Trump’s Strange Playlist, Kamala on Fox, and Elon’s Robot Fail

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Speaker 5 You're real pretty. Your voice is pretty.

Speaker 4 Yeah, handsome voice. It's like when people meet me and they they kind of cock their head and go, like, oh, that's, that's what you look like.

Speaker 5 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher and I am in Scott Galloway's living room.

Speaker 4 Oh, Kara, let's be honest. It's our living room at this point.

Speaker 5 It is. It's nice.
Can you tell the people what you were just doing when I arrived and I had to sit in the foyer?

Speaker 4 Kara, I don't like to brag. I just, you know, when I have a famous person over, I like to, I like to respect respect their privacy.

Speaker 4 I am now good, good friends with Jason Isaacs from the Patriot, the Harry Potter films. He's like one of those great Shakespearean British guys who's also quite handsome.

Speaker 4 And delightful. And delightful.
You got to hang out with him.

Speaker 5 He had many a story, a very charming story. You're going out with him in London.
Now you've made a new friend, a new famous friend.

Speaker 4 I have made a new friend.

Speaker 5 Like he was, you were, you were, you're going to be in that thing.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm really, I'm super excited. Of course, it's, it's hilarious.

Speaker 4 My first kind of major original scripted drama appearance is just my voice yeah that's pretty much i don't know what to take from that that's

Speaker 4 you're real pretty your voice is pretty yeah handsome voice it's like when people meet me and they kind of cock their head and go oh yeah right because they know you're oh that's that's what you look like i got it we were talking about this i've always looked at i don't know hollywood in the industry not askew but you know oh anyone can do that and i tried it and it was so hard and i was so bad at it and they sent over Jason

Speaker 4 and he literally turned my chicken shit into chicken salad. And I just, I'm like intoxicated.
This guy was so good. I know.

Speaker 4 And so he gave me such great direction and told me what points to hit and set up scenarios. All right, this is you, you know, imagine you just found out this and like,

Speaker 4 I'm just totally blown away. I've decided.

Speaker 5 You love it now. Oh, no.

Speaker 4 I need to be, I'm going to be glup shitto, the new character in Star Wars.

Speaker 5 Can you say what you're doing? Are you allowed to say what you're on?

Speaker 4 It's a voice.

Speaker 5 You play a voice over the phone.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 4 I'll just say it's arguably one of the most popular original scripted dramas, and it's coming back for a new season. I don't know if I'm allowed to say anything.

Speaker 5 No, I think you're not because I'm also in one that I taped, as you recall, in Los Angeles.

Speaker 4 Oh, you had to one-up me, did you?

Speaker 5 Well, I'm on camera.

Speaker 5 I had to join SAG, as you know, to do it. I'm on camera, and I play myself, so that's a little easier for Karasha.

Speaker 4 I give my money to a Thai orphanage, so I don't have to. I'm serious.
That's a true story, so I don't have to join a union. But they'd love to have me.
They'd love to have me.

Speaker 5 Can I just tell you, if you appear enough, you have to join SAG, and that will be a day when I do a like.

Speaker 4 Now I get it. A day I'm going to do it.

Speaker 5 Now I get it. You know what? You're going to get intoxicated.
You're going to be on your own set of your show. And Rosamond Pike will go, Scott, we'd really like you to play yourself.

Speaker 4 I'm totally starstruck. I'm like, in my trailer, I'm on Cala Lilies, Haribo Gummies, Starch, and some saran wrap right now.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Right now.

Speaker 5 In any case, we are in New York. We had a beautiful event last night where Scott and I were interviewed by Joanna Coles at Zero Bond.
That was fun.

Speaker 5 We're being very, like, we're having some good time.

Speaker 4 It is fucking fabulous.

Speaker 5 It was fabulous.

Speaker 4 We were after all this bullshit, you dealing with,

Speaker 4 I don't know, the McLaughlin report and me dealing with clients and employees, we're like, this is our, these are our solid days. These are our solid days.

Speaker 5 It's true. And we had our staff over, both all the staff from Prof G, from on,

Speaker 5 from, and we want to thank them for their amazing work.

Speaker 5 And we had them all together and they asked us questions.

Speaker 4 Mostly, most of the time, I'm not sure I'd call it amazing.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 4 Amazing-ish.

Speaker 4 Amazing-ish.

Speaker 5 Amazing-ish. Anyway, we've been doing a lot.
I'm very excited. I'm very excited.

Speaker 4 So my favorite question from last night, and I want you to repeat your answer,

Speaker 4 mostly because then I want you to ask me. But why don't you just answer it? This really thoughtful young woman.

Speaker 4 said,

Speaker 4 what is each of your purposes? Like,

Speaker 4 what is your goal now in life, Kara?

Speaker 5 I didn't have one.

Speaker 5 I didn't have one. I'm doing exactly what I want.
You didn't know?

Speaker 4 That's why I don't remember. You really didn't have one?

Speaker 5 No, I was like, no, how do you find purpose? I was like, I love my work and I love my family. Oh, that's right.
You said that. I think that was it.

Speaker 5 I like what I'm doing.

Speaker 5 I don't have a worry about that. But you had a good answer.

Speaker 4 You need to do more ketamine and say, well, you know, and be more intentional.

Speaker 5 No, I don't say words like intentional, and that's why I'm happy. But what is your answer to that?

Speaker 4 I said that I love what Richard Reeves said in Boys and Men about surplus value, about figuring out a way that you give more love than you take, you create more tax revenues than you've taken from the government, you know, you're better to your parents, which isn't easy than they were to you over the course of their lifetime.

Speaker 4 I love just the idea of surplus value. It's totally.
I love that.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's fantastic.

Speaker 4 I think, quite frankly, that's how you become a man. And I tell this to my boys, where your school is spending a lot of time and energy on you, you're not giving anything back.

Speaker 4 Your parents are loving you more than you're loving us back. At some point, you're going to add surplus value.

Speaker 4 I love that notion. Also, for me, it was sort of giving up the scorecard, if you will.

Speaker 4 I used to kind of mark all my relationships, and if I didn't feel I was getting more out of them, I would shed them or get upset, which is just stupid.

Speaker 5 It's a scarcity mentality, right?

Speaker 4 It's an idea. Well, not like that.
Yeah, it's not the way to live your life because you'll always inflate your own contributions and deflate other people's. It's a terrible way to live your life.

Speaker 4 It was a big unlock for me, which is kind of a similar thing. And then

Speaker 4 when I did my ketamine therapy and I knew this, but I came out of it and I just sort of clarified, and I guess I didn't clarify, but just cemented the notion that I'm supposed to, my mission now is to raise patriotic, loving boys.

Speaker 4 That's my mission. I think that's every parent's mission, is to raise really healthy, wonderful citizens.

Speaker 5 And give care your apartment now. I think it's time that you turn it over to me.

Speaker 4 That almost came in second, but it was third.

Speaker 5 I feel like if you want to be a giver of cornucopia and of boundlessness, you should sign this apartment over to me.

Speaker 4 You've been here every day.

Speaker 5 I think you're here more than I am I know that you're very generous you're a very generous man thank you for signing but we've had a good time I love spending time with you Scott I do it's really enjoyable we laugh we have a lot of laughs I'm coming to London next week but you're not gonna be there I'm not I'm not can I go over your house and look at your things as if as if you were gonna ask yeah no I'm gonna I'm gonna call your wife is she there no she's off partying isn't she yeah no she's in Miami at some music festival and her

Speaker 4 this arrested adolescence phase that I think she's gonna grow out of in about 30 or 40 years.

Speaker 5 Oh, your wife is fun.

Speaker 4 With all of her hot Florida friends who are also going through the same.

Speaker 4 I used to be hot and now my eggs are dying. I need to try every drug and go to everyone.

Speaker 5 You're not a party. You're not a music festival kind of guy.

Speaker 4 Oh my God. I went three years ago and I'm like, and I went and saw Rufus de Saul.
First off, I was literally like, you know, I'm here to pick up my daughter or my granddaughter. Right, right.

Speaker 4 And two, it was crowded. And all I could think about, this is how you think when you get old.
I'm like, what if there's a fire?

Speaker 5 What's the, yeah, what's my exit plan?

Speaker 4 What's the exit route? That's how you think when you're older. I'm like, if I slipped and broke a hip right now, would anyone even notice? It's true.
Yeah, that's how you think. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Anyway, I think you have a good time.

Speaker 4 I do my drugs at home and I turn on Spotify. That's my music festival.

Speaker 5 I think you have a good time. I think you were actually happy last night, which I really like.

Speaker 4 I know that you're happy. Yeah, I had a great time.

Speaker 5 You're very smiling.

Speaker 5 Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today besides us being personally happy and joining the Hollywood ranks, including Kamala Harris's Fox News interview, which was last night, Donald Trump's disturbing dance party, if that's what you you want to call it, and Elon Musk's RoboTaxi event that was basically smoke mirrors and fake robots.

Speaker 5 Let's get to it.

Speaker 5 I heard you first, we discussed this yesterday. I heard you have an update to your apology to Dak Shepard that I suggested you do.

Speaker 4 Oh, we're back to our star fucking.

Speaker 5 No, no, but this was it. People are one, people, many people asked me about this on the stream.
This is important with the Dak Shepard situation.

Speaker 4 Yeah. My testicles finally descended, and I sent him a text apologizing, and he was incredibly gracious and generous back.
And he didn't say, though, no problem, I'll come back on your podcast.

Speaker 4 We want to have you back on the podcast. He was very gracious, very polite, but that's it.

Speaker 4 I'm out of Dax's life.

Speaker 5 You know why? What did I tell you? Why did he not offer something in return?

Speaker 4 Why, Kiera?

Speaker 5 Because you're on a lower shelf.

Speaker 4 That's literally my new nickname, lower shelf. People are going to start coming up to me and going, hey, LS.

Speaker 5 He commented he's not a higher. Oh, did he comment saying he's not on a higher shelf? No, really? Well, that's what a higher shelf person is.

Speaker 4 Oh, he's commenting back. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 He's on a higher shelf. Dax, I'm sorry.
Plus, now your wife's in like the hottest sitcom. You're on a way higher shelf now.
You've moved up. Your wife has moved you up a shelf.

Speaker 4 People love that. No one wanted this.
That's that what it's called. People love it.

Speaker 5 Nobody wants this. It's great.
I watched the whole season. You have to watch it.
There's problems, but it's funny. It makes you feel good.
You should watch it. It's great.

Speaker 5 And Adam Brody is a dreamy man, I have to say. He plays a hot rabbi.

Speaker 4 Yeah, George Hahn's cousin, Catherine Hahn, played a hot rabbi in Transparent.

Speaker 5 She is, and she's on a show, too. She's on one of the shows.

Speaker 5 Oh, she's huge yeah she's like the character actor of all character actors now she's a lead in a new marvel thing she's she's blown up she's a bad witch she's a bad witch but who's trying to be good but not really but anyway dax thank you for being so polite thank you dax that's what a higher shelf person would say but indeed you are um so this is interesting big tech is going all in on nuclear energy i've talked about this for ai this week both google and amazon have announced they're investing in new generation of small nuclear reactors remember we keep talking about this these small nuclear devices that people are going to have, follows Microsoft's recent move to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.

Speaker 5 That's a move. They must really need energy.

Speaker 5 Are you surprised? They're all doing this. They've just decided to revive nuclear.

Speaker 4 They have decided. Look, if the choke point, it appears, is not demand.
It's not applications for AI. The choke point is supposedly the incremental demand and power consumption.

Speaker 4 And if you think about, so nuclear right now provides nearly half of America's clean energy. It's one of the most reliable reliable energy sources in America.
It doesn't need to be windy.

Speaker 4 The sun doesn't need to be out. It's also,

Speaker 4 in case we haven't forgotten here, or

Speaker 4 in case we don't remember, it's carbon-free.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 every year I pick a technology of the year in my predictions.

Speaker 4 In 2022, I picked AI. In 2023, I picked GLP1.
Spoiler alert for

Speaker 4 2025. It's absolutely

Speaker 4 nuclear. And

Speaker 4 if you want reliable,

Speaker 4 serious, efficient energy that has no carbon footprint, and let me just remind everyone again, my favorite bumper sticker, more people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in a nuclear power plant in the United States.

Speaker 4 It all roads lead to one place, and that is nuclear.

Speaker 4 And the innovation here, because of people, the capital pouring in, I think big tech's, I think it's going to be great that big tech's going into this. Bill Gates.
Bill Gates is a big, yeah.

Speaker 5 I did an interview with him where he talked about it just recently and then a couple of years ago. And then oddly enough, I did an interview with

Speaker 5 Oliver Stone, who's really into this nuclear energy, which was odd. He's still at odd.
He has a bunch of conspiracy theories.

Speaker 5 He wanders around and spews every now and then, but he had done a whole documentary on this. And Sam Altman's very invested in, I think it's called Helium,

Speaker 5 all kinds of different efforts happening here. It definitely got bad PR.
That was Oliver Stone's thing.

Speaker 5 And when I did these interviews at the time, this was three years ago maybe um it's when i was doing my new york times podcast i got so much pushback from people and i was like and and stone was making the point that it got bad pr because of movies hollywood worst branding in history and the new generation are different they're not going to see those sort of menacing looking towers although i'd be interested to see what they do at three mile island but the new the new technology around them is really quite interesting and it's an important thing to invest in because as gates says you know solar isn't going to make it wind isn't going to make it recycling isn't going to make it.

Speaker 5 We're going to need a number of things. And now, with these huge pulls on the energy grid because of AI, that's another thing.
And it's great. Let the tech companies pay for it.

Speaker 5 That sounds good to me.

Speaker 4 First off, I remember I grew up in Southern California, and when I was learning how to surf, some of the surfers used to go, I think it was San Onofre, because they used water to cool the reactors.

Speaker 4 And so there was so much hot water that there was a part of the ocean that was actually warm. And it's not dangerous water.
It's just water that's been heated. And there's no free lunch.

Speaker 4 There are quote unquote waste or emissions and it's spent nuclear fuel.

Speaker 4 But you could take all of the nuclear fuel and it would be, you could put it in a container that would cover one football field and be 30 feet high.

Speaker 4 That is the total now granted, you don't want to get near that shit. It needs to be secure.
It's not going to be not scary for thousands of years, but it's one football field 30 feet high.

Speaker 4 That's the total emissions. I'm so into nuclear.

Speaker 5 You know what we should do? We should have Elon stop focusing on the election and take it in one of his rockets and bring it to Mars. I think that's a great question.
What?

Speaker 5 Take what? Take the nuclear stuff and bring it to Mars. Take the waste.

Speaker 4 Take the nuclear stuff and bring it to Mars?

Speaker 5 Take it into space.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I mean.
I don't know how you're squaring that circle. I don't know what's going on there.
What is that?

Speaker 5 I just think I'm trying to think of a way to dispose of it, not on this Earth.

Speaker 4 Oh, I see. Take it somewhere else.
I'm way ahead of you. Oh, you are way ahead of me.

Speaker 5 Obviously smarter.

Speaker 4 I'm an actor. You're an actor now.

Speaker 5 You're not so smart. You're pretty.
Anyway, last thing, Anthropic CEO wants you to know that AI will change our lives.

Speaker 5 This is a company that's a little less positive about AI and was more, it was started by people who were worried about safety.

Speaker 5 But Dario Amode, who is well-known, another well-known figure, has released an essay titled Machines of Loving Grace, laying out a utopian view of AI's impact, which was interesting.

Speaker 5 In the essay, Amode suggested AI could accelerate 100 years of medical process, something we talk about a lot, making it possible in just 100 days, cure mental illness and alleviate poverty.

Speaker 5 The CEO says the powerful AI could come as early as 2026, and that there are also ways,

Speaker 5 also, ways it could take much longer.

Speaker 5 It's really interesting because I've had conversations with, as I said, Bill Gates, Yuval Harari, with Meredith Whitaker this week, who runs Signal, about the utopia of AI on with Karis Fisher.

Speaker 5 But we also have to be realistic about the dangers. Let's listen to a recent interview I did with Yuval Harari, the author, who both Scott and I have a great regard for.

Speaker 6 What is AI? Why is it dangerous? What is the threat?

Speaker 6 And a lot of people have difficulty grasping it. It's not like nuclear weapons,

Speaker 6 that the danger was obvious, and nuclear war, which will just kill everybody.

Speaker 6 What's the danger in AI?

Speaker 6 And I think one of the key

Speaker 6 issues in the conversation about AI is to explain that it's not about the big robot rebellion, it's more about the AI bureaucrats.

Speaker 6 It will take the world from within and not by rebelling from outside or from below. I mean, AI, yes, it's not a general intelligence, but it doesn't need to be.

Speaker 6 Within a bureaucracy, you need a very kind of narrow intelligence to gain enormous power.

Speaker 5 He had some really interesting thoughts that went off in different directions. I saw this play this week in New York, McNeil, with Robert Downey Jr., which also covers the issues around AI.

Speaker 5 But Dario doing this is really interesting because he's sort of been more of the like alarm raisers. But might it have anything to do with Anthropic hoping to raise funds at $40 billion valuation?

Speaker 5 Tell me what you think is happening here.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 I'm really betting or hoping that Anthropic does well. First off, Anthropic, we might as well call it Amazon AI.

Speaker 4 It's just hilarious, all these sub-brands, in an attempt to distract the FTC and the DOJ from the fact that it's the same players. There is a new duopoly forming, and that is video is what I call it.

Speaker 4 So anyone that's a challenger to either of those firms is good, I think, for the ecosystem and the economy. And the way I use AI is I use it as a thought partner.
So if I'm writing.

Speaker 5 And you use Claude from Anthropology.

Speaker 4 I use ChatGPT and Claude. Right.
Okay. And why wouldn't you?

Speaker 4 It doesn't make any sense to me that someone would just use one or the other. Because if I'm writing something and I think, okay, give me,

Speaker 4 I mean, I will absolutely, you know, we're doing character development for this original scripted drama, and I'm thinking, okay, this character needs some hobbies to add some texture to their personality.

Speaker 4 And I'll put in the character. I'll do everything.
I'll say, this is, I'll even describe that, you know,

Speaker 4 what the original scripted program is about, everything. I'll say,

Speaker 4 give me some interesting hobbies that would feel real for someone in this position, but add some flavor and unexpected. And it'll come back with eight hobbies, and five of them make no sense.

Speaker 4 Two of them are fine. And you think one, you're like, wow, that's great.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that you wouldn't have thought of.

Speaker 4 And then I go to Claude or ChatGPT and I type in the exact same prompt to see what it thinks. So why, why not have one thought partner? Why

Speaker 4 have two? And also in an indirect way,

Speaker 4 indirect way, and I don't like to do this very often, but I'm going to bring this back to me.

Speaker 4 Anthropic is my best investment of 2024

Speaker 4 because

Speaker 4 I'm fascinated with bankruptcy filings. See above losses virginity at 19.

Speaker 4 And I looked at the bankruptcy filing for FTX, and it listed all the assets. And it said, you know, they have some shit coins, have some Bitcoin, have a little bit of cash.

Speaker 4 And one of their assets was, it said Anthropic shares.

Speaker 4 And I couldn't figure out how much. All it said was they had invested a half a billion dollars in Anthropic, I think somewhere between three and four years ago.

Speaker 4 And I thought, okay, realistically, they probably own 10% of Anthropic, or basically FTX has 10% of Anthropic as part of their asset base. And I thought Anthropic is probably worth $30 to $40 billion,

Speaker 4 meaning that the $9 billion in claims against FTX, a bankrupt FTX, 30 to 40 cents of on the dollar were just in Anthropic shares.

Speaker 4 So I went out and you can, when I went out, you could buy claims against a bankrupt FTX for 22 cents. And I thought, there's at least 22 cents worth of Anthropic shares here

Speaker 4 for the debtors or for the claimants. And I made my, what is probably my biggest investment of 2024.
And fast forward, it's always great to talk about your wins.

Speaker 4 I also got the shit kicked out of me on a healthcare startup, so I lose money all the time. But anyways, these claims now are worth 120 to 140 cents on the dollar.
And it all started with Anthropic.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you talked about that.

Speaker 5 I'm glad you disclosed that, by the way.

Speaker 5 By the way, me 16. Okay.

Speaker 5 me 16

Speaker 5 15 15. anyway um 15 what i don't understand you talked about when you lost your virginity oh god 15 16

Speaker 5 i didn't care i was a lesbian i didn't care if i saw these men it would get i didn't have to give them goja i didn't find any of these like

Speaker 5 fun loving lesbians in high school i was unusual i was unusual i didn't want to give people gojaws because i thought it was repulsive and so i would sleep with them thank you find a lesbian that's what you needed to do god it's so every bone in my body is saying don't say anything Nuclear power.

Speaker 4 Nuclear power.

Speaker 5 Nuclear power.

Speaker 5 But talk about this because Anthropic was sort of the same. There's all these safety, like the guy who left Ilya left OpenAI.

Speaker 5 You know, others involved in safety are pushing that very, and Anthropic was that company of people that were much more dreamy about the idea that we keep everything safe and that Sam Altman was rushing too hard to commercialization.

Speaker 5 And that's precisely what they're doing, right? Correct.

Speaker 4 In a capitalist society where your kids are going to have more opportunity, you're going to live longer, less likely to be depressed, less likely to be obese, have a much, much larger selection set of mates, and people will laugh at your jokes if you have a lot of money.

Speaker 4 The incentive in America all points to one thing. It's not be a good person.
It's not think about the Commonwealth.

Speaker 4 It's do whatever you need to do or say to get the price of the shares and the equity value up. And all you need to do, if you want to understand

Speaker 4 why corporations are making the decisions they're making or why a CEO is saying anything or why David Zaslov is at the U.S.

Speaker 4 Open with Tom Cruise, probably hoping to sign him up for some sort of movie deal with HBO or Warner.

Speaker 5 Or Elon Musk also.

Speaker 4 Go ahead. All you need to do is reverse engineer the money.
And

Speaker 4 the notion that these guys,

Speaker 4 even Volvo, who generally wants a safer car, they do it because they realize there's demand and people will pay incremental margin for an underpowered car.

Speaker 5 Right, but why do they have to go on about Sam Altman said in a recent blog post suggesting super intelligence? They really are selling it with massive prosperity, which I prefer.

Speaker 5 I have to say, I prefer Sam Altman's version because at least he's being honest. Like, we're going to make some dough here.

Speaker 5 I find it irritating all these people that say safety, safety, safety worries. And then the minute they need to make money, they go right to the money, which I don't mind if that's what they say.

Speaker 5 I just don't want to listen to them yammer on about

Speaker 5 how great it's going to be for all of us when you know it's going to be great for them and maybe for us.

Speaker 4 Yeah, look,

Speaker 4 look, I think the wrap should be our focus is on for-profit. We think this like anything will have any technology is going to have a ton of upside.
It'll also have some externalities.

Speaker 4 And we're

Speaker 4 genuine about trying to work with government. And they all say this

Speaker 4 and it's a lie. But we're trying to be thoughtful about the potential harms here.

Speaker 4 That's the best they could do, but they're not. They're going to always

Speaker 4 look, when you're paid not to understand something,

Speaker 4 it's really easy to not understand it. The CEOs of tobacco companies could just never make the link between nicotine and addiction or between combustibles and lung cancer.

Speaker 4 Despite evidence everywhere, the thought that we were going to try and get them to realize or that the CEO of Exxon is ever going to come to grips with the existential crisis of climate change.

Speaker 4 No one at his funeral is going to say, you know, he was the CEO of the biggest fossil fuels company in the world, but he choked back on it and shareholders lost money.

Speaker 4 But maybe the world is one millionth of a degree cooler than it would be otherwise.

Speaker 4 All they're going to remember is if he was a generous guy and if he had, you know, a fat house and his kids did well, every incentive in our economy points towards money.

Speaker 5 I find it irritating. They have to always go with utopia.
Like, it's going to be so good for everyone. And I think it probably will be.
I just, I'm like, stop selling past the sale, I guess.

Speaker 5 That's how we do it.

Speaker 4 We're connecting the world.

Speaker 5 Yes, just like you're making money, right? Okay, God.

Speaker 4 Organizing the Earth's information. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 Like, you're not here to don't be evil stop it stop it they they can't help themselves these tech people anyway let's get to our first big story

Speaker 5 vice president kamala harris appears to be taking our advice i'm sure she's listening to everything we say as her media blitz continues harris's campaign officials met with joe rogan's team this week about a potential interview although because he's such a doormat it's perfect to go on there although an appearance has yet to be confirmed doormat you really think he's a doormat i think it's gullible oh he's just like whatever whatever someone says he's like, oh, interesting.

Speaker 5 He'll just be complimented that they're there. Donald Trump also hinted at doing Rogan.
On Wednesday, Harris, why wouldn't they? It's enormous. That's why she did call your daddy.

Speaker 5 On Wednesday, Harris sat down with Fox News's Brett Baer. Another thing we suggested she do.
And in fact, things got heated. Brett was trying to be Mr.

Speaker 5 Tuff, I guess, and did a few Republican talking points and talked over her quite a bit. I thought he needed to, I know what he was trying to do, but he didn't.
He looked like he was super nervous.

Speaker 5 Harris pushed back.

Speaker 7 It gave her an opportunity to push back and some right-wing talking points and also tried to make the case for why trump is so dangerous let's listen you and i both know that he has talked about turning the american military on the american people he has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest he has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him this is a democracy and in a democracy The President of the United States, in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I thought she was quite strong. Her answers on immigration were okay, but she was there.

Speaker 5 She did say

Speaker 5 her presidency would be different than Biden's, which is what she didn't manage to do

Speaker 5 on the view, which she, I think, people want her to do it

Speaker 5 in a deft way without throwing him under the bus.

Speaker 5 So do you think she succeeded in winning over any right-wing voters? I thought going there was a good thing.

Speaker 5 And it's not, you know, I was on CNN last night and Scott Jennings, who can be super irritating, although isn't stupid, was like, well, she doesn't get a participation trophy.

Speaker 4 And I almost. No, she kind of does.
She does.

Speaker 5 She kind of does, Scott.

Speaker 4 She kind of does because he's not.

Speaker 5 That's right. And also, guess what she didn't do? Spend 30 minutes swaying to music.
playing Ave Maria three times. God, that was weird.
So she didn't do that. And so,

Speaker 5 you know, they grade her on such a curve compared to him. He literally is adult.

Speaker 4 No comparison.

Speaker 5 And at the economics club, he spewed nonsense. I thought this was a win for her, and I thought it's good that she does.
She should do it again. She should do it over and over again, everywhere.

Speaker 4 Yeah, look, just being there, if you want to be part of the resistance, you have to go behind enemy lines. And if you're good at this, it goes, I mean,

Speaker 4 the best moments. for Clinton or for Governor Newsom are when they go on Fox because they can.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and Pete Tuda judge, too.

Speaker 4 100%.

Speaker 4 Secretary Budigesh is never better than when he's on Fox because he's like, guys, that literally, bitch, that's the best you have. And he's back in their face with it.
And I thought she was okay.

Speaker 4 I think on the whole, it was a win for her. Look, she's not great on her feet.
And sometimes her words come across. And I want to be clear, she is held to an entirely different standard than Trump.

Speaker 5 Well, because she can string a sentence together, but go ahead.

Speaker 4 Well, and only that, I mean, the reality is we...

Speaker 4 I'm going to go there. It's just a different standard for a woman.
A woman is,

Speaker 4 if she was hallucinating on stage and said, oh, we're going to listen to this song and sat up there, swang for 30 minutes,

Speaker 4 everyone would just be like, oh, she's crazy. She's not a serious candidate.
We can't vote for her.

Speaker 4 I thought it was good that she went on, but here's, this will be the election of the podcast.

Speaker 4 Because if she goes on Joe Rogan, which I think she's going to do, she will reach more people by being on Rogan than she would reach if she went on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, in prime time

Speaker 4 combined. He gets 11 million listeners per show.
Go on all those shows every day of the week

Speaker 4 for a full week. Not as many people will see you as if you go on Joe Rogan.

Speaker 5 She also has to go on everything. I think she'll get better as she does it, right? Everybody gets better as they do things.
We got better at this podcast as we did it, right?

Speaker 5 And I do think once, you know, interestingly, after the debate, even my mom was like, oh, she was pretty good. Like they just need to see her.

Speaker 5 And if she doesn't like sway to the music, and let's just talk about that.

Speaker 5 Former President Donald Trump, you know, not only did he declare himself the father of IBF and an all-female town hall with Fox News.

Speaker 5 It was packed with pro-Trump people, by the way, women, not one detractor.

Speaker 5 He also had a bizarre, this bizarre event on Monday where he had enough of answering questions, which he were all pre-selected, by the way. It was 39 minutes.

Speaker 5 They replayed Ave Maria, which the last time I heard it was at my grandmother's funeral. I'm sorry for your loss.
Thank you. It was like 30 years ago.

Speaker 4 That's the trauma.

Speaker 4 We figured it out. That's the trauma.
Trauma, I know.

Speaker 5 Ave Maria. I cannot believe he played it three times.
Governor Tim Wall summed it up pretty well. Let's listen.

Speaker 4 He stopped taking questions and stood frozen on stage for 30 minutes while they played his Spotify list to people.

Speaker 4 Do you think he knows the story behind the YMCA song?

Speaker 4 Look,

Speaker 4 it it was

Speaker 4 strange, but if this was your grandfather, you would take the keys away. You would take the keys away.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and Christy Noam looked like a home health age. She looked like she couldn't, she needed to find a dog to kill to take the attention off of him.

Speaker 5 Some people have dismissed this stuff as silly or weird. I find it concerning.
Reuters has polling on whether people believe Trump is, quote, mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges.

Speaker 5 53% of voters agreed with that sentiment in July of 2023. That number is down to 46% as of last week.
People are sort of getting the message. What do you think about his?

Speaker 5 You know,

Speaker 5 she could always have done better, but she could string sentences together and go, you know, mono-mano with Brett.

Speaker 5 He had a very hard time in all his interviews having any cogent sentences. How do you, do you think this matters? Has it gotten through quickly enough?

Speaker 4 I think the Trump campaign believes that as of right now, they would win and they're playing defense. I mean, Susie Wiles, the brains behind all of this.

Speaker 4 I think she's basically said, look, we have momentum right now. Just put him in a basement.
Don't let him speak. And he's kind of gotten the message.
He doesn't go free form.

Speaker 4 He doesn't want to answer questions. He's trying to avoid anything.
I think at this point in the campaign, it's a strategic mistake.

Speaker 4 The way you lose in football in the second half, if you're up 2-0, is you play not to lose.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 he's playing. I think right now he's playing not to lose.
I think she's doing absolutely the right thing. I'd like to think, and again,

Speaker 4 you know, I won't speak for you. I'm too close to this.
I'm too emotionally involved in it.

Speaker 4 But I think where the next two or three weeks are going to really help is, one, I do think money helps in terms of turn out the vote in a ground game, and she has more money.

Speaker 4 And two, I think her team of surrogates, whether it's Bill Clinton and Waffle Houses or Barack Obama speaking to black men,

Speaker 4 I think her surrogates are more powerful. but it's very interesting.
The momentum has swung back pretty aggressively towards Trump over the last two weeks.

Speaker 4 I'll be curious what happens this week and the ultimate litmus test. In my opinion, the only poll I'm watching, the only poll I trust, is the stock price of Donald Trump Media.

Speaker 5 I don't. I think it's all gamed.
Along with Polymarket, which is controlled by Peter Thiel, by the way. FYI.

Speaker 4 Well, it's pretty interesting.

Speaker 4 It was at 46 when, you know, after the Biden debate, when everyone thought he was still going to stay in, and then when he dropped out of the race

Speaker 4 and Vice President Harris got some momentum, it plummeted to 12. And in the last two weeks, since he's sort of reestablished some momentum, it's now back up to like 34.

Speaker 5 I think that just reflects that they're confident. It doesn't mean that it's not bound in truth.
I think they're confident, and that is absolutely true.

Speaker 5 That said, he was at Univision last night, and Scott, this audience, was just subject to him. He's gone out.
He's not in a basement, that's for sure. He's around.

Speaker 5 Grandpa is wandering around saying weird things. He was on Univision.
Go watch some of those clips. One guy, he said, January 6th

Speaker 5 was a gathering of love.

Speaker 5 He started going on about immigrants when a guy asked, I got to tell you, the questions from this,

Speaker 5 I think it was a largely Hispanic audience,

Speaker 5 were great. They were like, okay, you're going to get rid of all these immigrants.

Speaker 5 Who's going to?

Speaker 5 pick my crops like i i pick crops for yours you're going to make prices go up and they had great one was like, I'm sorry, I'm a Republican, but what is going on with you in January 6th?

Speaker 5 You need to stop.

Speaker 5 He had all kinds of nonsensical questions.

Speaker 5 And one, when he did the, the, that January 6th was a gathering of love, literally the whole crowd was, you know, when you look down when an old person pees in their pants, you're like, everybody doesn't want to say anything.

Speaker 5 That's what, the whole crowd was looking down anywhere but at him. And they were concerned, like, this is, this guy needs to be taken off stage because he needs to have his diaper change.

Speaker 5 And that's what it, that's what it felt like. The more he's out, the more it's dead clear he's mentally incapacitated or increasingly.
So I'm not so sure I believe in the Trump stock thing.

Speaker 5 I think they're confident. I think they, it's, I think it's misplaced confidence because I do think

Speaker 5 this crowd was fascinating to watch them react to him. And it was the same thing at the economic club.
Anywhere he goes, he's adult. He's just addled.

Speaker 5 Anyway, what he's not addled about is he would quote, he would do something about Google in an interview with Bloomberg's editor-in-chief, which I was talking about.

Speaker 5 Trump was asked about the DHO's recent proposal to possibly break up Google, which he initially responded with a rant about a lawsuit against Virginia election officials.

Speaker 5 When pressed again, Trump called the company a threat and that without breaking Google up, things could be more fair.

Speaker 5 This is again, he threatened Mark Zuckerberg. You know, he said Google has to be careful.
It will shut down. He will shut it down.
J.D.

Speaker 5 Vance is making things up whole cloth, saying that there was a, that he has now said the election was stolen and that the tech companies colluded to do so without any proof and also actually Twitter the Twitter files showed that it didn't do what all the right wings said it did

Speaker 5 but he's he's doubling down on just flat out lying J.D. Vance so any what should tech companies do because they at one point they're you know all up in the grill of tech and at the same time J.D.

Speaker 5 Vance is like sleeping with all of them I mean

Speaker 5 not really, I don't think, but anyway.

Speaker 4 Yeah, like the whole thing, it's just so hilarious that a far-right talking point is that they're being censored and that, you know, censorship. And

Speaker 4 Senator Vance's go-to in terms of a weapon mass distraction when asked about January 6th is like, will you admit that the media has been censoring Donald Trump and censored Donald, you know, censored information, suppressed information about what was on Hunter Biden's laptop in an attempt to go look over here.

Speaker 4 I don't want to actually answer this question.

Speaker 4 The censorship thing, the closest thing we have

Speaker 4 to really broad sweeping censorship is when the person running for president has said, I'm going to shut down Google because I don't like what they've said about me.

Speaker 5 They've been unfair to me. They've been very unfair.
All the articles, like all the articles, 40 of them are negative. I said, that's because you're a jerk.

Speaker 4 But isn't that the definition of censorship? That I am using the power of my office to try and intimidate media companies?

Speaker 4 No one's calling that censorship. So we've just entered this weird phase where I have a view of his

Speaker 4 disruption and chaos.

Speaker 4 I want to burn government down. I am sick of a group of people consistently telling me lies, the establishment, whether it's Liz Cheney or the Democrats.
I'm sick of the establishment.

Speaker 4 I see prosperity everywhere. I don't seem to be participating in it.
I'm not going to marry this guy. He's not going to be my rabbi, but I like his no-nonsense, hard-charging, right.

Speaker 4 You know, they think he's better on economics. They think he's better on the border, whether you think that's true or not.

Speaker 4 And they're just now, he's flooded the zone with so much crazy shit that people just are immune to it. It's a very, I've never seen anything like it.
I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 5 It's lie after lie. And now J.D.
Vance is the most heinous liar. He's a liar.
He, to me, is the most frightening figure here because I think Trump is mentally disabled.

Speaker 5 And I think they're going to, I would watch my back if I were Trump if if I won this election I'll tell you that of course the CEO who's not worried is Elon Musk we're learning more about his donations he made to the pro-Trump super PAC he created early this year although I heard it's like a hot mess over there as I'm hoping he'll do to Trump what he did to Twitter as revenues he's given nearly $75 million to that super PAC which is not very much for him since July according to recent FEC finds but it matters a great deal this money is important.

Speaker 5 He's also threatening to go to Pennsylvania and do his own things because he's a pathetic attention sponge.

Speaker 5 How much impact do you think this has?

Speaker 5 This is a lot of money for Trump.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but to be fair, I mean, these people are allowed to give money, and we have our big donors, right? We have Reid Hoffman. We have

Speaker 5 Cheryl Sandberg. Yeah.
No, I get it.

Speaker 4 Reed Hastings.

Speaker 4 I don't think Cheryl's giving that much money.

Speaker 5 I think she is secretly.

Speaker 4 I'm surprised she doesn't have a picture with her and a big check. And anyways,

Speaker 4 we have our big donors, they have theirs. And Trump or Musk is one of them.
You know, that's fine.

Speaker 4 I don't see that he's allowed to do it.

Speaker 4 We have our big donors.

Speaker 5 They have theirs. You mentioned that last night, which I thought was the idea of someone asked about how do we get them to pass legislation.

Speaker 5 And Scott immediately was like, Overdrive, Citizens United, I didn't get money out of politics and pay politicians more. Just illuminate us on that very quickly, the idea that you were saying.

Speaker 4 Well, look, Citizens United, the idea that money

Speaker 4 is people and has a voice, we don't believe that in other nations.

Speaker 4 There's government matching for elections such that good people who spent the majority of their life in public service, who don't happen to be rich, have a shot at running.

Speaker 4 They don't allow political ads before a certain time. I mean, keep in mind, the U.K.
has an election start to finish in about four weeks.

Speaker 4 And I actually think it's good for the nation because all we do for 18 months is figure out how much we hate our neighbors. and how much they hate us.
It's just bad for America.

Speaker 4 So if there was any way to overturn Citizens United, that would be the start. And then when when I heard this about, because I have a fairly positive view of Mayor Adams, I don't know much about him.

Speaker 5 Oof, it seems so unctuous, but go ahead.

Speaker 4 That's a shocker. We disagree.
Anyway, so he's indicted for, and I'm like, whoa, the Southern District. That is the call you do not want to get is the Southern District says we're coming for you.

Speaker 4 And it's over plane tickets and hotel stays.

Speaker 4 sponsored by from the government of Turkey in exchange for him expediting fire safety, putting pressure on fire safety commissioners to approve the fire safety infrastructure at the, I think it was the Turkish embassy.

Speaker 4 And it's like, Jesus Christ, such small ball. The problem is that's something politicians do every day, but you're not supposed to do it from

Speaker 4 a foreign agent or a foreign entity. That's where he's getting into trouble.
And I thought, this is all a function of the following.

Speaker 4 When our elected representatives are hanging out with billionaires and hanging out at the most beautiful venues, but they're having trouble.

Speaker 4 You know, it's not easy for them to pay their credit card bills. A lot of congresspeople actually have roommates because they can't afford a second place to live in D.C.

Speaker 4 And by the way, Nancy Pelosi can trade fucking stocks after confidential hearings with defense contractors. That makes no fucking sense.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I agree. Pay them more.

Speaker 4 I think we pay our congresspeople a million bucks a year and we pay our senators $2 million a year because these people are important.

Speaker 4 Most of them are very qualified, very esteemed, have a ton of opportunity cost.

Speaker 4 So pay them well.

Speaker 5 I'm curious. I'm curious, Scott,

Speaker 5 what would you ask for for a bribe from Turkey? I would not ask for a blame ticket.

Speaker 4 What would you ask for? I would ask for great seats to the European Championship in Istanbul with my son. That's all it would take? And then I'd want to go up the Bosphorus.

Speaker 4 I'd want to party with some hot Turkish chicks on the roof of the Soho house, Istanbul, which is the old American embassy. I can come up with a lot.
I can come up with a lot.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I know. I felt like he didn't ask for enough.

Speaker 4 If he's going to go go for bribery and get in trouble, look, Eric, whatever we talk, whatever Vox asked us to do anything, we're like, oh, we'll do it, but it's going to cost you.

Speaker 4 We're whores, but we're expensive whores. That's correct.

Speaker 5 I was like, Eric, come on. You're such a cheap.
Like, if you're getting bribed, a plane ticket.

Speaker 4 If you're going to sell out, get a jet, get a golf stream.

Speaker 5 Like, really in a hotel?

Speaker 4 Go, New Jersey Senator. What that gets gold bars.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Anyway, they're cheap. I love that.

Speaker 4 504s. The guy had gold bars in his closet.

Speaker 5 I love a gold bar. I bet you have gold bars here.

Speaker 4 No, no, I'm innocent.

Speaker 5 There's no gold bars here.

Speaker 4 No, I don't have any gold bars, but I always travel with a rough-cut gem stuck up my ass more for sensory pleasure.

Speaker 5 I think you have gold. I'm going to look around for gold bars later.
Okay.

Speaker 4 Mail gold bars.

Speaker 5 Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back.

Speaker 5 We'll discuss Elon's robot taxi event where not everything was what it seemed and take a listener mail question about facing financial challenges with a parent.

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Speaker 5 Scott, we're back with our second big story. We'll make quick work of it.

Speaker 5 Tesla shares fell 10% last week following Elon's big WeRobot event, where he revealed a cyber cab, a two-door sedan with no steering wheel and pedals, costing 30K, if it's ever made.

Speaker 5 Elon said the car would be in production before 2027, but acknowledged I tend to be a little optimistic. Yes, he's been predicting cyber taxis since a decade ago, I guess.
Full self-driving, etc.

Speaker 5 He also, including to me in many interviews, he also unveiled another vehicle, the Robovan, which he called the Robovan, for some reason. Let's let him explain.

Speaker 2 What happens if you need a vehicle that is bigger than a Model Y?

Speaker 2 The

Speaker 2 Robovan.

Speaker 2 The Robovan is...

Speaker 2 this is a, we're going to make this, and it's going to look like that.

Speaker 2 Now, can you imagine going down the streets and you see this coming towards you?

Speaker 2 That'd be sick.

Speaker 5 Actually, the Robovan looked like a lot of stuff in iRobot, and the director complained it was exactly like it. It also said he had 20 seats.
It had 14. It was ridiculous.

Speaker 5 It looked like a giant toaster on wheels. He's never going to make it.
Elon was pushing Tesla. I will bet.
a lot of money on that.

Speaker 5 Elon was also pushing Tesla's Optimus robots, which he predicted could be the biggest product ever of any kind.

Speaker 5 But he neglected to mention that robots at the event were actually remotely controlled by humans.

Speaker 5 So not much better than Disney robots, not at all better than Disney robots nearby where this event was at

Speaker 5 Warner Studios in Los Angeles.

Speaker 5 It wasn't a game changer.

Speaker 5 Obviously, one of the things he forgot to leave out is Waymo has been operating in the streets of many, many cities for a long time.

Speaker 5 Shares of Uber went up. And by the way, Uber might buy

Speaker 5 Expedia, which Dara Kostashaha used to run, but that's an aside. And even if Tesla actually delivers on technology, will you actually be able to buy these things? What's the business? I think.

Speaker 5 And then meanwhile, let me just say in a compliment, and I think this is Gwen Shotwell. That's what I'm going to compliment.

Speaker 5 They managed to bring a rocket down, a big giant booster down and catch it with two chopsticks, essentially. Amazing.
And meanwhile, he does this P.T. Barnum bullshit.

Speaker 5 Talk about what's happening here. It's such, I mean, it's so bipolar in terms of behavior.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but I'm glad you brought that up because in the same week,

Speaker 4 let's be honest, that was just remarkable that it could launch its Starship vehicle, the largest rocket, the largest booster rocket ever, and then caught its super heavy booster rocket back on the launch pad, literally caught it with, as you said, these giant chops.

Speaker 4 I mean, that's just

Speaker 4 unbelievable. Yep.

Speaker 5 Gwen Shotwell, good job.

Speaker 4 It is clear he has basically no longer really cares about Tesla because did you listen to him speaking? He clearly hadn't rehearsed. No, no, no.
He didn't know what he was talking about.

Speaker 4 And it reminded me of the following. I once heard, I wasn't invited, but I met this really nice woman who was marrying this famous kind of celebrity chef.

Speaker 4 They rented out this incredible destination, the hotels, the flowers. Everyone shows up, 300 guests, and the groom was a no-show.

Speaker 5 What? And oh, I so much want to go to a wedding like that.

Speaker 4 God, I think it sounded pretty depressing. Anyways, but you know, we're all here.
We've rented the place. We got a whole, we got to have a party.
So they ended up having a party.

Speaker 4 This to me was they rented this whole thing. They've been telling their analysts they were going to have a day and update them.

Speaker 4 And they had literally nothing to say. They did have the vehicle there, the cyber taxi.
It looked cool or a robo-taxi.

Speaker 4 The design looked great, but he gave no specifics around details, around technology, around timeline. He even said, what was most telling, he said, we expect this to be in full production by 2025.

Speaker 4 And then there was a pause and he goes, maybe 2026.

Speaker 5 Just making it up. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Every auto analyst worth their salt said this was such bullshit. And I think they knew they had a turd on their hands.
So they said, I know we'll create weapons of mass distraction.

Speaker 4 They basically basically had a concept car, this Rebovan.

Speaker 4 If you go to any auto show, never going to make it.

Speaker 5 And it's a lift from it's, it was fake, it was on a fake soundstage, and it's a fake thing. It's fake.

Speaker 4 Look over here because the main event is such a turd, we have to distract people. If you go to an auto show, there's crazy cool concept cars everywhere that will never see the light of day.

Speaker 4 And that's the Rebovan. And then he said, I know, let's have robots, which is a technology in search of, and then these quote-unquote autonomous robots that can watch your kids and make you dinner.

Speaker 4 And it ends up there were people in the audience with remote controls controlling the robots. The most, the biggest tell here was he didn't even know his lines.
He hadn't read his lines.

Speaker 5 No, he could still talk.

Speaker 4 What was really interesting is the market.

Speaker 4 And again, the thing I love about stock prices is they're an incredible form of media in the sense that they absorb millions of points of life from people who have nothing but a profit motive, usually.

Speaker 4 Usually, and if you look at what happened,

Speaker 4 everyone was really freaked out that this might be the end of Uber and Lyft. If all of a sudden there's a million autonomous cars on the road competing with right-hand companies, Uber and Lyft.

Speaker 4 As soon as that event happened, the next day, every analyst went, oh God, nothing to worry about here. This is not a threat to Uber and Lyft.
And their stocks were up 11 and 10%,

Speaker 4 respectively. So the market has weighed in here and said, this is a big head fake.
And again, Tesla at eight or nine times revenues versus Toyota that is now growing as fast. Amazing company.

Speaker 4 Has guessed right on hybrids or planned right is trading at, I think, 0.8 or 0.9 times revenues. So either Toyota is vastly undervalued or Tesla is vastly overvalued.

Speaker 4 But this was the worst product launch. In the same week, we had one of the most amazing product delaunches or launch captures and the worst product launch all from the same man.

Speaker 4 I thought it was fascinating.

Speaker 5 It was fascinating.

Speaker 5 I'm literally go because, you know, he's spending all his time either jumping on stages and doing political stuff or he doesn't care about Tesla and everything they introduced has is already in the field by other companies and he would have to really focus here.

Speaker 5 I don't think he could, he could do it, although he's been lying about autonomous fully autonomous scholarships for years and years. And just, I like that he even lies.
I don't even care.

Speaker 5 He's sort of like, it's a hope and a dream. I do that sometimes.
Like, I'm going to do this. I don't mind that, but he's constantly now saying things that just.

Speaker 4 I'm going to have two kids at 60.

Speaker 5 That's right. That's correct.
I did say that to myself, and then it happened. So I don't, I don't even mind that.

Speaker 4 I love how you just figured out that you're going to be really old. When they go to college.
When they go to college. It's like, did you, you assumed you were going to go into a cryogenic chamber?

Speaker 5 Well, I'm like Elon in that way. Hope in a dream, Scott.
Hope in a dream. Well, I'll be living at this beautiful apartment that you're now going to sign over to me.
Anyway, it's all one floor.

Speaker 5 It means I don't won't fall too hard and break my hip.

Speaker 5 All right. Let's, whatever.
Good job on the Rocket Gwen Shotwell.

Speaker 4 Oh, my God. She's amazing.
She's amazing. Gwen Shotwell.

Speaker 5 We need to focus on Gwen Shotwell all the time, and it'll drive him crazy. He'll end up firing her because

Speaker 5 she's a really great operator.

Speaker 5 And he's over at Tesla. I think he like hired his chief of staff who helped him with that weird glass thing.
Like everybody left Tesla recently, and now he's putting all these lackeys into place.

Speaker 5 Anyway,

Speaker 5 you're right. He doesn't care about Tesla anymore.

Speaker 4 I just imagine him walking around going, hey, you want to have kids? Hey, hey, want to propagate?

Speaker 5 Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.

Speaker 5 This question comes via email. I'll read it.
Hi, Kara and Scott. Big fan of the podcast and would love your insights on a financial challenge with a parent.

Speaker 5 How do you approach financial planning with a parent who is increasingly keen on betting against the U.S.

Speaker 5 economy, influenced by questionable sources and conspiracy theories, basically anything but mainstream media? My mom is particularly bullish on gold, convinced that the U.S.

Speaker 5 dollar is on the verge of collapse. I strive to listen and offer data-driven advice, but I'm concerned that if I challenge her beliefs too directly, it will push her further towards those ideas.

Speaker 5 How can I communicate that the U.S. economy isn't on the brink of implosion without alienating her? Thank you, Nikki from Texas.
Oh, man, Scott.

Speaker 5 Oh, I don't know, get control of her stuff, I guess, Nikki.

Speaker 5 Scott, you answered.

Speaker 4 Have her committed.

Speaker 5 Have her committed. Like,

Speaker 5 my mom spends way too much money, but it's her money. I don't really care what she does with her money.

Speaker 4 I think you got to reframe the argument, and that is rather arguing against her for an asset class, because quite frankly, she might be right and you might be wrong.

Speaker 4 Each of you has a 50-50 likelihood that gold is a good or a bad investment, or the U.S. economy is going to go up or down from here.
It's the wrong argument. The argument is the following.
It's mom.

Speaker 4 We have some money. You have some money.
Nobody knows. The brightest people in the world don't know.
What they do know is that we shouldn't put too many of our eggs in one basket.

Speaker 4 Mom, if you feel you have insight here or you get some reward from picking this stuff, then okay, we're going to take 10, maybe 15% of your assets and you're going to buy gold, but we're going to put the rest in diversified index funds.

Speaker 4 Cause here's the thing, mom. You don't have the time to make it back.
And it doesn't matter how smart you are. Warren Boffitt lost 50, 60% of his net worth during the great financial recession.

Speaker 4 You can be a genius. The market will always trump individual behavior.
So if you want to have some fun, you're really into gold, fine.

Speaker 4 But the majority of your assets, because we love you and we want to make sure that you are always economically fine and that you don't have the emotional stress of financial stress at this age, we're putting the rest in diversified index funds.

Speaker 4 Can we agree on this, mom? You want to put some money in gold, fine, but the majority of it needs to be in diversified, low-cost index funds. Don't argue over asset classes.

Speaker 4 She knows no less or more than you. What you know is that she needs to be diversified and ensure she doesn't have the stress of financial stress at this point in her life.

Speaker 5 Listen, Nikki, I would do the opposite. I would

Speaker 5 make a fake gold bar and hand it to her and try to get control of it.

Speaker 4 That's called parental abuse.

Speaker 5 That's correct, because you're protecting her. I think

Speaker 5 is she old? I don't know. If she's not old, I don't know.
I'm always like with my mom and her money,

Speaker 5 you know, if it's your money, spend it down to zero and then you'll be at our behest at some point but I don't I think you can't protect people from the things they want to do what you can protect them from is schemes and things like that that's something that's important don't let her buy trump gold coins or or sneaker gold sneakers or whatever she happens to like gold um be careful of scams and get keep her out of those let her buy a gold whatever a gold future or whatever individual assets at that age or a scam yeah i agree but i'm just saying just buy a little bit of a gold what is it gold future what What do you buy?

Speaker 5 You don't actually buy gold.

Speaker 4 Give her some Krugerans. Old people like Krugerans.
Now I'm being ages. Give her some kings.
Good.

Speaker 5 Put them in a safe so people don't come and steal them from her as she gets older.

Speaker 4 Have her stay at Trump Plaza and there's going to be gold everywhere. Gold everywhere.

Speaker 5 I don't know. It's very difficult.
My policy with my mom is just she wants to spend her money. Let her do whatever she wants as long as she isn't fooled by something.

Speaker 4 What does Lucky spend her money on other than poochie dresses? She looks fabulous. She does look good.
What does she spend her money on?

Speaker 5 Oh,

Speaker 5 silly things. Trying to buy things, buy stuff for like the children, my kids, and

Speaker 5 a lot of that.

Speaker 5 A lot of stuff we don't. We get a package from Ralph Lauren every five minutes, which we most of which we take back.

Speaker 4 Her daughter's a podcast baller. Her son owns a coal company, and the other son is a head of anesthesiology.
She should be spending all your money.

Speaker 5 No, I know that. I get it.

Speaker 4 Lucky, Lucky, go to Vegas. Get a cocaine habit, Lucky.
Your kids are rich.

Speaker 5 She used to buy clothes. It used to be clothes and

Speaker 5 rental properties. And she's, you know, whatever.
She likes to, she has a shopping problem, I would say, but she likes it. It makes her happy.
I don't know what to say. It's her money.

Speaker 5 She should do whatever he wants with it.

Speaker 5 As long as she doesn't get scammed out of it, which really, there was an incident where she gave someone her numbers on the phone, very typical, and they were trying to get into her bank account.

Speaker 5 My brother handled it, that kind of stuff. I just, as she gets older, Nikki, watch for scams.

Speaker 5 It really is something sad that happens to not just olderly people, but they're much, they're much in the focus of those people.

Speaker 5 Anyway, while we're on listener mail, we want to start having you, the audience, be more part of the show. To start, we have a question for you.

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Speaker 5 That we're calling them Club Pivot. Club Pivot.

Speaker 4 I like that. Club Pivot.

Speaker 5 Do you like that? I don't know. It seems kind of cool.

Speaker 4 Yeah, anyone can get in. Cheap drinks, and anyone can get in.
The people are not that attractive, but it's free. It's free.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Anyway, give us your answers.
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All right, Scott, one more quick break.

Speaker 5 We'll be back for predictions.

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Speaker 5 Okay, Scott, we're going to hear a prediction, but I'm going to make a very short one. Italy just passed an anti-surrogacy law.

Speaker 5 It's very much aimed at gay men having children, taking away parental abilities for gay people, not women. Many of them have uteruses, but

Speaker 5 and can't be stopped from having children, although maybe that's also in the offing there.

Speaker 5 This is coming to this country. This kind of attitude towards, you know, everyone's like, oh, don't panic.
When we all said Roe v.

Speaker 5 Wade was going to get overturned, everyone's like, you're over, you know, you're being dramatic.

Speaker 5 Nobody was dramatic, dramatically saying this, I listened to what the evangelicals say and the right, and they are very much against gay marriage, gay parenting.

Speaker 5 What happened in Italy, which is heinous, and Georgia, go fuck yourself.

Speaker 5 You terrible, heinous shrew.

Speaker 5 I think that this is going to be coming here, these ideas of pushing back on gay marriage, gay having kids. And I have, you know, the fact that J.D.

Speaker 5 Mance hasn't said anything about this since he's pro-family. And again, I have one more child than he does.

Speaker 5 This is really dangerous, I think, what's happening in Italy. And I hope it doesn't happen here, but I listen to what the right says, and they have it out for gay marriage and gay parenting.

Speaker 4 So there you have it. If you really cared about families, you'd put and wanted more kids, you'd put more money in the pockets of young people.
60% of able-bodied Americans age 30 to

Speaker 4 used to have at least one child. Now it's 27%.

Speaker 4 And I don't think it's because they've turned off the kids. I think it's because they don't have the money.

Speaker 5 And also, just like gay people have kids, they're great parents.

Speaker 4 Well, okay. I'm going to be honest.
I don't think they're any better or any worse than straight parents.

Speaker 4 And the majority of them are going to be good-loving parents, as are the majority of heteronormative couples.

Speaker 4 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 5 I don't. In any case, let them have kids.
They want to have kids. It's wonderful to build a family.

Speaker 4 I don't think they have any less or any more right to have kids than I do.

Speaker 5 But we we never had rights before, and now they're taking them away.

Speaker 4 The godparent of my son is a gay man, by the way, shitty, shitty godfather, but he loves my best friend. So anyways,

Speaker 4 Tim Bruns, he's very handsome. Okay.
And he loves my best friend. So that's enough, but he's a shitty godparent.

Speaker 4 Anyways, oh, God, I'm going to get shit for that.

Speaker 5 Anyways.

Speaker 4 But yeah, look, I would like, someone asked me, Magic Wand, what law would you pass?

Speaker 4 I would love a law that basically said a constitutional amendment that said anything that gets in the way of love is illegal. Yes.

Speaker 4 If any law that makes it such that someone can't be in visiting hours when someone is dying, no, we don't have that.

Speaker 4 Anything that says it's going to make it harder, much harder for a single mom to spend time with her kids, we don't want to pass that.

Speaker 4 Family court, we need to think about family court and how we set up men for success with their children post-divorce.

Speaker 4 I think we should all reverse engineer or think about every piece of legislation having a certain guardrail. And that is, does it get in the way of the whole shooting match?

Speaker 4 And that is deep and meaningful relationships and people having the ability to care for and love other people. And this is just exactly that.

Speaker 4 We need kids. And if they're going to be in a loving household, that's it.
There's nothing you can't get in the way of this.

Speaker 4 And there's no evidence whatsoever that these kids are any less or any more loved. than kids brought into any other household.
So let me get this.

Speaker 4 You're going to let a single parent have IVF or have her own kid or have his own kid. And by the way, I'm in favor of that, but you're not going to let a dual-income household have kids?

Speaker 4 Makes no fucking sense.

Speaker 5 Yep, yep, yep, yep. Let me be clear about that, by the way, on this, on this bill.

Speaker 5 It already extends a practice inside the country to also include those who seek it out in places where it is legal, such as the U.S. or Canada.

Speaker 5 So they can't travel or they have, there's prison, two years in prison and fines. And again, Georgia Maloney can go fuck herself.

Speaker 4 I am so upset about next summer. I'm only spending six nights, not seven, in Capri.
Have you been to Capri? Oh, oh my God.

Speaker 5 And by the way, my family's Italian. So I'm just saying, it's a monstrous law.

Speaker 5 It's a monstrous law.

Speaker 4 Great place to vacation. Those people get it.
Milan's an amazing city right now. Venice? Oh, gosh.

Speaker 4 I just love Puglia, the Amalfi. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 She's a Christian mother.

Speaker 5 She describes herself as a Christian mother who believes children should only be raised by a man and a woman. Divorced lady, sit the fuck down.
Thank you. All right.
So, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 5 What's your predictions?

Speaker 4 Well, it just goes back to what we were saying.

Speaker 4 Donald Trump media, the stock, it's

Speaker 5 down today by 6%.

Speaker 4 There you go.

Speaker 4 Why? Think about this. Why is it down 6%? The market.
Because he's at once. No, the verdict is in.
She did well on Fox last night. I find this thing fascinating.

Speaker 4 Anyways, my prediction is the following. In the next

Speaker 4 by November the 7th or 10th, let's assume this election is going to be challenged by everybody.

Speaker 4 So say by November the 10th, between now and November the 10th, Donald Trump Media, which I think is around 30 bucks, will be below

Speaker 4 either be below 10 or above 80. This thing has become

Speaker 4 literally the tail of the whip. on the prospects of Donald Trump recapturing the White House.

Speaker 4 The most volatile stock over the next few weeks is going to be Donald Trump Media, which attempts to absorb a million points of light and guess as to whether he's going to be in the White House.

Speaker 4 This is going to, this thing,

Speaker 4 30 now, it's going to be below 10 or above 80 within three weeks.

Speaker 5 All right. So just for people to understand, the range, his 52-week range is 11.75 to 79.38.
It was way, way, way, way up

Speaker 5 when Biden was after the debate.

Speaker 4 He almost hit 100 at one point.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I don't know if it got quite there. I'm trying to look.
The range doesn't seem to say that. 79.38 for 52 weeks.

Speaker 5 But it was down

Speaker 5 when she was doing really about the debate in September down to 12. It's now at 29, but it's dipped 5%.

Speaker 5 Actually, it's down 5% in the last six months.

Speaker 5 It's down for the year to no, it's up year to date,

Speaker 5 but it's down.

Speaker 5 It's up six months. It's down 20% in the last three months, just for people to understand it.

Speaker 4 It hit 98 in March of 2022.

Speaker 5 Five days, it's up 22%, but today it's down 10, 6, 7%.

Speaker 5 So if she goes on Rogan and does well, it's going down further. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. You could be watching Rogan, and if you get the sense he's doing well, it'll close down 10% the next day.

Speaker 4 I find it just super interesting to watch. It's literally, in my opinion, it's a more robust poll than Quinnipak or any of these other guys.
All right.

Speaker 5 Well, that's that. Okay, Scott, that's the show.
We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot.

Speaker 5 I would love you to read us out.

Speaker 4 Today's show was produced by Lara Naman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Andrew Todd engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Ms. Severio, and Dan Shallon.

Speaker 4 Nishak Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 4 You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care.
Have a great weekend.