Pivot - Crypto Pardon, Amazon Automation, and Reagan Tariff Ad

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss the Ronald Reagan tariff ad that got under Trump’s skin, and whether the U.S. and China will “consummate” the TikTok deal this week. Then, Binance’s founder gets a presidential pardon, and pledges to make America "the Capital of Crypto." Plus, Amazon’s automation push, and the repercussions of Argentina's election. We're going on tour! Get tickets at pivottour.com 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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You're going to be good. I'm going to let you talk and talk and talk, so you'll have a good time. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Tara Swisher, and I'm still in Korea. Are you enjoying yourself? Yeah, I am. I'm a year to get home.

I'm not a big traveler. I'm not a big traveler. I like home. You're not a big traveler. You travel all the time. I know, but I like home if I had to pick, if that makes sense. Does that make sense? Well, that's, I assume you're not.

It would be somewhat distressing if Amanda was listening, you said, yeah, I just, I like to be away from home. Well, she's been great. Whether that's true or not, that's the right thing to say. I miss home. I miss home wherever it happens. I can't stand my kids. And then about an hour into the drive of the airport, I start missing them. Oh, really?

I can stand my kids. I miss them a lot. Well, you're a much better parent than me. I am. You get my point. Do you want me to parent your kids if you'd like? No. Your wife is great.

I think it used to help. So what's the coolest thing you did in Korea? Well, today I was a robot. There are some new stuff around robotics and stuff that will help you walk and things like that. People wearing ectoskeletons. That was pretty cool. I'm trying to think what else.

I forget what I did like five hours ago. This is like, this is where I am. And it'll be interesting, the jet log coming back. Explain to me, Mr. World Travel, because I don't travel throughout the world like you do. What is the trick for jet lag? A Gulfstream. Okay.

Okay, barring that. What is it? Well, okay. So the basics are a ton of hydration. Try not to drink alcohol, which you don't. I try to, and I don't always do this, but I try, once I'm on the ground somewhere, I try to get some exercise or try to get some natural sunlight

or some fresh air. I try to sweat. I'll hit the gym, you know, right when I get there if I'm disciplined. I try to try to avoid alcohol and really salty foods. And then also, it's not organic. I take sleep aids with me. I think it's really important that you get some sleep. So if I can't sleep, I'll take a, you know, a lunesta or something.

I think the risk of quote-unquote pharmaceuticals are weighed by the risk of not getting sleep when you're on the road. Right, yeah. I think if there's anything, you know, I'm pretty focused on health and, you know, not lifespan, but health span. Travel has taken 10 years off my life.

For about 20, 30 years, I was literally molesting the planet. And I remember with my partner at L2 on Wednesday night of Thanksgiving, we take the overnight to Europe because we're like, Europe's open Thursday and Friday, and this is an opportunity for us to lap, our competition. And I would hit the ground, shower at the airport, work at 12 or 14 hour day, get five or six hour sleep, start over the next day, and then bomb to the airport and

come home. And that just takes a toll on you. So, you know, there's a few basics, but there's no, I don't think there's any silver bull. Yeah, thank God my skin looks fantastic from Korea. It does. Looks like a baby's bottle. I had something called, like, you're a school sonic or something. Anyway, I did the non-invasive stuff, which I thought was interesting. Oh, really? Yeah, I'm not, they They suggested Botox right here, but I'm not doing it. For the 11s? The 11s, yeah. I'm going to leave the 11s for now.

It's my favorite. Elevenths, yeah. I'm about to go get, I'm looking a little bit like the bride of Frankenstein. I'm about to go see. I'm going to New York on Wednesday, and I'll see Dr. Anilic, who does a few things to me and then charges me $6,000. Is this for your upcoming book tour, may I just say? Well, I do need to sell a lot of books.

I know, I know you do. I know. We're going to help you do that. I appreciate that. Yeah, I see him about once every two or three months. I get Botox and I get a laser. A laser. Well, you would have liked this.

There was a laser type thing that was like in my face, which was interesting. It didn't leave any, I'll tell you, it wasn't red or anything else. But they were lovely. And the thing is, everyone, actually, so many people have beautiful skin here all over the place. So it's kind of interesting. Koreans have beautiful skin? Yeah, they really, I mean, the skincare. Is it an absence of sun or just genetics?

I don't know. I just think it's just, they just have priority on health care. care. They really do compared to here. You know, Trump's coming here and I'm leaving. That's one of my favorite parts of this trip. He's going to Korea? Yeah. I bet he'll run up to the DMZ. I've purposely decided to avoid the news because I find now that watching the news is like being awake during surgery. It's just not very pleasant. Yeah. It's tough. As the news people fall one after the next in their kiss assery to the Trump people, but whatever. I'm going to get back to timing here. The weird thing is, I leave at 10 in the morning, and then I get back at 10 in the morning or nearby.

Oh, because you're going to cross the day line. So will you sleep tonight or just stay up and then get on the plane? I'll sleep on the plane. Let's see, I'll get up at 10. I'll want to sleep right away because I'm tired right now. But I don't know. I don't know. I guess I will.

I sleep when I sleep. That's the person I am. Like, if I'm tired, I'll sleep or else I'll just watch. And I'm fascinated with airline route. You go, is there a direct soul to D.C.? Yes, there is. There's one. Oh, that's awesome. I know. Yeah. So it's so it'll be, and I have a lie-down thing. So I think it'll be fine. I'll think it'll be fine. And then I watch a lot of dumb movies and stuff. So one of my first memories of you was we were doing, I think it was right after we'd started Pivot. And I got it invited to some conference to speak with you. I don't think we'd met in person or maybe we had once, like a DLD or something. And this very friendly woman comes running up to me and just like, hi, I don't know, Tammy, hi, Tammy, hi, Dad. And I'm like, oh, hi, Tammy. I had no idea she was.

And we were backstage, and I had a time of makeup artist and sound people and all the stuff. And there was an eight-year-old boy asleep on the couch. And I thought, that's kind of cute and kind of disturbing that someone brings their kid and then puts the kid to sleep in this couch. And it wasn't an eight-year-old boy. It was you. You had just decided to lay down on the couch and grab a couple Zs in the middle of all this. You can sleep. I can sleep anywhere.

I really can. It's a real talent. Anyway, I like it a lot. I like Korea a lot. I hope to come back. And are you coming here on your, let me just say for everybody, Scott's book comes out what day, November 3rd? Yeah, it comes out November, I think it's November the 4th. It's all right?

Notes on being a woman. Yes, no. There you go. That's your next book. That's what people are looking for for me. But it's coming out, and you're coming on my podcast. We're going to talk this week. That's right.

I just saw that on my counter. I'm going on with Caras Fisher. I feel like that's like, I have never stayed at your house. That's what this feels like. It feels very uncomfortable. I'm excited. It's pretty high up now. It's up in the top of the charts getting up there.

So I'll hope they'll sell books. But I'm excited to hear, I'm going to read the book. Oh, I have it on the plane. I'm going to read it on the plane. That's what I'll do. That's one of the things. That'll put me to sleep. Now I just want to know what it's like to be a man.

It'll be great. Someone asked me what my body count was, so I started counting and I fell asleep. Get it? Like counting sheep? I see. All right. You'll get there. You'll get there.

I know. I'm a little jell, like, no, I'm just tired. It just was a long day because I have to say the crews here and the people have been amazing. That's the one thing

that really lovely people and hopefully it'll turn out okay. TV always makes me, there's a lot of waiting in television. I'm kind of glad to be done with the taping this thing.

I was thinking about going to Korea for a scrotum lift. I think of it as low-hanging fruit. Oh, my God. All right. We're going to stop. Speaking of plastic surgery, which you love.

Did you hear about this? Tech pros are all getting plastic surgery. They're following in your footsteps. Some surgeons have seen five-fold increases in demand for men in tech in the last five years. Not a surprise, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. I don't think it's just men in tech, but apparently, so there's a lot of them procedures. Mini-face lifts, necklifts, that deep plane thing, eyelid lifts, to stay looking youthful in a competitive job market. I just didn't have any work done, but it's, you know, I'm not surprised.

Do you think are you surprised? No. I mean, I get, I've had, I get Botox, and I'm sure at some point I'll go into the knife. I think that, like, we're in a, we're in an ageist culture. I think some of that is good, and people want to feel youthful. And I think the standards in the benchmark, there are so many people out there now. I don't know if you've noticed, have you noticed this? It seems like every young person is hot.

No. between working out and skin treatments. In New York, all the young people are hot. I think the tunnels have some sort of x-ray or security posts where if you're not hot, you're not allowed into New York. But my sense is the aesthetic and the benchmark has gotten so.

Especially for men, right? For men, which is more common here, or Brazil or different play, or Brazil, I think. But I've noticed a lot younger and a lot, just the way they were in some other country. a lot younger and a lot more men. Well, that's the growth part, is that women have always been, look, men are disproportionately and I'm not fairly evaluated

on their economic viability, women on their aesthetics. So there's always been an emphasis, and women have always spent a disproportionate amount of time and money on aesthetics. The delta, the change, or the uplift in surgery is mostly coming from men, because a lot of, it used to be men had to retire at 65, and now they say, no, I want to come back,

Ben, Anita Donald Trump and fuck up Disney, and I'm 74, but I want to look 73, so I get surgery. So guys everywhere are getting, if you have, the bottom line is, the surgical techniques have gotten much better. And if why look 65, if you can look 57, and if you have money, and it's not that big of risk any longer? The question I have is, why wouldn't you? And some people say, well, I don't care. Do you really? Do you really not care what you look like? Yeah, yeah. Those neck things were men look better with the neck. I hate to say it. But I'm not a big, I don't like a lot of surgery. Although they, you know, it's gotten better and better. I mean, that deep plain thing. But the thing around the neck with the guys, I thought was really interesting is, you know, they look kind of jowly and then they don't.

It's a lower facelift. Yeah, I have less jowls. I was told by the skin people. I don't know as many jowls. Jowls are coming, of course. Or the thing around your eyes. sort of the eye sockets and the double folds and this and that, or the triple folds, the heavy eyelid. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, well, I didn't have any while I was here, but maybe you could want you come. Anyway. I'm all, I'm for it.

I'm a huge fan of it. So, speaking of Trump being here, he is actually coming Thursday. He's been in Asia striking all manner of deals, which we'll talk about in a second. He's pulling terrorists off, it looks like, or putting striking deals, but he said he's putting a 10% tariff on imports from Canada after already canceling trade talks, all because of a TV ad that had accurate audio of Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs. Trump called the ad, which was sponsored by the government of Ontario. That would be Doug Ford, a fraud, and a hostile act. The spot features excerpts from a 1987 Ronald Reagan radio address on foreign trade.

The audio is authentic, though it is a slightly different order from the original speech, but it's what he said the Reagan Presidential Foundation said the ad misrepresents Reagan words but as unexplained was misrepresented because I went back and listened to the original and it was the intent but so I guess they shouldn't have rearranged it

but let's listen to some of this ad when someone says let's impose tariffs on foreign imports it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time. But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens.

Market shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. I'll tell you it was nice hearing, a president who actually spoke in full sentences, a Republican one, Ontario's premier pulled the ad, but it did air in major U.S. markets over the weekend, including during the World Series. Talk about this from a marketing. This is this Doug Ford, who's this conservative, who's somewhat pro-Trump, as I recall, and now is sort of like, you know, smacking him around up there, up north. Talk about it from a marketing perspective, not so much the essence of these, because this is what Reagan thought, actually. But about doing this kind of things and why Trump is reacting like this. Well, look, I think Canada's never looked stronger. It's just strange to be rooting for the Blue Jays when they're playing my home team to Dodgers. It's just Canada, the U.S. strategy looks performative, faux masculinity, sclerotic. They're dictating trade policy off of commercials that antagonize the president. It's just, and Canada, I believe.

is our biggest trading partner. Some people would say it depends on how you can, and it should be Mexico. But, I mean, one of the biggest problems we have in the United States is housing. And unfortunately, because of nimbiasm and incumbents who control the government, we're fond of regulations that make it harder

for the entrance to buy a home. And so we've let homes go from 290 to 410. And the, you know, two of the largest inputs are gypsum drywall, which comes from Mexico, and lumber, which comes from Canada. So we're going to make homes more expensive unnecessarily. And Canada just looks more consistent and unafraid. And I think this has been, I think this has bolstered the brand of Canada.

I think they will end up, this will absolutely impact their economy negatively for three or four years. They will figure out different trade routes. Which they are trying, of course, which right now. Carney's headed to Asia, as we speak. And there's no shortage of other. export nations that'll say, you know what, we have really good products here too, and we're going to do it at zero tariff, and let's strengthen the relationship between Canada and Asia and Latin

America. And then those relationships will be really hard to undo. And the next administration, and I'm trying to manifest this, is going to have to go on essentially a 48-month apology tour. And regardless of how effective that is, there's no way we're going to be able to compensate for the destruction to these 80-year trade alliances that has taken place. over the last, you know, 10 months. This is just, no one likes to be insulted or have economic warfare. And why this is just so incredibly stupid

is, I'll just use an example, the Kentucky bourbon industry is basically going to be wiped off the map if they're not careful. So they have stopped buying Jack Daniels. Do you know the margins? The margins on lumber are probably like 10 to 30 percent. The operating margins are probably high single digits.

Those companies don't trade a big multiples. The public traded lumber companies, if there are any. Whereas alcohol trades at 90, alcohol commands 90 points of margin. The majority of restaurants, the kind of the ugly secret of restaurants, is they try to break even on the food and they make all their money on the alcohol. Because they'll charge you 14 bucks for a maker's mark in ginger ale, and it costs them about 60 cents. And so that's where they make all their margin. And we have some of the best alcohol brands in the world. And when we import them into Canada and they say no, it's not typically.

If we reduce our exports by a dollar by declaring trade war, and they reduce, their exports go down a dollar, it's not dollar for dollar, because our margins on our products tend to be higher. One of the things is interesting to me is, you know, from a marketing perspective, Reagan used to be the gold standard of Republicans, right? And, you know, we're showing our age. We remember the age of Reagan, which wasn't as great as people are now making out to be. Although some of these speeches are terrific, especially the immigration one, which is one of

his last speeches. But, you know, the marketing strength of Ronald Reagan is over, Mr. Morning in America, which is very different from Make America Great Again, right, in terms of, that was some marketing expertise, the Reagan administration. But it doesn't work, I guess, except to irritate Donald Trump. I mean, he was an actor, and he was very handsome. And regardless of some of his policies, I mean, I like Ronald Reagan, and it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but he refused to use the word AIDS. And in a period where, anyways, we have a tendency to decide people in history are either very, very good or very, very bad. And because history is sort of a crude, blunt instrument. But, I mean, if you think about, there are no more Republicans. Yeah. He was

brand Republican forever, right? And that's, what is that? It's fiscal responsibility. Okay, that's gone out the windows. Seven trillion dollars in deficits from George Washington and George Bush. Since then, it's been $30 trillion. And a Republican tried to convince us, and we believed him, that we could go to war and cut taxes at the same time. That was W. And since then, Democrats and Republican administration since then have said to the children that are the United States voter right now, no, you can stay up until 2 a.m. and eat sugar and not have dinner, and you don't have to go to school tomorrow, and nothing bad will ever happen. So Americans have gotten used to spending $7 trillion on $5 trillion and believing that everything will be okay.

So fiscal responsibility was a touchstone of Republican administrations. That's gone. A low involvement or less involvement, not overarching government, combined with personal liberty. And that was, you get to make these decisions and government should not be in your life. And we now have a government, which is essentially a cross between socialism and cronyism. And that is, the government is very involved in corporate decisions, but it's based on who he likes or doesn't like, who Curry's favor with him or doesn't. That could not be more, that could not be more non-Republican. So the notion, I mean, it's the Democrats who on economic policy and individual rights appear to be more Republican.

If I could go back in time. And the Canadians. Well, look, Teddy Roosevelt was all about the environment. everything is upside down right now, an embrace of foreign relationships, non-protectionism, was a very Republican thing. Well, speaking of which, on the other tariff front, though, U.S. and Chinese officials have reached yet another framework of a deal of, and 100 percent tariffs that Trump threatened to impose Taco Trump.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who really is sort of lost, it seems to be undignified. Now, also said on Face the Nation that Trump and Xi are set to finalize. a TikTok deal this week. Let's listen to how he talked about this. We reached a final deal on TikTok. We'd reached one in Madrid, and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction on Thursday in Korea. I'm getting the hell out of Korea before consummation. Let's hope not.

So there's that happening, which I think something you talked about needing to happen, the Chinese, to come to terms with China. Yeah, but I don't know what that means. What if they have a commercial that pisses them off on the way over? And that 100% tariff, and I think that they, you know, China definitely has its own problems. But, I mean, what you have to, when you're establishing or trying to understand a battle in doing our game theory, you've got to look at the strengths they have that you don't have. And China has the advantages of an authoritarian government where the autocrat has established power for the next 10, 20, 30 years.

He's consolidated power. They have the CCP, I don't know if it's unpopular or popular, but I don't think it's very unpopular. The economy there has struggles. But the Chinese, the Chinese to a certain extent, have the same advantage that the Russians have in Ukraine, and that is their willingness to endure and inflict pain on their populace for long-term interests. Americans, if, you know, if AWS goes out and Netflix goes down, the whole nation freaks out. China is absolutely willing to put companies out of business. It's willing to decrease their prosperity, but it's not going to be pushed around by America.

And also, we have a tendency to think, this administration anyway, that it's the biggest, it's the biggest customer, you know, rolling up to the bar. We're the third largest trading partner. They do more trading. They do association for South Asian nations is their largest trading partner. The second largest, they do more trade with the EU than they do with the U.S. And they have already vastly decreased the percentage of trade going to the U.S. So he shows up.

And again, this is just a separate. a common error in judgment and in strategy, he shows up thinking he has cards he doesn't have. And Americans, if inflation pops to 5% or 6% here, Americans are going to freak out. They could go to 15% in China and the people, the Chinese government has killed tens of millions of its own people or let them starve for what they perceive to be national interests.

So to think that he can show up and muscle them around, he is totally miscalculating and misappraising his adversary over there. So I don't trust him nor any of his team to get a deal done or, you know, quote unquote, a framework. Right, framework of a deal, yet another. Well, wasn't it, what's happening with TikTok? Right. I mean, I don't know.

Well, they said it's consummated or going to consummate it or whatever. They're going to fuck each other. I don't know with why he used that word, but presumably it's going to lay Ellison, as is everything. It's apparently in media. This is the most important element of Allison's burgeoning media empire, of course. You know, what's going to happen here. But I don't know what it means. I guess they're just decided, give it to them, what's the difference, right? Like, we don't need this. And if we can get everything else. I mean, there was an interesting, I've read a lot of the analysis of this. And basically, what they've decided to do as every other

leader, including leader of Japan, is to flatter him, to compliment him, and then get what you want, right, essentially, and which is kind of depressing, like they've just figured him out pretty easily. And we'll see, the Chinese, you're absolutely right are in it for the long haul. So we'll see what they have to say. You know, it'll be in it, the TikTok thing is what I'll be paying attention to, but we'll see if they do something. What I think Trump is trying to do. It's so interesting because presidents all start out locally. and end up in foreign places doing these trips. And I think Trump is very comfortable acting like he's a big BMOC across the world, essentially.

And so these leaders have figured out a way to please him. It's kind of sad. It's like pleasing an old man, like, let's pet him and this and that. So we'll see. We'll see what happens here. Here's my prediction. He's going to go up to the DMZ and go visit his friend in North Korea. So we'll see.

He's so close. I can't imagine he would, you know, he keeps talking about him. He talks about him in a nicer way than he talks about other Americans, which is really kind of depressing given he's a dictator and not just an autocrat even worse than that. Those are his role models. He's very much about strength. And again, he conflates, he conflates strength with coarseness and cruelty and authoritarianism. And that's not, it's just a terrible, it's a terrible, and the problem is he's been successful in the short term at it.

He's won the presidency twice. Everybody's falling in line behind him. And it's out of the authoritarian playbook. Reward the people who are loyal to you, punish severely, the people who aren't loyal to you. And the 53 Republican senators are all going along with it, as are the majority of the House representatives. There's been a few notable breaks. Senator Paul is questioning us bombing boats. We spend a trillion dollars on our military that's supposed to be so lethal, and yet we're not pushing back on a murderous autocrat.

In Europe, we've decided to bomb fishing boats. Anyway, we're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, this is a story that I think is not getting nearly enough attention. We'll discuss the latest crypto pardon. This episode is brought to you by Square. You're not just running a restaurant. You're building something big. And Square's there for all of it.

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Scott, we're back. President Trump has pardoned Shangping Zhao, better known as CZ, the founder of the crypto exchange finance. CZ pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws and served four months in a federal prison while finance paid $4.3 billion to settle with the Justice Department. CZ has been working on a pardon for months. There seems to be a playbook here with the Trump people, hiring lobbyists with ties to Trump and making podcasts appearances praising the president.

Finance is also a key backer of the Trump families. This is the key one, crypto venture, world liberty financial, and helped launch its stable coin earlier this year. In a post on X, CZ said he was grateful to Trump had pledged to help make America the capital of crypto. I assume Sam Bankman-Fried is next. What do you think of this? Because we've been talking a lot about how this focus on crypto with his family. sort of larding itself over in money and just money, really.

I think it's important to understand why CZ was incarcerated. And he was incarcerated because Binance was found guilty of laundering money. And that sounds somewhat innocuous. But according to the Department of Treasury, Binance failed to report the following. Transactions associated with terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic jihad, millions of dollars in ransomware transactions, Benance is one of the largest receivers of ransomware proceeds,

transactions associated with child sexual abuse materials. So people hear about sextortation and think that is the most heinous crime ever. Well, folks, there's a technological infrastructure behind it, and money laundering with funds that can't be tracked is part of it. And then transactions associated with drugs, fraud, and other illegal contraband. His official charges were again around money laundering, and he'd served four months, and Binance was barred from operating the U.S., but here's what they did.

Binance received a $2 billion investment from the Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX, and then Binance decided to accept the investment via World Liberty Financial U.S.D.1 stable coin, which, by the way, was controlled and still, and the majority stake is still connected in World Liberty Financial, U.S.D.1, is still connected to the financial wealth and buttressing the financial wealth of the Trump of Trump and his family, which owns 38% of World Liberty Financial. So put another way, make me richer, and I will let the person that a judge and jury and our institutions decided to incarcerate because he was facilitating transactions to terrorists and people engaged in child sex exploitation, I'm letting that

person out if you agreed to make me and my family richer. And because this feels very circular and complicated and we're so busy watching stupid fucking videos of a construction project at Pennsylvania Avenue, we don't, we don't ignore, we take our eye off the ball. There's going to be more kids who are going to be in scams, send naked pictures of themselves, and then be extorted, and then potentially engage in self-harm because the people on the other end can find a means of transacting these payments and this exploitation. You know, if you're watching a bond movie, Seizie's the one he ends up golfing in the end. Like, he's the money laundering, you know, mogul, essentially.

And so this was a criminal act, this guy. We're bombing fishing boats. Most people in crypto think this, too, by the way, FYI. So it's sort of a, you know, they've just decided crypto good no matter what. And it's like saying banking good or whatever. There's all kinds of bankers that are culpable in these kind of things, by the way. It's not just limited to crypto. But this is just, this was such a straight line grift.

It's just like absolutely out in the open. And everything's out, you know, even if, you know, I agree with you, with all the hand waving around the White House thing, which I'll talk about later, but it's really, this one really deserves more attention, especially for what, what this company did, you know, this company did. And I assume Sam Bankren Fried is next, who is comparatively minor compared to this guy, right? He was, that was just your basic. I made a mess. I didn't realize that that was his excuse. But there's a whole way to get a, pardon from Trump. Yeah, but he doesn't have the power right now. FTCS doesn't have the platform or the power to make the Trump's rich. This is, to a certain extent, there's sort of, I don't want to call it, low calorie corruption, but when Eric goes over and says, build a hotel and give me better financing terms and finance it, somebody still has to build the hotel.

There is some risk. It's corruption, but what they found is if we're going to be corrupt, let's just figure out a way to pump up a synthetic current. that has no value underlying utility. And then we don't even have to report when we sell it. And nobody has to operate it. And we don't even have to pretend that we know how to be in the hospitality business. We don't have to build it.

We just get people to basically funnel money into it, massively inflate the market. We sell. Nobody even knows we've sold. And boom, this is the most elegant, clean, frictionless form of corruption. So they're like, okay, Nancy Pelosi that does insider trading, but you have to report those trades. Okay, Trump who gets of 747, we actually see the 747, he's got to fly it around, he's got to justify it. No, this is easier. Nobody even really, there's no records of this.

As far as we know, we think they've made $3 to $5 billion off these crypto scans, but it's even hard to tell how much money they've meant. We don't know how to connect it to. We know when the Qatari government says give us, give us NATO-like protection, after giving the president a $400 million plane, we can connect. the dots. But when he launches a meme coin and someone calls him and says, FYI, tomorrow I'm going to buy a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars worth of Trump coin, which will take the price up. And if you want to sell some, that's your business, Mr. President. But in addition, would you mind not shipping Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for a while? We're not able to connect

those dots. There's no public filing disclosure. You know what? Actually, I've heard from a lot of people. A lot of people in crypto don't love all this stuff because agreed. The hammer is going to come down on this industry again. I thought the Biden administration was too slow to embrace some of the good parts of it. I would, I talked to a lot of crypto people. And the reason was because it has such a proclivity towards what you were just talking about, money laundering and sexual abuse and terrorism and payoffs and stuff like that in terms of the ability to disappear a lot of these transactions. But it was on its way, you know, and Biden was unnecessary. Biden administration was unnecessarily harsh on this group of people. But I think an abundance of caution, I don't think it was a particular hostility to it. It was just more of the worries about the downside versus the upside. And I just feel like the hammer will come down on this industry after this is all over. And the second part is, I've been told by a lot of tech people that there are people monitoring what is happening here.

and there are ways to follow the money. There's always ways, and quietly they're doing that. And eventually, some of these people are going to pay. I will see. But, you know, just all you have to do is pay this guy off to get out. And speaking of which, the one that also troubled me was tech and business leaders are getting credit for coordinated effort to stop Trump from sending troops to San Francisco. Mayor Daniel Lurie reportedly worked with Sam Altman, Jensen Wong, Mark Benioff,

and others to get the president to reconsider. Trump acknowledged a lobbying in a true social post saying he got calls from friends of mind that decided not to surge San Francisco, as he put it. I find this repulsive, this strategy, is that, you know, I'm not, you know, I've been in touch with Benioff recently about this whole thing with the troops. And he knows what I think, which is that he should have never called for them. But none of you get a thank you for telling a bully not to do something that's stupid, right? I don't want my democracy to be run because these guys can call them up or go to a dinner or give him money.

But, you know, this was the wrong thing to do for all these cities, including San Francisco. And the fact that the only way it gets saved is these guys call them. Like, what in the world? No one's making decisions based on the right thing to do. It's based on these incredibly powerful people who have access. And then the regular Americans don't have access. to make their argument one way or the other. But this is, this is a, I find this truly disturbing.

And, you know, none of them has said, you should thank me, Kara, because I'd be like, go fuck yourself. Like, how dare you? That this is the way things are done. I just, I find it something quite vague, just disturbing about this, this is how, this is how it's done, done, as they say in K-pop Demon Hunters.

But Mary Lurie trying to enlist local business, people, to lobby the president, to not send in the National Guard and create disruption and terrorize local residents. Cudis to him, I think that's the right thing to do. The problem is they're operating in a context that's illegal and non-American, and that is Barry Goldwater said this, he said, we're placing too much power in the office of the presidency. The whole point of a democracy is you have a diffuse sense of power such that there's checks and balances, and that, unfortunately, you don't go as fast.

but it prevents the tragedy of the commons. And when, if you're gonna send in the National Guard into cities, there needs to be some sort of oversight, or there needs to be some sort of legal justification or systemic laws that say, this is when the National Guard can be sent into a city and what his mission is, not, well, I don't like the mayor here,

I don't like the governor here, or Epstein's starting to creep back into the news, I need to launch a National Guard or pulse the National Guard into a city. This is, I mean, it's just, So I can't imagine, and I don't know how much of it, I'm convinced now that, you know, I've said this before, we're just going to be so angry

at the mind control that these algorithms have over us, and we don't even realize how much. The most upsetting things I see, I think, is that true? Is that all of that footage of ICE agents? I just find it, the idea that these guys are in masks, the idea, there's a basic principle that is so core through our democracy and what is wonderful about America. And that we target and reward people based on their behavior,

not their identity. And that is we say, OK, if you're a gay woman and you're great at what you do when you take risks, you can make a lot of money and have a nice life here. And we aren't going to start rounding up people or asking them, are you born here, which the ICE agents are doing, because they're brown. when they're on their way inside, on their way inside to, you know, Kroger's.

Yeah, yeah, every one of these agents seems like a brute, right? I feel like I'm in some, like, Stephen Seagall movie with bad people. Like, you know, the way they're talking to people and how the masks and the, they look like they've had way too many steroids every one of them. Like, it feels so villainous. And it's either villainous or you've got to be a rich guy to get through. And it does feel, and un-American. When I heard that, that Sam Altman had to call him to call him off, that's our line of defense, not because it's not going to, I just was like, this is ridiculous.

Well, it kind of goes to the same thing now where because of the government shutdown, rather than saying, okay, there's a government shutdown, you need to negotiate with a co-equal branch of government. It's like, no, I'll just get my rich friend to pay the military and the people I like in the government. This is not how you're supposed to run a government where individuals, where the president, gets to decide, you know, who in the government gets paid and who doesn't, and he can call someone and say, hey, I look really bad here. Can you give me $100 million? And by the way, wink, wink, I'll make it up to you with a series of laws that transfer wealth from small and medium-sized businesses and your competitors to you. That is, and over the, it might even not impact the economy that much in the short run because the economy turns on. But what it does

over the long term is a lot of people don't want to invest here, a lot of people don't want to immigrate here. A lot of people don't want to start businesses because they're worried that they're not going to be protected by the rule of fair play and law. I don't think Americans realize how many really talented people come here and how much capital comes here because they feel that there is a rule of fair play here. That their business, there isn't going to be a phone call. I met, I met a guy that I met this Russian kid who came over here and he'd started one of those home delivery companies and he made a bunch of money. He was a successful entrepreneur in Russia. He had wonderful life, I said, why do you move here?

He said, you live in fear in Russia that someone you don't even know makes a call and your business is done the next day. And you don't even know who made the call. And that's what's effectively we're headed that way. Right, I know. I just, for some reason, it's just stuck in my craw. Thank God, Benyuff didn't text me like, you want to say thank you. I'd be like, go fuck yourself.

I don't mean that, Mark. But honestly, seriously, this is not the way it should be done. Speaking of things that are, another thing that is speaking of robots, which I'm just, I'm seeing a lot of robot companies here, by the way. Amazon executives believe the company can replace more than half a million warehouse jobs with robots, because this is where it's heading. I'll go into it in a second with robots over the next several years, according to internal documents obtained by the New York Times. Documents show Amazon's robotics team has an ultimate goal to automate 75% of its operations. I bet it's even higher. They reveal Amazon is planning to manage public backlash

by promoting a, quote, good corporate citizen image, participating in community events like parades and toy drives. Executives also discussed stitching words like automation and AI instead using advanced technology and co-bots, collaborative robots. Amazon says the documents viewed at the times were incomplete and did not reflect its overall hiring strategy. Let me tell you, years and years ago, and I was looking for the pictures,

I was going to show it to some people here, after Amazon bought Kiva, which was, I thought, a critical purchase at the time. It was a logistics. It was a robotic. It moved things around the factory. And Amazon, for some reason, invited me in to see the factory. And I went to see it and watched these Kiva. I think they were Kiva-powered robots moving stuff around.

And they had people in the factory, but a lot of it was automated, obviously. And it's pretty cool when you see them put on labels or put on whatever. It was quite an automated factory. And I guess publicly, I said, they're moving towards no people in these warehouses. This was about 10 years ago. You could see, they're so smart. You could see what they were doing, right? And I remember one of the Kennedys who was representing Massachusetts, I can't remember which one it was,

was saying, oh, they're going to put an Amazon warehouse in my district. I'm like, they're not going to have people in it. And I remember Amazon being calling me and saying, don't be saying that. And I'm like, but it, that's what, it seems so obvious to me. And so this is where they're going with these. There will be no people in Amazon warehouses or very few people. And then pretending otherwise seems kind of ridiculous because they've really, they're really quite good at it.

And they're a logistics company more than a commerce company. And here in Korea, I was just in a thing called Robot Valley. I mean, robotics do not get enough attention compared to AI, but AI combined with robotics is really like one of these amazing and also terrifying breakthroughs for humanity, it seems to me, but I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I agree with you. It's a similar issue to all these data centers that Congress people are excited to get in their district, but the reality is you could turn the lights up during the day because there's nobody working there. There's some labor involved in building these things. But once they're up and running, they're just a huge. draw on the local electric or power supply, and they don't create a lot of jobs. I think robots and automation are in many ways, it's always the shit you're not expecting that impacts you to the upside and the downside. I actually think the more important technology of the next 24 months, that would be the best bet for America is not GPT-5. I think it's

GLP-1. I think that would be a better bet for America if they put GLP1 in the hands of every an obese person and a long-income home. And I think robotics, to your point, are in some ways more important than AI because I think that Jeff Bezos and Dara Kasashahi dream of a lack of drivers and factory workers. I think they think, okay, think about the majority of the bad press that Amazon has probably received in the last 10 years. A lot of it is stories of these delivery men in vans who have pee bottles and aren't paid work. warehouses or what... And have to hit quotas and have health insurance.

And I got to be honest, I'm here for it. I want, I would love to see AI pilots and planes. If you look at the majority of... And it won't happen because of psychological reasons, but if you look at the majority of plane crashes and there's very few, they're almost always pilot error. And so there will be job creation, though. There will be people that have to program and build these things

and service them. It'll be a higher wage job. But the story of America is that, the low-wage, low-value-ad production jobs slowly but surely get screened out as we move from an agrarian to a manufacturing to a services to a quote-unquote innovation economy. I think it's a good thing. The problem with America is that we're not very good at retraining and supporting the people on the wrong end of that trade. We're very much winners and losers. Like, sorry, boss, it's the hunger games here. But I think it'll be America, actually, if you look at the economy right now, it's a giant

bet on AI, but there has been some real investment in manufacturing of our industrial base. And I think the only way we compete with China is to have these types of factories. Oh, China's way ahead on this stuff. I mean, all of Asia is in a lot of ways. And again, AI gets all the attention, but AI combined with robotics is really, there can be, let me say, there's sort of a thing called human-centric robots where it's not replaced, not just getting our coffee and this. It's called a sex doll. Okay. That's right where you go to. But I'm talking, what I'm The stuff, I was the exoskeletons to help people walk better, to help the elderly, like, eventually, there's all manner.

And one of the things, I had a really interesting discussion with Alex, who is a mechanical engineering student. And he's like, why do robotics have, like, Elon Musk is, they laugh at Elon Musk here in Korea, I have to tell you. Because he's like going, I'm going to make optimist, going to make these, you know, humanoid robots. They don't have to look like humans. Like, the real changes are in places like what Amazon has done. which is they're robots. They're just not the robots you think of from science fiction. You know, doing a hand.

Like, Alice was like, why does a dog walking robot have to look like a person? In fact, that's hard. They fall over the hand. It's funny. Like, it can look at, like, automation is a very, and I think actually, automation is the right word, right? That's actually, instead of calling an advanced technology, it's automation. But there's all kinds of ways robotics.

going to affect us, and especially when it's, now, like this one thing I was wearing, it uses AI to collect data in real time about my body movements, which would then calculate how these robots should be adjusted per person in real time. And it used to be, they'd have to be adjusted individually, but they don't have to anymore. Same thing with cars, same thing. So the combination is really both deadly to jobs and at the same time, breath taking in terms of savings, like what it's going to do. So each year, and this is a thinly veiled ad, I do my predictions deck. And that is sometime in November, I put together a deck and I say, these are my predictions

for the oncoming year in society, stock market, technology. And each year, I pick one of the big tech companies, one of the magnificent 10 or one of the big four, actually, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Alphabet. And I say, this will be the best performing stock. And this is why. Last year I picked Alphabet. It's up 60% in the last year. This year, thank you, pat myself on the back.

This year, my pick is probably going to be Amazon. And that is it hasn't, it actually hasn't performed very well the last couple of years. But traditionally, their margin expansion has been powered by AWS and the unsung hero of the business, and that is Amazon Media Group running the ads on the platform. And they force retailers to run ads, and it's very high margin. Now, the margin expansion is happening in retail. For over a decade, fulfillment and shipping costs balloon more quickly than sales, decreasing margins, and then that reversed two years ago. And retail sales are now growing faster than shipping costs.

That's because they got everybody to use prime, right? They got everybody in on it. They were losing money on prime, I assume. But also because robotics and the huge investment they've made in robotics is finally delivering operational leverage. Amazon expects to save about, I think, about $13 billion from 2025 to 2027 as a result of automation. And assuming no change in Amazon's enterprise value to EBIT to multiple, as you can tell me, I know a lot of work on this, that translates to roughly $200 billion extra in enterprise value. Plus, it expects to sell twice as many products by 2033.

I think all the investments they've made in automation coupled with robotics and AI, they're about to get huge leverage. So whereas ads in AWS have added all the margin, I actually think retail is about to be where they expand their margins. That's interesting. I think it's going to go across the entire country, actually. When I one time I was visiting Kentucky, and they were talking about Silicon hauler and all this stuff and bringing back coal. Remember Trump was a big back coal. And I stood up and I said, they're going to bring it by robots. What do they need you for? Like, you get sick. You have, like, you get, it's bad for you to be mining coal. And I, again, I was cut off. Like, don't say that. I'm like, well, of course they're going to use robots, like,

or whatever, automation. I don't care what word you use. But what's astonishing is how good Korea and China and all these countries are. And they're really making investments in robotics. And you're absolutely right. Amazon has been far ahead of any other, there are lots of manufacturing. That's how we return with manufacturing, but it's not going to be with people at all. But I would describe the last few years in terms of robotics as relates to the retail as the investment phase.

And it hasn't delivered, it's been expensive and it hasn't delivered the leverage yet, but I think that's pivoting and switching. And the stock, even though it's up 20% in the last year, it's underperformed its competitors. Amazon typically trades at a five-year average P.E. Multiple of 60, and right now it's trading at 34. Anyways, I think those, I think that leverage, the fact that it's reasonably priced.

Anyways, I'm excited about, I'm excited about Amazon over the next 12 months. Oh, I'm glad you've been focused on this. This is interesting. Anyway, let's go on a quick break, and we come back. We'll talk about Argentina's election results. Support for the show comes from AG1. Getting through your daily routine can leave you pretty drained by the end of the day. AG1 is looking to help you keep your energy less so you don't completely collapse when the sun starts to set.

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Scott, we're back with more news. The payoff of Donald Trump to help the Argentinian economy has helped. Argentina's president, Javier Malay's party swept the country's midterm elections winning 40% of the votes. They had to get above 35, compared it with around 24% for the main oppositions, which are the peronists who had been running Argentina badly for many years. President Trump endorsed Malay earlier this month and said a $20 billion currency swap bailout from the U.S. was contingent on his midterm success. Trump took truth social to congratulate Malay, saying he's making us all look good and don't worry about the cost of the bailout list. in the comforting words of Treasury,

the thirstiest Treasury Secretary of Ever seen, Scott Bessent on Meet the Press this weekend. It is America First because we are supporting a U.S. ally. There will be no taxpayer losses. This is a swap line. This is not a bailout. Well, this is working. I mean, this helped, I think, quite a bad in the thing.

And there's been a lot of pain what he's doing. some of which is, it should have happened because Argentina has had like enormous inflation and things like that, but he's doing it in sort of this incredibly brutal way. So how, talk about this. Explain what Bessett was saying here, well, this is a swap line.

This is not a bailout. Well, I believe we're just exchanging dollars for pesos, but the peso has the habit of totally crashing and devaluing. It has been a fucking disaster. despite an incredible blessing of natural resources, really good universities, an amazing culture, great natural resources. They have just been fucked over and over

by kind of socialist corrupt governments. The country has entered into IMF rescue programs 23 times since 1956, more than any other nation. This nation has been bailed out more times than any other nation by the IMF. The most recent major IMF loan to Argentina was for $57 billion in 2018, and it failed to stabilize the economy and led to a default just two years later. Over the past 50 years, Argentina has defaulted nine times.

So basically every five and a half years, this country defaults, which has resulted in constant hyperinflation and peso devaluation. In the past year alone, the peso has fallen more than 350 percent against the U.S. dollar. I guess the way to say that is the U.S. dollars increased 350 percent against the peso. So, and this is, let's call this for what it is. This is Trump bailing out one of his friends. Yeah. And major... Same thing.

Like, same thing. But it's not even about Malay. It's about Rob Citrone, a longtime associate of Treasury Secretary of dissent who runs a hedge fund and has significant exposure to Argentine bonds and stocks. And what does it do? Again, this is about fucking corruption. The bailout props up these prices, offering a crucial window or exit to mark up the investments of his buddy who will make a huge donation to the Trump campaign.

Stan Drucken-Miller, Bessent's former mentor at Soros Fund Management, is also involved, whose Duquesne family office was recently disclosed as the second largest investor in Argentina's main exchange traded fund. Citrone, meanwhile, has made Argentina his biggest bet in Latin America. This is just, you're, this is literally an orgy of corruption. It really is. It's just.

And we're the ones that get like a five, dollar tip and have been fucked so many ways and we just leave the party, you know, you know, naked and like abused. And that's basically anyone that doesn't get to hang out in the mansion who's not willing to fillate the big fat man. I mean, it's just to think that this isn't going to cost other hedge funds looking for true alpha and looking for investments, to think that somehow we're not going to end up bailing them out again. And to think about how just moronic this is, We put a tariff on China, which makes no sense. They're smart.

They go, I know, I'm going to go for your heart and lungs. I'm going to go after the red states and the people who voted for you four to one, the farmers. And we're going to stop buying all of your soybeans. Those farmers go out of business, right? And who do the Chinese get their soybeans from now? Argentina, where we're... Soybean farmer. We're getting...

Did you see that Bessent calling himself a soybean farm? Yeah, he's a soybean. He's worth a half a billion dollars. Yeah, he's literally... You are my wife? Goodbye, city life. Anyone who's not real old like us doesn't get that. That's Green Acres.

Yeah, doesn't get that. By the way, that guy, that guy, what was his name? Eddie Albert, he was a very successful spy, a true patriot. That guy was an, that guy led a very impressive life. And yet he ended up on Green Acres. And it was Eva Gaboor. Farm living is the life for me. That was right before the Beverly Hillbillies.

Oh, my God. I had that whole song. in my fucking head. Anyway, go ahead. And it was what we were talking about, the orgy of corruption, we're bailing out, we're punishing farmers with sclerotic trade policy and then taking money and sending it to the new trades, the new supplier of soybeans, Argentina. That money, it's unlikely, Argentina needs structural reform. To Malay's

credit, he is implementing structural reform. He is, I think he's kind of exactly what Argentina needed. He would have won without Trump, but because of Trump, I think he got more seats, more total power. And I think you can pretty much write off prediction. You can write off 30 of that $40 billion. It's gone. Nothing's going to get in the way of the pace of devaluation over the short term. This is an economy of structural issues. I hope they come out of it. I was an investor in a company that used to hire these amazing engineers from the Cordova University or University in Cordova, Argentina. And the funniest thing was we had a down quarter and we were cutting the budget.

It was coming called Olipik, which we ended up selling. It was a big win. Three really super intelligent guys, two Spaniards, one Argentinian guy. And the Argentinian guy was in charge of the engineering team. And we could get great engineers for like $40,000 instead of $140 or $2.40 outside of Cordoba. And the only line item that we could never cut was the Asato budget. That was beef. Every Friday, they had Asado, they had beef for all of the engineers, and that was like the only thing you were never allowed to touch.

This was the key to the entire culture was their beef. Well, you know, when I was looking at that before the seven, besides the Trump pay up, I think it did help him. I think absolutely the money that he was getting from Trump. But one of the things was, if it was like, oh, he's going to lose. I'm like, but the choices, the peronists were terrible, like 80 years of shitty management. I don't see that being the option. So he was the only option in a lot of ways, even though it's taking his toll. He's also crazy.

Like, he seems insane. But, you know, there you go. There you have it. We'll see what happens there. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here.

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or in magazine. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Well, my fail, it's a specific

issue of a much larger trend that has become the zeitgeist in our economy, and that is the NBA gambling scandal. Oh, yeah. So Miami Heat Guard, Terry Rozier, I believe his name is in Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups, were among 30 arrested in an FBI investigation that uncovered a poker rigging and a legal betting ring. Many politicians, as well as the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, have increased calls to Congress to Titan regulations around sports gambling. Since the 2018 Supreme Court decision overturning a federal law that prohibits sports betting outside of Nevada, 38 states have legalized gambling on sports. By the way, the first thing that

happens when you legalize, when you legalize betting in a state is bankruptcies go up 20 to 30 percent. Wagers on sports hit 160 million last year, making it larger than the lottery. One in four adults say they personally bet money on sports. And by the way, last year, one in two men just bet on the Super Bowl. And one in 10 U.S. adults have placed a bet using an online sports book. Despite the proliferation, Americans see betting is a bad thing. Forty-three percent of U.S. agree that legal sports betting is a bad thing for society compared to just 34% who agreed three years ago. And this, it preys on, and I don't want infantilize young men, but they're more risk-aggressive. And when you put a dope-a-hit and betting in their pocket, it is in God-like technology.

And basically every ad now, when you turn on this TV to watch Premier League, is 10 pounds free when you sign up for 25 pounds. And folks, they make it impossible to win over the long term. If you're good at it, they basically don't let you bet anymore. And the newest trend in sports betting, which will probably have the greatest appreciation of market cap in private companies, is predictions markets. And currently, the case is making its way through the courts to decide the future of sports betting on prediction markets. And prediction market weekly volume is about $2 billion, with about a fifth of the coming

from sports betting, the highest category volume. Anyways, but on a bigger level, a meta level, it's, it essentially is more indicative of our economy, and that is we're, we're, we're, the economy now resembles Vegas and that the house. Yeah, it's not a thing. It's just betting. It's like crypto. It's not a thing. It's not a making a thing. It's a, it's something else. What would you call it? It's an economic activity. It's just not productive. Well, the house has always win. And the machines are narrative. Platforms, hot tech IPOs, meme coins, dudes and hoodies pitching the next big thing. Oh, this is your new. And its value, our value in the economy now is not derived from character or hard work. It's from attention and speculation rather than goods and services.

And then the traditional levels of power, business innovation, labor productivity, real estate growth, they all recede. And young people no longer aspire. So empty calories is what you're saying. Yeah. And they don't develop the means. They don't develop the will. and they don't develop the patience for enduring value. Why?

Scammy. Why actually figure out a way to get through all the regulations and build a building when you can go get a finance from Qatar by monetizing the White House? Or why even do that when you can just launch a mean coin? And then essentially, it means the winners get, you know, the winners, a small group of people who can own or control or monetize health care, monetize the government win, and the losers get stuck with the odds. So we have godlike technology and gambling that's the dopa hit.

For the majority of our time on this planet, we haven't had access to free, free, safe play and gaming. So when we have it, we go crazy with it. Also, there's people telling us we can be rich and we can be popular and we can get women. And they hit you at exactly the wrong time when you're most vulnerable. And you're just saying more and more people have their lives ruined by this. And then the broader loss is that our economy is becoming about synthetic risk-taking, not enduring value, not the hard work, the labor to build a company, to invest in relationships. You get a quick hit from this kind of gambling or casino-like economy.

And I think it's creating, I think it's just creating the wrong values and it's an erosion and the character of long-term thinking. Yeah, no, we're a casino. casino. But, okay, so what's your win? What is my win? You go first. I got to think of one. You know, my, I've got to have so many fails happening at this time, at this moment. But probably Jamaica and Haiti and Cuba with the hurricanes ahead of our way. We're going to have a lot more hurricanes. And it sounds like it's going to, category five is going to hit this place. So my thoughts are with the people there. It seems very dire what's happening there. And of course,

We've cut back on all kinds of really important, speaking of important things we do monitor, this is, I just feel a sense of unease for them and also our own country, which will get hit by all kinds of weather, mishaps that are highly avoidable in terms of saving lives. You can't, you know, we certainly have climate change issues that are making this worse, but at the same time we should be able to protect and save people. So I just worry for those right now, it's happening right now, actually. At this, my other real fail, they're both real fails, but this is all this, which you're talking about, these empty calories, these, you know, pathways to corruption that are everywhere. You saw the media do it a bunch of times this week, whether it was Comcast putting money into the ballroom.

I must have really been difficult for Brian Roberts, but he did it because he's on the outs with Trump, so give him some money for the stupid ballroom. And when I think about that, the way it could have been done, look, I'm not, look, the White House is not that attractive a thing of our many things. I think the main part is. But the East Wing is not necessarily a winner, but the way to have redone it could have been so fantastic and bipartisan. And there could have been a contest. It could have been everyone involved. It could have been interesting the way we, you know, with the people who are both pearl clutching and then attack. the pearl clutches. I don't think they're pearl clutches. I think they really are sorry that

happened that way, is it could have been done in such a great way. Like, let's update the White House. Let's do something in a bit of a contest. You could have kids involved. You could have done a whole thing that would have united us versus this bullshit, which is he just does what he wants, and then the people get upset about him doing what he want, and it goes back and forth. It was such a missed opportunity. And, you know, it feels like that all over the place. Whoever it gets to do what they want to do is not American. It just feels very un-American, a lot of these things. And then a win, you know, speaking of Brian Roberts, Taylor Sheridan, who's a really important

producer, there's always a producer of the moment. He happens to be that. He's behind Yellowstone and Landman. He is signed a deal to join NBC Universal. It's not for a few years, but when his Paramount deal is up, it's not good for Ellison and Paramount, but it doesn't matter because Ellison is essentially a NEPO, baby son of Larry Ellison, so he'll get his tick-tock this week, or he'll get his deal to buy Warner, and everyone will fall into line. But I thought that was an interesting situation for Taylor. I thought it was a win for NBC.

But who knows? Who knows how much more Sheridan will keep, you know, having the hits. But still an interesting shift. But I think if we were, or what I want to, what I'm going to start doing, is it's no longer, what are they calling it? I mean, I know it was called the East Wing. It's supposed to be called the ballroom now, or the grand ballroom? I'm not calling it that, but go ahead. Whatever. It's just a ballroom. From this point forward, we should call it what it is. And this is the Epstein bedroom.

There's the Lincoln bedroom. This is the Epstein bedroom. Because all this is another attempt to distract us from Jeffrey Epstein and the release of the Epstein file. So, and also, quite frankly. Mike Johnson won't seat that representative. Yeah, but the bottom lies, it really isn't that, quite frankly, I don't think this is that big a deal. Obama had renovations. Okay, I don't like the ways going about it.

This is a massive. This is different. than anything. I do not think this is that meaningful. I really don't. I don't, but the way he did, I think it's more like this wasn't America. Like, this is what I'm saying,

the guy's calling him to a call off the San Francisco thing. Let's just tear it down without consultation. Agreed. Like, that is un-American. It is just not, I guess maybe it is American. I don't know. Anyways, the win, so the win is, and just a reminder,

there is, for all this performative masculinity around taking a trillion-dollar year expenditure and having missile strikes, which may be, quite frankly, extraditional murder at this point, which is just so performative, in my opinion, stupid. There is a real war taking place with a real lethal force in Ukraine. And according to, I think it's Petteri Orpo, Finland's prime minister, Ukrainian forces do appear to have halted major Russian advances on some fronts. With help by Europe.

Yes, that's right. And Ukraine's capacity is striking against targets inside Russia has improved. I do hope we provide them with the long-range missiles and the Tom Hawk, which is an incredible weapon to target the refining capabilities. An opinion piece in the Guardian reports that Ukrainian's mood in Kiev is more confident now than a year ago, though the situation is still grave. There's much, it still feels like the mood is upbeat, there's greater resolve. Discussions are advancing around using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's reconstruction and defense, which is on its own a sign of growing international alignment. So anyways, my win and reminder is the real fight here, the real lethality that is proving, you know, is upholding our freedom and our democracy is taking place.

It's not off the shores of Venezuela. It's in Ukraine right now, where the Ukrainian army does continue to punch well above their weight class. So anyway, that's my win. That's a good one. Because, you know, that's speaking of economic value, think about the windfalls that's going to happen there as we rebuild that. very vibrant and innovative culture, right? This is like an opportunity, again, an opportunity for the United States to build real things versus this nonsense. Like, you know, all the different people that have to suck up to Trump, it's grotesque to watch them one after the next, you know, sucking up

to them. But there's no economic value there. It's just a, it's just a grift. It's just one long grift. And that's not how you make things, right? You get to get ahead because you fluff a billionaire. Like, stop it. Like, it's just it has no. It has no economic value, and whether you like us being involved in other countries or not, the best thing would be to have a peaceful Ukraine that will then innovate and create a better. I don't know. It just seems like it's not, none of this is economic. It's just briefed, and so it's very disappointing.

I'll tell you that. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 Pivot. and elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe this week on On with Kara Swisher, which Scott Galloway is going to be on soon for his new book. I spoke with writer-director and producer Judd Apatow. Let's listen to a clip.

There are definitely ways that technology can help people. If you can go on a computer and make it look like deep space and it doesn't cost $3 million. It costs $40,000. Well, clearly, in some ways, that will help people. It will decimate the people that made space. But it seems like we're not going to be able to stop that when it gets cheaper. But the writing and the directing will always wind up generic

because it's scraped and it's just copying other things. Oh, we'll see about that show. But he's really, I mean, that guy has got a history of really amazing work and comedy. Anyway, he actually, you know, he's just really sharp about what's happening. I thought it was a great talk. Yeah, smart guy, impressive guy. He really is. But you're going to be even more impressive.

Oh, yeah, go on. It's going to be good. I'm going to let you talk and talk and talk, so you'll have a good time. Reminder, which I already do here, we're going to go on tour. We'll be going to Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and L.A. Scott and I are going to be together so much. We're sold out in Toronto and San Francisco, and the other cities are very close. But visit PivotTor.com, especially use Chicago. We've got extra large venue there.

Come and see us. We also got some surprises there, some good big names coming. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Nam and Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertodangir this episode, Ronnie Palladoro edited the video.

Additional support from Kate Gallagher and Brad Silvestor. Thanks to also to Drew Brose, Ms. Cibroes, Vox Media, is executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine, Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine, NYMag.com, slash POS. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things, tech and business.