Dept. of War Rebrand, Trump's Tech Bro Dinner, and Elon's Pay Package

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Whoever the new president is is literally going to be the circus clown behind an elephant just scooping up shit for the first three or six months.

Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Well, hello, Scott.

You have your shirt on today?

You know, why not?

You know, why not?

That people seem to like that quite a bit.

And then then some people didn't, but a lot of people did more than they, they think they're used to at this point.

I think it's quite polarizing.

Is it?

I think it gives people hope.

When they're 80, they can look 79.

Actually, I thought you looked really good.

And Gavin was correct in his prediction that you'd been working out most of August, as we discussed with your son.

Yeah.

No, it's, I was actually inspired.

You said that you're running a few times a week now.

Yeah.

Three times a week.

There's something about, I find that the high you get after, for the five or seven minutes after you run is really

unique interesting high yeah i'm doing this for this secret documentary series for cnn i'm um everyone knows about that everyone knows about i'm running because i did the v v o2 max thing to find out how efficient you are with your heart and your breathing and your fat burning and i was just okay i was not bad for my woman my age which is elderly uh but i'm trying to improve it so i went on this eight-week program or six-week program of running like some days are 56 minutes that's great yeah if you can can run,

especially at your age, if you can run for 50 minutes.

Yeah, it's interesting because I really, I find I, I used to run when I was younger and I liked it.

And I do it both on the treadmill and outside.

So I like the treadmill actually because I have the arm thing.

I measure it.

I like the measurement part, Scott.

I like all the, you know.

I don't know why.

I just like it.

It makes me feel good.

Well, you also run harder because unless I like running outside, I run it in Regents Park and I play music and listen to Tom Petty.

But if you don't have a metric kind of tracking how fast you're running, you don't run that fast.

You have a tendency to kind of slow down like, oh, this hurts.

So I was reading an article on the Navy SEALs and they said they tried to find cohorts that were likely to be the most successful.

I guess about six or 8% of people who show up for Navy SEALs, and these aren't Joey Bagadona showing up to try and be a Navy SEAL, you got to be in pretty good shape.

But only six or eight percent make it through.

And they said, it's not a function of skills.

It's not a function of how in shape you are.

It's a function of mental fitness.

And the thing about running and the reason why I would always encourage young people, and I'm trying to do it with my sons, to do some sort of individual sport that requires a certain level of cardiovascular strain is that you learn just how incredibly hard you can push yourself and you develop that mental fitness.

And the cohort that has the highest graduation rate of Navy SEALs training is people who are like long distance runners, people who rode crew, water polo, because it's basically about training your mind to

go another quarter, half a mile, even when you think you can't, because what you find out is no, you can.

It's the human body is exceptional.

And the confidence to break limits and go further faster than you ever thought possible is an incredible skill to have that you only get from that type of cardiovascular strength.

That's true.

Although, pretty much all the experts now, they say you shouldn't kill yourself either.

You should go up and down.

But no, even going up and down helps.

If you can recover quickly, if you can get your, if your heart's up at 150 at the high, you know, in my case, that's one of the highest ones.

If you can get it back down to 113 pretty efficiently, you burn more fat.

Like the ability for the heart to be more efficient is, is, anyway, it's it's fascinating.

It's fascinating.

We're going to make it.

That's great.

I think, I think it's yeah, I'm enjoying it.

I'm enjoying it.

You're a little quieter today than the other day.

You were excited to be back.

You know,

I had trouble getting to sleep last night.

So I took an edible and I still couldn't sleep.

So I I took Xanax and then daddy slept.

And Daddy's still a little

arguable.

A little Xanax-y.

Yeah, a little

Xanax-y.

Xanax.

I've never taken any sleeping pills.

Anyway, Scott, we have to liven you up.

We have a lot to get to today, you know.

There's a lot going on.

And by the way, happy birthday to Lucky.

She turned 91.

I drove her up to my brother's house, who has

my brother, David, my younger brother, who you don't know, has built the most beautiful house up in Pennsylvania.

So we drove Lucky's ass up there and had birthday.

Where does he he live?

Pennsylvania, up in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Does the town have a name or is he working?

I do, but I don't think he's very private.

Okay.

Northeast Pennsylvania.

Is he a prepper?

Is he one of those guys?

I wouldn't say he isn't.

He's got a lot of equipment and a lot of bows and arrows and things like that.

Does he have kids?

He does.

He has two really wonderful sons.

Really good.

All the Swiss

grandchildren are fantastic.

I have to say.

Lucky's done a good job, I guess.

Yeah, and what's strange is that

both your brothers, you know, I talk about this a lot, but the kind of the point of, or the biggest point of failure for boys not turning into productive, loving men is when they lose a male role model.

And you guys lost your father very early.

So Lucky clearly did something right or they, you guys had, I don't know, you guys found positive influences.

I was lost my dad around till my older brother was seven.

I was five, three.

You know, did you?

Yeah, that's losing your dad really early.

I know.

I know it is.

But I'm just saying there is that.

Like, I'm really close to Claire and she's just fine, right?

Yeah.

I don't know if you know this, but Amanda had COVID and so did, and then Saul got it, and Claire and I escaped.

But so I spent a lot of time with both kids and then just one.

But,

you know, I think, I think it's just parenting, really good parenting.

But you're right about male role models.

And Jeffrey and David have been very good role models to my sons.

I think ideally it's a mix of feminine and masculine energy.

And we're scared to say that.

But I think

men protect and women heal, and together it creates us more human.

And by the way, there's no reason why two women can't bring that same great combination or two men can't bring that same combination.

But I do think the ultimate alchemy of success in a loving household is a combination of masculine and feminine energy, and I'm sticking to it.

Funny, we had a great party for lucky.

And then you got an Uber and got her back to the home.

It's time to go.

It's time to go.

We drove up in the Kia, my friend.

That's what we did.

It was fancy.

Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including Trump's dinner with the tech bros and Tesla offering Elon a massive new pay package.

But first, Trump is rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War, restoring a name last used in the 1940s.

Let's listen to him explain the rebrand in the Oval Office last week.

So we won the First World War.

We won the Second World War.

We won...

everything before that and in between, and then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to Department of Defense.

That's fucking ridiculous.

But Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, as we're now being asked to call him, which I refuse, took it further.

Let's listen.

We're going to go on offense, not just on defense.

Maximum lethality, not tepid legality.

Violent effect, not politically correct.

We're going to raise up warriors, not just defenders.

Oh my God.

I don't even know what to say.

He is such a small penis.

All right, I'll note now the Department of War is just a secondary title for the Defense Defense Department.

Official name change would require an act of Congress.

And while Trump is downplaying the price tag, if his name changes, reports suggest it could rebrand, could cost billions, just even changing like all the logos and stuff like that.

Over the weekend, Trump posted, quote, Chicago is about to find out why it's called the Department of War, incredibly violent to a U.S.

city that's done nothing to him.

This idea of maximum lethality, violent effect, offense, not defense, going woke.

I mean, the whole thing is just insane, I think.

But I don't know.

What do you think from a branding perspective?

Well, it's just not accurate.

First off,

they're trying to solve a problem that doesn't need solving.

The

U.S.

Defense Department and our.

There is no one more lethal than the United States Marine SEALs, Special Ops, CIA.

I mean,

we can deliver more lethality anywhere in the world than any entity in history.

So the notion somehow that it needs some sort of rebranding to give this performative,

you know, masculine weirdness.

Or that's not masculinity.

That's little dick weirdness.

And this, unfortunately, this attempt to create some sort of illusion of macho-ness is making us less safe because one of the things they're doing is saying to transgender people who have served our nation proudly and competently, we're just going to kick you out in some attempt to show that we're tough.

It's also not accurate.

We changed the name for a reason, and that is conquest was in fact a way you developed economic security and prosperity back in the 15th, 16th, 17th century before that.

And then when the nation's largest powers developed the bomb, it was clear that trying to invade Russia or Russia trying to invade a democratic nation could result in nuclear Armageddon.

So we reconfigured

our policies around the military and we accurately and justifiably changed the name to defense.

And modern warfare, the reality of modern warfare is the following.

It's about cyber and space domains.

It's about information warfare.

It's about economic sanctions.

And it's about diplomacy and trade.

Also, a really good defense department is about deterrent.

And that is, when Hamas tries to inspire a five-front war by going in and butchering people in Israel, And Biden deploys two carrier strike forces, he's there to tell the Iranian proxies to sit the fuck down, not to invade Iran.

NATO, which is arguably the largest military force in the world outside of the U.S., is there to present, to keep in check the Soviet sphere.

We're not planning to invade Russia.

So defense is the right term.

And even on practical levels, it hurts us because our Defense Department does a lot of recruiting at NYU.

The CIA is a big recruiter.

The NSA is a big recruiter.

The armed services are a big recruiter.

And do you think more people are inclined to consider going to work for the Defense Department or the Department of War?

And when you show up with representatives trying to strike a deal or negotiate, just saying, hi, I'm here from the Department of War, it reflects this aggressive faux macho culture where he's threatening to take over Canada and Greenland.

And it further alienates our enemies and convinces them they have a need to bind together and form a unified force against

us.

Right.

So here's the thing.

First of all, let's keep in mind that Donald Trump has never served in the military and got out because of bone spurs.

Let's never forget that.

And this idea that we decided to go woke, we didn't win the Second World War.

We were brought into these wars and actually settled them, is what we did.

We didn't like go on offensive for these wars.

And then Pete Hag said, is so, such small dick energy.

He can't, by the way, speaking of not being able to do a pull-up, he barely could do one.

That's unfair.

Just to be clear.

Not unfair.

It was a challenge.

No, no, no, no, no.

You're referring to a challenge,

which I'm going to do, where it's 100 push-ups and 50 pull-ups.

And that was his 50th, which was terrible form.

But

Secretary Merceth is actually in great shape.

So is RFK Jr.

And by the way, I'm going to do the same thing, and I'm going to kick both their asses.

Oh, okay, good.

But I'm just saying, this, like, performative masculinity is so strange.

And this is the idea.

This is what like teenage, very badly raised teenage boys think of as manliness.

Like you're right.

You've written a whole book on this.

We're not just, we're not going to raise up warriors, not just defenders.

They are warriors.

They just happen to defend violent, the word violent, lethality.

It's just,

I don't even understand it.

It's so weird and fucked up.

I mean, this is such a bad message to young men.

That's the other part.

Real men who are in great shape.

and have the ability to deploy violence should they need, they're the ones that break up fights and bars.

They don't start them.

They're the ones that don't shitpost their country.

They complement it and defend it.

They're the ones that their first instinct is towards protection.

It's towards defense.

It's not going on offense to try and...

We live in a world where no one nation has the power to take over the world.

And the notion that what are we going to name?

We're going to change the name of the Coast Guard to Coast Attack.

I mean, it's just,

this is unnecessarily performative.

It sends entirely the wrong signal.

It's going to make recruiting harder.

It's a bureaucratic nightmare for all, just from stationary to treaties.

It's a Department of Defense.

It doesn't reflect the most violent nations in the world, whether it's Russia or North Korea, they call it defense because they want to say, no, we're here to defend.

The U.S.

is about defending its interests overseas.

And when it needs to, it can go on offense like no other entity in history.

There's no, no one, no one is saying, oh, those Americans are so gentle.

We've had so many military incursions.

We have killed so many people.

And the notion that changing the name, where we are, where we are screwing up is this faux macho.

Yeah.

It's, I thought it died in like the 80s.

I thought this faux macho thing died.

It's limiting the talent pool.

You need super thoughtful people who believe in our nation and believe in our defense.

And also, I do believe there are a lot of people out there that want to kill us.

I believe in going on the offense militarily.

I just do.

And if we don't, then let's take our military budget down to $200 or $300 billion because we'd use the money and Canada's not about to invade us.

So I'm all for an offensive strategy, but it's there to protect our interests, defend our allies.

It's not there to conquer nations.

I think we'll go get something.

Yeah,

that shit's over.

That era is over.

We're not going to decide, okay.

I mean, you could argue, and I would argue, that there's a strategic interest in deplacing Maduro and then having a very strong

alliance with Guyana because of that light Swede crude they have.

I get that, but that's going to be done through diplomacy, maybe some covert operations, but it's about information warfare, economic sanctions, deterrence, all kinds of Department of War.

Same thing with JD Vance and the we'll just bomb whoever we want without proof of anything was insane.

Like, I'm so sorry, J.D., your mother was a drug addict.

But you really have to stop.

Like, it's really, like, it's so extrajudicial.

It's so do-terte.

It's so not American, like, all this stuff.

It's so un-American, but it's just me.

I mean, there are a lot of people.

Just to correct the record, I realize, by the way, I think Hillbilly Elegy was a brilliant book.

I think he's a fantastic writer.

I think he's a very intelligent man.

But also, let's just clarify a little bit about J.D.

Vance's Appalachian upbringing.

This was a guy taking golf lessons in high school who tried out for the varsity golf team.

I mean,

one wonderful thing about...

America is that we like to play down our advantage and we respect people who come from modest means.

But I think he's definitely played that hand, if you will.

He's definitely rebranded himself a little bit more country.

He's definitely gone a little bit more Marie of Donnie and Marie in terms of his upbringing.

I know, I agree.

But I'm just saying, this is all such

small dick energy.

And then with all the,

we'll get to that in a minute.

They're all fighting with each other, talking about throwing hands, all these.

It's ridiculous.

They're ridiculous.

Presley Bescent is getting in fist fights or something.

Yeah, with the guy.

And the guy he was yelling at is an asshole.

Punchable face, no question.

Pulty.

Pulty.

And same thing with Elon, but still, it's such black.

It's such black.

Anyway, let's move on.

Speaking of someone, the same people who are throwing weight around, the U.S.

tech companies gained a combined $420 billion in market cap last week.

The gains lifted their total value to $21 trillion, making them the third of the SP 500.

You have referenced this many times.

Well,

one cause of the judge was Google's antitrust win in the U.S.

The company is facing a new $3.45 billion fine in the EU for anti-competitive practices.

Not off the hook.

President Trump threatened the EU with an investigation that could lead to higher tariffs over the fine.

Whatever.

Any prediction here for the rest of the year?

You know, you did pick Google, as you noted,

but this is a lot.

This is like a little too much of the S ⁇ P when we should, as you said last week, focused on the other 400 companies, not these seven companies, right?

Everything from the tariffs to,

you know, what's going on with this new AI bill that basically gives them free reign is essentially a transfer of wealth from the 490 traditional or more traditional companies in the S ⁇ P to the Magnificent X.

And I had dinner with a friend of mine who works at Apollo, and he said something just fascinating.

He said that to justify the current valuations of the AI-centered company, specifically Magnificent X, it implies that they're going to be able to find an incremental trillion dollars in revenues or efficiencies from their clients, right?

What that means is, okay, if we buy more NVIDIA chip and have enterprise licenses with Anthropic or OpenAI, we'll be able to cut a trillion dollars with a cost.

So far, I would argue the vast majority is coming from efficiencies, which is Latin for cutting your legal expenses.

I talked to a Fortune 500 company CEO last week.

He thinks that this year they're going to reduce their legal expenses by a third and next year by another third, right?

So

one of two things is going to happen.

If you think about a trillion trillion dollars in quote-unquote savings, right?

And there are 150 million Americans who work, it's only 150 million.

And assume half that industry is immune somewhat from AI.

Chiropractors, plumbers,

masuses, whoever it is, right?

Hairdressers, they're somewhat immune from AI.

Let's assume that half the market, and that's probably generous, is

susceptible to these quote-unquote efficiencies or cost cuts in AI, which is Latin for

you need less lawyers, consultants, whoever, right?

It's just a huge destruction.

Producers, the 192 people that are about to be laid off from the Colbert show as he takes six to a podcast.

If you assume a load factor and salary of $100,000, $1 trillion is 10 million jobs.

10 million jobs from a universe of 75 million is about a 15% destruction in employment.

A 15% destruction in employment in any industry over the next 24 to 36 months is literally Armageddon.

That may not sound like a lot, but that means that industry is in a state of chaos.

So one of two things is going to happen.

Either these companies' valuations are going to get cut in half, or we're going to have massive employment destruction across a small number of industries.

Now, someone would say, Scott, there's a door three in that it creates incremental opportunities and incremental revenue.

I don't see any companies saying, oh, we're putting out a new car because of AI.

That's making us more money.

I don't see L'Oreal going, we've launched new moisturizers using AI, AI, and it's created new markets for us.

What you're seeing is big companies are saying,

we're going to starch out a lot of costs with AI.

So which is it?

Either these companies are going to get cut in half, or we're going to see a massive, and maybe that's capitalism.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or we're going to see a massive destruction and reduction in costs in the means of production, which is Latin for massive layoffs in certain industries.

I actually do say it's a a bad thing because those are consumers who don't spend, right?

Those are the,

it's a, it's a problematic situation if people feel, you know, look, every tech person, anytime you say, they're always like, every tech change has created more wealth.

Okay, let's see that.

What is it?

Explain to us.

Well, it's shareholder wealth right now.

It's shareholder wealth.

That's correct.

It's stock wealth.

And so the question is, like, remember we had, I'm not going to say who it was.

We had, Scott and I had sort of a drinks with someone, and he was saying, remember, he said he was going to cut his software people from 6,000 to 2,000 or some number like that.

It was some massive number.

And that was about a year ago, like noticing efficiencies.

But again, it didn't make a better product or a new product or move into new areas.

It wasn't, it was only just cutting people.

Well, I'll make them, I'll do the strongman.

So the average, in 1995, the average profit margin of the S ⁇ P 500 was about 5%.

Today it's roughly 11%.

So the average profits have more than doubled.

That should imply that they, in fact, have more money and the bar for greenlighting new products, new ideas, new factories has been lowered.

And they are building massive, they are making massive capex investments.

If you are good with your hands and comfortable in a construction site and are willing to go 12 or 24 months and get a degree in like specialty construction as it relates to nuclear power plants, you can probably make $150,000 by the time you're 23 or 25.

So there is going to be new jobs, new creation.

I don't think you get in the way of this destruction.

Now, unfortunately, a lot of that additional margin is going to profits that companies like Apple are spending on share buybacks or $110 billion.

Apple spent more on share buybacks last year.

I believe it was $110 billion.

It's rivaling their RD.

So what does that do?

It takes the existing share price up.

But you could argue it's not really going back into the economy.

It's going into the pockets of the 10% that own 90% of the stocks.

So there is growth.

It does result in economic growth, and it should result in

new industries with higher paying jobs.

And I don't think you can get in the way of it.

But what we're really bad at here, we're really good at figuring out ways to lay off people and force them to find industries where there's growth and create more profit and more margin.

What we're really bad at is figuring out systemic training and means to help give those people the runway such that what happens is, did you see all these farmers complaining?

Yeah.

I mean, and no one has.

It's like the world's tiniest violins.

Two-thirds of farmers voted for Trump, and now they're all fucking freaked out.

We voted for racism, but not this.

Yeah, they're all freaked out and they're all asking for a bailout.

And these were the same people that were just horrified by a student loan bailout, right?

I agree.

We should have capitalism.

Companies should go out of business.

If we have technology that puts

Colbert's team out of work or mediocre lawyers out of work or mediocre consultants, I'm all for it.

But what you need to do...

is tax these organizations such that you have the capital to retrain people and not have people live in a state of

and not worry about not having health insurance if they're one of those consultants or bankers or whoever it is that gets laid off.

That's what we're really bad at.

Can I just point out, you put up something about taxing the rich.

I thought it was interesting your statistics about how we've moved from 90% to like 28%.

Well, we'll talk about that when we talk about Elon.

Right.

Okay.

Our taxes on corporations are the lowest they've been since 1939.

And every, you know, with these deficits, it's pretty easy, folks.

We got to do one of two things.

We either got to spend less money or we got to tax people more.

Otherwise, our kids are just not going to have

the benefit of the investments in public infrastructure and technology and education that we've enjoyed.

Yep, absolutely.

Anyway, we'll see what happens, but these tech companies will still lead the way.

And when we get back, we'll find out why.

We'll go on a quick break and we come back to Trump's big tech dinner party.

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Scott, we're back.

President Trump hosted a big dinner party at the White House last week with attendees including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Sam Altman.

All of them were there.

Tim Cook was there,

Sergey Brin, Satan.

Everybody was there.

One notable figure was missing, Elon Musk.

Musk says he was invited but couldn't make it, but other people say he wasn't invited.

I don't care.

I don't care.

The guests were full of praise for the president.

It was pretty grotesque to watch.

Bill Gates thanked him for, quote, setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the U.S.

I think Bill Gates is doing it so he can save USAID.

I'm okay with him.

I'm going to give him the only out.

The rest of it was so

they will live to regret what they're doing here, I think.

Or maybe they won't.

I mean, this short-term gains, I think this is, this was so grotesque.

And it reminded me of that story I broke in 2016 when they went up the Trump Tower and did the exact same thing because it was in their interests.

They're not going to grow a back bone anybody.

They're going to keep up this shtick.

It's good for their business.

It was particularly gross.

And especially Zuckerberg, who tried to explain himself, looked like a real toady in a room full of toadies.

Any thoughts on this?

I thought they made sex work look dignified.

I mean,

I think paying some guy 50 bucks to suck my cock is more dignified than what these guys did.

Who do you really think?

What is the point of aggregating all these skills?

These guys work so hard.

They're so talented.

They rally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.

They build these amazing products so they can become billionaires so they can go and fallate

an insurrectionist.

What in the fuck?

And they all complained about the insurrectionist.

I understand the notion of staying below the radar.

Don't antagonize him.

Don't say anything.

Just stay out of his way.

I get it.

I'm meeting.

I'm having lunch with the chancellor of an iconic public college tomorrow.

And

they want to talk about a variety of things, including how they respond to Trump.

And I'm like, you are not, and I don't, I'm loath to even say the name, which I won't.

But my basic thing is don't say anything.

Just stay out of his sights.

Stay out of his crosshairs.

But these guys,

Sam Harris sort of changed my life of Making Sense, the podcaster.

He said, if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, you have an obligation to speak out.

Because so few people can.

People have to worry about their economic livelihood.

They have to maybe, you know,

there's a lot of reasons why you may not want to be provocative as a younger person if you're not economically secure.

And these guys will always say, well, it's about shareholder value.

I'm going to add a lot of value to Apple because I'm going to address that.

I don't want tariffs, blah, blah, blah.

You would think one of them would say, okay.

The ass cancer is showing up pretty soon, Bezos, Cook.

You're not young men.

And are you going to say on your deathbed, I would think one of them would think, you know what i'd like to be that guy yeah that said i just don't and we're not like asking them to fall on like benny off maybe who's no no he probably wanted to go um you know nobody nobody nobody nobody they're just they all they do is fillate that's all they do now and i'm sort of like i i got i got some texts from someone who are like oh yes we're embarrassed too i'm like fuck you like i at this point like why have all that money if you can't at least exactly right what's the point what's the point?

Is there nothing you could do?

Like, you know, of all the people, at least Elon went out a limb for Trump.

He did something, right?

He thought that, however misguided you may think he is.

Like, do any of them, like, I guess

Reed Hoffman does and has been pretty firm about it.

Even Reed's.

Reed is.

I think Reed is probably justifiably like worried.

He is worried.

He's telling me about it.

He's trying to stay out of his crosshairs right now.

The economic opportunity is not for a tech company, but for a consumer company to just in a very thoughtful, elegant way, without even saying the president's name, run commercials talking about what an important role immigrants have played, what an important role the gay community and the transgender community have played in our Defense Department, what an important role how

rights in America and

equality and respect for institutions.

I mean, you could fire up so many amazing creative agencies to have the most powerful commercials that would be very clear what you are saying.

And you know what would happen?

They would have a torrent of business because the bottom line is the people who are against this bullshit are the mostly the only people who really matter in consumer America.

And that is educated people with disposable energy.

You know what's interesting?

The only people who actually are much more public would be celebrities like Colbert or Ariana Grande, when she won yesterday, I think it was the...

MTV music, whatever, said, I want to thank my therapists and the gays.

It was just like adorable.

She's adorable.

But it's really celebrities seem to be saying things, right?

And not worrying about them.

That's comedians and celebrities.

Yeah, I'm just saying they don't, they, they aren't, they're much more, I would say they're much more outspoken than they've ever been.

And it's not just virtue signaling.

But here's the problem.

It kind of doesn't fucking matter.

I know it doesn't.

It matters that these guys do.

I know.

I'm just trying to think of who speaks up.

Celebrities don't sway a lot.

We fall under the cold comfort of believing that America is a democracy.

Okay, sort of.

Because the reality is the passive populace doesn't win elections.

It's organized special interest groups.

And technology is now so powerful and has so much money that they can kind of sway elections and sway government.

I mean, I'm increasingly about this notion that the only real means of fighting back at this point is if we can rally enough Americans to at least pick a time period and stop spending money.

Right, or stopping, stopping doing things.

Because

it's these organized special interest groups that impact Washington and have all the power.

And if tech, if we could figure out a way to get tech on our side, they could absolutely check back on Trump.

If they all together met in the parking lot and said...

They didn't in 2016, Scott.

They won't.

But I just, I mean this sincerely.

I sincerely mean how many times have they been in front of the fucking president and other people don't get to be?

Like, how many times have we seen Mark Zuckerberg at the inauguration, Mark Zuckerberg at the White House, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark O-Lago, Mark Zuckerberg in the stupid White House?

Like enough.

You've had enough FaceTime with that fucker.

So like, what, why did they, why does, why didn't they have the head of a caterpillar there at least?

Or something, some company that matters beyond these bunch of.

But if Bob Iger just said, look,

I've been around the block.

You know, Disney is about American values.

And I'm just very uncomfortable with the idea of censorship.

I think Disney plus subscriptions would triple in 60 days.

I think you've come under the screen.

Elliot Hill from Nike said,

we're about winning, and part of winning is strong American institutions.

We are an American company.

They could do such an outstanding thing.

He didn't make a comment after the vaccine thing in Florida.

Said nothing.

Well, I think this is, I think it's not only the right thing to do, I think it's an enormous commercial opportunity for a consumer brand to just talk about American traditional American values.

Let me say crickets is what is happening.

Speaking of weirdnesses, Elon Musk could become the world's first trillionaire under a new pay package from Tesla's Tesla's board.

Yeah, I don't think he's going to be the world's first trillionaire.

What do you think, Kara?

I do not think he's going to be the world's first trillionaire.

The compensation all in Tesla stock is tied to hitting ambitious targets in the next 10 years, including getting the company's market value from where it's around, just above $1 trillion to, which is a ridiculous price anyway, to $8.5 trillion, delivering a total of 20 million vehicles, which the declining sales,

it's now at its lowest rates, putting a million Robotechs on the road and also a million, I think, of those robots that don't exist.

There's just a few of them.

The board is also saying that Elon needs to develop a succession framework to earn out a portion of this ridiculous payout.

These benchmarks are just watered-down versions of promises Elon's been making for years, as TechCrunch pointed out correctly.

Tesla shareholders are also set to vote on investing in XAI at an upcoming annual meeting.

I mean, the whole thing.

He should just mash all his companies together and hope for the best.

I don't think we need trillionaires, but I don't think we should get in the way of people becoming trillionaires.

I think one one of the wonderful things about American capitalism is that if you take risks, you start your own companies,

you invent something new, literally the upside is unlimited and no government agency or bureaucrats is going to tell you.

It's going to say to you, oh, you're too rich.

That's fine.

Have at it.

I like having billionaires.

I like having trillionaires.

So let's talk about this specific pay package.

It's saying, We're going to give you options on 14% of the outstanding stock of the company.

That is well outside of the range of most CEO packages.

Fine.

He's an exceptional individual.

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

In addition, the board of Tesla, which has a compensation committee deciding the compensation package of the CEO, which by the way is the hardest thing on a board, I find is compensation, is elected by the owners.

We believe in private capital and we believe in private property.

So the owners of a company get to decide what they are going to pay.

the CEO.

So there's nothing, in my opinion, if I was on that comp committee, I would say, no, it's probably probably more like 3% to 8%, not 14%.

And what it's basically saying is if he increases the value of all shareholders for $7 trillion, he gets a trillion-dollar commission.

I don't think that is totally outrageous.

What we should be focused on is if somebody makes a trillion dollars, that they pay an incremental marginal tax rate of 90%.

So I like the idea of full-body contact capitalism that motivates people to work really hard and come up with new ideas.

I just think those people need to pay pay a lot more taxes rather than move to Texas and end up paying, you know, he'll end up paying about 17 or 18 percent if in fact he gets that money.

Whereas the people working in those factories are probably paying 30 or 35 percent.

Okay.

I want you from can he hit these targets?

What can he do to get to $8.5 trillion, deliver 20 million vehicles and put a million robo-taxis on the road?

The cars are being overwhelmed by competitors like BYD and others, by the way.

There's two new competitors to him, I think, from, I can't remember who it was.

There's some really beautiful cars out there.

How does he do it, Scott?

Whether you give it to him or not, sure, why not?

I want to, you know, Carol, if you can, if you can beat,

I don't know, LeBron James, you can be in the NBA, sure.

Like, I don't get it.

I don't get how he gets there.

Standing here and now with BYD basically offering

a Tesla, let's be kind, 80% of a Tesla.

Some people think it's 100% or 110% of a Tesla for 40% to 60% of the price, where his autonomous driving seems to be well behind and all these jazz hands trying to distract people from a trillion-dollar market cap company that's really probably worth somewhere between 50 and 200 billion by with bullshit like robots and mars and um how he would get there in my view or uh to be clear spacex has monopoly that's you know having 80 market share of space is really enticing but if you just look at the actual actual numbers and what would be required to add $7 trillion in market cap, they're basically saying you're going to get a trillion dollars if this becomes the most valuable company in the world by a factor of two.

It looks near impossible.

I would take,

I would be willing to bet a lot of money that he is never going to get that trillion dollars.

Having said that, Kara, I said the same thing seven years ago.

that Tesla could never be worth more than every automobile company combined and he would be able to launch SpaceX.

Right, but that was when it was a meme stock and he was on the upswing, right?

But it happened.

Right, it did.

So

he would have to do again what he has accomplished to date in terms of valuation, in terms of performance, it's remarkable.

In terms of the market's response to it, it's insanely like unbelievable.

So

could he do it?

Is it likely to happen?

Highly unlikely.

Was it likely he was going to get to this point?

Also highly unlikely.

So,

you think this is much more aggressive than even what was outlaid five years ago?

I don't think, I think he's old.

I think he's

has some personal problems.

I think he's got some health problems.

I think he can't come up with a new trick.

I think, listen, everyone's like, oh, if anyone, he can't.

I'm like, can he now?

This is a number that's just beyond belief.

It could be a meme stock.

That's the only way to me it could happen.

Or he merged SpaceX with this.

And who cares about

AI or the other one?

Maybe if he merged them all I guess and then pretended it was called Tesla I suppose.

But meme stocks have generally had

other than you could argue Palantir is Palantir a meme stock trading on a market.

I don't know generally speaking they haven't had there aren't enough meme investors to justify a multi-trillion dollar market cap company.

But again, it all comes back to he needs a new product is all I'm saying and a new bit of energy in and of himself.

I don't know.

Yeah.

We continue to talk about him like he's a runaway teen.

He's getting AARP mail.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

I 100% agree with you.

But again, I don't think we're having the right conversation.

And I like the idea of a kid reading someone might be a trillionaire.

I want to pay him a trillion dollars.

And then I want 90% of it to go to the U.S.

Treasury.

Because here's the thing.

We're spending $7 trillion.

We're taking in five.

We have to raise taxes.

We have to cut spending.

So let's shelve cutting spending for right now.

All roads lead to entitlement cuts, by the way.

But let's talk about revenues or taxes.

The key is to find taxes that are the least taxing.

And

what Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman discovered, and he did a lot of research here, is that once you get above a certain level, no incremental happiness.

If Elon Musk on that trillion dollars gets to hold on to 800 billion of it or 200 billion of it, it's going to make no difference in his life.

In addition, I'm going off scripture, we should eliminate the exemption on trust

because you inheriting 10 million versus 15 from lucky, it's going to have

to make no difference in your life.

Okay, so

the vast majority of wealth that is inherited is from a small number of people to a small number of kids.

And if your kid is going to get 5 million, instead of seven,

no one's any less happier.

So there are some fairly,

when we had a society with much less income inequality and people felt much better about America, guess what?

The incremental tax rates on people making so much fucking money they couldn't spend it all were much higher.

Anyway, I'm ranting.

Lower taxes on everyone up to a million and above a million.

Oh my God, you want progressive all-caps tax structure and no one is any less happy.

They looked so miserable at that dinner.

And plus they didn't get to go onto the new patio, the new Rose Garden.

It looks like such a cheap version of a Marriott.

It looks like a Marriott, like a medium-level Marriott.

They're prostitutes with a half bottle of cheap jack, of cheap bourbon drink, condoms hanging out of their ass.

Matempus just said,

you've got another 11 Johnston.

Oh my God.

They look exhausted,

abused,

tired, and humiliated.

They're like, how did I end up here?

Okay, did Did you see Gavin Newsom said he's going to jackhammer that fucking thing if he's president, the stupid Trump club?

Anyway.

Well, there's, first off, eliminate, I hate to say it, eliminate ice, just symbolically.

Absolutely, Department of Defense.

There are so many,

whoever the new president is, assuming he's not advanced, he's going to spend all his time cleaning up.

Is literally going to be the circus clown behind an elephant, just scooping up shit for the first three or six months.

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

And when we come back, RFK Jr.

continues to create chaos.

What a fucking mess.

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Hello, Daisy speaking.

Hello, Daisy.

This is Phoebe Judge from the IRS.

Oh, bless, that does sound serious.

I wouldn't want to end up in any sort of trouble.

This September on Criminal, we've been thinking a lot about scams.

Over the next couple of weeks, we're releasing episodes about a surprising way to stop scammers.

The people you didn't know were on the other end of the line.

And we have a special bonus episode on Criminal Plus with tips to protect yourself.

Listen to Criminal wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for Criminal Plus at thisiscriminal.com/slash plus.

Scott, we're back.

President Trump has mixed reactions to R.F.K.

Jr.'s heated appearance at the Senate Finance Committee last week.

Let's listen to a clip from the hearing.

Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID?

I don't know how many died.

You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

You don't have any idea how many Americans died from COVID?

I don't think anybody knows

because

there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC.

Oh my God, his voice just thrived here.

That was Senator Warner.

In response, Trump said of the vaccines are, quote, pure and simple.

They work, but also defended RFK Jr., saying he's a different type of guy.

And he's not the only one.

Several Republican senators, including Bill Cassidy and Tom Tillis, expressed concern during Kennedy's hearing.

Meanwhile, RFK Jr.

reportedly plans to announce that pregnant women's use of Tylenol is potentially linked to autism.

Conservative, he has no proof of much of this.

And in fact,

it's the same thing with the Florida Surgeon General said he didn't use any science when it came to deciding on the vaccines.

Conservative polling from his reported warning GFU lawmakers only 75% of Trump voters believe vaccines save lives.

Thoughts?

Second most dangerous person in the administration is Peter Navarro, who will substantially reduce our prosperity.

Most dangerous person is RFK because

when he gets up in front of Congress and lies and says, I'm not anti-vaccine and anyone can get a vaccine.

No,

when you now say that it has to be under prescription or from a doctor's orders, you're going to reduce the penetration of vaccines one-third to two-thirds, and you're going to increase disease by much more than that because you'll have a bunch of kids in third grade that have measles or rubella.

This is arguably if this guy gains more traction and the CDC continues to be emasculated and this anti-vaccine conspiracy bullshit continues to gain traction and people are confused, even if they believe it or not.

If you don't make it easy for people to get vaccines, fewer people are going to get vaccines and more kids are going to have their limbs cut off from advanced measles.

This is just,

it's one thing Europe has not prospered because they haven't grown, but they make good decisions.

They're generally a smart people.

We are growing, and yet we've decided

how do we take a giant step back?

This is, this is insane.

I do have to be honest, though, I was really proud.

That was Senator Warner.

He's fantastic.

I wish he would run for president.

I thought Senator Bennett was good.

I thought Senator Warren, Elizabeth Warren was really good.

Senator Cantwell.

I also thought Senator Cassidy was actually quite deft.

I know, but he had to win because he had been the one that

wasn't going to vote for him, and he would have been the deciding one.

And then he did.

He got pressured from Trump.

They all claim to have concerns and then they all vote for what the Trump wants.

That's what I mean.

But he did say.

He did say, look, you told me that you were going to support vaccines and you don't seem to be doing this.

So I thought he, let me put it this way,

he's done a whole hell of a lot more.

But if you're, if you want to talk about a lasting legacy of death, disease, and disability, this is Bobby Kennedy.

And also to the president's credit, he did say in a press or after that, I think some vaccines are good.

I mean, it's a statement.

But it doesn't matter.

Again, it's like Cassie, I don't care.

Get rid of it.

Well, have you heard this Florida Surgeon General equating vaccine mandates with slavery?

He is so stupid.

He's so stupid.

And then was asked about the science and he goes, I didn't use science.

I just think parents should be able to.

I think really interestingly, like someone had a question online and my brother, the doctor answered, like, if you get a vaccine, what do you care if they do?

Like, it's a public health issue.

You get other, there are immunocompromised people who can't get vaccines for one.

Secondly, if you make them hard to get and more expensive, insurance, if a CDC doesn't back them, insurance companies don't pay for them.

And therefore, poor people don't get them.

People with money can get them, as always, but people who don't have means can't get them.

And then lastly, it's a public health danger because also little babies don't get vaccines for what, a year and a half, two years.

I have so many children.

I don't remember, but there's a period of time when babies, that's why when you go to like any cemetery of before we had vaccines, you see so many baby graves, right?

Because they died of all kinds of diseases we have eradicated.

And now it's back.

It's just, there's so many reasons to do it

that will protect everybody, but it's such a typical Trump thing.

I feel as if, quote unquote, the worm has turned against RPC.

It seems like it, but he's still there.

Trump doesn't let people go.

People, Trump doesn't, he doesn't want to admit he was wrong.

I think that's a bigger issue.

I think he's.

Do you think his job is safe?

I think it would take a lot for him to get, he's done a lot.

And he's, and I think a lot.

I don't know.

I just, I just think Trump just sticks to his guns.

He doesn't, I don't think Trump cares.

I think he's an old man and he could and he was always a selfish prick and he's going to remain a selfish prick to the day he dies.

That's all.

Doesn't care.

Doesn't care about public health.

Doesn't care about people, poor people, doesn't care about like, I don't think he thinks about one day in his life.

He thinks about whether people booing for him or cheering at the U.S.

Open, by the way, they were booing mostly.

Anyway, let's move on.

Last thing, Anthropic has agreed to a one point, this is a really interesting case.

I really want to know what you think about this, $1.5 billion settlement with a group of authors and publishers.

That's after a judge ruled the company illegally acquired millions of copyrighted books.

They nicked them, as they say.

The settlement, $3,000 per work for about 500,000 authors, is the largest payout in the history of U.S.

copyright cases.

By settling, Anthropic avoids a trial that could have carried damages in the hundreds of billions.

Also, I bet there were some nice emails around.

All of this comes as Anthropic just closed a $13 billion funding round, tripling its valuation to $183 billion.

What do you think this means for other AI companies?

I just love your thoughts on this because, you know, they definitely probably, there was probably a lot of stuff, would be my guess.

And they thought, let's get this out of our way.

We just got this funding.

We can just fork over this money as part of it.

And it gets, it goes away.

I think you have a...

a better grasp of IP and journalists and books.

I want you to take this and I'll comment on it.

Okay.

You know, I may have been in this group.

I didn't do anything, but I have found my books stolen by these people and maybe they paid for one copy, I guess.

I suppose that's what they did or something like that.

Well, no, they don't have to buy it.

Right, exactly.

Or maybe they buy the audit.

Or yeah, maybe they do.

You're right.

Maybe they buy it.

They buy one copy.

One copy, right?

It's so ridiculous the kind of stuff they're stealing.

And to me, if we have these U.S.

copyright cases,

copyright should matter here, just like it did YouTube back in the day.

YouTube figured it out and ended up paying people and it's turned out to be a great business.

You know, you don't talk about YouTube stealing, but you did forever.

why would you build your business on stealing other people's content and then remaking it and and and putting you know these people worked on these things they deserve to be paid if you don't you're a shoplifter that's the only thing i can think of and i suspect they settled because i'll bet there was emails i bet there was some proof of what they did and they would have been on the hook for this would have been over for this company had had it gone to trial would be my guess probably yeah we

the incumbents benefit from the illusion of complexity.

Like, what's crawling?

What's actual IP infringement?

What isn't?

No, it's pretty simple.

This industry needs to adopt some sort of similar construct to what musicians do.

And that is, if you play, if you're KROQ in Los Angeles and you're playing the B-52s, and every year they say, okay, you can run, it's very seamless.

You just track it.

You play B-52 songs 1,100 times.

You have to send Warner Brothers or whoever is the publisher of the B-52s.

You have to send them $1,100 to a rights management group.

The rights management group then sends out checks to everyone from Madonna to Luke Holmes, and that's how they make money.

And they say, okay, we have an infrastructure that's seamless, frictionless.

People can use our content, but we get paid for it.

These guys have plenty of money to pay for these rights.

All they need is a tracking mechanism that says, okay,

Kara's books informed us on this many queries.

So she gets X amount of money, and we send it to a rights group who then distributes the IP, distributes the payments.

This is a system they could easily prop up, but instead they pretend it's too difficult because they'd rather just steal it.

So I like this because it sets a precedent that

these companies have committed IP theft.

That's what it says.

It says that they have taken something that has economic value and they owe these authors.

The next step that I think is really what we really need

is, again, what I wanted the New York Times to do is I wanted us all to get together and bind together as one group and then negotiate Microsoft against Google to see who got to crawl our stuff and who didn't.

Because the biggest mistake we made back then was to just let them crawl it, thinking it was going to send us more traffic and we'd serve them banner ads.

And that just didn't work.

So this is a moment in time.

I think this is a step in the right direction, but I still think we got to get to a point where it's like, okay, when your book comes out, when your TV show comes out, when your podcast comes out, we have a means of tracking what percentage of it in terms of nuance and context or direct

data or direct quotes from this book have been used across all of our queries.

And we're going to give you a certain percentage of our profits and we're going to figure out a mechanism for figuring out who gets what.

It's just, these guys could figure it out with a bunch of economists.

And

what we don't have is on our side, we don't have strong representation.

We don't have someone, I mean, you know our idea.

We wanted Barry Diller to do this, right?

To get everyone from Penguin Portfolio Random House to Disney to Condon AS to Hearst to Dow Jones, and then basically say, All right, it's a bidding war, and whoever gives us the biggest slice of their pie gets access to this data.

And maybe it's both.

Maybe we do it for both for everybody, Anthropic, Llama.

But there's enough money here to go away.

It's theft.

It's theft.

Let me just say, I'm just, I just went to Amazon, right?

Remember, I complained when my book came out that they were ripping it off.

Someone, so the first thing that results when you do Kara Swisher is my burn book.

And then my book, There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere, and before that, AWL.com.

Those are all Kara Swisher books.

Then right away, Kara Swisher, the Feeler's Voice of Tech, speaking up, asking questions and making a difference.

Like as if I wrote it, like it is by some fake name.

And then there's Kara Swisher, Text Queen Bee with Sting.

And then there's Kara Swisher, Navigating the Digital Era, Insights and Perspectives from a trailblazing journalist.

I cooperated on none of them, by someone named Scott P.

Mundy.

That's all AI.

They're thieves, is what they are.

They're thieving my stuff.

And

I paid for it with my time and my money.

And I should get all the money related to my stuff.

And same thing with you.

Let me look up Scott Galloway.

Well, they're going to start crawling our podcasts, and they'll be able to say, put out a pivot-like contact, same voices, same feel, same banter, same dick jokes, but cover business.

Not the same dick jokes.

But cover business in turkey, and they'll be able to spin it up.

And I'm actually down with that as long as we get paid for it.

Well, except for a Scott Galloway biography, Honest Reflections on Being a Real Man and Dad in an Uncertain, Ever-Changing World, a new 2025 memoir from you.

I don't know if you know that.

You know, it looks like,

looks like that's yours.

Okay, include biography of Steve, of Scott Galloway, including exercises for notes on being a man.

They've already making an exercise book for you.

The Algebra of Wealth Workbook, Fix in Scott Galloway's teachings into your mind.

Isu McDonald wrote that, whoever the fuck that is.

Scott Galloway, the untold story.

Oh, I'm going to get that one.

The untold story of Scott Galloway.

There's nothing that hasn't been told.

I mean, seriously, fuck you.

This is Amazon?

Amazon.

That's just Amazon.

All right, we're going to move on.

We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.

That's what I said.

Behind the music.

I just need a growing habit.

I don't want to hook up with a former

autobiography and see what it's on.

Read from it.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for wins and fails.

Okay, Scott,

I guess I'll start with wins and fails.

I think, gosh, the fail, you got to read this story in the New York Times about J.P.

Morgan enabling the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.

It's an investigation.

It's astonishing how much they were warned about all this money.

They ignored red flags, suspicious activity.

Executives

were concerned, and they continued to let Jeffrey Epstein use their bank to do his defense.

And they kind of knew it.

They kind of knew it.

And so I just think that that kind of enabling, I'm sort of in an enabling point of view right now, especially with those tech.

assholes sucking Trump's dick, as you say.

And my win is

Eugene Carroll's appeals court upheld her $83 million judgment against Trump.

She'll probably get the five.

The $83 million is a different story,

but they're going to ask to go to the Supreme Court.

And the Supreme Court has been very trumpy lately.

It just allowed ICE to make indiscriminate stops in L.A.

temporarily, at least, upturning another federal judge's order to not to do that.

So it's got to go to, they're going to ask the second, I was talking to the lawyer for Eugene Carroll, Roberta Kaplan, and she said they'll ask this entire Second Circuit to reconsider.

And if, and then what, they'll ask the Supreme Court to decide this.

I think he'll probably have to pay at least part of the money to her, and she deserves it.

And I think that's great.

I hope he has to pay at least someone for his behavior at some point.

And then the last very quick things, I don't know, Scott, there's actually really also another great story in the New York Times about how your zodiac sign is 2,000 years out of date.

Do you know that?

I'm not a Sagittarius.

I'm a, let me tell you what I am.

It's another thing called a,

there's an Earth wobble that our Earth has has moved and the zodiac signs are very out of date.

And I'd have to put your birthday.

Can you, will you say your birthday publicly?

I think you know, right?

It's November the 3rd.

Okay, I'll look it up.

Oh, okay.

So mine is now this thing called, hold on, Opphiuchus.

I'm an Opphiuchus.

It's the 13th constellation.

Opfiuchus means serpent bearer in ancient Greece.

That's me.

So I'm not Sagittarius.

I'm Opfiuchis, which is the 13th constellation.

They just decided to do 12 because of the month.

All right, I'm going to put yours in while you tell yours, and I'll tell you what your actual zodiac sign is.

I actually have two wins, and I'm hoping

our team can pull together a mashup.

But I thought the senators at the, I think it was the Senate Finance Committee where Afghanistan

testified.

People are very cynical about our elected officials.

I think senators Cassidy,

Warren, Cantwell, Bennett,

Warner,

Sanders, I thought they were outstanding.

And they were not taking prisoners.

This is a serious issue.

And we elect these people to prevent a tragedy of the Commons and think long-term.

And there's nothing that can better prevent a tragedy of the Commons and is more long-term than vaccines.

And these guys, in my view, they just brought it.

I thought they were outstanding.

And also,

it was clear that

Senate offices continued to attract incredibly impressive staff and aides because these guys came ready to play.

Their facts were on point.

They had charts.

I mean, it's just, it's the, you know, the team of the best players wins, I thought.

There were really talented people behind the scenes pulling together this data for our outstanding elected leaders.

So that was my win.

My other win was I was thinking about it's about to be, what is it, the 24-year anniversary of September the 11th and I just want to reflect on that for a minute.

I was in New York when it happened and my ex called me.

We had split up about a year before, but we were still good friends.

She called me and said, can you come over?

And I said, sure.

She said, the World Trade Center is on fire.

And we went over and it was on fire.

She had a huge deck overlooking the World Trade Center about a mile north of it.

And then we saw a second plane disappear behind the second tower and come out the other end.

And right then we knew it was a terrorist attack and the flood of people coming up 6th Avenue.

And I remember the radio, they came over the radio and said there's 23 planes that are unaccounted for.

And I remember thinking like, am I in a building that's too tall?

Should I get down to the ground?

And for the next several days,

it was the quietest Manhattan has ever been.

No honking.

Occasionally you'd see someone on the street on the cell phone crying.

But other than that, no one was talking.

No one was saying anything.

It was very strange.

It was like we were at a, and appropriately, it was as if the city was in mourning.

The thing that really struck me, and I will remember for a long time and serves as sort of marks the event, was I went to Union Square to that memorial, and there was this tiny couple, they must have been like four foot 10,

in very cheap clothing, Ukrainian.

They were passing out flyers, similar to the flyers you get when someone has lost their dog.

And it was a picture of this, you know, of course, this beautiful young man who was a waiter at the Windows of the World.

And they thought they might find him.

They were out walking around trying to find their son, right?

Very upsetting.

And then the reason I bring it up as a win is that it really did show that our reach as far in our memory is long.

If you think about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, it started in the 90s with criminal charges, and we had some early setbacks, including bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora.

in 2001.

And then with some key intelligence breakthroughs and some intelligence officers that would not give up,

we tracked a courier to Abbottabad, and and then it culminated in this incredible SEAL raid in May of 2011, which ended in bin Laden's death.

And in addition, this left a treasure trove of intelligence files and spurred critical retrospection on foreign and domestic intelligence operations.

And I just, I take huge pride in

our security apparatus, our Defense Department, our incredible special ops.

I love the idea that the last thought that ran through this guy's head before we put a bullet in his eyes is that we had found him.

And it was also, I would argue, the last time America really felt like it was unified.

And it was just such an incredible

demonstration of persistence, resilience, our intelligence apparatus, our bravery.

And

I love my favorite visual memorial in history is each year they light up two beams into the sky right where the Twin Towers were.

But there were just so many people who came together to,

I would like to think, give some, some semblance of closure to the people who lost people and to demonstrate that America, you know, again, our reach is far and our memory is long.

But I just wanted to comment on

the 24-year anniversary of September 11th.

If you were in New York, it really it really stands out as a big moment you know where Amanda was underneath the towers she was in a subway going down there oh really did she did she know

no the subway stopped and filled with smoke she thought she was gonna die and didn't know what nobody knew and they they managed to get them out and get up in the street and far enough away that it didn't before it fell and stuff like that.

So one of them

is terrifying, I'm sure.

They had that hospital over in the meatpacking district and they fired it up and said, get ready.

And the thing was, you either died or you got off scot-free.

There were actually very few injuries.

Yep.

But, you know,

we lost something like 350 firefighters, lost about 3,000 people.

Continued to from the cleanup.

And another 4,500 people have died from...

Yeah, cleanup.

Yeah, from

9-11-related illnesses.

Right.

And who knows who was down there?

Anyway.

But my emotionally manipulative moment is if you really want to feel emotional, go listen to the calls from the people on the planes who knew that that was it.

All of them, none of them called to say take care of my affairs or there's money in the banana stand.

Buy some stock.

Or I never told you how much I'm pissed up.

They all said the same thing.

I'm just calling to say I love you.

I love you.

Really gripping, really gripping.

Anyways.

Good one, Scott Gallup.

Our fine public servants, our elected senators, I thought they did an outstanding job of that hearing.

And it has been 24 years that unfortunately,

because of tragedy, I felt like we were a nation.

But I think that the nation really did pull together and demonstrate a great deal of excellence

post-9-11.

And let's guess who was the one person who told lies about it and said he was there and said fake things about people of

descent from Muslims.

And he's the president of the United States.

But anyway, this is when he said they're celebrating New Jersey.

And also that he was down there, all this stuff.

Anyway, we've got to finish up.

But just so you know, Scott, you're a Libra, not a Scorpio.

Really?

I like being a Scorpio.

It means I'm an asshole, but I'm interesting.

You're now a Libra.

So just remember, you're a Libra, my friend.

You go look.

I'll send you the link.

You're a Libra.

Sorry, you're going to have to rethink your whole life.

Anyway, I'm an Uvka Kupaka Parka.

I can't even pronounce it.

I'm the 13th.

I sweater made from the hide of that.

Anyway.

Anyway, we want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business deck or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551-PIVOT elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe.

This week I spoke with historian, New Yorker, staff writer, and Harvard University professor Jill Lapoor about her new book, We the People.

It's a giant book about the history of the Constitution.

Let's listen to a clip.

I think Trump and Trumpism are also a product of a world where the Constitution became unamendable.

I mean, after the ERA, the amendment that Americans most seriously considered in the 70s and 80s was the Balanced Budget Amendment, which had, like ERA, about 80% popular approval, like say around 1979 or so.

There's a lot of people who are really worried about federal government spending.

So

that

essentially constitutional frustration of a large segment of the American public, I think Trump tapped into that.

Yes, the unamendable Constitution.

We had some good ones, but not now.

Okay, that's the show.

Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

We'll be back on Friday.

Scott, read us out.

Today's show is produced by Larry Names, Wayne Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher.

Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.

Jim Mackle edited the video.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms.

Severa, and Dan Shallan.

Nashot Karas, Vox Media's Executive Producer Podcast.

Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

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

You can subscribe to the magazine, nymag.com/slash pod.

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

Have a great rest of the week.