Tariff Turmoil, Trump’s Tesla Ad, and Newsom’s Bannon Interview

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Speaker 11 I gotta get dressed for Whoopi Goldberg. You know who's on right after me? Donnie Osmond.

Speaker 12 Donnie Osmond.

Speaker 14 That is literally, literally, just when I thought your flexes couldn't get any weaker, you're bragging about that?

Speaker 11 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.

Speaker 17 And I'm Sky Galloway.

Speaker 11 How are you doing, Scott? I just saw you last night when we were together. Yeah.

Speaker 18 What a throw. It was fun.

Speaker 18 Did you like it?

Speaker 11 They love us together there on Anderson Cooper.

Speaker 19 Oh, on AC.

Speaker 17 I like AC and I like CNN, and they do a good job.

Speaker 21 He's a real pro.

Speaker 22 I love kind of seeing how the sausage gets made.

Speaker 11 Anyway, we had a beautiful time, and it was very nice to see you. It was very good to see you.
Nice to see you. We've seen a lot of each other South by Southwest.

Speaker 23 We have. We've been hanging.
We've been rolling.

Speaker 24 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 11 Are you tired of me?

Speaker 25 No.

Speaker 11 I mean, I was tired of you years ago but no more tired of you i should say that's what i felt yeah yeah no it's nice to see you i always enjoy seeing you last night literally we went to dinner and george and i just like leaned back and let you and just go out yeah i like her she's unusually tall i didn't realize that until she got up oh really yeah she's i think she played basketball in high school yeah she's a tall gal anyway are you tired i made scott come early to work today because i'm going on the view I'm convinced for guys, being tall is like big tits.

Speaker 22 Like a woman just gets a natural amount, a natural amount of attention.

Speaker 34 It's so true.

Speaker 18 Think about it. Okay.

Speaker 22 If a woman has big boobs, she just gets an unnatural amount of attention. And I think it's the same for a guy if he's tall.
I think height is the new boobs for men.

Speaker 11 You know how you get a lot of attention? You jump up and down at a stage in Austin.

Speaker 18 I have had that picture sent to me

Speaker 11 so many times.

Speaker 28 That was Comedy Gold, TV.

Speaker 26 My favorite thing was you just finally go on the, the audience really responded when you said, sit down.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I know, but I was sitting there going, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down. I've gotten that picture sent to me, like, what is going on here?

Speaker 28 Yeah, just giving the ladies a little bit of daddy, a little bit of dessert, a little bit of dessert with their South by South, with their chicken fajitas with queso, little dog, a little topping of the dough.

Speaker 21 Give the people what they want, Kara.

Speaker 44 How about what would you like for Christmas?

Speaker 24 I'd like a little Scotch.

Speaker 11 No, I don't think so. But I did get that picture sent to me and asked me what was happening.
And I said, a typical day in the life of Pivot.

Speaker 31 Here's what makes you, here's what makes you funnier or more comfortable with being unfunny. Just the recognition, we're all going to be dead soon.

Speaker 11 That's right.

Speaker 18 Okay. Yeah.
I mean, I'm comfortable.

Speaker 11 Let me think. I'm comfortable with being unfunny.
Interesting.

Speaker 34 Interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 26 Well, comfortable being unfunny, trying to be funny, like taking risks, right?

Speaker 18 Right.

Speaker 19 It's like a lot of times, as anyone who listens to this show will know, a lot of my jokes don't land.

Speaker 23 And here's the thing.

Speaker 7 Anyone not laughing, you're going to be dead soon, and so am I.

Speaker 11 Oh, okay. Well, those pictures will endure.
That's the good thing.

Speaker 34 That's definitely some therapy for my voice.

Speaker 11 Death decisions are the men are for of my life. You know that.
That's what I always do when I'm deciding what to say and do.

Speaker 46 Yeah,

Speaker 21 we've both had,

Speaker 38 well,

Speaker 23 you had

Speaker 22 obviously a health scare and

Speaker 22 you lost a parent very young.

Speaker 47 I'm a raging atheist.

Speaker 25 I think

Speaker 22 a very real sense of the finite nature of life is is an absolute blessing.

Speaker 18 I think it really is.

Speaker 11 As you know, that Steve Jobs' essay that he did. Actually, it was a speech that he did at Stanford.
I read all the time. I recommend it to everybody.
It's all about living

Speaker 24 about denying your daughter affecting the colours.

Speaker 18 You're not going to avoid

Speaker 18 family?

Speaker 11 No, that is not. She got to.

Speaker 18 He pretends he's Jesus Christ because he invented a fucking phone.

Speaker 11 No, he didn't invent the phone.

Speaker 24 By the way,

Speaker 29 I just want to call it out.

Speaker 45 I disliked Elon well before you.

Speaker 11 That is true.

Speaker 24 You used to be his defender.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I did. You're right.
I agree with you. I did.
Well, I was mostly attracted to he was focused on important things versus I was so tired of people. You know, you're right.
I was.

Speaker 11 There's no way out of it. There was.
There was. But I think I've more than made up for it.
I feel like I've more than made up for it.

Speaker 16 Yeah, you're catching up.

Speaker 18 I know.

Speaker 11 I'm catching up. Anyway, we got a lot to get to today.

Speaker 11 I'm in New York, as I said. I'm picking up my mom.

Speaker 11 And then I'll go back down to Washington. I'll be in Washington for a little while.

Speaker 11 But we have a lot to get to today because Washington is where the action is because of the market chaos from the Trump terrorists and the Tesla stunt at the White House, the car sale at the White House.

Speaker 11 We've got a lot to talk about. But first, Amazon announced this week that seven seasons of Donald Trump's reality show, The Apprentice, will soon be streaming on Prime Video.

Speaker 11 This follows Amazon paying a reported $48 million to license a Melania, not even own, license a Melania Trump documentary.

Speaker 11 Trump's cut of the new streaming deal hasn't been revealed, but he was an executive producer on the show, and he actually is well compensated when it was shown.

Speaker 11 Netflix also just made a deal with Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian who sparked controversy with that racist joke at Trump Rally last October about Puerto Ricans.

Speaker 11 Talk to me about this. I watched all these seasons of The Apprentice.
I'm kind of like, I can see why you would buy this because he's the president. He's popular with half the country.

Speaker 11 I like the show, so I kind of get it. I'm surprised that it wasn't available widely.
I don't recall looking for it, and I don't know why you'd watch it again necessarily.

Speaker 11 Tony Hinchcliffe, I get they're going to invest in all these things like this going forward, and they're going to be behind the times because the ones you want to get are the Bill Burrs or whatever, which they already have, of course.

Speaker 11 But what do you think of these programming moves?

Speaker 22 I think comedians doing really well is really important on both sides of the aisle.

Speaker 34 And so good for him, good for is it Netflix that's bringing him on?

Speaker 18 Yeah, yes. Who is it?

Speaker 29 Yeah.

Speaker 17 The thing that's more troubling is the following.

Speaker 7 There's nothing wrong with if Amazon decides, in terms of programming, to bring on whatever shows they want from the past that help

Speaker 34 cement their value proposition.

Speaker 52 The problem is that, okay, we have

Speaker 22 what appears to be Amazon paying, overpaying for the Melania Trump documentary.

Speaker 31 Absolutely.

Speaker 11 In that case,

Speaker 22 we have Jeff Bezos giving a million dollars to the inaugural campaign and under what feels like duress.

Speaker 29 We have also

Speaker 30 a kind of strange ironic timing where the owner, the same guy of the Washington Post, has decided they don't need to have an opinion section, which feels very, very, quite frankly, like he's acquiesced in a pressure from Trump.

Speaker 22 So the problem is that if we end up in a situation where every person in power starts to take, if you will, kind of soft bribes in exchange for possibly exonerating that company from certain regulation or tariffs, You just, you have, you end up with one of the reasons India has not, quite frankly, kept pace with China.

Speaker 17 20 years ago, most analysts would have said, half of analysts 20, 30 years ago would have said the next enormous growth economy, half would have said China, half would have said India.

Speaker 19 India is a democracy, English speakers, huge emphasis on education, strong with tech.

Speaker 17 It wasn't immediately obvious that China was going to absolutely crush India in terms of growth.

Speaker 22 But here's one of the big problems with India.

Speaker 35 It is wildly fucking corrupt.

Speaker 52 And local officials and politicians extract a lot of unfair rents from businesses, which makes everyone less competitive and creates incentives for more and more corruption.

Speaker 60 China, on a regular basis, finds corrupt officials and business people and executes them.

Speaker 14 Probably not the right way to go, but

Speaker 17 they are very serious about corruption, and that creates a more robust, competitive workplace.

Speaker 62 We are headed more towards India right now than we have been in the past.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 11 Oh, that's, I was not expecting this, this India move. This is really interesting.
I would agree. This is, um, I, the Melania thing is such, it feels like such grift.
I mean, they don't own it.

Speaker 11 The money is ridiculous. They're not going to get the watching out of it.
I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's whack when it's a bribe. That felt like a bribe.

Speaker 11 The Washington Post thing certainly did and it continues to do. By the way, they lost their very, the, the, the very excellent head of public relations and communications left, who's a pro.

Speaker 11 So many people are leaving there.

Speaker 11 Ruth Marcus, also a columnist, great columnist, one of their most popular columnists left when they spiked a piece that was mild at best, which she published in the New Yorker.

Speaker 11 She's been there forever. She was there when I was at the Washington Post.
The Apprentice, I'm going to say

Speaker 11 it's a reasonable enough decision, I guess, for that one. But you're right.
This

Speaker 11 looks like payments to Donald Trump in some fashion or ways to get an advantage with him in some way,

Speaker 11 especially at Amazon, all told.

Speaker 19 Don't forget, this is the guy that essentially opened a Swiss bank account that any foreign entity could deposit money into and only Donald Trump gets the receipts and knows what is going into that bank account.

Speaker 8 And it's called the Trump coin.

Speaker 59 He basically set up the ultimate vessel for quiet,

Speaker 53 off-record bribes.

Speaker 7 And where do we go?

Speaker 53 A lot of Republicans will claim, and I think there's a real argument here, Scott, we're just less opaque about it than Democrats.

Speaker 17 We cut out the middlemen of lobbyists and of special interest groups and of people giving speeches.

Speaker 29 Oh, they get

Speaker 29 a lot of people.

Speaker 24 What are you talking about anyway?

Speaker 21 Well, but it's theoretically, it's a fair argument.

Speaker 34 And this is where I just want to bust the solutions.

Speaker 40 I think the right solution here is Singapore, and that is, I believe every congressperson and every senator should be paid a million to $3 million a year.

Speaker 20 I think the president should be paid $10 million a year.

Speaker 21 But in exchange for that, there is absolutely zero, zero corruption.

Speaker 56 No speeches, no payments.

Speaker 13 Can't work for a lobbyist for five years after you get out of office.

Speaker 66 No trading of stocks.

Speaker 67 Just fucking nothing.

Speaker 29 Because

Speaker 35 the incentives here are unfortunately, I'm a very powerful person, and I don't make enough money to have a home back in Newport Beach and in D.C.

Speaker 26 And the incentives are quite frankly just to kind of file with the ethics committee.

Speaker 35 Maybe they say, oh, you're not supposed to trade stocks.

Speaker 31 The penalties are really low.

Speaker 30 We have to have a zero tolerance for this and dramatically increase their compensation.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I do.
It's what I was sort of yelling about last week: they're not getting their advantage through innovation and products.

Speaker 11 They're getting their advantage through access. And that's a bad sign.
It's a bad sign for an industry.

Speaker 11 It's a bad sign that this is where they're putting their focus and not on what they're making.

Speaker 11 And it just, it looks like, you know, pigs at the trough is what happens. Anyway,

Speaker 11 it's not a surprise, but I'll be interested to see how The Apprentice does. Actually, I really like The Apprentice as a program, although I knew it was all cooked.
It was like watching wrestling.

Speaker 11 And apparently, he was handed every single remark he made on The Apprentice. People who worked there told me that.

Speaker 36 I never watched The Apprentice.

Speaker 25 I never saw it.

Speaker 11 I don't know how it would be interesting now. It'll feel like such a throwback.
I'm going to watch a couple of them to see because I did watch them all and I really enjoyed them at the time.

Speaker 11 But then when you go back and watch things you used to watch, you're like, how in the world did I ever watch that? Like Three's Company.

Speaker 11 Go do that for a little test for yourself and you'll be like, oh my God,

Speaker 11 this is not keeping up.

Speaker 24 Come and knock on our door.

Speaker 30 It's basically the running joke was that the guy was supposed to be gay.

Speaker 20 I mean, that was

Speaker 18 incredibly homophobic, pretty sexist, and yet you still really like John Ritter.

Speaker 11 Yeah, you did. Anyway, don't watch that show.
You won't feel good. I don't think you can get it.
Maybe, maybe Amazon will buy it.

Speaker 68 You know what show disappointed me the most when I went back?

Speaker 30 My favorite show, speaking of an obsession with death, my absolute favorite show, no joke, was Six Feet Under.

Speaker 18 Did you ever watch that? Of course they did.

Speaker 24 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 43 It was that, I remember thinking, this is such incredible creative.

Speaker 17 I thought almost every show, it made you feel, really feel something.

Speaker 8 And then it came back on, I think, AMC or something, with commercial breaks, and it just absolutely ruined it.

Speaker 30 And you recognize it was the first time I thought people don't realize that streaming's real advantage is no commercials, that storytelling is so much easier when every nine to 11, but that's what's so amazing about Modern Family is they imagine they're able to keep the thread, even though they have to interrupt it every 11 minutes with medication telling you you have restless legs.

Speaker 11 I know. I have a hard time with ads now.
It's weird when I see them on the show. I was up late last night watching Hobbes and Shaw, but they kept having commercials and I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 11 I was like, what do I do now? Why am I waiting for this? Anyway, speaking of things that are perplexing to me, and I know

Speaker 11 Jess yesterday liked it, but I have a new argument against what she said. California Governor Gavin Newsom had none other than Steve Bannon on his podcast.

Speaker 11 The two kept up a reasonably friendly tone, and Newsom didn't push back when Bannon claimed Trump won the 2020 election.

Speaker 11 He did the same with Charlie Kirk and Michael Savage, some things they said that were just absolute nonsense lies, really, essentially.

Speaker 11 And didn't mention, for example, Kirk's.

Speaker 11 He has a wide range of terrible things he said that are really just awful. Their hour-long conversation was mostly focused, this abandoned one, on economic issues and areas of common ground.

Speaker 11 One of those areas, Elon Musk, let's listen to a clip.

Speaker 69 Forgive me, but what's his end game?

Speaker 71 I mean, you know, I know you, look, he wants to be the first trillionaire in the world.

Speaker 72 I mean, what's his end game here?

Speaker 54 Well, you know it. You guys, you created him, a governor.
I mean, you.

Speaker 71 By the way, in many respects, California did. It was our regulatory process and our subsidies to create this market.

Speaker 69 You're 100% right.

Speaker 24 I think you're right.

Speaker 11 Newsom Newsome isn't the only one making podcasts this week. Former First Lady Michelle Obama has launched a video podcast with Obama's meeting, the Obama's media company, Higher Ground.

Speaker 11 It's with her brother. The podcast IMO, which will focus on, it's in my opinion, on thoughtful conversations about life, is co-hosted with her brother, Craig Robinson.
The Newsom one,

Speaker 11 and I texted him about it, I had a lot of problem with because I understood his need to talk across the aisle with people.

Speaker 11 First of all, there's a lot of people he could talk to that don't constantly lie, and his first three guests are really problematic in that regard.

Speaker 11 But if you're going to do that, you have to like address the real differences and not debate them, but point them out, factual inaccuracies. And his sort of jocular tone is not, I found it,

Speaker 11 I feel like it's just a political, he's doing it only for politics and to reach out to mega

Speaker 11 voters, perhaps.

Speaker 11 I'm perplexed by the entire endeavor

Speaker 11 and said so to him.

Speaker 11 What are your thoughts?

Speaker 22 I think it's really smart.

Speaker 11 I know you think that.

Speaker 29 Really smart.

Speaker 18 Hey, look,

Speaker 34 first off, it's super important that

Speaker 52 we mix.

Speaker 42 It's super important that people from the right and the left, I'd love to see a giant, I'm going to go back.

Speaker 19 As always, I like to read everything in a personal parable that's kind of relevant adjacent.

Speaker 26 I was president of the Inner Fraternity Council, which is like king of the jarheads back at UCLA.

Speaker 7 I was, quote unquote, the head of the governing body that oversaw the Greek system.

Speaker 22 And my big idea, it was a time when there was a lot of tension between the fraternities, which were mostly, most, obviously all male, mostly white.

Speaker 20 And we used to have these stupid theme parties that were racist and it would inflame special interest groups who saw us and the administration that saw us as an easy target.

Speaker 7 And the paper was always talking about what awful people we were.

Speaker 17 Some of it deserved.

Speaker 25 And my big idea was like, let's take the Black Students Alliance and MECHA, which was the Latino group, and let's all get together and have beers or get together and play sports together, but let's mix.

Speaker 22 And of course, they're like, we want nothing to do with you fucking weirdos.

Speaker 63 But I think it's really important that people from different political views get together.

Speaker 30 I think it creates empathy with one another.

Speaker 8 Now, what you're saying is to let just say Biden was not, Biden did not win the 2020, that requires a more honest, hard pushback that says, okay, what evidence actually do you have of that?

Speaker 19 And you're saying you didn't do that.

Speaker 43 But in terms of just strategically for Governor Newsom,

Speaker 21 it's super smart.

Speaker 57 He's leveraging a new medium.

Speaker 31 He's going after new voters.

Speaker 42 He's meeting voters and people where they are on podcasts.

Speaker 26 And also, the tension and the conflict,

Speaker 49 that's part of the reason this show is successful.

Speaker 8 We're not politically aligned on a lot of things.

Speaker 63 And the fact that he can talk about stuff, he one, shows it's smart.

Speaker 59 Two, he appeals to moderates.

Speaker 37 Three, he's very good going kind of, I don't want to say behind enemy lines.

Speaker 14 I think if he wants to be president, which I believe he does, America is going to want someone that they think at the end of the day can sit down with people from pretty far differing perspectives and have a reasonable conversation.

Speaker 67 And he's showing that. All right.

Speaker 11 Perspectives, different perspectives. I agree.
I think that's fine. I think that's great.
But let me just read. Oliver Darcy wrote a column that I thought was perfect, actually.

Speaker 11 The harm, of course, isn't just that Newsom is failing to challenge his guests as they lie about important topics topics to a sizable audience.

Speaker 11 It's that he's actively contributing to the normalization of extremists by treating them as serious policy thinkers instead of dangerous right-wing talkers who have caused immense damage to our country.

Speaker 11 Figures like Bannon, Kirk, and Savage aren't merely conservatives with different policy views.

Speaker 11 They're performers whose platforms are built on deliberate deceptions, dangerous lies, and hostility towards basic democratic principles.

Speaker 11 By inviting them onto his show without seriously challenging their rhetoric, Newsom has introduced these dishonest figures to new audiences, and he's done it while portraying them as serious voices who deserve respect and consideration.

Speaker 11 Now, he also goes on: I'm going to finish this part, is Newsom's friendly approach also represented a possible missed opportunity.

Speaker 11 Real dialogue across political divides can have value, but only when there's actual accountability.

Speaker 11 Hard-hitting questioning, challenging of false narratives, and yes, fact-checking would have made for an interesting show.

Speaker 11 Imagine how Jon Stewart or John Oliver would have interrogated the positions of

Speaker 11 these far-right-wing personalities. Had Newsom engaged in this style of interview, his podcast would have served a valuable purpose, exposing rather than amplifying dishonest media.
figures.

Speaker 11 It would have been far more interesting than watching him bro it up with MAGA World.

Speaker 11 And he did come to the same conclusion.

Speaker 11 It's a move that frankly suggests he values his own political future more than holding some of the world's most toxic media figures accountable for their corrosive impacts on society.

Speaker 11 In his sense, this podcast revealed quite a lot about his character that he's willing to do in the pursuit of power. I really hate to say that, but I would agree with that.

Speaker 11 I don't see a plus. I see, you know, I like when there's debates across things, but these are unreliable and disingenuous people that are doing things to advantage

Speaker 11 stories that aren't true. And that's the, and this is what Jess and I argued about when you guys were staring at us, because you spend all your time

Speaker 11 solving the lie and then you don't actually have a discussion.

Speaker 45 Yeah, I mean, I hear that and I'm like, let's clutch our pearls a little harder.

Speaker 18 It's not a clutch pearls. Oh, yeah, it is.

Speaker 28 For God's sake, we can have

Speaker 21 Steve.

Speaker 66 Steve Bannon served, was a senior advisor to the president.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was a liar.

Speaker 48 Okay, let me be clear.

Speaker 65 I don't like the man.

Speaker 57 He said publicly that Trump's administration should sue me.

Speaker 26 I do not want Steve Bannon to be successful.

Speaker 13 He had a very senior role in the previous administration.

Speaker 42 He is very smart, and he says some batshit, crazy things.

Speaker 27 The problem here was that Governor Newsom should have been able and been more prepared to really push back and say, what you said here makes no sense.

Speaker 42 Can you please tell us what your thinking is?

Speaker 24 But we absolutely need more.

Speaker 76 Okay, the platform argument, you don't give Alex Jones a platform.

Speaker 27 You don't give the Tate brothers a platform.

Speaker 30 I said to Pierce Morgan when I was on the show, I'm like, why do you bring this guy on?

Speaker 60 You're just adding legitimacy, having him sit next to you on TV.

Speaker 15 Guys like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, look, Democrats, get over it.

Speaker 40 And by the way, I would like to see a lot of these crazy, you know, a lot of the more right podcasters bring on AOC.

Speaker 67 And the thing,

Speaker 5 you're a great interviewer.

Speaker 51 Governor Newsom is not.

Speaker 13 And what you are able to do is the following.

Speaker 35 And you guys have to thread a very fine needle.

Speaker 7 And that is people aren't going to come on and be made a fool of.

Speaker 60 and get into a shouting match.

Speaker 21 So you have to show a little bit of respect. And at the end of the day, if they keep lying, you have to say, okay, I don't believe that's true, but you move on.

Speaker 7 And you try to be hospitable and a good host and present people in their best light.

Speaker 60 And I think he erred on the side of not pushing back where he probably should have.

Speaker 21 But I think this is a really healthy thing.

Speaker 31 I think we need more of this, not less of it.

Speaker 11 I like when Pete Buttigieg goes on Fox News. I like when Newsom was doing that with, you know, when he did a good job, Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 11 That was a really interesting debate, okay? Because he pushed back. thoughtfully.
I don't mind pushing thoughtful discussions. I don't, in fact, a lot of journalists have interviewed Steve Bannon.

Speaker 11 I get it. I get why you should do it.
The jocular stuff and pretending those things, these people specifically do these things as, you know, as a way to manipulate people. They aren't doing it.

Speaker 11 They're doing it not because of their beliefs. They're doing it to tickle MAGA in some way.
And I just think if you are going to do this, then act like you did with Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 11 Show some preparation. Show some, I don't expect him to be a journalist, but I don't expect him to pretend this never happened.

Speaker 18 And that's

Speaker 18 what we're doing.

Speaker 76 It was how he handled the interview, not whether he should have been murdered.

Speaker 11 I didn't, I don't think he shouldn't. What I do think he should do is do the job he did before.
And I was perplexed as to why it was like all joking, all joking.

Speaker 18 Oh, don't we all get along?

Speaker 11 And I think some of these people, particularly Bannon, is, I think about whether I would do an interview with him or not. And part of me, you know, I think I made the joke, you you know,

Speaker 11 is it good to ask, you know, like, cause he, cause he's warring with Musk. So everyone's like, oh, you should talk to him.

Speaker 11 I don't know if that's enough common ground to really have anything that's thoughtful in any way, because you're constantly spending your entire interview fixing the lie and then the story, then the conversations about the lie versus actual policy debate.

Speaker 55 But even that, even that, I've been asked, or

Speaker 19 so one of the shows we go on a lot,

Speaker 30 sometimes the panelists, I think, like, I just can't keep up with the stream of falsehoods. I'm not going to be able to respond without

Speaker 22 fact-checking real time.

Speaker 52 But even what you said, I think, is valuable to say, look, so much of what you're saying does not sound right.

Speaker 47 And we can't, and there's so much of it that we can't keep up with fact-checking.

Speaker 36 I think even that's a fair statement to say, you're just flooding the zone.

Speaker 17 It feels like you're flooding the zone with non-truths.

Speaker 59 But really good, really good interviews are able to say, well, actually, I think of when this

Speaker 22 fairly famous venture capitalist who moved from San Francisco to Miami and started shit posting California long enough such that he could get a reduction in capital gains when he sold a stock,

Speaker 20 went on CNBC and started basically lying about the earnings of Opendoor, basically saying it was profitable when it wasn't.

Speaker 16 And Deidre Bolsa fact-checked him real time.

Speaker 14 She's like, no, you can't say this company is profitable.

Speaker 28 It's not.

Speaker 21 She was so prepared, or there was a producer in her ear going, that's not true, push back on that.

Speaker 14 She essentially real time said, our viewers, I don't want you to lie to our viewers over and over.

Speaker 19 We're talking about people's wealth and stock trades. And two or three times she would stop him and say, that's just not true.

Speaker 54 With politics, it's harder because some of it is subjective, right? I mean, but if you're going to say, like you said, the election.

Speaker 65 I mean, that to me is just a softball.

Speaker 42 Like, please show me the evidence that contradicts the 62 court cases where the judges, including Republican-appointed judges and Trump-appointed judges, said there was no evidence of election fraud.

Speaker 11 That's all I wanted. That's essentially, when he did the dissenting, when he goes on Fox, I don't think he's hostile.
I think he's having a great conversation, actually.

Speaker 11 I don't think he's like, gotcha. I just was like, what happened to that, Gavin? Like, what in the world happened? And when he announced this, I thought, great idea.

Speaker 11 You would, you do very well in those environments and the conversations must be had.

Speaker 11 But this was, I i just don't know what he's up to here because it's not the guy who goes on fox news it's not the guy who um wades into you know people he disagrees with i do know california does need um this funding from the trump administration i see that he has to be a little more solicitous of these people but at the same time um and and and he kind of wants to deneuter them before he runs.

Speaker 11 And so he doesn't get all the flack that they may, they will inevitably aim at the next Democratic presidential presidential nominee.

Speaker 30 Speaking of the apprentice, I asked my master, if I shave my ass, does that mean I'm gay?

Speaker 21 And he says, he who is cleaning his house is expecting visitors.

Speaker 27 Oh, that's wrong.

Speaker 21 That's really, that's awful.

Speaker 18 I kind of like that.

Speaker 11 That's perfect.

Speaker 18 That's perfect.

Speaker 56 That's my way of saying we need to segue out of the story.

Speaker 11 We do. I do.
But I do wish he had done what he had done with DeSantis and others, and he's not doing that here.

Speaker 13 You got the last word. This is called our relationship.

Speaker 18 You got the last word.

Speaker 11 He should also have left-wing figures he disagrees with.

Speaker 18 Anyway, apparently they won't go on.

Speaker 11 He told me they won't go on anything.

Speaker 23 I know.

Speaker 62 Get AOC on and Bernie.

Speaker 11 No, she'd kick his ass.

Speaker 43 Plus, can you imagine the two of them together?

Speaker 23 Oh, my God.

Speaker 26 Don't you just hope they both get naked and go out.

Speaker 18 No, I don't. No, I don't in any way.

Speaker 18 And we're out.

Speaker 40 See, Governor Newson and Representative Ocasio-Cortez.

Speaker 11 You know how to get me out of a conversation by making a ridiculous remark about the sexiness.

Speaker 31 Oh, God.

Speaker 37 And you know what I want? I would want them to have 40 or 50 kids.

Speaker 77 They'd become my army and we'd take over Australia and I would be the general consulate of Australia and

Speaker 11 they would barbecue you on the Outback by then. You would have been gone on the Outback.
Okay, Scott, let's take a quick break. Now you know how to get me out of a conversation.

Speaker 11 We come back to Trump's chaotic tariffs.

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Speaker 11 Scott, we're back with the ongoing tariff whiplash.

Speaker 11 The EU and Canada announced billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs on Wednesday after President Trump's levies on steel and aluminum went into effect.

Speaker 11 The markets continue their roller coaster ride, fluctuating with all the tariff pivots.

Speaker 11 Speaking of pivots, which you and I called red light, green light on Anderson Cooper last night, but steadying slightly with positive inflation report, but people are still expecting inflation to rise.

Speaker 11 I'll note we're recording this Thursday morning, so Trump may change his mind on tariffs several more times before our listeners hear this.

Speaker 11 We'll get into recession concerns, which I'm calling Trump session in a bit. But what do you think will happen?

Speaker 11 What do you think about these tariffs of the last few days? Are markets overreacting or are they getting it right?

Speaker 11 The Wall Street Journal reported on a closed-door gathering of CEOs this week at the business roundtable where an impromptu poll was taken about the economy. Oh, this was the Jeffrey Sonnenfeld one.

Speaker 11 22 percent

Speaker 11 said stocks would have to fall 30% before they would take a stand.

Speaker 11 Jamie Dimon finally did, after saying Trump's get over it on the tariffs, is now saying this is a bad thing. Start with tariffs.

Speaker 22 First off, I think Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is a gift, and he wrote a fantastic opinion piece about how some of these corporate leaders who claim to be leaders and claim to care about America need to speak up.

Speaker 62 And there haven't been that many, many.

Speaker 55 And congratulations to Jamie for kind of stepping into the void and saying what's on everybody's mind.

Speaker 20 I think you're going to see more of it.

Speaker 27 Look, tariffs are the following.

Speaker 27 They're not universally bad.

Speaker 26 If China is charging a tariff on our cars, we get to charge a tariff on their cars until we both decide to lower tariffs.

Speaker 21 Free trade creates prosperity.

Speaker 43 You can also probably need a tariff to support certain strategic industries.

Speaker 21 We probably should have

Speaker 17 some level of domestic production of steel in case those supply chains are shut down and we need to build tanks or what have you.

Speaker 62 But when, for example, these aluminum and steel tariffs, we tried that in the last Trump administration.

Speaker 19 And what they found is the following: that, okay, let's assume that the additional revenue created by the tariffs, let's assume that the additional revenue captured by Cleveland Cliffs and U.S.

Speaker 52 Steel, our two largest remaining steel manufacturers, their market, their products become more competitive because foreign steel is more expensive.

Speaker 7 So they get more share, more money, more tax revenue, more jobs.

Speaker 29 All right, theoretically, it all works.

Speaker 49 Here's the problem.

Speaker 14 One, consumers, prices get increased.

Speaker 21 Consumers have to pay up to $6,000, $8,000, $12,000 more for a truck with these tariffs, which takes down the demand, which takes down the gross profits of the domestic supplier because their products are more expensive relative to other people's products because we have to increase our input costs.

Speaker 57 There is a reciprocal tariff almost always, meaning that our products become more expensive overseas.

Speaker 7 And what you found with the aluminum steel tariffs is that the increase in the cost of steel made that so many products across America had to increase their prices because steel and aluminum were big inputs, that the increase in prices reduced demand much more than the incremental income gains from the companies that benefit from their products being more competitive.

Speaker 66 In some, in almost every case, tariffs don't work.

Speaker 33 And if you look at what companies do thousands of times a year across the market, they are perfectly trying to calibrate.

Speaker 19 Nike is perfectly trying to calibrate volume times gross margin and figure out the exact peanut butter and chocolate combination for shareholders.

Speaker 21 All right, if we sold, if we lowered our prices and took our margins down from 30 points to 10 points, we'd double our volume, but we'd end up with less profits.

Speaker 34 So they perfectly attempt or attempt to perfectly calibrate across every market, what is the optimal price relative to volume, relative to margin.

Speaker 61 And when the government comes with tariffs, what they're saying is, hey, company, you're stupid.

Speaker 58 We could take prices up and it wouldn't hurt demand.

Speaker 66 And it never works out that way.

Speaker 23 It usually suppresses demand and revenues in a much greater volume or amount than the increase in revenues.

Speaker 47 It makes us less competitive, it makes us less productive, and it increases costs.

Speaker 68 If you're looking for an elegant way to increase consumer costs while reducing productivity and demand across our products in foreign markets, congratulations.

Speaker 21 This is supersizing Brexit.

Speaker 19 This is the most elegant, efficient way to reduce American prosperity.

Speaker 29 It makes absolutely

Speaker 19 no sense. Sorry, there's a period.

Speaker 18 Professor Galloway gives you his lecture in class.

Speaker 18 Even worse than this?

Speaker 66 Even worse than this?

Speaker 61 Even worse than the tariffs.

Speaker 35 If he said, all right, I'm putting a 10% tariff on everything from China, American companies could go, okay, this is stupid, whatever, but he gets to make this decision.

Speaker 65 But they could plan.

Speaker 63 They could say, okay, the cost of our shoes and our cars is about to go up 12 or 15%.

Speaker 19 We estimate that demand will fall by this, and we can adjust and plan for this.

Speaker 66 But here's what's even worse than these ridiculously stupid tariffs is the uncertainty means that foreign and domestic suppliers can't plan their goddamn business.

Speaker 67 When we were at South by Southwest, a lot of the digital media companies who were off to a great start of the year, right,

Speaker 35 the lack of uncertainty, because, okay, we know Trump's in office, we sort of know, we think we sort of know what to expect, let's get back to business and start spending money.

Speaker 19 2025 started great for digital media companies dependent upon consumer advertising.

Speaker 40 And now their quarter has been blown because some of the biggest advertisers in America, including automobile companies, have all said the following.

Speaker 57 We have no fucking idea what's going on, so we're doing nothing.

Speaker 66 They have told their media planners, until there's more clarity, stop spending money.

Speaker 57 And the lack of certainty, the lack of consistency as a trading partner means every large organization and company in the world is trying to reconfigure their supply chain to be less dependent upon America, which means less money for America.

Speaker 49 The terrorists are bad.

Speaker 66 The uncertainty is even worse. Oh, wow.

Speaker 11 That was a lecture. I just felt like I was macroeconomics back in college right now.

Speaker 18 That was a macroeconomics professor.

Speaker 11 Thank you, Professor Galloway, for that. cogent analysis.
It sucks is what I'm saying.

Speaker 58 Now come by my office hours and I'll help you out.

Speaker 11 Oh, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that.
Don't do that.

Speaker 18 That's wrong. No, that's right.
That's wrong. That's wrong.

Speaker 11 Listen,

Speaker 11 I will give a much shorter thing.

Speaker 11 I was on the Amtrak train when the people were coming back from the business roundtable to New York, and all of them were insulting Trump, every one of them, even if they don't speak out.

Speaker 11 They all said, what a fucking idiot. This uncertainty sucks.
And they were all insulting it and saying, what do we do now?

Speaker 11 Because they talk too loud on an Amtrak train, all these men. They were all men.
And then one woman. And then secondly,

Speaker 11 a CEO of a very big

Speaker 11 public company that is going to be affected by tariffs. And I'm not going to say what it is.
I said, what are you going to do now?

Speaker 11 What are you going to do now? And he said, pass it on to consumers. And I was like, thought so, right? And so it's going to hurt his business.

Speaker 11 He was like, I'm going to have to pass it along to consumers. There's no other way.
And it's going to affect his business across the globe. Absolutely.

Speaker 11 And it was like, this is, we don't know what to do. So we're going to do anything.

Speaker 11 It's going to affect everyone, along with the cuts in government, the sort of non-scalpel-like cuts in government, which would hearten people, the across-the-board cuts where you don't know where it's going to happen with crazy Elon with a chainsaw, same thing.

Speaker 11 Nobody knows because there's, you know, it's interesting because the Department of Education cuts, everyone's like, oh, it's not useful.

Speaker 11 They mostly have privatized much of their research and studies and stuff that's actually somewhat useful to know if things work or not, different testing and things like that.

Speaker 11 That's all been privatized. So that's going to have second and third order effects and mostly across the country, not in Washington.

Speaker 11 And so, although Washington is also going to be affected, so the effects are everywhere. And so that's why there's been a lot of talk of recession lately, which I call a Trump session.

Speaker 11 I'm going to keep saying that word until it catches on, like Bidenomics.

Speaker 11 Though Trump is dancing around that language. Let's listen to what he told Fox Business's Maria Bartaromo earlier this week.

Speaker 11 By the way, Kara Swisher is not a fan of Maria Bartiromo when asked about the possibility of a recession.

Speaker 82 I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big.
We're bringing wealth back to America.

Speaker 21 That's a big thing.

Speaker 82 And there are always periods of

Speaker 69 it takes a little time.

Speaker 82 It takes a little time.

Speaker 82 But I think it should be great for us.

Speaker 11 This issue has been a real hair up his ass, the idea that tariffs will work. He's way back in the smooth hally days.

Speaker 11 But Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick had a different take on tariffs and recession in an interview with CBS News. Let's listen.

Speaker 83 These policies are the most important thing America has ever had.

Speaker 11 So it is worth it.

Speaker 83 It is worth it. A, I don't think the only reason there could possibly be a recession is because of the Biden nonsense that we had to live with.
These policies produce revenues.

Speaker 11 So you're saying when it looks chaotic and unpredictable from the outside, that there actually is a master plan when it comes to these tariffs?

Speaker 83 It is not chaotic. And the only one who thinks it's chaotic is someone who's being silly.

Speaker 11 Oh my God, he's such a clown.

Speaker 34 The most important thing in American history, so our decision to, at huge cost, risk to our

Speaker 62 young men, risk to our economy,

Speaker 19 turning washing machine factories into tank factories overnight, we decided for the second time to enter into World War II and push back on fascism.

Speaker 19 Oh, we decided that this incredible prosperity and rights should be extended to not civil rights. Oh, I'm sorry, but these fucking tariffs are the most important thing America's ever done.

Speaker 23 I know.

Speaker 43 I mean, you just lose so much credibility when you say that.

Speaker 21 And this is so chaotic.

Speaker 22 I don't even know the status of the tariffs right now.

Speaker 77 And I follow this shit.

Speaker 11 I know now, know why this guy is not respected on Wall Street when he opens his mouth. He's such a clown.
He's a suck up to Trump because he's finally relevant.

Speaker 11 He goes around talking about his best friends to Trump in Washington, all over the place.

Speaker 11 He is the thirstiest public official I've ever seen. And it's because he's not beloved on Wall Street.

Speaker 11 And secondly, he's spewing nonsense, just nonsense out of his mouth.

Speaker 57 You know who's the big winner here?

Speaker 26 It's China. You know what China? China has literally deployed dozens, if not hundreds, of their diplomats to the biggest European and Latin American companies.
And they've said the following.

Speaker 57 You may not love us, but you can count on us.

Speaker 42 We like trade, we like commerce, and we do what we say.

Speaker 47 And you know what you're dealing with with us.

Speaker 21 You've been buying all these produce or products or finished products or whatever it might be from the U.S.

Speaker 56 You have no idea how to plan and what to expect from these folks.

Speaker 30 You can count on us.

Speaker 42 This is the deal. We are open for business.

Speaker 33 We love commerce.

Speaker 37 We are a dependable, consistent partner.

Speaker 76 Or even not China.

Speaker 37 Canada is going to do more business with

Speaker 37 this is literally a gift to every major economic power that had to compete against America.

Speaker 67 What they're saying is, America is not competitive because you can't believe what they say.

Speaker 37 And the biggest, the greatest level of damage here isn't even going to show up in the short run.

Speaker 17 Goldman Sachs already took their GDP prediction from 25 down from 2.4 to 1.7.

Speaker 58 It'll be the long-term impacts of when people reconfigure their supply chain and their relationships.

Speaker 51 They're going to be somewhat like remiss to re-engage again.

Speaker 27 This is going to be a structural step down in our credibility across our largest trading partners.

Speaker 65 And trade, no doubt,

Speaker 62 if you don't think about who gets really hurt, you can end up with a really difficult situation.

Speaker 67 And that's where America's been really good on trade.

Speaker 75 Where we're bad is helping out and showing empathy for the people who get, quite frankly, who are on the wrong end of that.

Speaker 21 But on the whole, prosperity just grows.

Speaker 57 We just continue to see that economically over time.

Speaker 57 And people, when they stop buying our products, not because they might be the most competitive in a year, but they're like, we don't know what's going to happen in the next year or two years.

Speaker 11 So do you think a recession is likely at this point? Because again, with this fell in charge, I mean, I'm thinking, Gina Ramundo is so smart, and this guy is so dumb, like actually dumb.

Speaker 11 Like, I think he, when macroeconomics was taking place, he was the one sleeping behind me, the dude sleeping on the desk behind me. That's what it feels like.

Speaker 11 He's not paying attention to almost any obvious thing. And you're right.

Speaker 11 right we didn't take when we did some of these trade deals we didn't think of the effects here enough and figured out how to retrain and get people into new jobs and things that were more competitive and figure out what advanced manufacturing we could do here with our population and et cetera etc

Speaker 11 this is an opportunity for China so do you you know and the second thing is people worried about their 401ks and portfolios during this volatility I mean do you think there's going to be a recession very briefly and then what would you say to people with this with the stock market warren buffett looks like a genius terra suck i'm in cash look who looks like he is the goat.

Speaker 11 He should be comer. He should be president, but anyway.

Speaker 19 Economists, and I don't consider myself an economist, but quote-unquote academics have predicted nine of the last three recessions.

Speaker 30 It's very hard to tell, because you could have AI finally get real traction in the economy and massively increase productivity, which results in economic growth that overcompensates for these ridiculous tariffs.

Speaker 19 And we have a tendency to sometimes overestimate the power of the president and his policies on this unbelievable engine called the American economy that

Speaker 57 usually over the medium and long term sort of figures out away.

Speaker 47 So I think it's dangerous to

Speaker 17 predict a recession. What was your second question, Karen?

Speaker 11 What would you do? You know, you're in the stock market, just leave it in the market.

Speaker 43 The only thing I would consider is the following.

Speaker 21 And that is, if this stat just blew my mind.

Speaker 54 If you add in corporate debt, so people have heard that the market capitalization of U.S.

Speaker 7 stocks now represents 50% of total equity value globally, which is extraordinary.

Speaker 19 But if you add in corporate debt, because the enterprise value of a company is its market cap, say $100 million, plus if it has $50 million in debt, the market is saying that this company is worth $150 million because we're giving it $100 million in equity value, despite the fact it also owes $50 million.

Speaker 19 We're saying it's worth $150 million.

Speaker 27 If you add in all corporate debt and the world is worth $100,

Speaker 49 America costs $70 right now, and the rest of the world, Sans, the U.S., costs $30.

Speaker 42 So if someone said to you, Kara Swisher, you can either buy America for $70 or the rest of the world

Speaker 29 for $30.

Speaker 24 Which would you? You'd buy the rest of the world.

Speaker 54 And so, what I'm doing is the following.

Speaker 66 First off, I think you're always invested in the markets.

Speaker 26 Don't try and time them.

Speaker 37 You are not Warren Buffett.

Speaker 19 And when people predict a recession, oftentimes the market goes up 20 or 30 percent.

Speaker 56 And also, you have to take into account whether you're going to trigger a taxable gain on your taxable event on your income games.

Speaker 37 What I would suggest, and this is not financial advice, but what I am doing: 70 versus 30, I am pulling money out of the U.S.

Speaker 77 and I'm putting into low-cost, diversified index funds in non-U.S.

Speaker 19 markets.

Speaker 37 Because while index funds will diversify you, if you're just in an SP or a NASDAQ index fund, you're actually not that diversified because typically when the markets get this expensive in America, for the next five or 10 years, you have 0% returns.

Speaker 21 European stocks haven't been this cheap in a long time.

Speaker 75 American stocks haven't been this expensive in a long time.

Speaker 65 So what I would say is one, I don't think you should go to cash.

Speaker 47 I just don't think you can time the markets.

Speaker 34 But what I would suggest is thinking about diversifying across geographies, not just asset classes.

Speaker 11 Yeah, excellent, excellent advice. Professor Galloway, this was a very professorial.

Speaker 11 I used to fall asleep in Mac Crock and I was like, It's that meth I did this morning.

Speaker 38 I was like this.

Speaker 11 I was like this.

Speaker 11 I used to do that. It was at 8:10 in the morning.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We'll be back and to chat about Trump and Elon Hawking Teslas at the White House.

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Speaker 11 Scott, we're back with our second big story. The beautiful bromance of Elon and Trust continues.
That's from our producers. The rest of us worry about dismantling of our government.

Speaker 11 President Trump is focused on a very important task, promoting sales of Teslas. After posting on True Social Tuesday morning, he said he would buy a Tesla to support Musk.
I bet he hasn't.

Speaker 11 Trump welcomed Elon and a fleet of Teslas to the White House. The president had a cheat sheet of notes, and kudos to that photographer who got that picture in his hands while praising the company.

Speaker 11 Let's listen to what he thought when he sat in one of the cars. And

Speaker 11 by the way, he hates EVs. He said he actually hates EVs.
He doesn't drive, et cetera, et cetera. So this was why this was precious.

Speaker 71 This is a different panel than I've had.

Speaker 83 Everything's computer.

Speaker 11 Oh my gosh, he hasn't ever been inside

Speaker 11 a car in like a long time. It's real, I mean, a car looks like that.
Tesla stock is down 26% the last month at the time of the taping.

Speaker 11 It had a bump from Trump, but most people just, there were two analyst reports showing that Tesla's in real trouble

Speaker 11 that are taking the stock price down quite considerably. Although it's hard to bet against Tesla because of like stunts like this.

Speaker 11 Scott, did you know that there's a computer in a Tesla? Just what the fuck?

Speaker 11 What do you think of this stunt?

Speaker 23 Look, we have a bias, but

Speaker 54 this to me just seemed fucking ridiculous that the president of the United States would decide to do an infomercial for one brand and not all other American brands.

Speaker 26 It's one thing if he and the Commerce Secretary were to stand in front of a bunch of American-made EVs, including Tesla. I think Biden screwed up not including Tesla in the EV Summit.

Speaker 74 That was just, that was punitive the other way.

Speaker 35 That was playing favorites the other way.

Speaker 48 But when you basically do one of these bad local, you know, I'm crazy Bob, come down to Bob's Ford and Lincoln Mercury for a crazy deal.

Speaker 11 0% down, whatever, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 19 Yeah, I was joking that you can lease to own America for $285 million.

Speaker 29 It's just,

Speaker 19 this is stupid and goes back to the notion that this kind of shit should not be allowed.

Speaker 49 It reflects poorly on America.

Speaker 77 It reflects poorly on Trump.

Speaker 31 And

Speaker 56 the thing I don't get about Musk, who is so, obviously has has such an unbelievable feel for business, is that 75% of Republicans say they would never buy an EV.

Speaker 35 If he was just purely, quote-unquote, economically driven, which I think he is, I think he would have gone blue pill.

Speaker 21 Because the marketplace, I always use the example.

Speaker 63 We talked about this.

Speaker 75 When Nike went political, it was a smart move because they tickled the sensors of the core market.

Speaker 34 He's pissing off his core market.

Speaker 47 I just don't, I don't understand his endgame here as Gavin Newson.

Speaker 11 I think he's uninterested in Tesla. I think he's uninterested in Tesla anymore.

Speaker 11 I don't know what else because they haven't innovated on the product. I know everybody sort of looks at the polarization that he's created and

Speaker 11 he's repulsing his customers and he's not going to attract the ones who like him now, right? They don't want, they're not, they may like him. They're not going to buy his car.

Speaker 11 They might. I mean, they might, I guess, but I doubt it.
Sean Hannity supposedly bought one, whatever. And he's like, it goes, it goes fast.
I was like, these are good cars. That said, you know what?

Speaker 11 I complained again to Dara Khosrashahi. I was like, I just ordered an Uber black and a Tesla showed up and they're still not luxury cars.

Speaker 11 Now I'm making the argument to him. It's not a luxury car.
It's very tinny and a bumpy ride. And if I wanted a luxury car, send me an actual luxury car if I'm paying for it.
But that said, I think

Speaker 11 it was pathetic. But now, interestingly, if support

Speaker 11 doesn't do what Elon was hoping in the long term, which was at least stabilize Tesla's shares, which are drifting down, I suspect they're going to be be drifting down again.

Speaker 11 It's not the only way the president is attempting to help him. Trump also said he would label attacks against Tesla dealerships domestic terrorism.

Speaker 11 Nobody likes these attacks. These are stupid.

Speaker 11 They're allowed to protest.

Speaker 11 And the fact that he's calling, he's trying to sort of link regular protests with domestic terrorism is ridiculous, but attacking you know, charger facilities, et cetera, is just violent is what it is.

Speaker 11 It's not terrorism. It's just obnoxious and illegal, and those should be arrested.
And Elon Musk is paying back the favors.

Speaker 11 He reportedly plans to give $100 million to President Trump's political operation that Trump can control rather than Musk.

Speaker 11 During the election, Musk donated over $250 million to his pro-Trump super PAC that he controlled. He made up that $100 million in the rise in Tesla stock after Trump did this infomercial.

Speaker 11 But it feels so pay-to-play. It's like so right in front of you.

Speaker 11 And I agree. Biden should have included a Tesla in that particular event at the White House.

Speaker 11 And, you know, someone was arguing that presidents always promote different American products, but not like this.

Speaker 11 This was like, it was, plus he didn't know how cars worked, which made him seem older and more like an old man.

Speaker 11 I think that also was weird. His discomfort inside of a car felt very, I don't know, it gave me like a like a Biden feel, like a doddering old man kind of.
And he's,

Speaker 11 I think he is much more vibrant, obviously, than Biden. Any other thoughts about this money that's going back and forth between these two?

Speaker 25 There's

Speaker 36 it really is.

Speaker 21 I mean, it's so passe, but money and politics and just what feels like a straight pay-for-play and all the incentives are.

Speaker 19 I mean, I've said this for a long time.

Speaker 17 The thing that so has horrified me about our representatives and our Congress is not that they're whores, not that if you give them money, you get audience with them.

Speaker 8 I've known that for a long time.

Speaker 34 It's what incredibly cheap whores they are.

Speaker 64 And that is, if you give 10 to 25 grand to every senator, I bet more than half would meet with you when you swung by Washington.

Speaker 50 And influence is a function of proximity and intimacy.

Speaker 60 You have audience with people

Speaker 7 who get to levy or are the arbiters of the largest person in history.

Speaker 30 So the incentives are.

Speaker 36 Jeb Bezos

Speaker 19 or Mark Zuckerberg look at these investments and go, this is the best investment in history.

Speaker 47 A million bucks for his inauguration campaign, and he stops threatening to put me in jail, or he's going to not try and break me up, or he's going to tell the F2C or the DOJ to hands off Amazon or whoever.

Speaker 65 This is the best money spent.

Speaker 14 Unless you have systemic

Speaker 47 laws and regulation that says, no, we pass laws that affect all companies.

Speaker 57 We're not allowed to play favorites.

Speaker 23 It's just a race to the bottom where everyone's like, all right, let's give him a giant medal and award and build a gold statue of him and give $10 million to his electoral campaign.

Speaker 34 And the problem is that favors the incumbents because they're the ones that have all the power.

Speaker 64 And anybody who says, no, I'm standing up for American values.

Speaker 47 I'm not going to take this money, they're at a huge disadvantage.

Speaker 17 And we end up with a majority of our elected officials are willing to engage

Speaker 47 in this grift, in this trade.

Speaker 11 As far as you can see.

Speaker 11 You know, it's interesting because there is a point to be made that, you know, other politicians are getting paid under the table and this is explicit, but it's gross no matter how it happens.

Speaker 11 And it doesn't look like it's about the products, right? It never, it's not about what's best. It's who can pay me the most.

Speaker 11 And that, you know, that's the, we're not focused on making things that are good. We're focused on who owes the money.

Speaker 11 And that, we all know that about American politics, but it's not implicit or explicit. It's grotesque is what it is.

Speaker 19 You know who is, just one example, you know who's doing this, right?

Speaker 22 University of California.

Speaker 19 I owe the owe California taxpayers a lot.

Speaker 47 I've given some money to UCLA and to Berkeley, and both the chancellors of UCLA and Berkeley called me and said, one, thank you, and two, I just need you to know this.

Speaker 17 Your kid is less likely to get in now that you have given money.

Speaker 30 They are not only so like, you know, worried about conflicts of interest and abusing the public purse, that if you give over a certain amount of money to the University of California, the chancellor will call you and say, just FYI, your kid is now less likely to get in because we have to be so careful about conflicts and not abusing the public trust.

Speaker 59 And quite frankly, I respect it. Yeah.

Speaker 11 You could call your kid Swisher. You want to change the kid's name to Swisher.

Speaker 38 Trust me, I'll call you.

Speaker 26 That's right.

Speaker 63 You went to a private school where you can still just

Speaker 39 do pay-per-play.

Speaker 44 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 76 But

Speaker 21 that is how you are supposed to respect the power of money you're given.

Speaker 61 This is when

Speaker 43 he favors industries, he's spending your money.

Speaker 48 He's abusing abusing your tax dollars.

Speaker 11 Totally. I don't even know how much that costs.

Speaker 11 That probably costs, like, it's the amount of money this guy just throws away of taxpayer money, like on golfing or his dump military flights of immigrants that are overpriced and then does this, you know, it's just ridiculous.

Speaker 11 And, you know, and the only person that benefited was Elon Musk with the stock going up. And then somewhere, somehow, there's money in.
Trump's pocket every time.

Speaker 17 I think this was bad for the brand.

Speaker 28 I really do.

Speaker 29 I think it just looks good.

Speaker 21 I think it looked desperate. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 11 I would, you know, I really now that you really don't want to own a Tesla. All right, uh, Scott, one more quick break.
We'll be back for predictions.

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Speaker 11 Okay, Scott, let's hear your prediction. And just say, you thought that they're going to break up.
Do you still think that? You said Doge should be over and Elon would be gone. But

Speaker 11 let's hear your prediction first. Well,

Speaker 34 that is my prediction. And that is there's not going to be a breakup.
I think that essentially people keep asking us, as Anderson did last night, when does the relationship end?

Speaker 14 I don't think the relationship ends with a bang.

Speaker 43 I think he just sorts, I think Musk just fades to black.

Speaker 7 One,

Speaker 19 if the president is really serious about the cabinet secretaries now get to make the final decision and Musk is just an advisor to them, that means nothing is going to happen because these cabinet secretaries have a very difficult job.

Speaker 7 They need all of their staff.

Speaker 52 The savings are minimal in comparison to,

Speaker 30 for example, the increase in the deficits from the planned tax cuts.

Speaker 19 If Elon Musk comes back, he's not going to come back with a thoughtful, you could probably cut 1,000 of the 4,500 people from the Department of Education who have overseen national mandatory testing, which most people think has not worked.

Speaker 57 Right intentions has not worked.

Speaker 21 If he came back with thoughtful recommendations, the Department of Education might say, okay,

Speaker 17 that might make sense. But

Speaker 19 he's not there to look at fraud and waste, which, by the way, we've got a clean bill of health on so far because I can't find as much as everyone had anticipated.

Speaker 63 But also, these are not, this isn't about an audit.

Speaker 47 This isn't about efficiency.

Speaker 56 These are political actions.

Speaker 21 When you cut off all U.S.

Speaker 14 aid, it's a political action.

Speaker 21 And political actions are supposed to be

Speaker 59 left to our elected representatives representing the people.

Speaker 21 So if it was, in fact, about efficiency, fine.

Speaker 37 But what he said is if he, in fact, is honest about now, he's just an advisor, he's going to have no power, nothing's going to happen.

Speaker 47 And in addition,

Speaker 35 he is now probably doing the math and going, I miscalculated.

Speaker 21 There are not only is his Tesla sales being hammered, but what he's really scared of has happened. And that is the virus here has jumped the lab to Starlink.

Speaker 42 And that is a lot of big customers are now rethinking their Starlink relationship.

Speaker 19 So what initially was very accretive to his personal wealth has returned. He's lost all that money and the momentum is downward.

Speaker 40 So I think he's basically going to pull a Vivek and just slowly fade away out of, and I think Doge is going to die a quiet death because he has, it looks as if his, his, his power has been emasculated.

Speaker 37 And two, he's just losing so much money right now because of the negative brand halo.

Speaker 62 Well,

Speaker 11 and guess what country has alternatives? China. And Jeff Bezos is working on things.
There's so, yeah, it's a Starlink.

Speaker 11 Now, Starlink is dominant at this point, but, and he keeps saying there's no other alternative. He said that about Tesla.
There's other alternatives. There's going to be other alternatives.

Speaker 11 And then he is up the creek without that proverbial paddle. You're right.
I agree with you. Interesting prediction.
We'll see. There is a staying power.

Speaker 11 There's a weird relationship happening between these two, though, that he stays there, that he's at the White House, the kids around.

Speaker 11 There's something much different here, but I would agree.

Speaker 11 He almost teared up when he was talking about the money he was losing. Even the world's richest man doesn't like to lose tens of billions of dollars on any one day.

Speaker 19 So, Carrie, you know what stock is up?

Speaker 21 The Starlink competitor in Europe, Utelstat, has quadrupled in the last 30 days as these small, inferior product competitors are now viable again because they have an enormous increase in interest from nations and companies that don't want to work with Starlink.

Speaker 34 That stock has gone from a month ago, it was trading at $1.20.

Speaker 11 Buy Europe. That's the Scott Galloway message.

Speaker 34 Today it opened at $6.82.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 14 So you're about to see a massive amount of capital.

Speaker 47 I mean, this is so bad for Starlink.

Speaker 75 You're about to see a massive amount of capital going to other

Speaker 19 satellite and communications providers that, quite frankly, weren't as competitive.

Speaker 37 They weren't as good as Starlink.

Speaker 11 Starlink's a superior product. And by the way, Tesla was a superior product, but he never, he hasn't improved it.

Speaker 11 And again, as I say over and over again, a lot of people are banning Tesla because they're repulsed by Elon Musk, but they have not innovated their product.

Speaker 11 If you have a great product, and in this case, it's the repulsiveness and the danger if you go with him in this case. And that's why Europe is going to abandon him.
And so is Canada.

Speaker 11 Canada has, it's not just that. And there's plenty of, there's going to be plenty of competitors in the Starlink business very soon.

Speaker 54 Anyways,

Speaker 63 there won't be a press announcement, but watch.

Speaker 21 In 30 or 60 days, Doja is going to be surprisingly like not in the news.

Speaker 18 Okay. All right.

Speaker 11 We'll see. I'd be interested.
That would be great. And then they can go to Mars and it'll be great for him to do that.

Speaker 11 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 855-51-PIVOT.

Speaker 11 Scott, that is the show.

Speaker 11 When are you going back to London soon at some point?

Speaker 23 I'm going away for the weekend, and then I go back to London on Sunday.

Speaker 44 How about you? What are you up to? Oh, you know,

Speaker 11 I'm moving my mom to Washington, as I told you. I'm picking her up tonight.

Speaker 11 And then I will be in D.C., but then I'm actually going on a little vacation myself.

Speaker 67 Where are you going?

Speaker 11 Puerto Rico with three of my four children. We're going, and we're going to have a little El UK time and be in Puerto Rico, which should be a state as far as I'm concerned.
I'm excited.

Speaker 11 Amanda loves it. And so we're going to go there.

Speaker 18 I'm kind of

Speaker 18 Puerto Rico.

Speaker 11 I love Puerto Rico. It's beautiful.
It's a beautiful place. It's a really nice place.
And it's in these United States. And people should go there.

Speaker 11 People should go to all the places that were sort of hit by hurricanes too. I like going to places that are in the United States and also deserving of our attention.

Speaker 11 Anyway, I like, I'm not a big vacationer, so I'm excited.

Speaker 51 I'm going.

Speaker 45 The new tariffs on Champagne, I feel bad.

Speaker 30 I'm going to spend more time in St.

Speaker 22 Bart's just

Speaker 43 to be a good citizen.

Speaker 18 Yeah, okay. All right.

Speaker 11 All right, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot.
Read us out.

Speaker 41 Today's show was produced by Larry Amon, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Averro, and Dan Shulon.

Speaker 41 Nishak Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of Audio.

Speaker 27 Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 41 Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 8 You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod.

Speaker 23 We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care.

Speaker 8 Have a great time moving

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