrighted books was fair use and transformative. However, both judges noted the case were limited in scope. The judge in Metta's case said the plaintiffs, which included Sarah Silverman, quote, made the wrong arguments and failed to prove that copying harmed the market for authors. And then Sam Altman on my friend Casey Newton and Kevin Roos' podcast, Hard Fork, pushed back really hard on The New York Times and saying, I like The New York Times, but they're wrong about this. So there's some real aggression here on these legal wins. I'd love to know what you thought about this, too. It's super, copyright is super complex. And I guess one judge said, if you buy the book, you've done enough. If you actually buy the book instead of steal it, I guess.

Scott Galloway: I was disappointed and surprised. And I thought, okay, we've said for a while, this is a moment in time where creators need to really circle the wagons around their IP and at least participate in some of the extraordinary shareholder gains that this industry is garnering by not actually creating content, but crawling content and then using machine to offer it up in interesting ways. And so this, to me, was disappointing and surprising. And I don't understand the mechanics of the legal ruling, but I would have hoped that they would have pushed back and said, you know, I was hoping that there'd just be more respect for IP, because at some point, this just reminds me very much of back to the old days when Google figured out a way to crawl data and give the content providers two cents by sending them traffic they couldn't monetize. and they got 98 cents on the dollar for curating information in a really interesting way that other people had had created if you look at all of the models here it's just all moving towards an asset-like model where you don't create content you you crawl it slice it dice it serve it and at some point that's going to be bad for the overall economy when there's just no money in the business of fact checking and content creation and anyways i was disappointed to see this ruling. What do you think?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I need to learn more about it. Like, I want to understand it. I want to understand it because if they are able to do this, it's a real, it's a real problem for authors. There's a great piece, if people want to read in The Atlantic this week about AI upending publishing, which I thought was really smart. So I want, I need to, we need to learn more about this because it's an area we should know more about. But yeah, I was surprised by both these rulings, but they're doing little jigs over at Meta, I guess. But it's not over. I'll tell you that. It's not over for OpenAI. It's not over for any of them in terms of legal struggles they'll have a little bit. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's hear your prediction. What is your prediction?

Scott Galloway: I went back and looked through the headlines, kind of the few days following 9/11 or our entry into Iraq or Afghanistan. And other than the Bin Laden raid, where the headlines ended up being quite accurate in the first 24, 48, and 72 hours, in every other instance, what comes out six or 12 months later is that what came out 24 hours later was just not that accurate.

Scott Galloway: So my prediction isn't that interesting. It's just that everything we think we know about these attacks in Iran, we don't know. And also, I have never felt a lack of certainty or confidence in the information coming out of our intelligence community and out of the White House, because it feels as if their priorities aren't giving the American public the truth, but just signaling macho.

Scott Galloway: I don't know if we're going to find out that all of the nuclear material was actually transported out. That's the worrisome thing. That's the one they're sort of trying to punt on, because I think that's what happened. If you look at a lot of the headlines, they won't say anything about whether the stuff was moved.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I interviewed this really interesting guy from the Carnegie Endowment, Kareem Sajipur, I believe his name is. Military intervention in the Middle East, the only thing you know about it is it has just so many unintended consequences. And this whole thing feels so performative on behalf of... We attack, it feels very performative. Iran responds in what feels like a very performative way. So it's kind of a non-prediction prediction. Whatever you think happened, the only thing I'm fairly certain on is that's not what happened.

Scott Galloway: Do you feel like you're in a Mission Impossible movie where the uranium is on the move and Ethan Hunt has to get it?

Kara Swisher: I feel like I'm in the Truman Show.

Scott Galloway: Oh, see, I feel like Ethan Hunt's on the hunt for the uranium that's somewhere in a tiny ball that he just puts in his pocket. But think about this situation. It's an 86-year-old theocrat who knows he could be killed at any moment in a bunker. They've had to shut down the internet because they can't communicate with each other. And at the same time, we have Netanyahu who is running to stay out of prison. He's decided the way he does that is to be on a constant war footing, pulverizing and creating what is arguably at this point unnecessary death and destruction in Gaza, which likely played a role in the mayoral election in New York.

Kara Swisher: I know.

Scott Galloway: Or the fact that we probably wouldn't have gone into Iran to bomb these nuclear sites had the Ukrainian army not been so successful against defanging Russia, who would have still been in Syria and created more...

Kara Swisher: He was going to do that in 24 hours, Scott. I mean...

Scott Galloway: 24 hours. The game theory here and the scenarios are just so crazy. And what I wonder — I know the military does this — is there anyone with a big whiteboard in the Defense Department or Secretary Hegseth that is actually gaming all of this out? Do they actually think through this stuff?

Kara Swisher: He couldn't play like war. Actually, that wasn't good.

Kara Swisher: I'll do another quick one. I'll repeat the prediction. Reed Hastings going on the board of Anthropic. We are going to have an Anthropic Netflix joint venture that will compete with TikTok.

Scott Galloway: I like it. I like it. Yeah, I saw some other analysts note that TikTok has got to reach down into the YouTube and TikTok categories. They've got to start really... The growth isn't going to come from their regular business, but they have to really do both YouTube and small stuff. And I thought that was... I was like, oh, Scott said that already. I already knew that. Anyway, good one.

Kara Swisher: All right. 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.

Kara Swisher: Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week, this week on Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of the Eurasia Group, about Iran, the role President Trump plays, and what could come next on the global stage. Let's listen to a clip.

[Clip plays]

Ian Bremmer: The backdrop on Trump is he's not gotten his deals done. He's really itching to make something happen. And he wants to show that he can win on the international stage. And Iran suddenly was where he was putting a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of attention. So that's the background for him. The backdrop of Iran is that they have lost more influence, both regionally and globally, than pretty much anybody over the last year.

Scott Galloway: Interesting, except for Elon Musk.

Kara Swisher: Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channels. We have a lot of YouTube channels and we cross-promote each other on all of them, whether it's The Prof G Show, On with Kara Swisher, or Pivot, which is a fantastic channel. We've got lots of stuff in there for you. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and Jatot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miel Saverio, Dan Chalon, and Kate Gallagher. Yashak Kruas, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Scott Galloway: The wedding is going to span three days, Kara, because when you're worth $215 billion, why have a reception when you can have a small economic summit?

Kara Swisher: That's no good. Venice is hosting Bezos, where locals protest over tourism.

Scott Galloway: It's like complaining about traffic while driving a monster truck to the complaint meeting. All right, on that, bye, everybody. See you next week.