Roberts Criticizes Trump, FTC Firings, and White House Installs Starlink

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Discover. I'm sure there are lesbians who have cybertrunks, but I'm not speaking to them anymore.
Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. And I heard you're going on vacation.
I am, just for a few short days. I don't think I've ever known you to go on a vacation.
I know. I know.
Amanda required it. He didn't require it, actually.
My two younger kids have different vacations because they're at different schools.

And this was the only crossover. And then Louie's coming too.
Alex just recently went on his own vacation, so he's not coming. He's got school.
But yeah, I know I'm going to not do anything for four days, which is probably not true. But I'll probably be talking to you.
Well, you may be too old for this to really have an impact on you, but my wife claims that she just loves to fuck on vacation, which was kind of a weird postcard to get. That's good.
Oh, my God. Where are you coming up with all these bad jokes? Did you get a joke book? That's good.
It's called the Internet. What is the Internet for other than watching videos? I know.
I know. But lately, there's been five or six really bad jokes.
Tracking the slow descent into fascism and funny jokes. That's it.
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
I am so pissed off. I believe, I'm that dad.
I send at least two dozen ridiculously hilarious memes to my sons every day. And I will see, I will wake, I will get up at two in the morning and find out that they still have not seen them, much less responded.
They don't even open or look at my memes anymore. No, text, you text them.
My sons don't pay attention. I didn't read your text.
I didn't read your text. How can you not read a text? I agree.
I don't even understand it. I'm like, what if the house is on fire? I know that.
Well, you wouldn't text that, would you? Would you text that? I don't know. Hi, the house is on fire.
I'd probably call. Anyways, are you staying? What's the, is it the Four Seasons of the Rich Carlton? No, no, no.
We rented an Airbnb by the ocean. And so it's near El Yunque.
Amanda loves Puerto Rico. I went there as a kid.
I haven't been there in a long time. It's a beautiful place.
And so it's near, it's on the beach and it's near the beautiful rainforest there. So we're going to go hiking, get Louie to cook, obviously, because he's now the babysitter and cook for the situation.
And just relax for just a few days. It's just not very long, but it's, I need it, I think.
I finally need it. Oh, you've needed it for a few years.
Yes, I haven't vacationed in a long time. When I vacation, I don't vacation for people who need to understand this.

I don't take time off.

I'm pretty much on an extended vacation.

I'm not exaggerating.

I think I vacation arguably like 15 to 20 weeks a year, and I'm planning to increase it.

Yeah, I know that.

I'm aware.

I'm aware of the entire thing. We're going to have some guest hosts in a few weeks because actually you're doing a thing with your kid, but that's different.

That's a little bit different.

College tour.

College tour. Oh, my God.
Where are we going to next that you have absolutely no chance of getting in? No, don't say that. It's hard to get in, but actually I heard Harvard was off like in terms of applications.
Harvard. Oh my God.
By the way, can we just, can we just talk for a moment about Harvard? Yes. Okay.
Harvard puts out this ridiculously, you know, this virtue signaling of all virtually, woke-a-stan meets total virtue signaling bullshit. Oh my God, stop with a woke-a-stan.
Okay, they announced that anyone, any family under, that makes less than $200,000 has free tuition. Well, aren't they just fucking amazing? But here's the thing, I think I did the math.
Okay, so you have about 1,500 students. I bet maybe a third come from families that make less than $200,000.
And of those, they would have gotten some financial aid. So call it, I don't know, 500 kids are going to get a $50,000 benefit.
And that's being really, really generous. I think it comes out to about $20 or $25 million.
Yeah. So it's not that big a deal.
So they have a $53 billion endowment. If it's matching the market, it's doing about $4 billion a year.
So they've decided to step up and give a whopping half a percent and put out a press release rather than taking some of that $52 billion and stop acting like rejectionist, exclusionary, self-important jerks.

And expand their things. And expand the number.
And here's what it is. It makes things even worse because this is what's happening in America.
If you're the son of somebody who's rich or the daughter of someone who's rich or freakishly fucking remarkable, you not only get into an amazing university, you get to go for free. But the rest, the other 99.9% of America gets arbed down to a mediocre school that doesn't have a $53 billion endowment.
This is nothing but making everything worse in terms of income inequality. And yet they have the fucking nads to put out a thing acting as if they're doing the world of service.
Here's what you do, folks. You take some of that $52 billion endowment and you make your freshman class bigger than what a good Starbucks serves.
I would agree. Except for your obsession with Woka Senate colleges, because I think they're mostly beaten down by now.
So I think we can move along on that issue. I think that is better.
Oh, I don't think so. Okay.
In any case, a lot of colleges do do this for people who don't know. It's not a new and fresh idea from Harvard.
That was the thing I was not aware of. And it is true.
And if you make under a certain amount, you get the whole thing free, right? That was if you get in, if you get in. Pricing at elite universities is the following.
There's the sticker price, which is for foreign students and rich people so they can charge them a ridiculous amount of money. And almost everybody else does not pay the sticker price.
And the problem with these elite universities that hoard this amazing drug called higher education is that they have so much money that it means absolutely nothing for them. If you get into Princeton or Harvard, it doesn't matter how much money.
If you have enough money, then don't worry about it. If you don't, you will absolutely get financial aid.

It's the other 99% of our youth that has to go to a university that doesn't have these enormous endowments, that has to go into student debt, end up with a degree in philosophy from a Joey Bag of Donuts University that they can't not only pay off, but is one of the few forms of debt that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

And they want to put out a press release acting like, well, fucking smell you, Harvard. Aren't you good people? Okay.
You know, I'm going to Puerto Rico. Did I tell you? Oh, yeah.
Sorry. Go ahead.
It's really fun. Go ahead.
A lot of sunblock. A lot of sunblock.
Sunblock. Sunblock.
They are also under siege by the government right now. Under siege.
Under siege. Yeah.
Come on. Stop it.
Trump is acting like a total asshole. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including more presidential power grabs, the Chinese EV company putting Tesla on blast, and the fast fashion war claims its latest victim.
By the way, I had a little text thing with Jess Tarloff. She'll come to Paris with me.
I'm just saying. Yeah, you too.
Yeah. I'm going to steal you from her.
I'll steal her from you. You guys have a little bit of a crush on her.
Really? Yeah. Yeah.
No, you guys seem to like each other. Okay.
All right. Okay.
No, I just like her. She was teasing.
She goes, I can't believe you weren't going to... Now, you know that there was a movie where all the people who had affairs with the guy got together and took revenge on him? It's with Cameron Diaz and...
Oh my God, what's that movie called? Anyway, that's what's happening here. All your exes are getting together and we're going to take revenge on you.
Wow, we could fit all those people in a closet. That is correct.
That is correct. The line is long, lovers of the dog.
That's right. In any case.
That's right. In any case.
Almost all of them still have their teeth. Yeah.
Okay. Anyway, let's bring it back.
All right. First, speaking of losing, the judiciary is really pushing back on Donald Trump.
Chief Justice John Roberts clapping back against President Trump. Earlier this week, Trump called for the impeachment of a district judge who ruled against him over the deportation of Venezuelans, which led Roberts to issue a very rare response.
Let me read part of it. For more than two centuries,'s been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.
The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. It's a little bit weak sauce, but there was.
One GOP representative introduced articles of impeachment against the judge. Let's listen to what President Trump had to say about it on Laura Ingram.
We have bad judges. We have very bad judges.
And these are judges that shouldn't be allowed. I think at a certain point, you have to start looking at what do you do when you have a rogue judge.
The judge that we're talking about, you look at his other rulings. I mean, rulings unrelated.
But having to do with me, he's a lunatic. This is what he said about every judge who deals with him.
This is just a typical thing he does is insults the judges. Anyway, according to a sworn filing in an immigration and customs enforcement official, many of those deported did not have criminal records.
It's really quite amazing. They just grab people.
He's lost, I think, six times with judges. So again, appellate courts are the way you win here, Donald Trump.
You tend not to win because what you do is illegal. But anyway, this is a major showdown, I think, between Trump and the Supreme Court.
And he's setting up a real fight with the Supreme Court because all of these are going to eventually get to the Supreme Court. Any thoughts? Well, this is, I think, probably one of the most significant historical events happened.
Kind of, it got some coverage, but I don't think people realize how important it was. And that is, the White House essentially defied a court order and let those planes carrying the people they wanted deported, some of whom had done nothing but had the wrong tattoo.
And then they created what I think is basically a Republican snuff film. Did you see the video of them being dragged off planes? Yeah, that was by the guy who runs El Salvador, who seems like an asshole.
I think that was his with the music. I think he put them up.
I mean, El Salvador is a really interesting situation, what's happened there, but that's another talk show. But effectively, if the White House is going to ignore court orders, the question is, well, okay, what power does the judiciary or the court have if they start violating court orders? And what the power they have is they could say, all right, if you carry out these, if you actively are the individuals defying these court orders, we can put you in jail or fine you.
But the problem is the president can then pardon them. So if you have, we're in uncharted territories.
We look, we have a criminal as president and this is a convicted felon, someone who appears to have absolutely no regard for the law, who's set or seems comfortable carving up the world with another mob boss, another autocrat, who is now defying court orders. And if he has the power of the pardon and can threaten judges and appears to be comfortable defying court orders, then folks, it might feel good, right? A decent number of Democrats and Republicans have both said in polls they'd be comfortable with an autocrat as long as he or she agreed with their views.
All right, just wait until that knock on the door comes for you and your nephew or your outspoken friend on politics is kind of disappeared, is shipped off, is put on a plane to somewhere where they aren't protected by the law,

is incarcerated without due process, has their livelihood taken away, and has no recourse.

I mean, it's really interesting that they are doing exactly what they said they would do.

When he said, I will concede the election if I win, that was a blatant, I'm going to be an autocrat. And everyone is like, oh, isn't that funny? Isn't that cute? He doesn't really mean it.
He's pretty much done everything he said he was going to do. But if the courts are neutered by the power of the pardon or a president or an administration supported by one party that controls Congress, it says it's okay to violate court orders.
We're essentially done. Well, I think that's why Roberts did that.
He's issuing a warning because he's lost in the Supreme Court several times recently, especially because of Amy Coney Barrett and Roberts together with the liberal wing of the party. It keeps being 5-4.
And I think that he doesn't seem to, the Supreme Court orders, he has yet to over not do. The issue is he's also the enforcer of these things.
And so, and J.D. Vance keeps quoting Andrew Jackson, let him enforce it if he wants to say this, let him enforce it.
But it's also, you know, really, it's is what he's doing. And he's, what he's doing is he's raising, he goes, you wouldn't, you can't do that.
However, we have bad judges. The only judge he likes is Eileen Cannon, who does whatever he wants, right? Anything that's for him.
And she's a, she's an incompetent judge, essentially, but she gets to stay there until they remove her. And she can be overturned on appellate court.

And that's the whole system, which is what Roberts was talking about.

But we'll see how far he goes here.

Like, he's already gone very, very far down the line.

And his little handmaidens to sedition, like Laura Ingram, are really disturbing.

Like, it's a disturbing thing to agree that you're going to attack judges.

Now, in other countries where they've tried this, the guys, typically they don't win. The courts tend to win.
But we'll see. We'll see what happens here.
Look what's going on in Hungary. I mean, Victor Orban, who's sort of the role model or the idol here for how Trump is executing his presidential powers, there's enormous protests in Hungary, which is actually really hopeful.
I do, too. I see the future of the GOP right here.
Right here it is. You can only do so much.
We'll see what happens. And I think Roberts is a critically important character, even though most people think he's a limp noodle.
But he did that. And for him, that was like screaming, I think, I believe, according to lawyers I know.
And by the way, Trump is lost and lost and lost yesterday, particularly over and over and over again. But the question then becomes, does that mean anything when you lose, if they just start ignoring those court decisions? Right.
I think he has started to not ignore them on some things and the others, they play fast and cute, especially that border czar, Tom Homan. What a clown.
Well, he looks like he's enjoying a cocktail or two when he speaks to the press. But he says, we'll do what we want.
He seems so dumb, like a clown. Anyway, President Trump just fired, by the way, the two Democratic members of the FTC, which is very illegal, saying their services is inconsistent with my administration's policies.
That's right, because they're Democrats. Just for people to know, the FTC typically has five members with the president's party holding three of those seats.
They're seven-year terms. You can't fire them except for gross incompetence, not inconsistent with my administration's policies.
That's the whole point of having two members be from a different party. The two fired Democrats, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who I know very well, and Alvaro Bedoya, plan to challenge Trump's decision in court, obviously.
Bedoya told the New York Times, when people hear the news, they need not think about me. They need to think about the billionaires behind the president at his inauguration.
And that's exactly what this is. This is a payback to the people who sat on the front row.
FTC is investigating all of these companies. Whether you agree with them or not, they'll lose in court if they're not.
They don't have a good case, again. And the guy who runs the FTC is such an unctuous toady.
Andrew Ferguson, let me name him. You're an unctuous toady.
To allow these people, they're going to have a dominance. They need to add one more person to the FTC, but they're going to have a dominance anyway, so I don't know why they need to do this.
But it really does, it feels like payback to everybody standing up there, Trump, all the tech billionaires, in terms of antitrust cases and everything else. Even if you didn't agree with Lena Kahn, that's the whole point here is the party in power gets to decide.
And this is just a wholesale giveaway to the billionaires again, once again. Yeah, you have essentially what people or what Democrats have failed to do is connect antitrust with lower inflation.

And that is, it's no accident that Google announced they were going to acquire, it was called Whiz, a company last year. And the FTC and DOJ said, we have some concerns and they called it off.
And the Whiz filed to go public. Now, had Biden been reelected or, excuse me, Harris been elected, it's likely that whiz would have gone public and Google would have had a competitor, which would have meant that enterprises that use these products would have had more options, which results in competition, which results in lower prices.
But because Trump was elected, the FTC and the DOJ have effectively have an entirely different complexion now in terms of the bar or how high the bar needs to be to file an action to block a merger and acquisition. And what do you know? Google came back and said, let's acquire this company.
So under the Biden administration, last year was a record low for M&A. But you're going to see a lot, you're going to see a further consolidation of power.
And one of the biggest issues facing our economy is really boring. You know, it's the boring stuff that moves the needle.
And it's the fact that across everything from home renovations to chicken, to things like fertilizer, much less digital media, there are a small handful of companies that control the entire market. And the result is in concentrated industries, they can charge higher rents on corporations and on consumers.
So if you want, I mean, it sounds really boring, but if you want inflation to come down over the medium and the long term, you want a really robust FTC and DOJ. And they're no longer that.
They're basically there to say, okay. Jonathan

Cantor, who I had on the podcast, was more optimistic. He said that a lot of people still

at the FTC and the DOJ are not exactly, they're not just going to roll over.

Yeah, especially the DOJ.

We still haven't been able to effectively on the left communicate that M&A, while it feels like

capitalism and it's more macho and get out of the way of companies, there are a surprise. We have

Thank you. indicate that M&A, while it feels like capitalism and it's more macho and get out of the way of companies, there are a surprise.
We have seven companies basically driving the stock market right now. Google bought the whiz for $32 billion, should people don't know.
It's a security cloud company, cloud security startup. I think it's the biggest acquisition ever.
It is. It's enormous.
So it really is anti-competitive because it's one of the most fast-growing software companies in the world right now. So it's taking out, again, a really robust competitor, which is really something.
Well, when companies... So it's their biggest acquisition ever.
It's only a 1.5% dilution to their stock price. They have a $2 trillion market cap.
They can make a $30 billion acquisition. These companies are just so enormous and have so much capital that they can, quite frankly, they could afford to buy this, and they're not going to do it here, but they could afford to buy this and do an aqua kill and just kill it if they were bothering them.
because a and a half percent dilution of the stock price it's just not quite frankly 32 billion dollars is a lot of money a dilution of one and a half percent of your outstanding stock is not and these companies these big companies have such an advantage because the reality is if they'd see any sort of strategic reason whatsoever to acquire a company no one else else can compete. There's a small handful of companies that have multi-trillion dollar market caps.
It's like when the kingdom decides they're bidding on the World Cup, no other bidder even shows up because every other country was like, why bother? Why even go through the hassle of finding the former governor of the province of Brazil or whatever, putting together a team, putting together a group of people, putting our best foot forward? Why even bother when we know the kingdom is showing up? And if one of these players shows up for an acquisition, it's over. It's over.
It's done. FTC Chairperson Ferguson, again, Uncjustody, his new nickname, posted a statement on X saying he had no doubts about Trump's constitutional authority to remove commissioners.
Oh, my God. It literally says he can't remove commissioners.
It's so weird. It's like them saying, oh, President – someone in MAGA are saying you can – a president can stay three terms.
And I was like, the 22nd Amendment says you can't. And these people are arguing the Constitution says you can't.
Literally the opposite of what it says, they say. And it's so irritating.
Senator Maria Cantwell and Amy Klobuchar, by the way, who serve on the committees that oversee the FTC, even though they don't have power right now. President Trump's dismissal of Commissioner Slaughter and Bedoya not only illegal, but also hurts consumers by undermining an independent agency that Congress established to protect consumers from fraud scams and monopoly power.
Now, the FTC is moving forward with its Meta lawsuits. He said, Ferguson said, they're going to move forward with Meta.
We'll see. We'll see.
I think that's probably their strongest case.

And again, if they can move forward with these things, and if they lose, they lose, right?

So, you know, we'll see how much they're going forward.

So I guess Mark Zuckerberg's appearance didn't help as much as the others, essentially.

Anyway, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, Starlink gets installed at the White House.

Even worse. God, it just gets worse and worse.
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Dealer sets final price. Scott, we're back.
Starlink is now accessible at the White House. White House officials said the move is an effort to increase internet availability, saying some areas of property couldn't get cell service.
This is nonsense. The system was reportedly routed through the White House data center.
Officials said Starlink donated the service and the gift was vetted by lawyers overseeing ethics issues at the White House counsel's office. So many tech types I talk to say this is dangerous.
It's like putting Putin's listening device in the White House, but that might already be there in the form of the president. So I don't know.
What do you think? It's also ethically ridiculous. Well, it's more just sort of the White House is turning into a giant infomercial for its political allies.
But in addition, I think it's stupid of SpaceX and Starlink. Starlink, I absolutely love Starlink.
I think it's an amazing product. It's a superior product.
And its competitors all of a sudden have seen their stock prices surge and have access to capital to potentially at some point be a competitor. I think Jeff Bezos, I think everyone is eyeing this space going, these guys have created an

opening because of Musk's overt political activity. I'm now thinking, how do I get rid of,

or how do I not use Starlink? And I just think this is a dumb move for them.

People are, he is alienating 52% of the population overnight with his products. And I just want to

I don't know if you saw the Senator Kelly just did a, just made a big deal of him selling his Tesla. This is next.

Starlink, they basically decided to politicize this product.

And I think just on an economic level, shareholders, SpaceX is one of the most actively traded and most valuable private companies on the secondary market.

It's also responsible now for the majority.

It's the largest source of wealth now for Musk because he owns so much of it. And it's an incredible product, but it looks like it's going to go the same way of Tesla.
And that is it's attracting a ton of competition. People will catch up and then people given sort of a coin flip or a tiebreaker will opt for the company that's not run by someone whose politics they don't agree with.
So I think it's a stupid move. I just don't know why they, the security issues to me or whatever, they can get whatever they want from this guy, the Russians, but you can imagine this creates a more porous environment, which may be the point.
Another thing they're doing besides making us less secure is also from a technical point of view is removing information from websites all over the government that is, you know, mentions people. And there's two things that really stood out.
The first, the HHS has removed the Surgeon General's advisory on gun violence from its website. Spokesperson for the agency said the content was removed to comply with Trump's executive order to protect Second Amendment rights.
Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. Also recently removed, this was heinous, articles about Native American code talkers have been removed from some military websites, including having been labeled DEI.
The Navajo code talkers aided America's victory at Iwo Jima, historically, critically important group of people who did this. And I think they're removing all kinds of things that, well, some words don't work and they end up removing the wrong thing because they have a list of fucking words that don't work instead of going through this kind of thing.
They just do this wholesale, you know, cut and paste essentially. Replacing this information is going to be very difficult over time because it will be replaced eventually.
But between the firearms and these code talkers, I feel like I'm living in 1984, like in the book 1984. I don't know how you feel.
This is, I mean, again, it's difficult to know where to focus because the hits keep on coming. But as you referenced, number one source of death for children in the United States, accidents, cancer, drowning, drug poisonings is now firearms.
And as someone who left the U.S. two and a half years ago, just telling you a free gift with purchase living in the U.K.
is you don't have these horror fantasies involving gun deaths or mass shooters. Yeah, you talk about that.
54% of U. of US adults report that either they or a family member have experienced a firearm-related

incident. One in five have a family member who was killed by a firearm, including suicide.

And then going back to, I always like to ground everything in a personal parable.

When I sold my first company, Profit, there was like 20-year anniversary of the company. I started the company when I was 26, and me and the other co-founder were not invited.
The CEO wanted it to be all about him. Fine.
Okay. Have at it.
And we used to joke that we were living in a fascist state, and we were Trotsky being erased from photos. And even we heard about them showing up to clients and referring to themselves as the founders.
We were literally erased from the scrolls of history from this company, despite the fact that we had hired everybody that was now claiming they were the founders. And to go back in history and say to the two and a half million African-Americans that registered for the draft, the one million African-Americans that fought in World War II, the 33,000 Japanese-Americans who fought mostly in the European theater, despite the fact that maybe their parents had been sent to confinement camps, 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry.
and then to not at least nod that many of them served in World War II. There was 20,000 Chinese Americans.
There were 44,000 Native Americans. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of the entire indigenous population fought in World War II, a quarter of a million Filipino Americans, 400,000 Hispanic Americans.
And to not acknowledge that is to not acknowledge one of the great victories, one of the great civil rights advancements in American history that makes our military so... The U.S.
military, I believe, is the most impressive organization in history. And across many of its achievements and many of its victories, it was also a tremendous means of progress in civil rights.
Because there's something about wearing the same uniform and being dependent upon the guy or the gal next to you that has a tendency to make you look at each other for your character and your skills and nothing else. And the armed services have been an outstanding means of progress for special interest groups.
And to remove their commitment and their sacrifice, it's just so un-American. It's un-American.
It's petty and it's cruel and it's weird. It's just weird.
It's just so weird. I mean, especially these, the gun stuff is beyond belief.
It's just a fact. And I think what's really, obviously it's yet another attempt, like with the judges.
This has a theme, everybody. You remove the judges, you remove information.
You only tell people, I don't think it works at all. I honestly don't.
I think people are sick and tired of this and they get it. And Americans are a uniquely difficult group of people.
And so I don't think it works. I don't think it holds.
I think in other countries, sometimes it does. But in this one, I think people get furious about especially stuff like this.
I mean, literally just to, they have one issue with DEI and they cannot stop. That's the thing.
They cannot stop with one or two things. They've got to completely erase everything, especially this cut and paste of words.
I forget what they took out, some dumb thing. But that's beyond belief.
This to me is ridiculous. And everyone knows that gun violence kills kids.
That's it. I don't care how many things they take down.
Everybody knows and everyone's aware of it. And they will pay the price here for going overboard on almost everything.
Well, we hope they'll pay the price. I think they will pay the price.
So far they haven't. We keep hoping and waiting.
But just back to the erasing people from photos of history and a really positive part of our history. You're going to Puerto Rico, 53,000 Puerto Ricans fought in World War II.
I love all your stats, Scott. 400,000 Hispanic Americans,

including 350,000 Mexican Americans.

These are people who came here,

felt really fortunate to be a part of this great experiment called America

and decided to put themselves,

you know, and risk bodily harm

to serve in a uniform

to fight for the rights of all Americans.

And we're erasing them from history. It's just.
It's very strange and self-defeating. And how likely are people going to be to raise their hand and say, I will fight for my country, thinking that at some point my contribution might be starts from history.
It's very disappointing, to say the least. It's very typical.
It's not a surprise.

I think karma's a bitch. I think putting people in jail that never had a criminal record without due process, everything is—karma's going to be such a bitch here.
I just believe that because it's one thing after the next where injustice happens. And so we'll see.
Let's go on a quick break. We come back.
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Today Explained here with Eric Levitt, senior correspondent at Vox.com to talk about the 2024 election. That can't be right.
Eric, I thought we were done with that. I feel like I'm Pacino in three.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Why are we talking about the 2024 election again? The reason why we're still looking back is that it takes a while after an election to get all of the most high quality data on what exactly happened.
So the full picture is starting to just come into view now. And you wrote a piece about the full picture for Vox recently, and it did bonkers business on the Internet.
What did it say? What struck a chord? Yeah, so this was my interview with David Shore of Blue Rose Research. He's one of the biggest sort of democratic data gurus in the party.
And basically, the big picture headline takeaways are... On Today Explained.
You'll have to go listen to them there. Find the show wherever you listen to shows, bro.
Scott, we're back. Chinese EV company BYD is promoting a new fast charging technology that can allegedly add 250 mile range in a five minute charge.
Woo, I was very excited about this. The new battery and charging system will be used in BYD's next generation vehicles.
The company plans to build more than 4,000 ultra-fast chargers across China. This puts BYD well ahead of Tesla, whose supercharger is currently at around 170 miles on a range of range for a 15-minute charge.
It takes longer than that, just so you know. BYD shares hit a record high yesterday on the news.
The company is up more than 50% for the year with a $160 billion market cap as Tesla is down 30-some percent, 30-some percent. It goes up and down, but it's mostly 30% for the year.
Is this Tesla's deep-seek moment? Tesla stock is currently headed for its nine straight weekly loss. It's now 53% below all-time highs.
Statistically, everybody's gaining, including U.S. makers of EVs, all over the place.
And Tesla is losing a market share. And of course, there's a protest that go on across the country.
Attorney General, but they're trying to, he's trying to get an assist from Attorney General Pam Bondi, is labeling recent attacks on Tesla dealerships an act of domestic terrorism directed to Elon Musk, who was weeping about it on Fox News, saying he's only done lovely things for people his whole life and he's never been violent. Well, fine, he's created a situation where people die, but that's whatever you say, Elon.
Bondi said in a statement that the DOJ will investigate these incidents and pose severe consequences on the people involved. There's definitely an organized protest across.
Interestingly, by the person paying for it is the wife of Steve Jervison, who is Elon's pal, the ex-wife, who's a big Democratic donor, is helping get these things organized, these protests, which is perfectly within the rights of her and the protesters to do. Obviously, not within the rights are violence, but they're certainly allowed to cause all kinds of ruckuses in front of these places and put up Nazi pictures of Elon and stuff like that.
BYD is doing the innovative things Tesla should be doing if its CEO was paying attention. And secondly, if people don't like Elon Musk, they can protest against him.
And for the attorney general to call it domestic terrorism is really beyond the pale.

Again, an ad for Elon Musk by the president, his own personal attorney general. In the first two months of this year, Tesla sold 60,000 vehicles.
BYD sold 481,000. And that represents a 75% increase year-on-year of BYD and a 14% decline for Tesla.
And despite Tesla losing a third of its value in the last month, it's still... If Tesla trades like other car companies that are growing at the same rate, which is declining, now the majority of car companies are growing faster than Tesla.
That puts its stock at about $14 a share. So the notion that somehow Tesla has had some market correction, we haven't even seen a correction around Tesla.
Not compared to what it does. What do you think of Bondi doing this? And the protests.
What do you think of the protests? They continue. They haven't stopped, which is really interesting.
I'm of two minds, and that is I don't think people should damage physical property. I joke that whenever I get a Tesla, I cancel or I let it wait outside.
I have started canceling when I get Teslas and I try to put it in the notes, although you can on Uber. I don't think people should deface property.
I don't think people should feel unsafe in their cars, but a protest, peaceful protest is an American right. Or calling it Cybertruck owner an asshole.
That's if you choose to buy it, I think that's perfectly fine. I think of it as long as- I don't agree.
You buy a Cybertruck, I do think there needs to be- It's such a- For the, I think we err on the side of civility. Quite frankly, I didn't like it when J.D.
Vance gets booed on a ski mountain with his family. It tickles my sensors, but I think that in America, ideally, you want to err on the side of giving people some grace when they're out in public, including driving their car.
I'm turning into an old person. You are, because I think that's exactly what it is to be an American.
I think Americans do that. I didn't mind when all the Christians went nuts about Disney.
They can protest. I didn't love the Nazis up front.
I'm not saying you can't protest. What I'm saying is if someone is out skiing with their family, if someone is driving a car, I don't think verbally assaulting them or verbally screaming at them, that's your right.
I'm not saying it's not legal, but it doesn't mean it's right. And I think one of the nice things about America is that we do have a certain level of comity or respect for each other.
I was at a party, an F1 party in Las Vegas, and someone showed up wearing a MAGA hat. And that individual, a woman, was kind of immediately surrounded and people started shouting at her.
I did not think that was right either. They should be able to wear a MAGA hat.
And I think we have to err on the side when we're out in public, err on the side of civility. You have the right to say things, but calling someone an asshole because they get out of a certain brand of car, we're just a slow burn into an erosion in everyone's quality of life.
Oh, no. I think it's sort of a long tradition of the United States doing this.
I think you're living in a country that doesn't, I mean, I, you know, I just, I feel like I don't love a lot of it, but this Cybertruck in particular is somewhat offensive to my eyes. And that's probably one of the reasons it compared to a lot of cars.
But you know, you've been in a line and some dick douche-doss drives up in a Ferrari who obviously is just rich and it's compensating, and everyone goes like this under the breath, right? Yeah, but they don't start screaming, hey, you little dick weirdo. They just say, let him or her get his or her coffee and get about their day.
True. True.
True. I don't know.
I think the protests in front of these Tesla showrooms are fine. I think that's the way you express your lack of interest.
I agree. I think there's a difference between that and yelling at people while they're going about their day.
I don't, anyway. I'll stop yelling at you, Scott.
Okay, fine. You want to find that.
There you go. Dick, dick.
There you go. Oh, I do this one.
I have to pay women to yell at me. I should do that to you.
I don't know, Scott. I like your niceness, but I think it's okay if people want to express themselves.
I think people get the message. Obviously, a lot of people are selling them because they don't like being called assholes.
Yeah, but Kara, there's places in, there's very Republican-dominated, MAGA-loving parts of this country that I think you and I can go to, go about our day, and people generally say, I don't agree with their politics. Maybe I don't even think they're, maybe I even think Kara and Scott are bad for America, but I'm going to let them get on with their day.
See, you live a different life than I've been called a dyke in so many southern states. I can't even tell you.
And that's wrong. And that's wrong.
I'm like, whatever, dude. And I always have a line.
They'll say something and I'll go, you're the alternative. And then it tends to shut it down.
I mean, I always have a line and I feel sorry for them. You should be able to have a certain confidence in America.
You're going to be able to live your life without worrying about being verbally assaulted or treated with a lack of respect or dignity. That's what you do in a civil society.
That's what you do in America. That would be nice for all of us who aren't some people, but it doesn't happen.
Well, again, I don't have your lived experience, but don't you generally feel that you're fairly, you can go about your day? And I mean, is that the case? You really feel like in a lot of places? Certain places, I don't go. Yeah, I keep telling you this.
I feel uncomfortable. I feel like if I say something about my kids or Amanda and I express any affection in public, I'm very worried.
And especially comments. It's always comments.
And I, you know, it's something you think about in the back of your mind. And I think a lot of people, very different people think about it all the time.
Women walking down the street at night. You know, it just is, it's a very different living experience.
But I always have a line back. I always, you know, because I've gotten it so much.
I always have like, are you the alternative? Blah, blah, blah. I have a bunch of them that I do.
And it feels like it's like breathing. You undo it all the time.
One time, it happens when I was the kids. Not who's the mother.
That's another one people loved. Who's the dad? They always like to do that one, which is fine.
For people driving a certain car and for people who have a different sexual orientation, I think that we should shame anyone that gives those people a hard time.

I don't.

What about a lesbian in a Cybertruck?

There you go.

You do that.

Isn't that, if you'd said a lesbian in a Subaru, I would have said, well, that's redundant.

Yeah, that's true.

See, we don't mind.

We're fine with it.

I don't care.

But I'm sure there are lesbians who have Cybertrucks, but I'm not speaking to them anymore. I don't think so.
I don't think so i don't think i've never seen a lesbian and you think that would be a car no it's a really ugly car it's just an ugly fucking car every time i see it it offends my eyes and i don't say anything to them i think what an asshole and they always take up and they always go first at the stop sign these people consistently but i don't yell asshole to them um it's this tesla backlash not going to stop, and Scott's right, it's going to extend to Starlink next. Well, the thing that you've got to be really fearful of is that the LGBT starts in militia, and they call themselves Al-Gaeda.
Oh, my God, it's militia Etheridge. No, that's right, sorry.
That's right. Anyway, Al-Gaeda, that's very funny.
I like that. So this is one that's sort of in your wheelhouse.
Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy this week. The second time in six years, this time putting the blame on fast fashion retailers, Timu and Sheehan.
In court finding Forever 21 noted non-U.S. retailers selling products at drastically lower prices made it difficult to retain a core customer base.
The company plans to liquidate while looking for a buyer for its business or its assets. Sheehan and Timu are facing their own struggles with Trump's terror, as though he delayed cracking down on the loophole that exempts low-cost items from getting taxed.
He probably won't delay on it. I don't know.
I just think Forever 21 sucks. But what do you think here? I just think it sucks.
It sucks. And the other two don't.
And the other two don't, even if they have advantages in China. Look, I've said this, that a de minimis loophole that favors foreign retailers over domestic, fine.
I think there's an argument that they should do away with it, create a level playing field. I get that.
But Forever 21, I group into a group of specialty retailers whose value proposition I would identify as dressing 15-year-old girls up like sluts. I just...
Oh, God. I know that.
I agree with you. There was an entire genre of retailers who literally like, send your 15-year-old and we'll make her look like a slut.
I mean, that's essentially what the fashion was or the genre it was you know anyways i don't agree i had i i used to i i get some even today a lot of the girls clothes are really questionable and the boys clothes rock they're like so cool they're like so interesting and the girls clothes are always like some of them are like oh no no no i's Instagram. I think it's the algorithm sexualizing girls.
I'm talking about five-year-olds. Yeah.
But look, there is, I mean, if you look at what's happening, and I love this, that if you look at over the past 20 years, inflation-adjusted clothing prices have dropped about 50%. And unit consumption has doubled.
And this kind of connects back to antitrust. The clothing and apparel industry is globalized.
It's relatively tariff friendly and it's incredibly robust, meaning there's a ton of competition. What does that mean? It means that Americans can buy more at a lower price.
On an inflation adjusted basis, the price of apparel has been cut in half. And by the way, folks, when things get cut in half in price, it means your prosperity skyrockets.
We want competition. We want, and if you don't realize what tariffs are going to do, about 99% of our clothes, no, I'm sorry, 97% of our clothes are made abroad.
What's a good U.S. retailer that competes with Sheehan and Timu? Who would you say? I mean, they're all the expensive ones, right? The gap sort of doesn't.
Oh, there's no low-cost maker. There's no low-cost.
There's expensive ones like Hannah Anderson Rocks, or there's all kinds of really wonderful higher-end children's clothing, for example. I'm just thinking of children's clothing.
But it's, I mean, I'm trying to think. H&M, I like a lot.
I like the other one. H&M's not U.S.
Yeah, no, they're not U.S. The iconic U.S.
fashion specialty retailers are, in my opinion, urban outfitters. Urban and free people are two of the hottest brands.
But the majority, if not all of their manufacturing is abroad. I remember, and I always love an opportunity to have a professional flex.
One of the first consulting clients I had, one of my mentors was a guy named Warren Hellman of Hellman & Friedman. And he said, I have a great assignment for you.
I was like 27 and I'd started this quote unquote strategy firm. He said, I wanted you to come to Levi Strauss & Company board meetings.
I don't want you to talk to anybody. I want you to listen to the entire board meeting, and then I want you to stand up and give your view.
And it was me and a guy named Lee Clow from Chiat Day got to do this for four board meetings. And one of the first things I said was they had, back in the 90s, Levi Strauss and Company still had domestic manufacturing.
And the Haas family, who are very paternal and really civic-minded, were very committed to keeping domestic manufacturing. And the CFO got up there, and I can do math.
I said, what is the cost per unit producing domestically? And it was like, I think it was $11 a pair. And the cost to bring in the same quality from just across the border in Mexico, or I forget where we were, Honduras, was $3.80.
And so I'm like, okay, but just to be clear, what you have decided is that you're giving people naturally artificially high wages that once they're laid off, there's going to be nowhere else to go. And eventually, of course, they outsourced all of their production.
We are meant to go to the lowest cost provider for more prosperity. We to maintain a certain level of domestic production for example the shoe industry has these ridiculous tariffs claiming that if we go to war we need domestic manufacture of boots which is just stupid right we could spin up a factory to build boots pretty quickly but the clothing industry is an example of an increase in prosperity because we've globalized it and we don't have massive tariffs.
So, I mean, it's striking how Timu and Sheehan, like one out of five things purchased over the holidays were from those two companies. But Forever 21, you know, it just, like you said, it just couldn't compete, nor should it.
I like it when nations compete for our dollar. It just sucked.
It just sucked. in that store.
It was terrible. And I like a cheap clothing store.
In any case, we'll see what happens with the others. But obviously, as Scott said, it's global.
Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question. The question comes from Kyle.
Let's listen. Hey, Scott, Cara, it's Kyle from New York, big fan of the show.
I had a question about Trump's proposed federal income tax elimination for anyone making less than $150,000 a year. I've heard a lot of discussion recently about how Trump's economic policies really only benefit the wealthy and arm the younger, less wealthy portion of the population.
This policy seems like it's in response to that discussion. I'm curious from your perspective, is this a moment where credit is given or credit is due, or is this more hand-waving? Curious your thoughts.
Thanks, guys. I would like to see a tax holiday on anyone making under a certain amount or people under the age of 40 similar to what portugal's done uh the problem is will this come at the cost of social security we need to we need to hear more i hope it's not populist bullshit i need to do more um do more analysis uh i think it makes a lot more sense than this ridiculous no tax on tips the waiter gets a tax tax cut, not the dishwasher.
And the reality is the majority of people in the services industry don't pay any taxes anyways because they don't make enough money. But I just need to understand more about this.
We'll see. Yeah.
Yeah, we'll see. I mean, in concept, it's a great idea.
And, you know, again, what's really the point is rich people need to pay more taxes. Like, I don't know why that never gets...
And corporations. Corporations.
That's really what has to happen. We're paying the lowest amount of GDP as represented by the taxes since 1939.
People, it's worth noting that Americans in this income range who make less than $150,000, they pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes. And soon tariffs.
Yeah, so hand-waving for right now. Anyway, you got a question of your own, go to nymag.com slash slash pivot, submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Okay, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Look, I'm going to go off script here and I'm going to, I don't have a prediction, but I'm especially slow today because I was up till 4 a.m. binge watching all four episodes of what I think is so far the media property, other than the White Lotus, of course, the media property of 2025 or the media achievement.

Have you seen adolescence, Kara? No, I haven't. No, I haven't seen it at all.
I've heard about it. I've heard it's amazing and depressing and upsetting, but I've heard several people talk about it.
It is really powerful. So I'm not going to give anything away here.
It's a British crime drama miniseries from Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and directed by Philip Berantini. It's about a 13-year-old schoolboy who's arrested for the murder of a female classmate.

And the interesting thing from a creative standpoint is each scene is shot in one take.

And it is so powerful.

It brings up social media.

It's obviously violence, crime, father-son relationships, families, the impact of social media. It's obviously violence, crime, father-son relationships, families, the impact of social media, the anxiety and depression that young people are dealing with.
It's like if you wanted to explain to someone the stress that young people or adolescents are under and facing, and what it means and how it ripples out in so many negative ways, it would be really hard to do it more efficiently than watching this four-part series. Can I ask you a question? Because I tend to avoid these things now, even though I've heard a lot about this show and also Euphoria or any of these.
There was a documentary about teens. There's all kinds of things.
I kind of avoid them because they're so upsetting to me. How do you deal with that? Because you're writing a book on it, obviously, which comes out when? I'm moving it up.
I'm turning in my manuscript early. I'm hoping that it'll come out in November.
It was supposed to be streamed next year, but I feel like the moment is going to pass if I don't get it out soon. No, you should.
You've been the leading one. Josh Hawley's writing a book on masculinity.
I mean, I got to get it out. You need to dare him to a fight.
But how is it watching these things? Because I think I have noticed I have tended towards happy things when I'm watching things. And severance, because it's so good, by the way, season ender this Friday.
I just, they either have to be really astonishing like severance or very happy like running point, right?

I can't. Talk a little bit about this because you're writing a book on it.
These topics are dire. How do you manage to feel hopeful watching any of this? And that's one of the reasons I avoided adolescence.
Well, it's easy, Kara. I've leaned into my anger and my depression.
I mean, I'm not the person to talk to about maintaining a positive outlook. I struggle with this shit.
And one of the things you referenced, which is a social norm, which is kind of interesting, is that in boom times or positive times, tragedies and dramas are more popular. And then in depressing times, romantic comedies are much more popular.
People want to get out of the mood they're in. Or like White Lotus, something that's like...
That's just pure entertainment with some subculture. By the way, Sam Rockwell's monologue from last week is incredible.
I heard. I haven't seen it yet.
But this is... I mean, it talks a lot about school bullying via social media centered on incel subculture.
And people don't realize how powerful that is. This week's post, I'm writing about porn, which I think is playing an unfortunately increasingly not important large role in young men's lives.
But this, if you've read about this stuff, but don't understand it and wonder, want to see how it's really impacting people on a ground level in an exceptionally compelling and gripping way. So, but you asked me how I deal with it.
To be honest, Kara, Kara, I'm having trouble dealing with it. I, for the first time in my life, I was thinking about this the other day.
I've always been able to disassociate from the news since this last election. I'm having trouble disassociating.
I'm, I'm, I'm just a, I'm that guy who's that fucking downer at a dinner party that turns everything into, well, yeah. You are posting happy things on, I've noticed.

I've got to.

You really have.

A lot of them are delightful, by the way.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah.

But yeah, so the answer is how do I handle this shit?

The answer is not well.

But this is such a powerful piece of media that it is,

it's so satisfying because you feel as if you've learned and you can't.

I watched, I turned the thing on at midnight and I was up till four in the morning. I just couldn't turn away from it.
All right, adolescence is a recommendation and a prediction, I guess. Okay, elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on Prof G Conversation, Scott spoke another happy thing with Dr.
Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at Brookings, chancellor at Durham University and former White House Russia expert, also testified during the impeachment hearings, a really smart person who worked for us and now does not. Let's listen to a clip.
The big difference between Trump and Putin is Trump is a totally one-man show. He's destroying the state.
Putin operates within the state. He's a creature of the deep state.
He's not dismantling the Russian state. That was already dismantled, you know, under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.
For Trump, he doesn't really pay any attention to any of the people around him. He uses them as emissaries and envoys, but he doesn't do his homework.
They can't actually advise him on anything. And that makes Trump very unpredictable.
So I think if Putin's looking at his own crystal ball, he also can't say where this is going to go. Well, that's heartening.
That's an interesting thing to say. She's brilliant, actually.
She's really brilliant. I'm glad you had her on.
Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot.
Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Tuesday.
Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Saverio, and Dan Chalon.

Nishat Kerouaz, Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

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

Adolescence on Netflix.