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Can I sell my ball sweat and call it detox for 75 bucks?

No, you can't because nobody would buy it.

Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

So you're in New York.

Yeah, I am.

And it's kind of shocking.

Every time I walk in, I half expect to see you roaming around like wearing my clothes.

No, but I'm happy to stay there this week when I come to tape with you.

Oh, that's right.

You're excited about that.

You're big.

I am.

You're a big live forever thing on CNN.

Yeah.

You wanted something?

I saw you on the Semaphore podcast talking fondly of me.

So don't pretend.

You're talking about it.

Oh, yeah.

The dozens and dozens of people that listen to the Semaphore podcast.

I like Ben.

I like Semaphore, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're good.

That was a very sweet podcast, actually, very informative.

I can't believe I listened to the whole thing.

Like, I have enough of you, but it actually was nice to listen to you.

You're very smart, apparently.

Apparently, allegedly.

So, how's your, how's New York?

How do you like being back?

Look, I love it here.

I think New York is hands down the best city in the world.

I think it's going through a renaissance right now, shedding skin, new restaurants.

I love the summer flip-flops, tank tops,

a certain desperation that we're the ones.

I'm seeing a parry song, by the way, flip-flops and tank tops, but go ahead.

Oh, God, that hurts.

That hurts.

That is really mean, right out of the gate.

Jesus, Carol, that is really mean.

But I like it.

I love hanging out with other people that aren't very hot or don't have the opportunities to be somewhere else.

It's like we're all in this together.

If you're in New York in the summer in July, it's like, okay, things have not worked out the way we'd hope.

Although I kind of like it.

It has kind of a nice feel to it when nobody's there, don't you think?

I kind of always liked that when I lived in New York.

You literally could bump into anyone

who's in.

New York on a weekend and say, how did your life not work out?

Like, why are you here?

Well, you're just special.

You're special.

The city look is looking good i haven't you're not hot enough to be invited out to some house in montauk you're not rich enough to get the out of here but we're all in this together all in this together

oh and i i just came from i'm sorry back to me i just came from i had the best two days with my uh youngest in chicago we got him to chicago oh that's a great city it's a great city it's a fantastic uh we went we got is he applying to university of this is a 14 year old he's applying to high school okay all all right, okay.

He's more, he's like, he has, instead of taking the ACT, he's like dying his hair every other week.

Yeah, he looked good, though, I have to say, in those photographs.

Yeah, it looks like the real Slim Shady.

He does.

Oh, my God, what a great city.

We were going to do Deep Dish, and then he read somewhere that Deep Dish is for amateurs.

So we went and had great thin crust pieces.

So we went to Gibson Steakhouse.

We went to the Skydeck tallest building

in America.

We went to this great, best ice cream I've ever had, this place called Jenny's.

Jenny's, yes, of course.

Oh, you did?

You know what?

I i didn't know yes it's all over the country oh oh is it really i thought it was a chic thing no no but it's good jenny's is you know the jenny's thing it's nancy pelosi's favorite ice cream and they were giving her a hard time because it's expensive and i was like that means she has good taste my

really good wow i i thought that so funny i assume everything is a chicago thing no and then um we did that tour the bike tour the river that uh that you uh talk about saw and then we went and played this is the best we went and played ping pong

and pool in the middle of the day day i love ping pong city yeah it was a ton of fun we had such an everyone's friendly

yeah chicago's a great city and it's really fun in the summer did you go down to the lake because everyone's at the lake that's kind of cool down there yeah they said go down to the lake and the beach i'm like i see a lot of beach i'm surrounded by beach all the time but we had massive and beautiful oh and then we went and saw f1 oh yeah and

and it's just good to know a guy older than me because it can be that hot it's a great movie isn't it he owns he owns the movie i think he made the movie yeah did he win the race Scott?

Did he win it?

Did you have any questions?

I'm not going to let that cat out of the bag.

I mean,

that's a real twist there.

But by the way, so on this Netflix show, I'm basically there to make it feel more real, the thing about big tech.

They clearly didn't have that person because a 62-year-old, they'd be taking his driver's license away, not putting him in F1.

Right.

I hung out with some F1 drivers that can't.

They're like 22-year-old Brazilians that don't drink, that have like these cat-like reflexes that degrade degrade by the time you're 27.

the idea of a 62 year old being an f1 driver is so insane scott he's on the edge he's on the edge so he's pushing a limit yeah he's making the risk oh my god he's so i i think that guy's amazing yeah i think he is

i think the whole cast was great i think have you now you've seen superman that you're you're working on i didn't see superman oh you got to see superman with

fantastic four because i like vanessa kirby and pedro pascal

uh my son liked it i just can't handle the Marvel DC shit.

I think it's literally an attack on our, I think it's an attack on everything good about the creative world.

I just,

you like those things.

Have you seen The Fantastic Four?

I do, but I don't like Fantastic Four.

I've never seen a Fantastic Four I've liked.

That's what I have to say.

Maybe I just don't like The Fantastic Four.

This one's pretty good.

He's a handsome man.

Pedro?

Yeah.

Pedro?

Pedro.

Yeah,

she's a beautiful woman.

Yeah, she's beautiful.

And great actress, too.

Yeah.

And she's and she's engaged to my good friend Paul Rabel.

Oh,

and she's expecting Paul.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

I'll write him a note.

No, he's lovely.

For people who don't know, he's a great lacrosse player, and he is just a wonderful guy.

Yeah, just a footnote on that.

They're going to have 30 kids.

I'm going to weaponize them and take over Australia.

Can you imagine?

He's literally the greatest lacrosse player to ever play the sport.

She is spectacular.

Can you imagine what their kids are going to be like?

I know.

And he's a good man.

He's like, you know what?

Was really interesting.

I told you, he took a minute for my sons who loved him.

Like, and I did a video for them, and they were beside themselves when they were, whatever, 13, 14 years old.

They were beside themselves.

He, I met him five or six years ago.

I had a podcast, and he showed up to my office.

The guy looks like an Adonis.

I mean, he literally is the most, like, he's this insane specimen.

And he walks in, I'm like, Jesus Christ, who's the, who's the, you know, Dwayne, the Dwayne Johnson with a lacrosse thing.

And he sat down and he's like, and he looks at me in mine and he's like, he's like, I really struggle with my relationship with my my father.

And he's like, I'm trying to figure out how it's manifesting in my insecurity.

And I'm like, what the fuck?

He's so groovy.

He's so groovy.

He's so literally kind of in touch with, you know, him.

Good hair.

Good hair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But anyways, I don't know how I got here.

Fantastic for.

Fantastic for

fantastic for.

Well, good.

I'm glad.

How was your weekend?

I was good.

I had a great weekend, actually.

We did a lot of, we did it.

I did it.

We're doing these dinner parties on Sunday, and we had our neighbors who are also very handsome people

and friends of ours who one friend of ours,

they got married, this lesbian couple, and she graduated law school.

So we celebrated her law school graduation and then my neighbor got a great new job doing a really cool thing that's related to Art Basel.

And I have to tell you, speaking of New York being beautiful, I have to say In San Francisco, it is so cleaned up.

It's really quite amazing.

I'm going to hopefully be doing an event there.

It looks great.

It looks really great.

And it went to some great places to eat, went out with Dr.

Swisher.

We had a great time.

And so it was good.

Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the FCC greenlighting the Sky Dance Paramount Margarine, no surprise, and what Trump is saying about a pardon for Julaine Maxwell,

the sexual abuser.

I'm going to say that with everything.

It's incredible that they're, well, we'll get to it.

But first, the Cold Play Kiss Camp SAG is not over.

Astronomer, the tech firm at the center of all the drama, has a new temporary spokesperson.

Let's hear from her.

Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.

Hi, I'm Gwyneth Paltrow.

I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer.

Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones.

Yes, that's Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar winner, entrepreneur, and ex-wife of Cold Play's lead singer, Chris Martin.

The tongue-in-cheek video, she pivots from KISSCAM questions to highlighting the company's AI tools in its upcoming conference.

Forbes said the video offers a crisis playbook for CEOs.

I was really curious, just for people to know,

why not take advantage of a terrible situation for one?

ColdPlay is also benefiting.

Streams of their songs are up 25%.

I just, I was sitting there.

I'm like, I wonder what Scott thinks.

I liked it.

My friend Brooks says straight women don't like it.

Gay people and straight men like it.

I don't know if that's true.

How do you, how do you, what do you think about it as a marketer?

Well, well first unfairly i don't think much i i for some reason i don't love gwyneth paltra i wish she'd run into a snowplow in that accident or

she calls herself her thought leader but i think her only thought should be i should have finished college but anyways

okay all right move along i think it's genius absolute genius i think cmo i think that is probably the best marketing move so far of 2025 just to lean into it

um you know just to own it she's been perfectly cast she is i think she is she is a great actress And the connection with Chris Martin,

genius.

And we live in an age where it is so crowded out there.

Everyone's trying to grab, if you think of the marketing funnel, we always talk about the marketing funnel, but it kind of distills down to awareness, intent, purchase, and loyalty.

And one of the hardest things that both Trump and

Musk have weaponized, and I think the reason that they're president and the wealthiest man in the world is they really understand the power of awareness, even if it goes against traditional instinct of making you look bad.

You'd rather be known for something not great than not known at all.

The worst thing you can say about someone after you meet them, what's the worst thing you can say about them?

I forgot them.

I don't remember them.

I don't know who they are.

What?

Who?

And them leaning into this, I bet the company Astronomer has gone from

zero, literally 0% awareness.

It wouldn't have even registered statistically if you did an awareness from Cuba or something.

It's a lot of people like television.

To probably 20 or 30% right now.

I bet one in three Americans have heard of this company called Astronomer.

Is it translate or is it just a one-off, clever, good handling of a bad situation?

If they had spent $200 million on an awareness campaign, they couldn't have got this type of awareness.

And I don't think people hold the company, it doesn't make, I don't think people hold the company liable.

They think, oh, an old, you know, a rich white dude thinks he can start banging his head of HR and get away with it.

Like that, okay, that's not a shocker.

That's not like, it doesn't mean their, their AI platform isn't good, right?

People aren't saying, oh, that's it.

I'm not, I'm going to, you know, whatever, dystopia AI now.

So all of a sudden, everyone's heard about it.

I doubt their existing customers are leaving.

And when they hear from one of their 40 inside sales reps pinging people on LinkedIn to try and get a meeting, people are like, oh, wait, is it that Astronomer?

It's a conversation starter.

People have heard of the company.

Sense of humor.

Shows a sense of humor.

Sense of self-worth.

And brilliant casting.

And she did a good job.

She's excellent in it.

I have to say that.

She's very good.

It's tailor-made for her.

So they handled it really well, I think.

Good job, astronomer.

Although we're not going to buy any of your products.

You know, she was at Code.

We had a problematic appearance at Code with her.

Really?

Say more?

Spill the tea.

Come on.

You know, she did a really great essay on.

She got very badly attacked online in the early days of Twitter and everything else, like crazy bad.

And it was incredibly sexist.

And you can like her or not, but it was over the friggin top with her.

And so she wrote this essay saying, Look, I'm getting attacked a lot.

Can you imagine if you're a teen girl?

And, you know, I can handle it.

She was like, I can handle it, but what the fuck is happening here?

And so it was very prescient, very early.

She was making this point.

So I invited her to code to talk about this essay and to do one of those five-minute talks, you know, in front.

And she came and I just was like, just wear jeans, like what she, how she appeared in this thing.

And she was overdressed and she

got nervous and wasn't able to really articulate it and was reading from a script.

And I think she just got nervous because she was very lovely.

I mean, she was, she handled it, but it just didn't,

the essay was so good and her presentation there was not.

And I was sorry because I think she had an excellent point using her celebrity to make a point about teen girls.

very early on in the in what you talk about now, you know, about teenagers and self-esteem.

She was one of the earlier people to do that in

Facebook and Twitter and stuff like that.

So it was unfortunate because she was great and i was thinking oh she she's really good with scripts is what i should have done is just talk to her about it and not let her give a speech so it rambled it didn't it didn't and then all the men were acting like assholes because she's very pretty i don't know i think she's what happens when a birken bag gains sentience and overdoses in ayahuasca no she's very pretty

it is such late-stage capitalism it's like put the term detox in front of everything and charge 75 bucks on it let's not beat up on a woman can i can i sell my ball sweat and call it detox or something?

No, you can't because nobody would buy it, but hers, perhaps.

Ball sweat candle.

I do have the vagina candle.

I do have the

son.

I think I bought vagina candle for my son.

Oh, God.

Anyway, we're going to move on.

Speaking of vagina candles, President Trump announced that the U.S.

reached a trade deal with the EU on Sunday, shortly before the August 1st deadline.

He've made a deal.

The deal imposes a 15% tariff on most European goods to the U.S., which is higher than the 10% baseline tariff tariff the EU was hoping for.

President Trump called the agreement, quote, the biggest deal ever made and, quote, satisfactory to both sides, although the EU will not be imposing a tariff on American imports.

Trump said the EU also agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of U.S.

energy, an additional $600 billion worth of investments in the U.S.

and hundreds of billions in military equipment.

50% tariff on steel from Europe remains in place, though.

Meanwhile, Trump also filled his weekend with something else, golfing at his golf resorts in Scotland.

It's estimated the golfing trip will cost American taxpayers over $10 million

to talk his golf club.

That brings the total golf cost of his second term to at least $52 million.

He spent $152 million golfing in his first term.

But those Fed renovations, right, Scott?

So anyway, talk about the EU deal.

The golfing thing is just grotesque the way he does this, but it's part or sort of used to it, unfortunately.

Well, just I don't like to give Trump any wins, but just trying trying to call balls and strikes.

Look, the guy plays too much golf.

In my opinion, he's not focused on the wrong thing.

He's either thinking about a calm strategy around avoiding Epstein or making big, bull declarative statements, not putting in the real work that a president, in my opinion, is supposed to do, as evidenced by the fact that he's golfed, whatever, 50 times.

Having said that.

Presidents need to take time off, and when they take time off, it's going to cost a lot of money because there's an infrastructure around protecting the president.

So I don't fault him for that.

The EU deal so far, I need to to dig in, but I actually think the EU deal is a pretty good deal.

I mean, I'm not sure we needed to start this nonsense to begin with.

Right.

Right.

But it so far looks like a pretty reasonable deal.

What's interesting is that in some instances, it actually lowers tariffs.

So it's like, okay, so Trump is actually a free trader now, which I like.

I think that

I would like to see zero tariff zones.

And I think free trade is absolutely inextricably linked to our prosperity.

Comparative advantage is just,

at the end of the day, the reason why we have all these talented people around us is there are some people who are better at things than we are, and we exchange what we're good at, and we all end up better off.

And so I kind of like this deal.

The number one or number two exports from the U.S.

into the EU are oil and or energy.

And I think we sell them a lot of jet planes.

They sell a lot of pharmaceuticals into us.

Here's the thing.

It felt like a press release because now the Vietnamese and the Japan one don't seem to be as full as you know I mean like he's so into the press release of everything it seems like a lot of wasted time when this could have been done quietly and behind the scenes and

you know 100% and I don't even know like a lot of the the stuff he signed is not clear if it's signed right and again our own American companies are complaining about the alleged Japanese deal, although that's not clear where that is.

And so I just feel like this is a lot of just press releases.

Maybe that's what all the presidency is, but I I don't think it is.

I think they're, you know, these things should take time.

They should be well thought out.

It shouldn't, you know, poor Ursula von Leiden.

You saw her, the head of the EU, had to sit there.

Like, I would love

internal.

The internal stuff in her head would have been fantastic.

Yeah, there's some good memes on that.

It just went off.

So look, they.

We import nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, mechanical appliance, 15% of cars and other non-railway vehicles, 10%

of imports.

What's interesting is the tariff on EU cars dropped from 27.5% 7 May to 15%.

And the tariff on U.S.

cars imported to the EU dropped from 10% to 2.5%.

But here's the problem, folks.

People don't love our cars.

We don't have a tariff problem.

We have a product market fit problem.

And then, but I look, I...

I hate to give it to them, but I actually think this deal is better than I would have thought it would be.

I'm glad it's taken insecurity off the table.

The EU is, people think China is our largest trading partner.

Our largest trading partner by nation is Mexico.

And our largest by region is actually the EU.

So having this kind of settled such that we can get back to work, people can start planning their businesses and stop spending time trying to guess what is going to come out of his office next.

I think this is a, I think this is a good thing.

Well, you know, Wall Street had called this, right?

Wall Street had sort of been like,

just been no yips from Wall Street whatsoever this whole couple of weeks.

My bias is always to look for what's wrong here.

I actually think that

there's a lot that's right here.

Now, whether we needed to do this at all, whether it should have been done by the Secretary of Commerce, a really talented Gio Raimundo type figure, I think that there's a lot of merit to that, that this is more about performance than it is about actual economic growth.

But I like the way I see this is that it's essentially...

gone the other way, that it's reducing tariffs and increasing free trade, which I like.

So I, you know, look, I give this, I hate hate to do it.

I give this, I give this a thumbs up.

I give it a medium thumbs up only because it didn't have to happen.

It's just like a lot.

And it's like grandpa knocked over all the chairs and then set them up slightly better.

Okay, great.

Thanks, Gramps.

Like, could have been done in so many other ways.

And it kind of,

I know it is.

And yet, here I just said it.

I just said it.

Grandpa knocks over a lot of fucking chairs and he needs to stop.

Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

We come back as Skydance's Paramount Deal clears another hurdle.

South Park takes aim at Trump and its parent company.

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Scott, we're back.

The FCC has approved Skydance's merger with Paramount with the commissioners voting two to one along party lines to give the $8 billion deal a green light.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency signed off after Skydance committed to unbiased journalism and agreed not to establish any DEI programs.

That guy's such a waste of space in many ways.

The merger was approved just days after Trump said he received his $16 million settlement from Paramount.

He also claimed to be getting an additional $20 million from Skydance in the form of ads and PSAs, though Skydance has not confirmed that.

So talk a little bit about this, because I think you think it's like a nothing burger for a company.

Trump is setting now, setting his sights on ABC and NBC now, calling them political pawns for the Democratic Party and saying their licenses should be revoked.

He also went after Oprah and Beyoncé at some point.

And while it was happening, South Park, which is a Paramount property, just finished a big deal,

kicked off its 27th season last week with a premiere that skewered Trump and Paramount beautifully.

The episode showed Trump in bed with Satan, referencing another one of Trump's favorite topics.

Let's play a bit.

I'm not in the mood right now.

Another random bitch commented on my Instagram that you're on the Epstein list.

The Epstein list?

Are we still talking about that?

Well, are you on the list or not?

It's weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.

I'm not telling everyone to relax.

Relax, dad.

It was worse than that.

They also had a naked Trump.

They had his

eye on it.

And they talked about how they.

These guys do a lot of edibles.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

The South Parks creators just signed a new $1.5 billion streaming deal with Paramount.

They should have got 1.6.

I know.

These guys are genius.

I just, please, let's just, we'll get to Epstein, the bigger Epstein issue in an instant, but talk about this.

I thought this was hysterical.

This is 27th seasons, and these guys are still, you know, a lot of of people don't like them because they're so politically incorrect, but I don't, I love my kids love them.

I think they're amazing.

Your thoughts?

I think it's hardening, not only because I enjoy great comedy, but it's hardening that something that's built into our society, I think, is a certain level, and I think this is really encouraging, a certain level of irreverence and commercial opportunity and irreverence.

And just as the president has convinced, you know, Bob Iger to bend a knee and

certain law firms to bend a knee and gotten, you know, said, okay, Sherry, if you want to maintain your status as a billionaire, I'm going to get you to bend a knee.

Fine.

But the moment, a wonderful thing about America is that people are pretty fearless, creatives are pretty fearless, and they come out with something like this.

And also,

all of the 60-something late-night talk show hosts that are

making 100 times more than their folks behind the camera who see any threat against Colbert.

I mean, mean, they're just so fucking precious.

And I realize how cynical that is, but people love these people.

But you guess what?

They're not going to be silenced.

They're going to do podcasts.

And

I'm not saying

that we shouldn't take this kind of move towards fascism and this attempt to intimidate journalists, that we shouldn't take it seriously.

But what I find is examples like this, and there's examples everywhere, are basically the American culture, the creative community, kind of say, fuck you, and

find,

you know, it's like, remember in Jurassic Park, it said that life finds a way.

Well, guess what?

The truth and the truth and humor and satire, it finds a way.

And it made me feel good that

as much as they're going to attempt to silence critics, it's not going to work, or I don't think it's going to work because the same station or same broadcast network that agreed to basically pay off the president, was intimidated, bent to knee.

And then as soon as these guys signed a deal, they put out something like that.

I just found it very encouraging.

Weren't you like, oh my God?

Like, I was like, wow.

Oh, these guys went for it.

Went for it.

They just went and they talked about it.

Talked about it.

And that they approved it.

One of the things that I liked about it, you know, a lot of people, when I say I like South Park, I mean, it's like, oh, they're anti.

You know what?

If you liked this one,

you have to like being offended all the time by these guys.

They are, they do do like really heinous stuff, but it's funny.

It's, or, or just laugh about it.

They're, they're comedy.

And again, actually, when Babylon B happened,

when what was it, anti-trans thing?

It was just not funny is what it was.

That's my issue with it.

Whenever it's not funny, but I think we have to give huge leeway to comics and satirists and all that stuff.

The stuff that does.

make me nervous, I'll tell you, is like,

I know this is a distraction and you talk about Trump like this, but accusing Oprah and Beyoncé of taking millions for their 2024 Kamala endorsements and saying they should be prosecuted.

The continuing Obama videos, which are really disturbing and not funny.

And I get the idea of he can do whatever he wants.

But, and Trump's legal team asked the judge to order Rupert Murdoch to sit for an expedited deposition in that lawsuit, or that $10 billion lawsuit, citing his age as the reason to do this sooner rather than later.

Although I think Rupert will outlast Trump by a long stretch, but that stuff really is disturbing.

The idea that he's getting free ads or that he's

I love these guys, but not everyone can be these guys.

And a lot, some of it is serious and some of it is just funny, like that they stick it in his eye kind of thing or the eye of his penis, I guess.

I think satire plays an important role.

I think the left has shot itself in the foot by becoming so sensitive that we have seeded irreverent comedy to the right.

And people love irreverent comedy.

And it's, and we used to own it.

If you think about the real social, you know, comedian to social commentators,

they were, yeah, they came from the Lenny Bruce.

These were offensive people and they said really off-color things.

And then we decided, oh, you can't say that.

And then the kind of the right sort of usurped, you know, comedy, comedy is legal again.

So I like when comedian, that's why I love Ricky Gervais.

I do think that's changing, though.

I do think, I think there's more of a sense of humor coming through.

When you see, when I'm starting to interview Congress people, they're more like, yeah, whatever.

Like they seem to feel a little looser in that regard.

And these guys, I wouldn't know what these guys, these guys aren't left or right.

I don't know what they're just funny.

They're just funny.

And so I think that's critically important.

But the other ones where he's attacking like law firms or, you know, putting those Obama things up, those are just incredibly deleterious to our society.

I think, and they're weird and they're threatening and they're creepy.

And speaking of creepy, President Trump says he's allowed to pardon Jelaine Maxwell.

We know this, President Trump, but nobody's approached him about it.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell for nine hours across two days last week at a Florida prison where she's serving her 20-year sentence.

It should be 100 years.

Maxwell was asked about 100 different people, according to her lawyer, and she reportedly granted limited immunity for the interviews, essentially immunity that applies only if she doesn't lie.

Let's listen to what else Maxwell's lawyer said about the meeting.

This was the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions about what happened.

And so the truth will come out about what happened with Mr.

Epstein, and she's the person who's answering those.

Dear lawyer, it's not the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions.

She just refused to do so, and she almost went up for perjury because she's a liar, she's a sexual harasser, she's convicted sex tracker.

You know, just stop it.

This is a person who deserves no.

I know we do immunity deals with these people to get stuff, but this cynical, horrible monster, as I said last week, is the fact that they're focused on her and not the victims continues to astonish me.

And the idea that Republicans are suddenly like, oh, she's our hero or a version of our hero.

Oh, if she tells the truth, then it's good.

She could have told the truth a million times and saved all these women untold trauma, but she isn't because she's a monster and deserves to stay in jail the rest of her life.

I mean, the 20 years to me is not at all long enough.

I don't know what you think, but I'm just like, are you kidding me with this lady?

So before we get back to that, you know, my favorite Cartman lineup?

Okay, go ahead.

Okay.

I just had a rage.

I say this all the time, and then I have to say it's Cartman because people look at me like, what the fuck?

I'll say, I'm not just sure.

I'm HIV positive.

And people are like, what?

He also says, you know, you can actually die from secondhand smug.

Anyways.

Love Cartman.

Look,

when something becomes a really big problem, it can shut down the government.

The deficit has gotten so big that Republicans who claim to be fiscally conservative or get mad at social spending, and in my opinion, the Democrats should have done it the last time around, they will threaten to shut down the government and the world and the markets freak out temporarily at the idea that the deficit or our fiscal irresponsibility might result in second order effect of the government being shut down.

Okay, a pedophile, a convicted pedophile just shut down the government.

Epstein and specifically the Attorney General and

Trump's efforts to shut down the release or inhibit the release of these files resulted in Speaker Johnson excusing Congress early.

Epstein shut a dead pedophile, shut down the U.S.

government.

So this is having all sorts of second-order effects here.

And your point is exactly that.

It's ridiculous to think that someone

accused, tried, convicted, incarcerated of one of the highest profile crimes of the last decade, that there weren't people all over her asking her questions, offering deals.

But now they said, no, we don't like what she said.

So we're taking a moment to give her a chance to be part of our political fodder for the protection of the president.

So

this is hugely political.

It's unprecedented.

It's unethical.

And it raises whatever comes out of this.

will just be poisoned fruit i think not valid it just won't even if they did it by the book and they found found no information or whatever, it's just not, the whole thing is tainted.

We talked about this at the last show.

The fix is in, but I'm just very curious what happens.

I think it's going to be a very long and hot summer at these town hall meetings for Republicans who show up and say, okay.

And you know who's been really on point here is Representative Rocana.

He's been very pointed.

I just was texting at the moment.

And very.

Very accurate and really, really puncturing around this stuff.

With Tom Massey.

He's trying to get like some.

Here's the thing.

Donald Trump is in the Epstein files and should not be conducting.

He should remove himself from an

every point of view because everything he does is going to taint this entire thing.

Plus, he's using it as a political cudgel.

He'll only name Democrats, not maybe a few Republicans he doesn't like.

This is just so grotesque.

And what's more grotesque is watching that little nebish,

Mike Johnson, shift.

He doesn't care about pedophiles.

He doesn't care about the women.

What What he cares about, persecuting pedophiles, he cares about protecting President Trump over anything else.

And that's like creepy.

It puts you right adjacent to pedophiles is what it does.

A pedophile enabler is what it reminds me of.

And I couldn't say it any stronger.

This woman is a criminal.

And she belongs in jail.

And whatever she says is very tainted at this point, because she had every opportunity to make people's lives better by coming through.

Even if it meant her being put in jail longer, she did things that deserve that.

And therefore, I think help getting her

doesn't settle anything.

And by the way, the victims who've talked up and the ones that are being interviewed, I did an interview with Julie K.

Brown this week,

they are beside themselves.

They're re-traumatized.

And it has nothing to do with stopping pedophiles or helping women.

It has everything to do with helping someone on the Epstein list, and that would be President Trump.

All right.

We'll see what happens, but it's going to be, you're right, it's going to be an ugly summer for a lot of people.

And some of the people, it deserves to be an ugly summer.

All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back.

Another AI lawsuit.

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Scott, we're back with more news.

Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has sued the makers of an AI tool, YesChat, accusing them of using his name and reputation for a series of chat bots.

Robbins says the bots ingested his seminars and copyrighted material and are reselling it under his name, which he has trademarked.

YesChat has several paid subscription tiers and offers bots such as Talk to Tony Robbins and Tony Robbins GPT.

Robbins has his own authorized AI clone available by subscription on his website, as he should.

The suit is seeking $10 million in damages for unfair competition, $2 million for each trademark violation, of which there could be a number, and punitive damages for willful and malicious misconduct.

These are going to be more and more.

It's interesting that Tony Robbins, it makes sense.

He has so much material out there.

It's so easily AI'd.

He sometimes sounds like AI, honestly.

Do you talk a little bit about this?

Like they could ingest a lot of your stuff, my stuff, I don't know, but you do a lot of like prescriptive stuff like that.

How do you look at these kind of things?

I've been thinking a lot about this.

I believe what Jensen Huang said, that everyone should have rights to their digital twin.

And first off, only in America could you have a guy who's 6'7 and like a pure alpha energy screaming at traumatized accountants.

I mean, it's just,

I think Tony Robbins is a phenomenon.

There needs to be pretty serious, in my opinion, legislation.

I think, and one of the problems about having a really old electorate is I just don't think they understand these technologies.

I think you really need immediately some IP protection that, as Jensen Huang said, said, you own your digital twin.

And so I'm working with a large company that has a very big search engine, and they're creating this thing called portraits.

Portraits or profiles.

Where you give them permission to scan everything.

I get a lot of questions, a lot of emails, as I'm sure you do.

And a lot of them are really thoughtful emails from people asking about their sons or looking for advice.

And you don't want to answer everyone.

I just can't.

I want to, and I can't.

And so I'm working with this company and I'm giving them permission to scan absolutely everything I've done such that they get an automatic response.

And if they want, they can ask this AI to give them an answer in my voice.

And

that's coming.

Do you vet it?

How do you, what if it says like bad things?

Well, first off, I mean, I think people have to recognize, all right, it is AI and there'll be problems, but they do, I'm hoping we do a pretty good job of QA.

And we spend a lot of time time asking questions and we've been tweaking this, you know, I would never say this, what happened,

or, you know, it's okay to say I don't know, what have you.

But

the bottom line is I've given them permission and I want to, so that's fine.

But people, if they don't get permission, I don't think should have anything crawled or anything mimicked about them.

In addition, I think it's really,

I think there's a big opportunity for the creative community to kind of extract, and I don't want to say they're pound of flesh, but the royalty they're entitled to.

There's just no reason.

One of my favorite songs, someone that I used to know, the singer wanted to use a lot of samples, so he preemptively paid out royalties to avoid copyright disputes.

That's the way it should be.

And this has been a big deal in the specialty retail community where, you know, companies ranging from pottery barn to whoever, restoration hardware go and essentially go to artisans and quote unquote say their work was inspired by them.

What is the line between copying something when you owe people money?

Because the best economic, look,

the two best economic business models in history are one, tapping into people the flaw in their instincts, right?

I couldn't find sugary food, so we can mass produce a sugar bomb in the form of cereal, give it to people they don't know when to stop.

Oh, only 40% of men have reproduced, lack of mating opportunities, create porn.

Oh, okay, great.

People are dying for social connection, are so freaked out about being shamed, create algorithms that make them feel bad about themselves so they have to come back every two minutes to see what someone commented on.

Okay, Instagram.

And then the other second best business model, hands down, first is tapping into an instinctual flaw.

The second best business model is IP theft.

The Americans in the 18th and 19th century stole British and European textile manufacturing technology and built manufacturing plants up and down the eastern seaboard based on European IP, even stole some artisans, kidnapped some artisans.

And the most descendant economy over the last 30 years, their core competence is really elegant IP theft, whether it's letting Tesla come in and manufacture and then propping up BYD, whether it's letting Google long enough to figure out their algorithm and then propping up Baidu.

So IP theft is the ultimate business model.

And what do you have with Meta and AI?

You have, one,

companies that are able to tap into our the flaws in our instincts and two,

massive, and Trump just signaled, we're going to let them engage engage in massive IP theft.

Right.

He said it wasn't, it wasn't a big deal.

Now, your book is coming out.

You remember they did my book and they made those porny, weird versions of me and books of my, they're still there.

They haven't been able to take a lot of them down.

Your book is coming out.

They're going to try to rip it off.

There'll probably be a workbook for your book, you know, the man, you know,

a man workbook or something that isn't yours.

Do you have any, I mean, you'll spend your time playing whack-a-mole with these people.

That's my feeling is that they don't, there's no protection.

You have copyright protection, but in order to enforce it is another story.

I'm not worried about that stuff.

There's purposeful leakage, right?

You want a certain amount of, you know, Netflix wants you to share a certain number of the passwords, right?

And you want a certain amount of mimicry or IP theft or what have you.

But what I'm more worried about is that at some point, AI can say,

take

my book, Notes on Being a Man, and give it to me in 60 pages, not 400.

And they give it to you in 60 pages and

you don't get compensated, neither me nor my agent nor my you should put that one out though.

You should put out a 60 page version.

Well, I mean, it's an interesting idea, but I think there's something to forcing people to do the work.

I always thought, I always was like, I wish I could do a 20 page, 60 page, 100 page version of my books.

I used to say that, and publishers used to like vomit on the floor whenever I'd say that many years ago.

Anyway, we'll see what goes with this.

Good for you, Tony Robbins, but everyone's going to face this issue.

Everyone who has enough material out there, people like me and Scott, Tony Robbins, there's a lot of people with lots and lots of material.

Anyway, lastly, President Trump doesn't want the federal government agencies to contract with Elon Musk's XAI.

What a surprise, according to White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt.

However, Trump took to social media saying he's not trying to destroy Musk's companies, saying everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon's companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large-scale subsidies he receives from the U.S.

government.

This is not so.

I want Elon, all of our businesses within our country to thrive.

In fact, thrive like never before.

Elon was not comforted.

He responded, like, these aren't subsidies.

I'm providing them with good products for cheap prices.

You know, he's going to continue to do this and Elon's going to continue to whack at him, I assume, throughout the rest of the term.

Any thoughts?

I'm curious what you think here, Kara.

I mean, if you really, if you look back,

did Musk start this whole Epstein thing?

He's the first one that said

Trump's in the Epstein thing.

Remember when I said he's going to keep at it?

because he's obsessed with this topic?

When he took it down?

First, he said it.

I think, yes, no,

Elon started this, absolutely started it, and then insinuated Bannon, if you remember.

And they took down the Trump one.

And I remember at the time I said, no, no, he's going to put it back up because this sticks in his craw, this Epstein stuff.

Yeah, he did.

He did start it.

So,

and what's interesting is that

it feels like SpaceX right now is bigger than our government.

And that is, I think he would love, I think Trump wouldn't, and I wouldn't put in passive me, is willing to go after companies asymmetrically would cancel contracts.

And I think the Defense Department has come back and said, SpaceX is our

program.

I mean,

the media is so obsessed with itself.

It can't stop covering Paramount.

You know, whatever it is,

Yellowstone, it's relatively Colbert.

I'm sorry, folks.

It's relatively unimportant.

The fact that we have one company that controls almost all of the low orbit satellites, that is much more important.

That is where the FTC should be focused.

So

this stuff is, I find we're kind of, we're focused on the wrong things.

And the fact that Musk, I mean, think about this.

Musk got the president, you could argue, play a big role in his election.

Musk is now playing a big role in what may be the dethroning of the president.

Musk is now critical to our infrastructure and in some ways bigger than the Defense Department or the Defense Department.

If the Defense Department wants to bring home astronauts from the International Space Station, they have to call Elon, right?

If they want communications battlefield technology to work really well, they have to call Elon.

I mean, this is, we are, there are certain individuals who are becoming, Thomas Friedman said this probably 25 years ago, and it was insightful or appreciated at the time.

And he said that you have the rise of the super, super

state individual.

And he was using the example of Bill Gates is now more powerful than most nations.

And I wonder if, in many ways, this is kind of showing that Elon Musk, at first I thought Trump's much more powerful than Elon, but basically I think Elon, if he keeps at it, I don't know if he's going to take the president down, but he's going to severely diminish his

power or distract him.

He's not a good enemy to have.

Remember when I said it's not like, you know, fighting with Omarosa or Michael Cohen.

This guy has a set.

He's no Michael Avenatti.

Yeah.

You know, he has a set and he has money.

He's got means.

He's, he also, when he apologized and everyone's like, there, it's over.

I'm like,

not this guy, not this guy.

And what will be interesting to see is if he can strike a side deal, because a lot of his acolytes have stayed in Washington and are trying to make deals with the Trump administration.

I suspect he will reach out to someone.

I mean, he was, I think, close to J.D.

Vance.

And even though J.D.

Vance is such a, like a suck up to Trump, he's got a, I've got to, I'm really interested in what's actually going behind the scenes with Vance and the rest of them, because they're all preparing for a post-Trump world, right?

At this point.

And so they've got to figure out, they cannot make an enemy of Elon, for example, going forward.

Even if it angers Trump, they've got to do it in this sort of subtle.

quiet way.

So the jockeying behind the scenes has got to be fascinating.

Like, this is just my guess.

I'm not, I'm completely making it up.

But if I were Vance or any Republican, I would start to figure out what the world post-Trump looks like because he's obviously decaying in real time.

Some of these pictures of him, he looks like really unhealthy, but that's okay.

He can go on forever like that.

I think he's been unhealthy his whole life.

But I'm really interested in what I'd love to know what Vance is actually thinking versus what he says in public, which is obsequious to Trump, because

he's got more ties with these guys than Trump certainly did.

And he was sort of the person who introduced them to Trump.

And you know what I mean?

Like that was their link.

So it'd be interesting to be with Thiel and Vance and Musk and those people to figure out what they're up to.

I think they're all trying to cosplay the president.

And that is

Americans got so sick of this politically correct, starched, white-washed,

you know.

vanilla speak that then this guy came along and started like mocking the disabled or calling people horse face.

And as offensive as it was, a lot of America found it refreshing and they thought, oh my God, for the first time, someone's speaking honestly.

Like that's them.

They're actually speaking who they are.

And, but that cruelty and that coarseness, I think all of these guys, Ted Cruz or J.D.

Vance, they never used to say the kind of shit they're saying now because they're all cosplaying him.

And what I think they fail to realize is that the cadence of presidential cycles is we always go for someone different.

We go way different.

We're like, okay, we tried that for four or eight years.

Now we are ready for something.

I mean, Trump just couldn't have been more different than Obama.

And, you know, Obama couldn't have been much more different than Bush.

And I think the future, and we've been talking about this with various Democrats, I think a guy like James Tallarico or

was it Tallarico?

The guy out of

Texas.

Texas.

And then

Mayor Pete, who talks about family.

Yeah.

And has a cool beard.

Do you like his rock and beard?

Yeah, but I think Mayor Pete's, I had Ezra Klein on today and he made a great point.

I think Mayor Pete, to a certain extent, kind of is this great ad for why America works, right?

Here's a guy who couldn't have been public about his family and instead talks about how wonderful and meaningful it is to have a healthy relationship and kids.

And it's sort of like, you hear Mayor Pete talk about it and you're like, wow, progressive America works.

It means something for people.

And he can talk about it when James Tallarico talks about his faith and loving thy neighbor.

I mean, he's going,

I think the next president is literally going to be the 180 of Trump.

I think he's going to be kind,

kind or she, kind, thoughtful.

Oh, Scott, you're sick.

Yeah, I know.

It's so weird, right?

I'm going to bring you some balm.

There you go.

Yeah.

I just want to.

I'm going to rub it lovingly on your chest.

I just want a big, like, a big Filipino nurse with well-moisturized hands that calls me King.

King Swishar.

I want a nurse that calls me King.

And I want to bell.

I'll call you King.

Anyways, I'm thinking about having more plastic surgery.

I'm going to need a nurse.

We'll discuss.

Anyways, but

these guys, I think the next one's going to be, if you will, I think the strategy for Democrats is

to not even mention the president.

I think people are so sick of hearing that the rest of the media world would do a job of bringing it up.

After the midterms, yeah, he's dead.

I mean, for to them, he should be as it this is something Robin Emmanuel said.

He's like, until the midterms, midterms, you say what you're going to do.

And even if it's not for reals, and after the midterms, he doesn't exist.

I think that's right.

But

I think America is so desperate at this point for kindness, for decency, for family, traditional value, traditional, but like values.

I'm going to run.

I'm going to run that.

Yeah, I can see that.

No, but you,

let's use you as an example.

You're an example of

why progressive politics work.

The fact that you can be married, have a great career, have children, have a healthy family.

You're sort of the American success story.

These progressive ideals work.

And you can speak to with credibility the importance of family and what it means to have a traditional, you know,

family means people you otherwise wouldn't hang out with and care with.

And when you can get it, when you pull down barriers to people loving each other, they're less likely to be attacked on social society.

They're more likely to pay their taxes.

They're more likely to develop good humans who turn into good citizens, who can be great military, nonprofit, and business leaders.

You know,

this shit works.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, one of the things I think, I think it'll be hard to elect a gay person, even a man, and who's this pleasant as Pete Buddha Judge.

But one of the things that a lot of people say about him and some of the other Democrats I've been interviewing lately is like, you know, even if you disagree with them or you have different problems, one, it's like, sort of, I like the cut of your jib.

Like, you know what I mean?

I like how you're living your life kind of thing.

And I think that's the appeal for a lot of progressives.

And there's a lot of them now.

There's a lot of them now, increasingly, who are very appealing.

And I think you're right, being appealing and feeling genuine is going to be important.

You got to like wash out the shoomers and the rest of them.

They got to.

And not being afraid, also, not being afraid to be offensive.

Yep, exactly.

Yeah, I don't, I, I, I, I'm, I don't think trans athletes should be able to to play sports, or I think that this guy, I think this guy is a, is, is a pedophile and that he's clearly covering up.

I, I just, things that might, might be wrong.

It's okay.

You might be wrong.

You might offend 20% of the audience in front of you.

That's okay.

I think people are, people are ready for it.

That's all right.

I agree.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Okay, Scott, we're going to do some wins and fails.

I guess I'll go first.

Okay.

Fail, RFK Jr.

Again, he's quietly like wrecking everything.

He's planning to remove all 16 members of a cancer screening and HIV medication tax force because he believes they're too woke.

He is,

I say this again and again.

He's killing people.

He's going to kill people.

I get the need for change in the healthcare area.

I'm doing a whole doctor series on it.

I understand this, but the way he's going about it is so political and so nothing to do with science.

It's, he's just, and because Trump is so loud with all this Epstein stuff, you're not paying attention to this guy.

And I just think we need to really focus in on the stuff he's doing to rec science.

I have talked to so many scientists.

I've gone to so many great places, and they're all like doing amazing work and are in fear of getting cut.

It's ridiculous.

I was in one lab this week in Stanford, and it's this incredible breakthrough.

And I'm not going to go into it, but it's this incredible breakthrough.

And this lab was run by,

it was so full of really amazing people here from other countries.

It was also Americans,

Native-born Americans.

It was so important that this group of people were here and it's somewhere like Stanford getting funded to do something amazing.

And so, what RFK Jr.

is doing is killing people and

setting back important

research

for

even five years is too much, like at all.

And And for a win,

I do feel that like there is a pushback.

And I loved what the South Park guys did.

I just, and not just because I liked it, it was funny.

It was actually funny.

It had a lot of resonance.

I think they appropriately pushed back.

And you have to like them, even if you don't agree with them on stuff.

And I thought that was just one of the biggest baller moves of all time to do that.

I just thought it was like, good for you.

And it had to have been approved by, I'm assuming, Skydance knew of it or at least had some knowledge of it.

And the executives who let it through,

who want to stay there, I think, at

Paramount,

whether they get let go because of that, I don't think they will.

I think

they hit the target perfectly.

And Trump richly deserved.

And so did Paramount, all the attacks they did.

So kudos to them.

It's kind of a basic one, but kudos to them.

I like it.

I don't have a fail.

I'd have two wins.

My first win is the, I just didn't, it was not on my radar screen.

My win is the great city of Chicago,

about 3 million people, third largest in the U.S.

I hadn't been there in a while.

GDP over almost 800 billion.

Headquarters, Dominion United Airlines, McDonald's, Walgreens, great universities, University of Chicago, Northwestern University.

UIC DePauw, Loyola, all nationally ranked.

Doing a really, I spoke at this quantum event.

I don't know why they're going all in on on quantum, but they are.

Obviously, tremendous center for architecture and culture, music and the arts, parks, nature, great food scene, obviously love of sports.

I just really,

in terms of recognition, it was ranked the number one big city in the U.S.

by Condon S Traveler and frequently ranked among the top 20 global city.

I just hadn't thought about going to Chicago.

My son said he wanted to go to Chongchui or Chicago.

So I said, okay, we're going to Chicago.

But I really enjoyed enjoyed it.

And

I don't think it gets the attention it deserves.

And also the governance there

is clearly pretty good because it feels like the quality of life.

I have a close friend, my closest friend since the fourth grade, my friend Adam Markman,

and he could live anywhere and chooses to live in Chicago.

And he says, it's basically New York for a lot less money.

And my quality of life is really nice here.

Cold.

That's the only thing.

I like the people.

I like the food.

So anyways, I was just very, I kind of came over

Chai Town.

I love Chicago so much.

Anyways, and then my

other win is I just think the, whoever the CMO or the marketing or the ad agency for astronomer is, that was the marketing move, literally, of, of, uh, of the year.

And it's also launched Gwyneth Paltrow's run for Congress, where she's going to outlaw taxes and pantsuits.

So I think this is.

Step off of guard.

Come on.

It's such late-stage capitalism.

It's literally like.

you know what?

Like, you have all kinds of friends that sell supplements and all kinds of nonsense, and you like attack them in similar ways.

Yeah.

Anyways, it's, it's, uh, she's like a Bond villain who runs a yoga studio.

All right.

Okay.

Sorry, Gwyneth.

She's sorry.

I don't want to say nice job, Gwyneth.

Yeah.

No, the Gwyneth Paul version of self-care is firing your nanny because she made

eye contact during a Mercury retrograde.

Right now.

Right now.

Anyways, but I got to give it to Astronomer.

Whoever you are, I don't know if it was the agency.

I don't know if it was the CMO.

That was, you want to talk about turning chicken shit into chicken salad?

That was genius.

Chicago and Astronomer are my wins.

I don't want to fail.

God, I was so off today.

I'm sorry, Kara.

Sorry, listeners.

I was so off.

No, you're not.

You're fantastic.

What are you talking about?

I'll come and rub some balm on your chest.

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, submit a question for the show, or call 85551-PIVOT.

Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on On with Kara Swisher, I spoke with Julie Kay Brown, an investigative reporter with the Miami Herald, whose 2018 series on Epstein led to his second arrest.

A really kick-ass reporter.

Let's listen to what she said about how Epstein's victims are responding to the increased attention surrounding the case, something I've talked about, and why they won't be coming forward.

It's sad, but they've been through so much that they're now at this point thinking, well, if the President of the United States is, this is their thinking, is covering up for Epstein, I'm not going out there on a limb and trying to say what happened to me because that's big.

In fact, one of the, that's exactly what one of the victims told me.

This is big.

The President of the United States is essentially putting the lid on this case.

Shameful.

Shameful.

Anyway, that's the show.

Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

We'll be back on Friday.

Scott Gwyneth is going to be sending you a candle to make you feel better, okay?

Read us up.

Today's show is produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver.

Ernin or Todd introduced this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Mio Severo, and Dan Shallon.

Nishak Kura is Vox Media's executive producer podcast.

Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Are you having problems?

Do what Gwyneth would do.

Just look into a mirror and ask yourself, are you micro-dosing your shame?

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