The Newsom-Trump Beef Heats Up

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Scott Galloway: Yeah, it's true. You're not a journalist, but you're something. I don't know what you are.

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

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: I am about to be in a city that's having a military parade, Scott. I am wishing I had gotten out of town. We'll talk about that in a minute. Are you in L.A.?

Scott Galloway: I'm in D.C.

Kara Swisher: No, I'm not L.A. There's nothing. I have all the tanks here. That's where the actual insurrection is going on. That's what I call it. Literally, why doesn't he just stay at home and masturbate to the apprentice martial law episode or something? I don't know. I don't know. Can you believe it? A military parade. It's insane. The last time I was recalling one was during the Bush administration, the first Bush administration. It was after something with Iraq. I don't know. It was something. But he had a lot of military people and it was very disconcerting. And it wasn't like this gang here. It's like there's a lot here. It's sort of like North Korea plus old Russia kind of stuff. And the only thing I'll remember is a stealth bomber going down the mall in Washington from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. And it was terrifying. I was like, this is not America, like the stealth bomber, even though it was cool and enormous, but it was just chilling to the entire crowd.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I mean, we don't want to put tanks on the ground in Ukraine as Russian troops pour over the border. But a guy wants to roll out tanks as he, you know, shitposts or tweets from a golf cart in orthopedic shoes. I mean, the whole thing is just such cosplaying masculinity. It's so weird. It's so.

Kara Swisher: It is. It's so sad. It keeps every one of these things. I'm thinking, how small is this? Well, anyway. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Elon groveling and Trump and China making nice for now. And just for everyone to know, next week, Scott and I will be together in France again. Is that right? Our annual trip to France. They tried to keep to us out with the impenetrable Maginot Line.

Scott Galloway: Do you have a French accent? Was that your French accent? I used to do amazing accents. Now it sounds like a dead language that twins speak to each other. I could do an amazing Glaswegian accent.

Kara Swisher: You could.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. You could even do Pepe Le Pew, that famous date rapist, Pepe Le Pew. You could do that.

Kara Swisher: You didn't love Pepe Le Pew? Oh, my God. It's so bad when you watch it now. It's literally Harvey Weinstein of cartoons. It really is. You're like, go back and look at it. All right. Between Pepe Le Pew, I Dream of Jeannie, and what was the other really sexist thing I was watching all the time? Oh, my God. Three's Company. Oh, The Price is Right. And now a new car and a woman in a bathing suit showing you the new car. That one was tame compared to like, oh, they're all terrible. I liked I Dream of Jeannie. I hate to say it, but it was really sexist with that outfit. Yes, master. Jeannie, go to your bottle. Is it? I'm literally the only one. Everyone should just appreciate how far I've come. How far I have come.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. Yeah. Why? Why have you come? You liked I Dream of Jeannie?

Kara Swisher: I liked I Dream of Jeannie. I still like I Dream of Jeannie. I'm sorry, Barbara Eaton Ross.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I wouldn't. But watching, I'm not exaggerating. I watched two hours a day at I Dream of Jeannie during my formative years. And I'm not sure that was the right baseline level for how you interact with women.

Kara Swisher: I did the same thing. That's why we love each other. I loved I Dream of Jeannie. I watched it all the time.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I bet you did, you little lesbian.

Kara Swisher: I know, my little lesbian. Yeah, exactly.

Scott Galloway: I think essentially Jeff Bezos is this, is I Dream of Jeannie. He finds a 2,000-year-old magical woman with Botox and instead of freeing her, makes her his roommate. It's Jeff Bezos. It's literally Jeff Bezos is I Dream of Jeannie.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, kids, look at I Dream of Jeannie and watch it sometime. It's really, it's a classic. Anyway, we've got a lot to get through today. As I said, Elon groveling and Trump in China making nice for now. But there's a lot going on, including the protests against Trump administration's immigration raids are now spreading nationwide. Nice job, Trump. Trump is claiming that Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated without National Guard deployment, which is a flat out lie. Talk to anybody in Los Angeles. It's ridiculous. Unless you're watching Fox News and then it's true. He also deployed 700 Marines in the L.A. area against the objections of every single group of people, most of whom don't get along. In recent days, Trump has floated, invoking the Insurrection Act, a law that grants the president the authority to deploy the military on U.S. soil. It's a big move. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has gotten a lot of attention and is doing quite a good job pushing back, spoke out about Trump's actions in a televised address on Tuesday calling this a perilous moment for democracy. Let's listen to some of that speech.

Gavin Newsom (audio clip): California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. He's taking a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball to our founding fathers historic project. Three co-equal branches of independent government. There are no longer any checks and balances. Congress is nowhere to be found. Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility. The rule of law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don.

Kara Swisher: Well done, Gavin. I have to say, he's taken every opportunity here to show himself off, which he is. More protests are expected this weekend, tied to the massive military parade in D.C. that's official, as I noted, celebrating the Army's 250th birthday, but just so happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday, which will call attention to the fact that the man is really old. The No Kings protests are set to be the largest nationwide mobilization since Trump took office. These look like astonishing, actually. They're all over the place. Trump is already warning that any protesters at the parade will be met with very big force, whatever that is. They are allowed to protest, by the way, FYI. But many of the No Kings people are saying, don't protest in D.C. and give them a reason to attack us. But they are pretty much nationwide. First, let's talk about Newsom. And then let me just also add that Tom Cotton, as usual, popped up like a bad penny with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled Send in the Troops for Real, playing off his infamous New York Times op-ed in 2020. We're recording this ahead of Trump's military parade, which is on Saturday. Talk a little bit about Newsom, Trump, these protests. It feels very North Korean to me, but your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: I think Newsom has basically identified himself right now. I think he's the big winner in all of this. I think he kind of accidentally has become the spokesperson for the pushback. So I think one of the silver linings here is that we now have what is kind of a de facto leader of the Democratic Party. And I think it's essentially Governor Newsom leads the fourth largest economy in the world. It's a net giver in terms of federal tax income for all the problems California has, it's actually on most metrics doing really well. Whether it's the center of the newest technology in the world, more people are moving back to California now, and California has more billionaires than any other state. And these are people with options for all the shitposting these techno-libertarians like to do about California. They could move anywhere in the world and they decide to stay in, see above California. And so he-

Kara Swisher: FYI, Scott, they're all back, just so you know.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, you've been saying that for a while. You said there was going to be a boomerang, and you were right. Because of AI, especially. Go ahead. So, look, and anyone who has driven up Highway 1 or checked out the surfers or Zuma Beach or been to the Hollywood Bowl or been in the desert, sunset in the desert, or been to Carmel or Yosemite. It's a stunning state.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's arguably the most beautiful country in the world. It just happens to be a state within the United States. And it offers the best universities, best technology.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, he has become sort of overnight kind of the spokesperson for or the leader of the Democratic Party. The bad news here is that I think a lot of these protesters are playing into Trump's hands. And that is you can't tell people how to protest. But when you see images, so for example, if you could give the protesters, if the protesters are generally trying to help their own cause, and that is say, look, a lot of us have been here for 10 years. It's one thing if you want to deport criminals. But if you're deporting people, if you're rounding up people at a Home Depot that have paid their taxes for 20 years and then going to their schools and their churches. I don't think most people are on board with that.

Kara Swisher: No, they're not. According to polling, not at all.

Scott Galloway: But go ahead. But in my opinion, they hurt their own cause when they show up with more Mexican flags than American flags. And I understand what they're doing. But keep in mind, a lot of Trump supporters and a lot of moderates, when they see protesters with Mexican flags, they think invasion. And the things that really hurt this protest, in my mind, and there's nothing you can do about it because it's free speech, when someone shows up with a Palestinian flag and a mask, what people see is terrorism. So, and unfortunately, the media will cover those limited instances, which are 0.01% of these protests, as opposed to covering a really thoughtful civil protest with signs. And that's what most of this is. And just to show you how incredibly asinine this is, how the snake is eating its own tail, is that who is the National Guard that's been pulled or deployed or activated? A lot of them are cops. A lot of them are people who work in law enforcement. And a lot of them are in this division called the Rattlesnakes that Governor Newsom uses for fire reclamation or clearing out brush. And then they get called up to the National Guard. But during the day, if they get called up to be police officers or if the LAPD gets called up. The LAPD is being deployed. Additional LAPD forces are being deployed to where the National Guard is because the National Guard's presence increases hostilities and likelihoods of violence.

Kara Swisher: Right. Which is why the police department is like, get the fuck out of here. Like, we're handling it. The LAPD has to be deployed to protect the National Guard, who is creating problems in dissent and agita where there doesn't need to be any.

Scott Galloway: I do think that is sinking into people. They're like, what are they doing here? And especially in areas, I think the protests, I get it. They're going to play the picture of the burning Waymo over and over again. The flags don't look good.

Kara Swisher: But I think this weekend will be interesting because I think this No Kings thing, it could be really effective. because I was just looking at some of the stuff and Amanda was pointing out to me, like they have 20 different No Kings events in Maine, like and they're very oversubscribed. They think a lot of people are going to show up. So if there's a peaceful show of support, I think Americans do like that.

Scott Galloway: Agreed. But that's not what's getting the media right now. And the Republicans have tried to weaponize protesting, right? They're trying to say protesting is insurrection. when in fact, of course, because they're the most critical group on the planet, you know, the real insurrection was, of course, that attack on the Capitol. And so when it suits them, they say protests are dangerous. When it suits them, they say they're patriotic tourist visits or whatever they call it.

Kara Swisher: I think they continue. I think Penny seems to be dropping with a lot more people, I think, than you think. That it's like, what's going on?

Scott Galloway: I hope so. I really do, because I think that at the end of the day, This is, I mean, first off, let's go to some historical analogies here, right? Kent State, right? The Ohio National Guard hopped up on authority in bad intel, basically killed four kids protesting the Vietnam War. And the governor called in troops to, quote unquote, restore order, right? That sound familiar? He didn't restore anything. He radicalized a generation and permanently scarred the American psyche. The best analogy here is Hitler in the 30s, the Reichstag fire decree, and that is he wanted to consolidate power. So when an autocrat wants to consolidate power, essentially Hitler didn't invade Poland to consolidate power. He invaded civil liberties.

Kara Swisher: Yes, he did.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. And he and what the playbook here is you use the threat of chaos to invoke emergency powers and suspend basic rights and criminalize dissent. And that's exactly what's going on here. And this is essentially President Trump is lighting a match and kind of pointing at the smoke, so to speak.

Kara Swisher: Which is why I do think there's a lot more pushback than you. I think there's a lot of pushback. Every Democratic governor is now prepared as seeing his playbook or trying to handle this in a different way. I think he's just incompetent at it. Now, I know, again, you don't have to be competent to do this. You can be clottish and idiotic. But to me, I mean, the question is, which message we'll get through? And I do think Newsom has been an effective messenger, finally, right? And so it's a question of messaging. We've been trying to get out of crime. Also, every time he speaks, he goes, we've worked to remove criminals, immigrants, from our state. We do it all the time. And but these are these there was images today of ICE people chasing farm workers across a field. This is not this is weird to people, especially employers. It's weird. You know, it starts to hit businesses because of because Steve Miller can't find enough immigrants. It's a similar reminds me a little of Doge. They didn't really find as much. Right. They didn't find as much trouble there. They have to go after law abiding people who are here illegally who are paying taxes. I feel like which of the dueling messages is going to work is, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. When ICE has to go to a Home Depot, a church or a school. And a field. And a field where people are picking our crops. They were chasing them across the field. They were picking like avocados, whatever the heck they were picking. But it's a larger point. And that is, are these the people we should be kicking out? I mean, are these churchgoing people working at Home Depot picking your crops? Are those really the people you want out? And so, like, I hope you're right.

Scott Galloway: If I could, you can't manage or procure or manicure First Amendment speech. But if I had any advice, if I wanted to say, I've struggled my whole life with the difference between being right and being effective. And I think civil protest against, you know, the No Kings movement, it's very powerful. They're right. Where they lose all effectiveness and play into the enemy's hands is when they show up with masks, Palestinian flags, and Mexican flags. Bring the fucking American flags and be civil and make it impossible. I remember once you said to me, I always used to say very provocative things, and all of these things people were attacking me on Twitter And you said something You said Scott don give them anything And right now I worry sometimes the protesters And I give you an example I mean I really Machiavellian If I were part of this Trump, MAGA, weird, fucked up Stephen Miller movement, I'd send out 100 people with Palestinian flags and masks to try and cause trouble.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I'm sure, yeah. Yes, I get it. To invoke an overreaction. They would do exactly what they claim other people do, the false flags and all the nonsense. And to give people the impression that these people on the left are out of fucking control. and get your anger glands going such that. I don't think they're competent enough to do that. I don't think. I think they are not competent, actually. More American flags, less masks. I would agree. But I do think this has not been a protest that's given them enough stuff. Like the George Floyd ones. I think they're disappointed at how civil it is. I know. They don't have enough stuff. And if this no king seems bigger than this military parade, it's a dueling messages here. So one of the things that doesn't help the Trump people, there's new reporting of this incredible piece on ProPublica on Trump's favorite autocrats, President Bukele of El Salvador. A U.S. investigation found that Bukele colluded with MS-13. Of course he did, even paying the gangs for votes, according to ProPublica. And despite his crime-fighting reputation, Bukele has his top aides blocking extraditions of MS-13 leaders to the U.S. This guy is working hand in glove. So U.S. money is going to pay MS-13 people. This piece is astonishing. And of course, no surprise whatsoever. This guy is such a sleazy. He presents sleazy and he is sleazy. And the way he's gotten into, you know, this is like the plot of a Harrison Ford movie of a, you know, a Clancy, a Tom Clancy thing where the alleged good guy crime fighter is like up and up in the grill of drug dealers. and other people. So this piece is really not great for Trump because it looks like Trump is paying for MS-13 leaders. I don't even think that'll rise to the top. I don't know. I think it has a little minute. I sent it to a lot of people I know from El Salvador. I'm like, you might want to read this. Because it looks like he's not pushing back crime. He's just, like, he's getting, one of the things in the story is he's getting people, like there was a lot of crime in the streets and so there'd be dead bodies on the streets And when MS-13 is doing at his behest is burying them. So it's, you know, it's sort of, I don't know, this guy is, I think this guy is going to be eventually cooked.

Scott Galloway: I mean, what I was trying to do is I try and step back from the, you know, force, if you will, or get outside the matrix. I think the biggest takeaway is, I think this is all going to calm down. I think to your point, I think the administration realized, no, this isn't working as well as we'd hoped. One, I think the big takeaways here are that, I think to your point, a lot of states are going to prepare for this. This has created, I think, a bit of a fascist indigestion. I do think more and more people are like, wow, is this really—I mean, all of these emergency, fake emergency orders to violate people's rights, it seems like it's going really far. Two, I do think that Newsom is now kind of the de facto party leader. But the biggest thing is that it will be a two-week distraction from thoughtful, robust discussion about around this tax bill, which is really will have much more impact on the nation than those.

Kara Swisher: Absolutely. But let me just say, and these polls that are coming out, the Quinnipiac poll that show very bad polling for Trump on immigration, he's underwater on every issue, including the bill, right? Including Medicaid cuts, including immigration. I thought he was still positive on immigration. I thought that was the one thing he still had a net positive on. It's not. He is way down. And we'll see how the rest of them, but there's several polls where people are, including what's more interesting is obviously Democrats are going to be against all this stuff. But Republicans are particularly irked. And they were irked by the Elon thing, too. That seemed to set them off. And so this polling is interesting. is he's not, it doesn't give him strength with going into this bill, because polling is showing that people don't like it, don't like the bill itself. And so I do think at some point, the Republican members of Congress are going to look very carefully at these polls. And if Trump is not as strong as he seems, it'll take some shine off of him, I think.

Scott Galloway: I think it absolutely does. Because projection of strength when polling is showing lack of strength, this to me a problem.

Kara Swisher: Speaking of lack of anything, Trump says the U.S. and China have a trade deal again. It's essentially the old deal, which going back to zero, he posted on True Social, the deal is done, pending final approval for both him and President Xi. It's such nonsense. According to Trump, China will resume shipments of rare earth minerals, though the Wall Street Journal records China put a six-month limit on those export licenses. The U.S. will back some of the export restrictions and scrap proposed visa limits on Chinese students. More taco. but tariffs will remain. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods will now total 55%, while Chinese tariffs on American products are at 10%. We're back. I feel like we're back at square one. It's a surprise. No one, of course, also that Trump is highly likely to push back his July 8th deadline to reach trade deals, according to Treasury Secretary Beth sent. This is like spinning wheels. It's like and you're back exactly where you started, essentially.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, that's been our prediction all along that after all of this nonsense, after this erosion and brand equity of the U.S., after creating a brand association of toxic uncertainty, we're going to end up kind of where we were before the tariffs. I would argue we may even be a little bit worse off.

Kara Swisher: Worse off because the U.S. brand is broken.

Scott Galloway: Well, but even on straight empirical terms, because I think China has recognized they have a very strong hand because of their, of all things, their rare earth mineral magnets, which I guess are key to automakers.

Kara Swisher: They are key to a lot of people. A lot of company. And they kind of have a monopoly on. And again, the calculus these guys just haven't been able to do is they look at both sides of the equation and who is bigger or where the sum is greater. But what they forget is that it's a different scale because China will starve people. You know, we freak out when our Netflix goes down for 30 minutes. It's just their tolerance for pain is much greater than ours. and their leadership's ability or willingness to impose pain for national interests are just, you know, it's just such a different system. We say to our companies, you know, our companies that donate money to PACs, who get people nominated because of gerrymandering. So essentially you have kind of corporate profits sort of are the most, at this point, are the most influential thing. America's run for profit, you know, China's run for power, and that is they decide what would be best, according to the CCP, would be best for the long-term interests of China, according to them. And for them, the number one thing is we maintain power. But it's different in kind of the long-term thinking, if you will. It's much more on China's side because they're not worried about quarterly earnings. They're not worried about BYD hitting its numbers this quarter for fear that BYD isn't going to give money to the CCP because basically all the money BYD has is in the CCP's...

Scott Galloway: Control.

Kara Swisher: Control. Yeah, control. You know what he should have just done is settled the situation in Gaza and settled the situation in Ukraine. He'd get his famous Nobel Prize, right? Like, that's all he had to do. And shut the fuck up. Instead of all this manic, he confuses, there's an expression I use with people. I use it when I was a manager and I'm not a manager anymore. But that people that confuse activity with productivity, right? Like people that are manic and move around a lot, they look like they're doing things. It's sort of like, look busy, Jesus is coming kind of thing. This guy confuses activity with productivity. And none of this is productive whatsoever. And it makes us look stupider. And it gives an enormous amount of tells to all kinds of people, whether it's Europeans or Chinese or whoever we're dealing with. Everyone can tell what's going to happen here. You know, we're world's worst poker player. of all time. Like, really, the sucker, when you don't know who the sucker in the room is, it is, as it's turned out, Trump. But it just, I find this just ridiculous waste of our time and not good for the U.S. economy.

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Elon's caving continues. What a surprise.

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Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. Elon Musk says he regrets some, only some, of his recent posts. He didn't say which ones about President Trump writing in an ex-post at 3 a.m. this week that, quote, they went too far, although he didn't exactly say which posts or what he meant and which ones. The public groveling comes after a private phone call with Elon reaching out to Trump late Monday, According to the New York Times, Vice President J.D. Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles were reportedly the peacemakers pushing Elon to repair his relation with Trump. When asked about Elon's post, Trump told the New York Post, I thought it was very nice that he did that. I don't know what to say. It's just I don't think he can hold on after if Trump does some things he doesn't like. I think he'll have another 3 a.m. something else happening. But we'll see. He's trying to turn his attention to Tesla, hyping the robo-taxi launch in Austin this next week. He says it could slide because Tesla is being super paranoid about safety. Also, we'll talk about this advertising thing in a second, but talk about this apology. I mean, it's just, Trump's never letting him back. That's what I read from it. And Susie Wiles has played this beautifully in jacking this guy out of the picture. And by the way, speaking of polling, his polling is even worse than Trump's.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I think right now he looks like a dog roaming around with one of those domes. It's like, okay. I'm going to give you one of those. I've just been neutered. And I look stupid and I'm upset and depressed. I think he's just walking around with his dog dome right now. The president is more powerful than Elon. And I think he was under the impression that I'm invincible. I'm Rocketman. I'm Ironman. and he gets into a fight. It's a giant fucking distraction. He's not going to get anywhere near the West Lawn again unless it's highly catered and manicured. And I just thought it was so funny listening to all these Fox people talk about how sad it was the fight was. And they're like, they don't seem to be worried about Ukraine or Gaza. They just don't. But they're just so like heartbroken over the breakup of Musk and Trump. They all turned on Musk in a second after being his biggest cheerleaders, which was hysterical to see.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Again, another, I don't know. I know. It's sad. Another distraction. Who cares? Yeah. And his robo-taxi thing. I mean, it's incredible how many people are using Waymo, even though some of them got destroyed in Los Angeles. But we'll see if he catches up. You're not going to the launch event?

Kara Swisher: I mean, I was looking at it last night. 2015, he said it was going to be two years. And then every year since 2016, he said self-driving is going to come within the- Every interview I've ever done with him, he's like, "Well, next year when we have full self-driving-" It's going to come within the year. One of my interviews was in a lawsuit where he lied about it, right? And then he said the interview was fake. It was just crazy. He said it so many times. And it got comical after a while. It's like, "Oh, this year? This year? Is it going to be this year?" And of course, we'll see. I'm sure they'll get them out on the streets because other people are deploying them, so he can just copy them. But I feel like, I don't think this is going to be the winning move for him.

Kara Swisher: And also, for people who don't know, the Optimus robot thing is the other thing. They're trying to do a Tesla and the person who ran it just left. There's all these people leaving Tesla. I think it's in a spiral. Well, he needs, it's going to be interesting because he has a launch event, which they delayed another couple of weeks. It's being done in a geofenced area of Austin to try and control it. But even he said Tesla is either going to be worth a lot more with self-autonomous and Kathy Woods out there saying that autonomous is the future and putting a $1,000 price target on Tesla, or he said, or it's going to be worth next to zero.

Kara Swisher: And if you were to value Tesla as just an automobile company and say, all right, that looks like they are losing slash lost the autonomous race. And you valued every Tesla at the same market cap as BYD, which is generous because BYD is doing better and it seems to have a better car for less money. But if you gave Tesla the benefit of the doubt and said, OK, it's at least a BYD like brand and gave them the same market cap per vehicle that BYD commands, it would mean that Tesla stock would decline by 95%. It's such a brand destruction. You know, I honestly, Scott, when I see them on the street, I don't let them in. I don't know why. I just hate the brand now. And I like the brand. I really did like the Tesla brand. But I just don't like people in them. And I know that's unfair. I feel like a jerk for doing that.

Kara Swisher: You know, first time in a while I saw the Cybertruck in D.C. There were a bunch of them here at the beginning of the Trump era. And I saw one and I hadn't seen one in a while. And having seen it not in a while, I was like, "Oh, what a terrible, who didn't stop him and say, you can't do this? You cannot release this truck."

Scott Galloway: Yeah, but just some compensation for that is it's good to know that right now there are more National Guard troops and Marines in L.A. than there are stationed in Syria or Iraq combined. That's correct. I mean, talk about, if you're the president, for me it always comes back to management. What is a manager supposed to do? You're supposed to deploy capital to a greater return than your competitive set. And this is how he is deploying the military capital. He's taking it down in Syria and Iraq. He's not using his sway and power to force Israel to announce a multinational Arab force into Gaza and stop the destruction there. He's not figuring out a bipartisan legislation which he could get to put more teeth into the sanctions against Russia to get them to the table. He's sending in the National Guard to fucking Paramount Boulevard, to like Culver City. I mean he does not know how to allocate capital. I just don't.

Scott Galloway: And at the end of the day, the president folks who you want as a president is someone you don't hear about. And it's just a very good manager. And yeah, and knows how to allocate more capital than any capital allocator in history. And this guy is just a terrible capital allocator. He never did. Come on. He was such a shitty business person.

Kara Swisher: One of the things that my favorite part of, we'll go back to this LA thing, is all these people posting pictures of like having lunch in LA and like, "It's terrible here." There is a lot of AI slop, by the way. I grew up in LA. I've texted all my friends and I said, "What's going on there? How is it?" And they're like, "You're watching the same thing I am." That's not, I mean, granted, a lot of my friends are pretty privileged. They're not living in downtown LA, but we haven't seen anything.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I have friends all over LA and they're like, "This is fucking ridiculous." But anyway, there's a lot of AI slop out there showing much worse than it is. It's just not true. A lot of the imagery that's being used. And Fox, of course, it's Armageddon there. I feel like they're using clips from that movie, "Escape from L.A.," or something like that.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, the second thing, this is interesting, because we're headed off to France for Con Lions. And it's the, or is it Con Leon? I don't know. It's called Can. I know it's called Can. Can. Can Lions. Whatever. Can Lions. We're going to France. Underpants. And advertising is the big deal here. But this was an interesting story. And I don't know if Linda Yaccarina is going to be there, but I hope not to see her. Elon Musk X has made a habit of threatening advertisers with legal actions. I love that. "Advertise with us or we'll sue your ass." X is going to use threats of lawsuits. This is a Wall Street Journal story. It's really interesting. Everybody I've heard this from a lot of people. So to secure at least six large advertisers that pressure campaigns targeted advertisers like Amazon, Verizon, Pinterest, Ralph Lauren, including some of the illegally, including accusing of illegally colluding in an ad boycott after Musk took over the platform and the threats were an empty. Pinterest declined to increase ad spending on X and found itself added to the ad boycott suit, which they're going to lose. And as the world goes these days, the FTC is investigating whether antitrust laws were violated by coordinated boycotts of advertisers. So I think this is probably going to go away. What in the actual fuck? You have to take my ads if I don't think it's a safe place. I'm sure they've tried to make safety improvements on that platform, but it's not working. It's not a safe place to advertise so easily. It's so clearly not a safe place to advertise. What do you think about this? This is nuts.

Scott Galloway: I mean, I know very little about Exxon. I got off it two years ago, but NBC did a study and they found that over 150 verified premium accounts, I guess that's the blue check ones, have all posted or answered or amplified pro-Nazi content. And I think the easiest way to get fired in media is to buy ads on X. Because if you buy ads on X, it's like going to work for the mob. There's no getting out. It's like you're not allowed to leave. And what basically is happening here is there's a non-zero probability. If you begin advertising on X, if you decide to stop, you might end up in a lawsuit. They might sue you. I can't think that's a good business strategy.

Scott Galloway: I can't imagine how hard it must be to be, generally speaking, ad salespeople that end up at Cannes. They're either former athletes or hot women, because that's who media buyers want to hang out with. And they're generally like 105 IQ, 135 EQ people. They're the fraternity rush chairman. They weren't the president. They weren't scholars. They're super social, super likable, nice people. And they make good money. Their colleagues hate them because they're the most overcompensated relative to their IQ and their work ethic, but they're really attractive and they're nice people to hang out with. That job at X must be the worst job in the world right now.

Kara Swisher: 100. Threatening them. They don't like being threatened.

Scott Galloway: Well, and I imagine most of the salespeople at X are not threatening people. They're probably just trying to sell fucking ear cleaner ads, whatever it is. They're doing their best to get L'Oreal to test again on this platform that doesn't work. And then I would imagine a lot of advertisers who have no shortage of places to spend their precious ad dollars are like, "Boss, why would I advertise with you? Is someone going to call me and threaten to sue me if I decide to pause my campaign?" Right, which they did. I don't need that shit.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I think, listen, Linda Yaccarino used to have a great reputation in speaking of this cadre of people. She's never going to work in this business again. Does she need to, though? My guess is they're not dumb. He probably promised her enough IQ money. But you know how that works with him. People who work for him don't always end up in the best place. But it must be, just realistically, Kara, he's been able to attract so many talented people to run different companies for him. I don't believe that his compensation system must be very generous.

Scott Galloway: Possibly. Well, I've heard different things. I've heard mixed things. A lot of people couldn't get out fast enough and then they didn't get what they were paid. He does a combination of things. In this case, it is an embarrassment that someone who was a well-regarded advertising person is resorting to lawsuits in order to sell ads. And in a paranoid fashion, I've heard from lots of people that she truly believes that there was a conspiracy because she's in that world. She's sort of a Trumper and everything else. But it's just it's an embarrassment, Linda. You used to be, I worked with her. She was good. This is an embarrassment. And she should be ashamed of herself, what she's doing.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, she was good. She was really, she was the top one and, or one of the top people. She worked at NBC, is that right?

Scott Galloway: She did. I worked with her and she was, you know, she was an ad person, right? You know, that type.

Kara Swisher: I sure do.

Scott Galloway: And good at it. Those people I hang out with, I like them.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, and good at it. But this is just, you have covered yourself in shame. And let me tell you, all your old friends say that to me. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about OpenAI's Google deal.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back with more news. OpenAI plans to use Google Cloud Service to meet its computing needs. The deal doesn't replace OpenAI's need for Microsoft's Azure, which used to be the company's exclusive partner. Google is not yet delivering compute to OpenAI, but the deal was reportedly signed last night. It's important. They need more compute. In a similar story, Facebook is working with Scale AI, this very talented guy who's the founder of it, in trying to reboot their AI. The Lama stuff wasn't going as well as Mark Zuckerberg expected, and he's now shook the trees there and is redoing it, which is good. He's good that way to do those things.

Kara Swisher: And on the AI news front, OpenAI has delayed the release of its first open model in years, which is really expected this month. but it's pulling away. Even I've talked to Meta people and other people and they're like, OpenAI is pulling away in terms of features, constant features. So it's still a real race going on here. Google's extended voluntary buyouts, by the way, to US employees in multiple divisions, cost-cutting measures to help fund for AI spending. And they're all rejiggering. And even at Google, there's new people. They're reassessing who should be running this and what their focus should be, each of these companies. But they're all doing a lot. And this new AI research lab that Meta is doing is going to be dedicated to pursuing super intelligence. There's just a lot going on in the sector.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I thought that both announcements, the announcement that OpenAI was going to work with Google, the Google Cloud, kind of blew my mind because I would have thought that Microsoft would have captured all of that business. And I don't know if it's a falling out and OpenAI wanting to diversify their compute supply chain or if, according to Microsoft, Microsoft is saying we just don't even have enough given how amazing and how dominant OpenAI is and we need more than one source of compute. It just kind of blew my mind when I heard that.

Scott Galloway: The other thing that I thought was really interesting is that Google is now a newspaper company. I remember at the New York Times, we were constantly sending out letters saying a voluntary buyout. Google just sent out voluntary buyout letters to a ton of people and basically saying that these are the jobs that are most vulnerable to AI. And typically the way it waterfalls is that, all right, we offer you a buyout. And if you don't take this buyout of X, if you get fired in three months, you only get 0.5X. Now, the problem with these types of buyouts is the people, the best people leave. And the way you usually do these buyouts is you go to your top 10% and you say, "FYI, you're on the inside. we're doing a buyout, buyout slash layoff, trying to encourage people to leave. But you're doing really well here. You're about to get promoted. Just ignore the letter." That's the smart kind of buyout move is you go to the people who don't want to leave.

Scott Galloway: The other thing they're doing is everyone talks about quiet quitting. The new quiet firing is back to work mandates. And if you'll notice on the same day, Google announced a return to work mandate because they know they'll lose 10, 20, 30% of people who got really used to walking their dog in Prospect Park every afternoon. And so a lot of people will leave. So, but what's interesting is Google, which has got the greatest concentration of intellectual, of IP around AI, has real insight into the world where the economy and jobs have said AI is going to eliminate a lot of these jobs.

Kara Swisher: Which we've heard from a lot of companies, you know. We've heard from a lot, even when we're together, we were with, I forget who it was, Diller or someone else. He was talking about it. All these companies have been talking about this and are on the front end. I think it's actually a good thing that Google does this. I think it's a good thing that Mark, everyone was sort of writing, "Oh, Meta's AI thing got shook up." I'm like, good. They're doing it quickly, right? They're adding and subtracting people. Mark is a going for it kind of guy, right? He always like, "Meta's not working, gone," that kind of thing. And that's his superpower, I think, is his control. And speaking of good managers, he is a good manager. And so it's interesting that people look at it as a bad thing. I don't think any of this is a bad thing. I think it shows that people are sort of adjusting as they're extending, if that makes sense.

Scott Galloway: Yep. Yep.

Kara Swisher: You know, it makes sense to do this. And the more these companies do this, the stronger they're going to be. But I do pretty much everyone at the other companies I've been talking to a lot of these other companies do acknowledge that that OpenAI has been running away with it in terms of features moving faster, getting things done. Obviously, one of the worries at Meta is that ChatGPT has become the Kleenex, right? There's like Google became the word for search that ChatGPT is now the word for this. And so can you catch up if one company represents, you know, that's what people think of when they think of AI. From a marketing point of view, it's an interesting moment, I think.

Scott Galloway: I agree. I have nothing to add.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but I mean, it depends on how important it will be to them. When have you heard that from me?

Scott Galloway: I know. Yeah, they're the Kleenex.

Kara Swisher: All right, lastly, these two interesting little stories, which I thought we should talk about very briefly. ABC News has parted ways with senior and national correspondent Terry Moran after he called President Trump and Stephen Miller "world-class haters" on X. If you remember, Moran was the one who did that testy MS-13 interview with Trump who kept pretending a Photoshop thing was real. The network announced it would not renew Moran's contract after a 28-year stint calling the X-Post a clear violation of policies. As a reminder, ABC paid $60 million to settle a case over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos last year. Moran seems okay. He's already told followers. He did a really delightful video. It'll be on Substack shortly. He's sort of taking it well. Any thoughts on this?

Scott Galloway: He shouldn't have posted that, largely because he was a beat reporter and was covering the White House. He probably, even if he thought that, he should have kept it to himself. He could have done it in a different way by pointing to polls or things they've done or videos or other people talking about it. He shouldn't have done that.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but Dan Rather and Peter Jennings did much worse. But when the market was booming, they didn't fire people for this. They just called them in and said, "Hey, boss, sex would be a grownup. Don't do this again."

Scott Galloway: So he wasn't fired by ABC. He was fired by Alphabet and Meta, who are sucking so much oxygen out of the room of cable ad-supported news that these guys are looking for reasons to fire people. And I think this is, quite frankly, I think this is bullshit. I don't think this is how you treat people. The guy worked there 28 years. He was the kind of guy that in my mind sort of did the work and was good at what he did. So what you do is you call him in and you say, "You know what, you made life hard for us. Business sucks. You need to announce that." I don't know Terry. I mean, I know Terry. I don't know him well. I think he was looking for his next gig. ABC needs to cut costs. There's a way they could have done this without publicly shaming the guy and pretending to have fucking virtue.

Scott Galloway: If the company was going, if the company's revenues were increasing 10 or 15% a year, they would have called him in and said, "Boss, you can't do this again." He would have said, "Fine." And they would have wink, wink, see at the country club. But now they're all looking to cut costs. So they pretend to be virtuous and have these journalistic standards. If Terry had been anchoring a news program where they had more and more opioid-induced constipation ads that were increasing the ad rates faster than inflation, they would have found all-

Kara Swisher: Sky Rizzy. It's Sky Rizzy is the ask, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: But they, Mark Zuckerberg fired him, not ABC. ABC is looking for any reason it can to lay off people and then pretend they're journalists. Meanwhile, they're about to get fucked in the ass by, in a bad way, not the pleasurable way, by a fascist. And bend the knee like every other media company that's scared to death of this guy right now trying to stay out of his crosshairs. So, yeah, fine. when people work for you for 28 years, they're given do-overs.

Kara Swisher: I agree. Scott, I think he's a talented bride, but he did put himself in a, given the history here recently, not a smart move on his part. I agree. He should have been just taken off for a little while, talked to, and then he would have, I would have had him say. Remember when Dan Rather walked off set and CBS went to black for, what was it, six minutes?

Scott Galloway: Yes, I remember. He left the air.

Kara Swisher: But they found excuses to keep Big Dan around. Until he did that lawsuit that didn't work out so well. They definitely.

Scott Galloway: I agree. I agree. When I saw it, I was like, "Oh, no, no, no." All these companies talk about how we're a family and a team. You don't need a family or a team when you're doing well. You need them when you fuck up. They should have treated him. He was there 28 years doing the work. You show the guy a little bit more grace. And if at the first false move that you fuck up, you get ceremoniously drawn and quartered, guess what? All of us are going to be unceremoniously fired at some point.

Kara Swisher: Well, except now he's not because he's on his own. I'm like, "Welcome to the do whatever the fuck you want." I hope so. I hope he does well.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I think he will. What's his Substack? Let's promote it. Do you know what it's called?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to bring him on Scott Free August.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I like that. Oh, that's a great idea. Troublemakers, bringing in Scaramucci. I'm making troublemakers for you. I really like Terry because more than anything, he's very handsome. He's very handsome. He's a handsome man.

Kara Swisher: In any case, I agree with you. Given this environment, I mean, he shouldn't have done it. He should have known. Oh, ABC, you're so righteous. No, here's $10 million, dear fascist, dear leader. Oh, ABC, good for you, Bobby Iger. You're a man of principles.

Scott Galloway: Here's the thing. I have never thought of anywhere I worked as my family. Have you?

Kara Swisher: I never had been under that delusion.

Scott Galloway: You have a much more romantic version of companies, don't you?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, but my companies are smaller and I get very strong paternal reward from my companies because it's a bunch of young people. So I get very, I'm very rapacious the first year or two years. I'm like, "You got it. This is like the Navy SEALs. Anyone can try out, but most of you aren't going to be here in a year." But the people I've worked with, I mean, you know my people. I've been working with my people for like 10, 20 years. I had 20 years of the same people working for code. I get it. I get that. And I never would have treated them like this. But it's a really interesting thing is that a lot of these, I kind of would rather the Google thing. Like, okay, it's not working. We're shifting. It sort of feels cleaner to me in a lot of ways. And not be offended by it. But Terry Moran is a very talented broadcaster. And we wish him incredible wealth and health and whatever the heck. And don't feel bad, Terry. Don't worry about it. Fuck them if they can't take a joke. Anyway, you'll like it better on the outside. It's much more fun.

Scott Galloway: That's right. Come on in. The water's fine. Independent, independent.

Kara Swisher: Well, you're an independent journalist. Independent like whatever it is I do.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. You're going to enjoy it. It's fun.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's true. You're not a journalist, but you're something. I don't know what you are.

Scott Galloway: I'm something. You're a turducken. You're a turducken of some sort. I'm not alien from Close Encounter. It's like we don't understand him, but we think he's nice.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. In other Disney news, this is interesting, though. Disney and Universal have sued AI image generator MidJourney, which is a, people really don't like MidJourney for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges MidJourney helped itself to countless copyrighted works to train some of its software while news organizations, record leaders, and others have filed similar suits. This marks the first suit by a major Hollywood studio. This is a good move on their part, MidJourney, just like this, you know, doing shit with Mickey is not cool for whatever. Mickey's out of, maybe he's out of copyright, but I think it's parts of Mickey is. But what do you think about this?

Scott Galloway: When I was in the fraternity, one of my fraternity brothers or one of my close friends was the head of campus events at UCLA or involvement campus events. And he ran this ad that showed for Simba, they were doing a screening of the Lion King and showed Mickey Mouse riding Simba in the Daily Bruin. And we got a call from, I think it was Disney's lawyer saying, "Hi, just FYI, you'll be served a subpoena. We wanted to give you some forward notices of courtesy, but you're not allowed to do this." And I'm thinking I can solve every problem. And so of course we did like three bong loads. And then I said, "I know Michael Ovitz was president of our fraternity. He was president of ZBT UCLA. We'll call him. We know these powerful people. I know how to solve this, right?" I think I can fix any problem. Total, total arrogant douchebag, American male. So, and I'm like, but first we need to get high. So we call the lawyer and, and, and we say, "Look, we, we apologize. This was clearly wrong. We won't do it again, but we were fraternity brothers with Michael Ovitz" thinking that would carry real weight. And, and, um, we won't do it again. And we apologize. We're just, you know, were just a bunch of college kids. And the general counsel was like, "Oh, my daughter goes to UCLA. And we know her, we had a nice conversation, da-da-da." He was like, "Anyways, guys," he goes back to the lawsuit. He's like, "Guys, I'll see you in court. You don't fuck with the mouse." And then he hung up.

Kara Swisher: And what happened? You took it down, right?

Scott Galloway: And here's the bottom line. The best companies usually invest a lot, have good people, and they're also rapacious about the defense of our IP. And as I go full circle for my fraternity in this situation, this is a moment for content creators to absolutely rally together and not do one-off deals, but to get someone really mean and really angry and a lot of law firms and charge everyone a certain amount of money and go after all these guys and say, "Okay, if we see you're crawling our books, our content, our songs, our speeches, anything, we're coming for you." And you gathered all, similar to what the artists do around the rights labels, where they say you can, and then we'll license it to you. We're going to make a lot of money or you guys are making a lot of money. That's fine. If you want to use all of Penguin Portfolio Random House's archive of every single book they have, fine. And then we're going to figure out a deal with our authors. We're going to do this for all artists. By the way, I literally met my favorite artists last night. We'll come back to that because I know you're dying to talk more about me. But this is a moment. We passed that moment about 20 years ago, letting Google crawl our shit, and now it's too late. This is that moment in AI. All of these guys should be binding together. Everyone from Axel Springer to News Corp to the Royal Academy of Arts to everyone that has intellectual property should be-

Kara Swisher: That's what Diller said a year ago, a year and a half ago.

Scott Galloway: A hundred percent. And I said it a year and a month ago. Thank you very much. So, but they need one, they need to speak with one voice and they need to be very aggressive in the pushback here. All these little efforts pushing back. Reddit filed a lawsuit last week. They all need to come together.

Kara Swisher: They do. You're a hundred percent right. A hundred percent right. Well, we'll see if they do. So the mouse, we like this move, which you did to Terry. Not great. You didn't want to hear about my favorite artist?

Scott Galloway: Oh, who's your favorite artist? Very quickly. So I went to this very, very fancy event last night. I went to the Royal Academy of Arts, like summer gala last night. You know, I don't like to go out.

Kara Swisher: To do our spats?

Scott Galloway: I was forced to go out. And I only own one piece of art. I don't buy wine or art because all my friends, as they got rich, started buying art and wine. And I'm like, "I'm just not that guy." But someone very important to me when I was in Istanbul with them took me to see this exhibition and said, "I know you'll just love this guy," even though he knows I'm not into art. And it was a guy named Grayson Perry. And his art, he has, do you know that big orange, you probably know better than I do, you know that big orange sketch etching I have in my living room? And it's called "Map of a Politician." And I just fell in love with it. And then this person for my birthday bought it for me. And it was the only piece of art I own. And he's a really interesting dude.

Kara Swisher: Did you buy any?

Scott Galloway: Oh, no, I didn't. No, I literally own one. I own two pieces. I own one piece of art and one photograph. The piece of art makes me feel closer to the person who bought it for me, and I love it. I have a photograph of Otto Frank and returning to where his family was. And whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself, I just go look at that photograph. But anyways, he was there last night, and I got to meet him. And that was really exciting. He's a really lovely man. But anyways, I got to meet the artist of the one piece of art I own.

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's nice. That's simply Scott. You are just evolving into such a lesbian. It's fantastic.

Scott Galloway: By the time I'm 90, I'm going to be like, I'm going to have manners. I'm going to be able to read the room on my 100th birthday. The journey of Scott Galloway.

Kara Swisher: There you go. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

[Ad Break]

Kara Swisher: He's a human boy. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Scott Galloway: I sort of had kid gloves around this, but well, that one prediction. What was that noise? Do that noise again. What is that? Why did you just make that noise?

Kara Swisher: I don't know. I have a prostate exam later today and I'm just practicing. Okay. Elbows on the table. Elbows on the table. That's all I know.

Scott Galloway: Run your hands through my hair. Yeah. Yeah. I think Gavin Newsom is now coming out of this the de facto leader of the Democratic Party. And that was a void the size of the frickin' Grand Canyon. As you've noted. Now, should he declare first presidency? I was thinking this. I almost texted him and said, "You should declare first presidency right now." He has. But should he actually and then start making pronouncements?

Scott Galloway: No, probably not yet because it would warrant it. But he's already—the people who should declare presidency are the people that nobody knows, because they'll get a ton of—he is already the de facto candidate by virtue of what's happened this week. And he should start. And he's also—and I said this a few months ago—him bringing Charlie Kirk on and Newt Gingrich on his podcast, as much as the Taliban of the left hates that, that was the right move.

Kara Swisher: It was just a bad interview, Scott. I don't have a problem with him having it on. He just didn't do a good job. But go ahead.

Scott Galloway: I think he's the de facto leader of the Democratic Party right now coming out of this, too.

Kara Swisher: Can I ask? Can I add something? Who do you think if he was running? I was thinking if he ran, his vice president should either be Pete Buttigieg or someone I saw the other night, Gina Raimondo. Anyway, those are my ideas. I think she's fantastic.

Scott Galloway: She is amazing. She is as sharp as a friggin' tack. If you want someone that's good for the economy and just does the work, she's that person. It's a question. She may run for president, by the way. A woman will not be the Democratic nominee, and nor should she be. If we have another woman lose for the third time, Kara, you're not going to have a female president for 50 years.

Kara Swisher: I thought she would—as much as I think she is utterly capable of being president—I thought she should be the vice president for Gavin Newsom. That would be a really interesting—

Scott Galloway: Let me be luxus and sexist in one fell swoop. I can guarantee you not one person—the Democratic nominee will not be under 5'10". No president in the last 100 years has been under 5'10".

Kara Swisher: Well, he's a big—he's a handsome man.

Scott Galloway: He's a handsome— That's my point. I hate to say it. What handsome man. We will have a female president. She will be a Republican. And the key attribute she will bring is a reputation that if your family runs a stop sign, she'll drone your ass. She will be the first female president of the U.S. She will have to be someone so fucking scary. She'll drone your ass.

Kara Swisher: Well, that would have been Liz Cheney, right? That would have been in the old days.

Scott Galloway: Liz is probably the closest we could have had to an electable female president. Someone else will come along. She would drone your ass. Anyways, it's not going to be a Democrat. And the Democrats are not going to take their chances on a gay man. They're not going to take their chances on a woman. They're not going to take their chances on someone who's less than 5'10". I'm sorry. That's the bottom line.

Kara Swisher: Anyways, as VP, that's a really good one. Just play that game for a second.

Scott Galloway: I'd probably macho it up and bring in like a former military person. I don't know. Mark Kelly. There's a lot. There's so many good VP candidates.

Kara Swisher: I think, yeah. I don't know. They'll figure out what states they need help in. Who do you like?

Scott Galloway: I think there's a lot of interesting people. I don't know yet because I think Wes Moore is always talked about and most feared by the right, that's for sure.

Kara Swisher: He's very good. I still like, in my life, a Michael Bennett would be such a good president. I always think of who'd be a good president. Of course, that doesn't matter anymore. And celebrity matters. Probably, I think when I ran into Gina Raimondo the other day, I was like, oh, she's so fucking impressive. She's so fucking impressive. You know who we just had on the Raging Moderates party yesterday was Richie Torres.

Scott Galloway: Oh, I'm not a fan.

Kara Swisher: What? Not a fan? Sorry.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. I love that guy.

Kara Swisher: I think he's so performative. I still keep thinking.

Scott Galloway: I agree with you. Raised by a single mother, struggled with depression. I don't like him.

Kara Swisher: Oh, he's really good. Let me say, by the way, our producers are saying there have been presidents under 5'10". In the last 100 years? Who?

Scott Galloway: Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter.

Kara Swisher: Jimmy was 5'10"? Under, I guess.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, it must have been. That's what our producers did today.

Kara Swisher: What did you do? 59.5?

Scott Galloway: 59.5. I don't know how tall Harry Truman was. Okay. 1.7.

Kara Swisher: That wasn't a particularly successful presidency, even though he had a great post-presidency.

Scott Galloway: Harry Truman, 5'9". And he came to office because the president died. So, different.

Kara Swisher: 5'9". Jimmy Carter was 5'10". All right. He says 9.5. All right. Well, whatever. He's that tall. He wasn't tall. Whatever. All that matters is I'm eight inches.

Scott Galloway: Oh, my God. Okay. I won't tell you my nickname in the fraternity. I won't tell you my nickname in the fraternity. Don't force me to tell you my nickname in the fraternity, Kara. It's tripod.

Kara Swisher: So you've already told me. God, we're like an old couple.

Scott Galloway: I know we are. Give me the Republican candidate then.

Kara Swisher: No, it's going to be, I think it's going to be J.D. Vance.

Scott Galloway: I do not think that. No, go ahead.

Kara Swisher: It's either going to be Marco Rubio or like a Glenn Youngkin. That's my feeling. Youngkin's the guy who would win. Well, I'm just saying. Although he hasn't had the most spectacular Virginia situation. But Trump's going to have so much power that he'll basically, unless he has a huge erosion in his base, he'll be able to pick the person. I think it'll be, I don't think it'll be, I think, oh shit, I don't know. I think he likes Vance.

Scott Galloway: I don't think he likes Vance.

Kara Swisher: You don't think he likes Vance? Vance is unlikable. He really is. He's just, he repels voters. They need an interesting looking person. It's got to be like a Youngkin or, and Trump wants to keep it there. So it's not going to be his son who forget that. I mean, he knows he's a loser. Probably, it's got to be Rubio or something like that. Something like that.

Scott Galloway: I think Rubio is too short.

Kara Swisher: All right. Okay. Anyway, he's also somewhat charmless too.

Scott Galloway: Also, that's true. When he said little Marco, I thought, mm-hmm, that is correct.

Kara Swisher: Oh, wait. So my actual prediction is that the worst, I think probably the worst acquisition of the last decade in terms of value destruction or overpaying happened last week. OpenAI's acquisition of the design firm, I think it's called IO.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yes, Johnny Ives.

Kara Swisher: I think Johnny Ives is fantastic.

Scott Galloway: Just to be clear, a company with no products gets acquired for six and a half billion dollars for a guy who is a genius designer. He deserves all his due. Sorry, boss, that's not worth $6.5 billion. Maybe he's cosplaying Steve Jobs. This thing will be written down by—let me be clear—iconic, legendary designer, maybe even worth like $100 million, which means a $6.4 billion write-down. And in addition, OpenAI is going to find that designing products—they'd be much better off. Let me save them some time, partner with hardware firms.

Kara Swisher: Right. Absolutely. Hardware is hard. I mean, you thinking that you're going to bring in this Guy Ritchie-like genius who dresses incredibly well and rightfully is considered one of the great designers of all time is going to figure out a way for you to get into products. No.

Scott Galloway: A very charming guy.

Kara Swisher: He is. He was the last speaker at Code along with Lorraine Powell Jobs and Tim Cook.

Scott Galloway: Yeah. By the way, amazing. I'm not—I'm not this—I'm not—the whole thing when the two of them did this promo video on the acquisition and it was so much like, I'm just a billionaire standing in front of a billionaire wanting to be trillionaires. I mean, it was just so like.

Kara Swisher: It was, it was strange. Oh God. Whatever, let's give it to them. They've done a nice job of it. 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. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on Prof G Markets, Scott spoke with Catherine Ann Edwards, PhD economist and columnist for Bloomberg News. She weighs in on the latest jobs data and unpacks how the economy has reacted to Trump's policies. Let's listen to a clip.

Catherine Ann Edwards (audio clip): What we are seeing is the effect of uncertainty. And uncertainty is all about idling. I'm not going to move much in either direction until I know which way the wind is blowing. So I'm not going to hire that many people. I'm not going to fire that many people. I'm not going to make massive investments, but I'm not going to pull back from the ones that I have. I'm just waiting in place to understand what the world is going to look like. And that has been the economy really since September.

Kara Swisher: Really, very, absolutely true. No one knows what to do because he's crazy. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Scott will be back next week from France, where I will be charging things to Scott's room very soon. Very, very soon. Overpriced, whatever it happens to be. But that will be the charge there, Scott. We'll be back next week from France. In fact, Scott, read us out.

Scott Galloway: Today's show was produced by Laura Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and her Todd interviewed this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Averio, and Dan Chalon. Deshaq Courant is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

Kara Swisher: Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at www.anawymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Scott Galloway: This is not leadership. It's fascist foreplay. And history will not be kind. Thank you.