Pivot - Ghislaine's DOJ Interview, Trump's Intel Deal, Cracker Barrel's Logo Change

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

It's the final week of Scott-Free August, and Kara is joined by Tim Miller, host of The Bulkwark Podcast. Kara and Tim talk about  Trump's threats to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, New York, and Baltimore. Then, is the government's Intel deal MAGA socialism?  Also on the rundown: the DOJ's interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, Cracker Barrel's new logo, and Trump's cankles. 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 at ⁠⁠nymag.com/pivot⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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refreshing chill of ice, that rich, smooth taste you crave, that handcrafted care every time. Your summer ritual is ready at Starbucks. You and I would go to a Liberacee show. I love Liberacee. I also like Don Ho. I'm in that zone. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher and welcome back to... I never get tired of that. It's the final week of Scott Free August, though.

He is coming back soon. He's been texting me lately, so we know he's getting a little jumpy on his vacation and his expensive house wherever it happens to be. But I have yet another amazing co-host. This has been an astonishing month. Tim Miller, welcome to Pivot.

Hey, Kara. I've just been kind of warming up some takes about narcissism and the crisis of young men and Cialis and stuff to help people, you know, kind of transition back into Scott September. Okay, go for it. Do you have anything?

Well, no, I just, I think it's important to encourage, to encourage older men to use Cialis and encourage younger men to get out there in the world and find women to sleep with, or men, whatever, because we don't, you know, we don't want in cells, and I think it leads to other problems in society. And I think Scott's really, really good on this point. Yeah, okay, good. Well, thank you. You'll be you.

That's the whole point of this endeavor. And you are a certain personality. You are also the host of the bulwark podcast where you do a great job. And former GOP strategist, I cannot believe that at this point. Anyway, welcome. It's been a decade. Yeah, of the decade. Yeah, so talk about your podcast a little bit.

And what's the most interesting conversation you've had on there? Oh, boy, ever or recently? Recently. You know, look, the podcast, it's a daily podcast. It's a bit of a grind. So I feel this obligation to, like, be on the news and get in the news. while at the same time, like, if it's fucking Trump is awful porn every day, you know, I'm going to kill myself. And I think that the listeners will too.

And so you have to kind of have a balance between that. So I don't know. I mean, like, for example, on the Trump-Born one, I loved my John Lovett conversation recently because I made him cry. I think he's, I think mine is the only podcast he's cried on. So people want to get in touch with their feelings. He seems like a crier to me. Yeah, exactly. So if people want to get in touch with their feelings, you can listen to two gay men who hide our feelings underneath sarcasm.

try to expand. I had your boy J-Cal on a couple weeks ago. I thought that was interesting. Just because it's a gag. It's a gag. Okay, good. Look, I don't know if you feel this way. It's hard.

I really want to, in the second Trump term, like, have people on who are less radicalized against him than me just to kind of hash it out. It's important to hear the other perspectives. The problem is most Trump supporters are full of shit. And so it's hard. And I don't want anybody in the podcast that's full of shit. I know you guys do this too. I just want only people on who are going to say what they really think. And so I can't have somebody on who like will say one thing on the podcast in the green room and be like, you know, he really, he really's gone too far on this thing. You know, that doesn't work. And so Jake.

Which they do. Just for people who don't know, they'll come up to you in a green room and be like, I agree with you. And you're like, you fucking asshole. Like that's when I truly hate them. Jason's in, this is Jason Calacanus, right? Yeah, Jason Calacanus, all in podcast. He at least will say when he disagrees with Trump, which he, which I think he's at least telling the truth. to me? You don't know? Well, well, he's an interesting. I've known him for 30, 40 years now. He was a media person. He ran a bunch of tech stuff. And, you know, he's kind of a, you know, jazz hands kind of fella. Like, I don't know what else to put it. He's really loathsome to Scott for reasons like undetermined, which probably jealousy. We used to be friends, I would say. I would say it at his house and stuff like that. And his need to suck up to power is really quite distasteful to me. And, you know, he's sort of like the clown to Elon or whatever that

group of people. He's on the podcast with All In. I feel bad because he thought he was very clever and actually one of the early media entrepreneurs and a really enthusiastic person. But, you know, one of the things that I always had a problem in our relationship was that he was, he couldn't do hard things. Like, he was a very big proponent of Travis Kalanick until everybody turned on Travis Kalanick. And then he was against Travis Kalinus. And then when he came back, he was for it. I'm like, do you have any lasting values of anything? But that's what bothers me. Well, I thought that was an interesting. It's interesting to you say that because one of the interesting things about the interview was, like, because that's his nature, he was totally

candid about the fact. One of the things that I try to get to, I'd be interested in your thoughts in this is like, why did all of these billionaires become putty in Trump's hands? Like, I get that in some cases, they want access. It's about power. It's about money. If Trump's going to act like authoritarian, they need to do it. But in other cases, they didn't really need to, and they did it anyway, and why. And he's just blunt about the fact that, like, Trump, you know, responds to their phone calls.

Biden never did. Their feelings, their little fee-fis were hurt that Elon wasn't invited to some summit. And so I thought that was, like, interesting just how blunt he was about that. But, like, sucking up to power was, like, the reason why these guys do it, like, basically. and that's it. That's no deeper than that. Which he is very good at, let me just say. And again, I like Jason, because I feel about we don't speak now. And because he won't speak to me because they're mad at me.

And I'm like, don't you have any fucking balls, Jason? You know, we had a pretty good relationship. And he won't because he's like, because it's sort of like the court jester in a lot of ways to those people. I think, you know, he doesn't have as much money as they do. He has a lot of money, but not like that. Like, and so I think he's often wanted to monetize that podcast better than they do. And it's degenerated into, he used to run a bunch of other startup events that I really liked, actually. I thought they were very clever.

They were sort of, again, jazz hands a lot. But I just feel like he had, he just has made a trade that I don't love. And I wish you would call me because I'm like, it's fine to argue, Jason. But now even he's gotten hurt. Like, you said something to hurt me. I'm like, oh, fuck you. Like, you know what I mean? Like, come on.

Now I feel bad that I mentioned that. You put me on the spot about recent interviews. I mentioned the Jason when I was saying I should mention somebody who would have, you know, not trade your job. No, but he's really smart and insightful. And you know what I love? I love him to be Truman fucking Compote and write a book when it's all over, turning on all of them. I would love that because I bet he has some really good insight. Anybody turn on Shamath on four.

So I signed up for that too. But I should have mentioned E. E.J. and Carol, that was one of my, that was my favorite interview recently because I was worried, you never know. I didn't actually know her. I never met her. She is such a stepfire. Bitch, isn't she? Oh, my God. The podcast started with her listing all the people that she had had sex with because she included that in her book. It's the best list I've ever heard. I forget what it. It's like six people, but they're all famous. Yeah, they are. Yeah. She's a salty bitch, as they say. Like, you know what? You do it daily? That's crazy. Daily. Daily. Yeah. Well, now you revealed yourself as not a daily listener, which is fine. My feelings aren't hurt. It's a lot of material. I listen. You know where I listen to it? I listen to it on social media. Like I listen to pieces and pieces. Yeah, great. I definitely listen to it every day because I go through my feeds.

Yeah, that's how people consume stuff now. Yeah, no, it's every day. I think it's important, like, look, it's important for people to be in a rhythm. You guys have a rhythm. One of the things that people are with media is you've got to be promiscuous in a way that, you know, and in their ear and in their head because, and in genuine ways, it's a very different than a TV appearance, which you're also on, because it's you. Like, this is my take and they get to trust you.

And that's the critical part of having a daily relationship. One thing you said, I want to poke on this Trump porn, Trump porn stuff. Talk about that, like that ideas. You don't want to just be endlessly reacting to this, you know, long dong silver. Yeah, short dong silver. My pledge to myself after he won was like, I'm only going to get mad about what I'm mad about. And there's going to be a lot to be mad about, you know, but I'm not going to, like, if he does something that is like, you know, that I know I could do a little bit on that would be fake or fun. I just am not going to do that

because like, A, life's too short. B, it kind of helps him, I think, frankly, you know, because oftentimes those topics are things that he wants to be out there. And I just don't think it does listen to, like, people that are tuning in any service, you know, to do that. So I, that's, that's my thing. It's hard, like, look, there's, there's so many indignities every day. And so, like, there's sometimes an obligation to bring up stuff that I feel like that's not getting enough attention that's in the news, right? But if it just becomes, you know, one day, it's like, oh, well, Trump did this thing that's horrible, the next thing you did this other thing that's horrible, the next thing you did this other thing that's horrible. And there's no, the frequency isn't any

different, right? If it's the same frequency the whole time, then, you know, everybody, you become numb to it. And so like, you get acclimated. Yeah. Yeah. So I just, I think it's important for everybody. And I don't even really mean this in a political sense. Like, it's important politically. I do think it's important for the Democrats to figure out ways to keep people from becoming numb to it. But I just mean in like a, now that I'm a former Republican, I've switched sides. I can use lib terms like this now. I mean it like in a self-care way. Like, don't become numb to this and just have it be like, oh, every day I just wake up and I get my fix of how awful it is. Yeah. It's like, no, it's like, no, today this thing is actually really

fucking bad. And we should be really mad about it and focused on it in a way that's different. I think the problem is Trump is oxygen, right, at this moment. He's every way. There's not the climate change you could do it. vaccines. You could do a thing, like all kinds of things. And it's hard when you're talking about other things not to be aware of it because it's like nothing matters except this. And that's what he's done really effectively. But let's see what you get really mad about. We've got a lot to get to today, including what Jelaine Maxwell is saying about Trump. All good things. What a surprise. And Jeffrey Epstein. And MAGA is melting down over the stupid cracker barrel logo. But I do think

that's a much more interesting story than just the logo, which is interesting. But first, President Trump is threatening to send National Guard troops to Chicago, New York, and Baltimore as part of his effort to crack down on crime. Pentagon has been planning a military deployment in Chicago for weeks now, according to the Washington Post. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is accusing Trump of trying to, quote, manufacture a crisis. While over in Maryland, Governor Westmore set Trump off after inviting him to walk the streets of Baltimore. He offered a golf cart, by the way. Meanwhile, guard troops are now carrying weapons on the streets of D.C. A Pete Hegsat directive makes me feel more unsafe as a D.C. resident. A CNN analysis of government data found a moderate drop in

reported crime in D.C. during the first week of Trump's takeover a far larger surge in the arrest of immigrants. Bill Maher has been talking about a slow-moving coup for a while now. In his latest episode, he laid out how Trump's recent action suggests a coup may already be underway. It's a little long, but let's listen. First, create a masked police force. Get people used to looking at that. normalize snatching people off the street, get them used to that, normalize seeing the car, the National Guard, and the military on the street, then start talking about crime in the capital, which is basically, you know, has always been a fairly crime-ridden city. This is our nation's capital where elections are decided.

And then have, because the crime is so bad, have other states start sending their troops, not just the National Guard there in D.C., but now at least six. other states are sending their troops, which then Trump can then federalize. So you're having many state's troops on the ground there, and now they're under federal control. So you have in the Capitol a sort of permanent police presence. So let's talk about this. I live here. I just took my daughter to the first day of public school today. Couldn't, the images couldn't be different. It's a very, it's, it's, he's not a crime-ridden city. It's actually crime has been improving as Democrats have been pointing out. There's crime in every city. There's a lot of crime

in Houston, for example. There's a lot of crime in Alabama in the cities, and wherever it doesn't matter. Cities are like this. The second thing is this idea of people on the streets with guns, but there haven't been a lot of protests, and it's not because people think this is a good thing. I know this. I've talked to lots and lots of people. There's been a real icing of the workforce around ice, people not coming to work. I just, talk to, want someone who works, does some yard work for me. They can't come because of ice because they're worried, their workers are worried, shut down at restaurants, et cetera.

Talk a little bit about this because, you know, and then the threats to go to Chicago, to Baltimore, to New York, obviously, Zoran Mandani wins, for example. Yeah, I like that, Bill Maher. I felt like he was kind of lecturing people about there. He was mad that people were mad at him for going to visit Trump earlier. And it's like, this is why. He's, like, consolidating power.

And it's important to just be clear about what it is, what he's trying to do. And to me, like, the thing about this that makes me the most upset is this combination of this kind of like military, state military theater, like, with the actual, you know, masked thugs, hassling people that are here sometimes illegally, sometimes not. You know, and they went and they tear gas that guy and, like, banged through his window in California who was a U.S. citizen. and George Redis, and so we'll kind of, you know, he's now going to be able to sue, but, like, this is what they're doing, right? Like, it is, they're acting with impunity, and the imagery of it, like, feels very un-American, and it's just, it's wrong. It's, like, not, it feels like it's in a banana republic.

It's like what we have, we've got these new trucks now with Daddy Trump's name on it, and, you know, like, people are walking through the streets in the military uniforms, and then they're jumping out of unmarked cars with masks. Like, that's not how things should, you know, that's not what this country should be about. People should be outraged and pushing back on it. And I think that to Bill's point, like, there's like this slow burn element of it about, like, getting people used to it that I think is really, is really alarming. So, you know, we'll kind of see how this stuff continues on to Chicago and Maryland and what else they decided to do, New York, maybe Baltimore, Chicago. but he's not, he's not being subtle about it.

And it's important, I think, at each lever, so I was happy to see what Westmore was doing this weekend, to, like, stop and say, like, this is no. Like, we're going to push back on this now, you know, because otherwise it just becomes a creep where he is able to do more and more. These cities have an ability to do, although L.A. had mixed ability to do it. Now, D.C. is a unique entity because it's also a federal center,

and they don't have states' rights. There's no voting. Our representative happens to be out of it, actually, so you're not hearing from her. It's a unique situation here. In the other states, it's gonna be harder to try this, to try these numbers. But how do you, why aren't there more crackdowns,

especially these visual images of either people, you know, being taken off the street, like a moped, and things like that, or everyone has a story here. People are not, I don't quite know what to do, right? What do you do? you go yell at these people, okay, that doesn't really have an effect. What is the, what is the response beside, in cities, I could see them pushing back on Trump, but not D.C. Yeah, no, I look, and A, the response from Democratic leaders is that they have to say no and not, we're going to

work with you on this, right? Like, and that was, I mean, you know, Bowser did, again, the D.C. thing is a little bit different. It's a little bit complicated. But when you get to these other cities, you know, say no, and they have to have showdowns over states' rights. I mean, like this was, like, J.D. Vance was on the shows. over the weekend where he was talking about how this question of the red state national guards coming there coming to dc and how he's like well this is our system we have states rights if the republican governors want to send us troops to suck up to trump then like oh well we'll just do that but that's not how it works and there's another blue states and even purple states

that have democratic governors right you notice philly isn't on the list josh capiro is there detroit richard wet mirror like what eventually you know you get a showdown in these places um but i think that's important i think it's important um i think that the protesting is important and it's It's important for people to call their leaders. Look, I think a lot of people feel like, oh, the pushback has been limp. And I get that. I feel that way as well. There are things I wish people were doing more of.

But a part of that, I think, is because people feel like the pushback is hope, is not with point because Trump has total power in D.C. And he's total power of Congress. But I point to this, the immigration thing in El Salvador as like a prime example of, like, how, like, pushing back on legal, political, and action in the streets grounds can slow them down. I mean, like, their initial plan was to send lots of people to that El Salvador prison. But they initially sent the three planes. There was immediately pushback, political, legal, people in the streets. And, you know, the courts slowed them down.

And what ended up happening? Like, about a couple weeks ago now, the Venezuelans that they had sent there got sent back to Venezuela. No more planes have gone to El Salvador. No more people have been sent there. And, like, that is an example of resisting the administration. that isn't maybe that satisfactory, because it's not like a win for Democrats. That's going to try everything. Yeah, but it slowed them down on that vertical.

They got to do the same thing across all these other verticals. The slowdown, the idea of slowdown. You've heard about the white ladies putting Mexican flags on their cars to get ice to stop them. I've not seen that. I like that. People are making fun of it. I was like, why? It's wasting their time.

And then the white ladies can chat away with them for the longest time. And like, that's six hours. Like, I could talk to an ice person for six hours and be difficult, but not arrestably difficult. You know what I mean? Like kind of, why are you doing this? What's happening? What's your name? How you doing? Like, irritating in the way only white ladies can do it. Well, you should irritate the local politicians. Look, am I thinking, like, so here in Louisiana, I live in New Orleans now. And so they sent 135 National Guard troops to D.C. to guard the Shake Shack or whatever. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, even Republicans in Louisiana should be calling

their legislators and the governor and annoying them about this saying, like, these are people with lives. Like, these are 135 people that have real jobs, that have families, they're back to school. Like, they've been sent away from their kids to fucking sit outside the Georgetown Cupcake. Like, this is, it's a ridiculous, it's preposterous, and like, and shining light on how ridiculous it is, is an important end. And waste of money. The waste of money. Yeah, is there any pluses for the Trump administration doing this? Like, crime is bad, because people do out, from outside cities all think crime is. Like, the whole San Francisco narrative, was so bullshit. There was problems. They're starting to really fix them. The city's very vibrant

now. It's just the cycle, right? The COVID cycle, the people moving out, et cetera, et cetera. And the more, but, you know, they're aiming at homeless people, which is really interesting here in D.C. and elsewhere, as if that's really the actual problem. I think it helps. I look. I think that, you know, there are people like Madaglacius expresses this view that's, like, bad for Democrats any time to be talking about crime and immigration because of crime and immigration or in the news, that's good for Trump because those are issues that are good for Trump. And I take that point, right? Like, I think that you have to be clear-eyed about how the fact that there is a, you know,

political benefit to what they're doing. They're good at picking enemies, you know, Kilmergrava Garcia is not that particularly sympathetic as a person, right? Like John Bolton is in particular similar to this person in different ways. But I think that, like, finding the most extreme examples and winning the fight on those grounds is better than ignoring it if you're a Democrat of moving on. And I mean, this happened in the first term on child separation. Like, his numbers tanked on it and they had to backtrack on it. That was a worthwhile immigration fight. Is fighting over, like, border security worthwhile? Like, no, probably

not. Like, similarly on crime. Like, is pushing back on some of what they're doing on crime and cleaning up cities. It's not my cup of tea. Is pushing back on it worthwhile? Maybe not politically speaking. Activists or individuals can. But the Democrats should push back on masked guys jumping out of unmarked cars and tackling door-dash drivers. Nobody's for that. And, you know, I was listening over the weekend. Do you know Tim Dillon? He's like a comedian, mad comedian. And Joe Rogan? Yeah, I was into Tim Dillon show over the weekend. And he's like, if you're a libertarian-minded Republican guy, don't tread on me, Republican guy, you can win those guys over with this. Like, he's looking at this, he's going, this. What Trump is doing is everything

Alex Jones warned about is what he was saying. It's like, you know, we're giving Palantir, our information. We've got massed, you know, we're militarizing the streets. We've got massed cops, you know, going after people without due process. Like, this is a big government security state. You know, if framed correctly, I think Democrats could use it right. Yeah. As you know, every accusation is a confession with these people. So the Trump administration, let's move on another thing they're grappling with. The Trump administration has released transcripts and audio from the DOJ's recent interview is Jelaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associates, unconvicted sexual offense, a sex offender.

In an interview, Maxwell, who is seeking a pardon, praised Donald Trump. What a surprise. And also downplayed his involvement in Epstein's activities. What a surprise. Let's listen to what this heinous bitch said. I never saw the president in any type of massage setting.

I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. So said the pedophile. Maxwell also denied the existence of a client list and dismissed the number of Epstein's theories and allegations. He's also rather kind to Epstein. He can rot in hell.

She did, however, say she doesn't believe Epstein died by suicide in prison. Honestly, why are we listening to the... I'm sorry, she's a heinous bitch. Why are we listening to her? Will it appease the mag of folks? And what do you make of the timing? The DOJ also gave Congress thousands of Epstein documents, though Democrats are pointing out

the majority of the documents were already public. They're trying to sort of slow roll the thing, a posthumous, end quote, unsparing memoir by Epstein accuser, Virginia Gaffray, who died by suicide in April's coming out in this fall. And also, some of the victims are now and fucking had it with this, again, H.B., heinous bitch. No, any of you apologize for saying, heinous bitch. We can say that again now, is what I heard after the election, that those words are allowed again. Yeah, okay, good. I can say whatever I want about her. So anyway, you know, I'm hoping Elizabeth. Holmes like smacks her a little bit. They're in the same prison, I guess. Talk a little bit about this and where it's going. I still think it's got a lot of legs this story. I don't know. I feel like it does. I do laugh at her, having hearing her call Trump, he was a gentleman in every respect. Like even Trump's friends don't think he's a gentleman. Like even Trump wouldn't

describe himself as a gentleman. I don't think. Right. Exactly. And it's just so, you know, fucking preposterous. No, she's awful. It's like important to just say that like, and she was involved in the sex crimes. That's correct. Some of these reports, like she was there in the room when it was actually happening. So I could not, you know, I mean. She was participating in it. Yeah.

And she was bullying and timiding these women. They were in a quasi-sex slavery with him, like, essentially, saying, where she was, you know, saying, oh, you know, you're not going to get, you know, there would be financial pressure she'd put over them or access or threats. So, and she is as bad as they get. And a liar and totally unreliable in all these cases. Her only effort here is to get a part. And I don't think anything really comes out of this. I think it's maybe should be used against Trump politically. The fact that she's been sent to a club fed is the only sex offender in the entire prison system

in such a nice prison with Elizabeth Holmes. And so I think there's maybe some political juice there, not a ton, but there's something. I think that to me, the potential story here is that there is it like there is an actual traditional cover-up, right? Like, a lot of Trump's other behavior is like very, is sui generic. Like, it's just Trump. Like, he's doing stuff that doesn't really happen before. It's different. People, like, his crypto scheme, it's like, what? You know, like, there's not, there's not a history of this type of scandal, you know, for folks to, like, you know, break, um, uh, connect to. That's not the case here. Like, this is just a straight cover up

that many other politicians have done. Like, they have a list of all the times Trump has mentioned these files. They, they've admitted it. They said there's a Microsoft share file with the FBI agents that went through and marked his name. So this exists somewhere, you know, a file of where Trump is in there. And they don't want to release it. And they're not going to. They're going to cover it up to protect the boss. Like, that's just a straight cover-up story. And I think that I asked Hakeem Jeffries about this when he was on the pod the other week. And I was like, so will you have a special committee on this if you get back into the leadership and he kind of said, yes. Like he wouldn't commit to exactly to a special committee, but he said,

we will and be investigating this. And I think they can now then just do us, again, a straight, school cover-up investigation. They can subpoena the FBI agents that were involved in this, you know, what Bondi did, what she briefed Trump on. And who knows where that could lead, right? And so, you know, the example I was used of this is all those Benghazi oversight hearings. In this weird convoluted a way, the Benghazi hearing led to the Hillary email server, you know? And so you don't exactly know what will come from oversight. And so I I think if the Democrats are willing to actually do it, well, first, if they win in the midterms, and then if they're actually to do it, like, this is a story that we'll be talking about

in August of 2027. Yeah, they're trying to push it down, and they didn't push down very easily. I don't think this, this guy continues to resurface Epstein. He's like the corpse that wouldn't be buried, essentially. You know, and he keeps showing up in some fashion. I think the Jelaine Maxwell, I know a lot of them are saying Trump is clean, like Jim Jordan, who's good at defending pedified. and covering up for them, you know, would say he's not clean by any stretch of imagination,

like, at all, because this lady says it? Not so. I just, one photograph, one, another accuser, that's all it's going to take to really revive this, because it really does animate the right in ways that it didn't animate the left, by the way. It doesn't animate liberals this story. Yeah, and I think that was because the right got animated by it. The pretense was kind of like this concerned about child sex trafficking and I there's some obviously there are people on the right who are generally concerned about child predation and but I think that why it's sort of like you know tickled their um you know the lizard part of their brain was the the death side it was like the conspiracy side of it is like oh was there a deep state effort to protect whoever the clinton

you know you name it like whoever and it was and that like plot side of it is what like elevated the story from what would have been a very, like, serious, no doubt, like, real story with, like, real victims and all that to something that, like, had this life of its own on the right. And I think that, like, for that same reason now, like, there's a, there's a, not really a conspiracy, but a cover-up that I think will animate the left that kind of gets locked on to the more straightforward story about what they were doing to these young girls. Right. That's a really good point. That will be the thing. This, this, you know, there are attempts at slow rolling it, And they still fight among each other with Laura Loomers still calling Pam Bondi, Blondie, etc.

I suspect this is still going to keep going with this guy. Okay, Tim, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump makes a deal with Intel. As a founder, you're moving fast towards product market fit, your next round, or your first big enterprise deal. But with AI accelerating how quickly startups build and ship, security. expectations are also coming in faster, and those expectations are higher than ever. Getting security and compliance right can unlock growth, or stall it if you wait too long. Vanta is a trust management platform that helps businesses automate security and compliance across more than 35 frameworks

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Framer.com promo code pivot rules and restrictions apply. Tim, we're back. The U.S. government is taking a 10% stake in Intel with Trump calling it a, quote, great deal for America and a great deal for Intel. Under the agreement, $8.9 billion in unpaid CHIP Act grants will be converged into equity, making the government Intel's largest shareholder, but without board seats or governance rights. It's a turnaround from a few weeks ago when Trump was calling for Intel's CEO to resign over ties to China. Intel move also comes on the heels of NVIDIA and AMD agreeing to hand over 15% of their China chip sale revenues to the government.

Not clear whether they should be selling chips to China. There's also that, quote, golden share in U.S. Steel. Senator Rand Paul called the Intel deal a step towards socialism. I, oddly enough, agreed with Senator Rand Paul. Industrial policy is not my favorite thing. Even the Washington Post and also the Wall Street Journal. But the Washington Post editorial board came out against us saying the United States should not be trying to beat China by becoming China. You know, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders wish they could have this much control over companies, right? And Bernie endorsed it, actually. Yeah, of course. And Mark Cuban said it's just a wealth tax in a different way, right? They're taking money. I, you know, as part of it, I'm like, I thought the government should have not done the giveaways to car companies or banks. I thought they should have taken a piece of Tesla and then sold it back and made money on it for the U.S. There's nothing wrong with it. But industrial policy in general is always a bad idea in a capitalist and vibrant economy. Thoughts about this? how it shakes out. I'm curious

your thoughts in the tech side. I'll just give, because this is like also a little bit outside my wheelhouse, but my political, obviously there is the cheap but true political observation of the, you know, mega-socialism. And like, it's okay. If Trump doesn't, we're going to panic about the five city-run grocery stores in New York. But we're going to let the government take over

a 10% stake in a major company. You know, so there's like the obvious hypocrisy on its face there. And, you know, it's kind of funny, I think, back to my heyday as a Republican, when, like, one of, like, back, like, 10, 15 years ago, there was this big controversy on the right over the Ex-Im Bank. It's like a federal bank providing loans that I, how that was, oh, government picking winners and losers and crony capitalism. I'm like, here we are, like, literally taking a stake in the company now.

So, I mean, I think that is outrageous. The thing that worries me about it more than the actual, than, like, the substance of what's happening with Intel is, like, it is another lever for him to use power to bully. kind of who knows, right, other people, right? And so whether that be Intel customers, competitors, right? So it's like, well, we aren't going to take a stake. We're not going to take a, we're not, or excuse me, we're not going to have a governing responsibility in the company. But the government now still has an interest in this doing well. And Trump does. Trump has an emotional interest. He's posting about how the stocks up and how that's good. And how that's the sound of this good. And so, like, the downstream effects of that is something

that is not like all the way to China, but has some of that flavor. We're like, like the government can start to intimidate certain other companies. And decide which are the national winners, right? Like, except you don't want the government in your business, essentially. And one of the issues is Intel's been suffering for years and years, lack of innovation, bad management, et cetera, you know, for a very long time. It used to be the dominant chipmaker. And then just got, got, just fell by the wayside.

So there is an argument made for, like, helping U.S. companies in the chip area, largely for national security. Well, there's the Chips Act that was going to do that. Exactly. But the issue is, it's not going to make them more innovative by having the government investment. It's just going to prop them up, right? And the problems with Intel run a lot deeper that maybe they should go to business. Maybe they should restructure. Maybe they should, we shouldn't have the government deciding to keep them on life support, right? It's not life support. It's just been, it's been sucking for many CEOs for a long time. And so, you know, the natural thing is let it die. And then something else comes up. The problem is, our chip, manufacturers are weaker and they're stronger in Taiwan and China and elsewhere. And so just the fact that governments makes choices like this, they shouldn't. What they should do is provide research money for all kinds of things. They should provide encouragement and innovative grants to help people start businesses of all kinds. Those are fine by me. I'm fine with manufacturing

money, right? Like we want to make sure that they have, you know, loan guarantees to build plants. So, you know, if, like, there's a reason interest rates are high right now. So, like, it's in the national interest that we're building chip plants. Companies don't want to take the risks. The government backstops that, it's not like my ideal free market system. But that's, like, a defensible thing for the government to want to do. On this particular market. But it's just a hop-skip and jump to other markets, right?

Like, let's own this, let's own that. Well, they said that Kevin Hassett is on CNBC this morning saying, now we might start to take chips and stakes in other companies. And again, this is the bullying part. This is the authoritarian part where it's like, oh, if you're another company that took money from the Chips Act or from the IRA, maybe those were good decisions. Maybe they're bad decisions. I think that there was probably a bunch of wasted money in both of those bills, by the way. But like the companies then at that point that made that decision should not now be worried that, oh, I can't do anything, say anything that might upset Trump. I can't go on TV and have, you know, grandpa watching his stories see that I'm critical of some policy or else they might try to take over a stake in the company. Yeah, it's very meddlesome in a way that's not anti-capitals. I can see them in their room. I can see this, especially that dumbass Howard Lutnik. Like, we should have gotten a piece of Tesla.

We should have gotten a piece of this. But they're bad business. Howard Lutton is not a bad business person. Trump is arguably one of the worst things. Are you sure he's not a bad business person? He seems very stupid. Listen, he was sort of the discount guy on Wall Street. When you talk to Wall Street people, they's like, he built a big business, but what an idiot.

I think that's usually what you'd be. But it was like a business nobody wants. They were like, oh, that guy's business, like, sort of like Crazy Eddie. Like, remember Crazy Eddie a long time ago? You know, of course, it went bankrupt that business. I think people don't love Howard Letnik on Wall Street. They don't have much respect for him. That said, Trump has, he actually has built a business that has lasted.

And Trump, of course, has run the, this is the idea of real estate dealers, real estate people running the government. Like, yeah, what can I get? What can I get? Like, what's the Vig? And so it feels mobstery. It feels like, you know, corrupt. It feels meddlesome. And it creates, you know, the fact that Tim Cook has to give a gold statue to Trump is a bad thing.

Even if he's doing it for shareholders, it means we live in a banana republic. That's what it means. And so it's never good. Yeah, and the whole thing is I laugh at like how those guys are all like, and I shared some of the critiques of woke identity politics and big, you know, in corporate America. But it was funny. It was like Cook kind of gave him like a woke right statue. Like he felt it felt important for him to say in the presentation. It was like this was made by a mega Republican veteran.

You can imagine the inverse where Tim Cook comes into Kamla. It's like here's a statue made by an indigenous bisexual. Like we felt like we needed to do that. They felt like he had to do the whole identity right politics stuff too. The whole thing was very gross. unnatural acts. They're creating people who should be running their companies do unnatural acts. And it is bad for shareholders in the end. It's not even if they're doing it to help shareholders so we don't get a bigger tariff. It's an unnatural act, Tim. Stop doing unnatural acts. Can I ask you one nationalization thing? Because, you know, I'm a passionate capitalist. But there's one moment, there's been one issue kind of in this realm that has tickled my socialist pickle, which was the idea that maybe we need to national. I was like, is that sort of related to this?

That's like a kind of a different conversation where that is in the national security interests, no. Yeah, maybe for some, they should be working hand in glove. I mean, I think the issue is NASA sort of got out of control in terms of bureaucratic and not innovative. The only thing is when you're a government agency, you can't make mistakes the way SpaceX can. And the minute you nationalize it, it can't blow up rockets. And as much as it seems like a failure to blow up rockets, the way you get to places or get to better innovation. by taking risks. And if you're a government agency, you cannot take risks by the definition of a government agency. So I see that they have to be working very closely with, this is the kind

of close relationships. It's not really a free market, though. You can't have unlimited companies in space. It's kind of like how NDA team ownership is not a real free market. Like, yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah, I just don't. I feel like they're, they have brought the cost down because they're not a government. There's no interest in a government. But I don't know. There's no interest in the government to making things cheaper. Yeah. Crazy Elon having that much control over the policy. He does. That's one of the worries. Of course, I suspect that's what they're worried about is you got, it's like a bond bill in essentially running critical infrastructure. Same thing with chips. We have to have a real chip policy, and this ain't it. Speaking of something that seems troubling, FBI agents raided the home and office

of former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton on Friday. The Trump critic is a subject of national security investigation in the search of classified records. Vice President J.D. Vance says the raid definitely doesn't have anything to do with Bolton's criticism of Trump, which means it does, or rather stems from a, quote, broad concern about Ambassador Bolton. You know, the Wall Street Journal's against this. Everyone's against this. Like, doing, you know, I think what they're doing is what they thought was done to them. So if they didn't like it done to them, why are they doing it to others? Very retribution, revenge. She just threatened Chris Christie, I think, today or yesterday.

Yeah, starting to jail Chris Christie, too. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal. editorial board has kind of cracked me up since they've been very Trump friendly. They talked about how one of the concerns of him coming back was that he'd run vendettas. And they wrote, quote, it's turning out to be worse than we imagined. It's like, oh, you don't say. Not me. Actually, it's going a bright, just about exactly how we told you was going to go. Not any worse. The Bolton thing, I just think it's important to say this because it's obviously preposterous that this is not a political attack. But if you just replace John Bolton with like Mark Meadows or Cory Lowe. I imagine it was somebody from the Trump first term that wrote a book

that who is still in good graces with Trump and the accusations that there were classified materials in that book that was written five years ago. There's no imaginable world in which the FBI is raiding the home of a Trump 1.0 cabinet member who is still an ally, right? Like, you just, nobody could imagine that. If there were a legitimate concern that he had some classified materials they shouldn't have, like there's a process for this sort of thing, FBI calls DOJ's lawyers call their lawyers. You set up a meeting, right? Like, you know, so this is, this was purely to either hassle or intimidate. It feels like prosecutorial overreach, right? That's just the thing that Trump complained about. And it does, I think it brings up what Trump did. Like, again,

like you did it. It's this is, well, the Trump, the Trump example is, it's important to just explain the difference. It's like, in the Mar-a-Lago raid, which I would listen to the idea that maybe that could have been handled in a less aggressive way. But like, it's, it's not comparable to the Bolton situation. Like, the, the, the, you know, the archivist or whatever, like, you know, said that Trump, you know, brought some materials that, you know, are the property of the United States, they shouldn't have, you know, they asked for a meeting, denied. So then they provided a list of what the materials were. Trump lied and said that it wasn't there. They tried to move some of the materials to a different place. So Trump was obstructing the effort to do this in, like, the good faith way that this is generally done.

And that's why the raid happened. Like, that was not the case with John Bolton. They just showed up at his house. I think because the statute of limitations, I suspect, is running out on the stuff from the first term, which would be five years now. And they did so just to intimidate him. Pan Vondi puts out a tweet about it. I don't have it in front of me. Or something like, our national security, you know, comes first.

It's like nobody thinks that America's security was a threat because of whatever John Bolton has in his house. And, you know, and I think that it ties kind of the Intel thing. Like, the thing that worries me about everything is eventually, and it ties to the Bill Marr thing at the top. Like, slowly but surely, people just decide it's not worth the hassle, right? Like, you get into authoritarianism, not through violent coup necessary, but by slow burn towards everyone deciding, you know, I'm going to go bring him a trophy to keep him happy. I'm not going to say anything wrong because I don't want the FBI to come after. me, and, you know, eventually you consolidate power. And that's closer to, like, what you've

seen in Hungary and other places. Yeah. Well-known centers of innovation. Hungary. Exactly. Economy is really, really thriving and hungry and Turkey. We want the Turkey model for our country. The Turkey model. Anyway, we'll see what happens with this. I suspect it'll peter out. They have such a little follow-through, but they do cause dam. What they do, they're like toddlers. They come in, cause damage and a little follow-through. All right, Tim, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Cracker Barrel makes an enemy of the right. Support for Pivot comes from Grooons. If you've ever done a deep internet dive trying to discover different nutrition solutions,

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by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wool coat from Winners, I started wondering, is every fabulous item I see from Winners?

Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. Are those from winners? Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings? Did she pay full price? Or that leather tote? Or that cashmere sweater? Or those knee-high boots? That dress, that jacket, those shoes.

Is anyone paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners, find fabulous for less. Tim, we're back with more news. Please make sure you're seated for this next emotion. topic, Cracker Barrel's logo change. The chain has removed the barrel

and the man from its logo and conservatives are horrified. Change is hard conservatives. Cracker Barrel's stock was down 12% in the last five days at the time of taping. Like, I haven't been in a Cracker Barrel because they're so anti-gay, right? That's what I remember. No, they did a, obviously you don't

remember their effort to appeal to care a couple years ago. They did a rainbow rocking chair during Pride Month a couple years ago. Oh, whatever. You know, this is fucking ridiculous. This is like, it's just a logo change, and the old man seems like old, like for, they want young people to come.

That's my presumption is they've got too many fucking old people in the place, and they need a new, they need a new demo. It makes sense from, again, meddling in the bidness. Like, if they want to get rid of the old fucking man, they should get rid of the old man. And the fact that they're all horrified, like, they're so, they're so censorious the right when they accuse others of being censorious. And, you know, they'll either live or die by the stock going down. and maybe they'll put the man back or whatever.

But it's just, I don't... I've got to take a contrary beauty on this one. Are you ready to fight over a Cracker Barrel? Yeah, okay. The new logo is awful. When's the last time you went? Oh, it's an ugly logo. Correct.

It's an ugly... Yeah, I haven't been in years. Every once I'll go, I think, on the drive from D.C. to the beach, there's a Cracker Barrel somewhere. I've put that was many years ago now. So I haven't been in a while, so I don't actually have any personal stake or care about this. But I do just as an objective, observer of the world, the new logo is awful. the picture that they put out of the new inside of the Cracker Barrel, which is more minimalist or whatever, is also awful. And it is part of a broader corporate trend where every logo has to be minimalist now and every store needs to have clean lines.

And we need diversity of views. You know, you need diversity of experiences like the human spirit, you know, yearns for different types of, you know, we don't all want Scandinavian clean lines. So some places call for Scandinavian. No, but I think they probably realize most of their clients are, about to die. You think new people are going to come in, though, because they want to make it look more like Applebee's? I don't think that, like, the millennial finder, like, I'm excited now that we're, and now they're changing it from the old man, old Southern view to a more of a modern Applebee's aesthetic. I think at some point you have to change. It's like, it's, but again,

this is again, it's up to the company if they want to do this, and they'll either live or die by it, right? That's my whole thing. I agree with that. I suspect they're looking at the numbers and they're like, all the old people, we don't have any, they probably know exactly who's coming into their restaurants. And young people are not coming into the Cracker Barrel. They're just not. And you know, the name itself would probably be changed Cracker Barrel. Like, what is a Cracker Barrel? Honky Barrel. You know, I kind of like what they're doing at Hooters. They're going, now, you'd be surprised. What are they doing at Hooters? I know nothing about this. They're going back to cheesy and booby and, like, wings. I'm vaguely offended by Hooters. I don't care.

Like, if people want to go to those stupid places and they pay those people enough, I don't know what to say. I think it's gross, but whatever people, if you want to go to, you know, that, you want to, by the way, all the Hooters' waitresses, in my experience, have been fan-fucking-tastic people, and they know the whole fucking deal with the guys leering their breasts, which is like their toddlers looking at them. But there was a great story, a gay guy, who was it, who talked about going to Hooters and his dad. His Twitter name is Peter Twinkledge. Yeah, a great story of going to Hooters and the Hootor Waitress helping this guy out, and she knew he was gay. right? The father didn't. Of course, the father did, because that's why he dragged his

poor, sorry ass there. But, you know, I kind of like that they're going back to it because they thought they're like, just be, Hooters just be Hooters. And if they do a nice job of it and the wings are good, I'm fine with it. I just think this is a company, much like, oh, there's probably a bunch of them facing real secular change in their usage. So they must have studied this. And the people that are being noisy are all the old folk. I guess. I don't. Sometimes, though, you can overstudy stuff. It's like, I feel this way about political ads where it's like, you know, I'll be in a meeting where a super PAC will be like, we decided to do this ad because we tested it. And I'm like, most of these tests are so dumb. It's people that are like playing video games or something. And then they show the ad during the commercial break. And then you have to say whether you like it or not. And it's like people don't know themselves. We're trusting this. Like they're just trying to get through the ad. Like a lot of these, a lot of these, you know, corporate testing. things. There's a lot of hooey-fooey. Can I just give you one admission since you've admitted the Hooters, you know, come clean on your support for original Hooters? The Cracker Barrel thing for me

is tied to the new Oval Office design. And I like the new Oval Office design, just like I like the old Cracker Barrel, because I think more is more. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, this whole like minimalist wasp, Northeast thing. Oh, that was really minimalist. Pro Hooters, pro, pro, pro Liberacee, Pro original Cracker Barrel. That's where I'm landing. Oh, well, he's not pro Liberacee. Come on. Well, Oliver Off is has a liberace aesthetic now, I think.

Oh, it does. Which I like. It's okay with, I don't. I think I didn't like, when I saw the comparison, I was like, look how awful. I'm like, the first one was kind of dull. Was the Bid one? Grab. Right?

And you know I like a, like, listen, showgirls is about to have its 50th anniversary or whatever, and I'm up for anything like that. I like excess. It's too much over here. Now there's way too much fucking gold. Like, gold is best. if you ever saw that Apple thing. So I think it's too much. There should be pomp and circumstance,

but there's way too much of that. It's a little Uday and Kusei. It's a little much. It wouldn't be my preferred aesthetic, but it is definitely an upgrade when you look at the comparisons. The gray skin. What else would you put in there?

What would your Oval Office look like? That's not really in the cards, I don't think. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, kind of like the bird cage. I don't know what I'd be. Gay. You're gay.

You get up. You gay. Yeah. It combined all of my conflicting interests, you know. We might have a Reagan portrait, but also a lot of gay stuff. They live in conflict together. Maybe just Nancy. You know who I'd have design it?

You know, Ken Falk? He's a San Francisco designer. My husband loves Ken Falk. Yeah. Everything he does is just a little lushe, but I love it. Like, you know, it's just a little bit too much velvet and stuff like that. There's an occasional dead animal on the wall. I kind of love it.

I love, it looks a little. I like wallpapers. I also like the Nancy Myers aesthetic. That is kind of a nice one. Do you know, you know, the director, those houses that Dying Keaton always lives in. Those are nice. Maybe don't. They're a little, I don't know, that's not really for me.

It's a white lady. That might be triggered. It might be this little suburban, kind of triggered by my suburban upbringing. I don't want anything, like the 90s suburban, like Tuscan aesthetic. Anything like that is that I have a natural, like, physical revulsion to. Yeah. I think I would do more funny stuff, a little more color. I like a lot of color.

Same. Anyway, I think they should have kept the barrel, gotten rid of the old man. The barrel needs to be there, and there should be crackers. All right, last thing, Elon Musk's X has reached a tentative agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees who say they are owed $500 million in severance. Musk fired around 6,000 employees after acquiring Twitter, and of course he didn't pay them. In other Musk news, he also asked Mark Zuckerberg to help him finance a $97 billion takeover Open AI in early 2025, according to court filings. In a case between Musk and Open AI, obviously didn't happen. Oh, thank God. But Mark sees it coming.

Thank God, I guess. Isn't that kind of like an Iran-Iraq war situation? Who are you rooting for in Altman versus Mosque versus Zuckerberg? The Bullets is what Scott always says. You're running for the bullets. You know, this, I know a little bit about this payment, and I'll just say really, really, I've met with a lot of the people who they owe money to. And look, if you want to fire people, Elon, that's fine. That's your business. But pay them what they're owed. That's it. It just makes you like an asshole, not to pay them their sex. Even if you don't like what they did before,

that was the agreement they were taken over. As to his open AI thing, just stop. You know, Sam Altman is not interested in you. So stop bothering that company. You walked yourself out of there like an idiot when you were there from the beginning because of your ego and your need for control. You don't have it.

Just try to make a good company on your own. That's my feeling. I don't have any thoughts on the floor of finding, so I agree with everything you said. While we're admitting to bad opinions that we have about aesthetics, I also kind of like the Zuckerberg fuckboy rebrand. I think that that's been good for him. So I support that.

Is he a fuck boy? Kind of. I mean, the gold chain and the, what are the kids going to lettice hair? Yeah. Okay, would you go out with him? Do you think he's attractive? Not really for, well, not really for me. No, I don't think so.

I guess I had to pick between him and all. I probably originally would have said Sam Altman, I don't know. Sam's recent interviews are pretty creepy. He's starting to move into the uncanny valley for me. a little bit. Oh, interesting. How so? Tell me. It's fine. I don't know. I just, like the, I get him in my TikTok a lot. I guess it's kind of how you're consuming me. Like, he does all these podcast interviews where he's talking about what we want future open AI. Like, did you see a Stio Vaughn interview? And he's, and like, his projections about what is coming, you know, and how, you know, people are

just going to have to get used to a world where they're like robot humans walking around on the street everywhere and where, like, a lot of people's real friends are computer friends and where he's, I just, the whole thing is getting a little creepy for me. And he seems to kind of be leaning into that, like, that he, and I think, I just think I'm misaligned with him for what I would like to see an AI future look like. Well, it's just one man's opinion for one. Well, it's an important man's opinion, kind of. Yeah, but there's been, open AIs have come and gone. Like, I don't mean to be, but like, remember Yahoo was huge and then it wasn't. Like, these things, and they are definitely in a more precarious position. They're either Netscape or they're

Google, right? That said, Google didn't run the show on everything eventually, and even they struggled at various times. I feel like, look, he wants to, he's sort of styling himself like Steve Jobs, so he's trying to say important, controversial things. And so nobody is Steve Jobs, that everyone's trying to grab that mantle, and there will be not another one like that. And so that's what you're hearing. What's your alarm level and all that stuff on these on these guys, these egomaniacs deciding what our future is going to look like? We've already seen what happened. So we're going to see this.

I think the government, in this case, needs to be much more involved with guidance, guardrails, and regulations, as you know. I don't like a small group of people, not diverse in any way, making decisions for the rest of us. That's all. Just like I didn't, you know, as much as I like Train Daddy on the Gilded Age, they decided where the roads went. They decided where the things went. and our whole country has to live in the reality they create. And I'm not so pleased with that either, although I like Drain Daddy quite a bit, oddly enough.

I don't have any takes on Trained Daddy, but I'll learn about it. You need to watch the Gilded Age because all the gays love Drain Daddy, just so you know. He's really great. Speaking of which, it cracks me up with Gavin Newsom every time that Jesse Waters calls him Daddy. He's like, I'm not interested. His use of, like, gay taunts is so... I'm not, everyone's like, aren't you offended?

I'm like, no, I love them. I don't know about how you feel. I like a gay taunt. I like a gay taunt, too. I sometimes, the only time I get offended on this thing is sometimes I feel like, and maybe it's just because as a gay former Republican, I get a lot of incoming on this. Sometimes I feel like the liberals in my life are like way too excited to make like gay slurs about Lindsay Graham and like the MAGA gays. And I like a little joke about Lady G.

I'm fine with that. But sometimes it's like the tone where, like, I kind of feel like you're just, you've just been very, you've just had this pent up desire to make homophobic jokes. And now you feel like you can because Lindsay Graham is the target. And it comes out a little too enthusiastic for my taste, I guess. I would agree. I'm a hundred percent in your time. I'm talking about more like when they actively go out of their way to, like, to slap back at it. But I agree with you. I just, look, whatever journey Lindsay Graham is on is his journey. It is hypocritical, obviously. But when has that? that not happened. Do you remember during the Reagan administration? Oh, my God, that's the administration. They were crawling with gays, and they were doing anti-gay things. But the stakes were, you know, with AIDS were so massive at the time. It seemed like, they are massive now, too. There are attacks on gay marriage right now are really quite disturbing. Are you worried about that? I don't know. I keep telling people, I think that the trans, if I'm acutely worried, if I'm transgender, if I'm a migrant, and I think those are very acute crises right now, and we should really focus on them.

the gay marriage thing, I kind of, I just would be, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know. I think that there are people that are very intent on, still angry about gay marriage. And they just sit there and they see and they work and they work to overturn it. That's right. I think it's a losing fight for them. The abortion thing, I think a lot on the left thought the abortion thing would be a losing fight for them. And they compare the two issues and they kind of conflate them. And I just, I think for a variety of reasons, like gay marriage,

is like a 70% issue in the country, and I think it would be a pretty big loser. Well, it hasn't stopped them on a lot of things, right? It's true. I think there is a group of dedicated anti-gay people that have never, I've always thought they've never gone away. And it was like, now we want, I'm like, have we? You know, I think you should be vigilant with these people.

I think they would very much like to do a lot of things to women and gay people that are really disturbing. And so, and set them back. And they articulate it now. And you see it, even the things Vance, pushes. It's noteworthy the change in how unbridled they are now. Like, they feel totally now unshackled to say their real feelings about gay people. Like, there was a period of time where I think people are like, oh, this is, there'll be backlash against me, or this isn't, and you're not seeing

that anymore. And I think that's, that's revealing. In some way, I think it's bad. I worry about it for younger LGBT people. But I also, in some ways, I think it's nice for it to be revealing that we can see the score a little bit. See, I've always thought they were like this. I never thought they were friendly to us for a minute. And by the way, they are committed to overturning marriage, some of those people. And guess what? We're committed not to. So that's the part that I think you'll see how that's going to go trying to take my marriage away from me. You know what I mean? Like, I think the equally committed. Okay, Tim, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Starting at 17 grams per medium latte, Tim's new protein lattes, protein without all the work, at participating restaurants in Canada. Oh, hi, buddy. Who's the best you are? I wish I could spend all day with you instead. Uh, Dave, you're off mute.

Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Okay, Tim, let's hear some wins and fails. I will go first. I think it's sort of a fail. This Trump's canckel thing, I know people are like,

it's really odd. I have to say Alex Jones is concerned about Trump's health. He warned last week at the current trajectory, Trump is going to have some sort of collapse with him. next 12 months. Thank you, Dr. Jones, you terrible heinous, speaking of heinous bitches. Trump's hands are also looking questionable with all those odd smears of makeup. He had a weird walking thing. The ages, as I have said, the cognitive decline and the age decline is real. And he, let me tell you, he's a lively old man, that's for sure. Like, he's the, he's the guy

in the, in the nursing home that's just real lively, but still going to keel over at any moment. It could keel over at any moment. I think that's, I think they, I'm not sure why they aren't controlling this, especially with the makeup and everything else, largely because he's probably very vain and everything else. But he's obviously aged rather significantly in so many ways, and I think it's taking its toll on him. It feels like he's rotting. It feels like when Voldemort was starting to rot, like when he wasn't getting enough dead people, or his foreclose. We can't see his real face is something that's true. Now, the leader will not show us what he really looks like because it's, you know, he's so fragile.

No. He looks like he was on Ozzympic, but now he looks fat again. I'm like, hmm, something's going on with his health. I think, I don't think that's a winner or fail. I just feel like, you just wanted to mention it. I don't think. I just want to mention it because I think people are like, oh, let's not mention. I'm like, no, no, he looks, like, we should have mentioned more things about Biden and Scott and I did and gotten a lot of crap. He looks, there's something going on. The cancels are noteworthy. And if the cancels are as wide as Alex Jones's neck, you know that there's something concerning there. Remember when they attacked Hillary Clinton's ankle. I don't recall that. Good for the gander. No, it wasn't you. It's good for the goose.

And my win is the fantastic. Once again, we have the new version of Wicked coming, and it's only in three months, and I think their social media campaign is fantastic. And they've done a great job. I love John Chu. He's going to be here in D.C. next couple of next week. I'm to see him, hopefully. I just am very excited about that movie, and I just, I'm not going to hide it. I love it. And I love the actors in it. And I think they're doing a spectacular marketing job on it. And I just love to watch people use social media in a really positive way. And I like that. And it gives me pleasure. Your win and fail. All right. Well, I wasn't planning this one. But if we're doing, you know, musical shoutouts,

I should win for, I have to give my Oasis guys a win. I mean, they reunited. Nobody said they could do it. They're coming to America now this week. They'll be back. Nobody ever thought they'd explain why this is a big deal. It was the brothers, Noel and Liam and Liam Gallagher. They're brothers. They were very seward in the British sense. I still won't say that in your presence, Caira, but the kind of Englishmen who drank a lot and fought together. And obviously, folks will know Wonderwall or Champaign Supernova, some of their famous songs. And so they've been broken up for 16 years. They spent most of the decade and have shit-talking each other in the press. And the idea was like they never would get back together. They're back together. I went to one of

their shows in Manchester and in their reunion shows. And now they're, now- Was it good? Are they sad? It was biblical. It was unbelievable. Oh, really? He sounds amazing. I think he must have quit smoking or got a vocal coach. Because I, you know, sometimes you'll go to see the aging rock stars. I hate to, I want to see Pearl Jam at Jazz Fest. And it's like, you know, you can just tell sometimes, you know. The last Madonna concert, that's how I felt. It was rough.

Yeah. So, um, not the case with Liam. He sounds amazing. They sound amazing. Everyone was so excited because people who are into Aces are really into it. Like the crowd around me knew every word. It was wonderful. So that was a win.

Good. I had come in here. That I had planned on doing was I was on a more serious level. I was going to give Putin a win in their little summit in Alaska. Go for it. No, I don't really have much that. It's just obvious now. When it had happened, there was like, yeah, I think even some people were like, well,

maybe Trump will get like, you know, like maybe this thing will finally start to, start to, you know, recede and Putin will, you know, get some deal out of it. Trump will, you know, give them some crypto or, you know, some parts of Ukraine and Trump, and obviously at this point, he was just totally used by Putin in a way that's, like, really embarrassing at this point, like the red carpet rollout. My fail is to like the, as somebody who prefers the centrist Democrats, shout out to my girl, Jerusalem Dempster, the argument, a new kind of center-left democratic outlet. Like, just my advice to them is like their treatment of Zoron is so bad. It's such a fail. I do not understand what they're doing. They're limiting their own

power in the future of the party. People are like very excited about Zoron. I've got issues with some of his policies. I had them on the pod. and we argued about a couple of various things. And so you don't have to full-throatedly say you endorse everything, but there's so much enthusiasm for him. And you're going to get overthrown. If you're Hakeem or Chuck Schumer or any of these guys that aren't, like, people are going to get pissed and overthrow you if you do not at least listen when...

I would... The scavenger hunt was brilliant. Again, he's very canny in a really interesting community. Phelma was like, I went and I met a dozen people. Like, that was cool. Like, he really is appealing. I agree. I went out to dinner. I think I said that there was the senator. I'm not going to say what it is who was like belly aching about him. I'm like, why don't you go watch what he's fucking doing before you did it? You also have no other choice. Who are you going to back? Eric Adams? Like what, you know, like a sex pest who had to resign and disgraced? It's already gotten beaten by your own voters. The whole thing is really frustrating. Voters said this and therefore let's go with the vote. If young people, you complain and complain about young people's engagement, they're engaged. You complain about that. Like, They really are a bunch of wimpuses.

And they could say, I don't agree with him on this, but I kind of think he's cool, that kind of thing. Or he's doing this thing well, or I'm happy, or how about even simply, I'm happy to endorse him just because the other options are so awful. That's okay. Like, there are a lot of options besides, you know, just doing the hemming and hauling. One well-known person we both know was saying, well, I wasn't asked to endorse. Why are people giving me a hard time for not endorsing? I'm like, you don't need to be asked. Just say what a cool, interesting politician he is.

We don't agree on everything, but pretty fucking cool. 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. Elsewhere this week on on with Kara Swisher. I talked with graphic novelist Alison Beckdell and editorial cartoonist Anne Telness. Let's listen to a clip of Anne explaining how she draws Trump. My readers are the ones that always point out to me because I never notice I'm changing every time.

They're like, okay, he's starting to look like a big mouth bass now. And I'm like, okay, I can go with that. Or, you know, they say he's a pig. And I'm like, well, I like pigs, don't tell me that, you know. So, you know, like I said, it's just really I try to find out, I'm trying to show you what I think the insides of that person is more than the outside. Is there one particular body part that you think is besides the tie? Little hands. Tiny, tiny hands.

They were great. It's really, we don't pay enough. Cartoonists are doing God's work at this point. And Anne had left the Washington Post. Allison, of course, is such a talented cartoonist. She was a new book called Spent. Really interesting conversation about the visualization of our politics that goes way back in our history, Thomas Nast and her block and others.

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 on Friday. Thank you so much. You are also doing God's work. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Carol. It was such a pleasure. Interesting and canny. And I like that you have different takes. And I like that you like the Gold Oval Office. That's what you'll be remembered for. You and I would go to a Liberacee show. I

love Liberacee. I'm in that zone. All right, I'll read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited this video. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher. Nishot Kerw is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. 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. We'll be back later this week for our last breakdown of all things tech and business before Scott Free August ends. We've got a very big name, a very person who calls who calls himself the most handsome governor in the country.

We'll see what that means. You'll find out. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Karen.