HBO Max Returns, Trump in the Middle East, and RFK Jr. Goes Swimming

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Speaker 3 Look, he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to swim in shit, good luck, Robert.
I can't believe he continues to survive.

Speaker 3 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Scott Galloway.

Speaker 1 I'm a bit thrown off by that. What's I'm in your studio?

Speaker 1 Oh, you're in my studio.

Speaker 1 Do you see this?

Speaker 3 I'm here. I see.
Don't I look like you? Isn't this great?

Speaker 1 Oh, my gosh. Look at that.
Look at that.

Speaker 3 I'm Scott Galloway. Except I have hair.

Speaker 1 It's like that show Substance. I want to be the hot young one in the Unitard, though.

Speaker 1 I love that. The only way Demi Moore gets an Oscar or a Golden Globe is if there's a much hotter version of her prancing around on a leotard.
That's the only way they were going to give her an award.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, for those who are just listening through audio, I am, the background is the same because I'm at Scott's apartment in New York because my son.

Speaker 1 Are you going through my stuff again? You like to do that, don't you?

Speaker 3 No, I have Alex doing it this time. Yeah.

Speaker 3 My son, Louis, has graduated college. Well, it's a long graduation process here at NYU, but there was a smaller graduation yesterday and there's a big one today at Yankee Stadium.

Speaker 3 And Scott has so kindly let me use his apartment for the invasion of the Swishers for Louis's graduation. And so I'm here in your studio, which is lovely.

Speaker 3 And I have been going through your things and, you know, deciding what to keep.

Speaker 1 And unrelated dues, do not open the guest room closet. If it smells funny, it's definitely not Patrick, my male

Speaker 1 escort, that wanted 80 bucks instead of 70, and I had to take care of it. And I was a little too much meth.
Just don't, just don't open the closet in the guest room.

Speaker 3 Anyway, it's very generous of you. I'm trying to pay you a compliment.
Scott and I did see each other this week when I came into New York.

Speaker 3 Even though he protested and said he didn't want to see me, he and I did hang out one lovely evening.

Speaker 1 You went to the Webbys and I'm like,

Speaker 1 I'm going to stay at home and

Speaker 1 watch friends and neighbors.

Speaker 3 Well, I had to give an award to Fei Fei Lee, Dr. Fei Fei Lee, who was one of the very early AI pioneers at the Webby's.
And then I ran over to the San Vicente bungalows where Scott was at the bar.

Speaker 3 It was such a picture of you sitting at the bar there. It was nice to see you.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you for saying that.
It's good to see you. I literally, like, once a year, I really want to sit down with you.

Speaker 3 Yeah, once a year.

Speaker 1 Okay. Anyway, we had to do that.
at least once a year.

Speaker 3 I had a great time. It was nice to see you in person.
It's good to see you.

Speaker 1 Congratulations to Louis. Yes.
I left him a gift in the refrigerator.

Speaker 3 Did he was very touched by it. He was very, he's very,

Speaker 3 it was a great day, I have to say.

Speaker 3 Anyway, she puts on a lovely graduation situation.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they do a good job.

Speaker 1 It's New York. We know how to throw a party.

Speaker 1 The pictures are great. I love the pictures of you in Washington Square.

Speaker 3 The best part was they did it in the Skirball Center. What they do is they break up all the colleges and they go to Radio City Music Hall or various places.

Speaker 3 And then they have a main one at Yankee Stadium. But the smaller ones are really the lovely ones.
And

Speaker 3 Louis Group, the Global Studies group, did it at Skirball Center. And then they got to walk out of, which is right across the street from Washington Square Park and walk under the arch with the class.

Speaker 3 And it was very lovely. It was that's such a beautiful, iconic arch.

Speaker 3 That's nice. And then Alex was here too, and he's really enjoying it.
He likes it.

Speaker 1 And by the way, he's still growing. I saw a picture of you.
Literally, you, of course, decided to send me a a video of him explaining my one piece of art to me.

Speaker 1 And he looks like he's dropping his four-year-old off at preschool, talking to his mother. And I'm not kidding.
I think he's still growing.

Speaker 3 I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 1 I think he's still growing. He's getting.

Speaker 1 The kid is enormous.

Speaker 3 He's not Baron Trump level enormous, but he's big.

Speaker 1 He's a big kid. No, but he's much buffer.
Yeah, he's very buffer. He looks like

Speaker 1 that guy.

Speaker 1 I've decided he's the ultimate. If I ever get really, really rich, he's going to be my bodyguard because he's the kind of guy that I could,

Speaker 1 I don't know, figure out, do your, do your taxes and drones and figure out the drone. Yeah, and like fix your car in the middle of the desert and also kill anybody.

Speaker 1 He's very much a multitasker. I think Louis should study

Speaker 1 female biology and study abroad or two.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Study abroad.

Speaker 1 Study abroad.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.
Are you glad to be back in London?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's been beautiful here the last few days and i just did um i just did a profile or they did a pro the ft is doing a profile on me oh and of course they always asked like how did you make karao swish oh my god here we go there we go say in like in a month in a in a whorehouse in a biza or something there we go uh

Speaker 1 and uh i think i think a profile in the ft i think that is somewhat equivalent to being knighted all right that's nice i think it's pretty close you're in the pink bit off that pink bitch what do you call it?

Speaker 1 The pink. Oh, that salmon bitch.
Salmon bitch.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's ultimate self-expressive benefit.
I saw the paper delivered and I put it under my arm when I go to breakfast at the Crosby because I think it makes me look more like a Euro and smart.

Speaker 1 I don't actually read it, but it's like a purse for me. I think it just makes me look cooler.
Purse.

Speaker 1 But I want to buy a lordship. Specifically, I want to be prince, and then I'm going to change my name to Shamu, and I'll be shamu prince of Wales.

Speaker 1 Never get told.

Speaker 3 I don't think it's that hard to buy yourself a sir or a lord or whatever.

Speaker 1 Oh, you can.

Speaker 3 I think we should try to go for it, that you get one.

Speaker 1 I think that would be good. Oh, 100%.
Yeah, but I think it should be

Speaker 3 Lady Scott Galloway.

Speaker 1 Well, I wanted Charles and Diana to adopt me, and I was going to change my name to Up so we'd be Up, Chuck, and Die.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 What is with you?

Speaker 1 I'm on a roll. I'll be here all week, try the veal.

Speaker 3 No, you're not on a roll. Anyway, the Swisher family extends its thanks to the Galloway.

Speaker 1 You're very welcome. I'm glad you guys had a nice time.

Speaker 3 It's nice. I'm still here.
I'm not leaving for days.

Speaker 1 It's a nice.

Speaker 1 How long are you there for?

Speaker 3 Until Saturday.

Speaker 1 Here until Sunday.

Speaker 1 Okay. Great.
Enjoy it. Yeah, I'm having a good time.
I've got things. Stay away from the edibles.

Speaker 3 In any case,

Speaker 3 I'll be here until Saturday. I've got to meet Richard Plepler for lunch.
I have some important dinners and things like that. And today, we're going to do Louis' birthday also today.

Speaker 3 So we're going to do a big thing for him. He's planning the day.
More?

Speaker 1 More Louis?

Speaker 3 More Louis. It's his birthday.
It's his birthday and his graduation day. Good for him.
I know. It's a great time.

Speaker 1 We're having a great time. I'm nice.
I'm glad. deserve it.

Speaker 3 Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Trump taking his art of the deal routine to the Middle East. I'm so tired of the sky.
And the not-so-triumphant return of HBO Max.

Speaker 3 You talked about this. We'll talk about branding in a second.
But first, Meta's antitrust trial continues.

Speaker 3 The FDC's key economic expert, Scott Hempel, came under attack from Meta's lead attorney for having pitched regulators on an antitrust probe of the company in 2019.

Speaker 3 The pitch deck for the probe that apparently apparently Hempel worked on,

Speaker 3 shown in court, included public comments about the company's aggressive acquisition strategy. And one was from Kara Swisher.

Speaker 3 The headline projected me calling Mark Zuckerberg a small little creature with a shriveled soul.

Speaker 3 He insulted on Malik, all this thing.

Speaker 3 It was just ridiculous. It was so ridiculous and really petty on the behalf of the meta.
And I heard from them. And they were, I don't think they loved it either, but they did it anyway.

Speaker 3 And their lawyer was inaccurate. They said I was a Vanity Vanity Fair columnist.
I wrote two stories for Vanity Fair a decade ago, a decade ago. Anyway, just kind of shitty and obnoxious.

Speaker 3 But I think we have to have another insult for Mark. If I called him a small little creature with a shrivered soul,

Speaker 3 your thoughts on that? And do you have a different one to call Mark?

Speaker 1 I'm just curious. Give me a sense of what you think is happening in the case.

Speaker 3 Well, I don't know why they need to rely on this because I think they have a relatively strong.

Speaker 1 They're slamming the media. They're trying to say that they're victims in the media.

Speaker 3 Correct. Or something.
I don't even understand it in that, you know, they're trying to show anybody who has any criticism for Facebook, which is

Speaker 3 they should receive a lot of criticism, is just mean, I guess. It's typical, plays into Mark's idea of himself as a victim.
And I don't understand, I don't even understand why it's in here.

Speaker 3 And they called Omalik, who let me just say, O'Malik was a pioneer in media entrepreneurship. They called him a failed blogger.
Like, what? Like, why?

Speaker 3 And he's been, you know, both Ohm and I and all kinds of people, New York Times reporters, everyone who's covered Facebook for a very long time as beat reporters came to the same conclusion about this company differently from different places.

Speaker 3 Even, you know, Stephen Levy, everybody. And I think it's really

Speaker 3 really astonishing that they feel like attacking the media is the way to go here. I don't, I don't even, I don't even understand the strategy, I guess.
But anyway.

Speaker 1 Well, you know the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and my neighbor Steve. No.

Speaker 1 Steve's not a cunt.

Speaker 1 And by the way, folks, before you filled my comments, accusing me of being misogynist, I'm in London. I'm in Britain.
We're allowed to use that word here. Yeah.
And it has no reference to gender.

Speaker 1 It just means this person is a very unlikable

Speaker 1 piece of shit. That is.

Speaker 3 I had a pair of socks with that on it just to, you know, I was going to leave some for you. No, I'm certain I will.

Speaker 1 I was literally saying in this profile in the Financial Times, it's appearing next week, that they were talking about our partnership, which they're all obsessed with us, or our partnership, I should say.

Speaker 1 Our marriage.

Speaker 1 And And I said that one of the few nice things, I mean, let's be honest, there's a lot of downside to being a partner with you, but one of the few nice things is that I said, I get to be irreverent, and there will be an uncomfortable pause.

Speaker 1 And then, and I'm serious about this, when you laugh, it kind of gives everyone permission to laugh. You've said that.
So, I like that a lot. Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's it. And you give me cloud cover for a while.

Speaker 3 Wait a minute. Where's the downside? Where's the downside?

Speaker 1 The downside? We're going to need a bigger boat. No, you love it.
We're going to need a bigger boat. Anyways, I don't want to.
I think people are sick of hearing us talk about us. But do you think

Speaker 1 you know this case better than I do? What is your speculation here? What do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 3 I felt they have a relatively strong case. And I don't usually, I don't, I think they're, they definitely have done all kinds of monopolistic behaviors.
And I think they control things.

Speaker 3 But I think in this case,

Speaker 3 things have changed. And I think the government took them far too long to do any regulation.
And so I'm not so sure that they don't have competitors.

Speaker 3 They do have competitors, although they dominate at the same time.

Speaker 3 It's not similar to Microsoft, to me. Microsoft truly dominated, and there were not other alternatives.
And in the case of Facebook, it is, I think at the time,

Speaker 3 Facebook always manages to do the sneakiest, shittiest thing back in the day, especially back in the day that they could. And that's not illegal necessarily.
It just makes them the word you use.

Speaker 3 But I think, and they always make the choice that hurts people. They make the choice of not caring about consequences of the actions they take.

Speaker 3 They try to victim advise themselves and blame all the critics as when they have legitimate criticism. But it's a very strong case.
And I think they're not conducting it very well here.

Speaker 3 And I think they're going to lose. I do, for some reason.
I think that

Speaker 3 the tide against billionaires and these powerful tech companies is still, despite Trump, is still on the side of what is wrong with these people. And so

Speaker 3 I suspect it'll go to appeal. It'll like this one's not as strong as some of the others.
But some of the emails are pretty terrible.

Speaker 1 I think, see, I think this is pretty strong because if you look at the definition of antitrust as it relates to

Speaker 1 trying to reduce competition, you are not, I mean, it just couldn't be clearer with respect to acquisitions. Right.
You're not allowed to acquire a company

Speaker 1 for the purposes of reducing competition. And they literally have emails with Mark Zuckerberg and everyone else saying, it's better to acquire than compete.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's almost as if they wanted to write a case study on what illegal antitrust acquisition is.

Speaker 1 I mean, if they don't, if they don't, if the FTC doesn't win on this one, that's it.

Speaker 1 Let's just stop all cases because they, they, they literally, they are, if they had their hands around the throat of someone who had just died with their blood splattered all over them and they were screaming, I killed this person.

Speaker 1 And then they didn't go to jail. That's if they're not found guilty of antitrust.
I mean, this defines antitrust.

Speaker 3 It does. It does.
I'm saying that the FTC's argument at the beginning was that Snapchat and MeWe was their competitor. I just feel like it's a, it's a stronger case.
Look,

Speaker 3 the Trump administration waged it, and then it was thrown back at the FTC and Lena Khan improved it. That's absolutely true.

Speaker 3 I just feel like it's not this, of all the different cases, whether it's Google, Google, it's like, to me, it's a slam dunk. The Apple one is very clear what's going on there.

Speaker 3 These emails, these, I think they call them hot emails or whatever, are really bad, are really bad.

Speaker 3 And so I think that's probably what's going to do them in because a lot of these companies before they get to be big, I think it's called email hygiene, like they didn't have any.

Speaker 3 You can see what they think of what they're doing. And, you know, I think the testimony of Kevin Systrom wasn't great for them.

Speaker 3 I suspect they've got people lined up around the block for that kind of stuff if they're doing it. We have to see how it unfolds.

Speaker 3 I think they're going to lose this, even though it's, of all the cases, it's not the strongest, despite the emails. So we'll see.
In any case, stop attacking the media. We're not.

Speaker 1 And this is the thing about

Speaker 1 there's this general Gestalt in America where anything you do around antitrust is back the economy. If they were forced to spend Instagram, shareholders win.

Speaker 1 Think about how many people would want to own a pure play Instagram.

Speaker 3 100%.

Speaker 1 It's such a, it's, I mean, to their credit, it's such an incredible product.

Speaker 1 And it's Instagram, just to give you a sense of power of Instagram right now.

Speaker 1 When we did my birthday in Scotland, I don't know if you talked to any of the folks there, but basically, Scotland has been totally overrun. They can't.

Speaker 1 And I said, well, what's happened? And they said, two summers ago, the Scottish Tourism Board invited 50 quote-unquote big Instagram influencers, and like 30 said yes, free trip to Scotland.

Speaker 1 And Scotland, when it's nice out, is literally an Instagram orgy. It is spectacular.

Speaker 1 And tourism was up something like 22% the next year and like 28% the following year. The inns can't handle it.
The roads can't handle it. At the same time,

Speaker 1 a group of Instagrammers started posting reels of how ridiculously overpriced Ibiza and Mykonos had become. And supposedly tourist traffic in Ibiza and Mykonos literally crashed last summer.

Speaker 1 So Instagram is shaping global tourism flows now. Yes.

Speaker 1 Fascinating. I got a million of them, Kara.

Speaker 3 I got a million of them.

Speaker 3 In any case, in any case, we'll see. I just feel like what annoyed me less than like using me or OM as a thing is it was inaccurate.
It was like, I don't work for Vanity Fair. I said one thing.

Speaker 3 If you're talking about a thing in 2019, I said this recently after years of covering it as a beat reporter because I was so sick and tired of this company. And so

Speaker 3 you just, it's just like sloppy. Just like, stop it.
They're just gross. And they're not good at it.
They're, you know, Donald Trump is good at lying. Facebook is not.

Speaker 1 So when's the last time you spoke to Mark Zuckerberg?

Speaker 3 Oh, forever ago.

Speaker 1 Forever ago. When's the last time you spoke to Shel Samberg?

Speaker 3 She texted me not too.

Speaker 1 You have to answer. You're friends.

Speaker 3 No, we're not friends. No, I mean, when she got, when she was getting married, she said

Speaker 3 she was driving a bicycle past the place where we did code, and she sent me a picture of her and her fiancé at the time. That's the last time I talked to her.
It was years ago, years ago.

Speaker 1 I'm curious, what do you think she's going to do next?

Speaker 3 I think she's supposedly, again, I'm not talking to her, is

Speaker 3 happy with her life. She got remarried.

Speaker 3 She did a couple of little things, but she's giving away money quietly, I think.

Speaker 3 I don't know how much, but she was always pretty

Speaker 1 definitely. I think she's more ambitious than that.
I think she's going to run for governor. Really? I don't think so.
Do you not think so? No.

Speaker 3 No, I think she likes her life. I think she, if you go look on her Facebook feed or something, it's a lot of like, here I am at Darryl Swift.
Here I am with my husband.

Speaker 3 Here's, you know, seems like she's enjoying her life

Speaker 3 and good for her.

Speaker 1 It's not 14-year-olds cutting themselves? No, no. No? No.
Sorry. All right.
Best to you, Cheryl. Best to you.
I don't know what she's going to do.

Speaker 3 I honestly, we're not really in touch.

Speaker 3 So I tried to reach her when Mark was sort of slagging her, and apparently she didn't think Mark was slagging her. So I did, and so did many people, but others didn't.
So whatever.

Speaker 1 And who's the new heat shield? Who's the new guy who's going to lie and get paid 100 million bucks? And then once his reputation is destroyed, leave.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, yeah, Joel Kaplan, the Republican. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. He's supposed to be very smart.

Speaker 3 He is very smart. I saw, I talked to him the other day at a party.

Speaker 1 He told me he wouldn't have lunch with you. He's smart.

Speaker 3 He should have lunch with me. Anyway, let's move on.
Apple is considering increasing iPhone prices this fall without blaming tariffs, instead, attributing price hike to new designs and features.

Speaker 3 But while the U.S. and China agreed to suspend most tariffs against each other, the 20% Trump tariff imposed on Chinese goods at the start of the second term is still in place and covers smartphones.

Speaker 3 Apple built up inventory and shifted some manufacturing, as we've talked about, to India in preparation for tariffs, but the company's most profitable and high-end phones are still mostly handled by Chinese factories.

Speaker 3 I keep saying that to people. They haven't successfully moved these operations, although they've been moving in that direction.

Speaker 3 New iPhones will include some design and format changes, including an ultra-thin design. You know, they're trying to still trying to play up to Trump.

Speaker 3 They're not going to, they're not going to blame it on tariffs, but consumers will feel that it's Trump's fault, presumably, but maybe not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we I mean, essentially, you have the largest yard sale in history with so much import and export business and so much

Speaker 1 I mean, the U.S.

Speaker 1 is the largest economy in the world, and so much of it now is up for grabs because of what's happened over the last hundred days, whether it's this tariff nonsense or people not trusting,

Speaker 1 trying to figure out a way to not to do as to do less business with America versus more. And one of the big winners, there's a lot of winners here.

Speaker 1 One of the winners is India, and that is Trump is making India great again.

Speaker 1 And that is, people are saying, okay, America seems to have, or the Trump administration seems to, the relationship with China is very adversarial and creates interruptions or lack of consistency or

Speaker 1 dependability on the supply chain. So Trump was claiming it was going to bring manufacturing back to America.
Now it's bringing manufacturing to India. And it's, I guess, Indian

Speaker 1 Indian manufacturing for iPhones is 5% to 10% more expensive. So you you will see a bump in prices.

Speaker 1 I mean, the problem is, if you want to talk about how this hurts people or companies in little ways, Apple really does need to innovate right now.

Speaker 1 I would argue that Apple's product line is a little bit stale. I was excited about Apple Intelligence, but I don't really see how it's doing anything that interesting.

Speaker 1 The mixed reality headset was a total thud.

Speaker 1 They really haven't, I don't think, I would argue they really haven't innovated since the AirPods, which I think is the most underrated.

Speaker 1 I think the Apple Watch is essentially them throwing so much capital at it that it's,

Speaker 1 I don't know,

Speaker 1 I'm not a huge fan of the Apple Watch, but I think

Speaker 1 you could argue that it's

Speaker 1 hard not to call it a success. Actually, there's more Apple Watches sold than the

Speaker 1 entire Swiss watch industry.

Speaker 1 But they need a refresh, but where I'm headed with this is the following is that instead of focusing on innovation, instead of having their most important people focused on design or new products, they're focused on trying to figure out a way to get the largest, most most complex supply chain out of China and into somewhere else or India, as opposed to being able to focus on the next generation of products, which grow their shareholder base, grow the U.S.

Speaker 1 economy.

Speaker 1 The primary cost of all of this nonsense and all of this chaos and a lack of regard for a lack of understanding for how business is actually done is just, it's basically like giving American business high blood pressure.

Speaker 1 And that is they're more prone to opportunistic infection to disease. It's just weakening the business corpus of the U.S.

Speaker 1 because you have a guy like, I mean, can you imagine how much time Tim Cook has to spend on trying to figure out a way to move his supply chain out of China to India as opposed to trying to figure out what the next thing in technology is?

Speaker 3 And what to say about Trump, right? This is not something they had to do. This is every minute that it takes from the executives not focusing on product is always a bad minute, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, that's it. What would you make, though? What would you make?

Speaker 1 I still go back to, I think there was an enormous opportunity. I think,

Speaker 1 I mean, easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but I think Apple should have early on acquired BYD, assuming that China hadn't been.

Speaker 1 I think that essentially the waiting list for an Apple car would be the most valuable list ever aggregated in history because the logo and the self-expressive benefit of Apple is so incredibly strong that,

Speaker 1 and granted, no one knew BYD was going to be the monster it is, but given the fact they have such an incredible supply chain in China, given the fact that they have such a good relationship with Xi, if things had been, if the temperature had been lower, imagine if Apple had gotten to kind of letter L with a company like BYD

Speaker 1 and produced a really elegant, cool little car for $11,000. Coming to those.

Speaker 3 They could have made in America. They could have done it.

Speaker 1 You're right. The iAuto.
Can you imagine the iCar, the iAuto? Yeah. You know, the thing is.

Speaker 3 As much as I think they're very great operators, and I think they are, I think there's no question.

Speaker 3 I think one of the things that when Steve died, everyone's like it's over and of course tim is 10x it come on please i i'm just telling you that was you were i know

Speaker 3 but logistics can only get you so far and they're there the vision thing is not as

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 3 jobs took these risks even if they didn't work right and tim is doing that through say the the vision pro etc

Speaker 3 but it's not the same it doesn't feel like i i sit around i'm like what could they do to the iphone that makes it better thinner that's it right right? But that's not a thing.

Speaker 3 That's not a new product.

Speaker 1 Okay, but when we're talking about risk and product development, so first off, let's talk about the cadence of a company.

Speaker 1 To go from zero to 300 million, which is what Steve Jobs did, is just remarkable and probably the hardest thing. It is really hard.
It's like women will always have on men. They can create life.

Speaker 1 They can grow bones and muscle. That's sort of singular.

Speaker 1 Starting a company from your garage and building it to something worth a lot, I do think that's the hardest part of quote unquote, the life cycle of a company.

Speaker 1 Having said that, until recently, Tim Cook has added more shareholder value than any person in history because he took the company from 300 billion to 3 trillion.

Speaker 1 I think Jensen Huang is now number one because I think he's taken it from zero to over 3 trillion. But anyways,

Speaker 1 but when people complain about new products, if you will, there's always an emphasis on new more stuff.

Speaker 1 Tim Cook, to his credit, said, All right, I can either try and invent a bunch of little prop planes or I can take this 747 called the

Speaker 1 and put you know hypersonic jets on it and some really visionary moves that were kind of elegant and not that loud he took the

Speaker 1 remember the uh what's it called the ipod and he turned it into a button and turned apple music into a you know a huge hit he launched services and he's all done it all around the iphone because what he said is if we get distracted with a whole bevy of other types of products we won't be able to take advantage of what is the most profitable product in history with the greatest gross margin in history that has the production volumes of Toyota with the margins of Ferrari, and that is the iPhone.

Speaker 1 So I think he's made a conscious decision to innovate around the thing that just produces more cash flow. The question is, it's starting to feel a little tired.
It is.

Speaker 3 Yeah. He's got a, what would you put it? Ultra thin is what I would say, right? That's the only thing I would say.

Speaker 1 Well, that's a design feature.

Speaker 1 I think Apple, I now believe

Speaker 1 I'm writing a No Mercy No Malice on healthcare costs and the budget deficit. I still believe the most disruptible business in the history of the West is U.S.
healthcare.

Speaker 1 And I think Apple should go deeper and deeper into

Speaker 1 healthcare and fitness. Can I make a comment?

Speaker 3 As much as, by the way, Tim is very into fitness. He's like exercises.
He's like you. He's in great shape.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 As an older man, I don't think they have it in them. I think they've done enough and they don't have the, like the

Speaker 3 Johnny, I did a really interesting interview. I don't think they have the explosive creativity at all in you.
There's a point where you can't make more stuff if you can't think of like you've done it.

Speaker 3 And by the way, this is a record of a group of executives who, you know, as I always call them, the Rolling Stones, but it's still the Rolling Stones, right?

Speaker 3 Like they're not the Rolling Stones that were. And so they can't do much but play their oldies.
That's that's how I look at them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but they have the capital to make some accurate.

Speaker 1 That goes to.

Speaker 3 It takes energy.

Speaker 1 In a board, I agree.

Speaker 1 But in a board meeting, you're supposed to every, at least once a year, a good board suit every six months, you go through succession planning and you're supposed to, that's when you can tell if you have the right.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, some of the best CEOs are very good at shooting any competition.

Speaker 1 And that's one of the things I noticed about

Speaker 1 when I was on the board at NYT. It was clear the CEO was, quite frankly, was insecure because nobody good would ever get past.

Speaker 1 They always seemed to either leave or she would shoot them. Basically, no one, it was pretty clear there was no one who could handle the job, which means you're a bad CEO.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what the succession planning meeting is in there, but I would think Apple's board is so, it's so impressive that they got to be thinking, all right, who are the VPs and SVPs that really bring some crazy fucking mojo to this whole thing right now?

Speaker 1 They got to be cognizant of this issue, I would think.

Speaker 3 I suppose. I just think people run out of energy and then no one says anything.
Anyway, we have to move on. Streaming service Max will now return to being called HBO Max.

Speaker 3 This coming, of course, yet again.

Speaker 1 God, literally, I've had it. I have had it.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 so has the social media arm of the company because they were making fun of themselves.

Speaker 3 Let's listen to a clip of you talking about David Zaslov's decision to change a name right here on Pivot back in 2023.

Speaker 1 If you had $10 billion

Speaker 1 and you tried to recreate a brand like HBO, you probably couldn't do it. It'd be one in 10 chance you could do it.

Speaker 1 So he's taken tens of billions of dollars, or at least billions in equity, and he's taken it into the street and created a fire to warm his ego.

Speaker 1 But this will go down as one of the great brand disasters.

Speaker 3 Okay, so now it's called HBO Max, the streaming service. The change marks the fourth name change for the service in a decade.

Speaker 3 It was called HBO Now. There was Max, there's HBO, there's HBO Max.
And again, the service, the company's social media things are making fun of it too, in a really kind of vicious way,

Speaker 3 how dumb this is and how difficult it is. And they call it rebranding, debranding.
Scott, let me tell you, let me give you my,

Speaker 3 I don't have a perspective because I have a contract with CNN and I am making a

Speaker 3 documentary that probably will be on this, whatever the fuck it's going to be called.

Speaker 3 But that's my disclosure. But I find this like perplexing.
I always liked HBO Max myself. Thoughts, brand expert.

Speaker 1 This was probably the strongest, one of the strongest brands in the arts or in media. Anything, what is a brand? A brand gives you unearned margin.

Speaker 1 And in this case, HBO gave you, or the HBO brand gave unearned trial. Almost anything that comes on HBO,

Speaker 1 you're more willing to trial.

Speaker 1 And the reason why is that to the credit of HBO, The culture they have been able to create there, such that they attract the best and brightest in the industry means that they basically can go toe to toe with Netflix Netflix on, no exaggeration, one seventh of the content budget.

Speaker 1 Netflix spends $18 billion. HBO spends two and a half.

Speaker 1 And yet, if you see two people at the quote-unquote proverbial water cooler talking about a zeitgeist cultural moment, and you had to bet what streaming platform that cultural moment is taking place on, the best bet is HBO.

Speaker 3 It is, although it's increasingly Netflix, right? Did you see that show on Netflix?

Speaker 1 Okay, it's seven times times the cost. HBO defines what it means to have an amazing brand that creates a culture that results in a company that can punch above its weight class.
Yes, agree.

Speaker 1 It is so artisanal. It's the LVMH.
It just doesn't have the capital of a Netflix. But, I mean, talk about,

Speaker 1 you know, The Last of Us, Succession, Game of Thrones, The Sopranos.

Speaker 1 You know, you love hacks. That's on the same league.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but go ahead. It's not in the same league as this shit that I'm talking about, Kara.

Speaker 1 Six feet under. Jesus Christ.
I mean, these guys consistently put out sex in the city.

Speaker 1 They consistently put out this content that identifies the moment and they turn it into fucking max so we can find big bang theory and shark week. I mean,

Speaker 1 and let's just go. No one on the board.
This is the worst board in media. Nobody on the board had the sense to go, you can't take billions of dollars into the street and light it on fire.

Speaker 1 That's bad for shareholders. Can we get someone here who actually understands brand who can talk about the power of HBO and not make

Speaker 1 the job of a board is one to pick the right guy or gal, two, when to sell the company, but also to have some domain expertise on the board so occasionally you can save the CEO from him or herself because it is really difficult to read the label from inside of the bottle.

Speaker 1 This was the easiest one ever. No, do not do away with the HBO brand.
And what do they do? I'll give them credit. A step back from the wrong direction is a step in the right direction.

Speaker 1 But let's talk about this board.

Speaker 1 Since they merged, since Zaslov was able to talk shareholders into doing this crazy thing and overpaying for it such that he could go to LA and play Jack Warner, the stock is off 62.8%.

Speaker 1 And you know how much shareholders have lost two-thirds of their value that were dumb enough to buy into this merger.

Speaker 1 Do you know how much the board has paid Zaslov in his tenure for the last four and a half years?

Speaker 1 $342 million.

Speaker 1 So shareholders lose two-thirds of their value, and the CEO makes a third of a billion dollars.

Speaker 3 I'm going to ask you a specific question.

Speaker 3 What would you have them call it? Just continue with Max now that they made that way? That's one.

Speaker 3 And then two, there's obviously rumors, and most people think it's going to happen, them spinning off doing

Speaker 3 what MSNBC just did, essentially putting CNN and other things in one bucket and

Speaker 3 the studio, I guess, in another bucket. So

Speaker 3 what do you imagine? I suppose HBO would go with the studio part. Yeah, that would go over there.
And then the news and other subs will go places. They're doing what MSNBC did.

Speaker 3 So talk about those two things. What would you have them do? Call it that or not call it that?

Speaker 1 Well, there's brand strategy and business strategy. They probably have to do, and they lead into each other, but basically,

Speaker 1 we know what's going to happen. I think I know what's going to happen here.
The company is going to go good bank, bad bank.

Speaker 1 It's going to be HBO Warner Brothers, the theater business, the characters, the IP, which will feed into HBO. HBO is the brand.

Speaker 1 It'll have another component, a subset, HBO Max or something that's all the other shit. And then they will spin all the TV and the cable assets into, they'll either consolidate or be part of a

Speaker 1 consolidation with Comcast. And that is, they're just, these are still highly profitable businesses, but they're shrinking.
So that means consolidation and cost cutting.

Speaker 1 And they'll have good bank, bad bank. And then the HBO Warner part of the business will trade at a greater multiple.

Speaker 1 They'll sell off the cable assets to a consolidator, although be the consolidate, and they'll use that cash flow to pay down the debt. And the stock will trade up.

Speaker 1 But the problem is, and it's always the boring shit that gets you.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure of this, but what I would suspect is the reason they haven't done this so far is Zaslov, when he bought the company, issued a ton of debt at exactly the right time.

Speaker 1 And that is, he has very friendly debt that is at a ridiculously low interest rate. And

Speaker 1 I would bet that if he tries to spend those assets, it triggers an acceleration in the debt, and then he'd have to go borrow money at a much higher interest rate.

Speaker 1 So I think he has to wait until that debt matures and he has to go into the market anyway.

Speaker 3 There was also a way they did the merger. They couldn't act until a certain amount.

Speaker 1 But I think the debt, they don't want to do anything

Speaker 1 that in any way gives their bondholders a reason to say, oh, we're out and you have to borrow money from us. It's at 8%, not at 2.5%.

Speaker 1 So, but this company will be an artisanal, vertically integrated Warner Brothers Studio and HBO, the artisanal streaming network that will survive.

Speaker 1 And then they'll take all of the highly profitable but declining assets and roll them up with a bunch of the other cable guys. This company will be split up.

Speaker 3 Let's get back to the name. Would you have returned it to HBO Max or just left it at Macs since they went that direction?

Speaker 1 Oh no, bring back HBO. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 Did you call it just HBO or HBO Max? Not HBO now. That was a short period of weirdness.

Speaker 1 JaCara, do you remember HBO Go? Go, go. Oh, I forgot Go.

Speaker 3 Yes, of course I do.

Speaker 1 HBO Joey Bag of Donuts.

Speaker 3 I remember for a moment being like, why are there more than one apps to access these people?

Speaker 1 I would, I think HBO needs a distinct brand identity that means artisanal high-end.

Speaker 1 Like, this is LVMH.

Speaker 1 This is a different streaming network. And they probably have

Speaker 1 a sub-brand that's for all the other crap, right? That's for all the other stuff that they play online. So I think it would be HBO and then HBO Max, right?

Speaker 1 This is such a clean, beautiful artisanal brand. And what they've created there is so special.
And to their credit, they've been able to maintain it. I mean, if you think about it,

Speaker 1 Netflix is the Russian army throwing 20 million people at a problem.

Speaker 1 They just have more gross tonnage. HBO is SEAL Team 6.
I mean, these are the most elite content producers. Let me say,

Speaker 3 speaking, since I'm having lunch with Richard, it's due to the Richard Plepler, like set the, set that in motion, the quality. And he's, he's since gone on to other things.

Speaker 3 And the people that he trained, like Casey Blois and others, are the reason for that, right? They continue.

Speaker 3 And I know he left the company under a bit of a, like, I think he was not liking what they were doing, like what they were doing.

Speaker 3 But I have to say, he set the tone for that and created one of the greatest brands, I think, with Sopranos and as you said, Sex in the City and Game of Thrones, et cetera. So much credit to him.

Speaker 3 And you're right. They continue to create great stuff.

Speaker 1 The White Lotus? What's your favorite thing ever on HBO?

Speaker 3 Oh, God, there's so many.

Speaker 3 Probably Sex in the City is the thing I watch the most of, but I love, I liked

Speaker 3 Sopranos.

Speaker 3 There's a lot I like. There's so much.
There's always something good on HBO. They're always a whole lot.

Speaker 1 Chernobyl.

Speaker 3 there's some movies.

Speaker 1 The Penguin. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Just really good stuff.

Speaker 1 Show I just started watching, which is our kind of friend's iconic, The Leftovers. Oh, that's probably hugely underrated.
Really? That's a huge show. That's actually done very well.

Speaker 1 The Band of Brothers. I mean, these guys just keep figuring out a way to put out

Speaker 1 amazing content.

Speaker 3 They do. And so don't fuck it up, David.
That's all I have to say. Anyway, speaking of streaming, very briefly, Fox Corp will also launch its streaming service, not quite as fancy, called Fox Fox One.

Speaker 3 I actually kind of like the name ahead of the NFL season later this year. They're going to jam a bunch of crap in there and they have their own streaming service.

Speaker 3 So, again, I think people will pay for Fox. They had another thing, Fox Plus or whatever they had, where they had all that Tucker Carlson nonsense.
There's lots of streaming services launching.

Speaker 3 What do you think about Fox's chances?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, first off, they just announced their first show.

Speaker 1 It's called I'm Not Racist, but.

Speaker 3 Oh, come on.

Speaker 1 Anyways.

Speaker 1 What? Okay.

Speaker 1 That's a good show.

Speaker 3 Like, I believed you.

Speaker 1 I'm not racist, but.

Speaker 3 Is that a real show? No. No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 I love that you believe that. See?

Speaker 3 I believed you. I was like, huh, I could see them doing that.

Speaker 1 Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 1 I think there's a market for it.

Speaker 1 I'd just go fucking crazy. Like, I'd have Laura Loomer.
I would just go full conspiracy weirdo. I mean, I'd go, okay, those of you who are really crazy got to tune in here.
I'd go nuts. I'd go.

Speaker 3 Well, legal liability, though, you have to be very, you can't like, they've been down, they're still in the middle of a lawsuit.

Speaker 1 Claim it's an online platform. Yeah.
That'd be interesting. Could you claim you're an online platform?

Speaker 3 I don't know. Anyway, yeah, I agree.
Well, anyway, we have to move on, but I think there's plenty of people who would buy this. It's a good idea.
It's probably late.

Speaker 2 They probably should have done it earlier.

Speaker 3 Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back.
Trump's Deal of Palooza in the Middle East. Oh, good God.

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Speaker 3 Scott, we're back. President Trump is on a whirlwind tour of the Middle East.
It's just, I don't even want to talk about it. I'm so tired of looking at him.

Speaker 3 Where he's been busy with all sorts of wheeling and dealing. He attended a lunch in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday with a gaggle of U.S.

Speaker 3 business leaders, including the CEOs of Amazon, OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Uber. And of course, Elam was there, all with their hands out to the Saudis.

Speaker 3 Some of the deals Trump has touted in the last few days, a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S. The real number is reportedly much lower.

Speaker 3 Qatar Airways is buying as many as 210 Boeing jets. NVIDIA is selling chips to an AI startup backed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.
News of the deal sent NVIDIA's market cap back.

Speaker 3 It had been declining to above $3 trillion.

Speaker 3 And in a major foreign policy ship, Trump said he's lifting sanctions on Syria, and he met with the country's new president, the first U.S.-Syria leader meeting in 25 years.

Speaker 3 A couple things.

Speaker 3 There was that lunch. In addition, NVIDIA, AMD, and Amazon also struck deals with Saudi Arabian AI startup.
Trump seems to be using U.S. AI technology and chips as leverage for a lot of these deals.

Speaker 3 Not the stupidest thing in the world, but people are worried we risk losing the upper hand on AI if we're sharing them. Open AI is reportedly considering building data centers in UAE.

Speaker 3 We're going to talk about the diplomacy part in a minute, but how do you think about the business part and

Speaker 3 what he's doing here? A lot of like jazz hands all over the place.

Speaker 1 Look,

Speaker 1 I think it makes sense.

Speaker 1 There's been U.S. delegations led by the president that go overseas for decades, but what they usually have is they have a broader

Speaker 1 campaign contributions aren't the litmus test. It's great American companies.

Speaker 1 And also, they always make sure that the Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business Association is represented such that at least there's the illusion they're trying to sell America as opposed to trying to sell the people who've been really good to them and are good to the president.

Speaker 1 I think something like this makes sense.

Speaker 1 AI is big. He's leveraging it.
I think they're being smart about this. That's the good side of this.
The thing that's really scary and corrupt is that, all right, he's in Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 Saudi Arabia wants a technology to build a civilian nuclear plant. They want AI.

Speaker 1 And what do you know? They announced a giant Trump tower in Jeddah. You just shouldn't be mixing the two.

Speaker 1 And this is especially upsetting for me for someone who thinks a lot about Israel and the fact that there are still 50-plus hostages that have been held for 500 plus days.

Speaker 1 I've always said, if you want to get the hostages out, follow the money, put pressure on Qatar.

Speaker 1 How much pressure can the president bring to bear on Qatar when they are talking about doing golf course developments and enriching the family by billions of dollars?

Speaker 1 How honest and

Speaker 1 how much can geopolitical interests of the U.S. be pure and unfettered around us and our allies when they are saying to the son, we'll give you a billion dollars for development here?

Speaker 1 And by the way, in Qatar, it's not a private company doing it with Eric and Don. It's a division of the Qatari government that is in this real estate deal.
And then let's keep traveling to the UAE

Speaker 1 where they want American

Speaker 1 AI chips.

Speaker 1 And the reason we don't want to give them to the AI and haven't to date is we are worried that because China, which represents three times the level of import business in terms of oil, in other words, the UAE economically is more dependent upon, or it's Saudi Arabia, excuse me, but the UAE is actually a bigger trading partner with China.

Speaker 1 We don't want to give them these chips because they're worried about leaking that sensitive information to China. But what do you know?

Speaker 1 The UAE has announced that they are going to invest in World Financial Liberty stablecoin.

Speaker 1 This is just all, folks, our interests are not being represented.

Speaker 3 No, the Trump family's interests are.

Speaker 1 So I like the fact he's sitting down. I think Syria is a big, I think for us to establish

Speaker 1 the real politic of

Speaker 1 dealing with the new leader of Syria right now, I realize that has a lot of weirdness to it.

Speaker 1 I think it's a really smart idea to try and figure out a way to at least have an informal peace or ally or understanding.

Speaker 1 And this is the time to cut the deal and to put a cudgel or a wedge in between Syria and Russia right now is a big opportunity. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So let's talk about the diplomacy angle of this trip. Trump is clearly enjoying all the pomp and pageantry.
He loves walking by a bunch of soldiers and fancy gold stuff.

Speaker 3 But he's also got a lot of love for these leaders. He called the Syrian president a young, attractive guy.
He's so much on looks. It's so strange, especially with men.

Speaker 3 He said Qatar's emir was a very special guy. In talking about the Saudi crown prince, Trump said, I like him too much, which is interesting to say about someone who saw someone up.

Speaker 1 He's literally going to say, and he's a great kisser. I'm expecting that.

Speaker 3 It sounds like he might be leaving Melania for one of these guys. Just his way he talks about men, he talks about women in a grotesque way, sort of like nice boobs.

Speaker 3 But men is a very strange, like, it's not just funny. He does it all the friggin' time.

Speaker 3 I like that about him.

Speaker 1 I think most people think that way. I think they're very low citizens.
You do. You do.

Speaker 3 You're right. You're right.
In addition to lifting these sanctions on Syria, he also said he's open to negotiating with Iran, saying there are no permanent enemies.

Speaker 3 That was kind of an interesting thing because most of the Republican establishment, if they did a really interesting go back five years with like Rubio, et cetera, there are permanent enemies, enemies, right?

Speaker 3 Like whether it's North Korea, Trump has, this is, this is consistent. Trump is consistently, I'll do a deal with anybody kind of guy.

Speaker 3 So his,

Speaker 3 this one, I think he's correct. There are no permanent enemies, but it's a really interesting effort on his part to be like, whatever the deal is, I'll do the deal.

Speaker 3 And you're an attractive man, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Well, it goes back to values.
With respect to Iran, I think it's different. I think you go into Syria, there's a huge opportunity for us.

Speaker 1 And I would argue there's probably a decent amount of public support after what the populace endured from the kind of depraved, violent reign of Bashar al-Assad.

Speaker 1 When it comes to Iran, I think American values have to come out. And that is, I think the smartest thing we can do is, quite frankly, just to try to undermine the Islamic Republic.
And

Speaker 1 we do. America does have, or at least pretends to have, values about being concerned about the general population and being focused on rights, women's rights around the world.

Speaker 1 And the one place I think that we have an opportunity is that the Islamic Republic does not have a great deal of support from the Iranian people.

Speaker 1 And as someone who grew up with Iranians in LA, I've always thought

Speaker 1 Iranians are more American than Americans. Yes, they are.
We should be great allies with Iran because they're really into education, really into capitalism.

Speaker 1 I think Iran is just a huge missed opportunity for us.

Speaker 1 And when you meet, especially some of the, like,

Speaker 1 you want to talk about the benefits of immigration? We had, we got so many outstanding people

Speaker 1 after the revolution who immigrated to the U.S.

Speaker 1 So many great doctors, scientists, business people. One of my mentors, a guy named Hamid Mogadam, who runs the largest REIT in America, ProLogis, came here after the revolution.

Speaker 1 I mean, we got such incredible human talent. And it's a shame that this, this,

Speaker 1 in my opinion, backward, primitive, oppressive government

Speaker 1 is unfortunately through kind of a reign of terror is the leadership of Iran. So I think we should kind of take the Reagan-esque approach.

Speaker 1 And that is, we have absolutely no quarrel with the Iranian people, but the leadership and the governing body there is not good for

Speaker 1 the Iranian people or for the world.

Speaker 1 And we have a tendency to group all of the Gulf as Americans into one group of people. They are much different.
The Saudis do not have any love lost with Iran.

Speaker 1 So this is, but this is a place you want to talk about the need for someone really fucking smart and an incredible team that is solely based on competence, not whether Eric is selling golf courses.

Speaker 1 It's the gulf between economic opportunities, between a flashpoint of potential violence or wars that could erupt and destabilize the world.

Speaker 1 We've got to be really honest and really smart and not be seen as fucking whores over there collecting planes and golf courses.

Speaker 3 Yeah, one of the interesting things is this beef between Business Insider, which is owned by Axel Springer, and they wrote a piece about how Don Jr. is like, it makes Hunter Biden blush, essentially.

Speaker 3 And of course, they're going after just a really minor story by a very good reporter, by the way, Bethany McClain.

Speaker 3 And they're putting pressure.

Speaker 3 They don't want to, they will not take any criticism over what is clearly Grift. Like Griff, Griff, Griff, Griff.
Sorry, Don. I don't think it's the Griff that bothers them.

Speaker 1 I think it's, I think it's associating.

Speaker 1 I think it's the association or the implication that, that Don has a drug problem.

Speaker 1 I think they're fine with, I think they're like, yeah, we're, we're

Speaker 1 capitalists or grifters. Interesting.
I think he's pissed off that you're saying I'm like Hunter, that my drug habit is out of control. Oh, interesting.

Speaker 3 Oh, I didn't thought

Speaker 3 that. It wasn't in the story.
I read the story.

Speaker 1 I was anyway.

Speaker 3 All right. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.
When we come back, we'll talk about RFK's bizarre swim.

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Speaker 3 Scott, we're back with more news. Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.
had quite a week. First off, let's listen to a clip of him answering questions before a House committee.

Speaker 1 I don't think people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me.

Speaker 3 I think that's about, that sort of says it. He also said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant.

Speaker 3 And thank goodness he's not prompting people to take his advice because he recently posted a photo of himself and his grandchildren swimming in Rock Creek, which is close to swimming because it's used for sewer runoff, E.

Speaker 3 coli.

Speaker 3 He did look good, like he's in good shape, but it was pretty astonishing that he's, I was sort of like, whoa, I won't even go in there with like rubber boots, essentially.

Speaker 3 But he really seems out of it in some ways, but he seems to be just plodding on and cutting things that are critically important for kids, especially, and the safety of all of us.

Speaker 3 But any thoughts on RFK and his swim?

Speaker 1 I think that's noise.

Speaker 1 I agree. Whatever.
The bare theapes is noise.

Speaker 1 The key to your story, and what we should, in my opinion, be zeroing in on because it's more substantive that the head of one of the biggest agencies and who sets the tone for where we allocate resources to try and keep America healthy, him claiming that he doesn't give medical advice is such an outrageous lie.

Speaker 1 He has been one of the strongest anti-vaccine advocates. That is medical advice.
He has written a book, The Real Anthony Fauci, a book, a best-selling book,

Speaker 1 Kennedy Offered Medical Perspective contradicting mainstream public health guidance. He's promoted alternatives to COVID-19 treatments, medical advice.

Speaker 1 He's made, I think it's called Thimerosol claims. For years, Kennedy has advised people to avoid vaccines containing thimerosol.
That is medical advice. EMF health claims.

Speaker 1 Kennedy has suggested electromagnetic fields from wireless technology pose serious health risks. That is medical advice.
Discussions about his own medical conditions.

Speaker 1 talking about measles and rubella, claims about medical conditions in children. He gives more fucking medical advice than the surgeon general.

Speaker 3 And he presides over a medical organization. That's the thing.

Speaker 3 I think he's saying, I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me, which is such, it's so disingenuous, is what you're saying, essentially.

Speaker 1 He realizes what he has said. This guy is literally the best friends, the best friend measles and rubella ever had, right? They're like, oh my God, we're back.
Right. Right.

Speaker 1 We thought we were out of business, but this guy guy wants to put us back on a global tour. He wants to, you know, first stop Texas and really crazy conservative places.

Speaker 1 We're back for a limited time only. Oh, maybe it's going to be an extended time bringing you, you know, this, this ban from the 50s and 60s, measles and rubella.

Speaker 1 This guy is so...

Speaker 1 And the problem is he's very handsome. He's very compelling.
He is very good on some issues, on the environment, in my opinion, on Israel. He's powerful.
You want to like him.

Speaker 1 And this guy is so fucked up in the head and dangerous when it comes to medical advice and vaccines. And this is the guy figuring out where we're going to allocate resources.

Speaker 1 He's fired so many really good, thoughtful people who save lives. And again, it's this death by a thousand cuts.
There's going to be kids.

Speaker 1 There's going to be more, more death, disease, and disability because this guy is in office. And for him to say,

Speaker 1 you shouldn't take medical, he's trying to backtrack because some of the shit he has said lately, whether it's we represent X percent, nobody, there was no diabetes when I was a kid.

Speaker 1 He is constantly spewing misinformation.

Speaker 3 Can I just point out the stream thing? I know it's a distraction, but it's not actually, because it shows the same kind of lack of care.

Speaker 3 I mean, like, if even one person goes in that stream, like he's in there with children, it's poop, it's E. coli, it's shit.
He's saying something rather disturbing.

Speaker 3 And he, look, he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to swim in shit, good luck, Robert.
I can't believe he continues to survive

Speaker 3 with all the stuff he does.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 3 I think it is important that he's doing that. Like, here's the head of the health and human services swimming in a sewer and saying, hey, I'm having fun.
I just, I don't think it's a distraction.

Speaker 3 I think it says exactly what you are saying here.

Speaker 1 Anyways,

Speaker 1 I think that there's a lot of people.

Speaker 1 You know, Secretary Hagseth puts us in the most immediate danger because incompetence overseeing the largest military in the world is just dangerous on a short-term basis.

Speaker 1 But over the medium and the long term, more death, disease, and disability, unnecessary death, disease, and disability will be spread by RFK Jr. And I don't say that lightly.

Speaker 1 That is a terrible thing to say about someone. And I think there's a lot of evidence backing that statement up.

Speaker 3 I would agree. As you said before, planes were not having all these near-misses when Pete Budajedge was in there.

Speaker 3 Things weren't falling off of aircraft carriers before pretext and stuff like that. And in this case, I agree.
It's a long-term danger, especially with the decimation of science.

Speaker 3 And everything he does is always either performative, grotesque, and always dangerous for people's health. And to for just, he's really one of the more dangerous people.

Speaker 1 And this whole make America healthy again.

Speaker 1 is such a fucking distraction. It is.

Speaker 1 I grant it, no doubt. No doubt we need to look look at our food supply and sugar.
No doubt.

Speaker 3 It's hard to find sugar in Scott's apartment, everybody, just so you know.

Speaker 1 Well, you know why? Because I have money and

Speaker 1 I can buy healthy food. I can go to doctors.

Speaker 1 No, I'm trying to make a serious point here.

Speaker 1 If these guys were serious about health of America,

Speaker 1 they would have a more progressive tax structure. Yep.

Speaker 1 That would literally be, if you wanted to increase the health of America,

Speaker 1 Give kids access, get rid of food deserts, give kids access to good, healthy food, make it such that people have the time to exercise.

Speaker 1 They don't, you know, the best thing you could do for the health of America, $25 an hour minimum wage. Yep.

Speaker 3 Like we say, 100%. You're upset.
Scott, president running for president of America.

Speaker 3 All right, one more quick break and we'll be back for predictions. I'm excited to hear prediction.

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Speaker 3 Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Speaker 1 Well, first off, while I would enjoy,

Speaker 1 I'm all down. I think the American public should be down with him getting that 747 on one condition.
They paint along the side of it, it says Qatar's bitch. Yeah.
I think that...

Speaker 1 I think that that would be the trade. But anyways, being serious, my prediction is the following.
The plane's not going to happen, Kara.

Speaker 1 These people,

Speaker 1 they're so amateur.

Speaker 1 And I've been saying for a while, they're so good at the grift. They got this grift wrong because here's the thing.
The NSA, the CIA,

Speaker 1 the Secret Service who's charged with the president's safety are going to say, you realize a very small amount of C2 explosive could be put anywhere on this plane that has the wiring of, you know, a hospital complex.

Speaker 1 And if they at some point decided they didn't like who was on the plane, including you.

Speaker 1 So in order for this plane to live up to vet security standards and protocols, they would have to disassemble it and reassemble it. And that would cost approximately $1 billion.

Speaker 1 He can't take this plane, not because he's not a criminal, not because he doesn't want it, not because they're not willing to give it, but his security apparatus is going to sit down with him and say, we need to have an adult conversation with you.

Speaker 1 You can't have a foreign government giving you a piece of technology that you're flying in at 40,000 feet. We can't can't ensure your safety.

Speaker 1 And the only way we'd be able to do that is to take the thing down to a series of 48,000 parts and then put it back together again. Do you remember?

Speaker 1 It reminds me of, do you remember when we let the Russians build our embassy in Moscow?

Speaker 3 Yes, that's right. It was full of like listening.

Speaker 1 They would just literally start hammering pieces of the wall and they'd find listening devices everywhere. Everywhere, like in the concrete.
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 Finally, they said, there's no way, there's no way

Speaker 1 we can make this thing ever secure. So they said, just demolish the thing.
So, anyways, my prediction is

Speaker 1 the plane thing's not going to happen.

Speaker 1 Let me put it this way. It's not going to be Air Force One.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, Boeing's been building one, right? Correct? It's just taking too long for Trump. He wants a fancier, slicker plane.

Speaker 1 He's so gross. He's so grotesque.

Speaker 3 And also, by the way, I think you're right because the plane is a real symbol. It's not a little grift.
It's like a big flying, huge fucking thing.

Speaker 1 It's a huge symbol of our power. Symbol.

Speaker 3 symbol of real life.

Speaker 1 I love that. One of my favorite photographs, I was trying to get a print of it,

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 when China was waving their finger at us and telling us not to go to Taiwan.

Speaker 1 And Nancy Pelosi showed up in a very American-looking plane, and they parked the plane behind her, and there she was in high heels in a pink pantsuit.

Speaker 1 And it was just like, fucking A, I love America.

Speaker 1 77-year-old woman gets on a plane for 14 hours, figures out a way to look fabulous,

Speaker 1 and takes a picture and heels in front of our plane. I thought that was really

Speaker 3 complimented, Nancy Pelosi. That's a new one.

Speaker 1 Anyway. I like the speaker.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So anyway, I have just a very brief thing.
Just the New York Times just came out with a piece again.

Speaker 3 Speaking of this kind of thing, this group called the Technology Transparency Projects is a nonprofit that focuses on accountability

Speaker 3 for tech.

Speaker 3 said that more, let me read the lead, more than a year after researchers first warned that X was potentially violating U.S.

Speaker 3 sanctions by accepting payments for subscription accounts from terrorist organizations and other groups barred from doing business in the country.

Speaker 3 Elon Musk's social media platform continues to accept such payments, according to this report, this new report. We had said that he wasn't going to stop a year a little while ago.

Speaker 3 So we got that one right, just so you know. Anyway, once again, they just love them a terrorist.
Anyway, we want to hear from you.

Speaker 3 Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551-PIVOT.

Speaker 3 Elsewhere in the Cara and Scott universe, this week on Prof G Conversation, Scott spoke with Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe.

Speaker 3 I've interviewed him too, but just the news recently, he's moving to Canada, he and his wife, I believe. But let's listen to a clip.

Speaker 9 When we make enemies unnecessarily, we are encouraging terrorism. So it's not just that we're putting our defenses down, which we're clearly doing.

Speaker 9 It's also that we're inviting the offense, which we're also clearly doing.

Speaker 9 What the Trump people are doing is draining American power out of the system because the international system, our power in the international system depended upon, among other things, relationships, trust, alliances,

Speaker 9 reliability treaties. But everybody else's power remains.
Everybody else is now more relatively powerful with respect to us.

Speaker 9 And so, of course, they can now afford to think about interventions and adventures, which they wouldn't have been able to think about before. I agree completely.

Speaker 3 Did you like that conversation? He's really smart. I love that stuff.

Speaker 1 I'm fascinated by it. But just

Speaker 3 for the record, because I asked him, I said, why did you move to canada and he said that it didn't have anything to do with the current political climate that it was a lifestyle yeah and also his wife yeah and also i they they did it they did a story i think in the times today about that and there was a little bit there was some of like you can't go away from history i believe i they definitely did um talk

Speaker 3 he and his wife um they're sort of a power couple a historic history department power couple his wife marcy shore

Speaker 3 um they're all going to toronto but there was some element of you can't escape history and this is not a good situation to be in. We'll see how many scholars actually leave.

Speaker 3 There's a, you know, there's a move and the new head of NIH was.

Speaker 1 Well, they're being recruited. I know firsthand they're being recruited.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they're being recruited by, say, France, for example. The new head of the NIH, who's, I think, is a loudmouth.

Speaker 1 And China. Yeah, exactly.
And the UK. I mean,

Speaker 1 I'm telling you, folks, the best and brightest at these universities are getting calls

Speaker 1 with offers for money, intellectual and academic freedom. But we were talking about this guy moving to Canada.
It's interesting. You know, there's that, you know, why that you can't actually,

Speaker 1 a guy who's from Boston is not, you can't bury him in Toronto. You know why? No.
Oh, no. Because he's still alive.

Speaker 3 Anyway, it's just an interesting time. One, the head of the NIH said about France taking scientists.
He goes, oh, it's a nice place to visit.

Speaker 1 What an idiot.

Speaker 3 What a stupid idiot. In that way, people are making, are thinking about this at the very least, which is they never would have in a million years.
I set a trend. It's a trend.
It's a trend.

Speaker 3 We're not moving. We're staying here.
I'm going to stay in Scott's apartment and never leave. Okay, that's the show.
Thank you for listening to Pivot.

Speaker 3 Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel, which is growing quite smartly. We'll be back next week.
Scott, read us out.

Speaker 1 Today's show is produced by Larry Names, Zoe, Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Ju Burrows, Ms. Severo, and Dan Shallon.

Speaker 1 Mishak Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.
Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 1 You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.
Louis Swisher, congratulations. Well done.
Graduation.

Speaker 1 I need Kara to keep doing this podcast thing, so I need you to go to grad school. We need to lock her down.
She needs the money. Grad school, my friend.

Speaker 3 Anyway, happy birthday, Louis.

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