Pivot - Iran Quagmire Questions, SpaceX IPO Plans, and The White House App

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Kara and Scott unpack Trump's confusing statements on Iran, and discuss whether the U.S. is already in a quagmire. Then, Elon preps for a SpaceX IPO that could launch him into trillionaire territory, and Anthropic scores a key legal win. Plus, why Kara and Scott think you should steer clear of the White House's new app.Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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God, limit his talking. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Calloway. Scott, I have officially left your apartment in New York. Oh, you moved into your new place.

Yes, I bought a small apartment in Brooklyn, in Park Slope. Where all the cool kids are. I have to say. enjoyed it. We went this weekend, went to IKEA for 17 hours, which was fun, actually, bought a range of inexpensive furniture, and it's very lovely, actually. It's very nice. I miss you, but I have to move on, our housing relationship. So do you know how many times I've been to Brooklyn in 25 years? How many? Twice, both times to go to the Sohouse there. There's no reason to ever live the island unless you're going to JFK or LaGuardia. We're very well known in Park Slope. I can tell you

that. Oh, I don't doubt it. You're like royalty in Brooklyn. Jesus Christ. I can't even imagine. Hi, Kara, welcome to Brooklyn. I know. That's exactly what happened. It was like, two other things. Let me just say, two other phenomena. So I have all these books that I get for my podcast, and probably you do too, right? I cannot get rid of them here. I put them out on the stupid Brooklyn. They were gone. Like, I have to say, I get all these free books and they're good books and they're all interesting. But I have to, I like the whole culture of people walking by and taking things and given away things. It's really nice. And so we are now officially semi, we don't live there, but it's nice. And anyone can stay. All you listeners can stay at my Brooklyn

place. No, you can stay. I extend an invitation to you, Scott Galloway. But you'll never do. It's going to happen because it has a Kia furniture. That's why. You went to IKEA. Yeah, I love IKEA. Why do you like IKEA? Because it's, because actually, it's, it's perfectly nice stuff. If you get the more, the slightly more expensive stuff there, it's fine. And I have really nice furniture in where I live, and I just don't need more furniture. When I was there, the IKEA sales lady wanted to have sex with me, but all I wanted was one night stand. I don't believe you have an IKEA joke at the ready. I have to say, IKEA is like, it works really well. It's in Red Hook, and it was nice. The kids have a good time. We put them in small land. Do you know how everything has the weird names at IKEA?

I don't. I don't think I've ever been to an IKEA. Oh, okay. In any case, there's a place to put children while you shop. It's like so, and then you have meatballs at the end. It's really Swedish meatballs. The whole thing is fantastic. And pear soda. It's very pleasant. So anyway.

It's a phenomenon. It is. I still was making furniture all night long. I don't know. IKEA for me is like a porn video and that is I'll never be able to do the same thing at home. It just, it looks different at IKEA than my own home when I try it. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm a lesbian so I can assemble things well.

I'm very good with the bridge. Yeah, I was going to say, are you building a wood canoe in your living room? I did. I have to build this bed. I gave up on it. Woodwork? Yeah, the other thing I did, and I want to recommend, I went to my friend Sean Hayes' show called The Unknown. And it's a little bit about Internet.

It's a little bit about, it's really good. It's a one-man show. It's a malloc, I think it's by David Kale, I think it's a playwright. What a wonderful show. I have to, we had a really nice time. How is this Broadway? It's off Broadway. He started off Broadway.

My Mexican friend builds all my IKEA furniture. I call him my instruction. I call him my instruction Manuel. Oh, my God. Just, oh, God. Okay. All right. Anyway. At least upgrade to West Elm. I have West Elm stuff. I have, I have, I have the other one. I have position the brand of West Elm. It's one of my first clients. I like West Elm, actually. I have several. I have a West Elm bed here, and I love it. I have to say. You know what the strategy was while I'm patting myself in the back. My first strategy engagement at a business school was helping position the old Navy brand. And it was pretty easy, 80% of the gap for 50% of the price. And so my big insight at William Sonoma five years later was West Elm, 80% of Pottery Barn for 50% of the price.

Oh, interesting. It's nicer than Pottery Barn. I think Parry Barn is the fastest zero to a billion dollar brands in history have been that axiom. 80% of the kind of industry leader for 50% of the price, whether it's Southwest. or Old Navy or West Elm. Weston's a little nicer, and then there's the one room and board, which is nice.

Oh, they do a great job. They do a beautiful. I get a lot of their stuff for my other house. Not nearly successful financially, though. Yeah, and then what's the one that has the big air couch, the big. Well, Restoration hardware. Restoration hardware.

I have a, that has all in my stuff in San Francisco. I get restores. Well, Gary, I used to be very into merchandising because it was in that business. So the greatest, in my opinion, the greatest merchant of the last 20 years is Gary Friedman, a CEO of Restoration Hardware.

Yeah, it's a cloud couch. He and our friends, he gave me a tour of their space in the meat packing district. It was really interesting in the restaurant, which I think does more dollars per square foot than the store combined, but they don't serve alcohol because he said he wanted a safe place for women to come and just hang out, and then when people drink alcohol,

they get rowdy and obnoxious, which I thought was interesting, so they doesn't serve hard alcohol. Oh, well, they have a beautiful store in Manhattan, and then go to lunch there. It's nice. Anyway, I have different levels of furniture depending on the house. San Francisco's all restoration hardware. Anyway, all right, we'll move on. We'll move on. The furniture of privilege people? Let's do that. Let's go on a furniture

date. No, no, I went to Akea. I assembled furniture this weekend. Anyway, before we get to the news this weekend, around 8 million people. One thing I didn't do, I didn't go to a No King's Rally, because I was assembling IKEA Furniture, over 3,300 events around the world. I went to the last one, I think, over 200,000. people attended the flagship rally in Minnesota. Incredible crowds. Some signs stand out,

including you can't bum your way out of the Epstein files. My country went to hell, and all I got was this lousy ballroom and balls for grabs with a sign that said free balls for Republicans. They were, I love the signs. I was really into a lot of people, eight million people. That's a lot of people. Was there one in London? I'm in London, although they did have a protest here, which I didn't go to. But I don't know. I did what all lazy people do to virtue signal. and I reposted other people sacrificing their Saturday. No, they looked wonderful and festive. I thought Bruce Spring.

I thought they were also, the messaging was excellent. I thought it was affordability. It's about no kings. It was, everybody has, all the progressives have modulated in a way that I think is very attractive. They're moving into the James Talleyco version of Democrats, right? Hey, what are we going to hear to help you? Affordability, we want a thing. And the one thing I really like, there was a picture, a beautiful picture of Joan Baez and Jane Fonda that was with gray hair together. It was gorgeous. I just thought it was visually very attractive. I think there is a real movement of people of all these elections happening. And people are so sick of feeling bad and feeling like everything's a grift. It just feels there's definitely a tide. I don't know if these protests help, but I like them. I think they're really.

Well, first off, it just feels, and I say this all the time, but my buddy Dan Harris, action absorbs anxiety. It feels really good to do things with other people. And Timothy Snyder says that protests start to build an infrastructure for organization and taking names, and people get invested in it. So they want to turn out again and they want to register people to vote. Also, supposedly there's a tipping point where if you get 3.5% of the population to demonstrate, that usually connotes change. So this wasn't that, because that would be, I think, about 11 or 12 million people, just some data here. The October protest drew roughly 7 million, and Saturday's turnout was 9 million. So it's building.

And what's interesting are the most piece of data I thought is that two-thirds of the RSVPs came from outside major urban centers, including conservative leaning states such as Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, and Louisiana. Yeah, those protests. That takes some thing for people. do things like that there, like the villages. Did you see all the little villages carts? Yeah, yeah. That was kind of cool. What is traditionally very conservative.

And also the kind of the flagship was at Minneapolis, where almost a quarter of a million people turned out. Springsteen performed, you mentioned John Baez and Jane Fonda, Maggie Rogers, and Senator Bernie Sanders. Good spot to do it. So just some context. The Women's March in January 2017, previously considered the largest single-day protests in U.S. history drew an estimated 3.3 to 5.6 million people, so this was bigger.

The BLM protests in June of 2020 drew an estimated 15 to 26 million people, but over several weeks, but that was spread across multiple days. So if the 9 million person turnout estimate holds Saturday's protest would be the largest single-day demonstration in American history. People are tired and they want to do something. And it's not hopeless. I went to the women's When I actually, I took my sons to that, I made them wear pussy hats. Well, that's the way it goes. We actually had a wonderful time. I like doing things like that with my kids because they can see things in action.

Okay, moving on, President Trump says the U.S. is in serious discussions with the new regime in Iran, but he's also threatening to completely destroy key energy sites if a deal is not reached. That's a nice way to negotiate. This is the Pentagon preparing for what could be weeks of ground operations in Iran, according to the Washington Post. total number of U.S. troops in the Mideast are now 50,000, around 50,000. That is insane amounts of people, roughly 10,000 higher than typical levels. The Iranian military is warning that any U.S. occupation would lead to captivity, dismemberment, and disappearance. It is worrisome with all those people there. There's always something bad going to happen. And as the war drags on, markets are

sliding down with NASDAQ and Dow falling into correction territory last week, and the S&B down about 7%. The markets are sort of a trailing indicator of some of this stuff, I think. But I think it creates a jittery feeling just because of the shifting back and forth. And if you noticed, a lot of Trump people, especially Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, were not on any of the Sunday shows. They're avoiding all the cabinet members are avoiding the Sunday shows. I had a really interesting interview before I went to New York with Tom Tillis, which I think you should all listen to. It's up today. I mean, he was expressing great distaste for this whole action.

He's obviously a very conservative senator from North Carolina. and he's leaving Congress so he feels like he can say whatever he wants, which you did. So what do you think is happening here, Scott? I mean, the back and forth and the people are sort of trying to get out of the Trump blast zone on this situation. I'm sorry to use that metaphor. Well, to say it's complicated as an understatement, but I'm one of the people that would argue that we've been at war with Iran for the last 47 years. The first act of this regime in 1979 was to take Americans hostage. The question is, is this escalation in the war?

was it a smart idea? And I think if it had gone 72 hours in terms of getting some coordination with European allies and even Gulf allies, you could have potentially declared victory and really had a win. But this is kind of the definition of a quagmire. And that is, I'm not sure at this point

he has any choice to put boots on the ground and I had Senator Warner on my podcast. I would argue at this point, Kara, Iran is winning. that the IRGC has shown that they can push back the, you know, the great satans of Israel and the United States. And what is, at the end of the day, I think this is an enormous failure of our intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard. To not contemplate or consider a scenario where they cut off the Straits of Hormuz. But she probably advised that. She didn't want to go.

She's the America first, Greg. Her advance are on the maybe not so much kind of group. Yeah, but they're claiming now that they're going to try and work with their allies. We're all saying, fuck you, if you're going to be this much of a predict to us. But they're doing shit in reverse order. They should have secured the straits of four months before doing this. Of course. They should have contemplated, well, what happens if they start firing Shahad drones?

It costs $20,000 and it costs us two million to shoot them down. What if they start firing them into Dubai? So some basic scenario planning and intelligence from the people charge. I think he got that. I think some guy told him to do this. Yeah, but there's no leadership. It doesn't matter if it doesn't bubble up. Which is what Tillis said.

Tillis was like, he always tries very hard not to insult Trump himself, but he's like the advisors. And he's particularly, for example, when after Stephen Miller on immigration, he particularly goes after the advisors. He's like he's either you have an advisor who's stupid and just like, tells them dumb things or you have an advisor who knows better who says nothing, right, who tries to like assuage the president versus, and he goes either way, his advisors suck, you know, and I think that's true.

But at some point it's treating Trump like a toddler. Oh, we managed to keep him this or that. So it's a complicated situation there is this guy wants to do what he wants to do now. And he has advisors who are either too weak to tell him the truth or tell him the truth and and then get fired or slap for it kind of stuff. I don't know. It's a problematic situation. It's not certainly not the group of rivals that Lincoln had.

Well, but a lot of people would argue on the opposite side that basically, Secretary Rubio is the shadow president making these decisions, and so as his son-in-law Kushner. So, you know, which is it? Is he listening to people or is he not? Because to me, this is just such a striking intelligence failure to not do some basic scenario planning around what if. And we are now in a position of weakness where, I mean, the general, not the consensus, but when I speak to people in the intelligence community, there's a feeling, okay, the most

obvious next step here is that he feels to save face because the RRGC has said, fuck you, you can pretend you're talking to us. We're not talking back. Right. You're not sending the presence. We have dispersed, we did scenario planning. We just, we anticipated what if our leadership is killed and they have dispersed military and executive authority out to the various regions.

So they're like, cut off the head of the snake, that's okay. The snake's going to keep moving. So there was no basic, essential basic scenario planning here. And the general feeling is that he will land troops potentially on Karg Island and then try and secure Karg and do a deal to exchange Karg for opening the Straits of Hormuz. Right, no, but that's what we had before. Like, one of the things that... I'm not arguing it's like we're in a good spot.

One of the things when I talk to Tillis and when I also talk to Warner is that the same thing you're talking about these drones and everything else. Like the word obliterate, that he obliterated it months ago, the nuclear facilities, but now he's obliterating more. And, you know, tell us who's sort of hat seems to have run out of Fox. It was like, yeah, we obliterated it again, and then we obliterated it. Like, you know. You can't.

That's like, to say you obliterate, all right, so essentially what you have. Well, he was making fun of Trump, I believe. That's what was happening there. Again, the key word in all of this coming out of Ukraine and now this war is asymmetry. And that as wars and shaping of, you know, energy roots and ability to solve things when diplomatic means have failed have been based on very expensive platforms and technology no one else had access to, it has gone the entirely other way. And now you can essentially build a drone for $20,000 with a two-stroke engine similar to what's in a motorcycle. And that's like to say you're going to obliterate it, if we all of a sudden declared war on Texas and most of the South. actually which Iran is bigger than and said, okay, how do you find every little factory that's

pulling together lawnmowers? That's what you're up against. You're not going to be able, and then they launch 40 of these things, and the defense systems get confused, and all you need, it's similar to the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI. They have to stop every terrorist attack, right? And the notion that just one ship is set on fire, or, or the Burrs. Khalifa is taken down in Dubai. That's all they need. And what's actually stopping this, and you can imagine, if you're transporting tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of a product called oil through a dangerous area, there needs to be insurance against that payment, against that substance arriving at its destination. In other words, there's cross-party collateralization

in insurance. And right now, I would argue what's actually holding up the Straits of Form Moses. I don't believe any insurance company is willing to insure these tankers right now. Yeah. I don't know what I would do if I was running these companies. Anyway, we'll see what happens. It's still confusing, and it's gone on far too long this confusing. And I think that's the real problem. He's really stuck in a quagmower. A quagmire. This is a definition. Painted in a corner. And if he had after 72 hours said, we've further diminished their ability to fund proxies, we have substantially denigrated their launch capabilities. We have, we have made the leadership infrastructure much more.

more insecure and diminished at vastly. We are now going to work with our Gulf allies and European nations to try and maintain a sense of security and keep them in a box. He probably could have declared at some level victory. But Scott, chaos follows this guy. The chaos is his brand right now. Anyway, let's move on. The boys are really back together, speaking of which, you know, speaking of chaos, Elon Musk probably joined a phone call with President Trump and India's Prime Minister Modi about the strait of Hormuz. It's unclear whether Musk spoke on the call, and neither government mentioned his presence in the official readouts. Meanwhile, as we all know, SpaceX is preparing to launch the largest IPO of all time,

reported targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation, which is kind of a lot over their revenues. But okay, fine. It's a must company. Musk reportedly wants to have investors come to SpaceX's seat facilities and rocket launches. He does that a lot. He invites people in to show off his wares, impressive wares. He's doing that with robotics, too, which are pretty cool. The company is also considering limiting share sales by early investors, a preferential treatment for investors in Musk's other companies, which is why they suck up to them so. That's why they buy Twitter so they can get into this. And reserving a large portion of the shares for individual investors, that's fine, that's great. Speaking of making amends with his enemies, text released as part of Musk's lawsuit

against Open AI show that Zuckerberg tested Musk saying, looks like Doge is making progress. I've got our teams on alert to take down contact doxing or threatening the people in your team. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Oh, he does want a content moderate. Musk hearted the message and then asked Zucker would be open to bidding on Open AI with him, which the two seem to have spoken about on the phone. I mean, these people say one thing in public and another in private. But talk first about the phone call, then the IPO.

And, you know, Mark Zuckerberg will talk to anybody if it means a deal. So that's what I think about that. I don't have a problem with the president inviting people into a call that he thinks can help achieve the objective, whether it's someone who has domain expertise, whether Musk is the right person on the call, but I think the president should bring to bear any resources he thinks is going to result in a more productive conversation. Sure, I guess.

And Modi probably wants, you know, Starlink, or maybe Modi and Musk have a pre-existing relationship. Who knows? Or maybe, like you said, he's just showing them off. The staggering thing for me is, I can't weigh for the S-1 because the target valuation of $1.8 trillion, This company, you know, it's projected or generated roughly 15 to 16 billion and about $8 billion in profit in 2025. That means at the IPO, it's trading at 109 times trailing revenues. That's a must company, right?

Are you going to do like you did with WeWork? Oh, but that's more than pounds. Oh, no, no. This is a real company. It might be overvalued. Yeah. But WeWork as it scaled, lost more money. This is a company with an unbelievable product and money.

moats. But two things can be true at once. Is it an unbelievable company with, I think, probably the widest moats in the business world right now? Absolutely. For now. But everyone feels like a distant number two. Like, who's the number two here? I don't know. I think people will catch up in this. I think I mean, like, look, everyone said no one to catch Tesla. Everyone caught Tesla. And it was a lot faster than we thought, right? Yeah, but manufacturing, manufacturing an EV versus launch capability? No, I just, I think. You think someone's going to catch up? I think Bezos is working on it.

I think a lot of countries, there's the ones happening in Europe. I think, look, it's not going to be the only one, and everyone's going to be like, why are we, you know, it's sort of like the Lockheed problem, right? I think a lot of people think it's an attractive thing to do. 90% of launches. I get it. He was early. They are the only company in the world right now that is capable of putting humans into space. Yep.

Yeah, I get. And when you look at space and whether it's energy or economy, connectivity or space military or space defense, they're all for a while going to have to come through SpaceX. At the same time, at the same time, is it worth 109 times revenue? I don't think so. This is the Tesla situation. Tesla is declining precipitously, and yet it still trades at a ridiculous sum. But Musk owns roughly 42% of SpaceX, so this IPO could make him the first recorded trillionaire in history. And on Kalshi, the odds that he'll become a trillioner this year, are 71%.

So there's almost a three and four chance, according to a lot of people, that Musk is about to become a trillionaire. And that is, in my view, really troubling because I think as a species, we need guardrails, and money directly translates to power. And I don't think any unelected person

should have this much power. Yeah, he definitely pushes himself into every single aspect of our law. you know, in some way and he'll do it more so politically. Well, with a trillion dollars, say he takes, say he says, okay, I'm going to die soon and I want to be worth $5 trillion and I'm going to, I want to decide who the next president is. I'm going to take 3% of my net worth, which would be $30 billion. There's evidence that he had influence on Trump's election with $250 million.

So with 30. But he didn't in Wisconsin with 25. That's a lot in that state. Like, I think it's a mixed bag. When he shows up, it's a lot of money. When he shows up, it's a lot of, yeah, no. Citizens United and a guy being worth of a trillion dollars is really scary. It also has effects of if this guy is, he's like the Soros or he's the Soros of the

right, essentially now, right, on some level. And I do think it has a negative impact and alerts people to this situation that he, I don't think money buys everything. He's failed in a number of areas, like Doge. He's failed and like, he failed. and like he fails quite a bit, which of course is his brand as I fail and then I succeed.

I think in a close election, which most president's elections are, he could absolutely swing it. He already has. He already has had more impact than any individual in recent history, especially killing people across the globe with Doge. I mean, again, we'll see what happens here,

but they certainly, it's going to be the blockbuster IPO and it will be overvalued by a lot given, you know, they'll have a lot of skis to cover. and then they'll have the money to do so, right, to sort of create that moat even wider. It's an incredible. I won't even call it a product, because what it really is, it's global infrastructure.

They have the largest commercial satellite constellation, which by the way is no longer NASA at SpaceX. And as of May 2025, Starlink controlled more than 7,600 satellites or two-thirds of all active satellites in orbit. The majority of new satellites launched globally in late 2024 were Starlink. And SpaceX plans to scale. scale to 42,000 satellites, that's up six-fold. Yeah, it controls global information system.

Making Starlink the de facto broadband backbone in space and projections for the end of 2025, 6 million subscribers, and 62% of global satellite broadband revenue going to one company. And most competitors can match SpaceX's price, cadence, or reliability. I know Facebook has tried, Amazon has tried. They're all trying.

I always feel like these are these high water for these people. But that's, I, you know, you have to hand it to him. I remember when he talked about it for the first time to me, the creating, the two people were talking about this at the time. Him, and oddly enough, Jerry Yang had an investment in a low, and it's the first time I learned of it. So I got real, I learned, I got caught up on the topic, like what it was going to do. But Jerry Yang had an investment in one. He's the first person who talked about it, and then that same year started talking about it. This was a long, long, long time ago. And it was really, at the time, I remember thinking,

no one's talking like this. Like everyone else was like doing a fucking dating service or some dumb thing. It comes down to some very boring numbers. And that is the cost to launch a kilogram of material, usually a satellite, into low Earth orbit. And this is what SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Rocket can launch into a kilogram for it.

They can launch a kilogram into space for $1,500. Ariane's 5G, it costs them $9,200. Yeah, they got to be in time. Their electron product costs 19,000. Their launches, SpaceX's launches occur every two to three days. No other provider is within range. So they are six X less expensive. Chinese certainly have capabilities here.

So anyway, it will. Do they? I don't know that much about Chinese launch capabilities. They do. And so, you know, one of the things, it'll be interesting to see what happens here and what the, these forces are really powerful. and he is a very powerful, single person.

It does put him at great risk, too, of being a, not just a, not a physical target. That's not what I'm talking about. But when something like this happens, there's always forces against it that I think that we, that we'll start to build. He becomes, and he becomes Soros. He becomes Soros in a weird way. But I feel much more benign about Soros. Well, I do too, but I'm talking about to the right, or the Koch brothers, like pick, pick whatever one who's, or Henry Ford back in the day. there was also a Texas billionaire, and I can't remember his name, a million year, like in the 20s, that did stuff like that.

But there's a different, like Sosuncourt, the Koch brothers, they were all quite philanthropic. Well, not him. Not Elon, for sure. Musk is not, and Musk is infinitely more powerful, and that's a technology that can basically decide wars. And this is a guy who is reportedly addicted to ketamine. Yeah, that's what I mean. There's a lot of things are wrong. Let me just tell you, I'm glad I'm in part of that.

It does feel like a bond film, but less believable. Kara Swisher is glad she's in Park Slope. I'll be protected by the lesbian. Oh, yeah. You're safe in Brooklyn. Yeah, a nuclear device gets detonated 500 meters above midtown. Yeah, Brooklyn's going to be fine. No, what I mean is that, like, if he's coming after me, he's not a fan of Caravisher. But maybe you should make nice with that. That's what I don't get about. I talk to one of these guys that is building the bunker in New Zealand, a guy you know, and I'm like, you realize if shit gets real and you fire up the G650 and head to peace out to New Zealand, you realize you're, your pilots are going to kill you and fuck your wife, right? That's correct. And the table went quiet. I know. I said that to one of them who had a plan. I said, what's your plan?

I said, I'm going to kill you and take your motorcycle out to your baby. I was like, of course. And then they were like, you could see them calculating. How do I stop care from killing me? I said, you won't see me coming. You think if the shit goes to where these things people think it's going, the people who die right away are the lucky ones. Exactly.

I sometimes think that living in Washington, I feel okay about that. that. Anyway, let's not go there. Let's not go there. Congratulations, Elon Musk, on your SpaceX victory. Yeah, on your SpaceX. You're still a terrible person. No matter how rich you get, you're completely unlikable. Anyway, I have to say one Brooklyn thing. So I was, there was this crazy cyber truck parked across the street. I thought, oh, who's doing this, right? Where my apartment is? And it was tricked out. It was all manner of shit on it. It was some sort of commercial thing. And, you know, there's a bunch of teen boys. And they weren't, they were just hanging out. And I thought, first, they were, like, admiring it.

And what was really funny is, and they weren't, they weren't sort of typical parks. I'm trying to, like, they were sort of sitting in front of it, like, talking about it. I went over, and I'm like, what do you think? And I wasn't making an opinion. They're like, what a douche. And it was, like, it was interesting because I just interviewed Louis Thoreau through, who's Justin's cousin. Oh, you interviewed about the Manosphere? Yes, exactly.

You're beating me to my content. I'm so sorry. I'm way ahead of you. How was it? That's Justin's cousin. I know it's Justin's cousin. He's also a great filmmaker. I got to say, it was really interesting,

as one thing he pointed out, is even though a lot of these Manosphere guys are really popular, there's also a whole group of young men who are like, they mock them and enjoy being in on the joke and mocking them at the same time and also liking some of it, but mocking them. And that was going on in front of the CyberTracock,

they're like, yeah, this is such a douche, but like, whatever. And they were so cool, and I was like, oh, I feel so much better about you after talking it. these guys, because they were so cool, and they also were in on the joke, and I don't know, I just felt better. Anyway, yes, Louis, yes, it was great.

And we talked of you. Oh, good, I'm glad. I'm supposed to have them on. I wrote a, in my numerous amounts, I wrote a review of the show. I loved it. Yeah, it was really illuminating for me. Can I tell you the one line I love the best of all? I liked his interview style, and I was actually looking at as a professional how he does

the interview style. Yeah, I agree. When he's working, when he's, H.S. Whatever, T-Diddy, whatever, Tickey, whatever, Tic-Tockey, he was working out and he goes, is this your leg day? He's British. And the guy goes, of course it is. Of course, you know, like an asshole and, like shows off his thigh, which is quite a beefy thigh. And Louis, Louis looks at him and he goes, you could work on those calves. And the guy just melts. And I was like, I love you, Louis. Ther Rue. I love him. He pronounced it Theru. I'm like, he pronounced it Theru. Justin, they pronounce it differently. Anyway, he has all these lines like that in there that he just eviscerates these people with kindness in a way that's really... Yeah, I agree. It's a really good show.

Anyway, Elon, good luck. Elon, you can work on your calves. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back. Anthropics scores a win against the Pentagon. Support for this show comes from Framer. Your website can set the tone for your brand, and it's the one touch point that every single one of your customers sees on the daily. So if you still struggle to make small changes or simple updates, you're potentially leaving

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That's clod.a.ai slash pivot and check out Cloud Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. cloud.a.ai slash pivot. Hi, I'm Brenna Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop. A podcast that's a place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's going to be fun. We rarely agree. But we almost never disagree. And we're always learning.

That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday. Scott, we're back. Anthropic just scored a win in its fight with the Trump administration, obviously. A federal judge in California granted a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the Pentagon's efforts to label the company a supply chain risk. The judge didn't mince words in her ruling saying this is a classic illegal First Amendment retaliation.

Exactly. She also called it a, quote, Orwellian notion to brand an American. American company, a potential adversary for expressing disagreement. The Pentagon is pushing back, expected to appeal, of course, with senior official Emil Michael, another loathom character, tweeting, the ruling is a disgrace. Oh, Emil, get over it. The final decision in this case could still be months away. There's also a second lawsuit pending in D.C. Anthropic won the battle. You know, it's problematic to be in this ridiculous fight. I think it'll be over by midterms when they jack Heggzath out of the place. But also a potential, and Amiq

also a potential factor. Anthropics are really considering going public as soon as October. That is problematic for them. Related, a federal judge has put on hold the $6.2 billion merger between Nextor and Tegna, which would create the largest operator of local TV in the country, 69% over the former 30-some percent amount you're allowed to bring together. The judge granted a request from direct TV arguing the merger violates antitrust laws. A 14-day restraining order has been issued, and a hearing is scheduled for April 7th. Eight attorneys general have filed a separate lawsuit. I'm going to just play this. Let's listen to what our least favorite FCC chair, Brenda Carr, I'm sorry, Brendan Carr had to say at CPAC. President Trump took on the fake news media and President Trump is winning.

Look at the results so far. PBS defunded, NPR defunded, Joy Reid gone from MSNBC, Sleepy Eye, Chuck Todd, gone, Jim Acosta, gone. John Dickerson gone. Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN has got new ownership as well. Boy, this guy is just not doing his job, honestly. It's seriously, he's such a suck-up to the Trump administration. He's just explicit about it. And he's also not very smart. He's a moron.

So talk about these next star, the anthropic thing. It looks like everything, as usual, Trump does. He does something aggressive and stupid and loses in court, but he still does damage. So talk, and then you can talk about Brenda, if you want, but that's up to you. Well, I'll go on reverse order. Brendan Carr has no business in the federal government. You're not supposed to go into the government to use it as a means of attacking your political enemies and freedom of speech. Yep.

I mean, just the notion, this guy makes Goebbels look thoughtful, and that is directly calling out people who don't agree with your political views and then weaponizing government to try and get people whose views you don't agree with off the air. That's, it's like, it's just so blatant. It's, okay, so when we get to appoint an FCC chair, we're going to go after Hannity. And, I mean, is that, is that where we're headed? Do you want us to start? Let him blather on this idiotic stuff. I don't care. He annoys me.

You know, it's just not qualified to be in government. With respect to Anthropic, most major AI companies have bent the knee to the government and worked with them in any military context on. Last year, Google dropped its ethical guidelines that included a list of applications that would not pursue, including weapons and surveillance. But it used to be able to do so without a problem. Is that right? And then they put in guidelines and then they relaxed their guidelines. They did relax them. But I'm saying they used to be able to say no and nobody had a problem. They just didn't work for them. That's all. Well, that's the whole point of private enterprise. You can fire your clients. Just the way consumers get to pick companies.

Companies get to pick their consumers unless it's based on sexual orientation or race or what have you. Meta-change its policy to allow U.S. government agencies and contractors to access its Lama models for national security purposes. Open AI, which once stated its goal was to benefit humanity as a whole, now has multiple contracts with the military and defense contractors. And by the way, I don't mind when companies like Palantir say we're going to work with the government in the Defense Department. I get it. But you should also have the right to not to. I don't. So, So Anthropic is really, they're the only major AI company that has drawn a public line on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, and now it's the only one being punished for it.

But it's also winning in court, which is good, but it's still, is it problematic for the IPO from your perspective? Well, it depends. Well, it depends. The threat to the IPO is a bunch of companies say there is, there are alternatives out there. We appreciate your stand, Dario, but for the time being, we're not expanding. our enterprise-wide relationship with you because we don't want to be put on a list. Now, having said that, having said that, again, see above what I believe is the biggest commercial

opportunity in decades is to say no. And if you look at what's happened to Anthropic, they're now getting 70 cents on the dollar of every new AI dollar being allocated to AI from the enterprise. So it looks as if their ability to say no and get a court to say, yeah, this is bullshit, this is socialism, cronyism, whatever you want to call it, I think Anthropic right now, I've said that, I think Anthropic at this moment is worth more than Open AI. What happens is the mark that people invest at is a bit illusory because if they get a preferred return, meaning no matter what happens, they get their money out sooner, or they're getting a guaranteed 17.5% return, which is what Sam is offering to private equity firms,

then that $850 billion number is a bit of a head fake because as long as I'm getting 17.5% regardless of what it goes public at, but I would argue right now, the momentum around Anthropic is really strong, and the momentum around OpenAI is really weak. So you think it won't affect it. What about the next star thing? Speaking of Moran, Brendan. Well, we heard, I was actually really moved.

A lot of people pushed back on my comments about how local news is a dying business. And a lot of people push back and said, I hate to hear this. It's really important work. And also, to be fair, there's a lot of local corruption. And the only check on it is local news. I remember seven on your side. Seven on your side. From the hills to the seas to the San Gabriel Mountains.

I'm Jerry Dumfie. Yeah. Who, by the way, Ted Baxter from Mary Tyler Moore was based on. Supposedly Jerry wasn't very smart. But he had broad shoulders and just made you feel safer. I love local news. I used to watch it all the time. I love Dorian Gensler in D.C. when I was in college.

And they also had Bruce Herschinson and Jim Tunney and Point Counterpoint, where they would have, and that 27 minutes of real news was bested by the three minutes of two people arguing like crazy. Yeah. And then basically. If it had been that area, you and I would have been a good local news team. Oh, I would have predicted hail the size of canned tomatoes. I would have loved being a weatherman. I actually took meteorology, my senior year.

When I was trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my life, my senior year in college, I thought, I could be a weatherman and I took meteorology. I was definitely thought I was thinking about a weatherman. I was going to go in the military and you were going to be a weatherman. Perfect. I would have been an admiral, not standing next to the president. Yeah. David Letterman started it was a weatherman. And anyways, but we got pushback saying how important, or I got pushback saying how important

local news is. And so I agree, they do a great job. That, you know, God be with you. Yeah. So, Nexstar, Tegna. Okay, sorry. A judge is temporarily blocked, what is it, a $6 billion merger? Yep.

Six point two. Between Next Star and Tegna, which would create the largest operator. And so you a number from 30 some percent to 69 percent. Yeah, two-thirds. It's basically the hubblock on it. Yeah. And a U.S. District Judge, I think it's in Sacramento granted. Yeah.

Temporary restraining order. And siding with Directivie, who argued, Director Vee, God, they're still around, which argued the merger violates federal antitrust laws. And Aid State Attorney General is led by California's Rob Bonta, filed a separate lawsuit. And then in the ruling, he noted that companies do not contest the merger will increase next hour's bargaining leverage to extract higher fees. And what does the ruling mean?

It means the Next Star and Tegna can integrate operations for 14 days. A hearing is set for April 7 to decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction. So like you said, if the merger goes through, Next Star would own roughly 260 television stations across the country, reaching about 60% of U.S. households. And like you said before, it was about 39%. And the deal does violate FCC rules limiting how many stations a single company can operate. Well, Brenda let it through, but go ahead. As we said, look, it's not a great business to be in unless you're in a swing district where they just basically start trying to advertise like crazy. Less than half of television stations report generating any profits from news.

And last year, about 40% of surveyed local television stations reported decreasing their news budget. And local television has lost get this, about half of its media spending market share since 2017, the business has been cut in half in the last nine years. And as of June last year, local TV accounted for just 6% of total media spend. Digital video, on the other hand, accounts for about 50%. So, like, I don't, I mean, we're going to, I think at some point we got to end up with, and people hate the BBC, but I like a certain amount of public funding. They're troubled right now. We should talk about that, but later another time.

A certain amount of public funding for what I'll call. Local. Yeah, local public news. I think there's, like what Craig Newmark did, I think it's really important. And I don't know if it's a philanthropist. I don't know if it's government funding like we do with the BBC here with a house tax. I don't think anyone should on 60% of any industry. That does feel uncomfortable.

Even if it's dying. I don't care. They can eke out a good little business from it and influence things in ways that just, and they're also, they're the ones that sort of sucked up to Brenda during the Kimmel thing. Yeah. You know, I just, nobody. I don't want a liberal running 60%. I don't want anybody.

Like, I just feel like it needs to be dispersed, even if that problem is, like a lot of media, it's a bad business if you don't have monopolies. And then it's just an okay business. I don't know, whatever. It's, I hope they stop it, but they're not going to, but nonetheless, I hope then the industry dies. And I hope there's all new entrepreneurial local efforts going on.

And there are a lot of them, by the way, across the country in Mississippi and Baltimore. So let's just have new stuff. and forget these compromise. I'm shocked you to bring up Vox. They are companies in play. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Would you like to discuss that? Well, I have, first off, let me say, I have absolutely no insider information here. And I have a lot. You have a lot? I'm on the outside. I'm on the inside. But supposedly Vox is in discussions with Comcast,

who is an existing shareholder to take... Versant, not Comcast. I'm sorry, Vresant. Yeah, which owns MSNBC and CNBC to take the pods. Then they would sell the digital. business and also sell off NYMAG. And the way I would loosely describe it is the digital stuff is a shitty business getting worse. Anytime you're dependent upon Amazon, Meta, and Google, eventually they will screw you and take all the margin. Those are difficult businesses. The New York Magazine

is a trophy asset. What do I mean by that? There is some crypto or hedge fund douche that will pay an extraordinary amount of money to own New York Magazine. There's a lot of people. It does well, too, It doesn't, it's not like a big money-seller. It'll trade it an irrational price. Yeah, it will. Football teams make no money. They get sold for $5, $7, and $10 billion, because some guy wants to go from being an overweight tech guy

to the sexist man in Cleveland by owning the Browns overnight. Okay. Can I just say it's also a really good journalistic enterprise, and it does okay. I'm sorry, I'm going to make that. It won't go for an okay price. No. I'm saying it'll go for an irrational price. It's a nice problem.

The new owner is not going to be into it for the cash flow or for journalism. the new owner is going to be someone who wants to say I own NYMAG. It's like billioners own football teams, Democrats own media companies. It'll go for an... So Scott will be buying it soon. It's a trophy asset. No, I'm sponsoring the Met Gala. I don't know if you heard.

And I'm taking Emily Radikowsky. If that's what it takes, I am sponsoring the Metaela. We're not discussing her because you didn't introduce yourself when you were in her presence. I got texted Vanessa Friedman, who I think is a wonderful writer at diverse fashion, text me. She's like, do you have any thoughts on the Met Gala? Jepezos, I'm like, heck has way too much money, way too little cool. Fashion has way too little money, way too much cool.

This is an exchange of value. Yes, a good quote. This is the most expensive midlife crisis in history. Wouldn't it be easier for these guys just to buy a Ferrari and start banging their assistance? Our penis enhancement or whatever. Versus sponsoring the Med Gala. But anyways, back to New York. Yes, it will sell.

We know this. So NYMAG will go for an irrational price. And then the trophy assets, and I'm not talking about my own book here, because Profi is independent. We just sell our ads through Vox, but Pivot is co-owned by you, me, and Vox. Well, no, they don't on it. We own it, and they're our partner for the next four years. I wish you would do that correctly. People think they own it, but they don't. Okay. We own it, and we can't do anything with it for the next three years. But anyways, those are the assets.

Podcasting at Vox, and I'll just talk about us, is growing, you know, 25 plus percent a year, maybe 30 percent a year. And when they get scale, They're amazing businesses because, quite frankly, there's just not a lot of costs involved in these things. And you're seeing, and quite frankly, I also think we're benefiting from Trump to the extent that I think people are really hungry for thoughtful, I don't want to call it progressive, but a thoughtful pushback. But we also do good. You did Warner. I did Tillis. We do all kinds of manner of things.

Anyways, the Crown Jewel is the Vox Media Parkets Network. But the thing that makes the most sense here, which is what Jim is doing, is that when you have a conglomerate that doesn't have really obvious synergies, which quite frankly, I would argue this one doesn't. People, the market looks at the shittiest asset in the portfolio, which is these digital properties, and it assigns that valuation to the entire thing. So the disposition of assets is accretive to shareholders. And Jim has figured that out, and he's going to split up the company, and he's going to have a very focused podcast company that tries to industrialize podcasting, which will trade. video, I would say, because podcasts are video now. That's a great point, because effectively what you have is podcasts of the new TV shows with a lower means of cost of production.

But I would argue if he sells, he'll get an amazing price. I assume, and I don't know, again, I see above, I have no insider information here. He'll get an amazing irrational price for New York MAG. He could sell the digital stuff for a dollar and just be a podcast company growing 25% a year and it would be worth more. So this, it makes all sorts of strategic sense. Comcast is probably, Comcast, I think, invested. Comcast did invest, yes.

Well, Comcast was the initial investor. Yes, but the investment went over to Versant, just so you know. Okay, the Robert's family is ready to get some money back. They've been in this thing for 10 years, 11 years. They've probably said, okay, we want some money back. You need a strategy here. I think it's going to be very interesting to see. Yeah, we'll see.

One of the things that I think reporters have gotten wrong about it. And I'm not going to say much more because I do know a lot, is you can't, one of them was like, you can pick off these podcasters, what's it worth? Because you can, you actually can't. Once you have a good, and Scott and I went out in the market and looked at lots of people. And a lot of them were great, but a lot of them don't have stuff, right? And so this would be attractive to people who, it's really hard to sell advertising well. It's really hard to do distribution well.

It's very hard to do production well. And Vox does that well. And there's a couple of companies like that that do it well, too. There's, Crooked, I think, does a nice job. So it's valuable. And it's not as easy to replicate as you think. And getting picked off is you sign for your deals, everybody. And some of people have guarantees.

We don't happen to have that because we wanted more revenue to us. But it's harder to do than you think. And even if you're not satisfied with the advertising sales or whether you got big or not, it's their box is one of the better ones, which is why we stayed, right? And we could certainly sell our own advertising. It's just a slog and it's hard. It's really hard to do it well. And so it is an attractive asset.

And there's a lot of people this could plug into a lot and just use your imagination. And also not just companies, but individuals who want platform. CNBC needs to do something. Exactly. I mean, you know, they're melting. You're seeing CNN trying to do podcasting with Jake Tapper and Anderson. CNBC is local news with sleeveless dresses and Andrew Ross Sorkin. I mean, by the way, why does Joe Kierner,

get sleeves and none of the other people do. Anyways, the... We do not want to see them ours. Brian Roberts and Comcast, they are very smart. It's not Comcast. You have to say Vercent. Okay, whatever. The Roberts family. No, it's not the Robert's. They only a certain portion of it as a public company. It's similar. There's others. Anyway, it would help Vercent, which also needs to be innovative. So in that regard. But there's lots of others.

MSNBC. MS now. I'm sorry. MS now. MIS now. And CNBC need a growth strategy. They are in businesses and structural decline. The average age of MS now viewer, I think, at 64, CNBC at 67. The average age of a podcast listener is 34. The average age of pivot listener is 42. They need an audience that is going to be around for another five or 10 years that buys shit that is in the midst of buying homes, having kids, making investments, buying mutual funds. And they're smart people. They are.

I mean, CNBC does an amazing job. They have some of the finest financial journalists in the world. MS Now has some of the most talented people in the world. But what they need is they need a structural growth engine. They need to find platforms that are growing and are attracting a younger audience. And to help their talent, too. And they've been trying, but they've definitely been trying more than other companies. You know who probably inspired this whole idea?

Me. What? Other than you, is Nicole Wallace. Yes. Because Nicole, who's got a very popular show on MS Now, started a podcast that immediately went to the top of the right. I would bet Nicole's podcast is probably doing seven or 10 million year

in ad revenue, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I bet six or seven of that is go close to the bottom line. So you got to think the folks at Vresaunt, Comcast, Roberts, Joey Bag of Donuts, HBO now, whatever you want to call it,

have said, we need to be in this business. When you look at the charts, you and I are near the top and pivot. Individually, both of us are, all your market stuff are. lots of box podcasts are near the top

and over all the network ones. We're always higher than all of them. So anyway, it's interesting. It's an interesting time. We'll see what happens. And we're nothing at all. Nothing at all might happen. We'll see.

Anyway, it makes sense to us, though. We'll go on a quick break, and when we come back, the White House launches an app. The moment you've been waiting for is here. GMC's truck month is on. For a limited time, get 0% financing for 72 months on the 26 GMC Sierra 1500 crew cab pro graphite. Feel the strength of GMC Sierra's 5.3-3-liter V8 engine.

Elevate your confidence with a factory 2-inch lift and off-road suspension. Ready for whatever lies ahead. Power, capability, confidence, all at 0% during GMC's truck month. Don't wait. Visit your local GMC dealer today and make it yours. There's basically been one guy in Republican politics who's argued for regime change in Iran for years and for America to take a proactive military role

and making it happen. Ambassador John Bolton, President Trump's former national security advisor. But now, even Bolton says Donald Trump is messing it up. As far as we can tell, he did no preparation of the opposition actually inside Iran. No coordination, no effort to see what they would do, no effort to support them to provide resources, money, arms, if that's what they wanted, telecommunications, just no coordination at all. And they don't seem prepared for it. How Trump lost the Republican Party's biggest Iran Warhawk.

Today, explain, every weekday and on Saturdays too. This week on Net Worth and Chill, it's my birthday and I'm turning 32, so I'm sharing 32 life lessons I've learned that have actually. changed my perspective. These aren't the picture perfect Instagram infographic versions. These are the real hard, uncomfortable truths about money, career, relationships, and everything in between. I'll explain why choosing a rest day is non-negotiable or your body will choose it for you, why you should never take advice from anyone you don't want to be, and why nobody is actually looking at you, so you should just go for it. Plus, I'm breaking down why you should always negotiate your salary, why individualism is making you broke, and yes, why you should try eating a

popsicle in the shower after a bad day. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Scott, we're back with more news. The White House just launched an official app for iPhone and Android featuring press releases and affordability tracker and an ice tip line, of course. The Trump administration says the app offers a direct line to the White House letting people text the president sign up for newsletters. But those features just linked to White House contact forms that are already there, letting the administration access users' personal information and some additional privacy concerns, people digging into the app. It took five seconds found that it's tracking GPS location data every four and a half minutes. It's a privacy nightmare.

Do not download it. I would rather give my ex-wife access to my text message history than sign up. I mean, who is fucking stupid enough to do that? I know. It's not trustworthy. Don't sign up for it. Oh, you think? No, but I mean, I wouldn't mind that the White House has an app. It's just this one is a People were like, okay, a company doing this, you call them scummy. The government doing this to its citizens? The same people that are demanding voter roles that are targeting people, that are hiring Palantir to surveil people, and you want to sign up for their app? Don't.

And it's really sad because a White House should have direct communication with people, but to help people not to take advantage of their fucking information. These people, like, literally, but someone who does apps is like, I would think this is scummy for a scummy person, right? Not our federal friggin government. Very typical of the Trump administration. Do not get it. Do not get it.

And also, an ice tip line. What kind of person are you that you tip on people? Ugh, that's my grandfather was, you know, a mob adjacent, I would say. Not really in the mob. But, like, I hate a rat. A rat. A rat. A rat.

Like, you know, it's fine to see something, say something. You see a bag in an airport. Yes, reported. But reporting on your fellow citizens is especially if they're not criminals. But they haven't committed a crime. They're not criminals. Fuck you for doing that, you terrible people. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. In 1984, Apple launched maybe the most consequential computer ever. It was not a good computer particularly. There was actually a lot wrong with it.

But the Macintosh had all of the right ideas about what computers would become. and it kind of changed everything. This week on version history, our chat show about the best and worst and most interesting products in tech history were telling the story of the Macintosh. And why, again, despite not being very good, it managed to change everything anyway. That's version history on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. This week in two different courtrooms in the United States, juries handed down verdicts that suggest that social media platforms, while not responsible for the content on their platforms, may be responsible for the way their platforms. actually work. And that might change the way that social media works. This week on The Vergecast, we're exploring all of the ways that social media could change and might not. Plus, the 50th anniversary

of Apple and why, after trying every other phone I could find, I wound up just buying another iPhone. On the Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. There's so many. I think I shall start. You go. You know, I really, I have to say, I really like I'm slow. I didn't think I'd say that, but I do. I'm a Manhattan girl. But I really enjoy being there and spending time there.

I like going to different places. But I mostly want to say the win is Scott Galloway for being such a good landlord to me when I was in New York. That's nice. Thank you. He's been generous and I love his apartment. It's wonderful. But I really, I love being in like a lot. I feel really good about cities and I feel like New York feels great.

Washington does feel great. I'm going to San Francisco soon. I'm very up on cities these days. and like kind of the creativity that you see everywhere in them. And just kind of, I just love a melting pot of people. I really do. So I really, I'm winds or cities again. A melting pot at $3,000 a square foot.

Yeah, who's melting? No, it's worth of things. But I'm just saying, I went all over the city. I went all over the city. And it just was, I just love a city. I just love a city. I so could have predicted you to end up in Brooklyn. I didn't, no.

Oh, yeah. I would have done, I would have done the West Village, but Amanda really likes that area, and she's friends there, and I get it, and I get it, I get it. I get it. Anyway. God, you're gonna have Birkenstocks. No, I'm not.

I never wear Birkenstocks. It's never happening. No, I wear vans, let's be clear. All right, and my fail is, oh, God, there's so many. But I think the worst one is, I mean, I was going between Melania Trump's robot for teaching children, which I'm like, worst idea ever. I'm sorry, like I don't mind robots folding laundry,

and I'm sure we'll have them. And I don't mind them delivering things, fine, whatever. But teaching children should be done by people with help from technology. That is fine. But there's personalized educators for American children and her walking out there. I couldn't tell which was the robot and which was Melania, which is a typical joke. But honestly, what an idiot. She's really, what an moronic thing to feature it?

The White House is a featured stage and to stage the idea and insulting teachers. My kid just got in, my little kid got into the same public school. Claire is in for next year. And I went, walked by the teacher, and I said, Saul got in to the class. And she was like, yay, go. And I just love the teachers. They really are dedicated and committed, the ones we have dealt with, especially in public schools. But all the schools that kids have been to.

And so I just hated that thing. And Trump's signing the U.S. currency. It was always been a Treasury Secretary person, just another, grotesque, like, look at me, Mommy didn't hug me moment. So just gross. Just, just, oh, I can't wait until we get rid of all this stuff, off all the gold in the office, which has gotten out of control. And the whole thing, I can't really tear it all down every bit of it.

So, including getting his signature off the dollar when he puts it on. Anyway, Scott. I like those. So my win is, and you mentioned this, I watched Louis Thoreau's documentary of the Manosphere. And I really, it was very illuminating for me. And a few of the takeaways, first off, these quote-un-un-un-un-un-quote, you know, icons in the Manosphere, these podcasters or the folks portrayed, they're grifters. And they don't even buy the things that they don't even buy into the ideology.

There's always a crypto scam or a trading platform or, you know, buy their course, or whatever it is. And they themselves, this is not about ideology for them. This is just purely aggrift. And I think a decent... They're selling ideology as a product. Well, and they're also trying to sell masculinity. And what I would argue is a decent proxy for or a decent query for masculinity is simple.

And ask yourself a question, are you optimizing for attention or for service? And these guys are optimizing for attention, full stop. And the other takeaways, I thought that Louis really did a good job of exemplifying that strength is more about, he's this slight guy who's a bit awkward, and he owns the room when he's in it. He does. Because he's quiet. He asks hard questions. He's not mean. And the other thing, the takeaway, I think, for younger men watching that is it's okay to occasionally absorb.

a blow. And I didn't learn this until I was older. I thought if someone was rude to me or coming off in traffic, I had to restore equilibrium to the universe and get back in their face. And at one point in the documentary, his subjects were making fun of him, mocking him, and he just takes it. It's like, I got a job to do. I'm in service here. The other thing that kind of rattled me was, and I think this is true of the Manosphere, and it's a lesson for the left, I don't think, I think a lot of the young men who are quote unquote in the manosphere or are drawn to these, these men or these, I don't know what you would call them, grifters. It's not that they necessarily buy into this bullshit ideology of dominating women or, I mean, actually some of these ideas, some of the

stuff, it actually starts off fine. Be fit, take control, be aggressive, initiate your life, manifest success, and then it comes off the fucking rails, and it's usually about just dominating women and being a total misogynist. But what you found, I thought what was most interesting was when they interviewed some of the acolytes, the people who were really drawn to these people, it's really upsetting because what these kids, what these boys, and they aren't boys, what they're looking for, they're not, it's not that they're drawn to this ideology or this political viewpoint. It's not even they're drawn.

I don't think to the misogyny. They're drawn and they're so desperate for community. They want a reason to hang out with and have a common bond among other young men. Yeah, they want to get better. They want to feel better about themselves. They want to improve. And this is where the left has failed. Mm-hmm.

I agree. What orthodoxy or ideology on the left creates a community for young men? Yeah. What is it? You said that early on when Kamalaurs didn't have stuff on her thing about men. Well, if you tell young men they're the problem, that's not a community to rally around. No, we pointed that out. And I think what we have to do is feel like we're in it.

Like the questions I got, you know, I have expert questions. One was for the guy who did adolescence, Jack. And then I had Gretchen Whitmer ask a question, which who's been doing a lot of man and boy stuff in the state. Because she understands it. And so you're right. You're 100% right. Anyways, my win, I thought Louis Thoreau's documented in the Manistair. I found it so rattling, I thought these young men,

just so sad, one of the young men, you were talking about his brother took his own life. If you could tell these young men are just so desperate to find community in a sense of safety and other people who, it's not even the ideology they're bonding over. They're just bonding. Bonding, that's right. Anyways, that's my win. My fail is that I believe that the Democrats continue to show a lack of creativity and leadership around a series of incentives of what they are going to do and spell it out very specifically what they are going to do when they get control of the House and potentially the Senate. And it should be something along the lines of the following.

Everyone is saying, oh, we can't go after these individuals despite their crimes because they're just going to get a pardon. Bullshit. If you look at the law, once Democrats control of Congress and Senate, they have subpoena power. Once they get subpoena power, they should go after specific individuals for crimes, and then they should coordinate, and this is the key, with the Attorney General's in blue states, and start going after these individuals who are no longer protected by federal pardons. So, for example, the Attorney General in California might decide that if a trade on crypto went through and that family members of the Trump administration were illegally manipulating markets or engaging in any sort of insider trading, that California AG can coordinate with Democratic representatives to bring a case against them. And that case is not subject to the predictions of a federal pardon. They need to sooner rather than later put these people on notice that if you are murdering people under the auspices of a secret police, if you are lying under oath, if you are engaged in crypto scams, if you have companies that overnight get contracts in the military violating the emoluments clause, to be clear. It's crazy. And a candidate for president or a senator or Democratic representatives should outline specific cases.

They are going to bring against specific individuals and coordination. with specific AGs and specific states that are not protected by a presidential pardon. And who's done that? Fucking nobody. Some of these attorney generals are working out of Scott. I think that's not fair. I think they are preparing them.

We got close with what was her name, Fannie Hill, Fannie in Georgia, the Fulton County. Yep. But unfortunately, she, like Christy Nome, was fucking her number two, which blew that case apart. Yes, that did. But there is real opportunity here.

There is. I think there's more, I'm being contacted by a lot of it. I think attorney generals are really starting to coordinate quite a bit on our run these things. And one of the things that's critical for all of you people waiting for a Trump pardon, remember, he's not going to give it to you until the very end because he's loyal only to himself and he's going to extract something from you. And that might be too late. I'm saying take that off the table.

Yeah. It doesn't matter. But I'm just saying it just, I think a lot of people are going to get it. If the AG in Minnesota is saying you committed manslaughter and you lied under oath, And as a result, we have an ICU nurse who is buried. We can come after you. Presidential partner or not. And these are the people we're coming for.

And these are the subpoenas we're issuing when we're in control of Congress in the Senate. Anyways, that's my fail. I think that Democrats need to start punching back more creatively and more aggressively. I like it. I like it a lot. 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.

call 8551 Pivot elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe from the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher. I spoke to with North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis. We talked about his upcoming retirement and how he can more freely criticize the Trump administration right now. Let's listen to a clip. I have expressed my concern in the past. I no longer have to worry about what language I use to communicate it because I don't have to go through the cost benefit. You can be clearer than some of your colleagues, because I have to tell you, when I talk to some of your colleagues off the record, Republicans, they're much more critical of Trump.

Of course, but look, I mean, you know what all martyrs have in common? What? They're dead. And in politics, that's losing elections. Very smart guy, very interesting guy. But some people call him too late, tell us that he's done, he always thought this and didn't say it. And other people think, well, good for him. And he is actually holding up the Fed chair thing because of the bullshit thing. And he's holding up a lot of stuff. He helped get Chrissy Nome out of there. So I'm, you know, whatever. My friend Neil Brennan, he said something very cogent, and he said, despite the temptation

to say, you idiots, we told you so or whatever, we need to be really good at welcoming anybody and praising anybody. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think he's going to be very effective through January of getting stuff because he's a very complex politician who is very behind gay marriage and stuff. Like, he's a complex conservative, and that's what we should encourage.

When you say behind gay marriage, you mean? against it? No, he helped pass it when he was in North Carolina or something of protections. He's much more complex as a politician, and we should allow our conservative and liberal politicians to be complex and maybe not fully be on board with the purity tests on either side. I agree. Anyway, 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. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zohann, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and Ernie and Ert engineered this episode. Rich Schibli edited the video. Thanks also to do bros, Ms.

Averyo and Dan Shalonda, Shack Crowe's Vox Music, Executive Producer 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 mymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all

things, tech and business. Kara, what is a hipster's favorite cigarette? What? Yours.