U.S.-China Trade Deal, Trump's Plane Grift, and the American Pope

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Speaker 6 You can come over. We'll do edibles.
Watch meet the press on my computer. Sun time.

Speaker 19 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.

Speaker 6 And I'm Scott Galloway.

Speaker 19 Scott, did you hear who my seatmate was? Your favorite person? On my way to California to talk to Democrats. I can't say.
Oh, Gordon Gecker.

Speaker 6 I mean, Speaker Emirates Pelosi.

Speaker 19 She was delightful. She's a delightful seatmate, I must say.

Speaker 19 Let me just tell you one thing about her. First of all, I recognized it was her because it was like a, it was a, it was a plane full of political people.
Zoe Lofgren was on there.

Speaker 19 Eric Swalwall was on there.

Speaker 19 But someone yelled out white smoke really loudly on an older lady, and it turned out to be her, and spent much of the beginning of the flight uh having me figure out who the pope was for her she's you know quite catholic and carrying lots of newspapers constantly moving throughout the entire thing i mean she's in really good shape for someone her of her age of any age actually so it was fun we had a good time she says hi i think she's uh very fashionable she is well she was wearing a very comfortable but fashionable outfit, I would say.

Speaker 19 I would say very, but comfortable.

Speaker 19 And one of the things that struck me was how many people came up to her. I know you have antipathy towards her, but most people don't.

Speaker 19 It was astonishing how many people gave her notes and handed her little things saying they loved her and this and that. It was interesting.

Speaker 6 Look, I don't, I think she's been a great representative. I think she's a powerful, smart woman.
I also think she's engages in wild corruption.

Speaker 19 Yeah, not like a Qatari airplane.

Speaker 6 Well, we'll, we'll get to that.

Speaker 19 All right.

Speaker 6 But the slow creep has not helped.

Speaker 19 No, I agree. The stock thing has to be dealt with throughout throughout Congress, by the way.

Speaker 19 And There was a Republican who did it, who was saying he was against it, and then he suddenly was doing a lot of trading, Marjorie Taylor Greene. They shouldn't be trading.

Speaker 19 And again, I think your idea of paying them more is a great idea in order to get them off of that.

Speaker 19 Because another part, you know, you're smart people. You want to make some money and you can't help yourself, but you do have insider information to a lot of things.

Speaker 6 Look, I've said this over and over. I'm trying to be better about coming up with solutions.

Speaker 6 I think there should be a bill, and I think there's a decent chance it would would pass: $1 million a year for representatives, $3 million a year for senators, $10 million a year for the president, in exchange for a zero-tolerance policy on corruption.

Speaker 19 Aaron Powell, yeah, but then how do you like the Trump people have really taken it to the most extreme?

Speaker 6 No, I agree, but that's a separate conversation. I'm trying to talk about solutions.

Speaker 6 The Singapore model works

Speaker 6 because what ends up happening is the money they get costs so much more in terms of loss of faith in the markets, in terms of people's reticence to invest in certain companies.

Speaker 19 I'm going to agree with you. I'm going to agree with you.
All I have to say is, I love a lady who has a pile of newspapers all crumpled up. She pulled out stories.
She knew where everything was.

Speaker 19 It was quite nice, actually. It made me feel of a different era.
I liked it.

Speaker 6 A bunch of newspapers crumpled up?

Speaker 19 You know, she carried lots of, she reads newspapers on paper, like instead of digitally. And at one point, when I figured out for her who the Pope was by getting online and stuff like that,

Speaker 19 she said, ah, him. And then she fished out of this pile of newspapers an article the New York Times had done on this particular man who became the Pope.

Speaker 19 And she was like, hmm, I wonder if he's too conservative. Like she, he was, she was like immediately just out of this, she was almost like the Wikipedia herself.
It was really interesting.

Speaker 6 Yeah, the guy who lived across the hall from me in the faculty housing also collected newspapers, also spoke to himself and was 108.

Speaker 19 I just haven't seen someone have a lot of of newspapers. My mother, I mean, you know, anyway, it was fun.
We had a good time. White smoke.
Anyway, we've got,

Speaker 19 how was your weekend, by the way? I was in California very briefly to talk to Democrats who

Speaker 6 out of California again?

Speaker 19 I'm back. I'm back.
I'm in D.C. Jesus Christ.
I'm going up to New York. I'm staying with you, just so you know.
My son's graduating. When are you coming? Wait, when are you coming here?

Speaker 19 I'm not getting there until Wednesday. When are you checking into the hotel? Wednesday.
Wednesday.

Speaker 6 The hotel cheap prostitutes and

Speaker 6 pastries from Baltazar.

Speaker 19 Yes, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Speaker 6 Okay, okay. Memo to self, cleaning lady.
Get rid of the

Speaker 6 dildos and the condoms. Okay, okay.
Memo to self. All right.

Speaker 19 Yeah, you're there with someone. And

Speaker 19 if you want to have drinks tonight, I'm coming in today.

Speaker 6 Pretend I'm coming up with a really valid excuse for no. I'm going to just show up.

Speaker 19 I'm nearby. I'm at a hotel nearby.

Speaker 19 My son is.

Speaker 6 I had a great weekend. Congratulations to your son.
I went to one of these new member clubs. I went to San Vicente Bungalows.

Speaker 19 Oh, how is it? I love that guy who runs it, Jeff. Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 6 You know, they're kind of all beginning to look, smell, and feel the same.

Speaker 6 The difference is they're all in the same area and there are a bunch of them. So you go to one, and if you don't like the crowd, you go to another one.

Speaker 6 I mean, it's it's going to be, so the easiest prediction in the world is there's going to be a Harvard business case study on these private members clubs about how it's overinvestment, the shakeout, how they each try to find their own lane and their own identity.

Speaker 6 But I'm not exaggerating. I would bet 10 have opened in the last year.

Speaker 19 It's amazing.

Speaker 19 They're the one in LA and it's lovely. The one in LA is lovely.

Speaker 19 A guy who's a pivot fan, actually, Jeff, I'm lacking on his last name, but

Speaker 19 I love the one in LA. It's quite lovely.
I've been there for lunch. I've been a guest to people.

Speaker 19 But did you like it, this one? Compared to that? Yeah, I like all of them.

Speaker 6 I'm easily impressed.

Speaker 6 But I think they're nice. I also am at the age where I don't want to, I don't want to wait in line.
I don't, I want to go somewhere that they don't allow in other people that I shouldn't be there.

Speaker 6 I need to be

Speaker 6 the oldest and ugliest person in the room.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 6 And that happens at these places.

Speaker 19 Good. Would you care to say which one do you like best or not?

Speaker 6 Oh, my favorite is Zero Mon because I like the owner and I think they do a nice job. And

Speaker 6 it's just sort of my cheers. I like it there.
And it's sort of the original one that kind of took private members' clubs to the next level. If I had to guess, I'm fascinated by markets.

Speaker 6 If I had to guess, I think the two that will survive, sort of the HBO and the Netflix, are Zero Bond and Casa Cibriani, which just has its own kind of Euro trash crowd and always will.

Speaker 19 Nice crowd.

Speaker 6 And it's downtown, and it's just got a very unique positioning. And the other ones are all like, you know, Hulu and Peacock trying to battle it out.

Speaker 19 All right. Okay.

Speaker 6 It'll be very interesting to see what goes, what, what actually survives here.

Speaker 25 All right.

Speaker 19 So I'll meet you at Zerobond tonight. That'll be great.

Speaker 6 ZB? We're going to meet at ZB?

Speaker 19 I will. I have to speak in front of C-U-N-Y.
Is it CUNY? Is that how you pronounce it? CUNY, yeah. CUNY.
I'm speaking in front of a Newmark group. Craig Newmark has funded a journalism thing.

Speaker 19 But then I'm free.

Speaker 19 So you can meet me.

Speaker 6 And I'm free. You don't drink.

Speaker 19 I know. I'm not interested in that.
I'm just going to show up. I'm just going to show you.
Show up.

Speaker 19 I'll text you.

Speaker 6 You can come over. We'll do edibles.
Yeah. Watch Meet the Press on my computer.
No. Fun time.
That's what I do. That's literally what I do at night.

Speaker 6 I take edibles and I watch Meet the Press on the computer, and I get really depressed.

Speaker 26 I'm going to find you tonight.

Speaker 19 Do you want to go to the theater tomorrow night?

Speaker 19 Oh, my God. I can't think of anything.
I'd rather less to. Do you want to go to the theater?

Speaker 6 That was you trying to up it?

Speaker 19 That was you trying to

Speaker 6 go one more. Yeah.
No.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 19 I have a lot to do. I'm interviewing Barry Diller.
I'm going on Nicole Wallace's new podcast.

Speaker 6 I was on Nicole's thing. She's good.

Speaker 19 You were on her show show. She has a new podcast, too, now.
Everybody's got a new podcast.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 6 So I got, I'm going to speak out of school here. Yeah, sure.
I got, I got, this is literally why TV is dying.

Speaker 19 You've done a lot lately.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'm a total fucking whore lately. So

Speaker 6 anyways, so when I'm in New York, I just say yes to everything.

Speaker 6 Almost everything.

Speaker 19 Not me, I see. As you can see.

Speaker 6 Well, come on. I know you.

Speaker 19 Okay. Go ahead.

Speaker 6 Anyways, at CBS Mornings, whatever it's called with Gail King, reached out and said, do you want to come on? And I said, yeah, I've never been on the show. My understanding is it gets a huge audience.

Speaker 6 It does. I actually like Gail King for all the shit she's getting.
I like her. Yeah.

Speaker 19 I do too, except for the flight thing, but go ahead.

Speaker 6 Okay, whatever. You know, I've done worse.
You go.

Speaker 19 Exactly. That's how I feel.

Speaker 6 And so they're big assignment. They do a pre-call, a freaking pre-call with like eight people.

Speaker 19 Oh, I decline those. You did them?

Speaker 6 Decline those. No, my, okay.
My team agreed to it. I don't do pre-calls for talks where I get paid six figures, but they decide I need to do a pre-call for CBS morning.
Okay, hard now.

Speaker 6 Anyway, so I'm on with like eight very attractive, intelligent, 30-somethings who are literally a third of the age of their viewership as they program, you know, as they, as they figure out programming for people who are 140.

Speaker 19 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 6 And they're taking me, asking me all these questions about young men and the economy and tariffs. We talked for 45 minutes.
And then I go, can you tell me a little bit about the segment? Five.

Speaker 6 And they said, it's with Gail King. And I said, how long is it? And I said, four and a half minutes.
And I said, I'm not doing it.

Speaker 19 Oh. And they're like, what? You did it again.
You've done this before. I'm not.

Speaker 6 I'm not getting up at O Dark 100 Hours, putting on a suit, coming to Midtown, getting in a makeup chair to speak to 800,000 seven-year-olds for four and a half minutes. Uh-huh.

Speaker 6 And they were so shocked.

Speaker 19 Oh, good for you.

Speaker 6 And then, by the way, same night, and I'm bragging, I went on Nicole Wallace's show for 40 minutes. Yeah.
Yeah. But I'm supposed to go on fucking, and the thing is, they don't get it.

Speaker 19 And what did you do? Did you go on? I went, no, I said, I'm out. Oh,

Speaker 19 this is not.

Speaker 6 I said, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I'm pissed off at my team for agreeing.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And I'm like, and it's bad for my brand to show up with Gail King for four and a half fucking minutes. That makes me look important.
Oh, so poor. And they seem so shocked.

Speaker 6 And this is the thing, broadcast news or just cable news,

Speaker 6 it's one thing that you're dying, but it's another thing you don't realize it yet.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I've had that. They literally seem shocked that I wasn't going to haul my ass to Midtown to be on with Gail King for four and a half minutes.

Speaker 19 Yep. I agree with you.

Speaker 19 The call before, see, I always returned down. I was like, no, you can read my threads.

Speaker 19 Four and a half minutes.

Speaker 6 Yay. We spend 40 minutes talking through these issues, and they want me to answer like one question with Gail King at

Speaker 6 8.04 a.m.

Speaker 19 Now, Gail King.

Speaker 6 So I can sell more opioid-induced constipation.

Speaker 19 You're never going to meet Oprah now. Oh, well.

Speaker 6 Oh, that's right.

Speaker 6 They're good, good friends.

Speaker 28 Best friends. They're good friends.

Speaker 6 BFS.

Speaker 19 BFS. It's our best friend.
It really, truly is.

Speaker 6 Well, that's a nice story.

Speaker 19 Anyway, I'm going to go on a podcast that's an hour long, so I am agreeing to do it because it's anything. As long as it's substantive.

Speaker 6 Nicole Wallace. She's great.
Hello, moderate. We like her.

Speaker 19 We like her. Hello, moderate.

Speaker 19 I love her. I think she's really great.
And then then I'm doing Barry Diller. I'm very excited in person.
We're going to do it in person.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 19 I'm excited. The book is wonderful.

Speaker 6 And you want some more inside baseball that I'm

Speaker 6 so excited about.

Speaker 19 What other TV did you turn down?

Speaker 6 No, this activist investor, smart, smart young guys, called me. They're thinking about taking a big position where they already have.
in IAC and they wanted me to join their group.

Speaker 6 And I'm like, there's no fucking way I'm going up against Barry Diller.

Speaker 6 I'm like, one or more of us will end up in the river.

Speaker 24 I'm like, and they're like, what? Are you scared of him?

Speaker 19 I'm like, yeah, I'm really scared of him. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 29 I'm like, good luck with that.

Speaker 6 And by the way, you don't know me. And I said that I love Barry Diller and I want nothing to do.
with an activist play against Barry against IAC.

Speaker 19 Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including MAGA's meltdown over the Pope, woke Pope, and the return of Elizabeth Holmes, sort of, I guess. But first, the U.S.

Speaker 19 and China have reached a deal to roll back the sky-high tariffs they've imposed on each other, at least for the next 90, another 90-day thing. Under the deal, the U.S.

Speaker 19 tariffs on China will drop from 145% to 30%, while China will cut its own tariffs on American goods from 125%

Speaker 19 to 10%.

Speaker 19 These tariffs reductions will go into effect Wednesday.

Speaker 19 China also said it will suspend or cancel tariff countermeasures, including restrictions on rare earth metals that have been hitting automakers and chip makers.

Speaker 19 The markets are thrilled by this China deal. The Dow surged 1,000 points at the opening bell.
No surprise.

Speaker 19 Treasury Secretary Scott Besson was on just on CNBC calling this a pause and saying he expects to meet with China in the coming weeks to work out a larger agreement. I mean,

Speaker 19 what? Like, why did we go? Why do we do this? I guess to get them to do this? Is this better, better, worse? I can't even tell because the specifics are not there.

Speaker 19 Besson also said nether side wants a decoupling, meaning we want to get along with the Chinese. That's probably hello.
We already knew that.

Speaker 19 If you're an American company right now, I don't know what your next move is. And Scott, how many dolls are you buying me? That's what I really want to know.
But talk about this deal.

Speaker 6 This is capitulation.

Speaker 6 You don't show up and levy, say you're levying 145% and then

Speaker 6 a week later start negotiating against yourself and saying they're unsustainable. And it's like, well, why did you put that number out there to begin with?

Speaker 6 And then say there's a temporary pause slash interim tariff of 30%.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 this is the reality. China gets kind of gets what they want because China has made a strategic decision to divest from the U.S.

Speaker 6 They have taken the percentage of their exports from 24% to 17%, which is huge.

Speaker 19 Yeah, they're doing

Speaker 19 besides.

Speaker 6 And as we pretend that our dick is much bigger than it is, we're their third largest trading partner. We're not even number one.

Speaker 6 So they're fine to slowly but surely go through a measured decoupling, actually, or reduction in dependence upon us.

Speaker 6 Trump has created so much ill will. I mean, do you realize,

Speaker 6 and this is the thing people don't realize in terms of brand, for the first time in history,

Speaker 6 when you do, there was a national, a global poll done of global consumers. And for the first time in history, more people see China as a positive force in the world than the U.S.

Speaker 19 I cannot believe that. I saw that.

Speaker 6 So when opting for where should my kid go to graduate school,

Speaker 6 who should I do business with? Who am I inclined to? What kind of business am I inclined to meet with? What widget or aircraft should I buy, Chinese or American?

Speaker 6 More people around the globe for the first time now pick China.

Speaker 19 Yes, an authoritarian communist country that follows this view. It is,

Speaker 19 it's so ridiculous what we've done here.

Speaker 6 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So, and then just on a more economic level, in terms of capital outflows, in the wake of this nonsense, investors have rushed to the exits on all dollar-denominated investments.

Speaker 6 And the U.S. dollar index is down 6% 6% year to date.
More than $10 billion has been wiped out of the stock market. The Magnificent 7 alone lost

Speaker 6 $2 trillion on April 3rd and 4th. So there's just,

Speaker 6 this is just a massive attempt to claim some sort of Pyrrhic victory in exchange for massively trading off. the equity that we have developed over the last 80 years.
This is just

Speaker 6 stupid. Again,

Speaker 6 these guys don't understand business. They don't understand negotiation.
They don't understand even our dollar dominance.

Speaker 6 People estimate that we get interest rates on mortgages, student loans, and credit cards of between 1.5% and a percent lower because so many people buy our dollars to invest here.

Speaker 6 And so the real damage is incremental. It's like a virus that's eating away that you can't even identify.
It's all these little, little, it's, you know, death by a thousand cuts.

Speaker 6 And America has taken for granted just how powerful having the dollar is the reserve currency, having these inflows of capital, having people feel decent goodwill about us.

Speaker 6 And he's torn those up such that we can go to 30% temporary tariffs.

Speaker 19 90 days, all this 90-day nonsense. I mean, what if you're a business? Tell me, if you're creating a business, how do you know?

Speaker 19 I guess you're relieved that now we're not being insane and ruining, like, but it's already wrecked a bunch of people's businesses, thrown planning out the window. And what do you do?

Speaker 19 Because you don't know what this lunatic's going to do next. And I don't mean China.

Speaker 6 America is meant to be a platform for rights, to protect our shores, and

Speaker 6 for stuff. Americans love their stuff.
And so a 30% tariff is enough to kind of get trade unclogged again.

Speaker 6 But it'll be essentially the percent of exports to the U.S. will go probably from 17 down to 15 or 12.
And then the next time we try to do it, A, our products are going to get more expensive.

Speaker 6 If you were to give someone a Christmas tree, every business and all the shit they order from China, it'll make it the cost of doing business more expensive.

Speaker 6 And it's done huge damage to our reputation. It's just, we're no longer seen as a reliable trading partner.

Speaker 6 I think, actually, interestingly enough, big winners Europe who's going to find a lot of, they're going to be able to negotiate, get a lot of products on sale as China tries to keep these factories humming.

Speaker 19 I heard that they were doing that. They were keeping up sales across the globe.
It's just, this is just, and then software will probably rally because of this, because we're getting out of idiocy.

Speaker 19 It looks like Scott Besson's just the cleanup lady, like on aisle five, essentially, correct?

Speaker 6 Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah.

Speaker 19 Anyway, President Trump is heading out on the first major overseas trip of his second term this week with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, presumably to collect new bags of money.

Speaker 19 The trip comes as Trump administration plans to accept a $400 million luxury Boeing 747-800 from Qatar, possibly the largest foreign gift in U.S. history.

Speaker 19 The plane will be retrofitted to be used as Air Force One, which I don't even want to think about the security implications, and donated to Trump's presidential library when he leaves office, allowing him to still use it.

Speaker 19 Despite all the ethical questions being raised, Trump called it a very public and transparent transaction on Truth Social.

Speaker 19 And Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt, Tracy Flick, who is just so bad, said in a statement, any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted.

Speaker 19 accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. It's the griftiest grift yet.

Speaker 19 I mean, this is just, I'll note the Trump family struck a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar a few weeks ago.

Speaker 19 I mean, it's all in plain sight, I guess, is the only good thing we could say about it, all the billions they're making and taking from these Arab countries.

Speaker 19 And he wants to call the Gulf, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Arabia now, another one. I mean,

Speaker 19 why does he just go there in his plane and live there for the rest of his life? I don't know what else to say because was he looking for a place to go if he ever gets convicted of anything?

Speaker 19 I don't honestly know what's happening here.

Speaker 6 Well, again, I go to the brand. Do you know how stupid this makes us look? That we have to have rich Qataris buy the president a plane that's manufactured here.

Speaker 6 We're the most prosperous nation in the world, but we need a government that

Speaker 6 an authoritarian government that sponsors the Houthis and Hamas to give us a plane.

Speaker 19 Oh, yeah, Hamas.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 I have, so I have a group of friends from college, mostly Jews, who are pro-Trump.

Speaker 6 They can kind of hold their nose around the man and his policies, but they found that Biden and Harris's wavering around Israel was really disappointing.

Speaker 6 And so they're, quite frankly, they're pro-Trump, or they voted for Trump because they see him as more resolute on Israel.

Speaker 6 Qatar basically is

Speaker 6 the diplomatic mouthpiece and funds Hamas.

Speaker 6 And so the notion that the Trump administration gave a flying fuck about anti-Semitism as they try and implement thought control across our universities and is meanwhile saying that Middle East policy is now pay-for-play, that he's now the ultimate frequent, there's now a new frequent flyer category for Qatar Airlines, and the president is the only person on it.

Speaker 6 And in exchange, they're going to have leverage over a guy who claims to be focused on anti-Semitism.

Speaker 6 I mean, it's just, it's just,

Speaker 6 I find that Jews in America that support Trump are kind of like, okay, yeah,

Speaker 6 there's like the white Christian nationals, the evangelicals are big fond, really fond of Jews in Israel.

Speaker 6 But if you actually do a little bit of digging, the reason they're fond of Jews is a little bit unsettling. They think we're part of their master plan when Jesus comes back.

Speaker 6 It's like, okay, just dig a little deep on what their plan is for us.

Speaker 19 End times. It's all about the end times, just so you know.
I have relatives. I hear a lot about the.
Do you know what I did?

Speaker 19 The the bumper sticker my brother made for my relatives who are very very um charismatic christians i guess i would call them um he made a he made up them they're lovely people but they're they have varying degrees of religiosity but she he made uh my aunt uh a bumperstick who said when the rapture comes can i have your stuff

Speaker 19 huh i thought that was going to be funnier how is dr swisher he's good he's good he's in portland visiting his son right now he's good his son's in oregon yeah one of his sons Yeah, the other lives in Australia, and his daughter is in the Dominican Republic right now teaching.

Speaker 19 Wow.

Speaker 6 I can totally see that. What does his son do in Portland?

Speaker 19 He's working on electrical engineering, I think.

Speaker 6 Oh, good for him. At the University of Oregon?

Speaker 19 One of them. Yeah.
Yeah. He's, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 19 Wow. I can't say what Alex is doing because he signed an NDA, but Alex is doing an energy-related internship this summer.

Speaker 6 I'm not exaggerating when your son took me and my son to work and we asked him what he or to lunch when we were touring the University of Michigan.

Speaker 6 We asked him what he was doing over the summer and he looked around as if there were spies about to take notes. And I'm like, Alex, you're not that important.

Speaker 6 You're not that important. He is.

Speaker 19 Don't tell him. He loves you.
Do not say that. He's listening right now.

Speaker 6 Okay. He's his side.
What is he? He's going to a sophomore. He's literally like, okay, he's like, you can't tell anyone about this.

Speaker 19 You know what? He's a very, very, I love that kid. We had a great weekend.

Speaker 6 Well, yeah, you love him like a son.

Speaker 19 No, I just think he's going to be a billionaire. And we should, speaking of being scared of people, you should.

Speaker 35 No, I'm glad he's on our son.

Speaker 19 He's going to take care of us. I'm glad he's on our way and I when we're older.

Speaker 6 No, he's going to be, he's going to be my bodyguard and also figure out what technology keeps me alive to 200.

Speaker 19 I feel like he's going to build something really significant. I feel like.

Speaker 6 Yeah, he's got that kind of crazy smart gene.

Speaker 19 Yeah, he really does. Anyway, we can't say what he's doing.

Speaker 6 He's under under you. I know.
It's totally terrible.

Speaker 19 I love that about him. Anyway, Trump, you're a grifty grifter.
That's all. I don't know what to say.
I don't know if we can stop him, but he's like piling up the grift like you can't believe.

Speaker 19 All right. When we get back, how the new pope is riling up the MAGA world.
And we'll also discuss some of our favorite pope memes because I love a pope meme.

Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odoo.

Speaker 36 Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 31 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 24 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

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Speaker 42 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 12 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 47 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 27 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

Speaker 49 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running running your business.

Speaker 13 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 17 Try Odo for free at odo.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odo.

Speaker 36 Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 31 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 24 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

Speaker 23 This is where Odo comes in.

Speaker 3 It's the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 6 ODU is an all-in-one fully integrated platform that handles everything.

Speaker 8 That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more.

Speaker 42 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 12 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 47 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 27 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every every process.

Speaker 49 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.

Speaker 13 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 17 Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odo.

Speaker 36 Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 31 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 24 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

Speaker 23 This is where Odoo comes in.

Speaker 3 It's the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 6 ODU is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything.

Speaker 8 That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more.

Speaker 42 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 12 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 47 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 27 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

Speaker 49 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.

Speaker 13 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 17 Try Odo for free at odo.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 19 Scott, we're back. The Pope Leo XIV, the first American Pope, laid out a vision of his papacy over the weekend, identifying AI as one of the most critical issues facing humanity.
It was interesting.

Speaker 19 He was also sporting an Apple Watch at his first official mess. He also seems to be a very techie Pope.

Speaker 19 Let's invite him on the show. That would be great.
And while many have cheered the election of American Pope, the MAGA folks are not happy. Activist Laura Loomer branded him woke Marxist Pope.

Speaker 19 Steve Bannon predicted friction with Trump. As for Pope Leo's political leanings, voting records show a Chicago native has participated in Republican and Democratic primaries in various elections.

Speaker 19 An ex-account under his name has criticized Trump's policies in the past and also rebuked J.D. Vance back in February.
He's got a crazy Trumpy brother who, what was he saying?

Speaker 19 He's saying a bunch of things that are really nutty.

Speaker 19 One brother is calmer. He's two brothers.
The older one seems insane.

Speaker 19 He's, as you said, from Chicago.

Speaker 19 He has a background, interestingly, of Creole and from Haiti.

Speaker 19 You know, they're calling him also the black pope, but he's definitely got, they did some really interesting reporting on that, which is cool. He's been all over the world.
He's very international.

Speaker 19 Seems fascinating.

Speaker 19 So we'll get to the memes in a bit. What do you think of this Pope, Leo? And so far, he seems very vibrant and exciting and interesting.

Speaker 6 I think he's the Pope because of Donald Trump. I think that if you look at the new leaders of Australia and, or the existing leaders of Australia, and Canada, basically Trump got them elected.

Speaker 6 And he got them elected because the other, their opponents were more closely associated with Trump.

Speaker 6 So Trump is basically anyone who's not Trump or represents a pushback on his policies is ascending to the most powerful positions in the world. And I think that's what happened here.

Speaker 6 I think the papacy or the papacy takes very seriously how they can have the most impact.

Speaker 6 And if you look at when the Eastern Bloc was really going through a difficult time, they decided to pick someone from the Eastern Bloc. They picked Pope John Paul II from Poland.

Speaker 6 I think they see there's a relevance and

Speaker 6 a means of adding value by saying when a place is struggling, we pick someone from there in hopes that they serve as sort of a moral standard bearer.

Speaker 6 My father-in-law absolutely adores Pope John Paul II. He's born and raised in Poland.
And I think that it's no accident that they've decided that America needs a pope, that they need somebody.

Speaker 6 I mean, the best.

Speaker 6 The best line that identifies or marks this very dark moment in American history is what Bill Gates said. And that is that the richest man in the world is killing the world's poorest children.

Speaker 19 That was something, as we said.

Speaker 6 And I thought, Jesus Christ, that's puncturing and sad.

Speaker 6 And that kind of identifies, that kind of identifies our MAGA politics right now.

Speaker 6 And I think that the cardinals who elect, I think they decided that America is in desperate need of a moral standard bearer, and the world needs someone that America will take seriously.

Speaker 6 You know, I was thinking so much about like, how did my generation fuck fuck up so bad? And I was thinking, and for me, it all comes back to a personal parable. My.

Speaker 19 Oh, you're doing a parable?

Speaker 6 Well, my, my youngest has always built, he's got the most wonderful grandparents. And his grandparents.

Speaker 19 His wife's parents, correct?

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 6 My grandparents have been done. Average age expectancy.

Speaker 23 You know how everyone says I'm going to live forever?

Speaker 6 Like none of my grandparents made it past 50.

Speaker 22 Wow.

Speaker 6 Anyways, so he's just the most wonderful man. Took over the family room to build a train set for the boys.
And he's always with

Speaker 24 my youngest built these Legos.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 this time he came over, my youngest is 14 and into girls and snap and fashion and football.

Speaker 49 And they built about half of it.

Speaker 23 And then he said, you know,

Speaker 6 Jaja, I don't, I don't want to do this. I don't feel like it.
You know, he wasn't enjoying it that much. And I could tell it was very upsetting.

Speaker 6 It's like one of those moments when you feel like, that's probably the last time I'll pick up my kid or the last time I'll build a Lego with my grandson.

Speaker 6 And I was trying to figure out a way to say to him, look, that's not cool.

Speaker 6 Even if you didn't want to build this or finish it, you should have realized this was important to your grandfather and finished it.

Speaker 6 And what I've been thinking about is that, you know, I'm writing a lot about becoming a man. I think that my generation and our politics have become more about our feelings as opposed to our values.

Speaker 6 And that is, we don't do a good enough job of identifying values and then basing those actions and those political views off those values as opposed opposed to just what makes us feel good or feel like we're part of a tribe or feels some sort of thrill because the other side looks stupid or feels confirmation because we're signed up for whatever narrative the party we've chosen believes.

Speaker 6 But I do think there's a degradation or a move away from values.

Speaker 24 And as a guiding light, as opposed to just

Speaker 19 feels like

Speaker 6 this guy's really got very, I mean, he's not afraid.

Speaker 23 He's called, he's called Russia's invasion.

Speaker 6 You know, he said Russia is loving wickedness. He's not afraid to tweet about shit.

Speaker 6 And I like to think that the church has said, all right, there needs to be some sort of rejuvenation or a move back towards values in the West, as opposed to what everyone thinks is going to make them feel good.

Speaker 19 It depends on what your values are, though, because there's a very conservative shift in many people in the U.S.

Speaker 19 The most

Speaker 19 devout, and I'm using that term loosely, are are the conservative groups that are sort of machinating behind the scenes in the Catholic Church. There's a whole group of

Speaker 19 very conservative Catholics. And J.D.
Vance is a convert, obviously, and is among those. And the concepts are much more old, Latin Pope, like...
Benedict.

Speaker 19 Let's go back to before Ben, before Vatican II and everything else. And I agree.
I think this guy is a choice that they make. I happen to be Catholic.
I don't know what your religion is.

Speaker 19 I don't even know what your religion is.

Speaker 19 But my grandmother went to Mass every day. I got confirmed.
I never went inside a Catholic church since, really.

Speaker 19 I did that for her.

Speaker 19 But

Speaker 19 there's a real movement. Either it goes quite left or quite right.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 19 it's responding to growth in Latin America and Africa and different places, I think, where there's more conservative. But there is a real conservative shift in this country.

Speaker 19 And I think Pope Francis was smart to pick all those cardinals, shifting them a different way.

Speaker 19 And there's one cardinal that's Cardinal Dolan in New York, who's his favorite one, who's quite conservative. And I have to say, Nancy Pelosimi gave me a walkthrough of all the conservative cardinals

Speaker 19 in the country. She's obviously, she's not allowed to

Speaker 19 get communion in San Francisco, but I think other priests give her communion in some fashion. But

Speaker 19 there's a real struggle going on. So this should be a really interesting Pope.
But more importantly, there's Pope jokes, which were really good.

Speaker 19 You know, whatever, if Laura Loomer and Steve Banna don't like something, sign me up, I think. But you shared a Chicago Pope one, which looks like a new TV show coming to NBC.
Very funny.

Speaker 19 The Wiener Circle, which I love in Chicago, the famous, it's a famous Chicago hot dog stand where they insult you, puts a Latin translation, He has eaten our dogs on their sign. Someone posted on X.

Speaker 19 Smart play for the Vatican to go with an American Pope to avoid tariffs. That was cute.
And Stephen Colbert put it, Holy Father, you had me at J.D. Vance's is wrong.

Speaker 19 Did you have any other pope memes you liked? Or do you have a joke yourself? I feel like you might have a Pope joke. Maybe you don't.

Speaker 6 Okay, you know, the churches, they're just religious institutions. There just are some limits to even what I will say about the church and El Papa.
And, you know, I mean,

Speaker 6 I will say it was struck me as kind of unusual when the Pope said pets should not replace children in Italy. I guess he doesn't like priests practicing bestiality.

Speaker 19 Oh, I knew that was coming.

Speaker 6 Sorry, folks. Won't stop, can't stop.

Speaker 19 You know, Michael Che did a good one, you know,

Speaker 19 that

Speaker 19 Trump's Pope picture was juvenile. You'd think the Catholics would like it.

Speaker 6 Get it. The religions actually aren't that different.
Jews don't recognize Christ. Anglicans don't recognize the Pope.
And Baptists don't recognize each other at the liquor store.

Speaker 6 Do you want me to keep going?

Speaker 19 One more, one more, one more Pope joke.

Speaker 19 The staff says no, but I say yes because I don't know. Staff says no.

Speaker 19 One more.

Speaker 6 Well, no. The only Catholic in my Jewish fraternity was my roommate, Mike Vode.

Speaker 6 And he wasn't circumcised. We used to get high and make him show us his penis, and we'd make anteater jokes.
That's not really a pope joke.

Speaker 19 Isn't that strange?

Speaker 19 I'm going to move on now. We're going to move on from that.
Anyway,

Speaker 19 and chaos at Newark airport continues. As of Monday, the airport has been hit with three outages in under two weeks.

Speaker 19 U.S. Airlines are meeting with the FAA this week to discuss cutting Newark flights.

Speaker 19 Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was on Meet the Press this week, and let's listen to what this ding bat has to say.

Speaker 53 I'm concerned about the whole airspace, right? The equipment that we use, much of it we can't buy parts for new. We have to go on eBay and buy parts if one part goes down.

Speaker 53 You're dealing with really old equipment. We're dealing with copper wires, not fiber, not high-speed fiber.

Speaker 53 And so

Speaker 53 this is concerning. Is it safe? Yes, we have redundancies, multiple redundancies in place to keep you safe when you fly.

Speaker 53 But we should also recognize

Speaker 53 we're seeing stress on an old network, and it's time to fix it.

Speaker 19 Bottom line, is it safe to fly in the United States right now?

Speaker 53 Listen, we are the safest airspace for sure. And traveling by air is way safer than any other mode of transportation, which is why I take it.
My family takes it.

Speaker 53 But again, that doesn't mean you don't look over the horizon and say, hey, if there is a major outage, could that be a risk to life? Of course it could be, which is why we fix it.

Speaker 19 Yes, So Doge, of course, they asked him about Doge, and he sort of kind of squirreled around on the cuts that Elon was trying to make there.

Speaker 19 One of them was so weird that I was reading about this weekend that Doge made it so you couldn't charge anything more than a dollar to your credit card, your government credit card, because they can't buy paper and pens right now because of that stupidity.

Speaker 19 So Newark,

Speaker 19 I don't fly out of Newark. I tend not to.
I try not to. I go out of JFK or LaGuardia.
But when I'm in New York,

Speaker 19 any thoughts about concerns about air travel? What do you have to say?

Speaker 6 Well, Newark is a great airport. And this doesn't, in my opinion, this doesn't reflect on them.
What it reflects on is that, or look, it's pretty basic fucking logic.

Speaker 6 When Lloyd Austin was the Secretary of Defense, jets weren't falling off of aircraft carriers.

Speaker 6 And when Pete Budigesh was the Secretary of Transportation, We didn't have near misses and shutdowns at airports because air traffic controllers are so demoralized and there's not enough of them.

Speaker 6 And this guy figures out a way to do his interpretive dance and blame. I actually saw him blame Schumer for this and all these tropes around,

Speaker 6 yeah, it's the safest form of transit. Do your fucking job.
This is totally unacceptable.

Speaker 19 People,

Speaker 6 what do you want? People want prosperity. Money is the transfer of time and work.

Speaker 6 And when you're delaying people for hours and sometimes days at a time because of your incompetence and decision to bring in someone who knows absolutely nothing about government and start making reckless cuts that result in not only a reduction in safety, but a massive expansion in the amount of people and the amount of time people that's taken away from their families and their work and economic productivity.

Speaker 6 Again, it's another one of these slow burning, slow burn of our prosperity. And yeah, everything you're saying is right, but they're all

Speaker 6 this is his, he's responsible.

Speaker 6 What is he doing right now to solve the problem in Newark?

Speaker 19 I agree. It's like, when did this suddenly happen? Oh, now it's because now we're here and we figured it out.

Speaker 19 No, now you're here and you're an incompetent administrator of a very critical part of our infrastructure. Just this guy, this guy seems as dumb as a box of hammers.

Speaker 6 Again, this is another thing that I just don't think Americans, and unfortunately, they're about to learn the hard way, how incredible our FAA and our government employees and the regulations and the certification and the seat check.

Speaker 6 As someone who's loved aviation their whole life, has been molesting the earth for 30 years and has flown probably tens of millions of miles.

Speaker 6 And I'm fascinated with planes and aviation.

Speaker 6 People don't appreciate what they, what they realize very early on is we're not going to make it like cars where there's an acceptable number of deaths, 10,000,

Speaker 6 you know, what is it, 20,000 traffic deaths a year,

Speaker 39 because it's worth it.

Speaker 6 They said, no, this is so uncomfortable to begin with.

Speaker 6 To put people in a cylindrical tube with recirculated air and then convince them it's safe to travel at eight-tenths the speed of sound across the surface of the atmosphere, quite frankly, it's just unsettling.

Speaker 6 It does not feel natural.

Speaker 6 But if we can connect the world, if we can give people the opportunity to fly around the world safely, we're going to have the most unbelievable unlock in terms of human capital being willing to go to its greatest return.

Speaker 6 Okay, I can,

Speaker 6 I did this for 10 years. I commuted to New York.
I wanted to live in Florida because it was better for my kids, but I still needed to work in New York. So I commuted.
Why?

Speaker 6 Because you can get on a plane and travel a thousand miles and then commute a thousand miles because it's that safe and it's that comfortable and it's that inexpensive.

Speaker 6 These things are so overengineered. They are so safe.
If we had anything resembling the fatality rates of automobiles, no one would get in a fucking plane.

Speaker 19 And also other countries, if you've ever flown in other countries.

Speaker 6 Well, because when planes go down, it's horrific. And it strikes a very difficult part of

Speaker 6 our instinctual fear because we're land mammals. So the idea of dying in the air seems especially upsetting to us.
And so they have totally overengineered these things. I mean, I've owned planes.

Speaker 6 The amount of safety, it would be imagine a car, and every six weeks someone had to show up, check the spark plugs, replace them. If your tires showed anywhere, they have to replace the tires.

Speaker 6 They test the thing over and over.

Speaker 6 They detonate the airbags to make sure they're working and then put them back to make sure this thing will not.

Speaker 6 Almost all airline disasters are pilot air. And then they have very talented people coordinate all of this while it's sometimes there's 12,000 planes in the air at the same time.

Speaker 19 The fact that it's messing up now is really the testament to the Trump administration and the demonization of our government workers, which has really gone far too far.

Speaker 19 There's one thing to be critical and want improvements in the money we're spending. But anyway, we have to move on.

Speaker 19 But this is this guy seems like an imbecile. And the Trump administration is just presiding over like really low-quality executives everywhere, which is not a surprise.

Speaker 19 All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, you'll never guess what kind of company Elizabeth Holmes' partner is starting.

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Speaker 36 Running a business is hard enough and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 31 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 24 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

Speaker 23 This is where Odo comes in.

Speaker 3 It's the only business software you'll ever need.

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Speaker 42 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 12 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 47 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 27 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

Speaker 49 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.

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Speaker 19 Scott, we're back. We're going to make quick work of this, I think.

Speaker 19 While Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors, her partner and father of her children is raising money for a company that, wait for it, claims to be the future of diagnostics.

Speaker 19 Billie Evans is distributing marketing materials, claiming the company Hemanthus, I think that's what it's called, is a radically new approach to health testing and will test blood, saliva, and urine.

Speaker 19 The company is probably aiming to raise over $50 million.

Speaker 19 We'll start testing pets with a goal of developing a stamp-sized wearable product for humans. Marketing materials reviewed by the New York Times say there is no regulatory oversight.

Speaker 19 Investor presentations are probably did not mention Evans' relationship to Elizabeth Holmes.

Speaker 19 Will there be free trials at the Fire Fest 2? I just, you know, I believe in pivoting, but this seems a little bit too much on the nose. I don't know.
What do you think?

Speaker 6 Well, and I got a lot of shit for it, but I thought Elizabeth Holmes sense was overdone.

Speaker 19 Agree. I have to, I agree with you with this.
I agree with you, given what other people have done.

Speaker 6 And I found it unsettling. Only 2% of founders of unicorns are female.
And

Speaker 6 I didn't think there was a lot different between what

Speaker 6 Adam Newman did and Elizabeth Holmes did. They both lied to their board.

Speaker 14 They both exaggerated.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 look, a different set of circumstances. I think things could have been much different.
And people say, well, it's health. It's different.

Speaker 6 She lied about its capabilities. She basically lied to the board and exaggerated the results, which quite frankly, unicorn executives everywhere do.

Speaker 6 And I agree she was guilty. I agree she should have gone to jail.
And I said publicly, I thought 10 years was overdone for a first offense for a nonviolent criminal.

Speaker 6 And her husband reached out to me and asked me if I would get involved in a campaign to get her out of jail. And I said, look,

Speaker 6 this just isn't something I'm emotionally invested in and I can't help.

Speaker 6 I think he's doing him and her a disservice doing this because all he's doing is bringing attention to the fact that she did commit a crime and commit fraud. Because that'll be the story here.

Speaker 6 The story won't be the startup, whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. The story will be reminding everybody.
that his wife, who's in prison and should be in prison, committed fraud.

Speaker 6 So I just don't think he's,

Speaker 6 I don't think think he's being smart about this.

Speaker 6 I don't, I think this is strategically, you know what I always wonder? And

Speaker 6 young people,

Speaker 6 it's so hard to read the label from inside of the bottle. Young people, everybody needs to establish a kitchen cabinet of people.

Speaker 6 And people are willing to do it because people love to give advice because it makes them feel important. Where you can just call them and say, hey, I'm thinking about starting a diagnostics company.

Speaker 6 And somebody would say, okay, you realize you're going to bring attention to your wife who is in prison for fraud for lying about the financial results and the capabilities of a similar company.

Speaker 6 Have you thought this through?

Speaker 6 Anyone he reached out to who cared about him and was honest would have given him that advice. So

Speaker 6 I hear this. I just think about this across all of these people when they make these decisions.
It's like, don't they have friends?

Speaker 6 I have

Speaker 6 a friend who's literally a master of the universe, And he was talking to me about his baby mamas

Speaker 6 and what's going on within his personal life and relationships.

Speaker 19 And I said to him, I said, don't you have friends?

Speaker 6 Like, who do you talk to about this stuff?

Speaker 19 Did you drop some real?

Speaker 6 I said to him, I said, don't you have friends? Because this guy is literally one of the most impressive people I've ever met. On any issue, he can give you the most reasoned, thoughtful.

Speaker 6 And then you hear about his personal life and it's like, so you just took every piece of bad judgment across your entire life and stuffed it into your relationship with women.

Speaker 6 And I mean, just a couple phone calls to people saying, hey, I'm checking in. I could use your advice.
What do you think? What do you think about this? Yeah.

Speaker 19 Just for clarification, she's not Evans' wife, Scott. She's his partner and mother of the kids.
They're together. Oh, she's not.
But they're not actually married. That's right.

Speaker 19 It's married-ish, married-adjacent. Married-ish.
Married-ish, like us, you and I.

Speaker 19 Anyway, Billy, come on, Billy. Anyway,

Speaker 19 bad bad bad idea um and finally open ai and microsoft are negotiating the terms of their partnership to allow open ai to launch a future ipo according to the financial times uh microsoft has invested 13 billion dollars in the company to date and is reportedly willing to give up some of its equity in exchange for access to new technology developed beyond the 2030 cutoff

Speaker 19 there's going to be an ipo here this is interesting it's the one with the most revenues the most users et cetera etc and i think they've got to run ahead of everybody else correct i mean this is a race.

Speaker 19 This is like a, and they, they are in the lead at this moment. It doesn't mean they're going to stay in the lead.

Speaker 19 A lot of the open systems, like Lama, a lot of people feel that that's going to really dominate, that that, um, that

Speaker 19 Meta will. So any thoughts on this? Because you're, you're Mr.
Equity.

Speaker 6 This will happen. This, it makes sense.

Speaker 6 So what's happened is there's been a total, the number of companies that are publicly traded has been cut in half in the last couple of decades because there's been mergers and acquisitions, and the private markets have

Speaker 6 captured a lot of the innovation and attributes that used to be sequestered to the public market. Specifically, you can now raise billions or even tens of billions in the private market.

Speaker 6 You can get liquidity for your employees because there's an active secondary market.

Speaker 6 And also you can avoid all regulation and scrutiny and make kind of harder, tougher, deeper decisions without the scrutiny of public earnings calls.

Speaker 6 What you have with OpenAI, and the reason they will go public, is that OpenAI is taking, and Sam is brilliant.

Speaker 6 He'll go down as I think one of the kind of the iconic business leaders of this generation.

Speaker 6 He realizes that this is an Amazon slash Netflix play and that is it is very difficult for open for any AI to establish technological differentiation because AI just crawls it.

Speaker 6 When you asked DeepSeek what LLM it was for the first 10 days, it said, I'm OpenAI.

Speaker 6 So these things reverse engineer each other. So this is a capital war around getting the best talent, striking the best deals, making acquisitions and tuck-ins.

Speaker 6 And now he's in an altitude where he doesn't need to spend billions. He needs to spend tens of billions.
And

Speaker 6 the way he'll be able to do that is by going public and getting, you know, $400, $500 billion valuation. So it does make sense for him.
It's got huge sex appeal, global appeal.

Speaker 6 It's the fastest, I think, $0 to $10 billion run rate.

Speaker 6 What is it? I think it's a $5 billion run rate right now.

Speaker 19 Something like that, yeah. But it'll get so useful.

Speaker 6 It'll have a $10 billion run rate pretty soon. It'll go,

Speaker 6 he needs to basically, this is a capital war. He's going to outspend everybody.
And there are a few companies that can't find enough capital in the private markets. This is probably one of them.

Speaker 6 He's going to go out and raise a shit ton of money.

Speaker 19 They have hired a very adept executive, the former CEO, former, I think. Meta person or Googler, who is the former CEO of Instacart, who's going to really run.

Speaker 19 It's the Cheryl Sandberg moment here in that regard,

Speaker 19 to run the companies, a lot of the business parts of it. So they really need to run fast and run hard.
And

Speaker 19 I think that most people feel Meta is their biggest, the open

Speaker 19 source meta is their biggest competitor. And Mark

Speaker 19 has no guardrails of anything. So we'll see what happens.
Anyway, it has to happen. It has to happen.
This is going to head that way. All right, Scott, one more quick break.

Speaker 19 We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Speaker 19 okay scott bring you some wins and fails i think i shall go first this one

Speaker 19 um i recommend there's so many different there's so many great

Speaker 19 Like, you know, TV's gotten great. There's a lot of great journalism going on.

Speaker 19 I have to say, I've been, there's some, several stories I've read recently that are just so good, interesting, and fascinating to read.

Speaker 19 The one that I really struck me this week was Nick Christoph's latest column in the New York Times. It's a long one.

Speaker 19 It sheds lights on internal emails from Pornhub that were made public because of a filing error.

Speaker 19 Going back to 2020, they show employees laughing about what's on their site and reveal how the company handles child pornography.

Speaker 19 The inability of sites like Pornhub to get rid of CSAM, Sam, it's called, child pornography, is horrifying. And the fact that they're so casual about it and you see these emails laughing about it

Speaker 19 with the pain, it happens to these people is just astonishing. These people should be sued back into the dark ages for what they're doing here.

Speaker 19 It's gross and it's bad for young men, as you write about a lot. And I agree with you.
But the fact that they think it's funny about

Speaker 19 child pornography and the extent of it is so enormous. And we can talk about the audience for this, and that's another issue.

Speaker 19 But the fact that these companies facilitate it makes them, I mean, there's a sickness at the deep heart of humanity on this issue.

Speaker 19 But this company deserves to be sued out of existence from just this. And again,

Speaker 19 I don't like porn. I think it's bad for us.
I think the digitization of it has made it even worse. But the fact that they can't control this and they think it's a joke is repulsive.

Speaker 19 So that's a huge fail.

Speaker 19 For a win, there's a lot to choose from, including New York will now require schools statewide to ban smartphones during school hours. That's great.

Speaker 19 But I was thrilled to see Cecily Strong return to SNL this weekend to reprise her role as Judge Janine Piro after Trump named Pierrot the interim U.S. attorney in D.C.

Speaker 19 That's another incompetent hire, by the way. But she did the whole, Colin Jost also came back.
He came back as Pete Hagseth and she spits drinks at him and it was so funny.

Speaker 19 And I love Cecily Strong and was just delighted to see her there. and I'm glad they got her to do that.

Speaker 19 She does the best Janine Pierrow, but from a failed point of view, Janine Piro is an incompetent person to do this job, never

Speaker 19 just incompetent, beyond incompetent for this job.

Speaker 19 Although the guy she replaced was venal and evil kind of type personality where he was defending J-Six people and had all these crazy schemes and everything.

Speaker 19 So I guess she's better than him, but that doesn't mean she's any good. And it's such an irresponsible appointment.
Your thoughts?

Speaker 19 Go for it.

Speaker 6 Okay. So

Speaker 6 my feel I referenced before,

Speaker 6 this Qatar luxury suite, basically the privatization of the White House at 40,000 feet, that's not a kickback. It's government capture.

Speaker 6 And meanwhile, Qatar has funneled over $1.8 billion to Hamas since 2012.

Speaker 6 They host Hamas's political leadership in luxury Doha compounds and serves as the the terrorist group's primary diplomatic shield.

Speaker 6 You know, the president positions himself as Israel's greatest defender.

Speaker 6 At the same time, he's accepting lavish gifts from a country that bankrolls the organization that murdered 1,200 Jews.

Speaker 6 It's like you're fucking twins and then trying to convince each of them that you're monogamous with them. I mean, it's just so, the cognitive dissonance here is stifling.

Speaker 6 And Qatar's influence doesn't stop at the White House. They've poured, get this, 4.7 billion into American universities since 2001.
That's more than any other foreign government.

Speaker 6 You know, this is such a weird relationship. While they host our largest military base in the region, they also maintain cozy relationships with Iran and Hamas.

Speaker 6 And meanwhile, America's leverage in the Middle East deteriorates as our president becomes essentially an employee of Qatar Airways.

Speaker 6 with nuclear codes and our elite universities become intellectual laundromats for authoritarian anti-Semitic propaganda. So this is not just corruption.

Speaker 6 It's the purchase of American influence from the Oval Office to our universities training our next generation of presidents. And when you think about, you know, what's the point here?

Speaker 6 We want our government, the founding fathers, want to check some balances,

Speaker 23 not deposits and withdrawals from foreign powers.

Speaker 24 So this is a yet again, and

Speaker 6 I'm at a point where it's pretty easy, and I think the other side loves it, how outraged we are. I think a Democrat needs to sponsor and make very public legislation that says

Speaker 6 the government of Qatar is engaging in grift or corruption or foreign bribery. You're not supposed to accept gifts over $400

Speaker 6 as a public official and say that again, in three years and nine months, we're going to reevaluate our relationship with you based on We're going to do X, Y, and Z in exactly three years and nine months.

Speaker 6 We need to stop. There's no stopping the Trump administration.
He's weaponized the DOJ. He has neutered, he has neutered basically all checks and balances here.

Speaker 6 My attitude is to go after the foreign governments and some of the lower-level people who are enabling this.

Speaker 19 You know, I told you, Qatar tried to

Speaker 19 buy our all-things date, CodeCon. Like, they wanted to give us $10 million each, all this stuff.
I was sort of astounded.

Speaker 19 This was more than 15 years ago, where they wanted us to bring our conference there to Qatar. And Walt was like, you know, I'm a Jew and you back come up.

Speaker 19 I was like, he was like, no, like it was just an astonishing offer. And it was so massive, we were sort of shocked.
Largely, they wanted the technology. They want, they're sort of trying to buy

Speaker 19 influencer to look good, right? We were sort of clean, clean washing them in some way by going there. And there's a lot of, by the way, there's a lot of events that go there now and do that.

Speaker 19 But I remember Walt was like, no fucking way. Like, and it was an enormous sum of money, you know, at the time.
$10 million sticks in my head. But we were sort of shocked by it and astonished.

Speaker 19 And of course, said no immediately. But I agree with you.
This is just beyond.

Speaker 19 I mean, the Nazis did this during, right ahead of World War II, like tried to like buy influence through their various agents, the same thing.

Speaker 19 You know, very much trying to influence U.S. policy.
But this is, I don't even know what this is. This is even, what's the goal here? Precisely.
That's the thing: what's their actual goal?

Speaker 6 I'm still focused on the fact you don't know what religion I am.

Speaker 19 I don't. What are you? You're Jewish.
You're Jewish. You're partially.
You're half Jewish.

Speaker 6 No, I'm whole Jewish.

Speaker 20 My mother was Jewish.

Speaker 6 And I'm an atheist, but I'm a raging Zionist. I just think it's hilarious when people in the comments section call me a Zionist as if it's an insult.
I'm a proud Zionist.

Speaker 19 So, wait, your mother is Jewish. What is your father?

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 my father's Presbyterian.

Speaker 6 My mother

Speaker 6 was a Jew,

Speaker 6 the maiden named Levine. So I identify with Judaism.
I just don't believe I have an invisible friend.

Speaker 19 Oh, okay.

Speaker 19 It was a nice picture of who you put up for Mother's Day, by the way.

Speaker 6 Wasn't that nice? I got so many comments back.

Speaker 19 That was lovely, I have to say. I was touched.

Speaker 6 I meant to ask you, happy Mother's Day. What did you do?

Speaker 19 Oh, it was Amanda's birthday also.

Speaker 19 We did a picnic. I took my mom out with the kids for breakfast.

Speaker 6 Does anyone get more flowers?

Speaker 19 How does this whole lesbian thing happen? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my kids.

Speaker 6 Who gets breakfast in bed first?

Speaker 6 How does this all work?

Speaker 6 There's so many, I have so many questions about lesbian relationships. When there's a really difficult parking spot, who parks the car? I do.

Speaker 19 Okay. Yeah.
Okay. I'm a really good parker, I would say.

Speaker 6 What did you do for Mother's Day? That's a good question. Thank you.

Speaker 19 Happy Mother's Day to you too. And to your wife, not to you at all in any way.

Speaker 6 What did you do for Mother's Day?

Speaker 19 I had breakfast with my mom. I took the kids and I and Amanda rested at home.
And then we had a lovely

Speaker 19 picnic for her birthday. And I bought her a lemon tree, a Meyer lemon tree as a gift for Mother's Day and her birthday, because she loves the Meyer lemons in my house in San Francisco.

Speaker 19 So we're going to try to grow one here in our house.

Speaker 6 This is so clearly a new relationship.

Speaker 6 This is so clearly

Speaker 6 a thoughtful, well-planned out gift.

Speaker 19 I literally had this. I got her a plate that had lemons on it and then lemon things and then a beautiful lemon-colored, a pitcher that's beautiful.
It was a lemon situation, as in when life gives you.

Speaker 6 That's a new relationship.

Speaker 24 This is where you're headed.

Speaker 6 My wife sends me a picture of a watch she wants, and I'm like, here's the Centurion card number. That's where we are.

Speaker 19 No, I got her a lemon tree to grow for our life. I love lemons.
I love lemons.

Speaker 6 When life gives you lemons, eat mushroom chocolates. That's my saying.

Speaker 19 All right. What's What's your win?

Speaker 6 My win is I am really excited. I make a lot of jokes about the church, but I am excited about an American Pope.

Speaker 6 I think that the Pope is sort of a standard-bearer for morality. I think this guy is up to the task, unlike our elected leaders.
He seems to actually understand technology.

Speaker 6 In a strange way, I'm happy for Villanova. I can't tell you how many times.

Speaker 19 Oh, I hate the Villanova people from being a Georgetown person. I can't like them.
But

Speaker 6 I have a guy I've become friendly with who's pretty involved in Villanova, and he can't stop sending out messages, like memes showing all the universities in America, how many popes? Zero.

Speaker 6 Villanova, one.

Speaker 19 He's just. They're so aggressive, the Villanova.

Speaker 6 He's so excited.

Speaker 19 Yeah. Yeah.
We played them in basketball. We were supposed to hate Villanova as I remember.
But

Speaker 6 I think America needs kind of a, I don't know, a rejuvenation, a EpiPen, you know, a narcon of values. And I think we're more inclined to take an American pope or listen to an American pope.

Speaker 19 Want to hear the weirdest thing? I thought about going back to church after I had him.

Speaker 19 I thought about it. I'm still not going probably because

Speaker 19 so much corruption in the man thing.

Speaker 6 I think we need, as a raging atheist, I also believe we need more religious institutions.

Speaker 6 I've come to believe when I was younger, I was one of those snobs who considered myself a scientist and really was disparaging about religion. And as I've gotten older,

Speaker 6 other than the extreme batshit, crazy part of every religion, I generally find that

Speaker 6 90 plus percent of it gives people a lot of comfort.

Speaker 6 And especially, I think young people also need more place to be in the agency of something bigger than themselves and meet potential friends, mentors, and mates.

Speaker 6 I'm actually, I've come full circle. I think religious institutions are really important those areas.

Speaker 19 I'm an agnostic, not an atheist. I don't know.

Speaker 6 That just means you're a closeted atheist.

Speaker 19 No, I'm not. I'm not either.

Speaker 19 It's like when dudes say they're bi.

Speaker 12 Oh, I'm going to hear it on that one.

Speaker 19 I'm going to hear it on that one. I've been walking by a lot of churches.
I've been walking by and I want to go in. And I don't know what that is.
I honestly, I'm apparently.

Speaker 6 You just want to get away from your kids.

Speaker 19 It's called having little kids at home. Peace.

Speaker 6 I almost went to church when we had little kids.

Speaker 19 I was like, I was thinking, I want some peace. I know it sounds crazy, but I was, I don't know.
Let's go to church tonight. That's you and I.
Okay.

Speaker 6 No,

Speaker 6 I find peace at San Vicente bungalows talking to some people.

Speaker 6 Talking to some 25-year-old ad executive whose parents are putting her through New York.

Speaker 19 All right. We want to hear from you.
Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551PIT.

Speaker 19 Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week on with Karis Wisher, I spoke with CNN's chief international anchor, Christiane Amenpoor. Let's listen to a clip.

Speaker 19 I've covered almost all America's major wars since 1990, and I've probably got a lot more war experience than J.D. Vance and Pete Higzeth, despite their military deployments.

Speaker 19 And I'm much older than them.

Speaker 19 And the way I see it is we Europeans are not pathetic freeloaders. We have come to America's aid time and time again in the last 35 years.

Speaker 19 So it was a good interview.

Speaker 6 She's terrific. Well, I'm curious, though, how has your, I asked this to learn not to make a statement.
How has Europe come to America's aid?

Speaker 19 Oh, she was, it goes on. She talks about the various, you know, when we moved into Afghanistan and about different things that they have done to be supportive of us.

Speaker 19 She wasn't saying America hasn't helped Europe. That was not what she was also saying.
She thinks that Vance and putting out the idea that they don't do anything is ridiculous.

Speaker 19 Like that it's that she was saying that the alliance is so important and that the narrative they're putting about freeloaders was not true.

Speaker 19 And I think, and she made a larger case, but she was in no way saying America's aid to Europe wasn't critical too. So just she was being more, you know, know, complex.

Speaker 6 I've been on Christiana's show. I think she's, I also like her because she's one of those journalists that tries to set you up for success and

Speaker 6 she lets you speak.

Speaker 27 I find so many journalists are there.

Speaker 19 Sensitive is the word you're looking for.

Speaker 6 Well, actually, it's not, but thank you, lemon tree weirdo.

Speaker 6 Absolute lemon tree.

Speaker 6 What I was thinking was actually generous, and that is I find there's some times when I go on a show, they're there to try and corner you or get you to say something provocative because they want a TikTok moment.

Speaker 6 And I do, I'm guilty of this too. A lot of times I ask questions trying to show how smart I am as opposed to get to an answer.

Speaker 6 And then there's journalists who will let you just speak and want you to get your views out there, whether they personally agree with them or not. They're generous.

Speaker 6 They want to set you up for success. And I find that she's one of those people.

Speaker 19 She is. I really, really adore her.
We become good friends. And I really like, she's just, it was a great talk.
Anyway, please listen to it.

Speaker 19 Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Speaker 6 Today's show is produced by Lara Neyman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Miss Severo, and Dan Shallon.

Speaker 6 Yes, Shakt Kuro is Vox Media's executive producer vodka.

Speaker 37 Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

Speaker 6 Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 15 You can subscribe to the magazine animag.com/slash pod.

Speaker 47 We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care.

Speaker 42 We have a new Pope.

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