Pivot - Elon & Trump: The Breakup of the Summer

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

The day has come! Kara and Scott discuss the explosion of a legendary bromance: what does it mean for the government, the economy, and most importantly, the memes?  Then, a new slew of executive orders, President Trump’s trade call with China’s President Xi, and Jerome Powell faces heat from President Trump (again). We’ve got another call in show coming up! Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at ⁠nymag.com/pivot⁠. Watch this episode on the ⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠. Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠. Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠. Follow us on TikTok at ⁠@pivotpodcast⁠. Help us plan for the future of Pivot by filling out a brief survey: ⁠⁠⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠⁠⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Join industry leaders including Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and more. You can go to atio.com slash pivot, and you'll get 15% off your first year. That's attio.com slash pivot. Pop music and heavy metal may seem like unlikely bedfellows, but the UK band Sleep Token has stormed the charts with their unique blend of metal, hip hop, reggaeton, and EDM. The masked and entirely anonymous quartet are getting millions of listens and a plethora of haters who say they're ruining the genre. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan, co-host of Switched On Pop, Vulture's music podcast.

And in this week's episode, we're asking, is metal the new pop? And if so, what happens when a niche genre goes mainstream? Listen to Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts. We're having a good day here over at Pivot. Oh my God. Oh my God. Let's just get one. Jesus.

Literally. Literally. We shouldn't feel like this, but we do. Oh my God. This is- What is this? Our Super Bowl? Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher and it's liberation day. So Kara, when I first moved to New York, Yeah. I had this e-commerce incubator called Brand Farm and I hired this PR firm. Yeah. And the PR account executive is this woman named Miriam Adelson. And Miriam was like just incredibly hot, like this whole hot little.

All right. Where are we going here? Cause we have so much to talk about. Go ahead. And she said, okay. Um, I have this friend coming in town. There was this Norwegian woman and ends up this Norwegian woman. It was like this tall, beautiful model.

Uh-huh. And we went out, got a little fucked up. Daddy had it going on, he was especially funny and charming. They got fucked up and Miriam said, so me and let's call her Svenga. She said, me and Svenga occasionally get drunk and like to fool around, would you like to watch? Oh my God.

We need to get to this. At that moment, I was less erect than I am when I saw this fight break out today. Okay. I knew it was going to happen. When I heard about- Can't you just say I had a hard on? This is so exciting. When I heard about these two, when I saw the tweet, were basically the fastest zero to

Europedophile land speed record set- Yeah. Amazing. For Elon Musk. I got to be honest, the blood flow came back. Yeah, it did it. The blood flow came back. I'm even hard. Oh my God. Mean girls except with old men.

The first breakup of pride. Let's explain what's happening here because listen, Trump-Elon bromance is officially over. Let's just say. They have broken up. This is like the housewives of New York, like, but times 20 on steroids. The two men laid into each other publicly on Thursday. This is after like troubling a couple, a week or so of troubling as Elon left and they had

that nice little Oval Office thing. But today it broke hard, real hard, speaking of hard, with Trump expressing his anger and frustration after Elon called his big, beautiful bill a disgusting abomination, which is fantastic. Sitting in the Oval Office with Germany's chancellor, Trump suggested Elon was suffering from Trump derangement syndrome, which is something Elon's accused people of. Meanwhile, Elon started shitposting on X in real time, saying, without me, Trump would have lost the election and such ingratitude. He's probably correct.

Trump later threatened to cut Elon's government contracts and subsidies, to which Elon replied, in light of the president's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately. This is what NASA uses to do everything right now. It's just it's just ugliness. And then, of course, he threw in a pedophile thing around around Epstein saying Trump was in the Epstein files. That's why they didn't release them.

It's that's just in the hour happened. Trump also had no qualms about referencing Elon's black eye in the Oval Office last week. Let's listen. You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval Desk and even with the black eye I said, do you want a little makeup? We'll get you the makeup. But he said, no, I don't think so, which is interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is so you could make that statement too I guess. Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore.

I don't know if he will. This is like such a great breakup. I'll note I've been talking about this breakup for a while now. I knew this day was coming and how it would go down. You did. You predicted it. I did. Let's listen to what I said back in the fall. I did. Let's listen to what I said back in the fall. It's like two people desperate for attention sponges. This is highlander to me. There can be only one. I think they're going to have such a falling out. It's going to be delicious to watch when it comes. All right. It's delicious. Scott, it was just a week ago.

These two are doing this lovely send off in the Oval Office, but it was weird for sure. What do you make of how ugly it got and so fast? I mean, as hard as you are. That's something I haven't heard from a woman in 15 years. Yeah, I know. I had to do it. I have to.

It's clear. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Trump posted on True Social that Elon was wearing thin. He asked him to leave. Trump also took away Elon's EV mandate, referencing the cut in the tax bill. Elon posted, he was, as I said, dropping a really big bomb that Trump is in the Epstein files.

He responded yes to a post about impeaching Trump and replacing with JD Vance. The girls are fighting is trending on X. I'm just going to read a couple more tweets. This is like Kendrick versus Drake, but with two Drakes. Ashley St. Clair, who just had Elon's baby, alleged baby. Hey real Donald Trump, let me know if you need any breakup advice. Kanye West weighed in saying, bros, please know we love you both so much. Thanks, Kanye.

There's a tweet making fun of David Sacks asking to be picked up at the White House because he's scared. Um, what do you, what do you think's happened here, Scott? I mean, besides enjoyment for you and I and the rest of the world. I think this is a great example of what it means to not be a man. Grown men are supposed to be able to take blows and be the bigger man and walk away. I just think these are two fucking man children.

If it wasn't so sad, it'd be this funny or I guess it's just so beyond sad. It's fun. I was looking for some sort of inside here other than these are just two toddlers, um, you know, a drug addict versus a malignant, a malignant toddler. I, I went to, okay, who does the market think is going to win? And Donald Trump, well, Donald Trump media closed down 8% Tesla stock is down by 14% Tesla's lost $150 billion in value today,

but that might be because Tesla actually has a real business you can do some value to. But $150 billion in destruction and value? I mean, essentially what Musk is doing is what every CEO is afraid to do. Musk doesn't, every CEO in America has been afraid to show their true feelings and it would hurt sureholder value. Musk doesn't, every CEO in America has been afraid to show their true feelings in id for fear it would hurt shareholder value. Musk doesn't care.

So he's willing to say, accuse the president of being a pedophile and he loses $150 billion in value at Tesla. And then if you look at, if you look at, umalshi and some of the things that investors are, some of the things that's going on here, um, the chance that the, the, uh, the bill gets passed has gone down. Um, there's, uh, I would say the biggest will Trump in the EV tax grade odd spike from 74% to 80%. When will the Senate pass the reconciliation bill odds that will pass before July fell from 49 to 44%. So it feels like this chaos, it's not going to be good for the, for the trending

bill. The most interesting thing I saw is that there's some talk that this might be the potential silver lining is it might shift Elon back to the middle. Two hours ago, Musk tweeted a poll that's gotten over 2 million votes. He asked, is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% of the middle and 80% of respondents have said yes. But it really is sort of the two, arguably the two most powerful men in the world squaring off in the high school

cafeteria. What are your thoughts, Kara? Look, Donald Trump is going to prevail because he's the president, right, ultimately. Yeah, that's right. But I think it's finished for him. I think it's finished. Because Elon is willing to go nuclear. He really is. He doesn't have a problem with it.

What you just said, interestingly enough, that CEOs all wanna say this to Trump, right? They wanna stop being pushed around. If he's doing it, it will give permission to everybody else to start pushing back on Trump, I think. Oh, I don't know, because I think every CEO looks at a 14% decline in the stock in one day and thinks, I don't control my board.

I could get fired for this shit. I mean, Tesla's shed $150 billion in value. But I mean the idea that you can, if Elon's doing it, like especially ones that are, you know, look, Jamie Dimon's been critical. I think it'll give people permission to be more critical of Trump and start to chip away at his power, you know, because I've always thought that he's in real trouble because of the trends in the polling and everything else. And by 2026, it's finished for him.

But now this sort of, there's no telling what he, I warn the Trump people, there's also no telling what he could do, right? You just don't know where he's going. He's got means, he's got motive, he's angry, he's, as you know, a petty person. He's got, as you discussed, a problem with some drugs. I think this guy could just go right off the rails and take Trump with him, because he's so affiliated with Trump, if you think about it. And he's absolutely right. He was the critical part of getting Trump elected, I think.

Yeah, he may have got him elected. But the thing is, and you've been more right than wrong on this, you predicted a while ago that this was going to be the mother of all breakups at some point and it's happening. And now it seems obvious, but at the time people weren't predicting it and you did predict it. But here's the thing. I think Trump has proven himself. We're in a slow burn towards an autocracy and autocrats will sick their Department of Justice on people and he's the president. And so if he wants to sick his DOJ on them, if he wants to fire up inspector generals to say, I have some real fears about his autonomous technology

and we're auditing Tesla's tax returns. Oh, and by the way, we have evidence that he was carrying illicit drugs. I mean, this guy isn't beyond. No, but now everything will be tainted, right? It's just, it'll be so obvious to people what he's doing. And whether you like Ilan Anand, he still has a lot of fans too, right? Now his numbers were declining because of his affiliation with Trump, right? His numbers were going

down and his, you know, he had just lost a lot of, because of the affiliation with Donald Trump. But if he's against Donald Trump, he'll get different fans, right? You could see, it's almost, oddly enough, it is like a wrestling match, right? And this is how Trump conducts everything. We're in the middle of a wrestling match, right? And this is how Trump conducts everything. We're in the middle of a wrestling match with one of those idiot narratives that they have there, which is they're throwing blows, they're causing entertainment. But in this case, I think Elon can truly do a lot of damage to this man,

and especially those who are so effusive about him, like Mike Johnson and others, right? He can pick them off one at a time, and Trump has to protect, right, in some ways. Trump can't go nuclear on him in a similar way. Maybe he can. I think this is such a tough one to call and I think if our biases are coming out here, I think what we're discovering is you hate Trump more than Musk and I hate Musk more than Trump.

No. No. No? I think what we're discovering is you hate Trump more than Musk and I hate Musk more than Trump. No, no, no. No? No, I just think he's unexpected, right? And so- He's a wild card. He's a wild card. I don't.

I think he's, listen, I would do an interview with him in five seconds to talk about this. But I think that he is, Trump is somewhat reliably corrupt the way he is. Trump, you never know what Elon's going to do. You just don't. But I read it as this is peak Musk. What I just keep coming back to, Musk lately looks like an out-of-fucking-control drug addict. All semblance of sense, reason,

self-control seem to have literally, I just think the guys totally come off the rails. But really the one big takeaway here, Kara, is it's just so obvious that women are just too emotional to hold this much power. That a woman is just too emotional to be president. I mean, they menstruate, they have hormones, they're just too emotional to be this powerful.

Oh, you know, they're crazy. And these bitches. What does it mean for Doge, though? Like, now what's going to happen to Doge? And those staffers, I think there's like 90 of them, they got to go. They got to get rid of them so they don't do any, because they're Elon loyal, right? No, they're out. They're out because they're worried they're more Elon loyal, and they're probably very

scared. They're probably in the midst of already trying to turn off their access. I think the Doge cuts will stick because I think Trump doesn't care about, you know, what nuclear stockpile inspectors. I don't care. USAID. I don't care. I think that a lot of those cuts will just stick and they will, but yeah, the

Doge, the Doge, you know, youth or children of the corn, they're absolutely out. the Doge, you know, youth or children of the corn, they're absolutely out. But I personally, so I saw, when I saw Musk in that office with a black eye looking around, I thought he can't not be high long enough to go to the Oval Office and have the whole world staring at him. So I think this is just, I saw this, and I've been so wrong about this, I've predicted this over and over. I thought that that press conference,

that presser with Musk in the office was peak Musk. I'm like, I just think- Yeah, and you thought that was it, that was the thing. Cause Trump's now saying he threw him out, but go ahead. Well, I just think the guy is, the guy is a rabid, he's like, he's to see drug addiction jump the shot, like really go whatever it is,

parabolic make the jump to light speed on in full display. That's what I thought the story was. I mean, these people start fighting with everybody, right? I don't. That's an onion headline. Elon must once again gets along with nobody. You're right. Trump joins. We are now on the same list as Donald Trump, right? Of people Elon has picked fights with essentially, which is weird when you think about it. And I got to be honest, I wouldn't say I was relieved, but I had several people reach out to me,

including friends who are lawyers and go, I think, you know, do you have a shit ton of liability insurance? Because I think your comments in the last day make it very likely that someone from us universe just decides to file a nuisance lawsuit against you. You said, I hope you're ready. It's coming. Yeah. Let's say what we're referencing. You gave an incredible speech on Piers Morgan.

Let's play that and then talk about it quickly. It's not going to be an EV or putting rockets into space. I think it's going to be unnecessary death, disease, and disability of the world's most vulnerable. That is not what it means to be an innovator. It's not what it means to be an American. It's not what it means to be a man. All right, so Scott, I mean,

that was something I was so proud of you, I have to say. I appreciate that, Kara. It's like, that's my man. There you go. There's my lady. There's my lady. There's my girl. What prompted you to do that? You went way farther than I go, I'll tell you that.

I just look at everything, not everything, mostly everything through the lens right now. I'm trying to raise two good men. I'm barreling towards the end and I'm a healthy person, so I think what is my purpose? My purpose is to raise two loving, patriotic men. And I'm constantly thinking about role models. The president and the world's wealthiest man

should be role models for young men. And the whole point of prosperity, if you're the wealthiest man in the world, it's pretty simple, what does that mean? Prosperity should translate to protection. And this guy right now, this drug addict who says his daughter is dead to him on a podcast and has cut aid to the neediest people such that 1,500 babies a day now are being born HIV positive, has two women concurrently suing him for sole custody of their child. This is exactly what it means to not be a man. This is exactly what you were not supposed to do when you recognize the blessings of this type

of prosperity. And I think it's just shameful. I think it does tremendous damage to the next generation of leaders and tech leaders. I think you're seeing this everywhere. I think a lot of these tech leaders and these tech bros are giving cloud cover because they will worship whoever has the most money. But let me ask you to, depraved is a big word. I was really struck by that word, by the way. What happens now to his company?

Because he said he was gonna be focusing on Tesla, focusing on Starlink. Now he'll have a very troubled, he's obviously not going to get all the gimmies that he got, although he did get the regulators off his back, but maybe not now. Maybe they'll be back on his back. What, if you were him, right, he obviously is out of control, that's very clear. But what would you do at each of the, what's going to happen to each of these companies? And specifically, I mean, XAI, obviously Twitter.

Can I just tell you? I would now pay $8. Remember we said there's no fucking way. So we get for Twitter. I gotta say, it's probably good for Twitter in a really sick way. But where do each of these businesses go given his clear off the rails situation?

I mean, no publicity is bad publicity, what? No, first off, Trump could cut off all subsidies to Tesla almost overnight. He could stick the DOJ on him. He could start a series of federal investigations. He could lean on governments to say, do not, if you engage in starling contracts or award contracts, whatever it is to Tesla,

I'm gonna be less inclined to negotiate with you on tariffs. or award contracts, whatever it is to Tesla, I'm gonna be less inclined to negotiate with you on tariffs. This is an autocrat. Democracies are run on trust, autocracies are run on fear. And the way an autocracy evolves is you punish your enemies severely, you normalize violence against them, you use the DOJ and the power of the White House and to hurt that company and those individuals. I, this is absolutely could be terrible for Tesla.

It could even be worse for Starlink because all of a sudden, basically Trump could decide I don't give a shit about communications technology on the battlefield in Ukraine. I'm going to make it, I'm going to tell the Joint Chiefs in the Department of Defense that they need to seize Starlink and take control of it because it's a security threat. Yeah. What about for XAI? He's going to be left out of all that. That's like a good day for Sam Altman, presumably.

I think that in the short run, as you said, Twitter gets a lot more attention. Everyone's going to be tuning into what he's saying. But when you, Trump is going to basically decide, I need to beat this guy publicly now that they've gone to war with each other. And Trump has nuclear weapons, literally. Not that he's going to use them,

but he has the Department of Justice and he's not afraid to abuse the law and habeas corpus to go after people. I mean, I love the idea of ICE agents taking Elon Musk to South Africa, and I don't think that's going to happen, but it could- That was Bannon's. That was Steve Bannon's thing, yeah. Well, you couldn't- Trump is now an autocrat. He's now shown no fidelity to the law or due process.

He's going after individuals. He's normalizing violence. I wouldn't put him past him. I would imagine he's already in a war room with his attorney general. Stephen Miller. With his attorney general. That I would love, if I could be anywhere like a little fly, it would be between Stephen and Katie Miller.

Feedhag, Seth. Katie Miller works for Elon right now. The secretary of commerce and just be saying, come up with a list of 10 things to fucking kick this guy in the nuts so hard, he doesn't know what happened. I don't know, Scott. I'm, I gotta say, I think Trump is. You're on, you believe- You're betting on Musk.

I'm not team Elon, because I think it's going to end badly for him. I think he's Howard Hughes. I'm sorry, I do. But this is not good for Trump. Howard Hughes is likable. Yeah, I know, that's true. I think this is bad for both of them. Bad, they look bad.

Look, this is when Iraq is in a war against Iran. You're hoping the bullets win. Look, you're right. This makes them both look just childish and stupid. But if we're talking about who is exposed to greater risk here, President Trump has the CIA. I get it, but I think he's now absolutely

gonna lose control of Congress. Absolutely, no question. Now, what's the Democrats going to do? Just sit back and watch, I suspect, for a minute. Just like, just shh. So today, I address the Democratic young caucus, which is people under the age of 140.

Actually, it's under the age of 50. A really exciting meeting. I got to meet representative Crockett and some other people. And I was saying, they asked me for a bunch of ideas. And I said, right away, you need to come up with an alternative tax bill that positions you as the adults in the room. And I came up with a bunch of ideas.

I immediately reached out to the person who organizes this caucus. And I said, I would draw the comment based on what's happened today. Do absolutely nothing. Do not say a word. Do not do anything. You do not get in the way of your enemy shooting

themselves on the foot. I'm like, let the, let this control the news cycle. Don't do anything. Don't say anything. Don't do anything. Let the entire media world focus on this fight. Which they will. And it isn't, this is a distraction, but what a fantastic. Anyway, we're having a good day here over Pivot.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Let's just get one. Jesus. Literally. We shouldn't feel like this, but we do. Oh my God. This is- What is this, our Super Bowl? Usually in a half hour from now,

we have a half bottle drink of Jack and a condom hanging out of my ass. This is about to be a good, good time, Kara. Oh my God. This is about to be a good, good time. Yeah. Anyway, so in any case, I knew that's my cue to go. SpaceX.

That's my cue. SpaceX. Call me, Elon. I'm here for you. I'm here for you. I'm a shoulder to cry on. I was going to watch Friends and Neighbors tomorrow. No way. I'm watching this. Yeah. Watching this. It is. It's so good. America. America. Here we are. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. There's a lot more to get to, but before we do, I just want to remind our lovely listeners that you can also watch us on YouTube. The link is in our show notes if you're already watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe.

Okay, Scott, when we come back, how Trump's grudges, and this is the biggest one, are informing his latest executive orders. And, Elon, there's an executive order coming your way, probably tomorrow. Support for Pivot comes from Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. More and more online partisans and nefarious actors are finding people's data on the internet and using it to target them. This can go for political rivals, civil servants, and even outspoken citizens posting their opinions online. With DeleteMe, you can protect your personal privacy and the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exploited.

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An investigation into former President Joe Biden and his aides. Trump is having the White House counsel and Attorney General Pam Bonney examine whether some of former President Biden's presidential actions were legally invalid, claiming aides acted without his knowledge. Biden has called this ridiculous and false, an order blocking Harvard's international students from entering the country. Harvard called this illegal, by the way. Trump also called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to begin revoking visas of current foreign students at the university. I mean, he just can't stop. He cannot stop these

things. And when it comes to tariffs, President Trump is still perfecting the art of the deal with China's President Xi. Trump posted on True Social earlier this week that Xi is, quote, very tough and extremely hard to make a deal with. Chinese state media reported on Thursday that the two leaders finally had their long awaited phone chat, a call initiated by Trump. This is the first known formal contact between the two since Trump's inauguration. Trump has reportedly been obsessed with this Xi call, according to Politico, convinced

he can hash things out. In a true social post, Trump said that the Xi call, quote, resulted in a very positive conclusion for both countries. He also noted that Xi invited him and Melania to visit China and the invitation was reciprocated. China has leverage. It halted exports of rare earth magnets in April as the trade war was escalating. This is really problematic. US and European automakers say they're running out of these magnets, which are needed for

EV motors, windshield wipers, brake sensors, and more. Some companies are considering shifting production to China to avoid export restrictions, building electric motors there, or shipping US-made motors to China to install these madness. Of course, it's against the goal of bringing manufacturing back to the US. The opposite might happen. So talk a little bit about these executive orders first, and then I think China's winning this. Oh, God, Trump is so incompetent. I can't even with the Chinese. But let's talk about these orders, because this is what he does when he feels

out of control, presumably. Yeah, I don't, I feel as if you have someone who walks up to a poker table, goes all in, and then negotiates and then folds before anyone else responds. And I wonder if, I believe a lot of this is, is policies on immigration are still his kind of number one policy. So I think he keeps saying, let's push it further and further because people seem to

respond, you know, negatively, but it's still his kind of number one most approved approach. And these images of ice rounding up people are shocking, but I think there's a certain element of his base that actually thinks finally we're getting serious about this. I agree with you. I think China holds all the cards here because while the tariffs, they've done math, but what they haven't calculated was what does the math actually mean on the other side of the equation. And that is while we can probably hurt the Chinese economy more than ours, China is an export economy.

It doesn't have the same level of internal consumption that we have. Only 17% of our GDP is based on exports. So we're actually quite a self-sufficient society, despite all the calls that, you know, we need to reshore everything. We're actually more self-sufficient across energy, even manufacturing than people believe. What they've failed to take into account is our pain thresholds. And that is unless you're going to, so for example, let's look at Europe. Europe is bringing its hands over what to do with Ukraine. I mean, they're supportive of the Ukrainian army. They've given money, they've actually given more money than us, but they would never,

I don't think they would consider putting a boot on the ground. Meanwhile, Putin continues to call up more people despite coming up on a million young men either killed or wounded. I mean, so when you're calculating the calculus, you would think, well, okay, the EU has a $19 trillion economy, the Russian economy is $2 trillion, it has tripled the population, we should be able to kick their ass in a war. But they're not taking into account the pain thresholds of the respective parties. And that's what I think we're missing,

or Trump is missing with respect to negotiating with Xi. She's not afraid to put three, five, 10 million Chinese out of work. He's not afraid. We let our thoroughbreds run. We are so obsessed with the stock market and any hit to prosperity. We're worried that Americans are going to revolt. She's not afraid to put companies out of business, even if it means a decline or a massive loss in capital.

So I think he's vastly underestimated. The bottom line is, I just don't think she scares this easily. And I think they're having a lot of productive conversations with nations and trade agreements that they didn't think were possible just 100 days ago. So I agree with you. I think she has all the cards here. He does. I mean, Trump is so badly playing this. And one of these orders, and I know you have talked about them as a distraction, whether it's the Biden one, or the travel bans, or the students

blocking Harvard's international students from entering the country, they still create all kinds of havoc in terms of whatever it happens. Like even if ultimately they get pushed back, you have to spend time getting a lawyer, you have to spend they get pushed back, you have to spend time getting a lawyer, you have to spend time doing the fight, you have to spend time. So I don't think they're just a distraction. They're meant to, you know, they're like flash bombs, you know, like you can't see for a minute.

And they do have real world impact. And that's the point of them is to do that, even if they get overturned. Because maybe 20 of them, they do 20 and 17 get overturned, but three don't. And that's what they're doing here. I do think it matters that they're creating a situation, putting Harvard on its back heel almost constantly, even if in the end Harvard will win. They'll win with a lot of damage.

Same thing with all these other things. And again, as linking to China, it gives China an advantage. It gives all our enemies an advantage for us to be both petty and bullying when we don't have the cards, right? It just doesn't. We just don't have the cards here. You're playing poker, I suppose. But I think they have, especially with the things they have like magnets, manufacturing,

everything else, this is what companies will do. They will do what it takes to create economic benefit for themselves. And if that means shifting to production in China, that's exactly what they'll do. So the opposite of what Trump wanted, you know, just the opposite. Well, to be fair, I think Trump's initial instincts around a real trade asymmetry with China was correct. Me too. The IP flow into China is one way. They take Tesla and Apple technology and up-skilling, and then they don't let it leave.

And they let their media companies into the US, but they don't let ours in. So the IP flow is one way. There's real valid concerns. But to go to the Norm MacDonald joke, the late comedian, he said he had this great bid on, I don't know if you are history buffs, but if you've heard of this country called Germany,

they decided twice last century to declare war on the world. And quite frankly, at a very basic level, that's why Hitler lost was he was absolutely blitzkrieg, basically took over France in two weeks, conquered most of Europe in several months, was threatening to take over Britain, wanted to negotiate with Chamberlain,

said, I'll let you keep the empire, I want Europe, then who knows what would have happened. But his mistake was he decided to declare war on Russia. And if you wanted to isolate China and have a really strong hand to negotiate better terms on IP, where they steal it and sell it back to us more inexpensively, whatever it might be, where they steal it and sell it back to us more inexpensively, whatever it might be, wouldn't you want to sign up the EU and Latin America, or would you declare war on EU and Latin America at the same time, thereby creating,

we were allies with Russia because Germany was so aggressive. He has turned our strongest allies into quite frankly, sympathetic to China. I had dinner with the CEO of Alibaba, a wonderful guy. He was in Europe roaming around talking to European companies about them using the Baba cloud. Because for the first time, AWF people are having concerns about using European companies, they're having concerns about using Azure or AWS.

So this is just the worst thing. It is terrible to be fighting with your allies, but what's worse is to be fighting without your allies. Yeah, or also damaging the most, the strongest parts of this country, not just attacking allies, attacking things in this country, whether it's Harvard or scientists. It's a constant attack on people, our strongest members, right, of our country and what we can do. Immigrants who bring innovation, universities who may have to have reform,

but not from the government. They should not this way. You know, there's this idea that I keep thinking about is a lot of the stuff Trump is talking about, like the problem with trade with China or too much wokeness or whatever, just pick whatever you want. Everyone I know is like, could agree with some of the direction, but every single person, including a lot of Trump supporters are like, yeah, but not this. Like you're seeing so many interviews with Trump people, like I didn't think he, you know, this is sort of the leopard ate my face idea. But, like, not like this, not this, not this.

And it just is, it's overkill. And the executive orders are the expression of that, these crazy fucking executives. He looks like such a chump by doing these. But at the same time, you know, even though he accuses Elon of being sort of the toddler, I think that's what they're doing, he's the toddler. He's the actual toddler. Elon's just one of the toddlers running around the White House. But this is what he's doing, just making a mess and then with to no strategic value.

Just to go to cosplay, Henry Kissinger here, and I won't even say Marco Rubio, but a real secretary of state in terms of rail politic. You know, they're going after Harvard under the auspices, and there's never been a flag this false of anti-Semitism. And I believe, for example, if you really cared about, say, I only am called anti-Semitism, but say you cared about the war in the Middle East, the Israeli-Gaza conflict, whatever you want to call it. the Middle East, the Israeli Gaza conflict, whatever you wanna call it. I don't believe the key is Israel or Hamas. I believe the key is Qatar.

I think if you wanted those hostages released and you wanted some path to a sustainable peace, you would put massive pressure on Qatar, who has been funding the tunnels and the bombs and providing safe haven for the senior leader leadership of Hamas. I believe that's the key. And let me ask you this, do you think Trump is really going to bring about pressure and is really concerned with a country that he just accepted a $400 million plane from?

No, of course not. No, of course not. No, of course not. And then the notion that they give a shit about anti-Semitism at Harvard. There have been three very scary anti-Semitic attacks. Two young, lovely, engaged people who were working at the embassy were shot down and murdered. Governor Shapiro, someone tried to burn down his house who was blatantly anti-Semitic.

And there was an attack in Boulder, Colorado where an Egyptian man used a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to attack a group participating in a solidarity walk for the hostages in Gaza. Has the president referenced any of those things? But quote unquote, he needs to go after anti-Semitism at these universities. It's all nonsense. It's all absolutely.

We've discussed just the economics here. Just think about it as an export. The export of education, letting foreign students into our universities is a bigger business for us than us selling our movies and TV shows overseas. business for us than us selling our movies and TV shows overseas. So this is all, it's just such, I'm just trying to think how you could,

and there's a certain brilliance to this if you thought, how do I reduce our prosperity as elegantly and as efficiently as possible? And get some from myself and then be corrupt at the same time. In some ways, I have to say, I kind of like, even though Elon's a heinous piece of shit, as you noticed, I can see possibly a penny dropping with him with this bill. I think it is totally self-interested. At the same time, he can do math, right?

He can't even put up with this, right? He's like, no. Ultimately, a lot of business people in this country, even if you're as unhinged as Elon, are globalists, right? If you want to use that term, even though it has negative connotations, they live in a global world, these are companies in the United States. And Trump is systematically ruining their

chances across. Anyway, we have to go on a quick break, but when we're speaking of continuing to lash out, and it's Trump again, when we come back, we'll talk about his attacks on Jerome Powell. Support for this show comes from NPR's Planet Money. Tariff, meme coins, Girl Scout cookies, at first glance, they have nothing in common. But dig deeper and the connection becomes clear. Money. Economics aren't just about numbers and markets. It's the invisible engine behind our choices, behaviors, and everyday lives, and often shows up in ways we don't even notice.

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That's voxmedia.com slash survey. Scott, we're back with more news. President Trump is lashing out at Fed Chair Jerome Powell urging him to cut interest rates following the release of the ADP jobs reports. The report shows private payrolls ticking up by only 37,000 when the Dow Jones forecasted 110,000. The president posted on True Social calling the Fed chair too late Powell and unbelievable. Trump and Powell met at the White House last week,

but the conversation was reportedly confrontational, you think. He wanted to push him out. He may try to do that. I don't think he's allowed. Again, again, create chaos, try to do something that's potentially illegal, but who cares?

Well, how do you imagine this is gonna end? He's gonna try to push him out, or maybe he can't sustain the energy to do so and he'll move on to his next ridiculous executive order. Yeah, I don't think he can. I don't think Chairman Powell, Chair Powell stared America in the face. He stared senators on the right side and on the left side, everyone from Elizabeth Warren to Ted Cruz who were calling for interest rate cuts and said, no, inflation is the enemy here and we are going to fight inflation.

And he tamped down inflation by raising interest rates at the greatest escalation over a 15th month period in history. And there was huge, he does not get nearly the credit he deserves for the unfolding crisis that never unfolded because he took a leadership position. The OECD has cut its growth forecast for the U S from 3.2% to 1.6. They have cut that in half and these numbers sound small, but when you go from 3.2% to 1.6 on a $27 trillion economy, you're talking about a loss of growth of $400 billion in business. That is real cabbage.

And they cited it, it was very simple. It's insecurity over tariffs and global trade and a weakened or uncertain immigration policy. So we have growth coming down and they're also predicting that inflation is beginning to spike. That is really, if you want to see, I don't even like to use the word impeach because that's when people accuse the left fairly of politicizing certain things that shouldn't be politicized. But if you could imagine a scenario

where Trump was impeached, I don't think it would be corruption. I would think of all of a sudden. And there's a scenario here where inflation goes rampant, absolutely rampant. And Powell is just not gonna participate in that. And you're already seeing an uptick in inflation. You're seeing some job destruction,

although I don't know if that's at the hands of AI. I think it's too early to tell what's going on. If you look at the market right now, to be fair, and I've been surprised by this, the market is only about 3% off of all time highs. It's had one of its best Mays in the last several years. Now a few things are going on. One, either the economy has decided or the market has decided, Trump's policies are not

that bad. Maybe they're not as bad as everybody says, or people have decided he's not serious. None of this is going to hold the courts. I'm going to swap slap all of this away. It's all a giant fucking distraction. And he always chickens out, or they've said, you know what? At the end of the day, the headline news around the shit going on at a government level, isn't as important as we think

that the American economy is so incredible. It just kind of grinds on. People are using, learning how to use AI. They're still going to the grocery store. They're still taking vacations. Companies are still innovating. They're still selling. People are buying. People are still hiring.

Cause if you look at the economic data and you look at the market right now, you can cherry pick pieces of data that guys like me who are catastrophists like to call on. But I've actually been shocked at how resilient the economy is right now. But Chairman Powell is not going to be muscled around by anybody. Not going to be muscled around. No, he's not. He's going to, Trump might try it when he gets, if he gets desperate enough. We'll see.

I mean, he can only put out so many fires. He, he does have to settle with Musk and hope that he calms down because if he's fighting with this person, this person,ms down, because if he's fighting with this person, this person, this person, this person, it's really going to start to mount as chaos, sort of a chaos monkey. The California State Senate is looking into Paramount's reported settlement offer to President Trump over his lawsuit alleging mental anguish from the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.

Paramount reported on that. That's so angry. Oh my God. Anyway, whatever. They can try it. minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount reportedly offered Trump a $15 million settlement, which the president did not think was enough. California Democrats expressed concern that the offer, which comes as the company hopes for a merger approval from the administration, raises bribery questions. A letter sent to former CBS News officials also mentions concern about the implications for journalism and integrity of corporate governance. Former 60 Minutes EP and the former CEO of CBS News have been invited to testify voluntarily.

They left after not agreeing with Sherry Redstone about what she was doing. It's interesting. She's a real jam. As a quick note, just another media company is in a real jam over at Warner Brothers Discovery. Shareholders rejected a pay package for CEO David Zaslov that would have given him a 4% raise upping his pay to $51.9 million. Warner Brothers Discovery has seen its revenue decline 10% in the last year and his stock is quite off from when the merger happened. But talk a little bit about this case because I think this is really, they are in a bind because if they do this settlement, they're going to get bribery allegations eventually.

I mean, the whole thing, and of course, the Trump administration, the coin op Trump administration would like some vig for whatever way it happens to be for approving this. They've completely corrupted the process, even the whole process of merger approval. And they have willing supplicants at the FTC and the FCC to do this. Well, first off, regarding Trump's claimed anguish and mental health struggles,

I don't think that's anything to joke about. And my advice for him is the way I approach mental health is the same way I approach sex, and that is I always come first. He's back. Take that, take that Mr. Wonderful. Why didn't you tell that joke on Fierce Morgan? Anyway. Take that.

What do you think of this? This is a really interesting problem for this company. This perfectly embodies the fulcrum or the tension that is happening across corporate America right now. And that is the easiest thing to do is to stay out of his crosshairs and not be the subject of some crazy, punitive, one-off tariff that takes your stock down and your shareholders and your board say,

boss, couldn't you just kept quiet or stayed out of his way? And Sherry is sitting on a melting ice cube. She was worth 20 billion two years ago. Last year she was worth 10 billion. Now she's worth 4 billion. And if she doesn't sell this thing to some billionaire who wants to go to the Academy Awards soon, she's going to be worth 2 billion. So her attitude is fine.

60 minutes. It's great to be a fucking purist, but I don't want to be the one that turned, that took my father's legacy and turned it from 20 billion into two to one. You know, she just wants her money. So paying this guy $10 million, the idea of the lack of integrity or fidelity to journalistic or first amendment clauses,

she's like, you know, well, it sucks to be a grownup. Money's more important to me. That's the same calculus that Bob Iger made. That's the same calculus that Paul Weiss made when they decided to bend a knee and do pro-bono work for Trump-related causes. And unfortunately, the line of people waiting to And unfortunately, the line of people waiting to ignore any fidelity to American values or the Constitution or the rights of free speech, the line of people in the Fortune 500 that is willing to enter that room, there is no line. No one's done it. I can't think of anyone.

I want to salute Harvard. President Carver has stood up and said, no. Columbia tried to deal with him. Columbia's gotten a lot of shit for it. But the reality is Columbia thought they could say, OK, maybe we can make some consolations here and move on. And then they came back with sort of this mind control and thought control.

And they've given up. Harvard didn't even go there. Harvard's saying, no, the reason we have so much money. Also, Harvard has a lot of powerful people, but the list, the, the list of the names of corporate CEOs who have just overtly explicitly stood up and said, no, there is no one, I mean, maybe the guy at, maybe the guy at Costco who talked about DEI, but no one has stood up and said, what's going on here is anti-American. And their shareholder fiduciary hat kicks in and goes,

just cut him a check for 10 million and sell this bag of shit called Paramount that's declining every fucking day. Your thoughts? I think that she's doing untold damage to the brand. Whatever's left of it, right? I think it just, she's literally selling the seed corn. And I don't know if she has a choice,

but on the other end, she's gonna get a bribery. Eventually, the Democrats will be back in power and she will face that, right? And I don't think she's gonna get out of this. I think she's in a jam of beyond jams. So whatever choice she makes is a bad one, like every single choice. And what's interesting is the new owners,

if they really think this is a good idea, I can't imagine they're gonna be, they're sort of, they have a tainted fruit, right? They have a poison fruit here because all these reporters are gonna be now more difficult than ever. You have a brand, maybe that brand should end. I don't know if 60 Minutes should end.

That's up to their owners. But they certainly are trading away any kind of credibility. There's no good answer here for these people. I mean, and you're right, it doesn't matter really because these media companies are worth less and less every year unless they make significant changes. So I guess a new owner might try something fresh, the new owners with lots of money. So any way you get there is a good way. But it definitely is disappointing on every level. And as to Warner Brothers discovery, it's just not, you know,

he's making a lot of money and the company's still struggling to figure out which way to go. I would assume a lot of mergers here, presumably correct. I mean, I don't know. Oh, there's got to be huge consolidation. And I said Warner Brothers board is the worst board in America. They've managed to destroy so much two thirds of shareholder value. Their debt just got downgraded to junk. And yet they've the compensation committee at this board

has decided to pay David Zaslav a third of a billion dollars. I mean, that's just- Well, they're doing that because it's based on the cutting of the debt, right? Is that correct? That's why he's- Well, I'm sure that's how they rationalized it, but if- No, it is. Bill Cohen wrote a good piece about it.

Okay. But, fine. And the tail will always wag the dog here. If that's the case, they should fire the guy. Because it just isn't a front to shareholders to be paying someone a third of a billion dollars when shareholders have lost two-thirds of their value.

I don't care what your compensation package was. You either say, boss, we need to revisit your compensation package or we're going to have to make a change in leadership. And just going back to Sherry Redstone, I know I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how she can be found guilty of saying, look, the president wanted a, we settle cases out of court

all the time, because we decide that they're a nuisance, and it's worth it just to move on with our business, and that's what we did here. So I think some of this notion that it's a quote unquote bribe is a little bit of left-wing posturing. I don't think there's a legal case against her. CEOs pay off lawsuits all the time. That may be the case, but this is what she's gonna do

the rest of her life, right? They're still gonna come at her. They're gonna steal the bribery thing, whether it's sticks or not, they're gonna go for it. I think. When you say they, who do you mean? The California or the Democrats or whatever. I think she's not, she's gonna be in litigation

for a very long time. Oh, I think they'll move on to bigger fish to fry. Really, interesting, okay. I mean, do you think there's really a case here? They settle suits all the time. I guess, this one's particularly ridiculous like it's particularly like, you know They're all somewhat ridiculous, but I suspect the ABC one there was probably emails. It was probably embarrassments in this case It's just ridiculous and with the with these executives quitting

It's just not a good look the whole thing is is just it brings down a brand and unnecessarily and I get they have to make weird Contortions because of Trump, but they're looking particularly bad in the way they're behaving, it seems. But if you look at all the points of light here, or the path to an autocracy or a fascism or a kleptocracy, pick your favorite oppressive form of government, it's try and put a chill on the press, right?

Now that's clear. And then the most recent one, let's try and normal a chill on the press, right? Now that's clear. And then the most recent one, let's try and normalize political violence against our adversaries. I don't know if you saw most recently, but Trump is talking about pardoning the people who planned, plotted the kidnapping of Governor Whitmer. And let's just remind people, these quote unquote, people who he says were railroaded, they had a-

Or they were drunk. They set up a shooting room to practice the extraction. They had maps of the bridge to figure out how to sequester her from her security detail. So what is, how do you move to an autocracy? You A, use political power to enrich yourself. You reward your enemies. You punish your enemies unfairly. you refuse, you normalize violence

against your political enemies, and you create a chill across free press. I mean, other than him standing up and dressing like Putin, I mean, what is it we want before people are just going to come out and say, okay, this guy really is an autocrat slash embracing very fascist ideals. By the way, just back to mental health, I found out that, I don't know if you knew this, but I've been participating over the last 30 years in this study on the relationship between sex and mental health. I'm so depressed, Kara, I found out that I'm a part of the control group.

On that note. But think about Paramount now, you know what defines America, other than the world's richest man killing the world's poorest children, is the fact that the three central figures in the Paramount deal are Sherry Redstone, Edgar Brompman, and David Ellison.

What do they all have in common? They're all the children of billionaires. The only people propping up media right now are billionaire kids who want an excuse to hang out in LA, drive Porsches, and bang actresses. I guess. Well, whatever. Which by the way, I'm down for. If I had billions of dollars, that's what I'd be doing.

Perhaps. Anyway, we'll see. I have to tell you, well, Mission. Which by the way, I'm down for. If I had billions of dollars, that's what I'd be doing. Perhaps. Anyway, we'll see. I have to tell you, well, Mission Impossible is doing well. I don't know what to say. Anyway, good job. That's the key. It all comes back to Tom. To Mission Impossible.

Although Lilo and Stitch is doing better. If you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT and listen up. We're going to be doing another call-in show soon. Submit your questions and let us know what you'd like to talk to us about live and the producers will be in touch. We like those shows. We think our listeners are so smart. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. It won't take long to tell you Neutrol's ingredients.

Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Okay, so my prediction is sort of a boring one, but Trump is feeling his oats around the macho steel industry. He threatened to take tariffs from 25% to 50%. And as a result, you've seen a surge in the stock prices of our few remaining steel manufacturers. Cleveland Cliffs jumped 22%, which for a boring manufacturing stock is enormous. jumped 22%, which for a boring manufacturing stock is enormous. Steel dynamics jumped 13%, new core of 12%, VanEx Steel, ETX rose more than 3%.

And just that alone, there are few prosperity killers like a steel tariff, because here's the thing, this is an unimportant small industry. This is not a big business. It's not an important business. And we can easily import steel from Mexico and Canada. We don't even have to have the security risk of importing it in from China.

And importing it in from Japan, which is a hugely important ally of which our ships that we're worried about building, actually defend Japan. But we've decided this is super important. But what it will do, while actually supporting very few employees or growing the business a great deal,

what it will do is raise the cost of housing and cars dramatically. And by virtue of the fact of these companies that are sleepy companies, when you see their stock price accelerate, it's based on the following. That these companies are are sleepy companies, when you see their stock price accelerate, it's based on the following, that these companies are gonna be able to charge useless prices now that the tariffs are going from 25 to 50%.

And folks, who do you think is going to pay for that increase in stock price? Consumers buying cars, consumers buying housing. So my prediction is, as has happened with the taco trade, coined by Financial Times journalist Robert Armstrong, you are going to see Trump back down on the steel tariffs when he starts to recognize and gets calls from the many more people than the small union or the small number of employees benefiting

from the increase in these tariffs. And the huge number of consumers, automobile and home builders that are going to get punished radically by this. He will back off the tariffs and we will see the stocks of these companies return to their pre-tariff prices. In sum, my prediction is Cleveland Cliffs and Steel Dynamics give up all the gains as evidenced by what has taken place with the taco trade thus far in 2025.

That was a snoozer, wasn't it? That's a snoozer. That's a snoozer. Why don't you yell at Piers Morgan again? I'm done. I'm out. You're done. You're done.

Can I call you an Uber? I'm going to sleep. Why don't you go, steel trade is depravity. There you go. Say depravity. Yell depravity one more time for me. No, I won't. I can't.

Sorry, Kara. I'm not your Fifi the dancing poodle here to entertain you. Depravity. Eating your oysters on the bay talking, injecting jellyfish semen into your blood so you can look 61 again. I will not be a part of your circus of health. OK.

Jeffrey Swisher, call me. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on Prop G Markets, you spoke to Robert Armstrong, the US financial commentator for the Financial Times, the person who coined Trump's favorite phrase, taco trade, which is Trump always chickens out. Let's listen to a clip.

The best thing about the president's tariff policy is the chickening out. Hooray for chickening out. I'm all for it. And I hope that it may continue forever. So the idea that I've made this stupid gag and I might actually at the margin, make the president less likely to chicken out is a very negative unintended consequence. I wish if possible to wash my hands of. That's funny, chickening out. That's such a good word, chicken, bonk bonk bonk. Okay,

that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and Todd, I introduced this episode thanks also to Debra Rose, Misa Vario, and Dan Chalon. Yashak Kherwa, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, have a good weekend. I'm rooting for the

Bullets.