Congress in Chaos, The Ozempic Effect, and the Healthcare Strike

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm the purest form of evil Elon Musk has ever seen.

You are evil, care switcher.

You are evil.

Eva, I'm seething with hate.

I am mendacious.

So can I just read, can I read the tweet?

Yeah.

I have, this is from, I forget his name, rich guy, Rockets, absentee father.

This is verbatim.

I have rarely seen evil in as pure a form as Joel Roth and Kara Swisher's heart is filled with seething hate.

I don't know what.

Wow.

Well done, Kara.

My God.

If you forgot the last part, it's a compliment to him.

I mean, literally, like, tell me you do too much ketamine without telling me you do too much ketamine.

You're the purest form of evil.

Well, I think I can't tell.

Amanda tells me dramatically.

Yoella is the Yoela Broth, who I interviewed, who used to be head of trust and safety, who Elon loved until he hated him,

and then called him a pedophile, which was not true, obviously.

I think he's the purest form of hate.

And I am a heart seething with hatred.

I believe technically that's what this is.

Oh, I feel feel much better in.

Well, then it's, it's totally in line.

There's nothing wrong with that from the founder of a company and he made a...

Seething.

I am seething with hatred.

I'm not seething with anything.

Is there something going on here we don't know about?

I don't know.

I didn't like the interview, I guess.

Did you forget to return as leafblower or something?

Like, what is he?

Why is he so angry?

I have been known to steal items like that from people, but that is not.

I don't think he has a leaf blower.

You do it at my house.

You start rifling through all my closets.

Actually, that makes me feel closer to you.

I don't mind it when you.

I know.

I do.

It just does it.

I just have one shirt of yours left.

That's all I have.

There you go.

That means we're going steady.

Next thing, I borrow your car and boom, we're engaged.

I'll bring it back to you.

I don't know what's going on.

He didn't like the interview.

Obviously, the repercussions from that Linda Yaccarino interview are just continuing to repercuss.

We have a lot to get through.

Speaking of which.

Well, hold on.

Just before we get there.

Yeah.

I read through all of our listener email, and the two big things were we should talk less about Elon Musk.

Yeah.

And Scott really does need to tone down the blowjob joke.

So I'm on my way back from Barcelona on a plane.

And the flight attendant comes over and says, sir, would you like some headphones?

And I said, why, yes.

And how did you know my name was phones?

I don't even get.

That's good.

It'll hit you in a minute.

Oh, my God.

It's so bad.

See a little latency there.

It's the latent humor.

It's the latent humor.

Anyways, folks, Jobs and Musk, not necessarily in that order.

If that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

It's too bad.

You know what?

He's in the news.

Let me just say he's in the news.

Sorry, people.

It's just the way it's going to be.

I agree.

Some people think it's too much, but we've got a lot to talk about.

We have drama in Congress.

We've got healthcare workers on strike.

The weight loss drug of Zempic is affecting entire industries.

You know what?

Good for us.

We have a lot of things to talk about.

But let me just say, and speaking of, you were making a prediction

related to Linda Yagarino and Kevin McCarthy.

So it was exactly a week ago that you and I were discussing the future prospects of them.

Linda is obviously the ex-CEO.

Here's what we said.

Look, Kevin McCarthy allowed this move to vacate by a single person.

So he doesn't have the power.

He can't get the votes.

He can't whip the votes.

In Linda's case, she's unusually sunny towards Elon on Twitter, too.

By the end of the year, one or both of them no longer hold their position.

People don't respect.

You can't hold a leadership position and never demonstrate leadership.

At some point, people decide you're the wrong person.

Or be constantly in agreement with your boss, your obvious boss.

In this case of Kevin McCarthy, it's

Trump.

And in the case of Lynn, it's Elon.

And so you do have to disagree with your boss.

It's very powerful.

Well, he disagreed.

Kevin McCarthy, when they made a deal with the Democrats, I guess, if that's what they're saying.

And then

he just didn't close the government down.

And

he lost his job on the first vote.

So good, well done.

So Ross Douthett, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, but he's a gangster.

He wrote this wonderful piece, opinion piece in the New York Times, and he referred to Kevin McCarthy's ambitions and I love this as bland ambition.

And he did, anyways, it's a fantastic article.

He really summarizes the gerontocracy and sort of some of the, I don't know, the subtleties around the situation.

And here's the thing.

You pointed this out.

He set himself up for this when he agreed to the demand that any single Republican could call for

a motion to vacate.

And then only eight people did this.

Only eight people did this.

It's incredible.

And let's go big picture here.

Matt Gates is right.

Representative Gates

to talk about

hold on.

We're going to spend $6.5 trillion this year.

We're going to have receipts of $5 trillion.

We have a deficit of $1.5 trillion in a strong economy where there's no longer COVID, or we're not helicoptering money from COVID.

This is like a house that has an annual household income of $50,000, spending $65,000 every year and it has $320,000 in debt.

This just can't end well.

As a matter of fact, this year, because interest rates have spiked 500 bips, we are now going to spend more next year on interest on our debt than we spend on the U.S.

military.

So the largest military in the world that's greater than the other nine biggest militaries in terms of expenditures combined is now going to this shadow thing called debt.

Biden wants to helicopter money for student loans.

We have seen an increase in spending across Medicare.

And meanwhile, nobody wants to increase receipts.

It's just not, he is right.

Now, having said that, you don't hold the government up trying to do this.

And two, he has never sponsored anything resembling legislation to try and address these issues.

This is nothing but posturing.

Right.

He's a gadfly.

He's a gadfly.

Yeah, it's a stunt.

And supposedly the Democrats were open to doing a deal.

And then

they played a video of just what, quite frankly, what an asshole he's been to the Democrats.

And he got them very emotionally hopped up.

And they all said, you know, no fucking way.

And I got to be honest,

I think it was a missed opportunity because if they had said, look, you clearly want this gavel

and

you said that you would negotiate with us, fine.

But just in case you're willing, commit to Ukraine, drop this impeachment bullshit, and you'll be the speaker of the House.

Nobody wouldn't have been because Gates would have continued to do what he was going to call it.

I think he would have done it.

Yeah, that's not true.

I think the more he acquiesced to the Democrats, the more

it wouldn't have mattered.

It wouldn't have matters, I suspect.

If he had done those two things, if he had said, I'm not pursuing it, there are a lot of Republicans who don't think that

think funding for Ukraine is important.

And also look at McCarthy.

McCarthy had a decent amount of support, and

it would have basically put the far right in a box in the corner and said, and he could have resembled an actual Speaker speaker of the house.

I think the Democrats missed an opportunity.

Yep.

Well,

I think they couldn't have done it.

They couldn't have done it.

And by the way, the problems never would have done it for Nancy Pelosi.

In fact, they threw her out of her hideaway office while she was at Diane Feinstein's funeral, which seems small-minded.

I mean, just so people know, they're looking for a new speaker.

Congressman Patrick McHenry, give me liberty or give me a hideaway, is in place as interim speaker with Republicans regrouping and trying to figure out a plan ahead.

I think he didn't, this was going down no matter what.

He had no friends.

He wasn't trusted by anybody.

You had Nancy Mace voting against him.

She's not a, you know, she's sort of a middle-of-the-road conservative because he broke so many promises.

Everyone had a story of him being weak-willed.

I think you can't have a weak speaker.

He's weak because of the numbers, really, but he's also weak without the numbers.

Okay, awful.

Who's going to replace him?

They're talking about Jim Jordan replacing him.

Yeah, that's the thing.

So Jim Jordan has put his name in, and Congressman Steve Scalise

has already thrown their hats in the ring as candidates.

Scalise has some very serious medical issue, too, by the way.

We could see more candidate announcements in the coming days.

It's the third shortest tenure for a speaker in U.S.

history at 270 days.

You have to go back to the 1800s for a shorter tenure.

I had chatted with former Congressman Adam Kinzinger at the Texas Treen Festival just a few weeks ago, and we spoke about the impeachment proceedings getting underway and what that told us about the state of the GOP.

And I think he kind of was signaling something like this.

And what does that reveal about the power in Congress, especially the power of Matt Gaetz's MAGA winner?

It goes to show that if you're willing to burn the place down, you have the most power.

You know, it's like if somebody walks, I hate this example, but bear with me.

If somebody walked into a room you were in and they had a gun, they're the most powerful person.

Not because they actually have power, but because they're willing to use it.

There you go.

I think you explained it rather.

Well, I hate to admit this the big winner in all this is matt gates yeah except now that republicans are sort of slapping

these guys don't care about the party this is uh representative gates and representative jordan have figured out outrage incendiary raise money watch rinse repeat they're not lawmakers they're not interested in making laws they're not interested in governing they're interested in get camera time which raises more money And we have a society where the more money you raise, the more likely you are to be reelected.

The longer you're in Congress because you get re-elected, because you raise more money by just inflaming people, the more senior you're posting.

So the social media thing, it is a marketing thing, these freelance marketers, essentially.

From a branding, what would you do from a branding perspective if you were the Republican Party right now, or if you're Matt Gates or is this working for him?

Yeah, Representative Gates is a big winner here.

Because keep in mind, the last thing everybody remembered, the last time Representative Gates was in the news was for accusations of sex trafficking.

Yeah, they're still wandering around in the ethics investigation.

So to be seen as the voice on what is a very real issue, out-of-control government spending, and to be the guy who took down the speaker, I mean, I hate to say it.

He is the big winner here.

In terms of the Republican Party, there's just no getting around it.

Their brand, they need to immediately appoint someone who is, I don't think, I think

Scalise is the obvious one here because he's less noxious and less incendiary.

And they just need to get back to work.

And if I were them, I would immediately propose, get very serious about spending cuts.

I think the opportunity for the Democrats, if the Republicans don't seize it, is to be seen as the grown-ups in the room and say, folks, we have got to get spending under control.

And guess what?

Does it mean a cut in spending?

Does it mean raising taxes?

The answer is yes.

And

somebody has to be the adult in the room here.

Which is not.

Matt Gates,

which is not obviously.

No, he's not interested in governing.

He's not going to have any solutions.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't, it feels,

I don't know if it has resonance with voters or not, but it does feel a little crazy.

They seem a little nutty.

They've always seemed a little nutty, but now they seem particularly nutty.

And it's at the wrong time since they should be fighting Biden, presumably.

So where do the Democrats fit in all this?

What's their move from a branding perspective?

We're over here doing good things.

We're over here cutting student loans.

Oh, no.

Sometimes I didn't learn this till later in life.

When your enemy, is sticking a gun in their mouth and cocking it and playing Russian roulette, you say nothing and just sit back.

I mean,

the Democrats, quite frankly, are handling this well.

And that is, they are just saying nothing.

They're not,

let all of the attention beyond the clown car crashing into a clown bus that is the Republican Party right now.

This is stay quiet, be thoughtful, observe what's going on.

Wish them the best.

We need a speaker of the house.

You know, this is, this is, you know, it's their ball, folks.

They have to decide what to do here, but they shouldn't do anything, in my opinion, just sit back and watch.

They shouldn't do anything, do nothing.

Well, they want to deal with, they're a little bit worried about Ukraine funding.

Congressman Jordan says he's against moving an aid package on Ukraine if he speakers.

Scalise voted in favor of a funding package last week.

Biden says there could be another means for the U.S.

to keep sending aid to Ukraine, but hasn't shared specific details on alternatives.

So they do need some cooperation.

Yeah, I think, to your point, I think that's right.

I think you pick some I think you try and come across as the adults in the room and say there is a pretty large vent overlap between what both parties agree on and some of the antics here are unfortunately obstructing the good work the government needs to do.

So let's move forward on things there's a lot of support for on both sides of the aisle.

First and foremost, that we are going to push back on a murderous autocrat and we are not going to give comfort to the enemy.

We are going to reassure our allies and Ukraine that we will continue to be the most substantive supporter of the effort to repel the invasion.

That to me

is a big win.

And then also to say we also need to put in place, have a more thoughtful discussion that might include spending cuts, whatever it might be,

and to ensure we stop

this keep throwing Molotov cocktails in the middle of the town square called

government shutdowns.

I would go to the safe space.

The deadline is November 17th.

That's also they've got to be.

They've got to be here fast.

They got to have a new speaker by next week, right?

They really do.

You're in D.C., though.

I'm in London.

I'll find out.

I'm going to a party tonight that might be a good idea.

You are another party.

Yes, it's for Michael Lewis's book.

Oh, really?

The new idolatry of innovators.

Yeah, he's getting a lot of pushback.

I'm going to have an interesting conversation with him.

You know, a lot of not good reviews for this book.

It's a little too in love with the SBF.

I think the point he's making is he may or may not have done something illegal.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Let's just be be clear.

They're on tape as saying

that we have approved, we decided to transfer funds from the side of the house that has deposits and is an exchange to the hedge fund part of the business because it is losing money.

They are on tape at an all hands where both Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried said they made this decision.

That is illegal.

It is commingling funds.

Now, granted, it's what John Corzine did at MF Global, and nobody there saw any prison time.

Right.

But

that is illegal.

Yeah.

I think he was writing a book and then it turned into another book, similar to Walter Isaacson.

He was writing a book and then it turned into another book, given circumstances.

Did I tell you I've been in I've been investing in FTX.

I've been buying claims against them.

Really?

Wow.

Yeah.

So when a company goes bankrupt, People immediately file a claim saying they had a million dollars in my deposits.

I am now a claimant.

And And when I did an assessment of the assets that FTX has, I think they're going to recover 50, 70, maybe even 80 cents on the dollar, not only because of their cash on hand and because of their coins, but, but, and this is going to drive up the cost of the shit I'm buying right now.

They made a $500 million investment in Anthropic about three years ago, which I would bet is worth somewhere between two and five billion dollars.

She's got big fundings and they're looking for more.

So you can buy, or I've been buying, and it's not easy to find them.

I've been buying claims for 25 cents on the dollar.

And I think I'll get back 50 to 70 cents.

Oh, so a little upside there.

For a no coiner.

That's how I'm participating in the crypto.

That's my coin.

That's your coiner.

That's your coiner.

Anyway, I'm going to this party.

We'll see how that Michael is.

And I don't know.

I'll ask.

I'll ask Ron.

I think they don't know.

I think everyone's like, what is happening here?

That's my impression is everybody's sort of like confused.

And it's going to, it's going to create.

chaos for everybody because of their chaos.

It's going to, because they've got to pass all kinds of things, including the government shutdown, the Ukraine funding, et cetera, et cetera.

They're not doing anything except this.

This is what they do, which is drama, like a telenovel.

Yeah, it has nothing.

It has nothing to do with drama.

None of it.

None of it.

None of it.

It's let's create problems of our own making.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree.

It's really, it's really, it's not good.

And of course, then there was the Trump might be speaker while he's up in court sitting there trying to raise money himself.

I mean, the whole thing is just, I don't know.

I can't imagine voters think this is a good thing, or some of them do, but most of them don't.

But

if you're going to try and diagnose the cancer here, I think

it's that essentially we have a gerontocracy where we keep stabbing or puncturing the life raft.

And that is

seniors are just voting themselves more and more money.

40% of all government spending goes to seniors who vote.

Nobody wants to deal with this issue.

No one wants to

do what's required to bring our spending in line such that we have the capacity to continue to make investments in technology.

And what do you know?

There's no universal child care.

Why?

Because a 64-year-old, quite frankly, will nod their head and for the most part doesn't give a shit because they can't relate to it.

And

if we had, I'm just saying, if the average age of our democracy was the average age of our populace, which is 38, and you wouldn't be eliminating pre-K, you wouldn't be eliminating the child tax credit.

Still with attacking the old people, Scott.

You just well, here's the thing, folks.

With all due respect, you've had 65 years to figure it out, and we have to save some money to invest in the future.

And you are now crowding out all investments in the future.

But we've privatized everything important.

Space, AI.

Well, yeah.

And then we have individuals who think you are pure evil turning off and on battle.

Anyways, but it's not untrue.

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

We come back.

We'll talk about the largest healthcare strike in U.S.

history and take a listener mail question about donations to universities.

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Scott, we're back.

Here's an issue that you like to talk about.

We've talked about old people and putting them on ice floats.

Now we're going to talk about unions.

The largest healthcare strike in U.S.

history is underway with more than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees walking off the job this week in multiple states.

The strike comes after failed negotiations for a new contract.

Workers are asking for an increase in wages and arguing that staffing shortages have reached crisis levels for both employees and patients.

This, I know, is true from my brother, Jeffrey's Wisher, and the hospital people.

I went out with a bunch of doctors and they say the same thing.

Striking workers include medical assistants, pharmacists, radiology, and X-ray technicians, among others.

Doctors and most nurses are not walking out.

Hospitals and emergency rooms are staying open.

There are delays for operations, non-urgent procedures, and appointments, as well as reduced clinic hours.

What are your thoughts?

All I hear is overworked from most medical professionals

everywhere.

There's not enough people, and they're not paid enough, and they

dread their jobs.

We should note that unlike some other strikes we've been covering, the strike is temporary with workers set to return on.

October 7th.

I don't really understand that, but Kaiser Prinente is one of the country's larger insurers and healthcare systems operators with 39 hospitals nationwide and nonprofit provides health coverage for nearly 13 million people.

Again, reasonable demands.

Yeah, I think it is.

And again, you have a group of people.

I mean, first off,

in contrast to some of the other strikes we've discussed, they have leverage.

They do important work.

Their industry is growing, unfortunately.

More and more people need healthcare.

And so they have the right to assemble.

They have the right to strike.

They have leverage.

I think this is going to be an effective strike.

But again, trying trying to go meta and understand what ails

is we have prices rising faster than inflation, and four out of five Americans are not happy with their health care.

And I believe, I believe, it comes down to the same thing.

If you ever meet somebody who's charming, but not that intelligent, but they make $800,000 a year, there's a one in three chance they work in insurance.

Insurance is arguably the biggest non-tax tax in American history.

And by the way, the insurance companies, they don't like to talk about this.

They have been killing it for decades.

Every year, their profits go up every year.

And if we don't at some point, and I don't know if it's just too late, but I'm here in the UK, people bitch about the NHS, but it actually works pretty well.

80 to 90% of the people use it.

And have you used it?

I have.

There's no doubt about it.

It's not as good as private, but it's much less expensive.

And if you have the money, you can go to private.

And that kind of works because it relieves,

it takes some burden off of the public system.

But I've been to NHS.

I think it's actually pretty good.

And here's the thing.

What was wrong, Scott?

What did you have?

Another infection?

Oh, I just, I have shit growing all over me.

It's like, literally, anytime I go in, I'm like, what is this?

All day.

They look at me like, I need to take that off.

Oh, that should probably come off.

I mean, I come out.

of the dermatologist three pounds lighter than when i went in i mean i just think on your head i was noticing uh well i have new things on my head.

I mean, I just think, I just have things growing all over me.

Do you want to name?

I have this one.

We should name this one.

Phyllis.

Yeah.

There you go, Phyllis.

Oh, I like that.

Phyllis.

Phyllis.

Here's the thing.

Okay.

When you say, when it's, it's not good, people are living longer.

When, and here's the thing.

When your wife gets lung cancer, you don't have to worry about going bankrupt.

Yeah.

And so,

look, I don't know if it can ever happen, but the U.S.

healthcare system, and this is where I hope AI really comes in with a fist of stone to meet the biggest chin in history, and that is U.S.

healthcare.

There has never been an industry that is more ripe for disruption than U.S.

healthcare.

Yeah, this is what people have said for decades in tech.

They've been trying, they've been throwing themselves at that wall for a long time and have not been able to breach it.

But the frontline workers, I want to be clear, just bringing it back, trying to bring it back to strike.

The frontline workers have not registered the gains that the insurance companies and the hospitals have.

That is true.

The hospital organizations have registered.

And

there's a huge stress on the system.

You can just feel it when you go to any, if you have any hospital thing,

they're overworked.

Even the doctors, they're like, ugh.

I get dinner with doctors is the world's largest bitch fest.

I went to a dinner with eight neurosurgeons, and they were all basically saying, I can't believe we're only making $1.2 million a year.

And I've had to give up Wednesday golf.

Oh, no, really?

The other 90% of healthcare workers, from the nurses to the admin staff, I mean, for God's sakes, they are vastly overworked.

And not only that, they did heroes' work during the pandemic.

They did.

I mean, these people are exhausted.

Up and down the supply chain and healthcare.

These people really stepped up.

I mean, they really stepped up in what was a horrific situation.

They are.

It's a really broken system if you spent any time in it in the U.S.

Anyway, let's also chat about the UAW strike, which passed a 20-day mark this week.

Talks are continuing, but no deals yet.

Ford and GM are also laying off and furloughing hundreds of workers as this drags on.

GM announced on Wednesday that it secured a new $6 billion line of credit and estimated the cost of strike is to be about 200 million during the third quarter.

When are they going to do something about it?

I don't know.

I do think this gets solved.

I think they do have some leverage here, but

my sense is they're not that far from a deal.

They've offered them 20 plus percent.

And they've even said, and this is an interesting stat, that any UAW worker over the course, based on this agreement should be able to save a million bucks by the time they retire

and I think that's actually really interesting they're signaling they're signaling that they're that they're closer they definitely are signaling that yeah

that's right they the first they was a stalemate now they're saying not a stalemate um

you know and their wages have have lagged behind um others uh uaw i'm going to read some of the demands 40 raise in wages has come down to 36 percent demanded auto workers reinstate regular cost of living adjustments.

That seems reasonable.

They want to end the tiered system of employment.

That leaves newer workers with less.

Retirement benefits.

They want more contributions.

The 32-hour work week with 40%, which is easy to take advantage of.

Rights to strike, things like that.

And Ford, for example,

wants to raise those wages, as you said, by 20%.

Probably will be okay on cost of living.

They'd eliminate the tiered system of wages.

Said they would boost into 401k accounts.

You know, it seems like they're

moving there.

They have to, they have to, unlike the studios, they're, they're, they're negotiating with each of them individually, these three big ones.

So it's a little different of who's going to give.

I would assume when one gives, the others will give.

Yeah, and they've been smart.

They don't want to run through the

fund, the whatever you call it, the

union funds.

So they've been very strategic about which touch points or leverage points they're striking against.

But if you were again to go long term, if the UAW really wanted to be strategic in game theory, this whole thing out, they would charge everyone, every union member, an additional due, and they would build a huge war chest.

And then they would go to the workers at Tesla and say, unionize with us.

And if you do, and you get fired, we will pay you for up to a year or two years.

In other words, this is a no.

Oh, interesting.

This would be a no-lose situation for you Tesla workers because at the end of the day

if they keep trying to squeeze juice from a lemon that has gone from 80 percent share to 40 percent which is the U.S.

auto industry which they are going to expedite the decline with a wage structure that is that is unilaterally higher but not multilaterally then all that's going to happen is the international the foreign automakers and specifically Tesla are going to run away with it.

And not only that, again, it comes back to our number one rule.

Find the biggest pile of money and stand as close to it as you can.

And Tesla, Tesla is worth more than the entire automobile industry.

So if the UAW really wants to make money, if it really wants to have leverage, it needs to figure out a way to unionize Tesla workers.

Everything else is kicking the can down the road and weakening an already weakened corpus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

we'll see.

We'll see.

If Tesla has managed to resist that.

It's interesting.

There There were some more lawsuits around racial harassment and stuff, but there's a federal lawsuit that's accusing it of discrimination.

Make it a no-lose proposition for the workers of Tesla.

Yeah, that's an interesting idea.

It'd be very expensive.

If the UAW could unionize Tesla, then we actually have a hot girl union system.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Okay.

It's like the Barbie thing.

That would be the real victory.

Go for it, UAW.

We'll see.

I doubt they will do that.

I'm going to go on them and say this this thing gets settled within the next two weeks, week, a week.

I'll say a week.

Feels that way.

A week.

By the way, speaking of unions, Drew Barrymore's writers aren't going back.

They're mad at her.

Those writers.

I think she had three or four.

Well, it's going to be hard to replace those writers.

Have you seen?

I mean, that is some tight dialogue.

So, what happened?

What happened after you got divorced and you stopped drinking rosé?

What happened?

Yeah, that's some tight, great, original scripted drama there.

Ooh, they're going to be tough to replace.

You know what?

It's not a bad show.

It's not a bad show.

Okay.

You know what?

It's her.

Is it?

I don't know.

That's your cup of tea.

And she's, she's very likable.

I'll give her that.

If that's your cup of tea, that's a good show for those things.

There's a lot of weeping.

It's a lot of weeping happening on that.

We should weep more.

I think we'd have better.

We should weep more?

I cry all the time.

I never cry.

I think it was the last century I cried.

Last time I cried.

I'm not a crier.

I'm not a crier.

You are a crier.

It feels really good.

It puts you in touch with your emotions and informs what's important to you.

I don't know.

It's fine.

Whatever.

I just watch TV if I feel bad.

Anyway, let's move into more news.

Scott, you've called Weight Loss Drugs the biggest business story of the year, which I agree with you.

Over 9 million prescriptions written for them in the last three months of 2022 alone.

The big three are Ozempic, Wagovi, and Munjero.

They're apparently causing Americans to spend less money on food, according to a Walmart executive, or at least they're anticipating it.

It's seeing a shift in the amount of people are buying with the president and CEO of Walmart's U.S.

operations citing a slight pullback in overall basket.

It makes you, I was reading, it makes you have one less Coke and a bag of potato chips a day, which adds up to a lot.

There's a lot of reporting and speculation about the impact of these drugs in various industries, traditional diet companies, snack foods.

There was even an article recently about airlines saving fuel with lighter passengers.

We've already seen the power of Ozempic and Wagovian literally reshaping Denmark's economy, thanks in part to pharmaceutical

Novo Nordisk.

Denmark's GDP grew by 1.7% in the first half of 2023 from a year ago.

Let's talk about this because eventually these prices will come down.

Zempig's list price is about $935 a month.

Sometimes it gets prescribed and you get the insurance kicking in.

Wagovi is about $1,300 a month.

Where are we going to see that?

I think this is the biggest business story of 2023.

I think this is probably the biggest technological breakthrough since GPS or the iPhone.

I just don't, I mean, if you think about it,

I mean, United thinks they would save $80 million a year.

But look at the second order effects here.

Knee replacements would go way down.

I mean, fast food.

Why does nobody walk into Arby's and thinks this was a good decision?

Literally, nobody thinks, okay, I'm getting shaved

beef that's delivered here in a gelatinous cube and then reheated.

Nobody,

alcohol consumption, the people who are taking

Ozempic consumed 62%

less alcohol.

I think you could see, Kara, I think you could see a baby boom because people who are slim feel better about themselves.

Their sex drive goes up.

You could see,

I mean, it's just, I'm, I'm overwhelmed.

40% of America is obese.

There isn't 40% of America that's anything.

And they might go to 5%.

In addition, it's not just 40%.

I know a lot of people who are not obese who are on Ozempic.

They're like, I need to lose 20 pounds.

And I want to do it quickly and easily.

And it not only that, it changes your brain chemistry.

And it looks like it not only turns off signals for eating more, it could turn off signals for wanting to drink more.

Also, it's not just that, but strokes, Alzheimer's, and everything.

Now, I've been talking to a lot of doctors about this because it's the next book I'm writing on, working on.

But I think in the short term, all the stuff looks good.

All the studies looking good.

It's the long-term issues around inflammation and all kinds of things.

Some people are advising that you go on it for a short time, lose the weight, and then come back on it if it, you know, if you, if you haven't been able to keep it up, it's going to be very interesting.

And it does change.

It is

around drinking for sure.

It's a really interesting trend.

Like it affects a lot of stuff because people have compulsions.

There still needs to be long-term studies on this stuff.

But we can't even, you go out, you go out the blast zone here.

Some of the biggest companies in America, whether it's PepsiCo or Walmart, if their sales go down 10 or 15%, you're talking about about a stock price that goes down 40 or 50%.

I have a, I ran into a friend who's lost a considerable amount of weight on it recently.

And I have to say, oh, no, you've run into more friends.

This is one friend who's told you.

Yeah, I know, but this guy had a real weight problem and it's looking great.

He feels great.

A lot of those comorbidities have really,

I think he doesn't know what to do with himself because he, you know, and I think the compulsion to eat was quite strong.

strong.

And it was, I was fascinated.

I need, what are you going to say to someone?

Like, of course, that's great.

That's great.

I do think the long-term studies need to be taken.

But if the long-term studies are looking as good as the short-term studies, I look around now and think everyone should be on this thing

and they should bring these prices down, which they will.

Everyone's trying to get their own drug.

But the

CDC says there are $170 billion in direct costs related to directly to obesity.

The Milken Institute says it's more like $1.7 trillion.

I bet.

And then

if you could take those costs out of the system, you're talking on a $25 trillion economy.

You're talking about a reduction in costs of 6 or 7% of all of GDP.

In other words, the impact of Ozempic could be a multiple of the most optimistic impact of AI on our economy.

So

I think this is just, this is going to

reshape health, reshape the economy.

I think it is, think about what it's going to do for, do you know when a kid grows up up obese,

he or she is exponentially less likely to get married, more likely to be depressed, less likely to go to college, more likely to become a tax on the healthcare system, more likely to be impoverished because they can't afford their diabetes medication.

I mean, this is, this just could be.

I'm very excited.

I'm very excited.

You're very excited.

He's very excited.

He's going to start buying puts and whatever you buy, whatever.

Shifting completely, which actually is probably good for everybody's health too, is social media traffic to news sites has taken a tumble in the last year.

Meta and X have lessened efforts to elevate quality information.

X has also stopped showing headlines for articles shared on the platform.

So they're sort of getting out of the business.

On threads, Adam Assari is saying.

I don't understand what he's saying.

He's saying, we like news, but not really like news.

I'm not clear.

They don't want to get near news.

They don't.

That's my impression.

But what it is doing is there are some funny tweets because you can only see the picture when they they put the put a link up and then you have to explain what the link is.

Now people, the headlines don't automatically populate.

So people are putting things like Elon Musk found dead at Twitter headquarters of apparent suicide, which is not nice.

But nonetheless, they're having people are doing all kinds of weird headlines to try to attract attention to it.

So it's making the platform less

attractive to use for sure.

And, you know, Facebook has never has been pulling away from news for a long time.

We'll see what they do on threads.

I think they're just terrified of what happens over on Twitter, the nastiness,

and want to stick with more like Taylor Swift information type of thing, news, that kind of stuff.

What do you think about this?

I mean, we still have great organizations that take the responsibility seriously.

And if they hear something,

unless they can corroborate it, they don't print it.

And I do think there's a large swath of America that really values that information.

And anything that reduces exposure to that kind of fact-checked information or, you know, what you affectionately refer to as journalism is a bad thing.

And are they doing it because they don't want to lose the traffic to other sites?

Yeah, they want to keep people on the site.

That's what he said, essentially.

You know, why should I give away the milk for free?

I think that seems to be, I mean, I get his point.

But, you know, here's the thing.

I just interviewed Steve Inski from NPR and he said a lot of, you know, they pulled away from Twitter because they called them a government, whatever.

He kept calling them state-owned media and then government-funded media.

He is also government funded, by the way.

And he said it was more noise than actual help to their stories.

And I agree, when I was running Recode, the numbers were so clear that we got much more

traffic originally, you know, just organically.

Second was,

you know, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn was also important.

Twitter was way down on the stack, even though it was the noisiest place and all the reporters are there.

I was always sort of struck by that, that the referrals were not that good from Twitter.

And I do think, like you say, you're spending all this time and energy on it and it doesn't have a payoff.

And for him, it doesn't have a payoff.

You want to keep people on Twitter.

He wants creators to go on the site, to write.

He was like, why don't you just put the whole story on Twitter and that will help you?

And I was like, why would we give you our stuff?

You know, anyway, the whole thing, it's just a relationship that was bad from the start is now going to be less and less.

So, well, look, what's happening here is slowly but surely what happened with Google.

And that is Google initially 10, 15 years

in the olden times, you type in what is the best direct flight or what is the best airline to Brazil.

It would have an ad and it would shade it in blue saying, This is an ad.

Right.

And then the rest of the links would be based on kind of the algorithm trying to figure out the best place to take you.

Slowly but surely, the right rail, the top all got weaponized, all became ads.

And now they don't even shade anything because oftentimes with certain searches, literally the first two or three pages are not the best place to take you according to the algorithm, but somewhere that Google can further monetize.

And that's, that's what's going on here.

They want, they don't want you to leave.

They want you to spend more time on the platform so they can advertise it more.

I actually think over the long run, it's probably...

It's probably a good thing for the real great journalism at, you know, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

The people are going to miss that stuff.

And if they can't,

I'd like to think they're going to opt, they're going to spend more time going direct to site, but we'll see.

The numbers were startling at the time and they continue to be.

I mean, you can just see it.

I have seen it over and over again, what attracts people.

It's not Twitter for sure.

But that's okay.

We'll see.

He can do whatever he wants.

He's going to, Linda's meeting with bankers this week.

There's been rumors that they've had it.

I don't believe those rumors.

I'm sorry.

Meeting with bankers to do what?

to deal with the six thirteen billion dollars in debt at some time the bankers have got to unload it off their balance sheets oh yeah no that would be that that would be why don't you buy that scott why don't you buy those

well that would be great paper i know a lot of i know a lot of um institutions that would like that paper at the right price because well the price isn't low enough yet i think well that's it so the there's three banks it's barclays morgan stanley and i think it's b of a own almost all of it and they've acted in concert and they haven't sold it because they don't want to figure out they want to price they don't want to price it to market and take that kind of loss.

Yeah.

But I think it's a great piece of paper because

I do think at the end of the day, Musk isn't going to default on it.

I think he's going to want to, and he's got so much money.

He's got so much money.

That's what everyone's like, oh, he's, everyone was like, Kara, he's going to lose it.

I'm like, they're not taking it back from him.

I don't think so.

But, and if he does, if he does, you own it, say it's, say it goes out at 70 cents on the dollar.

That means you own Twitter for, what is that, 9.1 billion?

I don't, I think Twitter is probably worth 9.1 billion.

They think it's less.

They think it's Snapchat, 8 billion.

They think it's $8 billion.

You mean in terms of where the debt trades?

The debt is $13 billion in debt, and they think the company is worth $8 billion.

Oh, no, it's not.

I mean, okay, so there's the components that make up an enterprise value a company are: first, you have the debt, $13 billion, and then you have anything above that is the equity value.

So if the debt goes out at less than $0.010 on the dollar, what you're saying is there is no equity value.

And I think that's what would happen here.

So if the debt goes out at 70 cents on the dollar, that's saying that the company is worth 9 billion.

And what I would argue is that if it did go out at 70 cents, I would say that's a great piece of paper because one, I think he will continue to pay that 12% on that 70 cents, which is like an effective yield of 15%, which is a nice yield.

And if he stops making those payments,

you own Twitter for $9 billion.

And

I think that even that is a, I think that's a good deal.

If you could bring in someone responsible and re, I think a new owner could pretty easily reconnect and get a lot of goodwill and show a lot of growth to advertisers.

Well, look what's going on at Yahoo.

We should have the guy who's running Yahoo.

They're doing pretty well over there.

Jim Lanzon has done a great job.

Anyway, another last one: Amazon has used an algorithm to test how much it could boost prices, according to portions of the FTC monopoly lawsuit.

The algorithm code name Project Nessie.

Where do they come up with these names?

Tested out how high prices could be raised before their competitors would stop matching the price.

This is a very complex thing.

Matt Levine had a very good column on this.

Like, what's the difference?

If they coordinate and talk to each other, it's different than just declaring these numbers.

I don't know.

We'll see.

Project NASI also helped Amazon match discounted prices from competitors.

The company made over a billion dollars in revenue using the algorithm and then said it didn't work.

And Amazon has said that it's grossly mischaracterized by the FTC.

They're trying to prove Amazon's a monopoly.

This is a complex, pricing is a very complex situation.

And whether they're colluding or they're cooperating or they're just watching other people's prices and matching them.

It's interesting.

Interesting.

So when I got out of business school in 1992, only 40% of us on graduation day had jobs because it was a recession.

Yeah.

And a bunch of us,

I got an A in accounting.

So I got put on some list where American Airlines reached out to me and said, would you mention interviewing to be a yield analyst?

And what a yield analyst was, they put you in a cubicle in Dallas.

and said, your job is to take all of this data and use our templates and figure out pricing because the the ultimate example of price discrimination is a plane, a plane headed from Dallas to Chicago.

Two people can be sitting next to each other and one's paying $200 and the other's paying $2,000.

And they use a variety of things, including,

is this person staying over

a Saturday night?

If yes, that means they're a tourist, means they have less money.

If they're coming back same day, it means they're on business, price incentive.

I mean, they just have these very complicated algorithms for figuring out how they get the most yield.

And that's what Amazon's doing here.

The problem is, is that Amazon is so good at it that they are effectively dictating pricing for all of the internet.

And they're capturing additional margin where they can.

And where they can't, they're lowering the prices such that no one else can capture surplus margin.

And it's, in my opinion, it's a powerful argument that Amazon,

they're not doing anything.

I mean, we've got to move away from this notion that they're bad people doing something evil.

It's just that at some point, when one company has all of the data and all of the capital, other companies can't compete.

And I think we have to move out of this thing of saying, well, did they do anything wrong?

No, maybe not.

But they're now in a position where they have so much power that because small companies, which generate two-thirds of the new job growth, can't emerge, the economy, stakeholders, and shareholders would be better off putting in place some regulation or breaking them up.

But the pricing mechanism they use here basically ensures that no one else can undercut them ever, right?

So they maintain more and more share.

But where the pricing is weak in the ecosystem, they charge the maximum price and they make money there.

It's no one, no one else gets a shot in making surplus margin and everybody else has to compete against Amazon in the more competitive markets.

It just basically sucks the oxygen out of the room for everyone but Amazon.

Yeah, although I think a lot of people think that they've got a real upward hill in proving that this is a problem.

You know, that this is

there's no email that goes, let's collude or anything.

They don't even need to, right?

They don't even need to collude.

They could just watch.

They don't need to collude with anybody.

Yeah, or coordinate collude.

I forget.

I just, a lot of my lawyer friends are like, this is not going to work.

But just one piece of data here.

The VIG they take, and we've said this before, the majority of their revenues on their e-commerce platform come from third-party retailers.

That is retailers where they do not have to take ownership of the item.

They're a platform and Joy Bag of Donuts, Donuts gets on the platform and they pay a certain amount of their top line gross revenue to Amazon for being on what is the most powerful platform in the world.

And that number, that VIG, has gone to 45%.

And this is an indication that an ecosystem is not healthy.

And all you need to do is speak to retailers on the platform who have been there for 10 years.

Yeah.

No, that's where the real, that's where the real story is.

That's what I can tell.

I think we should get a VIG.

Should we try to get a VIG from someone?

Who could we get a VIG from?

I love that word, a VIG.

I thought we were buying Twitter in Time Warner.

Now we need a VIG from Amazon.

Remember, Nathan Mirvold used the term Vig for Microsoft.

I remember that.

That's the first time I heard of it.

Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.

You've got, you've got.

I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail.

And the question comes via voicemail.

Let's listen.

Hi, Kara and Scott.

I have a question for Scott.

You have spoken about how problematic it is that elite universities are becoming increasingly exclusive.

I'm a major gift fundraiser at an elite university that I won't name, and I secretly agree with you.

However, you also mentioned giving $20 million to your own alma mater, UCLA and Berkeley.

So my question is, how did you come to direct your philanthropic dollars to these institutions, which are becoming more Birkenbag by the year?

By donating, are you furthering these schools' missions to become increasingly exclusive?

Is it okay since your alma mater's are public universities?

As a university fundraiser, I feel conflicted about working in this industry, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks so much.

She secretly agrees with you.

Well, so, you know, somewhere between 3,500 and 5,500 degree-granting institutions.

And so to paint them all with the same brush is a little bit unfair.

And I think when Harvard sits on an endowment of $52 billion and refuses to let in more than 1,500 kids, they have decided they're no longer public servants.

And I think a lot of universities, including mine at NYU, have probably fallen too much in love with this rejectionist exclusivity positioning that's bad for America.

And it creates.

It makes people feel bad, even if they're thinner, but go ahead.

It creates, it creates shame and rage across American households and just huge disappointment.

You know, if you had a drug that would increase the likelihood, increase your, do you realize with a college degree, at the age of 25, you have, you're going to, you have, on average, you're going to live 10 years longer.

than someone who doesn't have a college degree at 25.

If you could give a pill to people that made them less likely to to be obese, depressed, or kill themselves or kill other people and live 10 years longer and get married and vote, wouldn't you give that pill to everybody?

That's called higher education.

So the fact that there are institutions that have the money to give the pill to more people and they don't is really upsetting.

Now, having said that, I think the University of California is fighting the good fight.

They're going to add the freshman seats of a new university over the next 10 years.

Chancellor Block, who's just announced you're stepping down, Chancellor Christ at Berkeley, I approached them and I said, I am passionate about trying to create moron ramps to the middle class for young men.

I think there's a lot of jobs and young women, but I see the real problem is with young men.

And we have the infrastructure, we have the brands.

Let's fall out of love with this notion that we have to shove everyone through a traditional four-year degree in liberal arts.

And let's create, let's use our incredible infrastructure, our brands, our incredible faculty to offer certification programs, one in two years in things like nursing, specialty construction,

energy efficient heaters.

There's just so many jobs out there for these types of people.

And let's lift up young men and women, two-thirds of whom are not going to get a traditional college degree.

Where has metal, wood, and auto shop gone?

They've disappeared.

So where do these kids go?

Mostly men, but also some women who are hardworking, have skills, want to have a good life, want to get married, want to be good citizens, want to pay taxes, and are told by America, if you don't go to Dartmouth and end up at Google, you and your parents have failed.

Yeah.

And I got to be honest, that the University of California, granted, it, you know, pretty much everyone nods in a room when you show up with 20 million bucks, but they're taking it seriously and they're going to try and implement programs.

And my vision here, I hope at some point, and I'm going to call a lot of your friends, Kara, I don't want an admissions department.

You show up, you're in.

That doesn't mean you get the certification.

But if you show up, the whole point of America is to give the least fortunate opportunities, not to try and weed out everyone who's not freakishly remarkable at 18.

You can't predict greatness at 18.

But anyways, I do think at the University of California, I have some real issues with.

When I applied to UCLA, the admissions rate was 76%.

I was one of the 24% that didn't get in.

I applied again.

I got in, changed my life.

It's the reason I'm here with Kara Swisher.

Now it's 9%.

That's a problem.

But their heart's in the right place.

They're trying to do the right thing.

And when I approached them and said, I have some capital.

I have an idea, they said, let's get on it.

And they're working with me to try and

offer, to try and start a program.

So I think this woman is making the point is that if you find alternative ways to teach people and get them to step up, is what you're talking about.

It is.

It is a really interesting.

It's either too expensive for people, right?

These schools that put people, put themselves into eternal debt who can't afford them but can get in.

Or it's or it's the exclusivity is really over the top of qualified people.

I'm still mad about Stanford, you know, some 40 years later, right?

I'm still like...

Stanford, kids can't, the safety school, when I applied, UC Boulder was the safety school.

UC Boulder will reject hundreds of 4.0s this year.

And here's the real shame.

And that is the majority of schools, for the majority of people, if you go the full four years, even taking out a lot of debt, it pays out over your lifetime.

But this is what happens.

A lot of kids in their first first or second year realize college isn't for them.

The family has struggled.

They borrow 50, 100, 200 grand, and the kid drops out.

And then the kid has to face his family and say, I have put us all in debt and I have nothing to show for it.

And guess what?

That debt, unlike any other debt in America, is not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

So

you don't think America is about fucking young people?

Look at the fact that student loan debt can't be discharged in bankruptcy.

That is so immoral.

So there are literally hundreds of thousands of kids every year that have to go home and say, mom, dad, I know you saved for college your entire lifetime for me.

I know I got into college and I went, but I have failed.

And now all we're left with is massive debt.

And guess what?

The school gets paid.

The school gets paid.

I get it.

Yesterday, the Biden administration approved debt release for additional 125,000 student borrowers, totaling, according to CNN, $9 billion in forgiveness because the student, federal student loan payments started after the pause, the three-year pause, hit it.

As you know, the Supreme Court had struck down the forgiveness program.

So he's been canceling debt.

It's just going to continue.

But you're right.

But here's the thing.

Until the cancer here is until we,

you know, we should have taken that money, in my view.

I have a problem with student loan forgiveness.

I think it sucks to be a grown-up.

I think people,

it lets the schools off the hook.

You have to put the schools on the hook for bad debt.

And we should take our public universities and fund technology and infrastructure investments in exchange for two promises.

One, they're going to reduce tuition 2% a year and they're going to increase their enrollment 6% a year.

And in 10 years, on an inflation-adjusted basis, college is half the price with double the freshman seats.

Let's take education back to the 80s when you don't have to be fucking remarkable to get into UCLA or UC San Diego.

And guess what?

It doesn't break the bank.

Do you know what I did?

I showed up to UCLA with 60 bucks in a 1984, you know, sorry, 1984, 1978 Opal Manta.

Opal.

And I got through school borrowing $5,000.

I got jobs, Pell Grants.

And guess what?

I could do whatever I wanted after I got my degree from UCLA.

And then I got into, and then with a 2.27 GPA.

I love this guy to talk about me.

You know what Berkeley did?

They let me into graduate school.

Can you imagine Berkeley letting anyone to graduate school?

Did you get a 2.27 GPA at UCLA?

2.27.

But you know what?

I could make what?

I could make a bong out of any household item by the time I graduated from UCLA.

You got 2.27 once you got in.

True story.

2.27 GPA from UCLA and Berkeley let me into business school.

Oh, good God, Scott.

You could try harder.

And here's the thing.

No school, no organization, no person can predict greatness at 18 or 22.

And guess what?

See above 20 million, it's paid off for everyone.

That's true.

The whole point of these schools is to take as many bets on as many kids as possible.

Well, Scott is the poster child for failing upward.

Anyway,

2.27.

I could also recite every line in Planet of the Apes.

God, I watch that a lot.

Oh, me too.

We could.

We could watch that together.

You damn dirty ape.

If you've gotten a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way.

That was a great question, whoever you are.

And I'm glad you secretly agree with Scott.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, Scott, this is an action pack show.

Let's hear a prediction.

You're right about Kevin McCarthy.

Linda's going to visit the bankers.

Linda Yaccarino.

I don't know.

What do you want to predict about?

Give me a prediction.

I'm just doubling down.

I think that the

industrial food complex, the snack food industry, I think some of the big box retailers, kind of what I'll call the industrial obesity complex, we don't like hospital systems,

companies that make knee and hip replacements.

I think you're going to see these companies hemorrhage market capitalization over the next 12 months.

Yeah.

Well, that's a good prediction.

When all of a sudden 100 million people are eating and drinking less and all of the ramifications, whether it's diabetes, hip replacements, knee replacements, depression, therapy, I think there's going to be less therapy.

You're just going to have,

this is going to be,

you're going to have more sports.

I mean, there'll be a lot of winners too that we can't even project.

Everyone's talking about AI and it's going to grab the most headlines.

But over the next five years, the greatest shifts in market capitalization are going to happen because of the Ozempic economy or whatever you would want to call it, the obesity economy that's about to be disrupted.

People just don't even recognize how much of our economy is driven by obesity.

And when that, when that goes away,

you're going to see trillions of dollars of market capitalization reallocated and reshuffled.

I like that.

I like that.

That's a really good one.

I'm going to make a short prediction.

I think Jim Jordan will be the next speaker of the house.

Oh, no, don't say that.

Really?

Sorry to tell you.

Yeah, he's backed by McCarthy.

Maybe that's not a good thing.

I just feel like he's much more compelling than, and I think people are worried about

Scalise's illness a little bit.

And they think he's too much of an institutionalist,

incredibly, because he's not.

So, and I think Nancy Pelosi is quietly chuckling in her non-office.

Like, okay, fine.

So I think that's who's going to win it.

That's my feeling.

All right.

I'm going to just say that.

Wow.

You think it's going to be Jim Jordan, Representative Jim Jordan?

Well, we'll know by Tuesday, I guess, that Tuesday, Wednesday.

Has he ever passed a single piece of legislation?

I'm super looking forward to George Clooney's documentary about his time as a wrestling coach.

That's going to be a good one.

Oh, he's talking about...

When he let that guy go by,

let the, speaking of real pedophiles, let that guy bother those kids and didn't do anything about it.

He denies it, but many people say that's what happened.

Was he, just to be be fair, I do not like the man.

Was he ever directly implicated?

And it really, I mean, do they really have any evidence that he ignored?

There's been a lot of, well, we'll see.

I'm interested in looking at this documentaries.

And a lot of reporting from the people, the kids at the time who say that.

I think, you know, it's not illegal, but this has happened time and again in these instances.

Remember, Pennsylvania, whatever,

that coach at Penn State got in trouble.

What's his name?

Paterno.

Paterno.

Yeah, that was a really bad show.

What he did there.

I don't know.

We'll see.

Innocent till proven guilty, but I've seen a lot of testimony.

We'll see.

That felt pretty damning.

I don't know.

You know what?

Because you are pure evil, Kara Suita.

You're pure evil.

Pure evil.

I'm seething with hatred.

Seething with hatred.

Whatever.

What are you doing this weekend, Cara?

This weekend?

Oh, lots.

Oh, my.

It was Claire's birthday.

By the way, my prediction is Clara is now four and will be five next year.

I had my wedding anniversary.

We went to a beautiful dinner.

That was our third wedding anniversary, Claire's fourth birthday.

So

this weekend, we're having a baby kid party with a bunch of power ladies of Washington.

Nice.

Bringing all the kids over and we're going to, they're going to drink.

I don't drink that much, but they're going to have

Bloody Marys and watch the kids rip the house apart.

And then we're going apple picking.

We're going apple picking.

And I'm getting to test a Ford

Lightning, the truck.

So I'll be driving the Lightning to Apple Picking.

Jesus Christ.

Fill in my cab.

You're such a lesbian.

Oh, wait, did I just say that?

That's my weekend.

I'm finishing my last parts of my book in acknowledgements.

I have to write the acknowledgements and the last chapter.

Do you think I'll acknowledge you?

You kind of like reinvigorate.

Let's be honest, your career was sort of really struggling.

Let's be honest.

Who should I acknowledge?

Who should I not acknowledge?

Not acknowledge.

I'm going to acknowledge you.

Just a touch.

Acknowledge-ish.

Just a touch.

Just a scooch.

Ask me what I'm doing this weekend.

What are you doing this weekend?

Oh, you want to tell me?

That's why you asked me.

Yeah, that's why I asked you.

I'm not interested in you.

I'm interested in a prompt to talk more about me.

All right.

I'm going apple picking with my Ford Lightning truck.

I have an amazing weekend planned.

You're going to love this.

I'm doing CrossFit with

my son on Saturday.

And then it's my, I'm spending, I like spending, as I get older, I'm trying to spend more time with them individually.

And this weekend, it's me and Alec.

And

we're doing a big workout Saturday morning.

We're going to this cool brunch with some friends.

And then Saturday night, we're going to see Michael Berbiglias.

Last night of his

one-man show.

Oh, great.

Oh, it's in London.

Great.

And then on Sunday night at 5:30, 17:30 Greenwich Mean Time, we're going to go see Arsenal play Man City at Emirates Stadium, which I'm really excited about.

Wow.

You've got an action-packed sun weekend.

That's nice.

Oh, those are all really fun.

You'll love that show.

It's the sweet.

It's Old Man in the Pool, right?

His one-man show.

It's called Old Man in the Pool.

You'll love love it.

It's such a Scott Galloway show.

If, if you, I did a great interview with him about that show.

I love him.

He's amazing.

He's an amazing fellow.

Yeah.

I'm excited.

And you'll love it.

You, I think it'll have a lot of resonance with you, Scott Galloway.

I think you'll cry.

Really?

Probably.

I cry in everything.

Yeah.

No, I think you'll.

I cry in Modern Family every week.

Let me just say this show has a lot of resonance for Scott Galloway.

You'll see.

I want to hear about it when you come back.

Oh, that sounds like a lovely weekend.

I'll be picking apples

with the massive truck, and you will be doing sensitive man things with your son.

That's really nice.

Super nice.

Anyway, well, good.

Well, listen, have a great weekend, Kara.

You too.

That's the show.

We'll be back next week with more Pivot.

Please read us out.

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Andretat engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Mia Silvero, and Gaddafi McBain.

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

Yo, pure evil.

evil.

He came to me with bourbon on his breath and fornication on his mind, and I liked it, I liked it, pure evil.