Pivot - Apple Bows to Trump, Bond Market Sounds the Alarm, and Kalshi Bans George Santos

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

As our Scott Free month comes to a close, Kara is joined by MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff! They remember Gloria Steinem, discuss Apple caving to Trump over “Lake America,” and unpack the administration’s escalating crackdown on mail-in voting. Then, they break down the global bond sell-off and George Santos getting a lifetime ban from Kalshi.Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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CoreWeave powers the world's best AI. Go to coreweave.com slash ready for anything. We picked you precisely for your hair on the final day to remind people what hair looks like. Scott will be. We'll have a hair desert when Scott comes back. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And this is the final day of Scott. Three August. Yes. September, but Scott is still gone. We don't know where he is now. He'll make his triumphant return next week after Labor Day. In the meantime, I have my final guest co-host. He's a senior national and political reporter for MS Now and the anchor of Connect with Jacob Soberoff. It is he, Jacob. Hello, Jacob. What a delight, Kara. And I was confused if it was going to go to Scott Free September, but I happen to know it's still, Scott Free August. No, we can't do that. Okay. There might be

Godfrey all the time at some point. By the way, judging from just when you were getting ready, you were taking off your sweatshirt and we thought you were going to do a Scott thing, which is show us his chest, which he likes to do. And you very politely moved off the, we appreciated that. We appreciated your entire thing. Nobody wants to see this dad butt. Well, in any case, we don't want to see Scots either. We are subject to it on a twice weekly basis sometimes. Anyway, we appreciate it. We appreciate it very much. Thank you so much. I'm seriously, I'm tickled to do this. This is very, very cool and fun for me. Thank you. Well, it was kicked off with Hillary Clinton and you were the last one. We've had some great co-hosts, Caitlin Collins.

The downward slide. I was just watching Caitlin's. Yeah, it was good. She was great. So where are you broadcasting now from Los Angeles? This is our, yeah, this is our LA Bureau at us now. And this is the newsroom. Well, I appreciate you being up with such an... Oh, no. So it's a newsroom. And you live in L.A. now, right? That's where you're broadcast. your shows from. Born and raised, and I spent the summer in New York. You wrote a book. Exactly, but the fires. But born and raised here, spent the summer in New York,

and our studio here in LA is just about ready. So we're bringing Connect to my show back to LA. Oh, great. Is there a special LA thing for it? Yeah, explain your show. Sure. It just sort of started, right? Correct? Yeah, it started on June 13th.

And I started at MS Now in the summer of 2015, and over these 11 years that I've been here, I have traveled the country and I've traveled the world and I've been a guy in the field. I think I got the best job in TV. I love people. I love hanging around people. And from pulling placelines to the border to Ukraine to Haiti to Greenland to Guatemala, getting to be around people has been, I think, the greatest blessing, not just of my professional life,

but I honestly really, really, it makes, it fills me up, it makes me who I am. And so we wanted to bring that essence, Rebecca Cutler, my boss, back into the studio. And so she asked me if I would do a show. And that's what Connect is all about. It's a show about people. Politics is, per me, it's everything we do. But I wanted to center people we don't normally hear. You're not going to see political panels.

I got three hours a day. I took over for Ali Valsh who moved to prime time. And on Saturday and Sunday, we just spend an enormous. amount of time on on basically the stuff that are the people that watch us care about and worry about and we don't really do the sort of news of the week thing how is los angeles doing i was just i just got back from san francisco this morning i love it here and i'm ducking anticipating the incoming but i think it's the greatest city in the world and why why who i love los angeles yeah i don't know why i'm self-conscious about being from l-a i think i honestly grew up here um and i grew up as you mentioned

in the palisades that burn down in the costliest wildfire event in American history, but I've spent most of my adult life on the other side of town in northeast L.A. And I think that you can get in L.A. a slice of anything and meet people from all over the world. Yeah, I always call it New York if you flattened everything out. If you took all the buildings and went like that. Do you, so you enjoy your spending time here? I do. I love it. I don't insult Los Angeles. I don't insult California the way other people do. You know, it's a magnificent state.

It's got a lot of issues, obviously. That's exactly right. We had a really tough year in 2025 with the fires and then the ice raids that kicked off here. And I think it was really bruising to so many people. But the resilience of this city, we sort of modeled it here during the ice raids for everyone else. And to see people spontaneously pour out into the streets, I was out there on June, whatever it was, 7th or 8. of 25, to me, that, that, it instantly gave hope to me. And I think to so many people in the city and so many people watching around the country that like, there's a way to band together

in the face of all of this bullshit that's going on. I just introduced Chris Larson yesterday. The billionaire up in San Francisco is given a lot of money and is very civically oriented, which is unusual. And we had a really interesting discussion about what's going on there. Obviously, it's continued homeless problems, very significant. You know, climate problems, tax problems. You know, the government has grown quite a bit. But it seems like, even on its worst day, it's I would rather live there than many states across the country.

Amen. And it contributes to so much for that. And I think people have sort of a warped vision of it that doesn't, it doesn't comply with reality. And of course, that's why it's done like that. Anyway, I really like, well, thank you for getting up so early. I really appreciate it. And I was in for Chris Hayes last night.

I don't have any makeup on other than a little powder under my eyeballs. Oh, come on. You look, oh, stop it. Stop your Clark's headness of it all. You know, people do call you that, right? Correct. The hair. Better than Al Franken's son or Stephen Colbert's brother, although I'm honored.

Oh, you get those two? Oh, no, no, no, no. We picked you precisely for your hair on the final day to remind people what hair looks like. Scott will be, we'll have a hair desert when Scott comes back. May I just say propitia works, and I've been taking it for a very long time. Oh, okay. Well, it's working for you. Thank you.

So we have, speaking of men, let's not talk about them for a second. I want to mention Gloria Steinem has died at age 92. She was a feminist and active as a journalist and so much more. We talk a lot about business on the podcast, and Gloria once described yourself as an entrepreneur of social change. She're in that title, many times over. I met her on several occasions, really interesting, sometimes controversial, even within the feminist movement.

very good journalist. If you go back and read her stuff, I remember loving her playboy bunny piece. If you go back and read it, it's actually quite good where she was a playboy bunny or just a, I guess, sort of an investigative piece. It was just interesting. And just a very impactful person. And it's kind of interesting that, you know, to me, I consider some of the leading feminist, Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem, die within the same couple of, you know, weeks or a week or so. how do you look at this change? How would you cover it on Saturday, for example? I just said to my team, I have about 25 people that work for me, and I think three of them are meant.

I almost want to hand the floor over to the team. I never got to meet Gloria. I did get to meet Dolly, which was one of the most extraordinary experiences I've ever had. But when I think about Gloria, two things. One, I was just reading the Ms. Magazine 50th anniversary, which she founded. introduction that she wrote. And I guess I didn't realize how much of what that magazine did was informed by the readers and the letters that were written into Gloria and how much, almost in an open source way, 50 years ago, she let the second way of feminism movement, and particularly

through the magazine, be guided by the people who were her readers, her clientele, her customers. And I'm so inspired by some of the stuff that I was reading. The other thought, flashed in my head as I'm the father of a 10-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl. And when my son, I guess I'll never forget that she was the honorary co-chair of the Women's March, which was the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. And I was in New York for, excuse me, I was in Washington, D.C. for the first inauguration. And I was out on the lawn where Donald Trump said it was the, and Sean Spicer said it was the greatest crowd of all time. And I wrote in my first book about how I stood there on that big white, empty plastic tarp and no one was there.

Nope. But then I came home that night and the following morning I wasn't supposed to work, but my wife, Nicole and our son, Noah and a bunch of her girlfriends and other kids went to the march. And I called the bureau chief at NBC News at the time, Polly Powell, after dropping them off and said, you know, I would like to report. And I have never ever, I'm getting the chills talking about this, seen a. crowd of people like I saw that day. And I remember watching her make a speech from Washington, D.C. I remember standing on the roof of man. What was that like? Cool. It was amazing. You know, a lot of pussy hats. I mean, a lot of people felt like it,

you know, I'm here and there on marches because I feel like sometimes what's the point? Like, I think a lot of people felt very hopeful that there was a point. And then you had, you know, especially this administration, which is, I would say, misogynist in many ways. ways would, it was great. It was great. I took my sons. I took my two sons. And I didn't force them into pussy hats, but they would have if I asked, especially my older son, who I consider very much feminist. But it was more so than me in a lot of ways. And he, they had a great time. We had a great time. We just had a, it was a joyous occasion. That's how I felt, too. And so while I never got to meet Gloria,

To me, in a way, in spirit, that was the closest I've come to being around her. I remember standing on the roof of the satellite truck because I wanted to get a vantage point of how many. I've been to a lot of marches, and I actually, I really do believe in the power of all of that. I've seen it kick Greg Bevino out of every one of those cities just in the last year. Yes, you're right. There are some. There's an extraordinary power in it. And I'm looking back at the pictures today, I still have the sign, actually, that my wife carried

there in the back of our Volvo, and I found it the other day. And to me, I can't wait actually to talk to our kids about the fact that Noel was there that day and the Gloria Steinem was one of the people behind it. What did the signs say? There was some good signs. Love wins forever. Love wins forever. Oh, that's a nice one. Yeah, it's a good one. So you have a nice family. I like all the mean ones. No way, I got to find it. Where's my phone? There were some other good ones hanging. Love Rules Forever. Stop the War on Women, another friend of ours. Zoe held up. freedom. It was a very special day.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm partial to the vagina ones. I like the really funny ones, which are great. I think today it's kind of interesting. I was, when I was speaking yesterday, I was talking about the series Furious on Hulu, which is about, you know,

Lady Serial Killer and anger towards men. And it's about Epstein, kind of like figures and getting what they deserve and everything else. And it's really interesting. because a lot of men have had a very bad reaction to it. And I'm like, do you understand how angry lots of people, especially women are? And it's really powerful. It's a very powerful.

There's incredible women actors in it. And just the anger is there visceral. And it was interesting about Lori Steinem. And then we'll move on is, of course, Ted Cruz yesterday before she died, said, you know, Lord help us from white liberal women. One idiot. Sorry. I said, you know, yeah, a regular language.

thinking that guy is, right? Like, you think about, like, what in the world position, how can you want to be president if that's how you feel about a large swath of people? Like, it's really, and if he's going to continue on in the Trump way, and he's such an unappealing character, Trump had appeal to people. This guy has zero charm and almost despised by his people he went to school with and things like that. It just seemed like I thought about it today after he did that yesterday before she died. Or look at what we talked about it last night on Hayes' show, what Pete Hegsett posted about those two Canadian, one cadet and one sole, one instructor at the summer camp, military summer camp for, I think, kids and teenagers, basically body shaming them.

What is, what I said on the show was, what a sad loser, that this is the dude that's in charge of the most powerful military and human history. and he is shit posting. Well, this is what he does. Exactly. But that is the world in which we live, which is why I'm so, I think I felt so emotional today when I saw the news about Gloria Steinem, and I saw the reaction to people,

not just on my show, but in other signal chats that I'm in with other journalists. And I was thinking actually about the Daisy Chain Fields Festival that Olivia Rodriguez put on here in L.A. last weekend as well, all women. so many of the same goals. Amazing. R. repeated. Gloria Seinum. She lived quite a life. We've got a lot more to get to today, so let's dig in.

Apple just followed Google's lead in being a quizzling, changing Lake Ontario to Lake America for U.S. users of Apple Maps. Trump celebrated the update, writing on True Social that renaming is now complete, ratified in binding, none of which is true. The name change came on John Turnus's first day as Apple's CEO, taking the reins from Tim Cook. Just not a surprise, Google had done it before, as I said. And one company, a little company called MapQuest,

which I covered 100 years ago, is Back Baby. The downloads at $1.5 million, the top of the charts. Actually, I changed myself. I forgot how good it is, actually, how uncreative Google Maps are and changed everything. And then I've spent the past couple of days sort of giving advice People had a shift off of search off of Google that you can go to Dock.org or some others, which I used to do dot, dot, dot go. And then this morning, I moved to the Vivaldi browser, which is a Norwegian browser. I saw you post that. How is it? It's great. It's a great browser. It's a much, you know, it's a very privacy focus because it's from Europe, it's from Norway.

So far, so good. It's just getting off of things you're used to, right? Like you kind of do things. Now, a lot of stuff only works on Chrome, for example, this software, we. use for this show, for example. So I can't use that. So you have to use it in some ways, but disentangling yourself a little bit or having some sensibility is hard because you can't really pick. There's things that you can avoid. There's things that you can. But I want people to have a sense that there is choices that you can make as consumers and messages you can send. Let me hear what you think about this Lake America. I mean, it followed in the wake of Gulf of America, yeah, exactly. Gulf of America. He talks about doing an ocean. I think just bothering people, changing the Pacific Ocean.

Now he's saying he wants to change the name of the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Trump. It is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I want to call it the gay of Hormuz, but go ahead. It's pathetic and really sad and obviously just a massive attempt to distract us from the War of Choice that he has gotten us into and 18 U.S. service members are dead. And the USS Lincoln is rolling in rusty to Thailand. and there is no strategy in the war, and people are suffering in the United States

and can barely afford to pay for anything. Groceries, much less gasoline, exactly. And what are these companies doing? What are these companies doing? What do you think they're doing? I think it calls back to the moment at the inauguration when all of the tech titans were sitting right behind them. And they're obviously, obviously, in some attempt,

my opinion, to curry favor with them. And I just love the MapQuest thing because I used to, did you print them out? I used to print them out. No, no, I have printed them out. You don't have to know. They have an excellent app. So I'm going to download the app too. I haven't done it yet.

But I used to, I love that there. You can put it on your CarPlay, by the way. You can go onto CarPlay. Oh, I didn't know that. You just use it from there. Absolutely. Okay, so I will do that. But no, actually, there is some level of nostalgia.

I have recently talked to so many people about how my dad collected for a long typewriters, analog lifestyle is coming back into vogue in a way. And like, it's, it is a very nostalgic feeling to even hear the words MapQuest. And I'd so much rather be messing around with that and playing with that than like, you know, giving Donald Trump the satisfaction. I'm not sure they'll do anything about it. But at the same time, it was an unusual choice for John Turnus to do on his first day and quite disappointing. And they look. And at the, you know, at the very end of what feels like the Nero regime, essentially, when things could turn really quickly to do something like this. And obviously the minute it's possible, this will be

changed. These are easy things to change, just as we'll, you know, we'll do whatever he did all around Washington. We'll change back. But, you know, on some level, Trump is Trump, right? This is what he's going to do. He's got an obsession with names and things like that. And he's trying to cement his legacy. I think that's what's happening here with these buildings, all of which can be taken down, by the way, or moved or changed or something like that and are relatively pathetic, but it's the companies, these tech companies that continue to behave in ways that are really disturbing. To bow down.

That's what they're doing. And for what? For what? And I love actually also, so what you posted about how you can report on Apple, was it on Apple Maps, where you can click on it and basically say report a problem with it. And I mean, I love that form of resistance. It's so easy to sit there and do it. I do agree. As soon as they'll have the opportunity or as soon as they feel like they have the cover, they'll, they will undo this.

They think the Democrats will not be vengeful the way Trump is. That's their bet. I tell them not to be so sure. And also, I do think that you're right that the consumer, we all have so few options. And particularly when it comes to a smartphone, you know, it's not easy just to find something else or different or independent or certainly not getting the Trump phone if that still exists. But what you, what you, what you can do is make how you feel hurt. And these sort of suggestions that you have been putting forward, I've gotten great joy out of them because I do think they're so easy to do. Oh, good. I like to do it. I like to bother them.

Just to say about the rest of the stuff that he renamed, you know, I do worry that it may not be so easy to, particularly the stuff in Washington. Well, we're going to have the golden ass statues. And he's torn down the east wing and he may tear down the Kennedy Center if he has the opportunity just because he feels sad that his name had to be taken off of at night. There was a story that I would love to share with you, which is, and we put it on my show, I went there to take a look at some of the stuff that he had done around the 250th anniversary.

And I was standing outside the Kennedy Center as that big silly tarp was there covering up his name because he wouldn't take it down and it was behind the tarp. And a woman approached and said she had just walked from Arlington National Cemetery. I think her name was Madeline and laid her brother to rest, who she said in her words was a war hero. And I said, why did you come here after to the Kennedy Center to see the tarp where Donald Trump's name was under? And she said, because I'm ashamed of our country. And I want to go from there where she felt something so meaningful to come and take a look at where we had come. Interesting.

You talk about that cemetery, the arch that's supposed to go there where he's moving forward and is going to block that view. People don't realize that. It's actually Robert E. Lee's plantation. Those were all plantations back in the day. And it's been reconfigured as something quite beautiful. I happen to like cemeteries, and I think it's one of the, there's a beautiful one in San Francisco. There's a lot of them. And it's going to just deface that monument to the fallen.

And so, again, it's such a strange and weird thing. But more seriously, it is distracting, but it is serious at the same time. But he's continuing his quest to find voter fraud, something that you all covered. a lot. Whether it exists or not, hundreds of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security are working at finding non-citizens on voter rolls. This is a very small problem. It's being internally called the unlawful voter initiative. Meanwhile, a whistleblower is warning of potentially catastrophic problems with the new U.S. Postal Service screening system for mail-in ballots, which would be used if Trump's executive orders survives the courts, which probably will not.

That said, they still may go ahead with it. Like today in Missouri, they said they might go ahead with stuff that's already been decided around gerrymandering. The whistleblower says that the system is being rushed out without enough testing under a 0% failure policy. One barcode error could delay thousands of ballots from being sent out. Now, you spoke with Lettisha James, the New York Attorney General this past Sunday. Let's listen to what she said about Trump's crackdown on mail-in voting. If you think affordability is a hoax, if you recognize that tariffs are having an impact on groceries and on the economy, if you have nothing to offer, then you have to cheat. And at the end of the day,

mail-in ballots have been secure, and the Constitution basically gives the right of elections, time, place, and manner to the states, not to the president, and not to the postal system. And so it's important that individuals recognize that the election system is up to the state, and we have not had a problem with regards to mail-in ballots. Yeah, North Carolina is mailing ballots out this week. And many other states are moving to protect these things and urging people to use those drop boxes and everything else. So how chaotic could this get as more states start sending out ballots? I think it, I mean, that's the whole intention here is that he continually lose.

Let me back up and just say, you're exactly right. Voter fraud is a solution in search of a problem. The idea that we have some kind of widespread voter fraud, the idea that there are non-citizens voting in any way that would meaningfully affect the outcome. of any election is just a pile of bullshit. Sorry. And for many, many years before I was a journalist, I was an election reform advocate with an organization called y-tuesday.org.

And the whole idea was let's move election day to the weekend. Why do we vote on Tuesday? No good reason. And give people the day off, perhaps. Make it a holiday, moves, whatever. And, you know, all these years after the Voting Rights Act was passed, our voter turnout was amongst the lowest of all so many countries in the world. during COVID, it slightly went up because we were forced to vote by mail, forced to make voting

more accessible and convenient, but also secure. And the evidence is indisputable that voting by mail is secure and safe, it's effective, and it's a way for people to exercise the franchise. What are they trying to do? They're trying to sow chaos. Donald Trump said about his save act, this voter suppression bill, that it would guarantee Republican rule, I think, for a hundred hundred years. Somebody will correct me if I got that wrong, but he couldn't pass it. The Republicans wouldn't pass it. And so he went about all this other cock andamy ways of trying to take the elections. And if he cannot get this mail-in, if the Supreme Court blocks him from doing it, what he's going to do, so many experts that I talk to think, including election observers,

the secretaries of state, administrators, that he could very well use it as a pretext on the back end to go do what he did in Fulton County, Georgia, which is to go in and seize ballots and say there's fraud or this was a fraudulent election. Think about like in Texas if James Talarico prevails there over Ken Paxton. He will use it as a way to say after the fact, these were rigged elections. I didn't get to do what I wanted to do to make elections more secure. And so now I'm going to go in there and send my Justice Department or my FBI. And he's already doing it. He's sending these Department of Justice. I was in. Mark Wayne. Yeah, it's ridiculous. I was in, where was I, in Detroit, where he sent observers in the, during the Michigan primary. He did it in

Minnesota. He did it out here in L.A. Although the Wyoming governor's complaining about it. Republicans, the thing about election administrators is that and the people who work under them, they are some of the most civic-minded, nonpartisan, dedicated civil servants that I have ever met, and I have met many civil servants across many different types of government and municipal government and state government and federal government, they're doing it because they want everyday ordinary people to have a say in how we run our lives. And it is pathetic that the leader of the free world of our country

targets these folks who all they want to do is allow all of us to be able to speak our minds. And it comes from this place, my opinion, of just being a small person, of being an insecure, scared. I've talked to a lot of mayors and governors, They said they're going to have police forces there to counter, which is terrifying if there is some sort of clash at any of these places. Because they only need to do it in a couple of places, right? It doesn't have to be.

The whole idea is to intimidate. And I do think my biggest concern is that it will scare away these dedicated civil servants from participating in our elections and upholding the democracy that has worked so well for so many years. There's a reason that we're 50 ununited states of voting when it comes to our election system. The whole point is that the Constitution calls for the time, place, and manner of elections to be determined by the state legislatures so that there isn't a king in Washington, D.C. that is putting his thumb on the scale of how we participate. And, yeah, the idea of sending ICE agents out to polling places to look for non-citizens. It's the same, it's this exact same strategy that they carried out in all these places that I was, from L.A. to Charlotte to the hallways of 26 Federal Plaza in New York to. Didn't work. Yeah, but the point was send these Greg Bevino and his military costume out into the streets to scare the shit out of people so that in his mind, people would self-deport or Stephen Miller's mind, people would leave the country.

Greg says they're trying to kill him. Give me a break. Give me a break. And by the way. How could you find him? Sorry. No, it's okay. I'm going to make a height joke. You're hilarious.

I'm a short person I can do so. I'm a little height challenged also. I come in right about. I'll say I'm on the shorter side. Maybe not. I don't know. You're tall in Greg Pavino, but anyway. Rachel Maddo says that I'm the same size in real life that I am on television. You know what? She is a giant. People don't realize how tall she was.

I'm always like, sit down before we talk because you're far too tall. There's only two people I do that with. One was a supermodel and one is Rachel Madden. She is much taller in real life. Absolutely. So all this to say, it's an effort to intimidate both the voters and the election workers and to put forward a pretext to come in and mess with the elections after the fact, which is why it's so, so, so important that everybody gets out to vote. We just did a story last night about Tarrant County, Texas,

where they've reduced by, I think, over 100 the amount of polling places there because they have a county commission that's three to two Republican, even though the Democratic electorate is growing there. This is one of the biggest population centers in all of Texas at a time when the Democrats could take control of the Senate. there in that seat. And it's just a naked attempt at stealing the election. And there'll be more and more of this. Yes, absolutely. If you can't win, you have to cheat. Yep, that's what Tish James said, exactly. And cheats at most things, cheats on his wives, cheats at golf. And that's his kind of brand.

It's interesting, again, how many people, these enablers, same thing going along with him. That to me is a really interesting idea of who are these people who are doing this and what will be not just their regrets, which I assume they will have them, is what do you do about that? You know what, though, yet they're all so afraid to show up at his silly midterm convention in Texas. All these folks that are on board with his plans that have been just- This is this convention he's doing, whatever it happens. He says it's a midterm convention in Dallas. I've covered many conventions for our network, never a mid-term convention and never one where the president of the United States wants to make himself the center of the story at a time when...

And they're not going. No, when his own party, number one, doesn't want to go, number two, doesn't want anything to do with him at the ballot box. But yeah, they're all, those are all his enablers. And that's the funniest part about it is they don't want to be seen anywhere near him at this convention, ultimately. No, not at all. It's interesting to see what will happen there.

I mean, I suspect it's going to be a boss, presumably. And there are some pushback. I mean, Tom Tillis just said P. Tagsets should go. He could have said it a little sooner, or perhaps not folks. voted for him when he absolutely knew he was incompetent before. Well, it's like Susan Collins. I was up in Maine a couple weeks ago. You know, she's concerned about everything, quote unquote,

but you know, she confirmed Brett. Talk about the legacy of Gloria Steinem. She confirmed Brett Kavanaugh, even though she was so worried about the fate of Roe versus Wade. And now she's up for election again up there. It'll be really interesting to see what plays out. I think finally this guy's going to take her down. It'll be, I think it's going to be really interesting. But yeah, there's how many of them have, are now speaking out because it's safe for them to do so.

Cornyn Tillis who got defeated because Trump came after them, you know? You know, I called Tom Tillis too late, Tom in an interview. He said, I'm not too late. I'm like, too late. I'm like, too late. I'm like, too late. Really? What are you doing after January? Exactly. Yeah. Well, he wants to, he wants to get on boards. He wants to, like, you know, Republican life outside. You can't push too far. But I have to say, the stuff he did on Heg-Seth, including a tweet that just made, you know, essentially called him a drunk, was in ginning things up,

you know, he needs to act soberly, blah, blah, blah. You know, that's cute, but honestly, but he did call for his, that he should be fired. I read that last, yeah, I read that last night. There was a couple like that. Anyway, we'll see what happens. Do you have any predictions on whether it would be successful, giving you're an electoral advocate? Whether, whether which part of it will be successful? Will these efforts, any of them, gain traction or you just don't know. What I think is that I really do think that we're going to, I don't know if we're going to see record voter participation, but what I do feel as I travel the country is that people are keenly aware that not only are the policies of this administration screwing over so many people, Republicans and Democrats, look at this thing with the beef. Yeah.

Everybody, everybody understands that Donald Trump, I think, is in it for Donald Trump. And I would be very surprised if, I don't know, I don't want to be in the market of, I don't want to be in the business of making a prediction about who's going to win, but I feel the energy on the streets that feels unlike any other time, other than maybe during family separation during the first term, when hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people came out in the streets, opposed to that policy. And I, and I really do believe in the power of people pushing back.

Yeah, I do too. I think it's really anything. The data center thing is, you know, It's interesting, the attempts, again, with the neighbors like Brooke Wallens, the Secretary of Agriculture, saying that Kamala Harris would put farmers in prison. And I was like, you nitwit, you sick ofantic nitwit. I mean, the nitwits, I was, were you trying to be more of a nitwit than Doug Bergam or perhaps Howard Lutnik saying there's no water in data centers, another area of great anger? They've all sort of, you know, soiled themselves rather significantly. That issue is a pretty incredible issue in how salient it's become is really remarkable.

And I saw it. It's a proxy. We talk about that a lot. We've been talking about this for a long time. And I saw some tech companies recently about eight months ago, I was like, this data center is going to catch on. You understand people are mad, especially when Musk was doing this gas powered. One was hurting citizens in, I think it was Tennessee and Memphis. And I, they were just sort of trying to, we were at a just a lunch kind of thing.

And they're like, well, what do you think is going on? I said, we all hate you. Like I said, all of us, like, hate you. Me, Marjorie Taylor Green, like all these people. Like, you're just awful. And we've had it with you, people. And it will manifest itself around AI, around everything else. Anyway, let's go on a quick break.

When we get back, we'll dig into the global bond sell-off. Support for Pivot comes from. Anthropic. Finding your flow at work isn't always easy, especially when it comes to the right tools. That's where Claude comes in, helping you handle the day-to-day details while keeping sight of the bigger picture. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's a collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. You can delegate tasks of any size to Claude from tedious bug fixes to building out new feature ideas,

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Instead of second-guessing or searching for hours, you get clarity and can hire the right pro with confidence. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. They know homes. Hire the right pro today. Jacob, we're back with more news if the global sell-off in government bonds is pushing borrowing costs to multi-decade highs. The U.S. 10-year treasury yield briefly hit about 4.8 percent as highest since early 2025.

That is a big number. That means it costs more to borrow just for everyone, including the U.S. government. Let's listen to what our friend at Park Bill Cohen has to say about it. James Carville famously said that he wanted to come back reincarnated as the bond market. And he says that because the bond market is all-powerful, can topple despots and can even get the current occupant of the Oval Office to change his policy directions and change his mind, even though he's a stubborn guy and loves to double down. And what we see now is that the bond market is basically a fount of wisdom. And right now,

it's sort of flashing bright yellow, nearly red, you know, $40 trillion of debt, six percent budget deficits, warn Iran, straight-of-hormuz closed, rising gasoline prices and oil prices, inflation generally being at three plus percent is not sustainable, not good for the economy, and we need to start taking remedial action and quickly. So basically the bond market is telegraphing economic distress, and we better get our mind around it and fix it, or else we could be headed for another dreaded financial crisis. By the way, Bill Cohen has a new book out called Money to Burn,

the unvarnished truth about Leon Black, Apollo, and the rise of the new Wall Street. This is a really big deal. This is something Trump has sort of hung his hat on the stock market raging, which it has been. And Wall Street has said, oh, we're not going to do anything about them because the stock market's doing so well. And it really is the economy. And, of course, speaking of another sycophantic nitwit, Scott Bessent, who has really soiled his reputation entirely, was trying to fight the bond market, which means even I know

you don't fight the bond market. It just doesn't. You never win. It knows Wall Street is hard is a greed machine, and so it will do what is best for itself. And in that way, it's a good, it's a good indication of where people are. So talk a little bit about this, because I think this goes to affordability, it goes to a lot of issues. That's the terrifying part of all of this for me, and I'm certainly no economists and nobody should listen to me for financial advice. But what I will say is, I live in the most unaffordable city and the most unaffordable state in the union. It is not hard to see the dividing line between the rich and the poor getting greater and greater, particularly here in my home city and in our home state.

And it is becoming increasingly unaffordable to do just about anything in this country. And the idea that any of the folks that I, when you get into a ride share, I'm sure you do all at the time you talk to people, they've got almost always two jobs, if not three jobs. Nobody can afford to do anything today. And so the idea that we could have some kind of future where through borrowing money and finding a way to build equity in homes or even to get a car or to do any of the things that we need to live our daily lives is going to get harder and harder is, to me, it's a terrifying prospect, but it's not one that I'm surprised by because it's a trajectory that we've been on for a long time now. What way would you cover, say, a stock market route?

because this is where it's going. I mean, he's saying flushing, you know, a lot of really smart people I follow a lot are quite worried about a stock market crash. Now, I know you can't ever predict this, and it happens suddenly. And even though it's directionally the way things are going and a little terrifying in that regard,

this is all primed for something really disastrous. How would you cover that? For so many people, whatever a bubble pop would look like, they're already living it in some respects. I think the vast majority of people are living in a life that is emblematic of this incredible income inequality that we have in the country. And so less for more. Yeah.

What is the real trickle down? Sure, if we have a bubble pop, it'll only get worse and worse for the people that have already been, already been experiencing it. You know what I was just thinking about is the coming back from the fires here in Los Angeles. The amount of people who have been able to rebuild is a fraction of the people who lost their homes, the 16,000 structures, the insurance. marketplace has been devastated. The cost of building materials has gone up. The idea that so many of them are underwater. That number continues to grow. And when you don't have some of the institutional levers that would help people come back, it'll be exponentially more devastating. So like, that's one on the ground story. But as I go across the country, you see people every day who live with that. If you want to know what it would look like for the stock market to crash, all you got to do is go. out to small communities all around the country because they're already living it. You go places

and you go down main streets and every other building or every building is shuttered. People are looking for work, you know, in ways that I've almost never seen in my 11 years doing this here. The way of life that a stock market bubble crash portends is the way of life. So many people are already living, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, that's a very good point. That's an excellent point. I mean, the cost of borrowing is the part that I think people don't realize is that the debt gets bigger and that it gets bigger because of the cost of buying. Again, Wall Street is a very emotionless like, this is what is going to cost you and whatever it happens to be. And when you see a lot of it, of course, the stock market itself is predicated on AI companies so that you have, you know, some of them will get public. Some of them will do well, but the vast majority of them as it did in every other internet tech thing I've covered, most of them will be washed.

out and gone. And then we'll be, again, we'll be subject to just a few powerful companies. And of course, they're shoveling money into political stuff that's in their interest, not in the public interest in any way. And, you know, even when they have kind of like shitty AI efforts like GROC, he's putting hundreds, probably hundreds of millions of dollars into the next elections, Elon Musk is, again, which sort of messes up things. entire process of how we vote. It's only going to become more acute. The wealthiest among us being able to put their finger on the scale of these elections in order to further exacerbate the divide. I think it's going to be the defining issue of Gavin Newsom's presidential campaign if and when he decides to

run. I do think that he has, I do think it's going to be one of his greatest challenges that he has presided over this state, which is, as I said, the most unaffordable, any unequal state in the union where the rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer. And while we can look at California as a leader on so many issues, it's also a place where we can see what the future might look like if we don't, if we don't contend with it now. It's going to be tough. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back. We'll talk about Kalshi issuing its first ever lifetime ban. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation

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Jacob, we're back with more news. Kalshi has issued its first ever lifetime ban to none other than former Congressman George Santos, of course. It's poor one out for George Santos. What a surprise. a cheating cheater is cheating. A regulator say Santos made more than $17,000. He's such a small ball, too, by the way, by betting on his own attendance of Trump's State of the Union

while making misleading social media posts about his plans. Kastya also hit Santos with a $70,000 penalty. The company also temporarily suspended three political candidates after they bet on the races. Of course, there's a lot of political anger towards these betting markets in some states, declaring them illegal, they're betting, they're gambling, essentially they need to be regular like gambling companies. He'll probably be banned from Polly Market, but I'm not sure if he will.

I think they're less inclined that way. Kyle, she's trying desperately look legit, you know, to sort of be the good cop kind of thing in this market, which is incredibly popular. How do you look at these markets? And obviously, a lot of companies, I don't know if I must amount, doing deals with these people. I'm not, I don't know, I'm not privy to it. I look at it, I look at it with disdain. And I think that the reason I say that is that there's new reporting now that it could have very well affect the outcome of the election in November because people will be betting on and then voting based on their bets, who could become, who could control Congress or who could become the next president of the United States. I think it's really dangerous. I do think it's the idea of,

I think it's a very, very serious concern that we should all have, that ultimately this will affect the outcome of the elections, not because this is what people want for their lives, but because because this is how they think they're going to make a quick buck on these online betting markets. Yeah, they're very easy to cheat. How about the story of Donald Trump's teleprompter operator, betting on the words that... I think he was hit with a fine. Yeah, the words that Donald Trump, and I think they let him go from the White House, the words that Donald Trump would say in any given speech. It is, I'm very, I'm not a betting person.

You don't want to see me in Las Vegas. It's pathetic. But it's a very scary proposition to me. How would you do sentiment? I mean, you can't go to just farmers markets to get that, right? Like, that's just sort of the caps captures the moment right down with people and you can't. And polling has certainly been badly, you know, tarnished by bad results. Especially this year. We look at Michigan. Michigan, Wisconsin. Polls aren't people. Betting markets are not people. And anecdotal interviews with. They are. There are people with financial incentives. So often more truthful.

Well said. Well said. And farmer talking to people anecdotally at farmers markets is not the, it's not the pulse of the people. But it's why I do it every week and why I don't do it once. And I actually think, I have so much admiration for the, for the early late night hosts, like Letterman or even Leno who would go out onto the street and talk to people, Billy Eichner, who would do Billy on the street. Like, when you get people in that raw and most unfiltered moment, that is actually what they think and what's on people's minds. And they're not expecting it. There's no calculation behind it. And it's what I love about it. We can see it reflected in the viewership of the show, actually, who said a meeting. yesterday we were talking about this, I think people want to see themselves reflected back on television. Cronkite had a quote, and I'm going to butcher it, but it was something about holding a mirror up to society so people can see themselves on broadcasts like these. And that's why I love doing it.

It's not someone hiding behind a computer screen, making a bet. True, but that, you know, the watching trends are using Calci as entertainment, using Polymarket as entertainment, especially for young man. You know, it is their television in some fashion. And I really do worry about that. The only thing I can do, I think, in addition to covering it and the negative impacts of it is, as I tell my 10-year-old, touch grass or touch dirt, like, get out there and be around real people. Because being in a studio is an air-condition.

I call it airless. Yeah, exactly. We have a newsroom behind you. Newsrooms are not airless. I've been in plenty of. I was at the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal. I do love being in this type of environment and around people, and because it's earlier the morning here. It's quiet.

Although newsrooms are empty now compared to the way they used to be. They used to be just pubs of activity. Oh, if I can get on my high horse about that for one second, there is nothing that has made me feel more confident and a bigger fan of actually local news and the definitional public service that they provide than what we went through in L.A. over the course of the last couple years with the fires and then with the ice raids. I don't know if you know them, but I would love to give them a shout out. L.A. Taco is a small independent media organization out here in L.A. Mamo Torres, Izzy Ramirez, who is almost on a daily basis, track the ice raids here. K-ABC won a Peabody Award because of their coverage during the fires.

For their work. The work was amazing. No, journalists do swing into action when there's a crisis, and I thought the fire coverage was. Incredible. And the coverage of the ice race? Exactly. Minnesota. There's been several stories where you have to be on the ground.

Block Club in Chicago. There are so many of these. And the more, if I was a billionaire and wanted to put my money behind something in philanthropy, I would fund the holy hell out of local newsrooms and independent journalism. Oddly enough, I said that many, many years ago to several of them. They're like, where should we do this? I was like, local, local, local, because the right wing was doing it. Dump money into these local independent newsrooms, exactly.

And because they are, they literally were life-saving in many instances during the fire. This street's on fire or that person's on his roof or that we've just seen this person where even though I was from here and on the national news, I can't get into that level of granularity about stuff. Granularity. No, that was my concept for owning the Washington Post. I was going to make it like a newsroom for the country. There's still time, Kara.

Yeah, no, he's not selling. He's not selling. Although I have to say their news has gotten a lot better. He seems to be being much more. They seem to be more aggressive in the news sections on Trump. They've broken a number of really important stories. That said, he's still a terrible owner of it and should sell it to me. All right, Jacob, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar-raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you.

They want something bigger themselves. Lifestyles is a priority. Motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties. Many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialist. That is just not the case. They are embracing candidates who are offering

new bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America, actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jambaza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction. It's not rocket science, and I keep saying, like, young voters aren't that complicated after all. It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Hustle culture told us to grind 24-7,

and we would become overnight millionaires, and a lot of us believed it. But this week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm making the case that the grind might actually be making you broke. Because between the DoorDash orders and the Ubers and the sent-out laundry, the hidden costs of overworking at a lot of, up faster than you think. I'm breaking down the real financial toll of burning out why trading sleep for side hustles is often the wrong math and what Gen Z quietly quitting actually gets right.

Plus, I'm answering your questions, including how to tell if your business idea is actually good, whether cash out your vacation days or take them, and how to actually grow your wealth without destroying yourself in the process. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Now it's time for predictions. Before we start, I do want to, speaking of Los Angeles, I do want to give a shout out to Pablo Torre, who was given enormous amounts of grief for reporting on Steve Bomber has been kicked off his team for a year. He essentially can't participate, paying $30 million because essentially he tried to find a way to pay a player more to get away from the salary constraints in basketball. And so all these sweetheart deals. This was with like a sign company.

I didn't even know. And he invested in. and essentially is a way to pay someone under the table, you know, and get away from these salary caps. Pablo had reported a lot about this. There was a story in ESPN, a really shitty story that said, no, nothing was to see here. Turned out there was a lot to see here. And the NBA just really smacked them hard. I think the people, when they have a first-round draft pick going forward, I think they're 10-year-olds right now.

They're going to be able to pick from people who are 10. years old right now. My son has a chance. Now your son has a chance. So I would, is that hitting L.A. in a big way? I think so. I was just on my, on my family text thread. My dad, my brother-in-law, my brother and I were all just texting about Pablo, I think either this morning or late last night, before I came in here, I was, embarrassingly for a very long time, a Clipper fan because my parents didn't want to pay for the expensive seats to go to the Lakers, so we would go to the Clipper games at the Sports Arena. I've been to hundreds. I don't know. L.A. Clipper games, The Lakers are also in flux because of the family fighting.

In the Steve Balmer era, though, as it became, I've been to Intuit once. I did a story for the Today Show before it opened about the Olympics and how we were going to have events there. But I haven't been to the Clipper games in this sort of tech Steve Balmer era very much. It's really disappointing. It's really disappointing that the team feels increasingly inaccessible when historically the team was the team of the working class in Los Angeles. Now it's going to be shitty, so it'll be free. Yeah, it'll be back to free. But yeah, I think he's banned from even showing up at games now for a year.

Yeah. Great. Yeah, this whole thing was very, very disappointing. And Pablo Torre, again, to echo you. Finds out. He won the Puyler's a prize last year. Unbelievable. That dude is incredible, and I'm proud to call him a colleague at MS.

Yeah, you know what? The sports reporters usually are in the can for the owners most of the time. And a lot of sports reporters were attacking him. it was really something to see. And even Mark Cuban also said he didn't have a story here and scammers. It was blamed it on a company that did this deal. And Mark said, congratulations, Bob. I mean, like, they all kind of called it wrong.

Maybe they couldn't conceive that Bomber would do this, but it looks like he's pushing, by the way, let me be a fair. He's pushing back and calling it a witch hunt, which just to me like, don't use that word, which is, you know, he's tried to become a civic-minded-looking, He does have a big charity here in L.A., and I do know that he spent, put a lot of money through his charity towards a lot of causes and they've renovated a lot of the parks here and stuff. It's not a good. It's not good, Steve. It's the old Steve. Old Steve is back. Anyway, prediction. Go ahead. We talked a little bit around it throughout our conversation, but I predict that we're going to see just an extraordinary flood of people come out to participate in the midterm elections more than we're anticipating the level of enthusiasm that have seen. the amount of people that I'm hearing from, just the vibes. Nobody's ever accused me of being a

particularly vibey person, but when I'm out and I'm around people these days, you can sense that something is going on. And people feel uneasy and people feel like they want to take control of their lives back. And I'm very eager to see how that actually manifests. But the prediction is, not only are people very pissed off, but they're finding ways, I think, hopefully, at the ballot box that they're actually going to actually, they're actually going to manifest all of that. Yeah. That's the only thing I believe in. his voters, honestly. I have to say if I had to pick anyone. Will Mitch McConnell be among them? He hasn't been seen in public for 80 days, and it's nearly been a month since his team provided

an update. Why aren't we even talking about that anymore? I'm so glad that you brought that up. It's true. Where is he? Where is he? Well, now Scott Jennings isn't sure he's coming back. Honestly, Scott. And speaking of soiling yourself over an issue, it's really astonishing. It's an astonishing thing that he's allowed to do this. I'm sorry if he's sick, but he should quit then if he's sick. I'm sorry if anyone is incapacity like that, even people I don't particularly like, but it's gross. I will, another interesting, I have a prediction, a short one about the speaking of Los Angeles, the Paramount Merger. It was sort of dueling handsome men stars, George Clooney, when asked about the Paramount Mergers said, I don't know how this goes through. There are so many

issues involved, adding, I always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it usually means a lot of people lose their jobs. He also defended Mark Ruff. against charges of anti-Semitism, the paramount level against it, which I think they overstepped in that regard. And then Tom Cruise came out for it saying it'll help people. And, of course, he's mobbed up with them in a really significant way. They pay for all his movies, including the Days of Thunder, which I'm looking forward to. I like Tom Cruise's movies. But I would say he has more at stake here from a financial interest to say to back them.

But it's really interesting that you have this kind of shift happening. I can't say unless there is a settlement, and I don't know why Rob Bonta would settle at this point. Right. He's accusing them of being liars and walked away from a meeting last week. He did. But, you know, tomorrow they could settle in seconds. But he has the upper hand now with this meta-settlement, which would make them look good. And he's showing that people can settle. He's willing to settle in the right terms. So it'll be interesting to see if they will present anything that's acceptable now to this group. They're trying to peel off attorney generals. I don't think they're peeling anytime soon. If they get one big deal.

But they shouldn't. They have the upper hand here. And so it'll be interesting to see if Clooney or Cruz will prevail here. I suspect Clooney might at this point. He's a pretty powerful figure in Hollywood still. Certainly everybody out here is watching that extremely closely. And in our line of work, too, you know, I think the biggest topic of conversation is the CBS, CNN. potential merger and...

Yes, I know. I live it every day. Exactly. And what that pretends have been following your journey in that regard. But Bonta told me when he was on my show, he's been on my show a bunch of times, it was one of the things that was front of mind for him. But again, he didn't put it in the case, which is interesting.

I think a lot of people are thinking about it. See, I can tell you they are. I just am articulating the mood inside, let me say. I don't think I'm aware. Some people see opportunity, as always, of people climbing up greasy poles love to see if they can get up higher. But I think most people are pretty, like, I don't think so,

especially after this recent terrible CBS story about Al-Said, which was entirely fictional. I don't know what else to say. That's what it was. So we'll see where it goes. But George Clooney is on the job, and I think he will top Tom Cruise in this regard. And even though I'm very excited about the new Days of Thunder with Anne Hathaway,

and I always love me a top gun, and I love me a mission impossible, but Tom, come on. You are actually supportive of workers. I'm surprised that you're pro-power in this situation. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever is on your mind and go to NYMag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 Pivot.

Okay, that is the show. Our last show of Scott Free August and couldn't have had a nicer guy with more magnificent hair to do that with. Scott is so jealous of your hair. Really well, honestly. It'll be a large topic. I'm telling you, propitia. And as a long-time listener, first-time caller, thank you so much for having me.

Of course. And thanks everyone to listen to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week with the return of Scott Galloway and watch a Jacobs show connect with Jacob Soberoff on MS Now. Scott will be back next Friday a week from today. So get ready, everybody. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman.

Ernie Anderjad engineered this episode. Nishak Kerwa is a box media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Box Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business and the return of Scott Galloway. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters.

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