How Trump Remade America in Just One Year

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Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.
And I'm Jessica Charlov.

Okay, Jess, in today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing how Trump changed America in 2025, how Democrats should address AI, and our favorite moments of 2025. All right, let's get into it.

Time named the architects of AI as person of the year, but in just one year back in office, Donald Trump has arguably done more than anyone to reshape how American power operates.

So, Trump 2.0 has moved really quickly. Our relationship with Europe is basically in the shitter after decades of stability.

New tariffs, let's go back to the 19th century in terms of economic policy, and then promised rebate checks when it doesn't work to farmers, but the rebate checks supposedly coming to American citizens.

At least mine hasn't showed up. No.
I'll go check my mailbox. There you go.
Maybe it's direct deposit.

His health care plan collapsed in Congress as aggressive immigration enforcement expanded through executive authority and the Justice Department.

Pardon power have basically been monetized and are now just corrupt tools for a corrupt administration. And ethics controversies from foreign gifts to the Epstein files have just been stacking up.

Politically,

the president does look weaker. His approval on the economy and immigration has fallen.
Cost of living pressures persist.

And there are cracks forming inside the GOP, marked by a Trump-backed mayoral loss in Miami, open rebellion on Capitol Hill,

and warnings of a rough midterm look, much less the mayoral race in New York, where Cuomo, I think, was sort of associated or linked to Trump, if you will.

And yet, the deeper shift or rift doesn't appear to be going away. Federal Federal agencies have been centralized and pushed at unprecedented speed.
Congress has struggled to check the presidency.

And a MAGA new right ideology, skeptical of liberal democracy, has gained real institutional power. Even if Trump falters, the system he's reshaped may not snap back.
Jess,

first off, do you, I'm curious, do you think it should have been the architects of AR or it should have been Trump in 2025, Times Person of the Year?

I don't believe that they do back-to-back years of the same person. Is that right? Is that a role? I don't know if it's a hard role.
I think that's the case. I liked architects of AI.

I think that's, you know, if we're actually thinking about what's affecting our daily lives and certainly what the next, you know, several decades of our life is going to look like, the guys sitting up on that construction site are the ones that are really pulling the strings.

And I think that it's also directly relevant to what Donald Trump is doing.

Because, I mean, this showed up just a few days after his executive order, which probably has no teeth, but to overrule states regulating AI themselves and going for a quote federal standard, which is what Google and OpenAI and all of his big donors want him to do.

So, you know, it was a little edgy. It was a little quirky, interesting, which is what it's supposed to be.
And it sparked a lot of conversation, I think.

And it's something that's kind of lurking around for everybody. I mean, obviously, some people are, you know, hair on fire talking about AI and the impact all the time.

But for the the average American, it is, you know, every few days or so, you're talking about it, right?

Like job losses as a result, privacy issues, revenge porn, chat bots, you know, people having romantic relationships with chatbots. It's, it's infiltrating, you know, the average person's experience.

So I thought it was a good choice. Did you like it? It's funny after hearing you say it, I'm now thinking that you're right, but I would have picked Trump again.
I think Trump. I probably would have.

Yeah, I just, when it looks, so what do we have? We have, I mean, the biggest impact on the world right now, I don't think is AI.

I think GLP-1 is still having a greater impact on people's lives than AI.

If it wasn't about our idolatry of money and the amount of money involved here, ask someone who's on GLP-1 and say, what's had a bigger impact on your life, AI or GLP-1?

I think AI may end up having a bigger impact. But Trump is reshaping the Western, you know, with the post-World War II order.
100%. Whether it's tariffs, whether it's an anemic sclerotic support of

Ukraine, although it's been more consistent lately. They are no longer offering peace plans.
They're offering surrender plans.

I do believe that one of the better moves of the Trump administration was forcing Europe to kind of step up and take care of its own house in terms of military spending.

But relationships in terms of economic, in terms of trade, an overrun of freedoms, monetizing the White House, clemency has now become a joke. It's become point-operated, the pardon system.

I mean, there's just so many things, so many norms. He's just blown up.

I was going to say that, that, like, Trump, and this happened in the first administration to a much lesser degree, but it brings into stark focus how much of this country runs on norms versus laws.

And you just think. We wouldn't elect someone who would be like a maniac to the level that they would do X, Y, or Z things.
And we have met our match in Donald Trump.

But I would just add to the list of things that you were just talking about that Donald Trump has affected and kind of what I think is his main practical impact, which is reshaping the Middle East.

And I don't know how we can ignore that from, you know, bombing Fordo, the Iranian nuclear facility, backing this new Syrian government, lifting sanctions there, his relationship with Israel, and all of the transactions that are obviously benefiting the Trump family that are going on across the Middle East and bringing players to the table that would not sit at the same table under any other circumstances.

That is enormous. And by extension,

the kind of meta thing that Donald Trump's administration has shown me or changed my perspective.

And I guess implicit in this is admitting that I'm a bit of a Pollyanna, but I guess I didn't really believe that everything that went on in government was as transactional as it actually is.

You know, when he says you can always get a deal done, right? You just have to find the thing that the person wants.

And I'm watching, you know, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff sitting there on 60 Minutes and I'm thinking, this is all just a game of money chess for these people, right?

You find out what everyone wants. Religion, oil, money.

you know, Gaza Lago, whatever it is, and you can always get a deal done. And that has fundamentally changed how I think about the business of politics.

And it's not like I didn't know that it went on, but to this degree, that people will turn a blind eye to levels of corruption at this level in order to get an outcome that they want, whether that's more money in their own pocket or that they want a particular outcome, right?

Like in the Middle East. And that has been very jarring.
And one, I think, is his main impacts. Like he's the biggest mirror that American society has ever had, right?

That he, you hold it up and you see stuff within the American populace that you had hoped wasn't there. Like in 2016, my dad said, this is what we deserve.
We will be fine, but it's what we deserve.

This is the Kardashianification of America. And now you're just seeing this level of excuses for dirty dealing and self-profiting and really like cruelty, especially on the immigration level.

And it's reflective of a rot in American society that is much deeper than I thought. Aaron Powell, Jr.: Yeah, to that point, I do think the idolatry of the dollar has gotten out of control.

And that even going back to the architects of AI, America is now a giant bet on AI because AI is how we're propping up the economy. The S ⁇ P would be flat or down.

Our GDP growth would be flat or down if it wasn't for AI.

And I believe in 2026, we're going to see a bailout of AI in the form of some sort of government-backed debt that helps them continue this crazy out-of-control capex on data centers and chips and the like.

And it'll be reframed as an investment. Be clear, it'll be a bailout.

And to a certain extent, these tariffs are a transfer of wealth from the companies affected by the tariffs, which is the majority of the SP, leaking it to the companies that aren't impacted by it.

The tariffs don't really impact AI or big tech because they're digital and they're fluid.

And so, to a certain extent, the boom in AI is somewhat being supported or propped up and is really the arbiter of Trump's ability, in my opinion, to have

not a successful term, but I just don't think he'd have the cloud cover to be sending a secret police into U.S. cities if the S ⁇ P was down 2% and not up 14%.

So it has become, AI does seem to be the tail that's wagging the dog. And just a personal anecdote.

As you know, I occasionally I talk about myself on this show, Jess. I know that's unusual.
I know.

You are blowing my mind this holiday season. It's shocking.
Yeah.

So we're going through the most manufactured, stressful process because me and my colleagues are total corrupt motherfuckers who've LVMH to embrace this rejectionist culture called higher education where we've decided we're no longer public servants, but fucking Birkenbags.

Anyways, so my son's going through this process. This is my karma.
And my son sat me down, I don't know, one or two months ago. and said, Dad, can you do something for me?

My son never asked me for anything. I'm like, yeah, of course, buddy.
And he said,

what's up? And he goes, I need you to promise me you won't give.

My son's so woke, it's frightening. He says, I need you to promise me you won't give money to any of the universities that I'm applying to.

And of all the things he was going to ask me, I didn't think he was going to ask me that. And I've been giving money to public universities for a long time.

And I said, well, okay, then do better on the ACT, bitch, which I thought was exactly the right response.

Anyways, where I'm headed with this is I think if my son, either of of my sons, got arrested and thrown in prison, in a U.S. prison, I think with between a half a million and $3 million,

within 90 days, I could worm my way into some sort of crypto summit or find the right person.

You know, Jared Kushner was a student of mine. I could find someone to get a million, two million, three million bucks to some renovation of some weird East Wing project and get my son out of jail.

The White House ballroom could be the Scott Galloway toilet there. There you go.
I gotta something there.

Maybe a stripper pole with my name on it. Do you think that you've said too many bad things about them that they wouldn't even take your money?

No, I think they're straight up whores. Yeah.
I think all is forgiven

if you sign the front of a back of a check.

I guess actually his cabinet is full of people who said that Donald Trump will be the downfall of the republic.

No, and all of a sudden, if my son's in prison and this is my strategy, the next day on this podcast, I'm very much pro-MAGA because I would put my son before anything else, my principles or anything.

I'd probably trigger some people, but he's not going to be in trouble, but I'll.

Yeah, I don't need to play the scenario out where I was going with, I'm not exaggerating. I think I could get anyone out of prison right now for a half a million to three million bucks.

Literally anyone, unless it was like some mass murder of the person who shot Gabby Giffords or maybe Representative Scalise or something like that.

But other than that, if it was just like stealing money from seniors or some crypto scam.

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you look at the recent pardons, yes.
Yeah, one to three million bucks. I could get them out.
So let's look at some data. So far this year, Trump's signed 218 executive orders.

That's more than any president in history. Support for the Trump administration is cracking, mostly around affordability.

57% of voters in a poll agree that Trump was losing the battle against inflation, and over two-thirds, 68%, believe the economy is poor, very poor. It's actually really interesting there.

I did a bit of a deep dive around around economics, and while essentials have gone up in price, discretionary items are actually the same or lower, which is kind of interesting.

But when you have to pay more for the essentials, it hits you hard psychologically, whether it's education or health care or housing, which continue to rise.

Many of Trump's policies are going to directly increase the debt or increase the cost of living for Americans, including widespread tariffs.

The average American consumer now faces an effective tariff rate of 18%.

Clean energy rollbacks that will prevent renewables from driving down the cost of energy. I think some Republicans would probably push back on that.

Stripping 1.6 million American families from Medicaid and passing the OBB, which will increase the deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

If you're wondering how that adds to inflation, our treasury bills and our debt are no longer as bulletproof as they used to because our debt seems to be bumping up against unsustainable levels, which increases interest rates.

The interest on our treasury bills kind of dictates the interest rates on everything else.

So if you have $37 trillion in debt, that's not only an additional $370 billion just in interest payments, but the cost of everything, your credit cards, the loan on your car, your mortgage goes up, which is obviously inflationary.

And also, I would argue reckless government spending where we're spending $7 trillion a year on $5 trillion receipts also adds to inflation. I just don't think there's any getting around it.

I think Trump is the most seminal figure, arguably, of the last 50 years, and not in a good way. He is absolutely reshaping, he's turning, in my opinion, the U.S.

into this hodgepodge of different parts of villains built in a lesser factory and creating a Frankenstein, but not the good Frankenstein, the really bad Frankenstein, where limbs aren't speaking to one another.

It's totally uncoordinated, low IQ, post-lobotomy, just this man-child Frankenstein. I just made that up.
I don't think it works. Any thoughts, Jess? Yeah, I don't know.

Manchild Frankenstein, we've got a workshop.

But you remember from the first Trump administration that photo of Steve Mnuchin and his wife with the money, like the case of money.

And everyone was like, oh, it's such like a bond villain kind of look to this. What was his wife's name? Louise Linton, I think.

Anyway, like that was the one person that people were kind of focused on. But now it's like everybody is their own kind of villain within the administration, right?

Like take your pick and you can find something that a particular cabinet member or people with big influence in the administration are doing that hurts everyday Americans.

Part of it, not that I think that, you know, messaging is the be all and end all, but Trump also just completely refuses to talk about what's going on like a normal human being.

Like he says instead, you know, you don't need that many dolls. You should only have two pencils.
You know, in China, they have 37 pencils, but you only need two pencils.

And it's really frustrating to people that he can't even do, I feel your pain on the campaign trail. He could talk about things like that.

And it wooed people in thinking like this guy actually gives a fuck about me. But the reality is he only cares about himself and the people within close proximity.

So in agreement about what's going on with the economy for sure, I get it on the AI front about without it, the economy falters because the stock market plunges.

But he continues to obviously have this enormous impact, but he's also becoming to some degree like white noise in people's lives.

And I think that that's important. So support for

people who strongly approve of Trump of 2024 voters is down 16 percentage points since March, which is a pretty big dive.

And that's not to say that the 25%, you know, the MAGA base isn't still rock solid.

But the folks who were, you know, interested in giving him a chance, again, you know, 2016 voters back in 2024, or especially younger voters, Latino voters, his numbers have plummeted catastrophic levels.

And, you know, if Democrats fumble the bag in the midterms, that'll be on us, essentially, because this is ripe for the picking.

Not just, you know, I don't want to root against the economy, but if you look at where it is and the fact that essentials, like you were saying, the day-to-day items, like you go to the grocery store and your your bill is enormous, school supplies, you know, things like that are affecting people at this level.

You know, you should be able to land that plane. And it'll be interesting to see where the health care situation goes.

I don't know if they're going to get this discharge petition across the line, if they'll get the vote on the three-year. ACA extension in the House, which is Jeffreys' hope, obviously.

But Republicans have shown a complete inability to govern. And that's what people put you in there for.
They say, I think you're going to do a better job governing than the other guys.

And there are very few, if any, bright spots, I think, for Republicans at this point.

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Welcome back. Last week offered a clear snapshot of how governments are trying and often failing to rein in big tech and artificial intelligence.

In Australia, kids under 16 woke up locked out of social media after a world-first ban on platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat, took effect.

Here in the U.S., however, President Trump moved in the opposite direction, signing an executive order aimed at blocking states from regulating AI and pushing toward a single national framework.

The administration says a patchwork of state laws could slow innovation and weaken American competitiveness with China, even as Congress has repeatedly rejected efforts to halt state-level oversight.

And then there's the workforce reality. As AI adoption accelerates, layoffs are piling up, and Democrats are under pressure to respond.

Moderate House Democrats are now demanding answers from major tech companies about how many jobs were cut because of AI, who's being hit hardest, and how workers are being told or laid off, if you will.

The anxiety is real. Tens of thousands of layoffs have already been linked to AI this year.
Jess, if AI is clearly reshaping and shrinking the workforce, what should the Democrats' policy look like?

I mean, that is very complicated. And

good news. There's a new commission on AI and the innovation economy that Leader Jeffries announced last week to kind of steer Democratic.
the Democratic caucus' thinking on AI and regulation.

Obviously, you know, with everything, it's got to be balanced, right, between the innovation and the regulation.

But I'm really freaked out about, you know, if his executive order actually ends up having teeth, and it's tons of legal challenges.

Like Amy Kolbuchar has said that it's illegal to do this, but 47 states alone,

all the states, have introduced AI-related legislation in just 2025. I mean, they're focused on

a broad range of issues, revenge porn elections, AI transparency, employment, health, you know, Republicans, Democrats, all of them on the state level are really concerned about this and making sure that they are

embracing innovation, but protecting their constituents.

And the fact that Donald Trump is racking up the donations from all the owners of these big AI companies and then coming out and saying, no, no, we just need a federal standard when we know that his federal standard would be let them do whatever they want.

I mean, letting NVIDIA sell to China national security risk. I mean, they blasted that into our heads for ages.
It's national security problem, national security problem.

Now, apparently, it doesn't matter at all. And they're going to get a kickback from it, which is how you end up doing business with the Trump administration.

I'm really scared of what AI policy looks like if it's left just to the Republicans.

You know, there's the New Democrats, which is kind of like a more moderate group of Dems, has this innovation agenda. I was looking through it.

There's a lot on, you know, investing in apprenticeships, on-the-job training, labor market market data, modernization. But it all still at this point feels like a lot of words to me.

And I really want to hear what you have to say in terms of what would be smart AI policy at this point, because it feels like kind of standard politician talk, like we need to make sure that people have good paying jobs and that they're not cut out of the marketplace, but we also need to be innovative.

Like, well, duh. Like, what does that actually mean?

Well, again, it goes back to the idolatry of the dollar. We didn't regulate social media.
And you could argue, well, that created a lot of wealth.

Well, okay, but there's got to be some sort of balance. And also, are we better off? I mean, the S ⁇ P is up, but meanwhile, our kids are more anxious, obese, and depressed than ever.
So great.

We're rich, but we have cancer.

I like the idea of on an issue as important as having one sweeping federal legislation, but that's just a false flag to try and obviate the notion they're not going to fucking do anything. Right.

What they're saying is we want the national policy to be nothing because the administration has now now gone all in on AI, specifically its ability to keep the markets up such that it provides cloud cover for what is non-democratic, you know, abnormal, non-constitutional behavior.

So, this notion that it should be one consistent policy, again, that's a good talking point, but it's a lie. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Also, states' rights.

They're always saying, well, it's a state's rights decision. Gun control.
Let's go to the states decide. Abortion.
It's up to the states.

But on AI, we should have a federal policy which will be nothing.

And there should be, I mean, there's just some immediate wins. We should age gate synthetic relationships.

There are probably

certain safeguards that should be in around mental health queries for kids under the age of 18. I think character AI should be absolutely regulated and limited.

People are spending on average about 15 minutes on OpenAI or ChatGPT. They're spending about 75 minutes with character AI.

I believe you're going to see fewer and fewer young men out in the wild because I think they're going to be at home in different types of relationships with synthetic partners.

I think it's going to happen everywhere. And I don't think people have fully recognized just how bad this is for people.

It's like essentially saying, we're not going to teach you how to ride the bicycle of life because the bicycle of life is learning how to balance and create forward motion and failure and fall and get up around this really difficult but rewarding thing called relationships.

And we're just going to have a series of totally fragile, asocial,

asexual

people who have no ability to endure rejection, navigate the corporate workplace, navigate friendships, navigate romantic relationships because they have spent all of their formative years as their brain is getting wired in relationships that are frictionless, that always tell them what they want to hear, that are always there, that always err to the upside, even if it's I'm thinking about suicide and saying, well, here, let me show you how to tie a noose, or I'm here waiting for you, my love.

These are actual quotes from character AIs to young men who are contemplating suicide. So, this is, there absolutely needs to be,

there's some low-hanging fruit around AI, but as evidenced by the fact we took the ban off of our most sophisticated ships to China, which could be used for combat simulations, weapons guidance systems,

trying to track our submarines. I mean,

it's just now all about money. America has really just become a platform, almost like a trading exchange for trying to make money.
And then it's up to you to go find where you can buy rights.

And you can, if you're in the top 1% here, and I've said this a lot, you are protected by the law, but not bound by it. And if you're in the bottom 99%,

you're bound by the law, but not protected by it, because the 1%, it's really become a hunger games economy where if you win, it's an unbelievable life, but everyone else kind of dies a slow death.

But America is now essentially a full trading system, and it's not about trying to protect the Commonwealth or make investments in the bottom 90, or much less the bottom, maybe even the bottom 99.

It's just all about money now, full stop. And Meta's hired 87 lobbyists, roughly one for every six members of Congress.

They've ramped up, OpenAI has ramped up its lobbying spend nearly 70% from last year. I've served on several public company boards.

and whenever we have a conversation around ROI, I'm like, hands down, the greatest ROI in history has been spending money on lobbying. And I've seen this firsthand.
I give money away to politicians.

I just gave some money to a woman who's running for senate. And immediately they reached out and said, the representative would love to speak to you.

And I'm like, no, people of my demographic have way too much fucking influence. Tell her to just keep on.
Well, we're going to have her on.

Fair enough. But my point is, people like me don't need any more access.
No, but I do a little. You're my wallet.
Okay, I get it. Whoever has contact, you are where you spend your time.

And if you're spending time with a bunch of tech executives, full stop, you're going to be very pro-tech.

The single mother of a kid who's become totally screen addicted and is having basically mild psychosis and is totally withdrawing from the world, she doesn't get to hang out with senators and representatives and the president.

And so she has absolutely no representation.

And because the way our system works is whoever raises the most money gets re-elected, such that they have no choice but to provide some sort of ROI or currency for your contribution.

And the best thing they can do right up front is just to give you a little bit of FaceTime or hear your concerns. So this is, I mean, it all kind of flows back.

Again, it's just, we have become so, so fascinated with innovation and money that it's basically supplanting our traditional values. It's just even in

mating, it's all about money now. It's become, and I don't see any solve other than

a massive redistribution of income that puts more money in the pockets of people. Even there's all these grifters in the therapy space now, in

the online world, pretending that every problem can be solved if you just worked on yourself.

The greatest source of therapy in history would be massive structural change in the United States that reduced the economic precarity of young people.

Most young people who had a relationship and a good job and housing wouldn't need therapy. They might benefit from it, but they wouldn't need it.

And instead, it's like, oh, you need to work on yourself and all problems will be solved at $200 an hour. Well, okay, good luck with that.

And I'm not suggesting that there isn't a real need for therapy among people struggling with mental illness or people who have the money to do this.

But into this void of economic precarity have shifted supplements, rage,

the cult of therapy, progressives talking about social virtue solving all these fucking problems. No one's not.
It's fucking housing. It's socializing medicine.

But no one wants to talk about that shit because they can't sell it on fucking TikTok because it's boring. I don't know where I'm headed with this,

Jess. No, I get it.
Help me here. No, I'm here for you, Scott.

No, I think on the therapy front, I would just add to that that also therapy is not supposed to be a forever relationship, right?

Like it's supposed to get you through something and then you're supposed to be better.

Yeah, of course, housing, having a good job, having a relationship that sustains you. Those are all things that are going to make you feel better.

So, you know, we should be helping people with access to that. Can I just read you something I got from Esther Perell? Sarah Perel, who I'm friends with.
I wrote a piece on the cult of therapy.

I don't think I'm speaking out of school. Anyways, well, a good friend of of mine who's one of the most famous therapists in the world,

the rise of therapy culture has turned a tool for meaningful change into a comfort industry that's making Americans sicker, weaker, and more divided.

We live in an era where disagreement is treated like trauma and emotional reactions are weaponized for political gain.

But if supplements are a pipeline to getting red-pilled, therapy culture is a sinkhole of misinformation, manufactured fragility, and needless suffering.

Oh my God.

I wish I had friends that texted me like that. Mine are just like, where are you at? Where are you at?

What are you doing?

I wish I got those. I don't get those at all.

I got texts from Charles Schumer saying I just gave him $5.

Oh, I know.

I've been an unsubscribed. I'm getting Crystal Ball.

Do you realize I gave money to Crystal Ball like 15 years ago because she was running for Congress and I gave them my phone number and I am now on some DNC list and I hear I get personal messages about 15 fucking times a day from Democratic leaders saying that they're in it to win it and all I need to do is send five bucks right now will you help me out no senator schumer I'm not anyways I can't is there an app for getting rid of political texting yeah well you can also hit you can like do stop but yes there's like a general I hit stop on all of them I know they find another way and also then you hear these stories like you know they sell their email lists to other groups.

Like I think Kamala sold her email list to the DMC for like $7 million or something. And now we get all of that.

Though I'm such a loser that basically every time Mark Kelly texts me, I kind of think maybe it's happening. Like maybe he wants to come on the pod, but he just wants more money, which is fine.

And I think Mark Kelly should get a lot of money.

Two things I want to say. One, I was like a little bit too much of a Debbie Downer about the innovation agenda stuff, at least the New Democrats.

I do think, you know, they have like a lot of funding for STEM training, which is important, even a child tax credit to provide support for families to make sure they can get that STEM training.

They have a startup visa program, investments in science, R ⁇ D, like all of these things are important. They just don't feel like they're going to close the loop or help us.
quickly.

And this feels like a five-alarm fire. The second thing I wanted to say on the social media ban in Australia.
So Rahm Emanuel is the only 2028 hopeful who has come out in support of it.

I think that more people should. I don't know what happens, like if it ends up coming to fruition, but you should be talking that talk.

Like every governor that has banned phones in schools has not only had amazing results, but they have a bunch of constituents that are really happy with them and who feel like they have heard them.

There are concerns about access to phones if there is, God forbid, a school shooting, which, you know, that could happen on any given day of the week.

But NetNet, kids are happier, more focused, better socially adjusted, feel better about themselves because they're not on their phones all the time.

And I would be thrilled if my daughters did not have phones and certainly did not have social media until they were emotionally and mentally equipped to be able to use it responsibly, which 16, 17 years old, that seems like a fine time to me.

I think it's my biggest mistake, and I've made a lot of mistakes as a parent. But my biggest was letting one of my sons,

it's interesting, one isn't really into it, but the other really, it hasn't become a huge issue, but it's an issue.

I would say two-thirds of the anxiety in my household is a function of the phone and TikTok and Snap. And I really screwed up.
You'd think it's like the cobbler's kids have no shoes.

You would think if anyone would be cognizant of these dangers, it would be me. And I have totally failed around this.
And here's the thing. My colleague at NYU Adam Alter did great research here.

Unless it's a collective ban, I can't stand it when people say, well, it's really the parents' responsibility. That's your way of saying you don't have children.

If you ban, if you, as a parent, remove Snap from your kid's phone or you don't let them go on social media, they are more depressed because they're isolated. From their friends.

Unless it's a collective ban and everybody wants to get outside and find new ways to socialize and meet friends, you can't have one-offs. It's not about parenting.
It needs to be a collective ban.

And another shout-out, I think the most consequential scholar of the last 10 years is my colleague Jonathan Haidt.

The ban of social media for people under the age of 16 is not only makes just oodles of fucking sense in everyone, in my opinion. I can't imagine any argument against it.

My favorite argument is that Mark Zuckerberg is worried about the free speech rights of a 14-year-old. Yeah, he really, I'm really worried about what my 14-year-old thinks of mRNA vaccines.

Jesus Christ, could that be a more stupid thing? Well, that whistleblower report, I think, blew a pretty big hole in that that's the main concern going on at Facebook.

Well, I just, I just love Cheryl Samberg's attempted comeback and repair tour and the comments around. The comments have basically said to her, sit down.

Anyway, Jonathan's book, The Anxious Generation, has probably given more time with parents, more time with sports, more times with friends, more times playing, you know, a hookie, leaving flaming bags of shit on doorsteps and ding-dong ditch and all the wonderful things about growing up and prom

and navigating different things in the real world. He has given more childhood back to the children of Australia than any academic has given anything to anyone in history.

This is a huge win for not only the kids of Australia, but hopefully the kids in other democratic societies. There is no reason anyone under the age of 18 should be in a synthetic relationship.

There is no reason anyone under the age of 16 should be on a social media platform. I would actually, at some point, I would have loved to have seen a smartphone ban under the age of 18.

And that the way you knew someone was under the age of 18 is they had an oyster phone. They can text enough to say, Mom, come pick me up or whatever.
Maybe they get their Subway app on it, fine.

But if you look at really, I mean, we don't want to do the analysis because we love these companies, see above idolatry of dollar. Everything got shittier in the world with the smartphone.

Literally everything. Division, polarization, racism, red pilling, extremists on both sides of the aisle.
I mean, sure, Citizens United, all this stuff.

I think if you do the real analysis here, when social went on mobile in the smartphone with no regulation, just generally speaking across the West, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, everything got fucking shittier.

And there's no regulation whatsoever. There's more regulation in this mic I'm speaking into than into smartphone technology, search engines, and social media platforms.

So good on Australia for taking a real stand around age gating. 6% of teens are clinically addicted to alcohol and drugs.
24% are addicted to social media. And yet we don't have any,

you can't get a beer at a bar at the age of 20 in America. Yeah.
But you can go on. You have the high school cafeteria, Netflix, and porn sites following you around in your pocket at the age of 13.

So

I'm thrilled with this legislation. And I think it's kudos to Australia and kudos to Jonathan Hyde.
All right, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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Welcome back. Before we go, let's end on a high note.
For all the chaos of this political year, there's been plenty to feel good about.

We did see a blue wave on Election Day, historic protests with the No Kings movement. I haven't seen that many old white people since I went to the U2 concert at the Sphere.

California voting yes on redistricting and Miami electing its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades. I guess it's good news if you're blue.
The Department of Government Efficiency is gone.

Beyoncé finally won album of the year. Thank God.
It kept me up at night. Taylor and Travis got engaged.
If you wanted proof that I didn't write this, there it is.

We got the first American pope, El Papa. I love Pope Leo.
Who went to Villanova, by the way. My friend Justin from Millennium keeps reminding me, like, number of popes from all U.S.

universities, zero, number of popes from Villanova, one.

After a bipartisan backlash, Kimmel made it back on the air. Yeah.
Sorry, folks. We'll be off in a few years.
Structural change is coming. And Katie Perry went to space.
That's a good thing.

I feel like her relationship with Justin Trudeau is more interesting than her going to space. I met him at one of these Masters of the Universe.
Were you very charmed? Jesus, he's good looking.

Oh, yeah. Oh, he's Scott Galloway's touch.
I mean, let me get this. This guy's already been a world leader for 12 years.
He looks like he should start a boy band. Yeah.
Good skin. Oh, my God.

He looks 28. And he's tall and dreamy.

Really? Good hair. And he's really,

he'll roll with us. He texted me.
I think he's looking to get out. I think he's kind of.
Well, now he's like American glitterati because he's Katie Adjacent.

Yeah, I think he's still kind of singlish and ready to mingle-ish, so to speak. Oh.

I thought that they were serious. I mean, he took her to Japan.
Oh, did he? Yeah.

Is that the new commitment ring? Taking someone to Japan?

No, no, not just like, let's go to Tokyo and have sushi, like meeting the prime minister my girlfriend used to lend me i used to lend her my letterman jacket and she lent me her car that's how i knew i was in a a committed relationship in college anyways uh katy perry went to space that's the good news uh bad news is she came back anyways and somehow she's been through a lot poor katie she's fine i'm sure she's very nice i hope her and justin are happy anyways and somehow i did not write this and somehow i ended up on the white lotus let's be honest i saved the season of white lotus People consistently come up to me and say, People loved it.

I got a lot of texts. Like, Scott's on White Lotus.
I'm like, I got a bunch of texts saying, the lawyer sounds like you. No one thought it was me.
They're all like, yeah. Oh, really?

That guy, the lawyer sounds like you.

But yeah, I saved. Are you going to be on season four? I saw that they might have Christine Boransky on, which was very exciting.
I'm going to hate this. Who is that? The actress? Yeah, who is she?

I don't watch anything that doesn't have to do with World War II. The only actor I'm interested in is Hitler with a star, a co-supporting role of Mussolini.

Who is that? Christine Beransky. I mean, if I sent you a picture, you would definitely cite her.
She's been in like everything, but I was obsessed with

the good wife and the good fight.

Absolutely fabulous. Yeah.
That's her. Yeah, she's hilarious.
She's great. I didn't know.
Yeah. I didn't know her.

Well, I don't know if she's actually going to be in White Lotus 4, but it was rumored on the internet. Yeah, we're in serious negotiations to be in season four, which means they have not called me.

They have not called me, Jess. They're waiting for the right moment.
Yeah, that's right. That's, they're trying hard to get.
I get it. I get it.
I get it. Jess, what was your favorite moment of 2025?

So

there were two things that stuck out to me. And favorite moment is tough because that like implies like this was the best thing that ever happened.

But, and bear with me here, because I think you're going to say like, uh, snooze, whatever. But I thought that the World Series was incredible.

Wow. Yeah.
So I was not expecting that. Yeah, I get that.
So Dodgers, Blue Jays. So that's like bringing us together, right? Like we've had problems with Canada, but we had this going on.

It was very compelling, like incredible individual performances. Shoy Atani is just amazing.
Glad Guerrero Jr. on the Blue Jays.
But

it was a moment where people who don't even pay attention to baseball were like, wow, that's really incredible baseball. Cause I find baseball to be boring, but I was glued to the World Series.

And I thought it was a nice like revival for the sport. And so that's, I guess, a weird pick for me.
I didn't want to do politics things.

The second thing, which was not good for the people involved, but created a,

I mean, a global conversation was the Cold Play Kiss Cam. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.
Are these super weird picks? I get it. But, you know, we were all talking about the same thing.

The memes were hilarious. You know, very serious conversations about how you run a company.
Also, Crisis PR.

Remember the Gwyneth Paltrow video that came out like right after Chris Martin obviously enjoying the whole thing. I don't know.

Those were the two things that stuck out to me as like big 2025 moments. I like it.
What have you got? I can't really. Got it.
You know, I hate to say it.

My son getting into college is like the best thing that happened to our household. Wait, I didn't know that

it was Don. Yeah, yeah.
He got, he got into college.

Okay. That was a nice moment for us.
The college you wanted, I hope. Yes.
Oh, good.

Yeah, great. Super, super, super exciting.
So I've been trying to think, like, what happened?

I don't know. I think the, I think, I mean, in a weird way, it's a proximity bias, but I don't know.
The, the hero, the, uh, the Bondi Beach hero. Yeah.
Yeah.

That seems very, I think that's so important on so many levels. Ahmed Al-Ahmed.

I just love the fact that someone would put their, I just think there's so many good people out there and we need heroes. I love the fact that he crippled.
I love the fact that he's Muslim.

I think that's just so important on so many levels. We should also say there's a full, Scott and I talked about the shootings at Brown and Bondi Beach in a rapid response video on our YouTube channel.

So please don't think that we ignored it for listeners to this episode. And we talk a lot about this.
Yeah, I mean, this, this guy was a fruit shop owner, father of two.

I think that was just. That's a good one.
Maybe that's better than the kiss cam.

And also, I loved Mackenzie Scott. I work with or I'm I'm close with a mental health charity called the Jet Foundation that is about teen suicide prevention.
And Mackenzie Scott, 15 million bucks.

Doesn't want a ceremony, doesn't want a ribbon cutting, doesn't want even her name, they did, she allowed them to do a press release, just wired them 15 million bucks.

She's just, there is something about feminine

or women who are billionaires in their approach to philanthropy that is distinctly different than all these guys who virtue signal and say that they're signing a giving pledge and that after they're dead, they'll give away their money.

Melinda French Gates and Mackenzie Bezos immediately, as soon as they no longer have to check in with their dude, they just start giving a shit ton of money away. Yeah, was she 7 billion this year?

She's like 20 billion since 2020.

I think she was, we did like a, I mean, I'm giving it away if you're going to watch it on the five, but we did a naughty and nice list and we had to pick someone for each category.

And Mackenzie Scott was my nice. She blows my mind.
And she also, and Melinda French Gates, they seem so much freer and happier without their spouses, which I guess is not that their spouses die.

I think you just, I think that's called an ex-wife.

Three-quarters of divorce filings by women and widows are happier after their husband dies. True story.
Right. Widowers less happy.
Yeah, I think men have to raise their game if they want to.

But there is something about

And generally speaking, you're allowed to be a sexist as long as you sanctify and demonize women and men, respectively. And I'll do that here.

Female billionaires definitely have a different approach to giving. It would be an interesting study.

Red Pillars will show up and say, well, they didn't make it, so it's not really theirs. But there's definitely something going on here about the approach to giving

from these female billionaires versus these male billionaires. I like that.
I can't redo it. I've already put it into the ether.

I do believe in the World Series, but Mackenzie Scott and Ahmed Al-Ahmed seem like better choices. It's best moments of 2025.
Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, and Scotland making the World Cup. That's huge.
Is it? That's big for us. Although

we're in just a vicious fucking category. We're in with Morocco and I think we're in with Morocco and Brazil, which does not bode well for us, Jess.

But I'm really super excited about the FIFA Peace Prize. I think that.
You could get it. No, no, no.

I'm not. I'm ineligible because I won the Taco Bell Prize for Literature.

Is that Gord Dish for life?

Yeah. And

by the way, I just want to say I'm humbelled. Get it? I'm humbled.

Yeah, I get it. Yeah.
Yeah. It's cute.
Did you, was that in your notes or you came up with that yourself? I came up with that on my own.

Had a certain real Scott Galloway ring to it. Yeah.
No, it's

it's it's good. All right.

That's all I have, Jess. Do you have anything else? No.
We've been talking for a while. We're good.
We're good. All right.

This is it, right? This is it. This is

oh my god.

I'm getting so old, Jess. I'm getting so old.
No, let me just bum you out. My friends are dying, Jess.
Oh, but there's dying young if they are dying. But they are dying.

I have this picture of my closest fraternity friends. And let me be clear: I was not close of the eight-core group from college.

This was the person I was least close with, but this young, like incredibly nice, incredibly positive, incredibly handsome kid named Brad Luff,

like one of those guys everyone just loved, passed from pancreatic cancer. And he, our other friend, Craig Marcus, it was so funny.

The two guys, if you lined all of us up and said, who's going to die first? These guys would have been seven or eight, both like incredibly healthy guys. But yeah, Jess, my friends are dying.

I'm at that age. It's very strange.
I don't, I'm having a bit of a

existential crisis. I think I'm going to start banging my secretary or go buy a Ferrari just to kind of,

I don't know, compensate. What do you think? Will that work? I would advise against.
Advise against a Ferrari. Didn't you say your penis was too big to have a Ferrari? Yeah.
No, I don't.

I mean, I don't know. I had to bring the mood up from my friends are dying.
From your dead friends. From my dying friends.
Okay.

I just think you should just continue to be a happy family man.

My partner was giving me a hard time about adding no fucking value this weekend. And I just went, my friends are dying.

Yeah.

So my dad is dead. And I.

This is now a contest. No, no, no, no.
But it's too hard. Well, my dad is dead.
But Jess, other than that, how was he doing?

No, well, actually,

it was crazy. We were at a party and Brian introduced me to someone that he had been talking to and said, like, oh, I was talking about your dad's wine and whatever.

I said, you did mention that he was dead, right? Cause I was worried that he had like told this guy that he could like text my dad for help. And he was like, no, I, yes, we know that he's dead.

But anyway, so I talk about it a lot because it makes it easier. And my sister out in LA said that she saw a bumper sticker that spoke to us so much.
It said, my dad is dead. Please let me merge.

That's how I feel about it. I deploy it all the time.
So let me merge. My dad is dead, but I'm sorry your friends are dead.
Don't get a Ferrari, but have an amazing holiday. All right.

So I think that's a good place to end it. But before we go, if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe.
Oh, yeah. People hate us asking all the time, by the way.

Well, all right, just hit subscribe then. And be done with it.
And we won't stop asking. That's all for this episode.
Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates.

We have our last episode of the year coming out this Friday. We'll be taking your questions and making some predictions as we head into 2026.
You will not want to miss it. Speak to you then.

Thanks, Jess. Yeah, see you later.