Stock market reacts to Trump’s covid diagnosis, end times for Regal Cinemas and Advertising week 2020

1h 0m
Kara and Scott talk about how the stock market and media have reacted to the rollercoaster of Trump's covid-19 diagnosis. They also discuss the closing of the US' 2nd largest movie theater chain as more Hollywood releases are postponed. In wins and fails, Kara talks about Google giving money to news outlets as the company deals with antitrust lawsuits. And the hosts take live Q&A from the audience at Advertising Week 2020.
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Hi, everybody.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloy.

Hello, Kara.

What did you do this weekend?

What did you do this weekend?

Oh, just a second.

We're doing a podcast live with Advertising Week 2020, just so you know.

We're here.

What a thrill.

Anyway, what did I do this weekend?

What did I do this weekend?

What happened?

I've seen you playing with that thing.

It's not like a lock you can pick.

It's stuck.

You're twisting it.

That's very funny.

You're twisting it.

Yeah, I am.

It's weird to be wearing a ring.

I got married this weekend before the Supreme Court could try to overturn gay marriage.

I did actually get married.

And

Scott was not at the wedding.

That's the first thing you said.

That's the first thing you say.

That's your go-to.

Second and third and fourth thing I say, actually.

Scott was not there.

Yeah.

Do you want another test?

I was not there, but you want another test?

What?

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I give the same test.

This may come as a surprise to you.

I've been a best man at several weddings.

All right.

The toast I give is the same.

And it's my advice to, and it's usually to the husband because that's usually who I'm standing for, or the dude.

But the same goes here.

One,

never let Amanda be cold or hungry

because that'll screen out.

Okay.

Take a giant Pashmina posing as a blanket wherever you go.

Always have protein bars because, one,

when you look back on the fights that almost explode the marriage, somebody was cold or hungry.

Yeah.

So screen that out.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

That's one.

Two, don't keep score.

In relationships, especially as we're younger, we have a tendency to think, okay, her in-laws were over, that means her parents were over, that means my parents.

And just decide that you're always going to be in the plus column.

Always try and be ahead.

because you'll always inflate your own contributions relative to the partners.

So, anyways, commit to never getting scored.

And the third is let your saucy, horny minks fly.

Always express desire and affection.

It identifies the relationship as singular, and I think we all want to be desired and feel loved.

So, I would say every time you feel a source of affection or desire, express it.

Those are my three things, Kara.

All right.

That's my recipe for going to the city.

You've just displayed why you were not invited to the tiny wedding.

You will be invited to the big one and you will dance.

I think that is really all I want to do.

You will drink tequila and dance.

Nonetheless, I had a beautiful wedding.

And again,

the disturbing statement out of two of the Supreme Court justices around the gay marriage

that passed many years ago, sort of calling for lack of gay marriage, which was disturbing.

But nonetheless, I have a regular marriage.

I don't have a gay marriage or a straight marriage.

I just have a marriage.

And so I'm very excited.

But

let's move on to the stuff we actually talk about.

There's all kinds of stuff going on besides this happening this week.

Obviously, we're going to talk a little bit about President Trump in the hospital and the implications of that.

A lot of stuff is going, there was so much news over the weekend, it was kind of ridiculous.

The Justice Department just appealed the judge's ruling that the Trump administration can't impose a ban on WeChat.

A whole bunch of things happened over the weekend, but largely it was essentially

an infectious joyride from the President of the United States.

So obviously, this is huge news.

Let's talk about President Trump's COVID diagnosis and how it's affecting the markets, because I think that's the most important thing right now, because he seems to not care that he has COVID.

More people at the White House, including the press secretary, now have COVID.

This is a larger spreading event than in all of New Zealand, I think, at this point, in one White House.

Late last Thursday, Trump announced via Twitter that he tested positive for COVID-19.

By the end of the day, Friday, he was in a helicopter to Walter Reed Hospital, where he is being treated now.

He may be out at this moment, although he shouldn't be, according to many, many doctors.

Several other White House officials have tested positive, as well as people who are doing debate prep and so many more.

Obviously, he did that weird drive-by, putting at risk Secret Service agents, because he's full of COVID right now, in order to wave at reporters.

He made a series of videos that were odd and

felt odd to watch.

And on Friday, the stock market took a tumble because of the news, but made a jump back as doctors suggested the president would be released from the hospital.

So, what do you and there was also not a lot of great information and conflicting information, including by his doctor, who apparently is not a doctor,

who is like the Frank Burns, for those who are a little older, of

this episode.

So, Scott, what do you make of this?

And let's talk about the stock market in relation to the U.S.

President's health, because this has been the strangest

episode, I think, of the many strange episodes in the Trump administration.

The data is fairly unclear around disasters or perceived disasters' impact on the market.

When Eisenhower had a heart attack, the markets began to sell off.

The attacks of 9-11 brought a pretty serious correction or decline or markdown on the markets.

But when Reagan was shot, there was a brief blip down and then it came scorching back.

The markets are up today.

I think you summarized it pretty well last week, and you said that you think the markets have now decided to see beyond Trump.

Because if you think about it, all right, what's the the worst possible scenario?

He dies, right?

At least technically speaking, that's the worst possible scenario.

But at the end of the day, okay, so the virus has a say in this, but right now the markets are saying that the people are deciding in 28 days that he's probably going to be

gone and that his existence as president is probably going to cease.

This is, there's just no getting around it.

This is an unmitigated disaster for

and health concerns.

your health is important and you can't control it the virus didn't get the memo around these individuals belief that they're exceptional and the way i would describe the other thing that is just striking here is the image that will last and the image that may actually summarize his presidency is him in a hermetically sealed vehicle while he has covid asking other people who work for him i mean everyone talked about george sr bush sr's reverence for the secret service and how how much time and attention and gratitude he demonstrated quietly towards the people who worked around him.

And what does this guy do?

Hey, I've got some weird, weird notion that

I'll somehow express strength.

And the imagery here has been so

stupid.

Even little things care.

He puts on a suit and tie to walk to the helicopter to go to the hospital.

It's like, boss, you're trying too hard.

Cut yourself some slack.

Just put on that cool jacket that Obama used to wear and get on the helicopter.

It's just the imagery here, the hermetically sealed SUV and the other image that will haunt them is that rose garden picture, that elevated aerial rose garden picture.

I was thinking about you this week and I thought, okay, Kara's getting married.

If there's one event you would decide, life is risk.

If there's one event, you would decide to take some risk, it would be a wedding.

There's nothing more joyous, more important

than a wedding.

And I thought, okay, that picture, you could almost justify it if it was a wedding.

People decide to take the risk.

But it wasn't.

So, exactly.

But you decided, you decided to do Zoom and distance and mask.

And here's the thing.

You and your loved ones are citizens, just as the gathering at the Rose Garden, they're citizens.

But the difference is you demonstrate citizenship.

And everyone else has decided, well, it's more important to have

a political photo op and introduce a new Supreme Court nominee.

And

you look at this and then you see what happens.

And this notion that it's totally backfired him.

He's tried to project this image of me strong like bull.

And the image he's projected is me stupid like fucking idiot.

Me stupid like fucking idiot.

Every image that comes out, whoever manages the imagery there is terrible at what they do.

Talk about it from a brand point of view because, you know, we're not, well, we are political, but from a brand point of view, what does it do?

What does it message?

Because it did look really uncomfortable and weird standing there.

I was sort of like, please stop making videos.

Be quiet, perhaps, be sick, and then come out looking good.

There was so many other brand imagery that you could have done there for a positive political spin.

Was there, I mean, do you see, what would have been the right way to do it from a brand point of view?

You're a brand guy.

Well, just

not lying to us.

The other image that's going to haunt them is him signing blank pieces of paper.

Yeah, I saw it.

Let me look presidential like I'm working.

Oh, but don't realize the cameras can zoom in and they can see we're signing blank pieces of paper.

You know, something in the hospital,

they talked about how Reagan said to his his doctor, I hope you're a Republican.

And the doctor said, today we're all Republicans, and that Reagan was very optimistic, although he was in a terrible place.

And then

the other thing that comes out of this is, again, we undermine our institutions.

How much credibility has the medical profession lost?

A doctor walks out and says,

straight question, has he received supplemental oxygen?

And he goes, he currently isn't receiving it and refuses to answer the question.

So

it could have been an opportunity for him to

say, you know, to have a couple pictures, a couple of things surrounded by, you know, I don't know,

anything, anything other than what they've done.

They don't understand imagery.

And my sense is he's calling the shots here and just a series of terrible mistakes.

And they've, they've declined four points in the polls relative to Biden because of this.

And then making fun of Biden for his masking

and now who looks like the idiot.

And then what did the Biden campaign do?

They did that great 30-second spot that just shows him in front of American flag putting on a mask.

That was just, that was fantastic imagery.

So whoever's running the imagery for the Trump campaign, they just don't understand it.

And the larger.

But I want to talk about why they think it's going to work.

Is it just because they're just listening to whatever he says?

Because there's people that are smart about imagery on that campaign.

So they've been very effective on Facebook, or maybe Brad Parscal was.

But what.

What is the goal here?

But greatness is in the agency of others.

And when you have a team, not a team of rivals, but a team team of felons and incompetence, you just, they've gone from the kind of the A team around social media to the B team to the C team.

And now everyone's either infected, in jail, going to, I mean, it just, it's just, at some point, there's no one home.

And he's clearly decided that he's going to, he's going to call the shots and not recognizing that he's not in a position to make good decisions right now.

But the biggest...

He's on steroids.

That's not always not a big

decision to make decisions.

But

the biggest trend on a level is that we will look back on this time.

People, like I said, what was the moment where American civilization went into decline?

And everyone said, oh, it was JFK's shot.

No, it's not.

For the next 50 years, this was still the shiny beacon on a hill, whatever you want to call it.

The moment we ceded geopolitical power to the Chinese was COVID and Trump.

And they now, if you look at the imagery coming out of China, whether it's them enjoying concerts,

I mean, they just, they know how to manage this.

And we look like incredible, the smartest, quote-unquote, the smartest people in the room, the people who are leading our country right now, decide to get together and not distance, and then they all start getting infected.

This cements brand America right now, which is

these are terrible associations of incompetence, sickly, arrogant, and just this, this stupid.

It's stupid.

Perfect.

There you go.

So what does that do, really do to the election?

What do you think it does to the election?

I've been doing it all the time.

What do you think it does?

Well, it's interesting because, you know, my mom, as usual, is a Fox News watcher and continues to be so.

And it continues, I have to say, to warp her brain.

And she kept saying, well, it's not his fault that he got COVID.

And I was like, are they saying that on Fox News?

Because it is his fault.

He didn't wear a mask and he didn't, he relied too much on instant testing and not social distancing.

And so it was really,

I think, you know, it was just weird to see all those

people outside of Walter Reed.

It was a small group.

You know, the press acted like it was this massive rally going on outside the hospitals.

It was 50 sad people who are really going to get COVID and be sick, unfortunately.

But it still is this lasting thing that it's someone else's fault.

And I think Matt Goetz was pushing that idea of the, it's not the virus, Trump gets the virus.

It's the virus gets Trump and that and they're in trouble.

It's an old Chuck Norris

meme, essentially, which is kind of idiotic.

But this idea that you can muscle through illness.

And the messaging was was interesting for me.

You know, it was like, I've learned a lot about it.

I'm like, well, it doesn't really care if you learn a lot about it.

It wasn't like, it was this weird,

I've gone to school on this.

And you're sort of like, wow, people have died.

It's not a game.

It's not anything else.

And I, I just wonder if people are just looking with their slack-jawed mouth open like, what?

or not.

I will see.

I think we're going to see.

I think it looks ridiculous at this point, but you just never know.

You just never know how it'll shake out.

I do think most elderly people who are intelligent, who not my mom, I have to say, she's really quite lost the narrative here.

And she is intelligent, but she's certainly lost the narrative, will

look at this and think, I've had to stay in.

I've tried to be careful, and this clown is running around infecting people.

I think that's, that to me is the part that is ridiculous.

I think beyond the

Sharpie thing on the blank page, that to me is that ride was really quite, I'd love to know the person who said, let's, let's go and do this.

This is good for us, but it's certainly not.

But, you know, it doesn't help anything.

It just helps him.

And someone's going to die here because

what you have is you have the New York Times now doing contact tracing.

And that is, they've said, okay, these are the people who got it.

And they'll find that somewhere along the line.

I mean, you do have,

this is a very sensitive topic because you don't want anyone to get sick.

A pathogen, some people just catch it, can't avoid catching it.

But we do as citizens have an obligation to take certain precautions to not become another node on the geometric spread.

That is a form of citizenship.

They don't care.

They don't care.

They don't mind.

I see them going to work even with COVID.

Like, look, he's going back to the White House even with COVID.

And it's really, it's, we don't care.

We do not care when we get sick.

And probably

just the way his luck is going, probably the week before, they're going to directly be able to reverse engineer someone who'd caught it and died because of their little Contagion 2 party in in the Rose Garden.

And it's going to bring home to people just what it means to be a citizen or poor citizenship.

One would hope.

Well, it's already happening.

The polls are already reflecting it.

No, I see that.

I see that because it's so stupid.

But let's go to the real impact on this.

It is a group of people in Washington that went, and it will continue to radiate outward.

But let's go on a quick break and come back to talk about more chains and businesses closing.

And we'll get to some wins and fails for the week.

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Welcome back.

Regal Cinemas, the U.S.'s second largest cinema chain, is closing all of its locations nationwide.

The others are struggling.

The decision came after another postponement of Hollywood big budget releases.

Most recently, the latest James Bond movie was halted, much to my chagrin.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't have gone anyway.

Meanwhile, big airline job cuts are expected this week, barring additional federal aid, which has been slowed down because everybody in the White House has coronavirus.

They can't get a deal done.

And Nancy Pelosi was just talking about this.

U.S.

airlines are on the verge of shedding more than 30,000 jobs, according to CNBC.

And data released by Yelp shows that 60% of business closings due to the pandemic are now permanent.

So let's talk about the business changes because these are the real reverberations around the country.

People who are sick is tragic.

This is also going to be very tragic.

So we've talked about cinema closures and what was going to happen.

So talk a little bit about these job cuts and where you see the next ones coming.

Because we talked about this quite a bit, this idea of job cuts.

So a really healthy exercise to do professionally is to take the three biggest trends in your industry and then just take the slope of the curve for the last 10 years and extend it 10 years forward and then take it out 10 years.

And that's where we are now.

And if you had taken theater attendance out, I mean just an example, last year motion picture, total volume of motion picture or total gross domestic box office receipts was 7 billion.

And they estimate the home video market is 120 to 150 billion.

So the domestic box office motion picture industry

does not command or does not occupy the space it commands and that it's we're fascinated by it.

But the reality is it's it's the denim market is now bigger than the motion picture industry.

And if in every year it got worse and worse and there was some innovation in Alamo Draft House IPIC.

But for the most part, every year they became increasingly, the industry not only, the revenues were not only flat to declining, but it became less robust.

What do we mean by robust?

Nassim Taub talks about the financial services industry isn't robust because if J.P.

Morgan goes down, it could take the global economy down so he gets to call the president and get bailed out whenever he wants.

The restaurant industry is a robust industry.

We're going to lose a third of them.

And quite frankly, you're still going to be able to get great food delivered to your doorstep.

The motion picture industry, domestic box office, is not robust because it's become increasingly reliant on a bunch of men in tights, right?

It's become basically seven or 10 tentpole films make or break the entire year.

And in addition, it hasn't listened to the consumer.

Consumers will pay 10, 20, $100 pay-per-view to be able to see Frozen or Milan or Avengers in their home where, by the way, the innovation, look at your home viewing experience in the last 20 years, what's happened to it.

Look at the movie theater experience in the last 20 years.

One has changed dramatically.

The other still has sticky floors and overpriced popcorn and not only that.

It's just not a...

So

this is nothing different.

It's just an accelerant.

These things were going away.

Moving on to the jobs.

I'm a capitalist around this.

I think two-thirds of the PPE did nothing but delay the inevitable.

I think one of the things we've decided in a capitalist society is that in order to reward the winners, we have to punish the losers.

I think we need a broader safety net and more retraining and extended unemployment.

But I don't know if we need airlines to be as big as they were.

And we decided that because airlines have this kind of national feeling about them, that we consistently bail them out.

And I don't think that's fair.

I think they should be allowed to go under.

I think the debt holders should take license to the aircraft and they need to reshape.

It'll have all sorts of ramifications, including it'll be much more difficult to live in a quote-unquote secondary city that's not as populous because you'll start losing flights.

But look, I don't think we, I think we have to exit the consensual hallucination that that everything's going to go back to normal.

And we've decided in this country that we let people go, we let companies go out of business.

We let people get fired such that when the economy returns, we can have new businesses, new people get hired.

So, yeah, it's terrible.

But I think it's overdue.

I think the PPP loans were nothing but a temporary sugar high that did nothing but end up in the hands of some very wealthy small business people.

What should happen now with stimulus then?

They are trying to get this, I think, $2.2 trillion.

They're going between $1.6 trillion.

They're in the the middle of that somewhere.

It was much higher for the Democrats, very low for the Republicans.

I think it was $300 million.

What should happen now?

What should the government be doing to put some economic activity into the environment?

Because this gets, you know, you're going into the fall season, you're going into Christmas, you're going into the flu season.

We still don't have a vaccine.

I just did an interview with Monsef Slowy, and he was saying most people will not be getting this vaccine until the spring, essentially.

Most people, even though first responders may get it by December and the older people in January, February.

So what do you do to stave off that six to seven month timeframe where there's going to be enormous amounts of people out of jobs?

What would you think is important?

Simply put, I think the theme around stimulus should be to protect people, not companies.

We've had a tendency to personify and idolize companies.

Companies are inanimate legal entities formed in Delaware.

They're not concerned with the condition of your soul.

They're not going to take care of you when you get older.

And the notion is well, maintain the jobs.

And my feeling is you let the economy reshape to a new normal.

And there's some harshness in that.

But if you were to take, there's 110 million households in the U.S., if you were to take the bottom 55, the bottom median, the ones making less than $60,000 a year who are vulnerable, and said, all right, instead of $3 trillion going to airlines and low-cost loans,

that's 50 million households.

That's $60,000 per household.

I say just give people who are most vulnerable just a check and say, all right, find find the food, find the help you need.

You might get laid off, but you don't have to be afraid.

And I think you let the economy do what capitalism does.

I think you let

the gears grind and some of it's ugly and some people get hurt, but it's okay if companies go out of business.

What we need to make sure is that the poor, the people least advantaged in our society aren't afraid about feeding their children.

They don't feel like they have to leave their house and turn on their phone and go drive an Uber or go to a dangerous job.

So I think we get it all wrong.

I think we've decided to protect people, but mostly protect companies.

No, you don't.

Give all the capital to people.

Let people, people are smart.

They'll decide which companies should survive.

They'll spend the money where it should go and those companies will reform.

But instead, we've created this zombie economy with a bunch of companies that shouldn't be alive, that shouldn't.

Small business, I'm a small business man.

Small businesses in America, we're the fucking wolves of the global economy.

And instead, they've turned us into these little bitch poodles waiting for the government to come home and feed us.

We'll be just fine.

What you need to do is protect people, not businesses.

All right, little bitch poodles.

Listen, little bitch poodle.

But I'm your little bitch poodle.

I'm yours.

Not even sending you.

Rub my dog.

Oh my god, I'm sorry.

Rubber's belly.

I totally send you a little bit of a belly.

Give me a pig's ear.

Let me just say that.

Give me a pig's ear.

No.

Listen, listen to me.

What new job, where are the new jobs then?

Where do you imagine that?

Let's go out

to where it would happen.

If we're having a smaller airline industry, a smaller restaurant industry, a smaller, you know, retail industry, Where are the actual jobs from your perspective?

So I'm in, and I can't wait for the response here.

I'm in Cabo San Lucas.

And the thing about Cabo San Lucas is

there's something about the architecture.

I'm horrified at how privileged I sound right now.

But anyways,

it has this topography here with a slope of the beach.

Wait, you're in Cabo San Lucas.

I'm in Cabo San Lucas.

Anyways, hola.

All right, okay.

Hola mi amigo.

Anyways.

Okay, let's move along.

Yeah.

You horrible men.

So

this place manufactures these perfect waves.

And every time I come here, I fall under the delusion that I can actually surf because the waves are perfect.

And I always tell kids, you want to get, you'd rather be a bad surfer where there's perfect waves.

So where are the perfect waves?

What are the tsunamis of growth?

And there's just some obvious ones.

$4 trillion,

$4 trillion

in healthcare spending is up for grads and is going to be reformatted over the next five years.

The number of people who are comfortable getting their health care remotely through telemedicine, over the phone, regulations have come crumbling down because they wanted to administer health care remotely.

The technology, the amount of cap, there'll be more money invested in telemedicine and remote care and new formats and innovation around

the largest sector of our economy, healthcare, in the next two years has been the last 20.

Get to health tech.

My industry is going to go through changes, ed tech, the unbundling of industry.

Think about the amount of time.

If you just loosely think, all right, how much time was I spending in an office?

I'm going to spend 20 to 30 percent across America, 20 to 30 percent less time in an office.

That probably most of that shifts to the home, which means there's going to be a 20 to 30 percent reallocation out of what is the second largest asset class, commercial real estate, into the largest asset class, residential real estate.

So everyone from restoration hardware to lumber prices are going to skyrocket.

Housing had its best month ever last month.

So I think you just want to get in front of these tsunamis because market dynamics trump individual performance.

You would rather be a marginal executive in the health tech business and a great executive in the motion picture cinema business.

So get to EdTech, health tech, residential real estate, and there's probably another 10 to 15 waves of between 100 million to delivery.

Remote.

Delivery.

Any remote delivery supply chain, cold storage, vaccination of supply chain.

There's just, there's just some enormous waves forming.

Get to the waves.

All right.

What among the things that were there before do you imagine coming back?

I do imagine

restaurants a little more, not as many restaurants, but you know, I was just in New York this weekend and everybody was masked up, but it was astonishing how adaptable everybody was.

Everybody was outside, they closed roads.

It was so creative to watch, you know, businesses try to stay afloat and they were doing a great job, you know, in terms of being full and full of people.

Now, obviously, it's going to change with the weather, but it certainly was heartening to see adaptability by a lot of small businesses.

We're doing various and different things.

And so in a lot of ways, it's heartening to watch that.

What do you see as coming back?

You know, you talk about things that are cyclical or in this case, COVID-affected versus

stuff that's just going, that's just...

going away completely.

What do you see as not going away completely and coming back?

Probably travel, for example.

The minute we can travel, I know I'm getting on a plane to go somewhere to a vacation spot or something like that, even though you vacation for a living.

What do you imagine will be stronger, say, once the vaccine is more widely dispersed by next summer, say?

Well, I want you to answer the same question, because I'm not sure I've got a lock on this.

But so the big question that all companies are asking is cyclical versus structural, right?

On a metal level, I think one of the things that's cyclical is cities.

I think if you look at economic history, cities actually do really well post-pandemic.

And I think it's situational.

I think San Francisco, as a consumer product, could best be described as expensive but bad right now, and people are leaving.

But I think cities like New York, I think big city, you know, Dallas, Austin, whatever you want to call it, I think cities will continue to thrive.

Costs will come down.

There'll be a lot of money lost around the people who own buildings.

That'll be restructured.

Office buildings will be reformatted into residential.

But I think cities are going to boom.

And I would argue if New York's costs get cut by 20 or 30%, as long as crime doesn't return and the age goes down, it could be a fantastic, you know, I'm not sure that's a bad thing

if costs get brought down.

So I think cities do really well.

Restaurants, restaurants will not, restaurants will have the same amount of dollar volume, but it'll go through different channels, right?

You'll see 20 to 30% of it

move to delivery.

And unfortunately, there'll be a culling of the herd and the independent, a lot of the small guys just won't have the balance sheet sheet to survive it and we're going to see a consolidation there in other words we'll see um you know the the the hundred biggest providers from chipotle to panera will grab a lot more market share uh in travel business travel is structurally impaired um i'm gonna i traveled 150 to 200 000 miles a year i'm now gonna travel 50 and 30 of that is going to be resort travel or leisure leisure travel resort and leader leisure travel will not only be cyclical will not only come back, it'll actually come back to greater levels because people will be spending more time with their families and have more time freed up for leisure travel.

So it depends.

The question I would put to you is, where do you think media goes post-pandemic?

How do you think the media industry shapes and what's cyclical and what's structural?

Well, I think

continuing in the way that I've already sort of started to see when I started doing all things C and code, smaller, more limbo, faster, don't need as many people, essentially.

But that's something that's been happening forever, right?

That's something, and at the same time, major brands being more powerful than ever in terms of, I mean, look at, I mean, you found out a lot of medical information from the New York Times and the Washington Post and other news organizations, and also Claudia Conway, apparently, on in on TikTok.

Thank God it wasn't banned.

Is that 2020?

Does that mark 2020?

You can imagine that Kelly Ann.

She's just now on.

Kellyanne was literally on a conference call with advisors, the White House.

This is how we're going to spin it.

And then they go, your daughter just announced it on TikTok.

I mean,

that is genius.

Anyone with teenagers knows?

There's your life, and then there's what happens when you have a teenager in your household.

I know.

Well, she just announced she has COVID.

She just announced she has COVID, which makes it even better.

Her daughter has COVID.

You know, you're right.

Yeah, she just announced

that she does.

From her her mom because her mom lied to her about it.

That's what she's saying.

It's just, it's really, I mean, that's what I'm getting to a bigger point, right?

It's like this reality show.

This reality show both sucks and is impossible.

But I hope George doesn't get it.

I think it's the

yes.

Your boyfriend.

I think that the, yeah, it's not my boyfriend.

And I think he's very clever on the Twitter.

I touched a nerve.

Someone's got a crush.

No,

I just got married.

No, I just got married.

No.

Yeah, Yeah, just so you know, I can tell you this.

Once you get married, you're no longer attracted to other people.

Yeah, it definitely goes away because you're so in love with your spouse.

Yeah.

I am.

I know.

No, I haven't noticed all this.

I really am.

I'm sitting by the pool here.

Yeah, I'm totally blind to that now.

I'm totally blind to that.

Listen, listen.

You know what?

Stop wrecking my new marriage if you don't mind.

Give it at least a little.

I'm sorry.

No, anybody, listen.

We're going to get to wins and fails in a second.

No, not ad week, advertising week 2020.

We're not supposed to say ad week 2020.

As usual, you make a mistake.

Here's the deal.

I think I'm going to finish.

I'm going to finish up.

I do think certain things like

leisure travel, I think you're right about cities.

I do think people,

a number of people I've talked to who have moved out of cities, seem like they want to just run back to cities right now.

I think they've had enough of the lakes and the beauty.

I got a lot of texts about how beautiful the sunsets and lakes were.

And I've been staying in a city and they seem more and more like sunset lake, sunset lake, or whatever, wherever they happen to be suburbs, somewhere where it isn't the city.

So I do think you're right about cities, and they will return strongly.

I just wonder what's going to happen to the streetscape in a lot of these places without retail, without

downtowns, traditional downtowns.

And I'm not creative enough to know what they're going to do with them.

I do think they will get could be wonderful.

It could be wonderful.

We could take a third of the combustion engines out, cars out.

We could make streets, keep streets permanently for open-air dining.

You want to talk about some niche structural or circle.

You know, it's going to come roaring back.

I mean, just fucking roaring back is Disneyland.

What?

When Disney, when we have a vaccine, you're going to see record, absolutely record attendance at

Disney parks.

There's going to be, you know, it's also a cyclical bump?

Alcohol sales were up 55%.

They're going back to where they were pre-COVID.

That's mostly you.

That's mostly me.

That's five of that.

Anyway,

we're going to move on.

to wins and fails, and then we're going to get some questions from listeners.

Scott, what is your wins and fails?

My win is second marriages where hope triumphs over experience.

I think it's wonderful.

I also am

moved that you had the discipline not to invite people that you admire and love as an expression of citizenship and that you masked up.

I think you're a good citizen and I'm happy for you and Amanda.

Thank you.

I think it's important.

We podded people too.

We put everybody in pods who were together.

So they got to sit near each other, but they were away from, we kept everyone eight feet apart.

I'm happy you have three kids and I'm being fox lunches.

I'm being somewhat serious here.

I think Europe, one of the things that challenges Europe, is the birth earth.

I think when people decide not to have children because of economic strains, as in Japan or Italy, it threatens their society.

Everyone blames it on immigrants.

No, immigrants add value to a society.

What is really wonderful, if you will, is when good people who love each other and are economically secure and competent decide to have children.

I think that's key to the species.

So, you know, my win is the citizenship and the parenting brought to us

courtesy of Amanda and Kara.

Congratulations to both of you.

I think it's a wonderful.

Oh, that's very nice.

What's your fail?

What's your fail then?

My fail is American citizenship.

We like to blame it on Trump, but I'll see anything starring Hitler.

I went to a movie this weekend and I saw a Call the Spy, and it's about the British

planting.

You saw the streaming.

You didn't go to a physical movie.

No, I did, but I made sure there were only four people in the theater.

It's It's one of those I pick, and there were four people, and I masked up.

And, you know, here we go.

Anyways,

and I hadn't been in the movies in a long time.

But basically, we started dropping and planting women because we thought they'd be less obvious, or the British did, into France during World War II, and they were tremendously effective.

And about a third of them were captured, tortured, and murdered.

And what was striking is I did some reading on it, and supposedly 80% of the women that they asked to do this said yes on the spot.

And I just think about the levels of citizenship America has demonstrated in the past that we seem to have lost.

And I don't know if it's because our leaders demonstrate such poor citizenship, but during World War II, when word got out that we were short on rubber because the Japanese controlled many of the southern islands that produce rubber, immediately Americans started driving 30 instead of 60 because they thought, I need to save my tires.

And we won't put on fucking masks to go into Walmart.

And so I don't think we can just blame the Trump administration.

I wonder, and

I'm with this guy who's in the Special Forces for the Navy, and I hear some of his stories and just about the mental toll and some of the citizenship that we have clustered around a small cohort in our society, and we've asked them to be Uber citizens, and the rest of us are just supposed to, you know, are just waiting on our stimulus check.

So my loss is my collective fail.

I do think America has lost its sense of citizenship across our populace.

And I don't know what repairs it.

I don't know whose fault it is, but I think the first thing is to acknowledge that citizen is a real word, and we are failing.

We are failing as a populist to demonstrate citizenship and small and big things.

Okay.

My wins and fails, they have to do with companies we actually cover.

Google is giving a billion dollars in licensing fees to news publishers as the company gears up for a government antitrust.

That is a, you know, I'm not surprised they're doing that.

I think they're trying to do whatever they can as they face this government antitrust lawsuit, which has sort of been delayed, it looks like.

It was supposed to be last week.

At the same time, the Wall Street Journal obtained Facebook's 14-page argument for why the government should not break up the company, anticipating this with the FTC.

Their argument is that Facebook deals with Instagram and WhatsApp were approved by the FTC, and unwinding those deals would cause consumer harm.

So

what do you think of that?

I mean, what is your,

I mean, because they're going to be trying to battle these things.

And if Biden wins, they're certainly going to accelerate these calls to break up these companies.

and to bring them to heel.

I think they should not avoid the inevitable and just begin to understand their businesses in a new paradigm with more guardrails, possibly breaking up parts of it, and do it proactively.

We've talked about this again and again.

I'm not clear why they're

doing defenses when it looks like the writing is on the wall for them, especially if in the case of a Biden win.

Yeah, and the billion dollars to media companies from Google, that's Pablo Escobar building a park.

That's Jeffrey Epstein sponsoring

the youth gymnastics team in Palm Beach.

It's so disingenuous and ridiculous.

Pedophiles and drug dealers.

Okay.

Compare them to that.

Go ahead.

Too much?

Look,

I'm sailing my thunder because this will be my prediction next later in the week, but I think there's a decent chance that Barr announces a deal with Google in October because I think he'll offer Google a deal they will not get in a Biden administration.

in exchange for the ability to pretend that they're actually doing something and they're effective.

I think there is a backroom deal done between William Barr and the board of Google and Puchai that says, I'll slap you on the wrist and I'll pretend I have a victory and you're never going to get this deal in a Biden administration or with our administration, we get re-elected.

So I think there's corruption taking place behind the scenes between William Barr and Google right now.

To do what?

What would be the settlement?

You spin YouTube or you pass a bunch of money.

We basically, it's okay if you cop early, you get a fine and you don't go to prison.

I think they want an October surprise.

I think they have a list of things.

And I think they want to say, we're tough.

We did this with Google.

And Google will hit the bid because they realize that they're going to pay a much bigger price

once it's Biden and if Elizabeth Warren is anywhere near the room that makes the decision.

Look, in this case, in this idea of doing that, doesn't mean they escape a Biden administration deal, I mean, attack from Elizabeth Warren and others.

Even if they strike a deal with Bill Warren, it's not over.

I think they should just...

It doesn't.

It means they're going to come back and get worse or they'll abrogate it.

And so I think what they really need to do, which you've talked about, it is see it as a shareholder boon.

It's a boon to them as

corporate citizens that they're able to try to be proactive about this versus it being imposed upon them.

You know, I think that they can sell it as a shareholder plus, that we have new companies.

Everybody's richer.

Jeff Bezos is richer than ever, that kind of stuff.

I think that's, and you don't have to appear in front of Congress endlessly to do what inevitably will be happening to you.

So I think they should just get way out in front of this and break themselves up or

find themselves or find some way.

Yeah, why not?

I mean, that to me is to your point, most valuable company in the world.

And we've predicted this, AWS in 2025, he'll spin at some point.

And you said something that really struck me when we interviewed Sunda Purchier after it.

You said, you know, I get the sense that he would feel relieved if he was broken up and then he could just focus on product and strategy and not just be constantly apologizing.

All of them.

All of them.

You know, I'm not sure what the only person I think really wants to resist being broken up is Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook.

I think that is the only one that I think has not entertained the idea that he's going to have to do that on some level.

And I think that's going to be the, that's the problem for them, I suspect, because they don't have enough,

you know, they don't have enough ability to understand what life is going to be like post that.

So I just, I really do hope they think really hard instead of doing these things like these licensing fees or try to come up with elaborate defenses.

I understand why they do that, but I don't understand why they would

continue to resist what is inevitable.

And this is inevitable from my perspective.

Stop reading your text, Scott.

Valentir.

Anyway.

Valentir down to nine bucks a share, five bucks a share before the, if oh, really?

Why?

Okay, we'll talk about it.

Why?

Because Biden's up four points.

You watch.

Palantir's stock is going to be immersively correlated to the Delta, to Biden's lead.

Anyways, I'm sorry.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that's interesting.

All right.

One more quick break.

We'll be back for listener QA with our live advertising week 2020 audience.

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Okay, we're back.

This is a question for Scott, I think.

Can you talk about the structural changes in the advertising industry and which companies can benefit or which players can benefit and perhaps which players do not benefit?

Scott?

I think the biggest structural change is that the so if you think about the conglomerates,

WPP, Omnicom, IPG, Public C, First off, just a sense of how much their star has faded.

Google and Facebook lose or gain the value of all four of these companies combined in a given trading day.

Now, having said that, as it relates to those four companies, you're going to see them, two of the four split into a good bank, bad bank, because

they have some remarkable assets.

They have some data-driven, really interesting assets that help brands.

And then they have some old economy dying assets that are strong cash flow, such as their traditional ad agencies.

And the problem is with the conglomerate structure, it used to work, and Martin Sorrell fashioned it where he'd say, okay, by diversifying our revenue streams and smoothing them out, we traded a multiple of 10 to 12 times EBITDA.

We go buy these companies for six to eight.

And it's an arbitrage, and the market loves it.

And that worked for about 30 years.

Now, the market looks at ad agency conglomerates and finds the shittiest business in the portfolio, which is an ad agency or media buying company declining 3% or 4% and 10% of top-line revenue and EBITDA, respectively.

And And it assigns that multiple to the entire conglomerate.

So it pays a conglomerate discount.

So you're going to see some smart people at WPP

or an Omnicom, they're run by very smart people, go good bank, bad bank, and they're going to split up.

So I think the biggest structural change is there's going to be...

Just as we're talking about forced breakups of big tech, there's going to be voluntary diversification and good bank, bad bank split ups in the next 24 months across the big four in media.

And then where will they end up?

Well, they'll end up, they'll just be, they'll be like this data-driven data company that, you know,

the tech trading platforms

companies will be the smaller, fast-growth ones.

They'll trade at a much higher multiple.

And then the other companies, which will also be probably pretty good investments because they'll go out at a terrible valuation.

You know, everyone's doing this.

Simon Property did this.

Simon Property took all their shitty dying real estate and spun it into Bad Bank.

You're seeing this across a lot of old industry where they split them up.

But I think

those companies are going to be split up.

And the reality is

the advertising industrial complex is getting the oxygen sucked out of the room.

And that is, it's very simple.

Do you work in an environment that involves subscription, involves data, involves Facebook, Google, or Amazon?

But if you're dependent upon an ad-based model, if you're supporting the advertising industrial complex,

it's just going from bad to worse.

Bad to worse.

Scott, so nice with this audience.

So in other words, get another job job, is what you're saying?

I think it depends on your age and your situation.

These organizations aren't stupid.

They know they need to pay people to hold on to them.

But loosely speaking, it's going to be a shitty place to work or invest for the next 20 years.

20 years.

Okay, then.

All right, next question.

Looking at the explosive growth of Shopify as well as their platforms like Uber

and Instagram, will it democratize wealth?

And is this sort of the businesses of the future?

I'm going to start with that.

I do think these

Shopify, which Scott has talked about quite a lot, is sort of of the play and the sort of anti-Amazon kind of thing.

But I think you can have both at once, the giant platforms like Amazon, and then these more democratized platforms for everybody else.

Scott?

So

Shopify is probably the most innovative company in the last decade.

Everyone was so scared of Amazon, they said, let's absolutely become the non-Amazon Amazon and let

third-party retailers keep their data, keep their branding, keep custody of the consumer, and generally be an infrastructure company.

And

now Shopify is worth more than FedEx, UPS, and throw in

shit, I don't know, throw in Nordstroms and Williams Sonoma and Tari.

I mean, Shopify is extraordinary.

I think it's got about $120 million market capitalization.

But the question is around the democratization, 100% no.

Uber embodies a dangerous economy, and that is we have 25,000 people working at headquarters, splitting the value with their investors of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler combined, while 7 million people get software.

Yeah, who aren't their employees, but are quote unquote, their partners, which is Latin for no minimum wage protection.

And we're going to kick you in the nuts economically and turn your car into a payday loan.

And a lot of this is public policy fault.

It's not just the economy.

It's the economy we choose.

And that is we have payroll taxes, meaning if you hire somebody, you have to pay an additional tax on them.

But if you turn it into their job into software or robot, you don't have to pay taxes on them.

Everybody demonizes immigrants.

It's not immigrants taking jobs, it's robots.

And if that's fine, you can't get in the way of it.

But to Christ, at least tax them such that we can put some of that money into retraining.

All right, what about an Instagram or other platforms like that where people do small businesses?

There's all kinds of small businesses popping up on those platforms.

Yeah, and eBay, half a million people make their living on eBay, Instagram.

But slowly but surely, what these essentially what these platforms are really good at is over time, they start starching all the margin and excess surplus wealth and capturing it.

I mean, it's like YouTube.

There'll be some very well-publicized YouTube stars that make a million dollars a year.

And there will be tens of millions of people who spend a lot of money on YouTube to get some awareness.

Maybe they monetize it somewhere else.

But be clear, I mean, YouTube's not in the business

of making other people's livings.

No, they talk about it.

Sure.

There'll be some winners.

It's like our economy in general.

There'll be some very well-publicized examples of people who dropped out of college, followed their passion, and became billionaires.

You should assume you are not Jay-Z,

and we should assume that these platforms will do nothing but leverage their extraordinary power over the rails to slowly but surely suck the margin out of the oxygen out of the room of everyone but them.

And occasionally they'll say, oh, we're giving $300 million for election privacy or to sponsor newsrooms to put lipstick on cancer.

But the concentration of power here, and it's happening again, ride hailings now, or food delivery is going to have two players control 70% of the market.

And it all leads back to the same place.

We need a more diverse ecosystem,

a more robust environment or ecosystem.

What about

a shopify when you have a platform like amazon i don't understand the question karaoke what is shopify of that ilk too sucking all the oxygen out of the system for its the the retailers on its platform or do you feel like that war no i think shopify so a couple things shopify makes a more robust ecosystem because people have now more of a choice a small a small

retailer of surfboards has a place they can go and own nomad sports can own the or nomad surf can own the custody of the consumer maintain the data has another option to Amazon.

I think that's a really, really good thing.

But when you have $110 billion

across one company, I mean, it's just, there's only so much capital to go around.

And the market is becoming such a, you're either a story stock and have vision and have extraordinary, crazy.

unrational, you know, irrational multiples, or you're a company that's dying and you're trading at kind of a value.

It's like, it's this K-shaped recovery.

There's nothing in the middle anymore.

But I think Shopify is an inspiration.

I'm rooting for them.

I think they're fantastic.

I think it's nice to see Canada put a win on the

scorecard after watching Rim and BlackBerry basically.

So there can be versions of these platforms that are helpful to people, and there can be ones that are exploitative.

That's what you're saying, essentially.

There's two different kinds.

Just going from one platform to a kind of a distant second creates much more health in the ecosystem, much more options, much more choice, more jobs, broader tax base.

Yeah,

I think it's fantastic.

I think overnight, if you had a Google and a YouTube, we'd immediately have two search engines and two video.

They'd no longer be coordinating and cooperating.

They'd be competing.

And overnight, you'd see the tax on small businesses that feel they have to be on Google come down.

You'd see more startups, broader tax base.

So I think competition is fantastic.

I love Shopify.

I absolutely love Shopify.

What do you think?

I think that some platforms can be exploitative and some aren't.

You know what I mean?

It just depends.

I do still think that if there's, you know, you look at something like Substack, have you seen all these people, all these reporters going on to to the casey newton just went there but there's been lots of others uh andrew sullivan a whole bunch of people which they're sort of staking they're creating these platforms that allow them to publish and and uh go to their fan base now i only think a couple of people have a fan base to do that um so that's you know it depends on certain people that have a differentiated product and so if you don't that's your real problem i think if you're competing with amazon on basic stuff you're not going to win i think you do matter what platform i think you just came up with a new um acronym It's not DTC, it's not direct to consumer, it's DTF, direct-to-fan.

I like that.

Hashtag pivot recode.

All right.

It's all yours.

DTFs.

But you have to have a fan base.

You have to have a fan base, and not everybody does.

All right.

Recently, Amazon's been running a lot of self-positive ads, sort of patting themselves on the back.

I've noticed them too, and there's a lot of them

complimenting themselves how well they've conducted themselves.

What do you think of that?

I think they're smart ads.

I'm not surprised.

Yeah, they're good ads.

They are good ads.

They're showing.

I mean, Amazon's now the second largest employer.

They are hiring a lot of people.

They are paying them $15 minimum wage.

It's an inspiring company.

I think Amazon's an incredible company.

I'd like to see Amazon be three incredible companies.

And it's interesting that we always look at.

these things through the lens of antitrust as some sort of punishment.

I think we need to reframe antitrust as an award.

Like, oh, my God, you are just incredible.

Congratulations.

We're going to give you an opportunity to expand the economy, oxygenate the ecosystem because you you are just so fucking awesome.

We're breaking your ass up.

So should we go up there and give them this gift?

Should we deliver the message?

You got to run for Senate, and I'll just manage your imagery.

Yeah, yeah.

But, hey, stranger things have happened.

Start sexting.

Start sexting.

Okay.

No, no, no, no, no.

I like that stuff.

The Amazon ads.

I mean, if you want to.

Me too.

I think it's interesting because Uber's been doing a lot of ads.

Amazon's been doing a lot of ads.

You're seeing some from Google.

All of them have been doing advertisements on regular ads.

You see them pop up all over the place, whether it's cable or elsewhere.

But it's an interesting, why not burnish your reputation during a time when other people can't spend?

You know, you give yourself that extra time.

So just to go to Amazon, and this is where their advertising is going.

There's been three huge unlocks in the business world that have created

$500 billion to over a trillion dollars in value.

Apple's recognition to reallocation of capital out of advertising into stores, open 550 temples as a brand.

Amazon getting out of a transactional business into a recurring revenue business with Amazon Prime developing a monogamous relationship with 82% of U.S.

households.

Walmart deciding that they no longer wanted to tax people with the in-store experience, which is basically the American freak show, and do click and collect and give them their groceries without taxing them with the in-store experience.

The fourth big unlock is Amazon presenting the first vaccinated supply chain.

Amazon figured out this shit's going to be with us a lot longer than anyone thinks.

And if you're a supplier, a vendor, a customer, a worker, a delivery person, and you want a COVID-free or a near-COVID-free experience, there's only one supply chain in the world, and it's Amazon.

And it is just, God, my mind's just blown how genius it is.

It takes advantage.

They're going where no one else can go.

No one has the capital, the vertical nature, the fulfillment, the delivery, the credibility to say to the street.

Even a guy like Doug McMillan, who's, I would argue, one of the best leaders in business right now, he can't go to a shareholder base.

It's not his fault and say, sorry, I'm taking taking earnings down $2 billion to invest in PB and new protocols.

The stock will go down 20%.

Yep, only Bezos can do it.

Only Jeff can do it.

You're right.

He should do it.

Walmart should, because

they could really sop up business here in this pandemic very much so.

There doesn't have to just be one.

All right.

Last question.

If we could write an ad for the Trump campaign right now, there's so many fantastic anti-Trump ads right now, and he just gives them material every day.

But what would the ad be, be, Scott?

What would the ad be for the Trump campaign?

You are called in by Donald Trump.

You are hopefully in a different room from him

because he's full of germs.

What would be the ad?

Gosh, you first.

You first.

No, you first.

You're the ad guy.

I'm the ad guy.

I'm the brand guy.

I think that

it would be something around hard decisions and sacrifice.

We're going to get through this together.

You know,

unprecedented challenges.

They don't make hard decisions.

They don't sacrifice.

He would claim: if you're going to be aspirational, people,

the thing they would have to run to is: I'm strong, I'm decisive, I'm willing to sacrifice.

I think there's a touch of humility.

I've learned a lot.

Stick with us.

The markets, the economy, America's greatness will continue.

Let's continue our good work.

And I think he would have to add a Scotia humility around, I've learned a lot.

I've learned some things.

That's what I would do.

I would say, let's continue to strengthen the decisiveness.

We're just,

you know, I'm going to take unemployment of people of color down to new record lows.

The markets are going to hit new record highs.

We're going to see a superior trade policy.

We're just getting started.

I think I would try and craft a narrative around let's continue.

Let's let's continue the strength of the economy.

That's where I would go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He seems to be hitting on the same notes and they're pretty old.

The economy isn't a good one anymore.

The COVID management isn't good.

What would you do?

I think I would say

I fucked up.

I have.

Give me another chance.

Forgive me.

Yeah, I don't think that works with his base.

I think you can say he's learned.

Yeah.

But I don't think that learned.

I've learned.

Yeah.

Really?

i don't know i i i it doesn't work i hate to say it because i'm scared to say this out loud there is no ad there is no ad we're biased but it it looks like the landing lights are on here he is he is way down and there's not a lot of time um what about the son of a bitch you know what about that colleague you know um yeah devil you know we knew biden for eight years that doesn't work either yeah that's we knew the obama biden thing um if i were if i were biden right now Taylor, but the emails.

If I were Biden right now, I would announce, and I wouldn't even commit to it, I would announce that I've asked Barack Obama to be Secretary of State for 24 hours with the simple charge of repair.

I'm going to have Barack Obama try and repair our relationships across the world for the next 24 months.

Oh, I like it.

That's really sassy.

Interesting.

But we're talking Trump.

You have not come up with a good campaign.

I've learned.

I don't think there is a good campaign.

I've learned my lesson.

I don't think there is a good campaign.

Again, he's got a go-to, his go-tos, and that is strength and decisiveness I'm politically incorrect I will always do what is right for America I'm not afraid I am I'm I'm strong decisive and I'm a wartime president I put myself out there because I thought it was important to make

create the right symbolism around the virus and get the economy back I'm paying the price but it's a price worth paying and we'll be back on track give us another four years

so I may be an asshole but I'm your asshole well you said it the devil you know or decisive and strong devil you know the sedevi you you know,

there's some strong metrics they can point to.

The markets, unemployment pre-COVID.

Yeah.

You know, they can spin this.

They can spend this long away.

They only have a few weeks to do it.

I think it's probably too late, but you never know.

All right.

Got it.

Thanks again to Advertising Week 2020 and our live audience.

Would you please read us out?

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sonanis, engineered by Fernando Finate.

Erica Anderson is Hibbot's executive producer.

Special thanks to Drew Burrows.

If you like what you heard, please download and subscribe.

Kara Swisher,

married again.

Married again.

I just, I just,

I just love it.

Once again, why not?

She's so good at it.

Let's do it again.

Congratulations to you and Amanda.

Thank you.

I think you're a good citizen and I'm happy for you.

I'm really, I am.

I'm happy.

Thank you.

She's taken ladies.

All right.

Thank you so much.

And thank you very much to Advertising Week.

We appreciate it.

This month on Explain It to Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well.

Collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It to Me, presented by Pureleaf.

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