Trump's Truth Social Gamble, NBC's Ronna Revolt, and Guest Jim Sciutto

[Ad reads for Sierra.ai and The Guardian play]

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: Hello, Scott. How you doing?

Scott Galloway: Good, Kara. Back in London?

Kara Swisher: No, I'm finally back in D.C. for a very short period of time.

Scott Galloway: Oh, good. And where are you headed next?

Kara Swisher: Boston to do one with the governor. And Princeton, New Jersey to do one at my old high school and also at Princeton University. And then I'm going to see Louis in Buenos Aires.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yeah, that's where you're going to be. I'm so excited.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Yeah. Did you like me on Bill Maher?

Scott Galloway: I'm serious, Kara. I thought you were outstanding.

Kara Swisher: Thank you.

Scott Galloway: I thought that was one of your better... I thought you just nailed it. I sent you a text message that you should take pause and reflect on the moment.

Kara Swisher: Yes, you did. That was very sweet.

Scott Galloway: I thought you were really, really smart. And not only that, I thought he was great. I thought the way he interviewed you, the banter was good. You made a couple of really, I thought, really interesting points.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. But more to the point, do you like my new best friend, Justin Theroux, who also knows you?

Scott Galloway: Just FYI, I was friends with Justin first.

Kara Swisher: Well, not anymore. Not anymore. Just so you know. I gave him the Bill Maher vest. Just so you know. Just so you know, I gave him the soft, lovely vest. He looks really good.

Scott Galloway: You're literally... You're like the girl in high school that when I like a guy, you start fucking him. I mean, you're... Justin pinged me.

Kara Swisher: To be clear, I am not fucking him, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Well, you know what I mean. Anyways, Justin Dero reached out to me and said, let's get together, and da-da-da, we were both. And then all of a sudden, you're taking him to Bill Maher.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, well, we had lunch before the Chateau Marmont. He's very substantive. He's very soulful.

Scott Galloway: He is. He's a beautiful, he's a writer. He's really interesting.

Kara Swisher: He's a pit bull, too.

Scott Galloway: Oh, really? Oh, I didn't know that.

Kara Swisher: We don't know each other that well yet. So we will in time, of course.

Scott Galloway: You're not good, good friends like me and Justin. I'll dial you on his fetishes. We'll go out. We'll all go out.

Kara Swisher: We'll all go out. He's a lovely guy.

Scott Galloway: By the way, just in case you didn't know, he's circumcised.

Kara Swisher: Okay. Good to know. I didn't know. Anyway, thank you about Bill Maher. It was fun, actually. It was really well done. He did great. You were really good. It was very helpful. And of course, the freaking out because of the Elons. I got attacked by Elon over the weekend. And then also, I was on Jen Psaki's show, and she was noting that he's for Trump, but pretending he's not. And then I said, hello, he lied. And I said he was a liar. I just was making a joke in any case.

Scott Galloway: Well, let me just clarify. He is a liar. He's the lying fuck of lying liars. And there you have it. Either that or he's so high on some dissociative drug, he can't disassociate with the truth any longer.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that could be possible, too. All right. Anything else? I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: I thought you were great on Bill Maher. Justin Theroux has great hair.

Kara Swisher: He has great hair. Anyway, we have a lot to get to today, including what's in the DOJ antitrust case against Apple and how Truth Social is factoring into Donald Trump's money issues. Plus, our friend of Pivot is Jim Sciuto, CNN's national security analyst. There's a lot going on, including what's just happened in Russia. And he's the author of *The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War*. It's a good week to have him on, given this attack in Russia and, of course, everything that continues to happen in Ukraine and Israel and Gaza. But first, employees at NBC News and MSNBC are not happy after the announcement that former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel would be hired as a political analyst. The move has been met with disappointment internally, I would say more than that, including Chuck Todd, who said McDaniel has credibility issues. Chuck went to town on *Meet the Press*. Kristen Welker had to interview McDaniel, who had been booked before she was hired. So she continued with it and gave her a pretty tough interview. But Chuck Todd sort of unloaded in a relatively polite style, but pretty tough about what people inside NBC feel. She's an election denier, and then she suddenly isn't. She's obviously going back on everything she said because it's just her talking now, not as the head of the RNC. In an effort to address the backlash, MSNBC's president, Rashida Jones, told anchors they would not be forced to have McDaniel on their shows. I mean, just the stink of her is a problem, though. So what do you think?

Scott Galloway: Okay, I'll go, but I feel as if you have more domain expertise here.

Kara Swisher: No, no, I want to hear what you have to say first. I'm really curious because you're a regular Joe, so to speak.

Scott Galloway: Regular Joe. I'm just a Joe. So it strikes me that in this era, being a spokesperson for the DNC or the RNC or being... There are quite a few spokespeople from the Trump White House who have recovered and gone on to get decent jobs. And they acknowledge that what they said a lot of times... It's like Republicans seem to grow testicles about the time they're out the door, right? Bill Barr can't stop talking about what a bad president he was serving. And I mean, so the question I would have if I were in the MSNBC war room trying to deal with this is: how much of this is the duplicitous, hypocritical, disingenuous previous behavior of someone? And do we apply the same standards to people who come from Democratic organizations who have taken license with the truth? So it's a tough one because generally speaking in media, they kind of give you a little bit of a hall pass when you're in a political position before that.

Kara Swisher: I agree with you. They're all over the place. Look, George Stephanopoulos worked for a kill and he's now quite a good host of the Sunday show. Same thing with Jen Psaki. Excellent. I was on her show. She's quite good. She does disclose it. And she's not the issue is she's not across purposes to what she said then. Right. This was an astonishing interview with Kristen Welker. Like this woman is a full-scale election denier, not just a little bit, not like "questions." She was an election denier and now she isn't. So which one of... I mean, so she's a liar at one point, whichever one. And even now, why did she change her mind? I'd like a long explanation from her as to why she did. Because she's no longer being paid to lie. And that's the same as other people.

Scott Galloway: That's right.

Kara Swisher: But I'd like her to say it out of her meat flaps. That's what I'd like. For her, there's certain people, I get it. They come in, you know, whether you've got... I'm trying to think. I mean, they do it over on Fox. They do it on all of them. They bring in these generals, et cetera, et cetera. I think holding their feet to the fire when you're talking to them. This woman seems... There was a controversy seen over Sarah Isker, who was actually on MAR this week. I think there's a smell test with some people more than others. And I think you're not going to prevent this from happening because, you know, their experts are often people who worked, like David Axelrod. But you don't have an issue with David Axelrod because he says what he thinks. And this woman just went really far. Picking this lady is... I don't know. It's sort of like if you took in... Oh, if you made Pence one would be a problem for me. I don't know. There's a couple of people where they just don't get to come back in that regard. And they'll say they're not allowed to speak, but they should go on Fox News if they want to do that. She could do that.

Scott Galloway: She could.

Kara Swisher: They have no standards over there. So I think this is a real black eye for NBC, like a real black eye. And I'm surprised that they did it with her because she's so egregious. She's like beyond egregious. So we'll see. I think it's going to have a backlash forever. And I think the right will say, "Oh, you know, they're trying to cancel her." But she deserves to be canceled in that regard, especially because she said things with Trump and now she's trying to backtrack because "this is me." And I'm just like, you have no credibility. Credibility issues. She has none. So anyway, we'll move on. Speaking of credibility issues, Boeing's chief executive, David Calhoun, will step down at the end of the year following several plane safety failures. In addition, the company's CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes will resign immediately, and its chairman, Larry Kellner, will not seek reelection. It's a clean out. Other people pay the price, Scott. This is interesting. The announcement comes less than three months after the door plug blew off a Boeing Max 9 during the Alaska Airlines flight. The FAA audit of production found dozens of issues and gave the company 90 days for fixes. I mean, it looks so sloppy. Will this help the Boeing brand bounce back or do they take too long?

Scott Galloway: I think they move quickly because, look, as you say, there's never been a perp walk for tech. There's never been someone like arrested for a girl's self-esteem. But one door blows off and everyone goes to jail, essentially, or gets fired or investigated or lawsuits, etc. What do you think?

Kara Swisher: So, first off, you could argue it's a bit unfair because he's been the CEO since 2019. And there's very little he could do when there's literally thousands of these very complicated machines in the air. There's little he could institute in four years that would turn this thing around, I guess. Having said that, this was absolutely the right thing to do. Because here's the thing. We always make excuses for CEOs when they make 300 or 400 times the average worker that that's okay. It's the market. They benefit from it. He got a bit of a raw deal, but the bottom line is when your planes start having malfunctions midair, heads got to roll. Is it a little bit unfair? Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time? Yeah, but guess what? The majority of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies tend to be constantly in the right place at the right time. And there's only three things you have to remember about crisis management, and then I'll get to a broader viewpoint on aviation. In crisis management, you just got to remember three things. And everyone always gets it wrong because they sound easy, but they're not. The first is you have to acknowledge the problem. "This is unacceptable. This is what happened." Two, the top guy or gal has to take responsibility. They need to be out in front. And then third, you need to overcorrect. And this is what the board is doing. The board is saying, "Look, it's probably not fair. They could probably make all sorts of excuses for why he's actually trying to address these problems and turn around a tanker of a culture that resulted in these things." But they're like, "You know what? We have to overcorrect. We're sorry, but we have to show we're really serious about this." And then the larger point around aviation is people don't appreciate global aviation, which is really only several decades old. The majority... I mean, people really didn't start using the lubricant of global commerce in terms of face-to-face meetings and diplomacy via commercial jet transportation literally until the 60s or 70s. It's a fairly new thing. It is also frightening and unbelievable that you can skirt along the surface of the atmosphere at ten times the speed of sound and get to your destination safely. It is literally a wondrous feat. And it is so important to the global economy that the FAA decided, "We're going to make this so ridiculously safe. We're going to impose a set of standards that are so over-engineered." Imagine your car, a mechanic showed up, and this isn't an exaggeration, every third day and said, "I'm going to change the spark plugs, the tires, I'm going to test everything. I'm going to deploy and redeploy the airbags. I'm just going to make sure this thing is absolutely bulletproof." That is what they do in the FAA. And the success of that approach is that people have absolutely no issue saying, "I have to go pick up my kids at camp. I'm going to get on a plane. I have an opportunity to sell software into a company in Toronto." The most neurotic... You don't even have to be that neurotic to get on a plane and be scared.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my brother doesn't fly. My little brother doesn't fly.

Scott Galloway: But that's unusual. The majority of people...

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it is. It's a pain in the ass, too.

Scott Galloway: The majority of people take the risk and get on planes because it is by far the safest form of transportation in the world. And it's lubricated the global economy. So their attention, neurotic, obsessive, compulsive, anal retentive focus on safety has paid huge dividends globally. Listen, he didn't deserve, may not have deserved... It doesn't really matter. He took the big job. The buck stops there. The buck always stops there and they should happen in tech more often.

Kara Swisher: Okay, last one. The Kate Middleton mystery has been solved and it has us remembering that the internet is bad. By now, we know she has cancer, is going through preventative chemotherapy. For weeks, conspiracy theories and jokes have been floating around online about Middleton's whereabouts, even reaching the late night shows. There was a big piece that we should all feel bad. I don't know about that. I think it's a combination of really bad PR on the point of them. I mean, she's a global figure. And as much as she might expect some privacy, they made it worse. And at the same time, now you look like idiots for making fun of a cancer victim. So it kind of... It's sort of the internet is this way. And I don't really know if we have to blame the internet at this point because it does it on every story. I don't know. What do you think?

Scott Galloway: I think you can hold two thoughts in your mind at the same time. The first thought is a 42-year-old woman who is battling cancer, who has three children, it's very sad.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, 100%.

Scott Galloway: You want to feel empathy for her. You want her... The last thing you'd want to do is have anything add to that pain. I mean, you can absolutely have empathy for her, respect it, and understand why she may have made the decisions she made. At the same time, with all due respect, when you pick a life that includes wearing the crown's jewels and going to every cool event and being called the duchess of whatever, sorry, there's incredible downsides. And one of those downsides is if you get sick, the public's going to find out or they're going to go apeshit trying to figure it out. So bottom line, whoever's handling comms for the palace fucked up here because they should have said, "We're very sorry, Kate. This is awful. We feel for you. This is going to come out. And until we're straight with the public about what's going on here, it is going to be a shit show. And it's going to make things worse." So I'm not talking about what should be. I'm talking about what is.

Kara Swisher: Right. Agreed. I don't even think what should be. They're the most famous family in Britain. They're going to get covered on everything. Let me just tell you, her video was classy. It was lovely. It was appropriate. I don't think she needed to say anything else about her cancer. Everyone's now wondering about that. "I'm sick. I have cancer. And I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I'm going to tell you I'm trying to deal with my family." It was a combination of bad things. We wish her well. And she's young and healthy. So from what I understand, hopefully this will be one of those, like my own strokes. It'll be your footnote, hopefully.

Scott Galloway: You're right. Kate is young. We've made remarkable progress against cancer. More people actually survive cancer now than die from it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, four of my friends, they're doing good. I have four friends who have cancer young.

Scott Galloway: But the analogy I thought of with Kate, and I realize it's a different situation, but if Biden goes out of public eye shot for 24 hours, everyone's going to start freaking out. I mean, you want to talk. Everyone will start turning into Sherlock Holmes.

Kara Swisher: Wouldn't it be nice if Trump was out of eye shot for 24 hours? But he won't be. He's always sort of eating breakfast at Mar-a-Lago. Anyway, we feel badly for her and King Charles. Let's get to our first big story. We're learning more about the Justice Department lawsuit against Apple, which accuses the company of maintaining a monopoly over the smartphone market. The suit, which the DOJ filed with 16 states, argues Apple violated antitrust laws by making it difficult for competitors to integrate with the iPhone, ultimately driving up prices for consumers. The DOJ cites the App Store, smartwatches, cloud-based gaming and messaging apps, that green dot, as some examples of Apple's monopoly. Interestingly, Mr. Walt Mossberg made a case that this is a ridiculous thing. Apple said in a statement that the lawsuit is wrong on the facts and law and the company will vigorously defend against it. The side that Walt was on is that it's not unusual. He said on Threads, "That's like calling the best-selling expense of wine a monopoly when it actually has a modest overall market share." He is correct about that. The iPhone U.S. market share is 62% in Q4 of 2023 in terms of shipments, according to CounterPoint Research. The DOJ argues that Apple has more than 70% market share in the U.S. measuring by revenue, and other metrics show Apple's dominance, particularly in terms of young users. Let me just get through this, and I'd just love your thoughts. A comment made by Tim Cook at Code 2022 is also mentioned in the DOJ suit. Cook was responding to an audience question about improving communication with non-Apple devices. Let's listen to what he said exactly since we've been mentioning it.

[Audio clip plays: Tim Cook: I don't hear our users asking that we put a lot of energy in on that at this point. And so now I would love to continue. I would love to convert you to iPhone. It's just... it's tough not to make it personal, but I can't send my mom certain videos or she can't send me certain videos. And so we buy your mom an iPhone.]

Kara Swisher: The DOJ is making the case that Apple's messaging interface with those green text bubbles for non-iPhone users created a social stigma. So let's go through it.

Scott Galloway: First off, if you're a guy and you send an attempt for a late night hookup or a booty call and it comes from an Android bubble, I think the likelihood you end up having sex that night is literally diminished dramatically.

Kara Swisher: Oh, it's usually... You go right to the heart of it. Go ahead.

Scott Galloway: Well, look, this is all... Apple's all about sex. It's a subtle way of saying "I'm creative and I'm wealthy." And by the way, this is also clearly... This is Walt saying, "You know, listen, kid, move out the way. Daddy's back."

Kara Swisher: I think he's a little bit jealous of your attention.

Scott Galloway: No, he isn't.

Kara Swisher: No, he's right. He covered them. I know, I know. But he covered them a lot. But go ahead. Sorry.

Scott Galloway: But he's caused a bit of a stir on the internet.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. It's like, "Well, here's Walt." And five different people sent me Walt's tweet storm. I think Walt has a point. If I were the DOJ, and I don't know the chess moves here, I would have stayed focused. I think the case they have against the App Store is really rock solid. Their investment in going vertical here, I think, gives them the right to inhibit or diminish or whatever the term is. If you have Gmail from Google, if you have the Gmail app, it's better. So is that anti-competitive? So I think they're focusing on the wrong thing here.

Scott Galloway: I agree. I think they overdid it. I think the App Store is a slam dunk and that they went overboard on the other things. And I think Apple has a very good argument that "we're just a good product that people like." I think the App Store, that 30%, the inability to do payments, these are things that they've won and lost on. It's not fully clear what's happening here, but that's the fight to fight. Now, I haven't talked to John Cantor or anybody else yet. Maybe I will. But I do think they gilded the lily here. It's a very good case. Because the DOJ is making the case, what you were just talking about, that the screen bubbles is in there. It's the beginning of a legal fight that could go on for years. And I think they're going to have a hard time with a lot of the things that they... I think they're going to lose on a lot of the things. And I think the App Store, just drilling down on the App Store seems to be like... because they had all those amicus briefs. And I do agree that they don't... you don't have a choice. That said, you don't have a choice in Google either. So they kind of go hand in glove. There's only two systems. So what can you do to make... since this is the situation we have with phones, it's oligopoly essentially, what is the way we make it better for everyone to be able to be surfaced? I think looking at their competition with Spotify, just like in Europe, I think that's a way to look very strongly at it when they create products. It's very much like when Microsoft did MSN and was going after AOL. I think that has a much more of an opening. So it's just a little... I think Walt really did sort of take it apart, like in terms of the stuff they were doing on, but not the App Store. I think that is, as you said, is really the important part.

Scott Galloway: The most powerful part of the complaint was the following. It says, "Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anti-competitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers' privacy and security interests. Apple selectively compromises privacy and security interests. So as an Apple's own financial interest, such as degrading the security of text messages, offering governments and certain companies the chance to access more private and secure versions of app stores or accepting billions of dollars each year for choosing Google as its default search engine when more private options are available. In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple's financial and business interests." Jesus Christ. Everyone go to law school and learn how to write like this.

Kara Swisher: Anyways, but whoever wrote this... I just, if anyone thinks the government is incompetent, someone at the DOJ, some junior lawyer wrote this.

Scott Galloway: I know who wrote it, but go ahead.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Who's really talented. There's a deputy. And the three of you are going out with Justin Theroux. Anyways.

Scott Galloway: We are. And then we're going to have a cuddle puddle, but go ahead. I knew him first.

Kara Swisher: You know, he likes me better. I knew him first. He actually loves me desperately. Anyway, go ahead.

Scott Galloway: I couldn't believe I saw you. You are so invading the few things I have in my life. You're at Bill Maher with Justin Theroux. Literally, you're like, what, are you going to start going to Premier League games with Emily Ratajkowski now? I mean, come on.

Kara Swisher: You haven't met her yet. I know because you sequestered her from me. We were meant to be together.

Scott Galloway: I'm not sequestered her. Who else do you really like?

Kara Swisher: Who else do I really like? I'm not going to go into who I like and don't like. I had another one of these douchebags see us get me on the phone this week. I have a big tech company and talk about how nice he is. Now I get it wrong. I'm like, "How did I end up here again?" Was it Elon?

Scott Galloway: No, it wasn't Elon. I'll give you that. It wasn't Elon.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, you're not going to say who it is. Anyways, I'm sorry. Where are we? Back to Apple.

Scott Galloway: It wasn't Tim Cook.

Kara Swisher: Okay. All right. So look, this is a case that they have drawn, I think, probably too broadly because people do have an affection for Apple and the uses of it. And if you're in the system, you like the system. And so that's what's... I don't think people feel like they don't have choice. And the stuff about the... If you want to buy that iPhone, they don't have to make it easy for it to interoperate. They just don't. In that case, I find that to be kind of a ridiculous argument. But that said, the App Store is certainly... I think both the Google App Store and the Apple App Store have to go over and above to make it easier for competitors and not to charge things because they're the only toll keeper. And they're going to have to do it whether they like it or not. So in that way, that to me seems very easy to remedy. And we'll see where it goes. But it's going to go on for years and years and years. But I think they overstep. And that's the privacy thing. Look, you can both use it as a marketing tool and also actually be quite committed to it. So I think they're both, right? That's why they're talking to Google about AI, because they don't collect a lot of data. So I don't know. I think they are committed to privacy. But I think they use it as both a marketing thing and a cudgel for people. So it all bubbles up.

Scott Galloway: And I like to go meta on this stuff. The thing that ails our country is that for the first time, a younger generation is not doing as well as their parents. That's never happened before. And Jonathan Haidt just wrote this amazing book called *The Anxious Generation*. So they're not only not doing as well, but every day they're reminded of how they're not doing as well, with constant benchmarking from algorithms that convince them that everyone's making a shit ton of money vacationing at the Aman and dating someone much hotter. And so the question is, how do we solve this? Through a lot of things, tax policy, vocational program, but also we break these motherfuckers up. And it all rolls up to the same thing. Our country is angry. People don't believe in America. They're not mating because they don't have economic opportunity, because we are totally weaponized by big corporations and the wealthy and the incumbents. And I'm all of those things, and I see how terrible it is.

Kara Swisher: All right, Teddy Roosevelt, thank you for that lovely speech. I agree with you. I agree. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. But we'll see. I think this case is going to be a long time, a long time. I don't think this one's going to work.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, I'm not so sure.

Kara Swisher: All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about Truth Social going public, and we'll speak to our friend of Pivot, CNN's Jim Sciuto. Thank you.

[Ad break plays for LinkedIn and Mint Mobile]

Kara Swisher: Scott, we're back. He's being called Don Porleone on social media, but Donald Trump's finances are about to get a big boost. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, will likely become a publicly traded company this week following Digital World Acquisition Corp's approval of a merger last Friday. As we record this, Trump just got a lifeline for that judgment in his civil fraud case. The bond was reduced from $454 million to $175 million by the New York appeals court. Trump now has 10 days to post that bond. I don't know why he gets a break, but what do you think about this deal?

Kara Swisher: The Trump Media and Technology Group has a market value of around $5 billion based on a $37 share price at Digital World Acquisition Corp. Trump owns 60%. His overall net worth will increase by about $3 billion. That said, this is a meme stock, no matter how you slice it. There's also a lockup provision in the merger agreement that would, in theory, prevent Trump from selling his shares for at least six months. The lockup agreement could be waived by the board, which includes his son, Don Jr., Devin Nunes, the CEO, and Linda McMahon, who used to run WWE. They're all friends of his. But if he sells, the price will go down. If he sells, there's going to be lawsuits aplenty.

Kara Swisher: I'll say two last things. DWAC, the SPAC that merged with Trump's company, was already a meme stock to start with. As Fast Company put it, Donald Trump's Truth Social could be the memiest meme stock that ever memed. And once again, Republican mega donor Jeff Yass was the biggest institutional shareholder of DWAC, according to a report in The New York Times. He's also a major investor in TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, as we discussed last week. This feels like a securities lawsuit waiting to happen. But your thoughts, Scott, this is your area of expertise.

Scott Galloway: So say you were running for president and you needed a bond of half a billion dollars and you knew someone who was the largest shareholder in TikTok. And you said, if I become president, I'll make sure it isn't banned. You could get them billions of dollars in shareholder value. You met with him on a golf course and you said, oh, and by the way, there's a very small float in this SPAC that I have a large interest in. If you were just to throw, say, 10, 20, 30 million, maybe 50 million at this thing and keep the stock price elevated, that would make me very happy.

Scott Galloway: When you look at Digital World Acquisition Company, the SPAC that's de-SPACing to take over Trump's Truth Social, the numbers I've seen show it's done three and a half million in revenue year to date. The hottest AI companies' stocks in the world are trading at like 60 or 70 times revenue. But Donald Trump's Truth Social, which has 5 million active users, which is literally nothing, made $3.5 million. That's worth 600 times revenue. So something is off. Maybe it's just a meme stock. Does it feel like a way to give them money? It just totally does. This is going to be so investigated, I can't even stand it.

Kara Swisher: Well, let me be clear. There's corruption all over Washington. Nancy Pelosi ends up being the greatest stock picker. This is corrupting. I get it. There is corruption on both sides of the aisle here. But this one really stinks.

Scott Galloway: He has the right to start a company as a private citizen. He has the right to merge it with a SPAC. He has the right to sell it after six months. I'm speaking purely as an observer—I have never seen a company that feels like a better short. And this isn't financial advice because you have non-economic interest in this thing, and it could go to 100 if he's elected president. But this is a company with three and a half million in revenue that's trading for billions of dollars in value. The whole thing stinks.

Scott Galloway: The president should be paid $1 million a year. Every senator should be paid $1 million a year. And they can't take money. Every representative should be paid $1 million a year. All of your stocks go into a blind trust, and they're held there for five years after you leave office. And you cannot go to work for anyone who benefits from a government contract. Pay these people a lot of money so they don't have to paint their fence while they're in office or when they get out of office. The corruption here is just too tempting.

Kara Swisher: When he sells, it'll drop the stock. I think it's a way of giving him money. This is what it feels like. It's a back way to do it. The fact that you're mixing social media, Donald Trump, TikTok, and meme stocks is peak 2024. This guy has found a way out. He's got to be the luckiest man in America. That said, I think this is aching for litigators to come at this and investigators. Whatever happens here, whatever the emails they're trading—this company is also embroiled in all kinds of legal action with the people who started it and the DWAC guy. There are lawsuits inside of lawsuits inside of lawsuits, which is the brand of Donald Trump.

Kara Swisher: It's a damn good way to get him money. And it totally explains his flip-flop on TikTok. Give me a break. You just have to follow the money with this guy because he's for sale and he loves money. He'll do whatever it takes to hold on to it. He'll sell a steak or water or a piece of shit university to do so. It's grotesque.

Scott Galloway: I don't have anything to add except I want to know what Walt thinks. And Justin. And Justin Theroux.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, together. Maybe Walt, Justin, and I will have dinner together.

Scott Galloway: You're so like—I just look at a guy and the next thing I know, you're sending me photos of you in a hot tub with them.

Kara Swisher: Well, you chose to live in London. We'd like to invite you, but you're not around.

Scott Galloway: I didn't choose. I'm an influencer, not a decision maker. I didn't choose to live here.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Jim Sciutto is CNN's chief national security analyst and the author of *The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China and the Next World War*, which is a really happy title there, Jim. Welcome. Before we talk about the book, we have to talk about the attack on the concert hall in Moscow late last week that killed at least 137 people. A branch of ISIS called ISIS-K claimed responsibility. U.S. officials have confirmed that claim. The U.S. warned Russia both publicly and privately about intelligence pointing to an impending attack. There's no indication that Ukraine was involved, despite Putin trying to make that link. It underscored vulnerabilities in Russia and Putin himself. At the time the U.S. warned him, he called the warning blackmail. Can you talk about this?

Jim Sciutto: Well, first of all, let's take Ukraine off the table. This is not a Ukraine-style attack. They have no incentive to carry out an attack like this. The U.S. intelligence assessment is that Ukraine had nothing to do with this. This group, ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, is a highly capable group. We think of ISIS as having disappeared as a threat, and it was greatly reduced following the U.S.-led campaign in Syria. But ISIS-K is an offshoot based in Central Asia, and they're still able to generate plots overseas. It's ISIS-K that the U.S. believes was behind the terror attack in Iran a number of months ago. Interestingly, the U.S. warned Iran about that attack prior, much like it did with this attack.

Jim Sciutto: This shows you a couple of things. One, the U.S. intel has a pretty decent handle on the activities of this group. Two, it shows you that even in the midst of this worsening standoff between the U.S. and Russia and China, there is communication between those sides. Here you have an example of the U.S. reaching out, making a positive step, saying, "Hey, Russia, watch out for your southern flank. These guys are planning something." And in each case, Russia and Iran were like, "I don't want to listen to you." And it didn't end up well for them.

Kara Swisher: What are the implications for Putin? Because being safe in Russia was the prime directive—keeping people safe by instilling fear in them and protecting them. This is his whole basis of legitimacy: "I'm the strong man, I'm going to keep you safe" from the various boogeymen. The real one is this terrorist group. The other ones are exaggerated to his own benefit.

Jim Sciutto: I think it's important to add this to our larger picture of Putin. There's this impression of him as being 10 feet tall. Leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, you had folks who said, "He's too smart to invade Ukraine. He's playing three-dimensional chess." Lo and behold, he made a dumb move. Here you have him again, making what appears to be a dumb move. He had a warning from the U.S. and didn't heed it. We should not invest him with any more brilliance than he has demonstrated. He had a guy who drove halfway to Moscow in Prigozhin. Putin later took him out, but it's not like everybody was standing in the way. He has weaknesses. He is not bulletproof.

Kara Swisher: Speaking of that, in your book, you write that for the U.S. and its allies, this is a "1939 moment." What do you mean by that?

Jim Sciutto: I truly believe that. The idea for this book came to me while I was in Ukraine in February 2022, as the invasion was underway. It struck me that while relations between the U.S. and Russia and the U.S. and China have been deteriorating for years, a full-scale invasion of the largest country in Europe—an attempt to redraw borders by force—presents many of the ingredients we saw in 1939. You have an aggressive leader who views himself as an historic leader, righting the wrongs of the past by force of arms, and he is insatiable. He takes a piece, and if the resistance isn't great, he takes another piece. Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, likes to quote Churchill on Putin: an appeaser is someone who feeds the crocodile expecting that he will be its last meal. Based on recent history, that's not the way he operates.

Scott Galloway: Jim, it's nice to meet you. I really appreciate your work. With respect to Ukraine, even if it were to end up in a North and South Korea situation where we had to redraw the map, hasn't this been an enormous victory for the West? Europe is unified for the first time, NATO is out of a brain coma, Putin looks terrible. Hasn't this burnished the brand and the power of the West?

Jim Sciutto: It's a great point, Scott. We should not imagine that Russia and China are 10 feet tall or that we are falling to pieces. From a military perspective, 5% of the U.S. defense budget supporting Ukraine, without any boots on the ground and no U.S. soldiers killed, has effectively neutered Russia's entire ground force capability. It has brought that paper tiger down for a very small investment. From a diplomatic and economic perspective, Putin's miscalculation was that NATO would break under pressure. It didn't break. It expanded. Finland added 800 miles to the frontier between NATO and Russia. Economically, Russia lost its entire energy market in Europe. Germany went cold turkey off of Russian energy. We're not doing bad.

Kara Swisher: What is the biggest danger for the U.S.? Talk specifically about the relationship between Russia and China. U.S. officials told you about the "nightmare scenario" with both deciding to make moves at the same time to regain territory. I think China probably looks down upon Russia as a useful idiot.

Jim Sciutto: You're not wrong. Bill Burns, the CIA director, agrees with you. He said Russia has to be careful that it is not the junior partner in this "no limits partnership." That relationship has developed and become closer over the years. It's not a love match—they have their own disagreements—but they see benefit in undermining the U.S. and the international system. The one step China has not taken is providing direct weapons to Russia for the war in Ukraine. But it provides a lot of dual-use technology. The war wouldn't be sustainable without Chinese support. Russia needs China more than China needs Russia. Putin is probably aware of that, but he needs them now.

Scott Galloway: The title of your book is *The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War*. How do you see the next world war unfolding? And in the last 10 years, we're spending a lower percentage of our GDP on the military, yet we spend more than the top 10 powers combined. AI is being captured here. We're the largest energy producer in the world, food independent. Isn't the data reflecting the return of the great power, singular, and that great power is the U.S.?

Jim Sciutto: We have a lot of advantages—economic, military, technological. But the weaknesses are that Russia, while it is a "gas station masquerading as a nation" to quote John McCain, has more nuclear weapons than anybody. It has proven a willingness to disrupt to a degree we haven't seen in decades, including coming very close to using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. China has become an internationally formidable economy. Its nuclear arsenal has been doubling and tripling. It has created a blue water navy to project power. Individually and together, they have enormous capability and willingness to disrupt what we hold dear.

Kara Swisher: Speaking of disruption, looking at the election, you described Donald Trump as a "geopolitical wildcard." What concrete moves could you see him making if he's reelected?

Jim Sciutto: In that chapter, I speak to the folks who served him at the most senior level in the last administration. They will not be there because they've said he would be a disaster. John Kelly, his former chief of staff, said it would be fundamentally a catastrophe for the country. John Bolton said Trump doesn't have a brain to contemplate national security policy. They expect a few things in another term. One, Ukraine aid ends. Two, they believe he would take the U.S. out of NATO. If he can't do it formally, he would neuter it by saying, "I'm not going to defend the Baltics." He had a similar view of South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. John Bolton tells a story where Trump sat in the Oval Office, held a Sharpie, pointed to the tip and said, "See that? That's Taiwan." Then he pointed to the Resolute desk and said, "That's China." He made the point that Taiwan has no chance against China, so we have no business defending them.

Kara Swisher: And Israel?

Jim Sciutto: I was in Israel post-October 7th. Russia sent a SAM missile system to Hezbollah in the midst of it, calculating that if there's a northern front, they want to make it more difficult for Israel. They like to throw fuel on the fire. It occupies the U.S. and weakens a U.S. ally. Putin invited the leaders of Hamas to Moscow repeatedly. These are not good actors.

Kara Swisher: He likes to get his filthy fingers into everything. What a thug. Scott, last question.

Scott Galloway: Jim, if there was a threat you didn't think we were paying enough attention to, what would it be? Is it AI?

Jim Sciutto: On the AI point, I spoke to Richard Moore, the head of MI6. AI is a force multiplier for every weapon system. Drone warfare, which we're seeing in Ukraine, when controlled by AI, can create swarms that overwhelm the defenses of a U.S. aircraft carrier. It can turbocharge cyber attacks. But what strikes me is that this is a multi-front conflict technologically in a way we've never seen before. Three nuclear-armed powers, no treaties with China governing nuclear weapons, fewer treaties with Russia. Everybody has cyber capabilities that could impact our civilian technologies—GPS, train signals. Space weapons, because we depend on space technology. When Russia talks about putting a nuke in space to zap our satellites, we better take that seriously.

Jim Sciutto: To answer your question, we've never faced a multi-front war like this with so many different technologies—old school, like the largest land war in Europe in 80 years, but super-powered technologies like nuclear, cyber, and space weapons that would all be used together. This impression that we could retreat behind the ramparts and say, "Taiwan's not my problem, Ukraine's not my problem"—we can't think in those terms. Any conflict like this would impact you and me.

Kara Swisher: What a happy thing to discuss. Do you have anything happy to say?

Jim Sciutto: To Scott's point, we have done a pretty good job in the last couple of years. I spend the last chapter of the book talking to folks involved every day in responding to this conflict. Communications are important—redline communications, sharing information about pending terror attacks, deconflicting. Treaties matter. Negotiations matter. Standing up and defending what we think is important matters. I'm not a warmonger. I have a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old. They're not many years away from draft age if we go to war. I want to communicate what smart people are saying about avoiding conflict.

Kara Swisher: Thank you, Jim Sciutto. The book is *The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War*. I'm going to put a parentheses that we all hope to avoid. Thank you so much.

Jim Sciutto: Thank you, Kara and Scott.

Scott Galloway: Nice meeting you, Jim.

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

[Ad break plays for Smuckers Uncrustables and Xtandi]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, why don't you do your win and fail?

Scott Galloway: Well, I mean this sincerely. I thought you were fantastic on *Masters of Scale*. That's my quick win. I thought it was a great show. I thought Beto was good. I thought Sarah Isker was quite good. I thought you were especially strong.

Scott Galloway: My win is my colleague, Jonathan Haidt. I think right now Jonathan is arguably one of the most influential scholars in the world. His new book, *The Anxious Generation*, is really actionable. He went after cancel culture, and now he's going after phones. He's basically saying there are four reforms or new norms to build a healthier childhood in the digital age: no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, and more independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world. These are simple things that schools can do. I've been getting more involved in my kids' school to promote these four things.

Scott Galloway: But we've talked a lot about this age gating. There's no reason anyone should be on social media before the age of 16. Schools, there's a big problem, and anyone with kids knows this. People without kids say, "Well, it's your fault. Don't give them the phone." But the kids are ostracized if they don't have these devices and are on those platforms because everybody's on them. So the only way to solve this problem is to get everyone universally off of them. And you do that through age gating and taking their phones away.

Scott Galloway: My son going to boarding school has been, quite frankly, awful for me. I really don't... and it's not about me, but of course I'm not about me, but it's wonderful for him because they're too busy. They're too programmed, they have too many sports and too much studying and too much socialization to be on their phones. They hand their phones in and he doesn't miss it.

Scott Galloway: Anyway, his book is, I think it's going to have a real impact on the way we approach or think about new ways of approaching this incredible uptick in teen depression and anxiety at the hands of not only social media, but handhelds. Apple plays a role here. The platforms play a role. Parents play a role. Schools play a role. But anyway, my win is Jonathan Haidt's new book and his very actionable strategies here.

Scott Galloway: My fail is that I don't think people are taking seriously enough, along the lines of what Jim was saying, that the biggest threat to our national security is not Russia, it's not ISIS, it's not an invasion of Taiwan by China. I think our biggest threat is a series of factors that have come together to create the loneliest generation of young people in history. I think lonely people, specifically lonely young men, specifically lonely young men who serve in our military and at the soft tissue of our ports and our infrastructure, are going to become especially prone and vulnerable to bad actors.

Scott Galloway: I think there's not only a moral obligation to get more involved in their lives, but I think it's a defense threat. I think these young men can be weaponized very easily with AI bots and disinformation when they don't have the guardrails of relationships, friends, family. You've spoken of this many times. I think it's a huge threat. There are a lot of things we can do to fix that, whether it's economic opportunity, after school programs, national service. If we're not going to do it for moral reasons, I think we should do it just out of what Jim was talking about as a defense threat.

Kara Swisher: All right. Well, okay. My fail, I think, is pretty clear: Ronna McDaniel. I mean, this is just... we talked about this earlier. I just am like, come on, stop it. You could go on about cancel culture. This woman deserved to be canceled in some fashion. And you know what? I didn't blame her. She wants to make money. She got zeroed out by Trump. She served him loyally, and of course he screwed her, which is what he does.

Kara Swisher: Ronna, Ronna, whatever, however you pronounce it, I don't care. You should change your name back to Romney, by the way, which it was. She was the niece of Mitt Romney. You should spend more time with your uncle who has a lot more backbone than you do and ask for forgiveness from him. I just literally... but I blame the executives at NBC for this. I'm so glad I got rid of my contract with them. Now, look, CNN's made a lot of dumb choices too in its history, but I would be embarrassed to be there and I would have to quit, I guess. I don't know.

Scott Galloway: Do you think they should pull her offer? Do you think they should say we screwed up?

Kara Swisher: I don't know. I don't know if they can. The damage is already done. I don't think they should have her on and I think no host should have to have her on. This woman has no credibility. She's literally changing her tune every five seconds, drastically changing her tune. It's not even subtle.

Kara Swisher: At some point with Donald Trump, I'm like, I'm not even blaming him anymore because we know who he is, right? It's just the people who support him that know better and they're repulsive. And she is repulsive to me in that regard. Not physically, just repulsive as a character and a liar. She's a liar and she's a mendacious fuck. She wins the mendacious fuck award of the week.

Kara Swisher: And then my win is all the fantastic stuff around the movies that made me cry, which you still haven't gotten me on. *Hoosiers*. No, I'm sorry, people. I didn't cry at *Hoosiers*.

Kara Swisher: But speaking of which, I'm doing this thing in Washington, and I wish Scott would do it sometimes, where you pick a movie and then discuss it at this event. It's a movie night kind of thing. I was trying to decide what to do. And then they're like, "Oh, *Broadcast News*," which I also love, or *The Net*, something to do with the net. But I am going to stick with the ones I want to, which is *Roadhouse*, which made me cry because Patrick Swayze is a genius, or *Gladiator*. And now I may have to do *The Omen*, the original *Omen* movie, which I love.

Scott Galloway: You've got the nanny hanging herself?

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love *The Omen*. That didn't make me cry. I loved it. I love all the *Omens*, as bad as they are. But there's a new one coming out called *The First Omen* where we find out how it got to the Omen. It looks terrible and I'm going to see it. So there you have it.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, I thank you for all your things. Keep them coming. I'll try to cry at something. And before we go, I just want to flag a new piece in *New York Magazine* called "Andrew Huberman's Mechanisms of Control: The Private and Public Seductions of the World's Biggest Pop Neuroscientist." Very popular podcast. I find it to be a smart Joe Rogan kind of thing. It looks fascinating. We can't wait to read it. If you do, let us know what you think. We'll read it this week and perhaps discuss it next week.

Kara Swisher: We do want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more. Please read us out.

Kara Swisher: Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Nertat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Saverio. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to *Pivot* from *New York Magazine* and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Take care, have a great rest of the week.