Epstein Emails, Kennedy for Congress, and Guest Gov. JB Pritzker

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Speaker 19 Thank you, thank you, thank you. Good evening, Chicago.

Speaker 19 Greatest city in America. Well, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 19 Welcome to the podcast that cuts through all the spin. We're talking about Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway.

Speaker 19 Now these two break down the biggest stories and aren't afraid to call anyone out.

Speaker 19 Pivot is honest, informative, never boring.

Speaker 19 And that's why it's so smart that Kara and Scott have come to Chicago because this is a city that's always been about innovation, hard work, and telling it like it is.

Speaker 19 So no better place to be in the country than here in Chicago tonight. So please join me in welcoming Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway.

Speaker 20 You know, Washington was a little louder, so let's try that again.

Speaker 19 No.

Speaker 20 Oh, boo, Washington. Oh, what do you think? I'm Trump at a football game.
Cut it out.

Speaker 20 Anyway, hi, everyone, live from the Chicago Theater. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Speaker 20 I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.
And before we start, I want to send, as I said, a big thank you to our sponsors, Odu and Upwork.

Speaker 20 And please give a huge round of applause to tonight's special guest, Governor J.B. Prisker.

Speaker 20 I think you're popular. I'm not hearing booing.

Speaker 20 So we're going to talk about a couple of things.

Speaker 20 I'll ask you at the end about Epstein. Apparently there was some news today.

Speaker 20 Any quick thoughts, actually?

Speaker 19 There's nothing quick about it except Trump, Epstein. I think we know what happened there.

Speaker 20 It's really interesting, just as they got back, and they did seat the representative, which pushed it over the edge. And actually, others did join in.

Speaker 20 We'll talk about it more, but I want to actually talk about Chicago and about the controversial immigration operations that have taken place in the city. After nearly 60 days, agreed.

Speaker 20 Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, who's trying, I guess he's trying

Speaker 20 to get cast as the guy that got his face melted in Raiders at Lost Ark.

Speaker 19 He's too short for that.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 20 And many of his agents are reported planning to leave as early as this week with the Trump administration's downshift.

Speaker 20 Operation Midway Blitz. I don't know where they come up with these names.
The summer courts indicate reports indicate that federal agents could return fourfold in the spring.

Speaker 20 I guess they can't take the weather because they're wimps, like you guys can.

Speaker 19 Because they're snowflakes.

Speaker 20 Exactly. So how do you continue to navigate the push and pull on this strange federal immigration enforcement?

Speaker 19 Well, let me start by saying, and I really am not pandering to this audience, it's the people of Chicago that have truly reacted to them

Speaker 19 and protected our neighbors and our friends. People have come out.

Speaker 19 The number of whistles that have been purchased all across and that people are using when they see unmarked vehicles and guys wearing masks, people are coming out of their homes, people who've never protested before, people who've never been engaged before.

Speaker 19 They're outraged. And they're coming out to warn their neighbors and their friends, you know, ICE is here.
Be careful. Protect yourself.
Know what your rights are.

Speaker 19 And the people of Chicago have just done a terrific job. For two months now, they've been under siege by customs and border patrol, by ICE, by Gregory Bovino.
And

Speaker 19 this city really stepped up, activated, peacefully protested, and has pushed back. I'm really proud of everyone.
So

Speaker 20 how do you deal with this working presumably with the mayor? But how do you,

Speaker 20 they don't call you, right? You don't know a lot.

Speaker 19 They don't communicate at all. It's the first time that I, I think in my lifetime,

Speaker 19 that the federal government isn't talking to the state government about operations that it wants to do in our state. And it's very frustrating.

Speaker 19 So we read things in the news that come from, you know, they've got this

Speaker 19 lying spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, who literally, I mean, everything that comes out of her mouth is false.

Speaker 19 And that's how the news gets the information. And then we've got to figure out what's true, not true in reality, and then tell the news and, of course, react to it.
So it's very challenging.

Speaker 19 But I will say that we've seen

Speaker 19 a lot of really terrible things on the ground. I think everybody here probably has witnessed something.

Speaker 19 We've... asked people and they've reacted to it to pull out their phones, their iPhones, their Android phones and video everything you see.
And you know what that's led to?

Speaker 19 Federal cases that we have won.

Speaker 19 Thank you.

Speaker 20 So presumably you're not in touch with Christy Noam, correct?

Speaker 19 Yeah, Christy doesn't call me. I don't know why.

Speaker 20 Now, how does it usually work? I mean,

Speaker 20 some people are asking, some of those sort of pandering officials want them to come in.

Speaker 20 Why do you think they targeted you? You're running, because you might be running for president. What do you think is the...

Speaker 19 I don't think they targeted me. I mean, Donald Trump has had a problem with Chicago for as long as anyone's heard anything out of his mouth, really.

Speaker 19 He attacked Chicago. He did back in 2016.
He does all the time. He has this idea in his head that everything's on fire here.
He said the same about Portland, I might add.

Speaker 19 I'm not sure why, but, and guess what? Those are the first two cities, well, beyond L.A. anyway, that they sent ICE and CBP into.

Speaker 19 But

Speaker 19 all I can say is that they thought they were going to be successful here. They have not been successful, again, thanks to the people of Chicago.
And they're not just in Chicago.

Speaker 19 I want to just give a shout out.

Speaker 19 ICE and CBP really have been all over the state in the suburbs as well as downstate.

Speaker 19 And there's a little town, I'll just tell you a quick story, a little town called Staunton, Illinois, in central Illinois, where there's an undocumented man who's raised his family there.

Speaker 19 He's got a wife and kids. They go to school there.
He owns a restaurant there.

Speaker 19 He's been in this country for 20 plus years. And they arrived in Staunton, Illinois, in central Illinois, and they grabbed this guy and disappeared him for a whole day.

Speaker 19 His family didn't know where he went to.

Speaker 19 And the town of Staunton, 4,000 people live in this town. 500 people showed up to protest.

Speaker 20 So where does, if they come back in the spring,

Speaker 20 what is your move if they come back with four times times the force?

Speaker 19 The unfortunate thing is that because of the supremacy clause in the Constitution, federal law enforcement has the ability to, as long as they are following federal law, and you ought to take note, they're not following federal law, but there's no one that's holding them accountable at the federal level.

Speaker 19 But they are allowed, they have

Speaker 19 limited immunity as officers of the law, even if they aren't following the law. And so it is very hard to push back on them.

Speaker 19 So the way that we've done it here is: number one, we've made sure everybody knows what their rights are. And I'm talking about undocumented people.

Speaker 19 And I bet we all know somebody, they overstayed their visa, something.

Speaker 19 They're here in this state for one reason or another, but have been here for a long time, paying their taxes, following the law, raising their families. They're good neighbors and friends.

Speaker 19 They're workers. And they've been here quite a long time.
And, you know,

Speaker 19 they're coming for those are the people supposedly they're coming for.

Speaker 19 Rather than the worst of the worst, which is what Donald Trump said that he was going after, instead, they're stopping people who have brown skin or black skin and just asking them for their United States citizenship papers.

Speaker 19 I don't know about any of you, but I don't carry citizenship papers, and we shouldn't have to in this country.

Speaker 20 So, Scott?

Speaker 21 So, I

Speaker 21 voiced this to the governor when he was on the podcast. Every year I do a bucket list with my sons.
I say, it's our weekend. We can do whatever you want.

Speaker 21 My oldest wanted to go to a PSG game in Paris and my youngest, we live in London, said, I really want to go to Chicago.

Speaker 19 So

Speaker 21 we came here, steakhouse, bat in cage, went to the tallest building in Chicago, which every kid has to do,

Speaker 21 had a boat, just had a fantastic weekend. If you think of cities and states as a product, right, you're a relatively high tax state, not the highest.

Speaker 21 You offer

Speaker 21 services, economic opportunity, but pitch the product that is Illinois and Chicago. Like why,

Speaker 21 imagine you're a recent college grad with just a ton of options or an immigrant that has incredible human capital and could go anywhere.

Speaker 21 What's the pitch? Sell me on Illinois as a place to choose to spend my formative or or young adult years,

Speaker 19 I might add that I'll make the pitch, but I will tell you that this is the destination for most kids at universities in the Midwest.

Speaker 19 We have an enormous influx of people here from Michigan, from Indiana, from

Speaker 19 Missouri, and so on. People want to come to the city of Chicago, the young people coming here.
I mean, it's an exciting, vibrant city.

Speaker 19 I would say there are several things. I mean, first, if you're a young person, we've got, you know, great jobs at tech companies.
We are growing.

Speaker 19 Interesting fact I heard from Google, which is within Google, maybe somebody hears from Google,

Speaker 19 but there you go. I heard that within Google, if you want to transfer around to one of the other offices, either because your spouse is moving or whatever,

Speaker 19 the most requested

Speaker 19 place to move to in the United States is Chicago.

Speaker 19 And they just are, I don't know if any of you have seen, but they just Google it, are moving to the center of the city of Chicago.

Speaker 19 They actually bought the building from us, from the state of Illinois, and they're redoing it, and it's going to be absolutely gorgeous.

Speaker 19 So it's a great, vibrant city where there are a lot of really good jobs, whether it's the tech businesses, or I'll just add, it's a great sports town.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 19 importantly, a great place to raise your family. And

Speaker 19 last thing is I lived, you know, I've lived in lots of different places when I was younger. I lived in, went to school in North Carolina, you know, lived in California, lived in Washington, D.C.,

Speaker 19 lived in just outside of Boston. So a lot of different places.
And I can say this, no more decent people in a big city than in the city of Chicago.

Speaker 20 I think Scott was looking for what's your favorite bar tip, but that's okay.

Speaker 20 One issue about the,

Speaker 20 just this week, President Trump said the Miracle Miles shopping center, which in Chicago, I covered retail here, by the way, once covered our nation's, once considered our nation's best, now more than 28% vacancy factor and is ready to call it quits unless something is done about murder and crime, which is prevalent throughout the city.

Speaker 20 Call in the troops fat. This isn't.
all caps, call in the troops fast before it is too late. So first of all, it's the magnificent mile.

Speaker 20 Thank you. It's not a shopping center.

Speaker 20 And you said in response, and this was interesting, the man is demented. He really has no idea what he's doing.

Speaker 20 It's an interesting choice of words,

Speaker 20 but I would assume the city is capable of handling real estate vacancies without federal intervention.

Speaker 19 Look, he, like I said, he loves to dump on the city of Chicago. The reality is that, honestly, this state is on the rise.
This city is on the rise.

Speaker 19 We have a lot of really great things going for us, and it doesn't help when you have the president of the United States with some crazy notion of what the city is. He doesn't come here.

Speaker 19 I think if you, you know, he's got such a bad rep with everybody in Chicago that if you ask most people, they'd like to tear the name Trump off that building of his.

Speaker 20 We know what's wrong with it. The font is wrong.
It's a badly sized font. It really is.
It's a fantastic.

Speaker 20 Anyway, sorry.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 19 Yeah, there's other things that are wrong with Trump.

Speaker 19 But I will say this: that he's, you know,

Speaker 19 he likes to dump on us, but he just doesn't read. Apparently, he doesn't spend any time

Speaker 19 trying to understand anything at all. And if he did, because he also put a tweet out or whatever, his, I don't know, false, whatever it is, true, social.

Speaker 19 But he put something out, you know, where he was, he claimed credit for the last four years of crime coming down precipitously in the city of Chicago.

Speaker 19 And I mean, our homicide rate has been cut in half. And they've been here for two months, you know, not getting the worst of the worst off the streets.

Speaker 19 And he put out something today or yesterday claiming that any success we've had has been because of him and again i all i can say is he does he should you know i wish he well i don't really wish he would spend more time here uh

Speaker 19 but but i mean if he understood this city uh you know like most people who come here and spend any time here it's a great city and and he should know it but um i i uh anyway i'm i'm i'm frustrated by everything

Speaker 19 you stick with dementia i gotta stick with demented i i mean otherwise like almost everything that comes out of his mouth is false.

Speaker 19 So I'm frustrated because he's got the biggest bully pulpit in the world, and he's, you know, talking crap about the city of Chicago. And all I can say is, I mean,

Speaker 19 all the people, I bet a lot of people that are in the audience move to the city of Chicago and will vouch for the city with everyone you know.

Speaker 20 I'm going to ask

Speaker 20 two national questions and let you go. This country's in the middle of a massive redistricting war, the term control of Congress.

Speaker 20 Apparently, the Republicans might actually lose seats now through their redistricting because they're turning pink or purple, especially in Texas.

Speaker 20 But they're only up a half a seat right now and possibly down four through their efforts. But Illinois, what is going to happen here?

Speaker 19 Well, I've been

Speaker 19 say we're going to take a poll tonight.

Speaker 19 You know, they're going state by state, right? Republicans are and trying trying to get, well, Donald Trump is trying to get the governors and the Republican legislatures to redistrict.

Speaker 19 And Indiana, right next door to us, has been on again, off again, on again. They're trying to do it.

Speaker 19 And what I've said is that, and there's been a pairing of states, by the way, Missouri is trying to do it, and therefore Maryland might do it in order to cancel out Missouri.

Speaker 19 California did it to cancel out Texas. You know, if Indiana does it and they're going to meet in December to decide, I think that would push Illinois toward redistricting.
Okay.

Speaker 19 So

Speaker 19 but I will add we have 14 Democrats out of 17 seats. So

Speaker 19 we're doing okay. Democrats are doing okay in this state.

Speaker 21 So

Speaker 21 two questions. First is do you think the seven Democratic senators should have voted to end the shutdown?

Speaker 19 There were eight, by the way. Eight.
Excuse me.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 19 I know every single one of those people uh and i can tell you that i mean that that's probably the biggest mistake i've seen maybe in my political career um

Speaker 19 it was the wrong thing to do uh democrats won eight days ago everywhere in the country that there was a an election yeah and I would have thought that would stiffen their spines in the United States Senate, not loosen them.

Speaker 19 And unfortunately, we saw people who are retiring. It makes no sense to me.
People that are retiring who have really nothing politically to lose

Speaker 19 and should have.

Speaker 20 It's part of the scheme, presumably, right?

Speaker 19 It's a scheme, exactly.

Speaker 19 But I'm frustrated. And, you know, I,

Speaker 19 you know, one of them was our senior senator here.

Speaker 19 I was very disappointed.

Speaker 19 He's really done a lot of good things for the state and a lot of good things for the country. I was disappointed in his decision to do that.

Speaker 19 Our other senator, who I think extraordinarily highly of, also criticized the senior senator. Her name is Tammy Duckworth.
She did a great job and voted against it.

Speaker 20 So why do you think, why do you, why do you think they did it? What was your theory? I mean, there was all these theories of game theory.

Speaker 20 I understand, but there's also these game theory things that's out there.

Speaker 19 I think many of them had come, and you heard them, some of them at press conferences yesterday.

Speaker 19 I think they came to the conclusion that

Speaker 19 this has gone on for so long that it's hurting people and that they could rescue the country from this situation. But the reality is the guy who created this problem is Donald Trump.

Speaker 19 And he's the guy who refused to sit down with Democrats. By the way, what was he doing? Why did he hold out and not sit down with Democrats and go along with, he wanted to shut the government down.

Speaker 19 Why? And the reason, I mean, this is the crazy thing. He wants to deny people

Speaker 19 food in order to force the country to accept less health care. I mean, what is the logic? Your job as president of the United States is to make people's lives better.

Speaker 19 Democrats just wanted health care, a restoration of affordable health care. That's all Democrats wanted.
And Donald Trump was willing to starve people in order to hold to his position.

Speaker 19 You know,

Speaker 19 it's arguably one of the best campaign slogans of the 21st century is that we would, you know, the Democrats are the ones who are fighting for people to get fed and get health care.

Speaker 19 And that it's the Republicans and Donald Trump who are willing to stand against it. And so I don't get it.

Speaker 20 Why did the senators do it, though? Why did the Democrats?

Speaker 19 Again,

Speaker 19 I think that they felt like we're running up against Thanksgiving, that people aren't going to be able to get their flights to wherever it is that they want to go, that the public will hold both parties and maybe Democrats more so for some reason responsible.

Speaker 19 But the reality is that that's not what was happening, right? I mean, Republicans, rightly so, they're in control.

Speaker 19 They've literally got every branch of government in their hands, and they are the ones responsible for this. And yet these eight decided to give in.

Speaker 19 It is too bad, you know, that Democrats, people rely upon Democrats to do the responsible thing all the time. Guess what, who's doing that?

Speaker 19 The Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump are the ones who are,

Speaker 19 you know, we've got to go do the right thing so that they can get away with murder.

Speaker 20 So two more quick questions. One, we talked to Governor Healy in Boston about their efforts to make Massachusetts an AI hub.
You're leaning into quantum computing.

Speaker 20 Talk really briefly about the strategy here.

Speaker 19 So yeah, we've got, we've got, first of all, we've got some of the best institutions in the entire country

Speaker 19 for building quantum and AI. We've got Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi Lab, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Northwestern.

Speaker 19 Not to mention, as I mentioned,

Speaker 19 those Midwest institutions, Purdue, University of Wisconsin, Madison, et cetera, all great places, right? And people come here to Chicago. They want to come here.

Speaker 19 So we have all the makings of it to begin with. Second, the University of Chicago came to me in 2019 wanting to build out what's called the Chicago Quantum Exchange.

Speaker 19 And I had just passed or was about to pass a major infrastructure bill for the state, one that hadn't been passed.

Speaker 19 I mean, we hadn't had anything like that really ever in our history, and asked if we would invest in making Illinois and the Chicago Quantum Exchange

Speaker 19 the hub of quantum for the country. And I insisted that the University of Illinois be the partner in that endeavor.
And putting that together, and then we're now building a quantum campus,

Speaker 19 that has really put us on the map. There are three states that are going after being the quantum hub of the country, Colorado, Maryland, and Illinois.
And we are in the lead.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 21 Hey, Kara. Can I do a quick?

Speaker 21 So I want you to imagine imagine that you're a popular governor and you decide to run for president.

Speaker 20 Yeah, that's the question I was going to ask. Go for it.

Speaker 19 Well, what am I imagining?

Speaker 20 Running for president.

Speaker 21 I just want to do a lightning round, quick responses, gut response on some policy ideas. Mandatory national service.

Speaker 19 We've got to train people for the jobs of the future. I believe that doing some kind of service, allowing people to go to trade school potentially in that service, right?

Speaker 19 Whether it's, so we're not talking necessarily about military service, but just serving the country. We've got a whole lot of infrastructure that needs to get built.

Speaker 19 I think that would be a great way for people to operate.

Speaker 21 Lower eligibility for Medicare by three years every year in office, such that it's 41 by the time you leave. Basically, a move towards nationalized or socialized medicine.

Speaker 20 Lowering it every couple of days.

Speaker 21 Socialized medicine.

Speaker 20 Socialized medicine.

Speaker 20 Lowering Medicare. Oh, I'm for universal health care.

Speaker 19 I've been,

Speaker 19 I believe everybody deserves to have a doctor and have a

Speaker 21 universal child care.

Speaker 19 Are you kidding me? I, I came into office with 25 years of child care and

Speaker 21 federal minimum wage from $7.25 to say $20 or $25 an hour. Are you kidding?

Speaker 19 This is my topic.

Speaker 19 You know, $14,000 a year, no one can live on anymore. That's $7.25.
That is the national minimum wage. So if you don't live in a state like Illinois, where I helped to raise it to $15 an hour,

Speaker 19 you are living in poverty and holding down a full-time, probably two full-time jobs, making $28,000 a year if you work two full-time jobs, unable to really raise your family while you're doing it, if you're working two jobs.

Speaker 19 And so, yeah, I'm a big believer that we've got to raise the national minimum wage, $7.25,000. By the way, greatest political issue ever.

Speaker 20 To what?

Speaker 19 Minimum wage? Well, at least $15. That's what we've done here in the state of Illinois.

Speaker 19 And by the way, hundreds of thousands of people no longer live in poverty in the state of Illinois because we raised the minimum wage.

Speaker 20 Okay, Scott.

Speaker 21 Last question.

Speaker 21 A massive increase in support, armaments, long-range missiles, and potentially boots on the ground to Ukraine.

Speaker 19 Well, I don't want to send boots on the ground. I think that

Speaker 19 we had an opportunity under with Joe Biden in office. He was doing the right thing.
Look, they should fight their own war, but we should support them because, I mean, Russia is not our friend.

Speaker 19 And Russia wants a piece of the rest of Europe. And it is Ukraine that stands in the way.
And so we ought to be supporting the nation of Ukraine.

Speaker 19 Donald Trump walked away and has let Vladimir Putin essentially kill hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine. And now, you know, and he says, oh, he's such a great peacemaker.

Speaker 19 He hasn't made peace anywhere. He's basically just sided with one side, let them blow over their competition,

Speaker 19 their enemy. And then, you know, that's the way.

Speaker 19 I lied.

Speaker 21 Last one, removal of Section 230 protection for algorithmically elevated content.

Speaker 19 Social media, I mean, this is

Speaker 19 probably the biggest danger to young people in this country. That we have got to put some limits.
I tried to pass a law last spring.

Speaker 19 We're going to try again this year

Speaker 19 that would ban cell phones in classrooms across the state.

Speaker 19 And that's the way we can do it in the state of Illinois, but there's a whole lot the federal government ought to be doing.

Speaker 20 All right. So how close are you to a president's running? Tell me in numbers.
Like three months, six months?

Speaker 19 I love being governor of Illinois. I'm running for re-election, by the way.

Speaker 19 Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 20 We've got a great bench.

Speaker 19 What else do you want me to tell you? We've got a great Democrats have probably the the greatest bench that we've had for quite some time in for 20 years. I don't know.

Speaker 20 I think you're running for president, so you can go now.

Speaker 20 No,

Speaker 20 you're looking good. I'm just saying, you're slimming down.
You're looking good.

Speaker 20 Anyway, thank you, Governor Prisker. We'll let you get back to work.

Speaker 19 Thank you, Governor.

Speaker 20 Let's have a round of applause.

Speaker 20 Give him a round.

Speaker 20 All right,

Speaker 20 we need to take another break and when we come back, we'll get to some of the latest headlines. You know which one

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Speaker 20 Scott, we're back recording live from the Chicago Theater here in the windy city.

Speaker 20 Let's hit a few news stories.

Speaker 20 House Republicans released over 20,000 pages of documents from the Epstein estate today.

Speaker 20 The document dump came just after the House Democrats released emails from Epstein, where he claimed President Trump, quote, spent hours at my house with a trafficking victim and that Trump, quote, knew about the girls at Mar-a-Lago.

Speaker 20 The emails sent to Jelaine Maxwell and author Michael Wolf between 2011 and 2019 suggest Epstein thought he had leverage over Trump.

Speaker 20 The Trump administration held a situation room meeting earlier today over the House's effort to force the release of all the DOJ's Epstein files. And in Congress, of course, they passed

Speaker 20 the ability to vote on releasing the files in the House.

Speaker 20 They couldn't even, let me just say, they couldn't even convince Lauren Boebert to change her vote, which is, and let me tell you, I'm going to give her Broadway tickets for the rest of her life for sticking with it.

Speaker 21 By the way, can you imagine a more awesome date for your 17-year-old son?

Speaker 21 Beetlejuice lets you fill her up, a little hand action.

Speaker 21 I mean, it's literally like, where was she when I was in high school?

Speaker 20 All right. In any case, she's stuck by her guns, and it's going, it's for they seated the Arizona representative who was the next vote, but more people are going on.

Speaker 20 But let me just be clear, everybody.

Speaker 20 Once it passes the House, which it is likely to do, it's then got to pass the Senate, and then Trump has to sign it, which he will veto it, and then it's got to be veto-proof. So it's unlikely

Speaker 20 these files will come out. They will drip, drip, drip out.
That is certainly true. So, how, how,

Speaker 20 what are you seeing at this point? There was another email that came out that he said he didn't know, he didn't get a massage. This is the line that Epstein had.

Speaker 20 Trump didn't get a massage, but he knew about the girls, which seems to be the lowest fucking bar in America that he didn't get a massage.

Speaker 20 And Roe Connor predicts that this full vote by early December. So, what do you think what's happening here? It's sort of overtaken the news cycle.

Speaker 21 I mean,

Speaker 21 I want to get your view because I thought we were at a red line about nine red lines ago.

Speaker 20 Yes, me too.

Speaker 21 So it feels as if absolutely nothing

Speaker 21 will turn his own against him. So, but the weird thing is, is that I generally believe the most powerful person in the world is Trump because he sits on the largest economy or the largest military.

Speaker 21 She is right up there.

Speaker 21 kind of a close number two because all of this tariff nonsense has essentially resulted in a massive recalibration of soft power and alliances and economic alliances towards China, away from the West and the U.S.

Speaker 21 But I generally believe the third most powerful person in the world is a dead pedophile. And that is we're closing Congress.

Speaker 21 I believe that, and this might sound like a paranoid, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Speaker 21 I think there are five or six very intelligent, most likely young people with a background in communications in a room, queering, anthropic, and ChatGPT.

Speaker 21 Whenever Epstein starts to creep back into the news cycle, they say, what stunt, publicity, announcement,

Speaker 20 tearing down the White House.

Speaker 21 What will push it out of the cycle? I think, literally, I think

Speaker 21 our government right now, I think the third most powerful person in the world in terms of what we are doing and the actions that Congress is taking, I essentially think that Speaker Johnson has become basically the giant block for Epstein getting back into the news.

Speaker 21 They wouldn't have closed down Congress had it not been for fear that information about the president's cohorting with a convicted pedophile.

Speaker 21 So the third most powerful man in the world right now is someone who's been dead.

Speaker 20 Where does it go? I mean, because the evidence.

Speaker 21 I'll put it back to you. I have been so wrong on this, Kara.

Speaker 20 What do you think? You know, I think it's no good for Trump. I mean, his numbers are dropping, obviously.
And this, what I have said for so long is this is the third rail for sort of that set, right?

Speaker 20 Of the QAnon set. This is something they love more than they love Trump,

Speaker 20 they stick to. And it is, if you spend any time online in those places, which I suggest you don't,

Speaker 20 this is something that is, it's like,

Speaker 20 it's their, it's their foundational pillar of their, of, of Epstein. And so that's why you see Boebert or Mace or any of these people going that way.
And of course, you know,

Speaker 20 the obvious democratic presidential candidate marjorie taylor greene these days um how much she's gone like on this topic she's she's been hard on two things health affordability and this um next week she's going to announce herself a lesbian and start drinking kombucha i think um

Speaker 20 i don't think we want her but as long as i can watch yeah okay we can say that um but i think it's really that's what you see if you see someone like her or some others what was interesting to to me was Steve Bannon, who I also watch on your behalf,

Speaker 20 said, he says something early in, he said, the president is imperfect. But divine.
But he's, but he's divine. But he said divine providence.
And I was like, which was crazy.

Speaker 20 And so we have to stick with him in this time. There's, he used all kinds of weird military metaphors, which is interesting for Trump because obviously bone spurs.
But he,

Speaker 20 what was interesting about the divine, that he's imperfect, though, so we have to stick with him because divine providence. And to me, saying,

Speaker 20 okay, he might be a pedophile, but he's God's pedophile. So we have to

Speaker 20 like is not, it's a problematic argument to make for most of the American

Speaker 20 people.

Speaker 21 That's not the foot you want to lead with.

Speaker 19 No.

Speaker 21 That's a terrible bumper sticker. Yeah.

Speaker 21 If I had to speculate, it would be that there's going to be a soft release.

Speaker 21 where they're going to release something that'll be highly redacted, highly massaged, that'll leave in all the names of people people who happen to be Democrats, and there'll be a lot of names that will be redacted.

Speaker 21 And they will pretend that it's a full release, and that there'll be enough that it makes them look bad, but the really crazy stuff will somehow be deleted, redacted.

Speaker 20 There's supposed to be videos, photographs, etc. Like there's like an Andrew-level photograph kind of thing.

Speaker 21 Yeah, but we have his personal attorney running the Department of Justice, so I just wouldn't take anything for granted.

Speaker 21 I don't, I would guess they're going to try and do just just enough to pretend they released the files and the documentation without actually releasing the files.

Speaker 21 I mean, I have never seen someone act so guilty. Right.

Speaker 21 You know, occasionally, my dad gets into the trash and will get like a box trapped on her head and goes flailing around, throwing, trying to throw the box off. I feel like she's imitating the press.

Speaker 21 Could anyone act more guilty right now? Could anyone literally act more guilty than the president is acting right now? Because if there's any veracity, think about it.

Speaker 20 I'm calling it a hoax, you know, again.

Speaker 21 But think about what people have forgiven him for. So, and there have been a lot of very high-profile people who've gone down to Epstein's Island and have said, this is a terrible error in judgment.

Speaker 21 I don't know what I was thinking of. And they get a little bit, they get a little bit of criticism.
And then, for the most part, the public has moved on.

Speaker 21 So, the fact that he is so scared just sort of naturally implies that there's a lot more than a lot of other people were guilty of. He just could not,

Speaker 21 he just seems, if there was, if these files in any way were just bad, you would think he'd want to just get it out and say, you've forgiven me for worse. Yeah.
So this, it just smells so.

Speaker 20 So what, what happened? What's happening right now in the White House?

Speaker 20 Fuck if I know.

Speaker 20 Like in that room.

Speaker 21 I just know. All I know is Melania's not there.

Speaker 20 That's the only thing.

Speaker 20 He tore down her house.

Speaker 20 So where does it was, so it probably, if it, two things, two things, then we'll move on. If he doesn't,

Speaker 20 if this passes and it gets to his desk and he vetoes it, that keeps it in the news, right? A veto.

Speaker 20 If he pardons Jelaine Maxwell, who seems to have been lying based on these emails quite a bit, which, of course, because she's a heinous monster who should be thrown down a hole.

Speaker 20 But so he could pardon her. That's another moment of what in the hell.

Speaker 19 And then

Speaker 20 the files could come out, right? The actual files.

Speaker 19 Yeah, but

Speaker 21 I mean, this is something I'm more confident in. She's already been parked.
I mean, they're just waiting.

Speaker 21 I think they're just going to wait until this calms down or until he's in his last few months in office.

Speaker 21 And the fix is already in. All of a sudden, she gets transferred to a lower security prison and has a nice wife.

Speaker 21 There's reports now that she's like ordering around people.

Speaker 21 A prison guard, I think, went on record saying, I'm sick of being this woman's bitch. Like, it's clear word has come down to treat her differently.

Speaker 21 She likely promised to do something in exchange for that. And the thing that I find, look, it's terrible that people this awful get set free.
I get the moral argument and the moral indignance.

Speaker 21 What I think is a bigger tragedy, though, is that the infrastructure of clemency and pardon is a really wonderful thing we have in the United States.

Speaker 21 And that is we recognize that our justice system is a crude instrument. And a lot of people, unfortunately, end up incarcerated for life or tens of years.

Speaker 21 And we find evidence that they, in fact, are innocent of their crimes, or that because of some three strikes law, but because they stole an antenna from a grocery store, they're spending the rest of their life in prison.

Speaker 21 There are dozens, if not hundreds, of talented clemency lawyers trying to review these cases to let people out and grant pardons to people

Speaker 21 who deserve them.

Speaker 21 And this is totally perverted, bastardized, and taken all resources away from what has been a unique and, quite frankly, wonderful thing about our Justice Department, and that is the examination of clemency that leads to pardons instead it's just essentially like everything else in our nation whether it's the white house whether it's health care whether it's our food supply we have now decided to monetize pardons i mean i got to be honest if one of my kids was in prison i'm being very honest here I would start giving millions of dollars to the GOP.

Speaker 21 I would get to a dinner. I'd get next to him and I'd basically say 10 million bucks, get my kid out.

Speaker 21 And I think there's a one in three chance I could get my son out of prison right now if I had enough money.

Speaker 21 And that perverts the whole notion of justice and also takes away from the fact that the pardon process in America has been a really worthwhile process.

Speaker 20 Listen, this is what we're going to move on. But one of the things I think what's going to happen is there's going to be, like you said, we're a visual species.
Yeah. There's going to be a picture.

Speaker 20 There's going to be a video.

Speaker 21 That's what's going to happen. So there are videos.

Speaker 20 That's what I understand. Yeah.

Speaker 21 So I'm still waiting for the P video. That's okay.

Speaker 20 That one, I don't know if there's a video of that. And allegedly, allegedly.

Speaker 20 Okay, we're going to move on to something a lot more better looking. Very quickly, Jack Schlossberg, the 32-year-old grandson of President John F.

Speaker 20 Kennedy, is entering the race for Congress in retiring Representative Jerry Nadler's district, this Manhattan.

Speaker 20 Schlossberg first gained attention during the 2024 election with his viral social media videos that mixed shirtless content and political commentary. What is happening to the Kennedys?

Speaker 20 In his campaign video, he said, this country is facing a crisis at every level.

Speaker 20 Does being handsome, connected, and shirtless qualify you for Congress these days? Or do you have to be young to? What do you think about him running?

Speaker 20 There's a lot of very good-looking people running in that district, by the way. Very handsome.

Speaker 21 Spoiler alert, yeah.

Speaker 21 Look, in America,

Speaker 21 so we've made huge progress around

Speaker 21 female participation in higher education. We're making a lot of progress in the C-suite.
It's gone from 18% to 27%.

Speaker 21 The primary consideration for, or the only real criteria that's absolute across almost every elected representative that goes to DC is that they have a college degree.

Speaker 21 And for the last 40 years, there's been more women graduating from college. And right now, it's 60, 40.
It's actually going to be about two to one.

Speaker 21 And despite the fact that the primary qualification to be an elected representative in this country is a college degree, and there are vastly more

Speaker 21 women now getting college degrees, we still only have 26% elected representatives. We are wildly sexist when it comes to our elected representatives.

Speaker 21 And if you reverse engineer it, I think it goes to something very instinctual, and it's the following. Unfortunately, we conflate voice, depth of voice, and height with leadership skills.

Speaker 21 So show me someone who's 5'2 ⁇ and has an IQ of 140 and a high-pitched voice. Hello, school board president.

Speaker 21 Hello, school board president. Show me someone 6'2 ⁇ , with a good head of hair and 105 IQ.
Hello, Mr. Senator.

Speaker 19 We are

Speaker 19 Sexist.

Speaker 21 If I had that guy's voice and Gavin Newsom's hair, I'd be fucking leading on Kyle Shee for president right now.

Speaker 21 And the reason why, the reason why I believe that most likely it's Governor Newsom or Governor Pritzker is they give off really awesome dad energy.

Speaker 21 If you don't think we're sexist, just two terms, Secretary Clinton and Vice President Harris. How the fuck did they lose? Anyways,

Speaker 19 looks, there's just no getting around it.

Speaker 21 I'm that guy. I want a good-looking person to run for president.
I think it connotes leadership. I think we are wildly lookists in this nation.
So I'm less concerned with trying to progress.

Speaker 21 the social virtue of our nation. And I am totally obsessed with whoever gets Democrats in the White House.
I want someone tall and dreamy. I will vote for this guy.

Speaker 21 I will show up and rub LaRoche Posset off the small of his back.

Speaker 21 I am down.

Speaker 21 I think that guy's a tall drink of lemonade. We need more of that.

Speaker 20 Good for him.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 21 By the way, could AOC be any hotter? That's why she might be president. Jesus Christ.

Speaker 20 Scott just offered her a giant sum of money to primary Chuck Schumer.

Speaker 21 Does she ask about me? No, she didn't.

Speaker 20 She did not.

Speaker 20 I texted her. She did not text back.
Same thing with Emily Radikowski. She's playing that game.
No, she's not playing that game.

Speaker 20 She's completely, I would say, completely uninterested in you.

Speaker 19 I get it. Yeah.

Speaker 20 Surrender to the dog. No, no.

Speaker 20 I'm not entirely sure she knows who you are.

Speaker 20 So, all right.

Speaker 21 I exposed myself and you just.

Speaker 20 You know, maybe she does now because Scott is having the number one book in America right now.

Speaker 20 Notes on being a man.

Speaker 21 Kira, Kira, I don't like to give into the trappings of your capitalist metrics.

Speaker 21 Hello, ladies. Numero Uno.

Speaker 19 Number one.

Speaker 21 Fucking Debbie Brubaker went with Bobby Barnes to the prom. Did Bobby Barnes ride a New York Times number one bestseller?

Speaker 20 I don't think so.

Speaker 20 You know, this afternoon, I found out about it when Mel Robbins, you know, let them, that lady,

Speaker 20 texted me and she goes, I'm so thankful it was Scott who knocked me out of number one,

Speaker 20 of the number one. And I'm sure she was thinking, fucking asshole.
I'm going to

Speaker 20 let him.

Speaker 20 Anyway.

Speaker 21 Just by the way, I want to say publicly, you could not have been more supportive and generous.

Speaker 19 Thank you very much. Thank you.
Well, you know.

Speaker 20 The better you do, the better I do. That's how it goes.
No,

Speaker 20 no, no. I'm very pleased that you're doing.
I knew it was. He didn't think it was going to do as well.
I did. Thank you.
Because I believe in you. Thank you.

Speaker 19 I appreciate that.

Speaker 20 Anyway, a quick business story, and then we're going to get to questions from the audience in a second. Let's do this one.

Speaker 20 Kim Kardashian's shapewear brand Skims just secured $225 million in new funding led by Goldman Sachs, bringing the company's valuation to $5 billion.

Speaker 20 That's a big jump from the $4 billion valuation just two years ago. And a six-year-old company is expected to surpass $1 billion in net sales this year.

Speaker 20 The brand plans to use the cash to expand internationally with stores planned for London and Dubai by mid-2026 after opening 18 U.S. locations and partnering with Nike early this year.

Speaker 20 They also had a best-selling thong that had pubic hair on it that you can't get, you can't buy. I don't know if you know that.
I don't know if you got that, but should they go pubic? I mean public?

Speaker 20 Sorry.

Speaker 20 What do you think about this? Because

Speaker 20 you've done commerce companies all over the yin-yang.

Speaker 21 Yeah, there's quite a few companies. Well, what's unique about her company is her sister has a beauty brand that's supposedly been valued at a billion dollars.
Rihanna has a beauty brand.

Speaker 21 The health wellness space, Jessica Simpson has a company valued at a billion dollars. They generally top out at a few hundred million and kind of a billion dollars in valuation.

Speaker 21 What's unique about this is it's worth, like at least in the private markets, 5 million. I don't think she'll go public.

Speaker 21 Typically, these companies get big enough and then they hook up with a partner, as Rihanna did, that provides them with global distribution, more capital,

Speaker 21 better brand management.

Speaker 21 So I don't, I don't, this is extraordinary.

Speaker 21 Now, to the larger question around whether it goes public, basically the number of public companies has been cut in half over the last 40 years because of the regulatory burden, the costs, the scrutiny, every three months,

Speaker 21 having to report your numbers. It becomes difficult.
You become more short-term-minded.

Speaker 21 And typically, the only reason you went public was for a financing event or to get liquidity such you had a stock that you could make acquisitions for.

Speaker 21 And now there's so much money in the capital market.

Speaker 20 She doesn't have to.

Speaker 21 You can get liquidity, and it's just easier to run a private company. So

Speaker 21 I don't see any reason why she would go public.

Speaker 20 So where does it go? I mean, these things, commerce, as you know,

Speaker 20 goes like this.

Speaker 21 Yeah, but what she's trying to do.

Speaker 20 Glossier, or I'm thinking of some other ones that didn't.

Speaker 21 Typically, most brands don't scale beyond a couple hundred million dollars unless they become multi-channel. She's opening, I think she's got 19 stores.

Speaker 21 She's opening more. So it's just what's old is new again.
It's multi-channel. She's done a great job.
Most of these brands have sort of an inclusivity part to the brand, and she's done that.

Speaker 21 She's a remarkable entrepreneur.

Speaker 21 I don't think there's any

Speaker 21 taking away from her. I don't have any like remarkable insight here.
I don't know.

Speaker 20 What's going to happen to it? No, it's a really good brand. I have to say.

Speaker 20 I had Kim Kurtasian on stage many years ago.

Speaker 20 And I swear to God, I call it,

Speaker 20 I wanted, because she was the top person in social on very early nascent social networks. She was absolutely number one.

Speaker 20 And she also made a mobile game that suddenly was a loser and then was a winner. And just all these, and I do, you can be offended by her.
I get that completely.

Speaker 20 But one of the things that was interesting is all these entrepreneurial efforts, right, that they were doing. And they're very entrepreneurial families, some might say kind of.

Speaker 21 But in terms of wealth creation, the sweet spot for celebrities with large social volume, it's sort of discouraging, but this is the truth. If I walk into a publisher now, I get.

Speaker 21 triple the advance only because my social following is five times what it was the last time i talked to them social is now kind of everything whether it's trying to paying up to be in a movie, they kind of, or your brand deal, they look at your social, they look at your

Speaker 21 social following. But the sweet spot for celebrity in terms of wealth creation is to find a cool little brand and say, I'm Zendaya.
I will start wearing, I will start wearing on

Speaker 21 and I will be the public face or one of the public faces. Roger Federer is a billionaire.
Roger Federer has made more money in terms of cash liquidity.

Speaker 21 than any of the stars we've mentioned because it's liquid because he attached himself early in exchange for a large equity equity set stake and on.

Speaker 21 So the sweet spot for celebrities is find a great brand that has incredible product management,

Speaker 21 great distribution, and then say, I will become your face in exchange for 2%, 3%, 5% of the company.

Speaker 20 Michael Jordan.

Speaker 21 From a wealth creation standpoint, you want to attach yourself to a brand early and get equity as opposed to going through the rigmarole of actually starting with the business. We will tell Kim.

Speaker 20 I think she'll do just fine without us.

Speaker 20 In any case, we need to move on. But first,

Speaker 20 I'm hungry. Are you hungry? Because we have a surprise for you from that iconic Chicago institution, the Wiener Circle.
Please welcome the lead, guest services, representative Poochie.

Speaker 20 Hi.

Speaker 19 Hi.

Speaker 19 Hi.

Speaker 20 Hi, Poochie. What the fuck is up?

Speaker 20 Mr. Scott.

Speaker 20 Fuck you too, okay?

Speaker 19 Do you know this? Hi. Hi.

Speaker 20 I brought you fucking chardos from chicago's on wiena circle thank you so much thank you

Speaker 20 well i'm gonna introduce myself i am poochie i'm the heavy bitch in charge of weena circle okay nice to meet you yeah

Speaker 20 oh you tall as

Speaker 20 okay

Speaker 20 yeah with Karen she brought me here yeah I did give you a little shit but I think I think I'm gonna be on your side today we're gonna get on this bitch today, okay?

Speaker 20 Go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 20 So the next time she gives you shit, you just say, hey, you know what, bitch? You look like Lacey off Cackney and Lacey, okay?

Speaker 20 And then when he gives you shit, you just say, you look like a fucking cock. You got a dickhead.

Speaker 20 Exactly.

Speaker 20 Well, of course, this building ain't got a a fucking elevator. I mean, ain't got a microwave.
So eat the shit, okay? And fucking enjoy it, all right?

Speaker 19 All right. All right.
Thank you.

Speaker 20 Thank you. Bye.
Nice to meet you.

Speaker 20 We did want some. We love Poochie.

Speaker 20 I thought Scott would be a little sensitive.

Speaker 21 I was not expecting that.

Speaker 20 I know that.

Speaker 20 They're usually much more abusive, honestly. And I was...
worried about you to be honest with you because you're such a delicate flower. Anyway, thank you, Poochie.

Speaker 20 We'll take a quick break to be back to take some audience questions. So line up and we'll get going.

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Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odo.

Speaker 4 Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 9 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 9 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business this is where odo comes in it's the only business software you'll ever need odo is an all-in-one fully integrated platform that handles everything that means crm accounting inventory e-commerce hr and more no more app overload no more juggling logins just one seamless system that makes work easier and the best part is that odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

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Speaker 14 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

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Speaker 20 Scott, we're back recording live from Chicago. We're ready to take some questions from the audience, and we love hearing from you.
We love answering questions of the audience.

Speaker 20 It's been our favorite thing on this tour so far. So let's bring up the lights, I guess.
We can see this a little bit.

Speaker 19 Oh, who are you?

Speaker 20 Hey, Carol. Hey, Scott.
It's former presidential candidate, Andrew Yang.

Speaker 19 Yes. Hey, Chicago.
It's great to see you all.

Speaker 20 Go for it, Andrew.

Speaker 19 Scott, congratulations on the phenomenal new book. It's so needed right now.
I'm going to ask what's on so many people's minds. Would Would you run for president?

Speaker 19 And if so, what would your platform be?

Speaker 19 What about you, Andrew?

Speaker 19 I'm here asking the question of Scott, Kara.

Speaker 20 And yet I just asked one of you. Are you going to run again?

Speaker 19 You know,

Speaker 19 I'll do whatever Scott tells me to do.

Speaker 21 No, but my platform would be a chicken in every pot and a sialis in every cupboard.

Speaker 19 I think you do very well, my friend.

Speaker 21 No, Karen and I, Karen and I, so I have the primary qualifications to run for office. I'm a narcissist and I got a little bit of money.

Speaker 21 And what I've decided, and I think you've decided this too, is that I'm coming back. I'm moving back from London.
I want to be in the fight. I don't think this is a time to leave America.

Speaker 20 I think this is a time to come back.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 21 Karen and I are very committed to

Speaker 21 bringing attention to,

Speaker 21 as Governor Prisker said, what we think is an outstanding bench. And I was

Speaker 21 doing an interview today, and they said, well, what's your plan for the next several years? And

Speaker 21 you can hold me to task here. I'm going to spend my time, treasure, and talent to trying to flip Congress and put a Democrat back in the White House.

Speaker 19 Thank you, guys.

Speaker 20 Excellent. Thank you, Andrew.
Everyone, Andrew Yang. Thank you, Andrew.

Speaker 20 One of the great things Andrew did was showing that we do need more choice in our electoral system. The two-party system really needs to be rethought of in a lot of ways.

Speaker 20 I don't know how that's going to happen.

Speaker 20 It's happened many times in our history, but it's really important for people to be able to run and not get mown down by whatever the Republicans or the Democrats.

Speaker 31 Next. Hi, Kara and Scott.
My name is Roe Hill. I'm a student at the University of Chicago.

Speaker 19 Cool. Love that school.

Speaker 20 Oh, my God.

Speaker 20 We love that school.

Speaker 31 I had kind of a two-part question. So the first part,

Speaker 31 today the White House said they're not like October inflation and jobs data is probably never going to be released.

Speaker 31 So my question is, what do you think the Fed is going to do in December?

Speaker 21 So someone from the University of Miami would have never asked that question.

Speaker 21 And then

Speaker 21 you're at the right school.

Speaker 20 You take this. I will.
Go ahead.

Speaker 31 Yeah. And then the second part was just,

Speaker 31 I think it was Atlanta Fed president, he said he was going to retire. So what do you think that, like, what do you think Trump's going to do with that? And how is that going to be?

Speaker 20 Well, what do we think he's going to do? Come on. At this point, it's so funny in Washington.
All these people are like, can you believe he did that? I'm like, yes.

Speaker 20 Yes, at this point, I can believe. You know, if he like almost, if he ran naked across the White House line, I'd be like, of course he did, because he needs to get the focus off of that.

Speaker 20 I know, gross.

Speaker 20 But with the, with the second one, what's happening with this, it's they have to release those numbers actually and they're going to be bad jobs but there are a lot of a lot of people are relying on other numbers which are showing jobs down 50 000 jobs or something like that and so they might just do it because he's so um he just doesn't do it even if it's illegal he just does it does he won't release it and what are you going to do like kind of thing but i do think you know whether it's goldman sachs there's a bunch of other consumer sentiment indicators that show pretty bad economic problems coming forward.

Speaker 20 And so into the void will come lots of information and it will be a problem for him because it won't be organized or under his control.

Speaker 20 And so I suspect they'll start doing it, but they're not going to be good numbers. And with the Fed,

Speaker 20 I don't know. It just, I think things are going down.
I think things are starting to really decline according to the statistics that I've seen. So probably they will lower interest rates.

Speaker 21 I could give a shit two things.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 21 The first is, and this is serious, if you want an internship this summer, you're hired. Just I'm 100% serious.
100% serious.

Speaker 21 And any young man, any young man who is freakishly remarkable enough to get into the University of Chicago and has the presence you're demonstrating, if you're interested, come work at Prop Team Media this summer.

Speaker 19 Two,

Speaker 21 true story.

Speaker 21 I just, I'm going through the manufactured stress process of a kid applying to college, and we just did the college tour, and we did two schools here, Northwestern and the University of Chicago. And

Speaker 21 yeah, we're still in that hallucination phase that our kid is that remarkable.

Speaker 20 Anyways,

Speaker 21 University of Chicago, we're roaming around, and the, you know, the high EQ, ethnically ambiguous tour guide, not sure why, threw that in.

Speaker 21 Somebody made the mistake. First off, parents should never be allowed.
It should be a criminal offense for parents to ask questions during the

Speaker 21 three different mothers asked. I've heard it's not safe here, literally three times.
Anyways,

Speaker 21 somebody made the mistake of asking the admissions rate. The admissions rate, and he said, is 4% in the University of Chicago.

Speaker 21 First off, anyone that has an endowment over a billion dollars that is not growing their freshman class faster than population growth should lose their tax-free status because they're no longer a public servant.

Speaker 21 They're a hedge fund offering classes. And actually, University of Chicago is better than most.

Speaker 21 They've increased, while their endowments gone up sevenfold, they have increased their their freshman class 40%, which is better than most of these

Speaker 21 elitist rejectionist colleges.

Speaker 21 So when we heard that it was 4%, I said to my son, I like to freak him out because he's so fucking woke. And

Speaker 21 I turned to him in the middle of the tour. I'm like, let's go get a burger.
And he said, can we do that? I'm like, yeah. And he said, well, why do you want to leave?

Speaker 21 And I'm like, let's break up with this bitch before she breaks up with us.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 21 I personify, I love to personify every university, just for anyone that's not offended yet.

Speaker 21 And we went to seven universities in nine days, and my personification of Chicago was the guy in a park who's barefoot who's feeding pigeons who supposedly won a Nobel Prize. That's Chicago.

Speaker 21 And Northwestern is the gay son we all wanted.

Speaker 21 Thank you for the question.

Speaker 21 I will see you this summer, young man.

Speaker 19 All right.

Speaker 20 I don't want to say my kids got in, but that's okay.

Speaker 21 Your kids got into Chicago?

Speaker 19 One of them. Yeah.
I didn't know that.

Speaker 20 Very impressive. Yeah.

Speaker 20 So, but he went somewhere else.

Speaker 19 Go blue.

Speaker 20 Go blue. Go blue.

Speaker 19 Come on.

Speaker 20 Go. I'm sorry.

Speaker 19 Go blue.

Speaker 20 He got to choose. I didn't get to choose.
I love the University of Chicago. Go ahead.
Hi, my name is Pat, and I don't have a question. I just have a big thank you, Kara, because you are so terrific.

Speaker 20 Thank you. Gosh.
That's not great. But Scott, you're pretty great, too.
But Kara's bad. He's pretty great.
That's okay. I'm terrific.
He's pretty great. Yeah.
Good.

Speaker 19 I like him.

Speaker 20 The reason I really want to thank you is because back in 2022, I called in to your other podcast on

Speaker 20 and asked about a dating quandary that I had

Speaker 20 and you answered me with some really wonderful advice to think more widely

Speaker 18 and

Speaker 20 just live your life and see how it goes. You also invited me to be a lesbian, but I'm straight.
That's okay. Okay.
What happened? What happened?

Speaker 20 I found an amazing partner and I've been with him for three years. Yay.

Speaker 20 He's here now. He's just too shy to be here.

Speaker 20 And

Speaker 20 really, thank you so much for both of you widening my life in so many different ways with your perspectives, your brilliance, and your humor.

Speaker 19 So thank you.

Speaker 20 Thank you.

Speaker 20 Thank you.

Speaker 20 I'm always trying to do things for the heterosexuals. I'm always trying.

Speaker 20 You people need some help really badly. Anyway, sorry, Scott.

Speaker 21 Just one fun fact and then a lesbian joke. So

Speaker 21 this is true. Widows are happier after their husband dies and widowers are less happy.

Speaker 21 And the reason why there's that lesbians get divorced at a much higher rate than straight or gay couples is because they're both listening.

Speaker 20 Nothing wrong with that. I'm a psychoanalyst.

Speaker 20 Thank you. And congratulations.
Live, live, live. Remember, like Auntie Maim says, life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving.
Thank you. All right.
We have how many? Two more questions?

Speaker 20 One more question. Here we go.

Speaker 32 My name is Paula, and I'm old enough that even with using only my initials based on gender, I wasn't eligible for any of those schools you were talking about. But, Mike,

Speaker 32 and I really appreciate the dynamic, real, raw conversations that you all are helping us have across the country.

Speaker 32 And the question I have is: how can we

Speaker 32 use existing real estate, private only owned real estate,

Speaker 32 to add to our housing stock that we can solve the housing issue and challenge? Because without consistent sleeping places, we're going to keep running around in circles.

Speaker 20 That's a great question to end on on housing. It's something actually I've done a lot of recent reporting on.
There is the most astonishing innovation going on in materials and creation of housing.

Speaker 20 The way we do housing right now is so artisanal. It's ridiculous.
There's all these ways to build all kinds of housing

Speaker 20 that is just innovative and safe and quick

Speaker 20 and no problems happening all over the place. The problem.

Speaker 20 Governments that are NIMBY, like these NIMBY fucking governments, you've got to start being able to build housing near subways, near ways people can get in and out of cities, for example.

Speaker 20 I think our homeless problem is so direct.

Speaker 20 It's because they don't have homes. Like they get stressed.

Speaker 20 Mental illness comes with stress, all kinds of things. You feel insecure.

Speaker 20 Again, if I were running president, it would be two things.

Speaker 20 I think minimum wage would be one of them. Get everybody to a working wage, which would be $25.

Speaker 20 And the second one, get them fucking houses. Like, that's the thing.
But it's not, there's so many innovations going on in materials that it would blow your mind to see what's happening.

Speaker 20 They just aren't getting deployed. And so we've got to get a politician that says, as president, I will build 8 million, whatever the number is.

Speaker 20 I will build 8 million homes, work with governors to build these things and get the regulation out of the way to be able to do it. And you can do it safely.
It doesn't mean not being safe.

Speaker 20 I'm not one of those people.

Speaker 20 But you have to be able to use all these incredible innovations in AI, design, all kinds of things.

Speaker 20 They can do it fast and quick and build really good homes for people because I don't think people can be stable if they don't. I think our society can't be stable without homes.

Speaker 32 I'm unclear about what's out there in existing real estate that is so privatized.

Speaker 20 It is.

Speaker 32 We can't turn it into a house.

Speaker 20 The hedge funds are buying all the homes.

Speaker 20 We know that. 38% of sales are now.

Speaker 32 And how do we can we address that? At the same time, build, repurpose, or reuse or something.

Speaker 20 So

Speaker 21 it shouldn't be drill, baby, drill. It should be build, baby, build.
And there's a lot we could do, whether it's tax subsidies.

Speaker 21 I don't believe in rent control that just takes housing prices over, reduces the stock.

Speaker 21 You should weaponize the private sector with tax credits. You have to get rid of UNB.
America, and we're all guilty of this, has embraced a rejectionist, exclusionary culture.

Speaker 21 Once we have college degrees, we applaud the dean for rejecting 70, 80, 90% of applicants because we're all under the delusion that our kid is in the top 1%.

Speaker 21 And I can prove to every one of you: 99% of our children are not in the top 1%.

Speaker 21 And what happens at NYU when the dean announces we rejected 90% of our applicants, we applaud.

Speaker 21 In my view, that's tantamount to the head of a homeless shelter bragging that he or she turned away 90% of the people who showed up last night. We're public servants, not fucking air mezbacks.

Speaker 21 The second thing is, and a lot of us are guilty of this, the moment we have a home, we become very concerned with traffic.

Speaker 21 And we start showing up to the local review board and want to sequester new housing permits because all that does is take the value of our own home down. So what do we need to do?

Speaker 21 We need to stop this bullshit rejectionary, exclusionary culture that takes our asset prices up and start unleashing massive housing.

Speaker 21 My favorite housing program, there's a ton of really interesting ones. I love this.
Seniors and young men sign up. Seniors have homes that are too big.
They need help.

Speaker 21 And young men men are moving in with them. I love that program.

Speaker 20 Yeah, the young people. That's an astonishing.
That is an astonishing.

Speaker 20 You should look into those because those are fascinating because it helps everybody because we also have a crisis with the elderly, too, in terms of care and the expensiveness of it.

Speaker 20 And there's all kinds of programs. But again, what we want to leave you with this is there's lots of innovation and it's easy to do scroll all over the place.

Speaker 20 Well, he does.

Speaker 19 But you do a little bit, don't you? I do.

Speaker 21 I'm addicted to my phone.

Speaker 20 What's really important is you all, you know, someone's like how are we gonna how are we gonna survive this and i'm all and my kids say it to me too and i said well get the fuck up you know and start walking because you can see it start to change you saw it uh in the last election look if there were great republicans we'd support them too like right now it's really ugly um we try really hard to be um to try to find you know, comedy between everyone.

Speaker 20 Obviously, we don't agree with everything, but we we see great hope for this country. And we think one of the reasons we're on this tour is we love talking to people.

Speaker 20 So we hope we leave you with that, with a positive feeling. And we really appreciate it.
We love Chicago. You guys have been a great crowd.

Speaker 20 And you can catch selected shows from this tour on YouTube and in your podcast feeds. That's all we've got time today.
Scott, read us out.

Speaker 21 Today's show is produced by Larry Names, Joy, Marcus Taylor, Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Musa Vera, and Dan Shalan.

Speaker 21 Amazing ground support provided by Trish Hargato, Kelly Schwanter, and Kelly Lynch. Special thanks to MSG Entertainment of Chicago Theater.

Speaker 21 Big shout out to the Vox Experiential team, Tara Riley, Courtney Given, Abby Aronofsky, and Caitlin Burla, and the Shark Crow's Vox Media Executive Producer Podcast.

Speaker 21 Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine of Vox Media.

Speaker 19 Thank you, Chicago.

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