Kamala’s Presidential Run, CrowdStrike’s Meltdown, and Guest Lydia Polgreen

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Well, there's been a lot of news, Scott Galloway.

My goodness.

My goodness.

It happened the way we said, as many people thought it would, that Biden would step down eventually after a lot of grumbling.

We'll obviously talk about the Democratic Party's path forward with Joe Biden stepping down and endorsing Kamala Harris, the vice president.

And in in just a bit, we'll bring in New York Times opinion columnist Lydia Polgreen to talk about what Harris needs to do to win.

Lydia was one of the first to signal this in the New York Times, which was she was kind of an outlier, but now, of course, she's an inlier, I guess.

How are you feeling?

What are your feels, Scott Galloway?

It's nice of you to ask.

I felt a mix of relief, excitement, and sadness.

And

I was actually quite stressed over the week.

You know, in general, I don't know if it's I'm getting older or the world is really a shittier, more unstable place, but between October 7th, Donald Trump, Biden,

I find this all quite, actually, quite stressful.

How are you feeling?

You know, I'm not one to like, it was interesting.

Amanda came home.

She was in Boston for the weekend.

I had the kids all weekend.

And Louis came home, by the way.

He was an amazing help and cooked for us all weekend.

Was I am like, let's just get, this is the oxygen.

Let's fucking deal with whatever it is.

I'm one of those people.

Like, I don't like, I don't, I don't have time to like mourn anything, essentially.

And, and she has been like, oh, what are we going to do?

Just like you, like, what are we going to do?

And, and she came home, she goes, I just want you to know I'm thrilled today.

And she goes, I'm, I'm like, oh, and I was like, good, because, like, this is what we got.

This is what we got.

And let's like make the best of it.

Let's, let's get to work.

And I'm that kind of person.

So that's how I feel.

Like, this is, this has got a lot of interesting possibilities.

Obviously, the Republicans are very nervous, I think.

And they are because it's exciting.

And the fundraising is just indicative of that.

And so,

speaking of fundraising, how many texts did you get from Democrats yesterday?

They got more than $50 million online on Sunday, making it the single biggest day for online Democratic contributions since the 2020 election.

Everybody was waiting.

They didn't want to give it to Biden because they felt sad and like we're going to lose.

They're going to throw the money away.

How many did you get?

Oh,

it's everywhere, but it's exciting.

I do.

I empathize.

I felt like when he first announced, I was just

had this cathodic release of a mix of sadness and relief.

And then as we came into this morning, I just, there's a palpable sense of hope and optimism and excitement.

And one of the stats I love is that Trump immediately boasted that post his conviction, he raised $53 million.

And what it ends up is that 50 million of that came from one person.

Right, right, right.

And

the biggest haul, I believe, in this election cycle so far has happened in the last 24 hours

for Vice President Harris.

So that's very exciting.

And not only that,

it's mostly small donors, which I think people are just really excited to get behind.

Fresh.

Yeah, to get behind, to get behind someone other than Biden and specifically someone other than Trump.

That's right.

It's given them an alternative, especially if she makes the right choices.

Now, you've been lukewarm on her in the past.

Have you changed your...

I have not.

I know her very well, and I really think she's still.

It's not unsung.

It's just she's had a lot of accomplishments that other, like J.D.

Mance has no accomplishments, and he gets touted.

And she has real accomplishments, like real up and down, by the way.

I don't agree with everything she's done, but certainly an accomplished person.

I really like her husband quite a bit.

I think he's fantastic.

And she's not what people think she is.

Like, you know, she's much more conservative.

She's much more,

she's certainly open-minded, but she's not the left-wing.

There's,

she's conservative.

For California, she's conservative.

I'll tell you that.

But anyway,

has it changed your mind at all?

Or is it just her being vaunted there makes her more substantive to you?

I'll give you what I see, the pluses and minuses.

And also, I just want to acknowledge, I think you're a great judge of character, and it's heartening for me that you admire her and think a lot of her.

So here are the pluses.

The reality is we are where we are, and she starts at letter E or F if she just, they just pivot the infrastructure, the field offices, the money, the staff.

I mean,

she doesn't, she starts at not a sprint, or not a gallop, but a canter, right?

It's just the momentum is maintained if she's the pick.

I do think that while Secretary Clinton didn't break the glass ceiling, I think she shattered it.

And I think that America looks back on that election and says, you know,

we were ready for a woman president then, and we're definitely ready for one now.

I really do think people, America is ready for its first female president.

In terms of a race in a competition, I think in terms of brand, it's about offering distinct lines of differentiation.

When she gets on stage with him at a debate, she's going to make him look as old as he made Biden look.

Having a woman of color who's attractive, he's just going to, I mean, the first tweet I put out this morning was that every presidential candidate in history at this age has dropped out.

Donald Trump is too old to be president.

Yeah, I saw that.

Yeah.

I liked me to the all of a sudden, he's the, there's going to be stark relief.

And what's interesting is that just as age was the primary consideration in Trump versus Biden, I actually think it's going to be the primary consideration here, but it's going to be our asset, not our liability.

The brand position I would absolutely go after if I were her is: I'm a prosecutor.

He's a felon.

There is an ad at what she's doing that.

I prosecuted sex crimes.

I fraud.

I would just be like, this is what I did to people who ripped off people.

She put a bunch of degree mill universities out of business and say, this is what Trump did.

He was the degree mill guy.

I would absolutely macho myself up around the AG stuff.

I'm the prosecutor.

He's the felon.

Now, the downside.

She has not been a successful presidential candidate.

She is not battle-tested.

She dropped out before she ever won a single delegate.

She has not resonated with the American people in her role as vice president.

Some people will say that she hasn't been given a fair shot.

There's probably some truth to that.

But I think actually the most...

The most negative thing you could say about her is that I find her staff has done a really bad job of messaging because what they talk about, or what I hear, is that she hasn't been given a fair shake as opposed to saying she's outstanding.

So I think there's nothing's perfect, but I'm sort of at a point where I got to be honest, Kiera,

I just want someone who can beat Trump.

I'm not going to get perfect is not on the menu for me right now.

I think if they wrap her with talented people,

there's not enough time to do that.

Well, they already have that.

By the way, there's not enough time for her to fuck up that much.

That's the one thing is the timeframe is squeezed, right?

And she's the best known person.

She makes the right two things.

She makes the right choice on vice president.

She'll get a lot of credit.

And

there's just, it's just not enough time, but you know her pretty well.

And like one of the things I've noticed is on online, he's popular on crazy Twitter.

She's popular on TikTok.

She's they do the coconut thing.

Everything is in context.

My mother used to, she would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us, I don't know what's wrong with you young people.

You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?

You exist in the context

of all in which you live and what came before you.

And instead of making fun of her, it's people love it.

Someone was telling me that there was a meeting of women of color last night and it started off at 7,000 and then it was 17,000 people, like all excited.

Someone else was telling me who's Indian that the anti-Desi network, the Indian network, has gone crazy.

Like these, these are motivated women that are going to do things.

So what should, first of all, what should Democrats do in the next week from your perspective?

Well, I'm going to push it back to you.

It sounds like you're advocating for what I loosely call a coronation versus a competition.

You think we should all be able to do that?

Why is the word coronation?

She's the obvious choice.

She's the vice president.

She's been speaking of those 14 million votes.

They were voting for Biden, but she was on the ticket.

Sarah, no presidential candidate, with the exception of Gerald Ford, has not been forced or asked to run something resembling a campaign with competition.

I just, I don't think there's time for it, unfortunately.

I think that's a good argument, but let's be honest, it's a coronation, not a competition.

Well,

except that

the people that are picking are the Democratic Party.

It's not just the Pugas.

Which, by the way, there's some problems.

Should it be the party elders making the Well, I heard the Dean Phillips argument.

I heard the Dean Phillips argument that he made.

I'm kind of, quite frankly, I think I at the end of the day, I think I'm on board board with you.

I think I'm just sort of, we've gone through, I feel like we're like

an abused family at this point.

And we've like got some reasonable sense of function back in our household, and we just need to go with it.

You know what I mean?

I'm not.

Well, also, by the way, I don't think we're dysfunctional at all.

I think the Republicans are dysfunctional.

There's so many Republicans who don't want Trump and they can't say anything.

They're in a cult.

Look at J.D.

Vance.

He's had to literally castrate himself for Trump in terms of he's a eunuch.

He used to be anti-Trump.

Then he had to do things.

These people are, this is healthy to argue in public.

But you're, okay, I won't use the word coronation.

You think we should rally around vice president?

I think they have.

You don't want a series of debates to try and battle topics.

I'd be happy.

I'd be happy to have her do that.

I think she's quite good on the stump already.

I think she's done a ton of stuff that you don't see that never gets covered.

But I do think that, sure, but none of the ones, the only person she's going to be debating is Dean Phillips at this point, and maybe Joe Manchin, right?

Because all the others are backing her.

Newsom, Whitmer, Buttigej.

They've all, like, all the ones that would be her competition have, have, have, have pieced out.

Let me ask you a question.

Do you think that was part of the deal?

I don't think they could organize it that fast, but maybe.

They're certainly in touch with each other, I would guess.

Right.

Right.

I wonder if part of the deal was Biden saying, look, this needs to be, part of my legacy is handing it off to my vice president.

And he called all these folks and said, I'm going to drop out and you're going to endorse her within 12 hours.

Cause it all happened pretty fast.

They didn't quite, Obama didn't immediately, hasn't immediately done it.

I think all the candidates were smart from a political perspective.

There's no reason for more chaos at this point, right?

I think it's a good argument.

How is the market going to react to this?

I don't, if the market's been such a unique animal, I don't think it's, I don't see like a ton of what I'd call

good or bad in the market.

I think the market is going to wait and see.

I don't think she's seen as a Bernie Sanders like raise taxes kind of candidate.

At the same time, people, the markets don't seem to be scared of Donald Trump.

They like the fact that they see him as being quote-unquote pro-business.

I would,

quite frankly, I think the markets are just kind of saying, yawn right now.

I don't think there's a clear consensus candidate from the market standpoint.

I don't think they're worried about her comparatively.

I don't think so.

She's friends with rich people.

We just have to remember one thing: record job growth.

Markets touching new highs.

Lowest inflation in the G7, well, the best economic growth.

I mean, the economy economy has been a masterclass the last three and a half years.

And if you were to try and find someone to inherit that economy or that approach to the economy, it would likely be the vice president.

So I don't see the market getting all freaked out.

Yeah, they're not.

She's

not as leftist as you think.

So, Kier, I'm curious what you think vice president will mean for the big tech community.

You know, she's been a mixed bag.

She's not been totally obsequious to them.

And at the same time, she hasn't been that hostile necessarily.

She did a bunch of things around privacy when she was senator, attorney general.

She did a lot of stuff around privacy.

At the same time, she's quite close.

You know, everyone's like, oh, Trump has Elon Musk and that sad little bag of bones, David Sachs or whatever.

And she has Lorraine Powell Jobs.

She's got Cheryl Samberg.

She's got Melinda Gates would be my guest.

She now has Reed Hoffman.

Like she is, she has strong relationships.

She has repeatedly assured donors she's a capitalist.

I believe her.

Her brother-in-law, Tony West, is the chief legal officer of Uber.

I know him very well.

She She and I talked a lot about AI.

And last May, she told Sachinadella, Sam Altman, Sundar Pachai, they had a moral obligation to safeguard against AI as possible dangers.

I don't think they thought she was out of left field saying that.

She was very, you know, she contacts a lot of people, let me say, to get opinions about lots of things.

And so

she sort of approaches it like a prosecutor, right?

And so it's the case.

But she's not anti-tech by any stretch of the imagination.

And

she has just as many rich friends as as Donald Trump has.

And in fact, more so because I don't think they had any relationship with Biden.

And they definitely had a relationship with her.

And then secondly, and I think more importantly, is her husband is a media lawyer in Los Angeles and very well liked.

She lives in Los Angeles.

She has lots of...

friends.

I've seen her at innumerable events with big media people.

She has very good relationships there.

So I think she's, I think she's very well

situated.

She has her billionaires, let me just say.

And I think they're the better class of billionaires.

That's what I would say.

And there are more women in that group, but she's got a lot of women, especially Melinda Gates.

I would suspect the Wojiskis, Sheryl Samberg, and definitely Lorraine Powell Jobs.

So if Harris clinches the nomination, speaking of which, who do you think she gets for the BP slot?

Who do you think she's excited about?

Newsome is not going to be that person.

According to the 12th Amendment, a ticket of two California residents would essentially void the state's 54 electoral votes, according to legal experts.

So who do you, who do you, who's your pick?

I love Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania, swing state, fresh face.

I think he's incredibly articulate.

Is America ready for a non-white woman and a Jew?

I don't know.

I would, I would, I'd love, I absolutely adore Mayor Pete.

I just think he's so,

I think he's so good.

Now, having said that, if we're going to be Machiavellian here, I mean, my literal objective here, 99% of this entire race for me right now is that it's anyone but Trump.

I'm one of those people.

If we were truly fucking strategic, the VP would be Mitt Romney.

No, that's kind of nuts, but okay.

That would drive Democrats crazy.

That will make people unexcited on the Democratic side.

Okay, so they're going to vote for Trump?

No, but still, it doesn't like create excitement.

We have plenty of Democrats on the bench.

Come on.

Okay, but I'm just very, in a, in a very cold, sober analysis, you need, you need to get the, the people are going to decide this race.

Okay, you want enthusiasm, you want donor money, you don't want to compete against the couch, but the race is won by people in the middle.

And I would love to see seven or eight percent of Republicans sucked away from Trump.

All right, I'm going to go with someone who I think would do that, Mark Kelly from Arizona.

He'd be very good.

He'd be very good.

He's a hero.

He's an astronaut.

That's a great pick.

He protects her on immigration.

That's a great pick.

Victim of gun violence.

Victim of gun violence.

Gabby is fantastic.

He has a twin, so he can double campaign.

His brother is so, I just was with him and his brother.

Where was it?

I just literally spent some time with him.

Hysterical.

His brother is hysterical.

He's less hysterical than his brother, but he's also really adorable.

He's, he's just, he's just a stand-up guy.

He also, Katie Hobbs can appoint, he can stay senator.

And if he wins, Katie Hobbs appoints the senator.

What about Whitmer?

Whitmer is, I would be, if we didn't have a risk, if it wasn't Trump, go for it.

But two women, I don't know if America can take it, but I love, you know, I love Gretch.

So she's, you know, she's, she's genuine.

You want to have a beer with her.

She's hysterical.

She's a great campaigner.

They love her in Michigan.

Even people that don't like her, I've asked everyone who's like, I don't like her, but I like her.

Like, that's the worst you get for her, except for the people that wanted to kill her.

And you said off, Mike, that you didn't think it would be newsome.

Why is that?

First of all, the 12th Amendment.

So they'd lose the California electoral votes, which would end the election.

And it's too, it's, it's, it's too much California.

The other person, you you know, people have joked Mark Cuban would be hysterical.

I just don't think he brings any electoral heft to the situation, although people would love it.

I think probably, I would say it's either Kelly or Cooper or Shapiro.

He's really well-liked in that state.

But I think on a national level, you know, the Trump people are, some of them are anti-Semitic, some of them aren't.

I just,

any of these pics are exciting.

I love Jared Paulus from Colorado.

That's not a state in contention.

I think Michael Bennett would be great.

Gosh, there's so many people.

There's so many, you know, I love Maury Healy, but I don't think that's too massive, too much, too liberal.

What about Senator Klobuchar?

Ah, that is what I was just thinking this morning.

Amy Klobuchar.

If you wanted, but why not pick Gretchen then if you're going that direction?

I mean, Gretchen is a firecracker of a campaigner.

Well, she's also in a swing state, right?

She's in a swing state.

She's a firecracker.

I'm more about just the how do we get elected.

So I really like the idea of Pennsylvania or Michigan involved here.

And even, you you know,

Arizona, yeah, that's right.

Arizona, it never used to be a swing state.

He's really well liked in Arizona.

It actually didn't used to be a Republican state.

And so I think he has the backing of a lot of people.

Anyway,

that's where I think

I'm going with Mark Kelly, and I really like him.

And again, the twin thing is not a small thing to me.

Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot to talk about this.

Lillia Polgreen is an opinion columnist at the New York Times and a co-host of the Matter of Opinion podcast.

A few short weeks ago, she wrote an opinion piece titled, Kamala Harris Could Win This Election, Let Her.

Welcome, Lydia.

Thank you.

Great to be back.

So tell me, writing that piece, Kamala Harris Could Win This Election, Let Her.

This was before a lot of this started.

Explain why you did that and give us a short version of your argument and what they weren't giving her credit for.

Yeah, I mean, look, I am sort of allergic to political punditry.

I've never really covered national politics.

And so I'm always hesitant to go out on a limb on these things.

But I just remember watching her that night of the debate.

And

this column came out the day after the debate,

and thinking as she was interviewed by Anderson Cooper,

just what an incredibly polished case for

the Biden-Harris administration she was making and how crisp and clear she was,

how strong she was on the core issues.

She was even good at defending Joe Biden in a way that didn't seem completely unintelligible.

And I think it was a really useful reminder that she has real skills as a politician and she's someone who.

And the question is not.

She was good that night.

I think everyone noticed that.

She was really good that night.

And I think everyone sort of thought, well, but she was terrible in the primary.

And she, you know, she didn't, you know, she wasn't able to distinguish herself.

Her first, you know, year and a half as vice president wasn't so good.

So I think there was this really strong underrating of her talents.

But what I saw that night was: this is a person who,

in a moment, you know, where it's very clear what the job is to be done, can just immediately and in a very disciplined way rise to the occasion.

And I think that we have this fantasy about politics that it's about the ideal person coming along at the ideal time, et cetera, et cetera, when in fact, history is completely contingent.

And

seeing the way that she performed that night, I just thought, oh, this is a person that could actually be the right person

to do this very particular job.

That doesn't mean she's the greatest politician since sliced bread, but she doesn't have to be.

She just had to be the right person to take on Donald Trump.

So what was the reaction at the time and now?

I mean, at the time, I think the reaction was pretty muted.

I mean, there were, you know, there were a lot of people who just kind of scoffed.

They're like, oh, no, America's too racist and too sexist to have a woman president.

And

there were a lot of responses that felt to me very kind of knee-jerk and also people just kind of telling on themselves.

But I think that what's happened subsequently is that

she's had to go out and

make the case for herself without actively making the case for herself, which is a very high degree of difficulty thing to do.

And I think she's been really effective.

I mean, my colleague Ezra Klein tweeted the other day that she really has not put a foot wrong since this whole debacle began

with Biden's debate performance.

Yeah.

And I think that that's given people

a lot of confidence in her ability to prosecute the case against Donald Trump.

Will she make a great president?

Who knows?

But I think, could she win the election?

I think quite possibly, yes.

Good to see you, Lydia.

I would actually argue it's the opposite.

I think she has better prospects of being a good president than she is a good candidate.

I just, despite all the excitement, I would argue she just didn't resonate with the American people.

And I guess my question would be, what do you think she needs to do?

And I do think she has momentum.

I would agree that over the last three weeks, she's kind of sort of found her footing and her voice a bit.

But if you were to give her advice on how to get more of that resonance with the American public, which in my view, she failed to achieve as vice president.

Do you have any advice for her?

Well, she failed to achieve it as vice president, perhaps, right?

But

I would say that I have been out on the campaign trail with her.

I've seen how voters are responding to her.

I'm also seeing how, you know, people like us, the journalists, are seeing how she's doing and are responding to her.

It remains to be seen how she performs in polling.

It's very early.

This switch has just happened.

But I mean, I think that people who underrated her as a primary contender, and by the way, I was not a supporter.

I was supporting Elizabeth Warren

in the 2020 primary.

That was who my candidate was.

But I think it's a very, very different thing to distinguish yourself on a stage with a bunch of other Democrats.

And I think there are reasons of gender and race that make it actually quite hard to do that.

You know, it's worth remembering that the only Democrat to, the only...

female presidential candidate ever to emerge came out of, you know, more of a coronation than a truly competitive primary process.

And that's Hillary Clinton, who was essentially tapped on the shoulder by Barack Obama.

So I do think that there are very particular challenges for women in the context of a primary.

And I think the office of vice president, it's very hard to distinguish yourself.

She got a thankless portfolio and working on things that are very, very hard to solve.

Now, I think she's done as good a job as

anything.

She's done a great job, actually.

She's done a great job on abortion.

I think that she's got a good message

on law and order, which, you know, it was her very bad luck to be running the one cycle that being a former prosecutor was a bad rather than a good thing.

I mean, she is a, she is, I would say, a pretty generic, you know, relatively moderate Democrat.

I mean, you don't get to be a successful black politician of her age without being fairly moderate.

And the, you know, cop, and I'm doing air quotes, the cop route is how many black women came into political power.

And they had to be tough on crime.

They had to be.

And so I think she's been beaten up much more from the left than from the right.

That is absolutely true.

So what would you,

if you would say her greatest strength and weakness right now is, I think people are excited.

There's a jolt of energy.

You can feel it.

Obviously, the fundraising.

People are reconsidering her, I think.

And, you know, I was noting to Scott before, like, she's very popular on TikTok, which is smart for her, versus a Twitter where they attack her relentlessly.

Who cares?

Because, you know, that's now, you know, a Nazi porn bar.

But,

but she's very, and they're even taking the coconut thing, which seemed kind of wacky and making fun with it.

Like, she seems more fun, I guess.

Talk about the, from your perspective, her biggest strength right now.

And you mentioned the word coronation.

Scott has used it just before this.

Is that her biggest weakness?

Is that it feels like a coronation?

Or give me a strength and a weakness.

Yeah, I mean, I think her strength is definitely that she can lean into what is already her strength, right?

I mean, which is this persona as a prosecutor, as a, you know, as a person who can take on a very specific,

almost crusading task.

And I think that is a tremendous strength for her, that

she's running against a very particular opponent.

She's not running against a generic person.

And I would argue that Donald Trump is, in fact, a very, very weak candidate.

He's a person who's never won the popular vote.

His policies are not popular.

There's just lots and lots of things that I think make him a weak candidate.

I think that her greatest weakness is that, and this is the place where I think she really fell down in the 2020 primary, is that she has not done a good job of articulating or showing what her vision is for the country, that it's not just,

I'm going to defeat Donald Trump.

And I think that that's necessary.

I think you have to articulate a vision.

Now, it could be as simple as, you know, I am actually going to be a bridge.

You know, we need to turn the page on this era of American history, and I'm going to help get us to where we're going.

I don't think it necessarily needs to be much, much more than that, but I think there has to be a rationale for her candidacy beyond the, I'm the most skilled person in the right place to take on this particular candidate.

It's got to be more than that.

So the Trump campaign is obviously going to attack her, including mispronouncing her name.

I think she's ready for that.

I think she's as tough as nails in that regard.

Obviously, Elon is already having a meltdown.

He tweeted, I'd just like to thank Alexander Soros for keeping everyone in suspense about who the next puppet would be.

Speaking of puppets, Elon, you know a lot about that.

Everything he writes is about himself.

He was also mocking her for introducing herself with her pronouns, which

she she does these fine.

She's from San Francisco.

She does that.

Big deal.

Where do you think the big line of

attack is?

Because

this weekend in your piece, you wrote, if Kamala Harris is a DEI candidate, so is J.D.

Vance.

So talk a little bit about the attacks.

Yeah, I mean, I think people are going to try and argue that she only got into her positions of power because of, you know, because of race.

And I think that that's something that will happen.

I think race is going to be very touchy for the Republicans to deal with.

You know, I think think that

Americans might, you know, be skeptical about the talents and

abilities of black people, but I think there's also a discomfort with just kind of out and out racism.

And so I think that they're going to have to be really careful.

And it'll be harder to attack her in the way that they attacked Hillary Clinton

on gender because of the combination of these things.

I don't think that anyone should assume that her being black helps her with black voters or particularly helps her with black men.

In fact, I think that it could hurt her.

I think there's a strong strain of anti-black woman misogyny among younger black men that I think should not be ignored and is a serious, a serious thing to think about and an issue that she's going to have to confront.

You know, look, I don't think that this is going to be a cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination.

This is going to be a hard race.

It was going to be a close race no matter what.

I think she's got a fighting chance.

I think she's got some real talents, but I think she's got some real challenges too.

Lady, who would you like to see as the VP pick?

You know, I have a, I think, I think, you know, all of the jokes and memes on Twitter have been, you know, sort of from the wine store, interesting whites or generic whites.

And, you know,

it seems, it seems like the conventional wisdom is that there's going to be a kind of generic white man from a swing state.

And I think that a lot of this is probably going to come down to who's compatible and

who brings the most to the table in terms of of quote unquote diversifying the ticket, right?

And remember, diversity is a very important thing.

We need diversity.

Well, we do.

And people think diversity is just about race, but diversity is about geography.

Diversity is

about religious belief.

I mean, every single vice presidential choice is a diversity pick, right?

I mean, it's a two-person ticket.

One person can only represent so much.

And so, you know, I think that's a good idea.

Well, J.D.

Vance is a diversity pick.

He's an age diversity, class diversity, right?

I mean, I think these are, you know, I agree that there's ideological alignment, and it was definitely a pick that betrayed a kind of, you know, I think misplaced confidence that Trump was going to

walk to victory.

But he certainly does represent diversity in some very important ways for

Trump, just in the same way that Mike Bence did.

So who do I think should get the nod?

I actually don't think it makes that much of a difference.

I think that the range of options are probably, you know, Josh Shapiro,

you know, Andy Bashir,

Roy Cooper, all the names that you've been hearing.

I think that there are pluses and minuses to all of them.

You know, but I think that someone in that vein

is probably who we're going to end up with.

Just so you know, I don't know.

Who do you think, Scott?

Scott, go tell her, Scott.

Tell her.

See how she reacts.

Well,

I would like it to be Governor Shapiro.

I think if we were totally focused on winning, they would nominate, they would pick Mitt Romney.

Kara had the same reaction.

Well, I mean,

listen,

I thought if Donald Trump was really focused on winning, he would have picked Nikki Haley.

Because I think he would have been unstoppable if he had.

And so

I understand your theory.

Some people have bounced around the idea of Joe Manchin as a running mate.

He's unlikable.

I know he's unlikable.

I mean, is Mitt Romney that likable?

Let's just remember he lost his presidential race.

And that's the other last thing that I would say about Kamala Harris.

I mean, think about how many people who've won their primaries who've lost the presidential race.

Winning a primary is by no means an assurance of victory.

Lydia, no one's ever won president without competing competently in a primary, which she hasn't done.

I wouldn't say that's true.

Would you say that Joe Biden competed competently in a primary?

I think he was carried across the finish line by Jim Clydburne.

Oh, but he competed.

Oh, no, he won that.

He won that race.

You don't think

after Democratic elites all came together to

engineer an outcome?

Absolutely.

No, I mean,

I think there's a difference.

Did Hillary earn it?

I mean, I guess

I'm just dumb.

She was on the debate stage with a bunch of Democrats.

So

there should be a debate.

We think it's her and Dean Phillips and Joe Manchin.

That's because the others

have bowed out.

The Congressional, by the way, the Congressional Black Caucus has endorsed Harris.

Can I ask you?

You did, let me read a tweet from comedian and podcaster Akeelah Hughes.

So now it's Kamala.

I think, again, every white person who wanted him to drop out needs to figure out how to defend a black woman person and online for the first time in their lives.

That's the job now.

I'd like to see it, but I never have.

But can you talk about that skepticism for white people to do that?

And also skepticism, as you said, from men?

How, because I think women are the, black women are the real driver of voting from, as I recall, in almost many, many elections.

And in this case, there was, I think it was Anil Dash was saying the anti-DESI network is now in overdrive.

Kamal Harris is also, her mom is Indian.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Like what it, how do you, how do you thread that very difficult racial needle in this country?

I think this is going to be one of the big challenges.

But I also think that people make assumptions about other people's racism that may have to do with their own beliefs.

If you think other people are racist, maybe it's worth looking at what your own beliefs are about race and about people's competence.

Same I would say about sexism.

You know, I think that this is a country that has a capacity to surprise people.

I would also say that,

again,

Donald Trump is a particularly weak candidate who is particularly ill-suited to attacking

this particular opponent on matters of race and on matters of gender.

You know, I mean, this is a person, she has prosecuted, you know, sex offenders and rapists and people who've committed sexual assault.

You know, we have many photos of Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.

You know, he has been found legally liable for sexual assault.

Prosecutor versus felon.

Yeah.

I mean, look, I'm not, I don't have any illusions, guys.

I mean, I'm making the case here

in a way that I think is

absolutely defensible, but I also know that all historical events are contingent.

And, you know,

there is is a very real possibility

that Kamala Harris becomes the nominee and that she loses.

That would be extremely unfortunate for the country.

It is possible.

It feels less likely to me than

Joe Biden winning the campaign.

And that seems to be where we are now.

Yeah, absolutely.

And she'll bring back the donors, which we'll be talking about also.

Donors love

Kamala Harris.

That's what I was telling him.

I was like, she's no lefty.

They love her.

She is not a lefty.

She shows up at their parties.

I've seen her there because I've been there.

and they love Kamala Harris.

She also, she enjoys it too.

She enjoys that whole thing.

Yeah.

So

anyway.

Anyway, Lydia, thank you.

That was really, when you wrote it, as you know, I wrote you, I was like, well done, because everyone was going in a different direction than that.

And I thought you did, you made a good case for it.

And I was like, I'm hanging up my spurs.

No more.

Good job.

Excellent job.

Well, you did a good job on your first outing, and I appreciate it.

All I ever want is to stun Scott Galloway into silence.

The two of you, the two of of us beaten up on him.

It's like it happens all the time.

Yeah, the masochist and you likes being beaten up by powerful women.

I know it.

Mitt Romney!

Can we do it again together?

Say Mitt Romney, Scott.

What do you guys say?

I think it should be Mitt Romney.

You idiot.

Literally, you guys might.

Scott, you ignorant slut.

You're the personification of the comments and every social media platform I'm on.

Basically, Basically, it's like a different dimensions of Jesus, you're a fucking idiot.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, we're nothing, idiot.

That's a little far, which is

definitely not.

Mocking, definitely.

Anyway, thank you, Lydia.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Take care, guys.

Take care, Lydia.

All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

We come back.

I'll look at the fallout from the massive crowd strike outage.

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Scott, we're back.

The world is still crawling its way back to normal operations after a crowd strike update caused 8.5 million devices to crash on Friday.

The cybersecurity firm's software update wiped out devices using Microsoft Windows operating systems, impacting airlines, healthcare facilities, emergency services, retail locations, and millions of PCs.

Still on Monday, over 700 flights have been canceled by 7.30 a.m.

At the time of this taping, CrowdStrike's stock is down more than 30% in the last five days.

Talk a little bit about your perspective on this.

Well, it's interesting.

We had Y2K.

We just had it in 2024.

This was exactly what they were predicting would happen on the turn turn of New Year's in 2000.

I think the larger learning here is the following.

And that is, I love the idea of what is a robust versus an anti-fragile industry.

And that is, if McDonald's goes out of business,

the fast food industry, our ability to get, you know, fast food doesn't miss a beat.

There's Panera, there's Chipotle, there's five guys, In-N-Out Burger, best of them all.

But it's fine.

If Jamie Dimon called,

you know, Powell or Janet Yellen and said, look, I had some rogue trader in Singapore and we accidentally missed in compliance.

He levered up a million times.

And unless you give me a $100 billion credit line, I'm out of business.

They have to say yes.

Well, send the money because if JPMorgan goes under, it might take the global economy with it.

So I would argue the banking system is not robust.

And that's one of the reasons they have such.

tight or increased stress testing because they recognize that it's not a robust industry.

What this reflects is that technology, because of consolidation and concentration, is not robust.

And if one essentially cybersecurity firm can take down an airline in the economy for a day, that means it's too concentrated.

So I think what this reflects is yet another example.

I mean, it'll be really interesting how much this comes up in the FDC or DOJ review of Alphabet's pending acquisition or proposed potential acquisition of Wiz.

Because if, you know, I mean, it's interesting, Southwest flights were fine because they hadn't updated their software to the latest operating system.

Right, right, yeah.

And also, Apple was fine, obviously.

Yeah.

So I think it's just another indication that

we need more antitrust.

It's just too concentrated.

So costs could, for this outage,

could top $1 billion, according to Anderson Economic Group, which specializes in economic costs of business interruption.

Many companies plan to file insurance claims to cover the cost, and Microsoft is released a recovery tool.

But here we are relying on limited tech companies.

You were talking a little bit about the antitrust thing.

It's that

how do you solve the problem?

Because you do need a commonality of some of these systems.

Now, of course, everyone was like, is this really a secret attack?

You know, that was raised.

Is it China flexing whatever it shoved into our systems during solar winds?

But, you know, here we are, getting apart, whether it's being attacked by other countries in various hacks or relying on limited companies, we really are, you know,

we are kind of stuck in that regard that everything is knitted together in this way.

And they don't care enough about security, I guess, on that level.

298 of the Fortune 500 companies use CrowdStrike.

And it's just, this is,

I don't know, it just brings home for me.

It's just a concentration of power that is, that is,

you need diversity in the ecosystem.

And this is an example of it.

And what happens?

I mean, this is sort sort of a preview it could be much worse than this what if all of a sudden every hospital network goes down or power generators I mean this was we got off pretty easy here it was this was flights being canceled so I

again I'm you know me I'm the same I'm the breakup person I just think there's too few companies that have too much critical infrastructure

you know but then how do you do that if you want to knit together a system see the fact you know these are this of course is the is the discussions around every sci-fi sci-fi movie.

There's one system, you know, remember the Sandra Bullock one where everyone was using that one thing and the little sign showed up and then it stole everyone's information?

It's really difficult not to have a singular system or one that's knitted together well.

But what you're making the argument for is that the scale and common standards are really important.

And I get that.

Now, the name of that type of firm that you grant the capacity to do is a utility.

And utilities are highly regulated.

So if you make make the argument that it makes sense to have one cybersecurity firm and operating system running 400 of the 500 biggest hospital systems in America, then you are going to need to have pretty serious government oversight and a lot of stress testing and scenario planning that what happens when X, Y, or Z takes place.

Because these companies aren't, I mean, granted, there's an economic incentive in not letting this shit happen, but you mentioned that CrowdStrike stock is down 14%, but it's still up 24% year to date.

So this is the bottom line.

The market is is telling us, and this is the scary thing here, Kara, is that a potential catastrophe like this that literally ruins millions of people's vacation plans for the weekend or summer vacation plans, that is worth it because the concentration of power that sends your stock up 24%, maybe you have to give up, give half of it back, but you're still up.

The concentration of power without the very expensive stress testing and go slow mentality that you would have in a utility, it's worth it to take the risks.

And that is not a good risk complexion for corporate America.

Yeah.

But so you think the stock will recover?

100%.

They own, they're working with

300 of the 500, Fortune 500, and it might be an opportunity for someone to come in.

But the market has already said, okay, the stock's up 24%.

It gave back half its gains for the year.

It's not like the thing has crashed.

Right, right, right.

That's true.

Well, we'll see with the lawsuits and anything else that happened or the insurance claims and things like that.

But again, you're right.

It requires it to become a utility, which is something you and I have both argued many times.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Do you want me to go first?

You go first, Carol.

Okay, I love one of the things that I like about news events is how the internet reacts, especially social.

This is the part I like about social media, besides looking at cooking and Japanese woodworking videos that I look at to please myself.

But there's a lot of really good ones that were on immediately, and it's highly entertaining.

I loved everything the Daily Show does, and on threads, they were going crazy.

But of course, they had a picture.

Remember when they won the election, and there was a picture of Kamala jogging, looking very fit?

She's on the phone, she was talking to Biden at the time.

And it had, hello, is this the Midwest White Guy Emporium?

Which I think was cute.

I thought Hunter Walk did a great one on threads.

Lights must be flickering in Brooklyn from equipment power search for all the emergency pods, which is so true.

And I really enjoyed a back and forth between Mark Zuckerberg and

Mark Zuckerberg on threads put up Serene Row before a big week.

And then Casey Newton wrote back, Mark, you will not believe what happened while you were rowing.

And Mark's like, best to

check the news before

I thread.

And then one I really liked is Elon Musk is really, truly losing his mind over on X.

And there's two of them that I thought were very funny.

He said, My smartest friends, including those living in the San Francisco Bay Area, have been lifelong Dems or excited about Trump fans.

And Jan Lacun, who's head of AI at Facebook, wrote, and he's been

trolling Musk relentlessly, Your smartest friends aren't very smart, which I really liked.

And then I think my single favorite one was from

one on X where Jordan Schneider, he's, I don't know who he is, he wrote, What a classic VC move to buy Trump at the peak, which I thought was really funny.

And then one more, one more.

Redructress wrote, the nation with increasingly limited access to birth control.

Thanks, man, for pulling out.

And then the last meme, actually, I'll do one more last meme.

There's one picture of Kamala Harris coming out from behind a blue curtain with a thing, and it said, did somebody say black job?

Which I thought.

That's funny.

Anyway, those are all my things.

The fail is a similar thing is

I don't know why finance reporters are not writing about this, but Bill Ackman is sharing a lot of conspiracy theories this week, really crazy ones, including one that Joe Biden

did not make this decision and that his signature wasn't actually his.

He said if this were a hostage situation, that letter would not qualify as proof of life.

He also had this whole, like, these videos show that there were two shooters in the Trump shooting.

Yeah, he deleted that.

I know.

What is the fucking, why don't, look, why don't they hold him accountable for this stuff?

You know, he just gets to do this stuff.

What a this is he's like, I find him irritating on every level on the DEI stuff and his thoughts on Ukraine and everything else, which he's manifestly unqualified to do.

But now he's moved way down the stack to stuff that he should not be.

And he's raising money for this, this new investment fund.

I would worry about this guy very, very much so, because he, he, he literally spends all his time now trafficking in really

conspiracy theories.

I don't know what else to say, really weird ones, too.

Anyway.

All right.

So my win is going to be

the millionth pile on of people recognizing

the tenure and presidency of President Biden.

I think economically, created more jobs in three and a half years than have been created in any eight-year

tenure, brought inflation down to the lowest level of any advanced economy while maintaining growth, markets touching all-time highs, legislatively one of the most productive sessions.

I think he's been very strong on Ukraine.

I think he's been, I don't think he gets nearly the credit he deserves

because he has been a little bit, unfortunately, wishy-washy on the communications trying to placate the far left while on the ground.

He immediately deployed two carrier-strike forces to the Mediterranean in solidarity with our ally, Israel.

I think he's been a decent man.

I think he's been really good on LGBTQ.

He's been very, if not effective, but forceful around bodily autonomy.

I think he set a good tone of decency.

You know, he will be remembered as,

and not only that, I think this was probably an incredibly difficult decision for him and his family.

And

I think he, you know, did he probably take too long to make that decision?

Yes, but people will remember him for the decision that he made for the country.

And, you know, life, I think President Biden is going to go down as one of the great presidents.

And I think that it's going to give him him and his family tremendous comfort to know that he had an outstanding presidency.

I think he should go nuts now, just like do whatever he feels like.

Just go off.

You know what?

I have executive order.

Everybody wears pants.

Like, I don't know.

I just would be like,

I would pardon Hunter.

I would just be like, you know, well, that would hurt her.

That would hurt her if he did something.

Or something.

I don't know.

For anything he's going to do, too.

You know, I think he could do a lot of stuff now.

He's sort of free, right?

He's kind of free to do what he wants.

The other thing is,

he could make some money.

You know what I mean?

Like, he deserves it.

He's been a lifelong public servant.

I know everyone thinks he's corrupt Joe Biden, but honestly, it doesn't look like he has that much of a lifestyle.

And I certainly, the Obamas have cashed in, that's for sure.

I think that he, I have to tell you, when you're talking about this, you're right.

He took too long to do it, but he he,

to give up the presidency, just think about that.

Think about that.

Wow.

After he spent his whole life trying to get there.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And not only that, I think, look, I think we're all thinking is if Biden can quit his job, maybe I should quit mine.

You know, oh, no, are you doing that again?

No, no, no, no, he's doing fine.

It's August.

You'll be going on vacation for a little while soon.

It's close to August.

Scott February.

Yeah, it's very sad, though.

Parks and recreation star Joe Biden has announced he will no longer be running for president.

Yeah,

it's like he's broken up with all of us.

He left a post-it that said, sorry, I can't.

Don't hate me.

All right.

So but also, just so you know, young people, you should never quit your job on a Sunday.

That's just bad shit crazy.

That is crazy.

All right.

What do you think is your fail?

I don't have a fail.

I'm feeling, I'm starting to recover from the shock and weird feeling of Sunday.

And

I'm trying to just feel better and better about American Democrats and be hopeful.

I'm going to rally.

I want to be one of these people whose actions sort of foot to all the bullshit that comes expectorating out of their mouth all day.

I'm going to try and get involved in the campaign ultimately, which looks like it's going to be Harris.

So it unlocked it for you because you were like pulling back, right?

It unlocked the idea of giving money.

The idea of

you were a part of that letter.

No, now that

I will donate.

I will try and,

and this would be impossible, but

I'm going to hold myself to allocating or footing my time, treasure, and talent to

all the constant yammering I do about this shit.

It's time for all of us.

Look, it's time for all of us to either canvass, start talking to people, even on social media, be supportive,

break out your wallet, whatever you can give, give.

You're a dolphin, right?

I'm a dolphin.

Yeah, I'm not a whale.

But I'm already talking to people about trying to do a fundraiser and doing fund matching programs.

I'm going to go do some canvassing in one of the swing states, maybe even do ⁇ I'm talking to someone about it.

Anyways, I'm excited about this, and I want to ⁇ look, you want to look back on this regardless of what happens.

If you do believe that

I hate that ⁇ I don't like them positioning Donald Trump as the end of America.

I think it might be, I would argue, a serious degradation in our democracy.

I don't think it's going to be the end of America, and I don't think that's useful.

But if you do think this is an existential threat in an important election, you should make plans for the next, have a war plan for the next 10 or 11 weeks.

I sat down with my boys and they were kind of like, what are we doing?

I'm like, I want to plan out the next kind of 11 weeks as to how we can be effective here.

But I think everyone, if they're really serious about it, it's, you know, just posting shit on Twitter isn't enough.

Like, get involved.

LFG is what you're talking about, right?

Let's fucking go.

That's

right.

Let's get on it.

Let's get on it.

That's what I said.

I had someone who was like, you know, also like, oh, I was like, you know, that's fucking enough.

That's enough.

Look, you got a chance now.

You got a shot.

And this is the oxygen we have.

And let's stop saying what's wrong with her.

Let's say what's right with her.

Like, let's not even like, sure, there's plenty.

Like Lydia said, there's plenty wrong with her.

I don't think I've ever seen a candidate that is more, that is more superior than her opponent.

Yep, absolutely.

I'm excited for the debate.

Do you think there's going to be a debate?

He's not going to do a debate.

No way.

That's an interesting question.

There's no way he's getting on stage with her.

First of all, he doesn't like women.

I think he's too arrogant to refuse.

I think he's actually rude.

Do you think he won't get on?

Oh, I don't think he can.

He'll talk about cognitive decline.

He will.

It will be the same thing.

He can't help.

If you think Hillary Clinton drove him crazy, remember he called that nasty woman?

Oh, man,

he can't do that.

And he can't help himself.

Look what happened at the speech where everyone was hugging him.

He fucked that up.

Yeah, I'll take the other side of that because what you just said, I think it's true.

I don't think he can help himself.

The smart thing might...

might be to not debate.

I don't think he's going to be able to resist.

And when people start calling him a chicken and insulting his manhood, it's just going to be, he's going to be like, I'll show her.

Yeah, we'll see.

I think he's going to be really bothered by her quite a bit.

It's going to set him off in ways that he doesn't even understand about himself.

Anyway, we'll see, which is a good thing.

Anyway, 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 85551-PIVOT.

Okay, Scott, we'll be back on Friday with more, as always.

Scott, read us out.

Today's show is produced by Larry Amons, Lee Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Intertod interned this episode, thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mil Severio.

Yeshak Kurua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

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