Minnesota Shootings, No Kings Protests, and Israel-Iran Attacks Escalate

Transcript

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Speaker 22 Support for this show comes from Upwork. If you're overextended and understaffed, Upwork Business Plus helps you bring in top quality freelancers fast.

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Speaker 23 You know, it's con, according to my wife who speaks.

Speaker 23 No, it's not. Can.
Why is it can, but not to the friendship. That's how you pronounce it.
But it's not. Okay, okay, Kara Swisher.

Speaker 23 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher from France. I'm in France.

Speaker 8 And I'm Scott Galloway. How are you doing? I was worried about you this weekend.
Are you doing all right?

Speaker 23 Yeah.

Speaker 23 Why? Why are you worried about me?

Speaker 8 A lot of stuff. Although, good news, some compensation when I get worried about you.
You know, there's this amazing new antidepressant targeted at lesbians.

Speaker 23 Oh, really? Oh, no. What is that? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 8 No, it's, I'm sure you've heard of it. It's called Tricoxagon.

Speaker 23 Tricox again.

Speaker 8 Word is. Word is.
It works through about a day, and then continued usage makes you worse than you were previously.

Speaker 23 Oh, my God.

Speaker 23 Come up with these, Ben. This is not true.

Speaker 8 Tricox again?

Speaker 8 I have been waiting all weekend to say this joke.

Speaker 23 Many,

Speaker 23 first of all, it's a terrible joke, and many lesbians have never tried that, just so you know. I have, but yes, many have not.

Speaker 23 But so I was able to make my conscious choice, which was a good one, I think. I feel good to this day.

Speaker 8 Apples, pears, no contest.

Speaker 23 Uh-huh, exactly.

Speaker 8 Or bananas, pears.

Speaker 23 But shit, I don't know. Where are we going?

Speaker 8 By the way, just as a segue here.

Speaker 8 All right. You do not have to spend.
You do not. We're both in France.
We're both literally near each other. We're both doing the exact same thing.
You do not know how to spend your money. I do.

Speaker 8 Look at my hotel room. Look at yours.
Okay. Your place literally looks like a Hampton Inn near the airport where you end up naked and googling, can you get chlamydia from a karaoke mic?

Speaker 23 Look at where you are. We are at the very fancy hotel on the croissette right now, just so you know.
Everybody, okay, hold on. Here's Kara.

Speaker 8 Here's Kara for the YouTubers. Here's Kara, who does not know how to spend her money.

Speaker 23 And here's Daddy. Daddy's daddy.

Speaker 8 Daddy has an assistant.

Speaker 23 Well,

Speaker 23 if you're so worried about me, you could put me up at the hotel where you are.

Speaker 8 Anytime. You know what I mean? I love to shower you.

Speaker 23 I love to spoil you.

Speaker 8 You're like a hot young woman I'm trying to have sex with.

Speaker 23 I spoil you all the time. Yeah, that's never happened.
Speaking of Tricoxin, that's never happening. Just for the listeners, that's that's an upsetting and triggering thing.
It's never happening.

Speaker 8 Huge disappointment on my end.

Speaker 23 Anyways, we're in France. Explain why we're in France.
Explain why we're in France. We're at our favorite event.

Speaker 8 We're at Cannes. We love it here.

Speaker 23 You know, it's con, according to my wife who speaks French.

Speaker 23 No, it's not. It's canned.

Speaker 23 You totally man-splained at me, but it's con.

Speaker 8 It's not illuminated you. Yeah.
Okay. Saving you from yourself and your pretentious friend who thinks that if they go gone, that means they took French in 11th grade at some overpriced private school.

Speaker 23 It's canned. No, my wife speaks French fluently, but go ahead.
Can why is it canned? But not to the French. That's how you pronounce it.
But it's not. It's not.
Okay. Okay, Kara Sweischer.

Speaker 23 No, no.

Speaker 8 No, but anyways, we're here at Cannes. We're doing a bunch of events.
We love it here. Did you just get here? Did you take the red eye?

Speaker 23 I just got here. Yes, that's why I'm looking like a little haggard here.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8 I have to carry the show again.

Speaker 23 I didn't take a red eye. I left at five o'clock at whatever time, day of the day.

Speaker 8 That's called the worst red eye in the world.

Speaker 23 That means you get no. British.
It was British Airways. It was lovely.
And I went through London. Yeah.
Oh, you got it.

Speaker 23 There's no direct flight from Washington, D.C.

Speaker 8 I got to speak to your brother.

Speaker 23 This is enough.

Speaker 8 I'm doing an intervention. Okay.
You need to learn how to take better care of yourself. You need to come Friday.
Are you worried? You need to hang out at the pool.

Speaker 23 Oh, no, I can't do that. I can't.

Speaker 8 Have a little rose.

Speaker 23 No, couldn't bring the kids.

Speaker 8 Do you know how daddy's getting into the palais tonight? He's taking a Zodiac. I'm putting on a jacket.
I'm crashing Meta Beach, and they'll all be freaked out.

Speaker 8 I'm like, I have a meeting with Sheryl Sandberg.

Speaker 23 You're coming here. I'm going where you are tonight, supposedly.

Speaker 8 Oh, yeah, to the

Speaker 8 Cassini. iHeart Party or something? Yeah.

Speaker 23 Is that the Cassie? Is that iHeart? Is that Cassie? I'm iron party. Yeah.
Yeah. They're all having competing parties at your fantasy hotel, but go ahead.

Speaker 8 And then I got a Salesforce thing and then a Google thing.

Speaker 23 Wow.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I got a bunch of stuff going on.

Speaker 23 All because of you. Oh, big.

Speaker 23 Well, you should fly me here on a private plane. That would be nice for all the money I've got you over the years.
It's probably not a big amount of money, but it's a substantive amount.

Speaker 23 Anyway, we're in France because we're here shilling advertisers group. We're going to do a live pivot, which will be fun.
I ran into many people on the plane who love pivot and were giving me.

Speaker 8 I love it here. I love the South.
I love, I'm warming to French people. I love the food here.
It's so nice.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I see each other. Ma is like a great world leader right now.

Speaker 23 Yeah, he's got a spicy wife. He's got a spicy wife.

Speaker 8 Occupying the space he commands. I like it here.

Speaker 23 Isn't he not here? He's with the G7, right? Is he in Canada?

Speaker 8 Yeah, they're in Canada.

Speaker 23 So he's not here.

Speaker 8 France, Canada, same time.

Speaker 23 Anyway, we're going to be getting together a lot, and we're going to have a good time here. We always do.
But we've got a lot to get to today.

Speaker 23 There's actually some very serious things happening, besides the rain on Trump's military parade, which was a big he caught the L-train on that one.

Speaker 23 The No Kings protests, which were actually quite substantive in the United States, and the missile attacks between Israel and Iran.

Speaker 23 But first, I mean, this story is, you know, dominated the headlines this weekend.

Speaker 23 A Minnesota man has been charged with a murder after two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses were shot early Saturday morning in their homes in what Minnesota Governor Tim Walls called an act of targeted political violence.

Speaker 23 Officials are also considering federal charges against the suspect, 57-year-old Vance Bolter, who wore a weird mask and pretended he was a cop.

Speaker 23 State Representative Melissa Hortman, who says it's incredible, and her husband were killed. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were seriously injured.

Speaker 23 Authorities found a list in Bolter's car naming around 70 potential targets, including Democratic politicians and abortion providers.

Speaker 23 A 2020 state report lists Bolter as having no party preference, but his roommate says he voted for Trump and was a strong supporter.

Speaker 23 Elon Musk had his own thoughts, as usual, inserting himself grotesquely into the proceedings at this writing. He said the far left.

Speaker 8 Did it be called the Marxists? Is that right?

Speaker 23 Marxists. That was Mike Lee from Utah, who's also a heinous piece of shit.
He said the far left is murderously violent in response to an ex post about the shootings and other attacks.

Speaker 23 He's absolutely wrong. This guy.

Speaker 8 I'm sorry.

Speaker 23 Democratic state senators are murdered and murdered by

Speaker 23 someone who is very clearly disturbed and also

Speaker 23 Trump supporter.

Speaker 23 I want to discuss these shootings, the implications, but first let's listen to Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who both of us know, talk about her friend who she had dinner with the night before she died, Representative Melissa Hortman on Meet the Press.

Speaker 24 We started out together in politics, moms with young kids, and somehow she was able to balance getting to know every doorknock, every house in her district while raising two children.

Speaker 24 Girl Scout leader, she was

Speaker 24 she taught Sunday school, and maybe all that juggling made it easier for her as she worked her way up in the legislature and became this extraordinary speaker of the house, ushering in everything from free school lunch to to working with the governor and other leaders to do some landmark legislation on paid family leave, to this year working with her Republican counterpart when we pretty much had a tie legislature to get the budget done.

Speaker 24 That's Melissa Hortman, my friend.

Speaker 23 Anyway,

Speaker 23 she's been quite broken up about it, obviously.

Speaker 23 Violent threats against members of Congress hit a record high last year.

Speaker 23 I've been told this by very well-known people,

Speaker 23 congressional people, that they've gotten a huge amount of death threats this year, Democratic ones. For the second year in a row, according to Capitol Police, there have been other recent incidents.

Speaker 23 In the last few months, there was a killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in D.C., an arson attack on Governor Josh Shapiro's home. We saw, obviously, the two Trump assassination attempts last year.

Speaker 23 One got very close.

Speaker 23 What do you think about this rhetoric? And will it get worse? I mean,

Speaker 23 I don't know what to say. People are in their homes.
It's easy to find people.

Speaker 23 A lot of the people who are state senators and local politicians do not have the protection that U.S. national people have, but even those people are pretty exposed.

Speaker 23 What has to happen here? Pamboni, thank God, made the appropriate response, and so did Trump, although light, I would say. So

Speaker 23 what do you make of what's happening here? You've talked about this.

Speaker 23 You know, you were talking about Civil War, obviously, recently, but this is something that I guess is not a surprise and yet is horrifying at the same time.

Speaker 8 Yeah, well, look,

Speaker 8 there's no getting around it. It's a tragedy for the family, senseless death, senseless murder.
I thought Senator Klobuchar was very statesperson-like in her comments.

Speaker 8 I thought Governor Walls did his best to address the situation in

Speaker 8 the correct tone. If you think about...

Speaker 8 I was thinking about climate change, and that is we've created a context or atmospheric such that we might have mass migrations, superfires, terrible weather events that hurt the economy, hurt the poorest.

Speaker 8 And the two big puffs of carbon into the air that created these atmospherics were the industrialization of China and the consumerization of the car, specifically Americans moving to the suburbs and the embrace of the car.

Speaker 8 And I think we've created an atmosphere for a lot of political violence.

Speaker 8 And the two puffs of carbon into the air, if you will, I do think social media, which has a profit motive around pitting us against each other, has just created an atmosphere where we're convinced the enemy is within.

Speaker 8 And then polarization at the hands of income inequality, people are just generally angry, you know, when they wake up and they feel like they've worked hard and they have medical debt.

Speaker 8 And then social media convinces them that their enemy is their neighbor. And so

Speaker 8 look, what can be done? This is a multi-pronged problem. This talks about access to guns.
This talks about mental health. This talks about

Speaker 8 the strain of

Speaker 8 lack of job prospects, this obviously

Speaker 8 political violence.

Speaker 8 What you hope you get from our leaders is thoughts around bold solutions that decarbonize the atmosphere, as opposed to trying to take advantage of the moment and start issuing blame on the other side, because there's been political violence against both parties.

Speaker 8 But other than saying we all have an obligation to try and take the temperature down, I do think it's time probably for some sort of, and you've been talking about this for a while, legislation around hate speech that says

Speaker 8 this rhetoric, this tone, when you call someone, when your first reaction is to call these people Marxist, that's not helping.

Speaker 23 Yeah, it's also inaccurate. Yeah, it's not helping.
It's also inaccurate.

Speaker 8 So I, you know, I don't,

Speaker 8 I'll finish where I started. My, your heart goes out to the families of these people who were murdered.
And then you hear about this guy's background.

Speaker 8 And I, he's a murderer. And I, I trust and hope he's brought to justice.
But you, you know, the whole thing is just awful. The whole thing, it just puts it, leaves you with a pit in your stomach.

Speaker 23 Yeah, he sounds like someone who's been drifting, but although not your typical profile of sort of these sort of loner, angry people. He has five kids,

Speaker 23 very religious, which is no thing against him.

Speaker 23 Tried to do, tried to make it like we sort of pretend being a cop and his business apparently didn't get off the ground. He was working at a funeral home.
He was collecting eyeballs for

Speaker 23 operations for people. He had a series of sort of jobs, and he was living in Minneapolis or near Minneapolis.
And he lived, his family lived in rural Minnesota,

Speaker 23 but was living with a room. This is why this roommate knew him so well, but like struggling, struggling of someone who was struggling, obviously had become more and more religious

Speaker 23 and had

Speaker 23 become born again, which has nothing to do with this, but he just, he got sort of

Speaker 23 very politicized around his religion, abortion specifically. Um, and just this is someone you wouldn't necessarily think of cracking, right? That would do it.

Speaker 23 Reminds me a little bit of the Luigi Mangioni thing, too, who seemed to be in a that's what it reminded me. I was like, why did this guy yeah?

Speaker 8 But that kid was high school valedictorian. I mean, that was really strange.

Speaker 23 That was really strange, but he was angry and he was had a back pain and he had all kinds of things. Again, no excuse, zero explanation.
Like you can sort of start to see how this pieces together.

Speaker 23 But what set him off to say this, I mean, looks like he was going to target some of these no kings rallies. It looks like what's, what got him? Was it mental illness? Was it

Speaker 23 you know, just what was it, you know, that he was cosplaying a cop and had to do this? And, um, you know, and this woman sounds wonderful, like did all these astonishing things,

Speaker 23 helped people enormously.

Speaker 23 Like one of these wonderful public servants who just was service, service, service, service to other people and brought them all manner of things, protecting kids from gun violence, free lunch, abortion access, et cetera.

Speaker 23 So it's just, I just, I really would like to,

Speaker 23 this is, it's sickening. It's sickening because it's not, I don't, maybe he was mentally ill.
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 23 But it seems like everybody's mentally ill now in that regard and not your classic loner gunman kind of thing. I mean,

Speaker 23 and you know, his,

Speaker 23 his, he's, he's got five kids that to take that step is really, I don't even, I don't even under, I couldn't even begin to understand it. It's, it's the, it is this rhetoric.
It's the polarization.

Speaker 23 It's,

Speaker 23 you know, religions getting too political, like right, the Southern Baptists deciding they're going after gay marriage now. What is wrong with them?

Speaker 23 Like, you know, you thought that was sort of settled and it's not, obviously, but but creating levels of anger and

Speaker 23 ways that were different rather than ways that were same. I don't know.
It's just, it's just sickening. And I am scared for a lot of people.
I have to say, I'm very scared.

Speaker 23 I've been told by a number of politicians that the death threats have gone up substantively for them.

Speaker 8 So. Yeah.
For me,

Speaker 8 I mean, it's a tough one, but we don't have a monopoly on mental illness.

Speaker 8 We do have a little bit of a monopoly for a nation as prosperous as us around income inequality and polarization, but I still think almost all of this comes down to easy access to guns. It just,

Speaker 8 you know, when there's a mentally ill guy who goes on a rampage in Britain, he stabs two people and one of them survives.

Speaker 23 Although in Austria, they just had an attack, but go had a school attack.

Speaker 8 But

Speaker 8 just the prevalence of

Speaker 23 like

Speaker 8 this is just this is just awful all the way around. It's very hard to find

Speaker 8 a single cause.

Speaker 8 But again,

Speaker 8 I think the politicians on both sides, you know, it's just so upsetting when you see people try and politicize it and use it as fodder to blame the other side.

Speaker 23 Musk and Mike Lee were repulsive, were repulsive. Like even Trump knew not to, right? He may do it in the coming days.

Speaker 23 But both Mike Lee and Elon Musk just reacted in exactly the way they're not supposed to, as always, because they're, you know, and of course, look at me, you know, in a situation that has nothing to do with either of them should keep their mouth shut that's what they should do but anyway our heart goes out to their this these families and there's two people recovering uh supposedly the other the people who were shot john hoffman and his wife but to come to people's homes and do this is just a height of depravity i don't know what else to say anyway uh Speaking of weirdnesses, being in Washington this weekend for this military parade was a hot, I have to say.

Speaker 23 This town was empty. It really was.
He had his birthday military parade, Trump did,

Speaker 23 which event included over 6,000 soldiers and 100 tangs, reporting far less than the expected 200,000 attendees. I would be surprised if there were 100,000 there.

Speaker 23 It was a ghost town. It was really interesting.
The parade was sponsored by several brands with close ties to the president, including Palantir and Coinbase, meaning pay-per-play.

Speaker 23 The whole thing was overshadowed by over 5 million people attending over 2,000 no-kings protests around the country, which looked like a lot of fun. They seemed largely peaceful, I think, and quite

Speaker 23 festive almost, and also determined, which was interesting. I don't know if it makes a difference.
Let's read off some fun signs that people had.

Speaker 23 If a dictator throws a military parade and no one watches it, did it really happen? Off with his toupee. If Kamala were president, we'd be at brunch.
Donnie the quicker, fucker-upper.

Speaker 23 We're all the couch now. You sucked in Home Alone 2.
There were tons of them. One was a picture of Melania Trump dressed in the handmaid's tail of taco, which I thought was very funny.

Speaker 23 Here's the one thing. There was a piece by Max Booth that got a little negative attention, I think, was about the military looked good.

Speaker 23 It looked like they, you know, we should honor these people that serve, but doing it at the behest of Trump and making it a pathetic kind of parade was, you know, there was some really interesting revolutionary stuff.

Speaker 23 It's the 250th anniversary of the army, which was, you know, founded

Speaker 23 by at the beginning of our country at the same time. And so they do deserve, you know, attention and being treated with respect and everything else.

Speaker 23 There were all kinds of sort of conspiracy theories all over the place, including that they were marching, they weren't marching correctly as a protest, which was odd.

Speaker 23 I have to say, I did notice that. I just don't think there were a lot of people there.
I don't know if people might have cheered if there were a lot of people, but it was empty as

Speaker 23 could be,

Speaker 23 which was just interesting. I thought, I thought there'd be more people there.
Anyway, your thoughts?

Speaker 8 I think it's like when I've heard of friends getting a bar of Bob Mitzville late in life and like no one, everyone shows up and pretends this isn't strange. I just,

Speaker 8 or, you know, they get a Christmas

Speaker 8 or my favorite that I've never been to, which says I'm banging my assistant,

Speaker 8 a recommitment ceremony. Those are my favorite.

Speaker 8 I got to be honest,

Speaker 8 I thought it was so fucking, I just enjoyed reveling in how stupid and lame this thing was. And there's no way he didn't know it.
I turned on the TV just to see some footage.

Speaker 8 And actually, I thought to myself, you know, actually, it looks pretty cool. And I realized I was watching the Mexican Independence Day parade.

Speaker 23 Oh, wow.

Speaker 8 Like, I love, when I was in San Francisco, which is the most liberal city in the world,

Speaker 8 the whole place loved Fleet Week. And F-15s used to buzz like planes.
And you go, and you kind of just look up and regardless of your political affiliation, you think.

Speaker 23 The Blue Angels, yeah.

Speaker 8 Yeah, you think, well, it's pretty cool to be American. And I like the fact that if anyone fucks with us, they got to deal with these guys.

Speaker 23 Fleet Week is fun in San Francisco. You're right.
It really is.

Speaker 8 Yeah, and it's great. And it's a show off of military hardware.
But doing it, you know, the whole thing, I, you know, I got to be honest, I enjoyed it because it was just so sad for the president.

Speaker 23 The Russian state, the Russian state media was laughing at Trump's break. They're like, they don't know how to throw.
They do. The Soviets know.
My favorite was the

Speaker 23 No Kings ones looked really fun. I didn't go to any, but

Speaker 23 they looked really fun, especially the smaller cities. They looked kind of festive and everything.
There was tons and tons and tons of them.

Speaker 8 Really well done.

Speaker 23 That was the contrast. They think that's what No Kings did correctly from a marketing point of view.
And the other, the whole No Kings with

Speaker 23 people on the beach in San Francisco and Ocean Beach, spelling out No Kings, but with bodies, which was cool. And And they had a drone shot.
Very creative, very fun.

Speaker 23 And again, the smaller cities were very, it was very moving, I know. And

Speaker 23 all these people were really coming out. It was, you know, from a marketing point of view.
I don't know, Scott, thoughts?

Speaker 8 You're exactly right. It was

Speaker 8 the not only were they really successful, but the key was the contrast. Philadelphia had the biggest turnout, Seattle, San Diego of all places.
And they were creative.

Speaker 8 It looked like a good time. And generally speaking, there are three firewalls between

Speaker 8 what has traditionally been

Speaker 8 a constitutional democracy and the things we've come to, I think, take for granted in this, what I think is this slow, increasingly fast burn to fascism. And the first is the courts.

Speaker 8 And I would argue the courts are mostly holding. There's been some controversial decisions down from the Supreme Court because they're not used to a criminal president.
But

Speaker 8 most of the issues that have been presented before the court, the court says, no, we can't do this. Unfortunately, he can move faster than the courts, and a lot of the damage can't be undone.

Speaker 8 The second buffer is the media. And I think, you know, I'm mixed on the media.
I think it's doing its level best.

Speaker 8 I think it's the lack of coverage around this multi-billion dollar crypto scam has been very frustrating for me, but they are unafraid.

Speaker 8 I do think there's been good coverage of a lot of, especially around the immigration issue and the illegal deportation of people.

Speaker 23 I thought they were trying to be too fair on this thing. This was a bust of a parade.
It just was. There was no other other way.

Speaker 8 That's called the New York Times.

Speaker 8 The self-hating New York Times, they can't ever have moral clarity around anything.

Speaker 23 I know, but it was kind of like, come on. It was, you know, CNBC did it too.
I was like, I know you're trying really hard, but this wasn't good. Emarco Rubio looked bored.

Speaker 8 Well, CNBC has anchors that speak that tuck in the president every night. But the contrast from a marketing standpoint, it was Koch versus Pepsi.

Speaker 8 And Pepsi just cleaned Coke's clock because the moment they went from one image to the other, it was like Trump's sitting there like,

Speaker 8 supposedly as a high schooler, the best thing you can do to establish social capital is to throw a rock and party.

Speaker 8 You can be a near cool kid and elevate yourself to cool dom by throwing an amazing party when your parents are out of town where they show up and the garage is on fire and the dog is pregnant, right?

Speaker 8 Have like a fucking crazy party. And this was,

Speaker 8 okay, I have more money. I'm more powerful.
And I threw just the lamest party. And then the

Speaker 8 juniors, the kids who aren't as cool, had impromptu parties all over, and they were much more fun and they were much bigger and everybody showed up.

Speaker 8 But where I was headed was the third firewall here is citizenry and citizenship.

Speaker 8 And I do think that Americans have become somewhat fat and happy and that a lot of us take for granted the incredible prosperity and rights that

Speaker 8 we have inherited, many of us have not earned.

Speaker 8 And to see citizens take their weekend day from their kids, from relaxation, from making more money, and go march with several hundred thousand of their fellow citizens. It's really inspiring.

Speaker 8 And there's some data on this, actually.

Speaker 8 I guess about 1.8% of Americans turned out.

Speaker 8 And there's actual research that shows if you get to three, there's never been civic activity or protests where more than three or more percent or more of the population shows up, where there isn't significant change around the policies there.

Speaker 8 And so we're getting close.

Speaker 23 Yeah. You know, Paul Krugman wrote an interesting piece.
He He went to one of the rallies, and it was titled Trump's Parade, Flop, No Kings Was a Hit. Right now, Images Largely Determine the Outcome.

Speaker 23 And he wrote something, he goes, Trumpists, however, haven't fully consolidated their hold.

Speaker 23 America still has a chance of reclaiming itself from the grip of brazen corruption, mindless destruction, and contempt for both the rule of law and for our erstwhile allies.

Speaker 23 We don't have to become a country bullied into submission, but we're teetering on the edge.

Speaker 23 One of the most important ways we can step back from that edge is for ordinary Americans to engage in mass protests. And I think he's right.

Speaker 23 I think it's just not just that, because crowd size does matter. I mean, we all joked about Trump making, saying that he had a bigger

Speaker 23 initial inauguration than Barack Obama, which he didn't.

Speaker 23 But it's like this,

Speaker 23 it has the feel of a loser to it. And I think it sort of makes people.
feel more bold if that's the case. But it doesn't mean that difficult times aren't ahead because these people aren't going away.

Speaker 23 I mean, they're bringing their guns, they're bringing their like, they're bringing their threats and everything else.

Speaker 23 But it is important, you know, as several politicians like Pritzker and others have saying this is what has to happen. And there is a weariness that comes with this kind of thing.

Speaker 23 But it was, I think you have that juxtaposition of this bad parade and this enthusiastic.

Speaker 23 It gives him,

Speaker 23 it affects his image, I think, of being old and a loser kind of thing. Like, and I think that does stick with people.

Speaker 8 Maybe not.

Speaker 8 There is a correlation

Speaker 8 between people's ability to bring signs to any public place and have free speech. And at the same time, there's an inverse correlation.

Speaker 8 The nations that are more prone and opt to have tanks and military hardware on public streets,

Speaker 8 generally speaking, have a citizenry that has few rights.

Speaker 8 And so

Speaker 8 you're just signaling to the world an erosion in individual rights of its citizenry, the more often you have tanks on boulevards.

Speaker 8 There are laws built in, you know, a couple hundred years old that said, for example, the military can't be weaponized to arrest citizens.

Speaker 8 There's the whole point is our military, we're not even very good. Our fine young men and women aren't very good at marching.
Why?

Speaker 8 Because they train to kill people and defend our shores as opposed to...

Speaker 23 Oh, they are good at marching. That's what people.
Several army people were like, that was on purpose, just so you know. And I was like,

Speaker 8 okay, I would rather they'd be good at killing bad guys than practicing marching all the time in Pyongyang. It's just that that's that's not an indication.

Speaker 8 Your ability to throw on a parade and march by your dear leader in unison is not an accurate reflection of the strength and fighting power.

Speaker 8 And again, when your tanks, when you see your tanks on Wilshire Boulevard or on Fifth Avenue or marching up Northwest 17th or whatever the street is, that's a bad sign.

Speaker 8 You're not supposed to have that. That's the sign of a society where

Speaker 8 the leader is either not focused on the well-being, the psychological and material well-being of his citizens and has decided to, in some way,

Speaker 8 try and intimidate the local populace. Like no one's, no one's scared of that.

Speaker 23 I don't know who was scared of this. I'll tell you, the best part of this was sort of the old costumes, the old tanks, the old, the old weapons.

Speaker 23 The vintage stuff was interesting. And so were the outfits, even the revolutionary ones.
And then I like the feats of strength on the everyone was making fun of this.

Speaker 23 I'm like, what do you care if they're doing feats of, you know, they were hanging off of things, doing a lot of health stuff. I thought that was fine.
I know Pete Hegg says loves that stuff.

Speaker 23 And it's the only part that I think was cool. Well, anyway, Trump, you're a loser.
And Elon, whatever. Elon even tweeted a no kings thing.
It was interesting.

Speaker 23 We'll get to that in a second, actually. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break.
And when we come back, Trump tries to make peace between Israel and Iran. Oh, dear.

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Speaker 23 Scott, we're back. President Trump is urging Israel and Iran to make peace, saying the two countries should make a deal and will make a deal.

Speaker 23 The long-standing conflict between the two countries escalated late late last week with Israel's surprise attack on Iran, although Trump signaled it pretty clearly.

Speaker 23 The attack targeted Iranian nuclear and military facilities, killing top generals and nuclear scientists.

Speaker 23 Iran retaliated, and missile stripes from both sides have continued to force straight J's, rising civilian casualties. The White House is denying any U.S.

Speaker 23 involvement in Israel's action, though Trump reportedly nicks a plan to kill Iran's leader over the weekend. He's also warning that Iran will face the full strength and might of the U.S.

Speaker 23 armed forces if the U.S. is attacked in any any way.
Oh, God, this feels like

Speaker 23 a Gulf again. I don't know.
But what have you been thinking over the past few days? And what do you think about his role in all this?

Speaker 23 A lot of people feel that it was, you know, stopping these Iranian centrifuges from spinning up was a very good idea. At the same time,

Speaker 23 Trump seems way past his depth, and there's a fight within MAGA over this. Marjorie Taylor Greene and others don't think we should be there at all.
So it's also politically problematic for him.

Speaker 8 Well, obviously, I think a lot about this.

Speaker 8 I think the Ukrainian army and the IDF are doing the dirty, dangerous work for the West.

Speaker 8 I think of the presidency and leadership as around capital allocation.

Speaker 8 And I think there's few things that have shown a greater return than backing the Ukrainian army and also the intelligence and military support of the IDF.

Speaker 8 America has four quote-unquote enemies or perceived enemies, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. I would argue China is actually not an enemy.
They're a competitor.

Speaker 8 And if a competitor is doing really well and getting in striking distance of America, America tends to think of them as an enemy, which I think is a little bit unfair, but that's another talk show.

Speaker 8 But three of the four have a nuclear weapon. And I just don't think there's any getting around it.

Speaker 23 I think the West.

Speaker 8 The U.S., and especially Israel, are closest ally in the Gulf. And in my view, the only ally we can count on, given it's a democracy and shares our values, if shit gets real over there.

Speaker 8 We are just better off if Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 8 And the Atomic International Agency just last week issued a statement and its 35 member nations, many of whom are not pro-Israel, saying that Iran was barreling towards a nuclear weapon and had engaged in massive deception.

Speaker 8 And that Biden had tried really hard through diplomacy to take them back or get them to step back from the development of a nuclear bomb.

Speaker 8 I think Trump trashing the agreement in 2017 probably didn't help. But it was clear, despite the bluster and Trump thinking as a deal maker, they were barreling towards a nuclear bomb.

Speaker 8 And Israel, in what again is what will go down as this remarkable military operation, took out what is the equivalent of the Joint Chiefs staff via the head of the army, killed them all within minutes of each other.

Speaker 8 And then because essentially the Iranian

Speaker 8 air defenses have been totally obliterated, Israel not only controls the skies, but what became clear here, they control the ground.

Speaker 8 And that is the Mossad has so deeply penetrated the intelligence arm of the IRGC that everyone is vulnerable. And just as interesting as who they killed is who they didn't kill.

Speaker 8 They didn't take out any political leadership.

Speaker 8 But this is essentially, in my view, taken back Iran a year, two years, hopefully three years from nuclear capabilities or nuclear bomb capabilities, which I just think it's hard to argue that that's a bad thing.

Speaker 8 Now, having said that, having said that,

Speaker 8 war in the Middle East rarely turns out as you had hoped.

Speaker 23 It's just,

Speaker 8 I mean, there is, there is a real risk here anytime there is war in the Middle East. This wasn't a military operation.
I do think these two nations are at war right now.

Speaker 8 I also want to acknowledge that there is a legitimate concern that this is a wag the tail situation where Netanyahu, who's similar to Trump, is running to stay out of prison.

Speaker 8 And unfortunately, and this is tragic, if we had better leadership in the White House and a president who didn't see his ability to get reelected based on a war footing, that Trump wouldn't be taking planes from Qatar.

Speaker 8 He'd be putting pressure on Qatar to put pressure on Hamas, and that Netanyahu would be more sincere about trying to end the ongoing,

Speaker 8 let's be honest, death and destruction in Gaza.

Speaker 8 So, this is, I mean, this is a complicated situation, But if you look at the IDF, they took more terrorists off our most wanted list in six weeks than we had done in 20 years.

Speaker 8 And Iran not having a nuclear bomb, I just fail to see how that is anything good, anything but good, anything but good for the West. So quite frankly, again, I'll finish where I started.

Speaker 8 I believe the IDF and the Ukrainian army are doing the West's dirty and dangerous work and should be celebrated for it.

Speaker 23 Well, that may be, but now what happens? And I think it's really interesting that there's a real shift in the MAGA coalition in terms of America first.

Speaker 23 And of course, Trump said America first is whatever I say is because I invented it, which he didn't, of course.

Speaker 23 But it's a real, it's a question of what now and how do you stop it? Like, I think a lot of people I admire

Speaker 23 who I pay attention to are like. okay, it's the right thing to do, but you don't know the right way to stop it, right?

Speaker 23 How, because they're in their fourth day of heavy strikes and the attacks are not going down, they're going up, right? And this is obviously a volatile area open to any kind of like

Speaker 23 continued fighting in the Mideast is something that cannot happen. And I think it's,

Speaker 23 you know, especially with it's in Netanyahu's interest.

Speaker 23 I think Netanyahu has other ideas besides peace, right? He doesn't want peace.

Speaker 8 That's a legitimate concern.

Speaker 23 So this is like, I get that you want to take out these generals. I get that you want to take this.
The fact that we managed to get him not to kill the main leader is something, I guess.

Speaker 23 But it just seems like any number of bad things could happen here. And that's the

Speaker 23 Trump is not the president you want in this situation, right?

Speaker 23 You may agree with him, but boy, is he nuts. And so I think that's the problem we have here.
And

Speaker 23 a lot of the smart thinkers are like good butt. good butt kind of thing.

Speaker 8 This is a bad decision between bad decisions, but you describe it. It distills down to one fulcrum or one decision, and that is the risks of going to war against Iran is a real risk.

Speaker 8 There's going to be unintended consequences here. The calculus is the following.
Are those risks outweighed by the risks of Iran being closer to a nuclear weapon?

Speaker 8 And I would argue that the former risks are the ones worth taking.

Speaker 8 And I do believe that unlike a lot of people in the Republican Party, and some in the far left, I do believe there is a bad peace and I believe there are good wars. And

Speaker 8 it was clear a lot of nonpartisan agencies were saying that Iran was engaged in deception and moving closer and closer to a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 8 And while their air defenses were down, they have been pretty, you know, there really hasn't been a lot of civilian casualties in Iran. And again, they didn't go after the political leadership.

Speaker 8 So I think what they're saying is, okay,

Speaker 8 if you continue to have a clock in the middle of Tehran that's counting down to our destruction and saying what the equivalent of saying amen in the U.S. is death to Israel is a

Speaker 8 common phrase at the end of every sentence, that we are going to take preemptive action against you. And what I don't know, what is interesting here,

Speaker 8 is whether or not Israel said to the U.S., we're doing this. We feel that this is too big a risk to ignore.

Speaker 8 Or they were totally coordinated with the U.S., who was claiming they were supposed to have talks today.

Speaker 8 And whether it was a coordinated head fake and the U.S. engaged in it, because without U.S., at least cooperation, the Israeli Air Force is flying

Speaker 8 F-15s and I think it's F-35s. They can't even repair them if the U.S.
were to decide to not

Speaker 8 support Israel. So some level of cooperation is probably taking place here, especially around propaganda.

Speaker 8 Iran was caught totally flat-footed. They thought they were about to head into negotiations on Sunday.

Speaker 23 True.

Speaker 23 But they made their point, right? And so one

Speaker 23 of Israel in terms of doing this.

Speaker 23 so right one of the things there's no it's called i guess it's called de-conflictation is the word um but both de escalation it's like that but it's deconfliction deconfliction i guess um and obviously apparently one of the key sites the enrichment site is buried deep underground and so it's you know it's one of these things it might be impossible to do but you can cause it damage or slow it down etc etc i mean i don't know a lot this is not my area of expertise but um

Speaker 23 the thing is, it all depends on President Trump again,

Speaker 23 because we have the ability to help them do that, right? To really destroy the nuclear bombs that are being made there.

Speaker 23 And whether the United States intervenes is, I think, a big decision and it has huge consequences.

Speaker 23 Anyway, he probably wants to avoid direct crime since his whole thing was let's not get the wars everywhere.

Speaker 23 So, and now with these he's he's been negotiating with Iran, by the way.

Speaker 23 So

Speaker 23 it's all come down to Trump. And I'm like, oh, the military parade guy.

Speaker 8 I know, but what better,

Speaker 8 as people who, if you're like me, who doesn't believe the president and his national security team are top notch, what better ally to have that

Speaker 8 can do this, I would argue, as strategically and as effectively?

Speaker 8 What was What was interesting here is that, or what I found interesting, is to your point, these hardened targets, we have bunker busters that can go about 20 or 30 meters down, but if they dig deep enough and have these centrifuges, the question you're bringing up is how much can you

Speaker 8 decapitate other nuclear programs? Within minutes, they killed

Speaker 8 several very top-ranking military officials. They also killed two or three

Speaker 8 top nuclear scientists. But what I think What is so must be so chilling about

Speaker 8 the RGC right now or the the Iranian leadership, what they may be thinking, is that essentially the Mossad now has control of the ground.

Speaker 8 And that is they basically demonstrated we can kill anybody here.

Speaker 8 And if you're a mid-level security part of the security apparatus in Iran, you got to be thinking, okay, what did I sign up for here?

Speaker 8 Because nobody, I mean, imagine in the U.S.

Speaker 8 If all the joint chiefs had been murdered or killed, the head of the Navy, the head of the army, and our top six scientists in AI were all dead within 30 minutes.

Speaker 8 We would recognize, all right, we had been totally, our security apparatus had totally broken down. And that's what's happened in Iran.

Speaker 8 I think today the Middle East is actually a safer place than it was on Thursday.

Speaker 23 Interesting. I just think the escalation of this war is so disturbing.
Anyway,

Speaker 23 we'll see.

Speaker 23 It's up to Trump. We may be able to do a better job than this military parade.
All right. Let's go on a quick break.

Speaker 23 When we come back, the White House reviews SpaceX contracts amid the fallout of the Trump-Elon feud.

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Speaker 23 Scott, we're back with an update on the girls who are fighting. I don't care if you're mad I say that.
It's funny. By which I mean Donald and Elon.

Speaker 23 The White House directed the Defense Department and NASA to gather details on billions in contracts with SpaceX. And they should.
This is a good thing. You shouldn't have one person running things.

Speaker 23 The Pangamer is reportedly thinking about scaling back SpaceX involvement in the Golden Goomb, which is this protective shield, whatever the heck thing.

Speaker 23 Meanwhile, President Trump said he was amazed Elon ever endorsed him. Let's listen to a clip, which literally does sound like a breakup.

Speaker 58 Now I know why Elon doesn't like me so much, which he does, actually. He does.
And he never had a problem. You know, it's very interesting.

Speaker 58 This is not something new. This has been there from day one, Speaker, right? We're going to abolish the EV mandate.
And Elon still endorsed me because honestly, he never ever spoke to me about that.

Speaker 58 And I used to say, I'm amazed that he's endorsing me because that can't be good for him. I'm abolishing the EV mandate.
And I once asked him about it. You never talked to me about that.
He said, well,

Speaker 58 as long as it's happening to everybody, I'll be able to compete. It was a very interesting answer.
I thought it was a very honest answer, to be honest with you.

Speaker 23 Oh, so strange, these two. Honestly, they should just fucking get stopped.
I mean i don't know what to say um

Speaker 23 we'll see i mean obviously elon's under threat by trump who knows if he'll ever carry through um i i think that one of the things i've always thought is even when elon got contracts from lockheed and and others i thought that was a good thing because of competition and better cheaper things and this and that so they certainly have uh an upper hand here and shouldn't there should be lots of competitive bidding on this stuff as competitive as it can be because it's the government um but it was uh it's just so it's such a strange relationship i think trump's passed him i do think trump's passed him but i don't know about what you think he keeps trying to kiss up to elon keeps trying to kiss up to i think this is kind of over well what is it occham's occam's razor the the obvious answer is usually the right one i i think it's pretty obvious what's happened here and that is elon got the president elected or at least played a major role in his election and as a result believes he should have input You know, he was comfortable usurping congressional power and the power of the person, making not even administrative suggestions around cutting costs or trying to root out, you know, waste and fraud, but making political decisions that we should cut off USAID, which supposedly or reportedly, according to the Boston University, is already responsible for 300,000 incremental deaths.

Speaker 8 He was comfortable doing that and then felt that he should have input around the picks around the IRS, the CIA, NASA, and people in the White House got sick of an unelected co-president.

Speaker 8 Elon got very angry and started, and then to his quarter of a billion followers, accused the president of being a sex criminal.

Speaker 8 Didn't bother him before when he was allowed to be in the White House in his hot topic outfit with a black eye.

Speaker 8 But when he got basically kind of shoved out of the White House, he decided that the president was a pedophile.

Speaker 8 And then what hasn't been reported, but I believe will be reported, because it seems fairly obvious to me, is somebody, whether it was Speaker Johnson or a go-between, I don't know, know, Peter Thiel, I don't know who the kind of emissary, there's always a go-between,

Speaker 8 called Trump and said, okay, I'm sorry, called Musk and said, okay, I don't think you realize who you're fucking with. This is what he could do in about 30 to 90 days.

Speaker 8 Cancel every contract, every subsidy across SpaceX and Tesla respectively, which would take the value of SpaceX from 300 million to about 100 and probably put Tesla out of business.

Speaker 8 He could threaten to deport you. He could start looking in.
He could sit the IRS on you.

Speaker 8 He could rehire and triple the number of inspectors, generals who are trying to put in safety standards around your autonomous driving.

Speaker 8 And then Tesla goes from being worth $900 billion to being worth $50 billion. I mean, he could do that in about 90 days.
And somebody communicated that to Musk.

Speaker 8 And Musk realized, oh, maybe I went too far. And that was his next tweet.
He didn't all of a sudden, in a fit of sobriety coming down from K, decided that he had lost control of his id.

Speaker 8 Somebody called him and said, listen, bitch, this, you fucked with the wrong cowboy.

Speaker 8 Whether you like this cowboy or not, he's got the biggest badge in town and he can literally put you out of business and deport you.

Speaker 8 Somebody made that call because that's the truth.

Speaker 23 Though he's, let me just say, though, so far on his Twitter, he was sort of supporting him on the protests and stuff, but that's out of the news right now, right? All the, all those protests.

Speaker 23 What is interesting is all he's doing is Tesla things and things self-aggrandizing how good he is and people complimenting him on Twitter.

Speaker 23 And then every now and then he's put up these no kings, no gods or kings, only men, no gods or kings, only men.

Speaker 23 What do you know?

Speaker 8 He's acting like a drug addict.

Speaker 23 I know, but I was like, what's he doing? Because he's not just say it.

Speaker 8 We keep looking for reason and rational behavior here.

Speaker 23 Why is he putting those up? He didn't put those up. Kara, he's a fucking drug addict.

Speaker 23 Okay. All right.
But I'm like, he can't help himself, right?

Speaker 23 I mean, mean, most of it is like, isn't the future with Elon Musk or rockets and cool cars? And like, he just has all this complimentary stuff up, which is sad. But at the same, like, can you imagine?

Speaker 23 I'm so great. Look how people think I'm great.
But it'll be interesting. I think Trump is going to just put him, put baby in the corner.

Speaker 23 He already has.

Speaker 23 But keeps on.

Speaker 8 Somebody called Musk and said, okay, Elon, are you relatively non-high right now? Call me when you have 10 or 15 minutes where you feel like relatively not out of your fucking head.

Speaker 8 And I'm just going to break down what the president, this president, who is corrupt and willing to avoid the courts or bypass the courts.

Speaker 8 This guy will deport you, Elon. This guy will, this guy will,

Speaker 8 this guy will cut off all subsidies the next day to you. How are you going to explain that to your shareholders?

Speaker 23 The thing is, he's not going to do better with the Democrats either. It's just like.

Speaker 8 Oh, no, that he would because the Democrats will honor the Constitution and courts.

Speaker 23 I don't know. I think they're going to target him.
Like before, he was like, they're targeting me. I'm like, they're really not.
And I'm like, I think they're going to this time.

Speaker 8 But what you're highlighting is why autocracy is so dangerous because quite frankly, in the short run, it's so much more effective.

Speaker 8 Because if you believe Biden would never do this to me, Biden would never threaten to cut off my subsidies or do an illegal, asymmetric, targeted attack against my companies or me individually, I am safe to shitpost Biden.

Speaker 8 But be careful. Don't come out and say anything bad about the autocrat who's willing to bypass the courts and prosecute his perceived political enemies.

Speaker 8 That's the danger of an autocracy is it is very effective.

Speaker 23 I think he's in trouble either way. Either way, he's in trouble.
I don't know who could win that wants a piece of him.

Speaker 23 I think he really overplayed his hand really rather badly.

Speaker 8 I say, I wonder if it could go the other way. And that is.

Speaker 23 Oh, that they're nicer to him.

Speaker 23 Well, I just wonder, Kara, I wonder if a decent strategy and i'm the again just about and controversial yeah but go ahead i think i know what you're gonna say go ahead uh try and invite elon back into the democratic party that's just you should rocana sort of brought it up but he didn't exactly even and and i have to be fair to him he didn't actually say but i andrew yang said it um and they got like run over like a mower like a like a power mower it was interesting but but you said something occasionally you say things that do resonate with me and you said said something a few weeks ago or a couple of weeks ago that

Speaker 8 made a ton of sense to me. And I've been talking about it.

Speaker 8 We got attacked, mostly you online for suggesting that Obama come back.

Speaker 23 Oh, yes.

Speaker 8 And people are like angry.

Speaker 23 Questlove. Attacked.

Speaker 23 Questlove. Oh, yeah.
Amazing artist. I'm sorry.
Anyways.

Speaker 8 But basically, they said, look, it's not up to Obama. We need new leadership.
It's insane of you to expect him to come say.

Speaker 8 I mean, but, and I think that's a valid opinion, but that the attacks got personal.

Speaker 8 And I thought to myself, what you said is exactly right. The Democrats are just the first to attack allies that are imperfect.
And I thought, I don't weigh in anymore on the comments.

Speaker 8 I just don't do it for my own mental health. And I find it's not productive.
People don't want to have a civil conversation.

Speaker 23 I'm glad you're reading my comments now. You're just wondering.

Speaker 23 No, but people attacked you.

Speaker 8 People started strafing me because I host the co-host of the show with you. And I thought, you know what, folks?

Speaker 8 We're not going to regain the the White House with a Democratic Party that is less popular than a party head by a fascist if we start saying to the guy next to us, fuck you, you're holding the gun wrong.

Speaker 8 You're my ally, but I don't like the way you're holding the gun.

Speaker 23 It was interesting. Let me just weigh in.

Speaker 23 I did get attacked and Quest Love really did attack me. Listen, I get your arguments.
I don't want a magical black man to come and save us. That's not what I was saying.

Speaker 23 And actually, I'll tell you, I had a great talk with Karen Atia,

Speaker 23 who just wrote a great piece called Barack Obama is Not Your Emotional Support President. And she and I had coffee this week.
She's a wonderful columnist,

Speaker 23 was also Jamal Khashoggi's editor, by the way.

Speaker 23 Just terrific, terrific columnist, and a really wonderful person.

Speaker 23 And she wrote a great piece about it, but she listened, like, you know, and I'm like, I'm not saying I want, you know, this magical person to come save us. I'm saying we don't have someone.

Speaker 23 And this, this is out of enormous respect for him, not out of, you know, let,

Speaker 23 let that guy who's given up so much take care of it.

Speaker 23 We had a great talk. We ended up having a great talk, right? And she was hearing what I was saying.

Speaker 23 So I think it's easy to say, white lady, say, bring, you know, Obama in to fix it. He's a very, he's the, and Karen wrote, look, I get it.
Obama is a cultural icon.

Speaker 23 He's perhaps the only Democrat with a star power to take on a star power of Trump.

Speaker 23 But this is the thing about political power. Trump is the one who has it now.
I agree. I agree.
I just am waiting for other people are not. He's the only one with the gravitas, in my opinion.

Speaker 23 But, you know,

Speaker 23 I get why you don't think he should. But when you say, the only argument I don't get is you're saying, let George Bush do it, let Bill Clinton do it.
They are so stunted in comparison to

Speaker 23 Barack Obama. It's not even, it's, it's, that to me is laughable.
Let them do it. They're not capable or are they talented.

Speaker 8 But anyway.

Speaker 8 I think the other, the argument without the personal vitriol against allies attacking allies, which is how we managed to lose the White House again, is that, okay, we need a new generation of leadership to step up here.

Speaker 8 And presidents do have a storied, dignified habit of not weighing in on politics once they're out of the White House.

Speaker 8 I think your point, and I agree with it more generally or more broadly, is that a lot of wealthy Democrats are clutching their pearls in private and not speaking up in public, whether it's Fortune 500 CEOs, former presidents, people who have a platform.

Speaker 8 Because right now, and the Autocrats playbook is to disincentivize you from saying anything because you will become a target and he will punish you unfairly.

Speaker 8 So the smart thing to do is just to stay quiet or just to give him $10 million to his library and neuter the free press. I mean, the incentives...
are just to stay quiet and stay out of his way.

Speaker 8 And there are a lot of people, and to your point, including former presidents, that have a really powerful platform. That if there was a time to speak up, it feels like now is that time.

Speaker 8 And I think that not only goes for former presidents, whether it's Bush or Obama, but also, and I've said this, the people I'm most disappointed in are really wealthy Democrats. I agree.

Speaker 23 The CEOs, I agree.

Speaker 8 Look, we're not going to have, Jamie Dimon, we're going to have 14% mortgage rates, and you know this, if we continue to be this fiscally irresponsible.

Speaker 8 You know, Bob Iger, a free press is super important.

Speaker 8 You can't give $10 million just to make

Speaker 8 a problem go away to his library.

Speaker 8 That has literally unleashed a ton of

Speaker 8 knee-bending across all of media and set a really ugly precedent for what is the most important cop pushback against fascism, and that is a free press.

Speaker 8 You know, the CEO of Nike, you have a huge opportunity to come out and talk about how important immigrants have been to immigration or to sport and competitiveness and American values.

Speaker 8 And all of these guys, guys, 499 of which of the Fortune 500, wake up every morning, look in the mirror and say, hello, Mr. President.
Well, the key to being president is leadership.

Speaker 8 And leadership is doing the right thing when it's really hard. And I recognize all of you are worried about

Speaker 8 your shareholder value. But Tim Cook, if you believe a man should be able to marry another man, guess what?

Speaker 8 We are headed to a very ugly place where your kids, should they decide to marry someone of the same sex, won't be allowed to. So I respect the fact he did not go to the Gulf.

Speaker 8 I respect the fact these guys, and let's be honest, 430 of them are guys, are in a very difficult spot.

Speaker 8 But there were a lot of people who are in a very difficult spot who made very hard choices such that we could have incredible prosperity and rights and live with an absence of fear that if we say something that the current administration doesn't like, they're not going to bankrupt us or deport us to some hellscape.

Speaker 8 So gentlemen, grow a fucking pair. This is exactly the time to speak up.

Speaker 23 I would love that. I would love that too.
The only reason I'm thinking of Obama is because I I think he's uniquely gifted, loved by a lot of people that are Trump supporters. Absolutely.

Speaker 23 I don't think I can't say if you listen, if you disagree with me, come up with other people, maybe all of them together, but don't tell me George Bush, sorry, compared to Obama is stratospheric compared to George Bush

Speaker 23 or Bill Clinton. Well, it's kind of all of the above, isn't it? I mean, maybe, yes, it would be, maybe all of them come together.

Speaker 8 Look at the no kings. Like a couple million people decided they were going to take the risk and paint signs.

Speaker 23 Those are the most important people.

Speaker 23 You just see a little, you know, I believed in the hope thing. So I just, that's where I'm with him.

Speaker 8 And I saw this incredible group of inspiring women in Fort Worth, Texas, marching in a line dressed in handmaid's tales outfits.

Speaker 8 And I'm like, these women got up, they spent all week putting together these frighteningly beautiful handmaid's tales outfits because they want to send a message.

Speaker 23 The citizens are, you know, ultimately, let me take it right. It shouldn't be Obama.
It should be all the citizens, but it would be a whole hell of a nice. All of the above.
All of the above.

Speaker 23 That's kind of all of the above. And I just, it's a compliment to Obama, just so you all know.

Speaker 8 By the way, my son took the ACT last week, and I've decided that standardized test care are really culturally biased against kids that don't give a shit.

Speaker 23 I hate those tests.

Speaker 8 I am much more anxious about the ACT than my son. That's the problem.
He's like, I'm like, how'd it go?

Speaker 23 How'd it go? And he's like, I think it did okay. Math was hard, but, you know, I think it did all right.

Speaker 8 Hey, do you think the pub will serve me a beer?

Speaker 23 I'm like, how did it go? Time for a donation from the Galloway.

Speaker 23 But the one thing I will say is the danger of anyone, Obama or whoever public figure speaking out is very high now, especially with these deaths of these very brave people.

Speaker 8 Again, that's the Autocrats' playbook.

Speaker 23 That's when you got to speak up. I get it.

Speaker 23 So I guess we all have to do it together. Okay, Questlove, you're right.
We all have to do it together.

Speaker 23 Questlove, come home. Join hands.
Anyway, I like your time.

Speaker 8 Let's embrace our imperfect allies.

Speaker 23 Yes, let's embrace them.

Speaker 8 When you get attacked and you're like, you say to people, you're like, aren't at the end of the day, isn't there like an 80 or 90 percent overlap on the really important shit that we agree on?

Speaker 8 Yeah, so we can spend all our time shit posting each other on the 10% we don't agree on.

Speaker 23 Yes, that's why I appreciate my talk with Karen. It was great.
She's a great everyone. I urge everyone to read her piece about that because

Speaker 23 I see her point too. Anyway, one more quick break.
We'll be back from Wins and Fails.

Speaker 59 sometimes the difference between success and failure comes down to one chance encounter or following a counterintuitive instinct or ignoring conventional wisdom to make a bold decision like when the founders at palo alpha networks wanted to redefine cyber security for the modern age Everybody thought we were crazy.

Speaker 60 Nobody would use the cloud for cybersecurity.

Speaker 59 Or when mobile gaming giant Supercell could only rewrite the rules of the industry after failure in the company's formative stages.

Speaker 52 Many of the best things we've learned have actually come through failures.

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Speaker 23 Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Why don't you, I can go first or you can go first.
You go first.

Speaker 23 I'm going to do something happier for my win,

Speaker 23 which is, besides, we've talked about the no kings. I thought that was a total win and everything else.
But I'm going to do something silly.

Speaker 23 Lilo and Stitch, I see why it's making a bedillion dollars at the boss office. You saw that.
I saw it and I loved it. You took Claire.

Speaker 23 I took Clara and Saul and Amanda and I went and the popcorn was flowing and everything else. It was completely charming.
What a charming, charming, wonderful cast.

Speaker 23 Sorry, Magda. It was diverse and in what great way.
It was, it was just heartfelt. It was great to look at.
And I know, I can, I was first like, how is it making so much money?

Speaker 23 I didn't like the cartoon version. I didn't.
It's huge. It is.
I didn't, I never liked it of all the many movies I watch with my kids, my older kids. But this is, it's a huge movie.

Speaker 23 It's a great movie. It's totally worth your time.
And I enjoyed it. Every bit of it.
It's utterly charming.

Speaker 23 And the two main characters, the two sisters, and the side characters are all great too, but are

Speaker 23 wonderful. Just why I didn't know either of them.
And they were both wonderful. And what a great job, Disney.
Good job. Even though you shouldn't have fucking paid Trump that money, also.

Speaker 23 But great movie.

Speaker 23 And

Speaker 23 my fail, it has to be

Speaker 23 figure out a way to join together in the lessons of this no kings

Speaker 23 to protect people because I am so disturbed by how many people have told me who are public servants that they're terrified.

Speaker 23 And they should be, as evidenced by what's happened. Some guy gets in his head to be angry and take it out on people.
It's just, there's, I don't quite know how to prevent that.

Speaker 23 And it's really, it's scary. It's a very scary thing for people who are outspoken.

Speaker 23 And so I would, I just, I'm not sure there's a solution to that except, you know, I don't, just to bring it down the temperature.

Speaker 23 And it's very hard when there's a president who loves raising the temperature almost continually into a fever that creates all kinds of

Speaker 23 bad impulses on all sides. But although I do, I blame most of a lot of this on the polarization social media and

Speaker 23 gerrymandering and Trumpism in many ways, because it's always dunking, constantly dunking. And it's gotten the rest of us dragged along into its ugly wake.
Anyway, that's my goal.

Speaker 8 So, you know what my favorite line from Leela and Stitch was? What? It's can, not gone.

Speaker 23 It's gone. Please note.
Write in, everybody. Write in.

Speaker 23 It's not can.

Speaker 23 It's not.

Speaker 8 Look at my hotel room. Look at yours.

Speaker 23 It's can.

Speaker 23 Okay. You can call it can.
Hi. Can I have the French fries? Get it, French.

Speaker 8 I'm about to go have a 62-euro club sandwich.

Speaker 23 Yeah, $62 club sandwich, which you don't finish. That's my favorite part, is you never finish it.
You don't need a lot of sand. I know, but why would you pay that much money? I would just.

Speaker 8 Because I can.

Speaker 23 Ah, I can't.

Speaker 8 Because I can.

Speaker 23 You can.

Speaker 23 Yeah. I cannot.

Speaker 8 It's like, why does a rich man get blowjobs in his Rolls-Royce? Because he can.

Speaker 8 Anyways,

Speaker 8 I have two wins. My first already talked about.
I do think that the IDF and the bold, like courageous,

Speaker 8 in my opinion, attack, I think the world is safer. I think there's risks in any war, but I do think Iran barreling towards a nuclear weapon was just a bad idea for everyone.

Speaker 8 And I think, again, the Ukrainian army and the IDF continue to do the dirty, dangerous, courageous work of the West, who spends 800 billion on the military and yet has intra-party fights on whether we should or shouldn't do stuff.

Speaker 8 I'm not entirely sure why we would spend this kind of money. No one's invading the U.S.

Speaker 8 So unless we're going to make this isolationism from the far right, it's like, okay, if you're an isolationist, then let's take some of that military spending and put it back into Medicare or Medicaid.

Speaker 8 But to want to increase the military budget from 800 billion to 1.1 trillion and then wring your hands over trying to take a stated enemy who says death to Israel, death to America back from the brink of nuclear armaments, okay, then fine.

Speaker 8 Then cut our military budget in half because Mexico or Canada are not invading us. Anyways, my win is what I feel was

Speaker 8 an attack, a courageous attack on the nuclear facilities of Iran by the IDF to make the world a safer place. My other win is yours.
I just think that's no kings. These protests are just inspiring.

Speaker 8 I think that Americans who decide to give up a weekend day and go join hand in hand with their brothers and sisters and peacefully protest creative signs, creative outfits, I just thought it was inspiring.

Speaker 8 And as someone who's living abroad,

Speaker 8 it made me feel really good about moving back. I'm really looking forward to moving back.

Speaker 8 I think think that we have endured worse than this and it's the citizenry, the media and the courts that are the firewalls here.

Speaker 8 Up until this point, I think a lot of people were worried like, where is the citizenry here? And we saw it on full display this weekend.

Speaker 8 I thought it was just wonderful and hugely motivating, inspiring for the rest of us.

Speaker 8 So those are my

Speaker 8 those are my two wins. And also I'm excited to see you.

Speaker 8 We'll be together tonight.

Speaker 23 Are you coming? Oh, you're coming in. Oh, you're coming in for the dinner, right? Yes.

Speaker 8 Yeah,

Speaker 8 you're coming over to my hotel for this iHeart.

Speaker 23 The later thing. I'll be there later and I'll be going through your room.
I'll be ordering the colb sandwich, but go ahead.

Speaker 8 Just celebrating just how dominant the radio business is.

Speaker 23 Yeah.

Speaker 23 Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, we're doing okay. We're up.
Come on.

Speaker 23 Oh, no, we're podcasts. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 I guess iHeart is podcast, isn't it?

Speaker 23 Yeah, they're doing pretty well. We'll have a good time.
Don't worry.

Speaker 8 You know, my favorite, this is my favorite conference. My favorite conference in the world, the We Are Still Relevant Conferences.
Advertising exists, give awards to each other.

Speaker 8 and we all realize that a Pepsi commercial doesn't really mean anything anymore.

Speaker 23 Anyway,

Speaker 23 I like ad awards. Usually, they're pretty good.
The ads are pretty good. I don't know.
I like them. No, they're wonderful.
They're just irrelevant.

Speaker 23 All the awards, ceremonies, I like the ad awards best because I like them. Although, I have to tell you, the Tony Awards were funny.
We're funny.

Speaker 8 Tony's?

Speaker 23 I know the game.

Speaker 8 Yeah, and you need that tricoxic.

Speaker 8 That tricoxican will take you off Tony's or Broadway.

Speaker 23 I've never taken tricoxic and I don't plan. You gotta admit, that's good.

Speaker 23 Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send if you're questions about business tech or whatever is on your mind.

Speaker 23 Go to nymag.com slash pivot to send a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe.

Speaker 23 This weekend on with Kara Swisher, I spoke to a panel of millennial leaders about how to rejuvenate the Democratic Party.

Speaker 23 But let's listen to a clip of Representative Greg Kassar, it's pronounced Kassar of Scott from Texas.

Speaker 63 When the Secretary of Education was in my committee the other day, Linda McMahon, she's worth $3.2 billion.

Speaker 63 The committee started like hissing at me for asking her how many millions of dollars she's going to make when we pass this billionaire tax cut bill. That was seen before as like rude.

Speaker 63 But if it's the only way that finally our voters can hear us, maybe we pick the right message. But what if they don't even hear it in the first place?

Speaker 63 They can get filled with all the Republican propaganda on their phone without us competing.

Speaker 23 As you must know by now, politeness is not my favorite thing.

Speaker 63 I figured that out about halfway through this podcast.

Speaker 23 Anyway, it was a great, it was a really interesting group of young people and they actually had some great ideas and they're pretty ballsy.

Speaker 23 I really, I really not like sensitive, which was great, which was terrific. And they, they mixed it up a lot.
I appreciate it. Anyway, that's the show.
Thanks for listening to Pivot.

Speaker 23 Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channels. We'll be back on Friday.
Scott, get on your zodiac and come find me. But before that, read us out.

Speaker 8 Do you know it the most? Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver.

Speaker 8 Ernie or Todd, entering this episode, thanks also to Drew Bros, Miss of Ario and Danish, Jalana, Shark Corros, Vox Media, the executive producer of podcasts.

Speaker 8 Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine, Vox Media.
You can subscribe to the magazine on my mag.com slash pod.

Speaker 8 We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business live from Can.

Speaker 8 Odo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything.

Speaker 52 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters: running your business.

Speaker 19 Try Odoo for free at odo.com.

Speaker 64 Nobody knows your customers better than your team, so give them the power to make standout content with Adobe Express.

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Speaker 64 See how you can turn your team into a content machine with Adobe Express, the quick and and easy app to create on-brand content. Learn more at adobe.com/slash express/slash business.

Minnesota Shootings, No Kings Protests, and Israel-Iran Attacks Escalate

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