Pivot - Iran War Spin, Trump's Legal Losses, and TMZ Targets Politicians

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Kara is joined by guest host Anthony Scaramucci! They unpack Trump’s latest speech on Iran and a string of legal losses challenging the administration's policies. Then, SpaceX has officially filed f...or a massive IPO, TMZ moves into political coverage, and of course, Kristi Noem’s husband scandal.We’re nominated for a Webby Award! Vote for us here!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 pivot@voxmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:30 the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Support for the show comes from Backmarket. Everyone listening to this pod has heard or seen an ad telling you how much you need their latest tech. Let me let you in on a little secret. You don't need that upgrade.
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Starting point is 00:01:30 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott is off today, and I'm joined by the man who may or may not be running for president. It's Anthony, it's Karamucci, the mooch, lawyer, podcaster, and founder of Skybridge Capital. Hello, Anthony. How you doing? All right. I'll stipulate right here on this show.
Starting point is 00:01:50 You're my running mate. We're going to go for it, Carrie. You and me, the day after April Fool's. I'm your running mate. Let's flip that. Strike that. Flip it. Okay.
Starting point is 00:02:00 You want to be the president? Okay, great. I'll be your running mate. Okay. I'll grow a beard like J.D. Vance, okay? Yeah. Oh, please don't do that. A emphasis on the word beard. Okay, what are we talking about today?
Starting point is 00:02:10 Anthony, there's so much going on. I just don't even know. Explain people. You put up a fake April Fool's thing about running for president, correct? Yeah, I thought it was fun. I mean, the reaction was sort of crazy, actually. Was it? I know.
Starting point is 00:02:23 I thought it was real for a second. Like, why not, given the craziness of this world? Well, I mean, the truth of matters, we could be doing better than we are doing right now. That's my honest opinion. but I've never felt that political calling, but my staff made up that mooch-20028 hat. Yeah, yeah. And they said, let's put this out for April Fool's. I said, okay, you know, I know how to play the jokes, you know.
Starting point is 00:02:45 Yeah, yeah. It was good. Last year, I wrote that Elon Musk had given me a job at Doge. A lot of people thought that was true. You know, I don't know. I don't engage in April Fool's. It's odd. I don't.
Starting point is 00:02:56 I get tricked by them a lot. But I like it. I believe it for a second. Honestly, I was like, what? And I sent it to the staff. I was like, is he running? I mean, again, you never know. Anyway.
Starting point is 00:03:08 Let me stipulate. I'm not running. I'm running for re-election in my marriage. Yeah, okay. How's it going? How's the polling going? The polling is going on. I could be term limited.
Starting point is 00:03:17 That's the one problem with my marriage. I'm worried about that. That's true. Your wife is fine. My wife has a political platform of castration. Yeah. I will not be running for president. But anyway, it was a good April 4th joke.
Starting point is 00:03:29 We're getting into marriages in a second. But I don't know if you're, where I've taken over Times Square. Have you seen my giant billboards in Times Square? Well, I'm going to be coming to your thing. Congratulations on all that. They gave me two billboards. Have you ever been on a billboard? It's freaky. Not that I'm aware of, actually. I don't think I've ever been on a billboard. Yeah, well, it's very exciting. They're all digital now in Times Square. As you know, in the old days, they used to be actual billboards. When I was a kid, they had the Marlboro Man, remember he smoked in Times Square. Yeah, but a little puffs of smoke came out of his
Starting point is 00:04:01 Yeah. So you and I are roughly the same vintage. Yeah. I'll share something with you that's obscure, but it'll just tell you how we were raised compared to how the people are being raised now. I went in March of 1972 at the age of eight to the Godfather premiere with my uncle Orlando Scaramucci, okay? And I sat in the balcony. I didn't understand anything about the movie, of course, but I thought it was a cool thing.
Starting point is 00:04:28 When we were waiting outside the theater, I saw the Marlboro. man puffing the smoke. Yeah. Now, we would never do that to our kids now because we helicopter them and we shelter them. But I was watching. I think that's a good helicopter. That feels like a really acceptable helicopter. But everything's digital now. It's quite, it was quite something. All these people sent me pictures of me with them, you know, and it's like nine feet tall. It's a weird. It's definitely a weird feeling. Well, first of all, congratulations. The show looks awesome. It is good. I love the, I love the ads on the show, and it's a very topical, lively thing. Yeah, longevity.
Starting point is 00:05:02 You know what's cool about that show? Everybody wants that. It doesn't matter what your political stripe is or who you are as a person. If you're enjoying this life on planet Earth, you want to add a few years to you? Yes, yes, exactly. I want everyone to come together. That was my whole goal in this. It's true, though.
Starting point is 00:05:20 Everyone is asking me, but I do want to be for everyone and not just rich people. And that was the goal. It's like, what's working, what's ridiculous? What did you tell me the other day? You like, there was a bunch of stuff that you were doing that I thought was too much. What was it? I think I've learned a little bit about, you know, I have that methyl, methylation gene defect where I can't methylate certain vitamins. Right, right. That was actually very helpful. So I took that genetic test and then they give me different types of vitamins that I'm able to absorb better. That actually lowered my blood pressure car. So that I think does work. Which ones do you take? Can I ask you? Would you mind telling me?
Starting point is 00:05:59 take methyl guard, I assume? That's exactly what I take. Yeah, so 70% of the population, according to my doctor, has this genetic issue where they can't methylate certain vitamins. This is valid science. Okay, so that's all valid science. And so what that did was it brought down something called homocysteine in my blood, which is an inflammation marker. It makes your kidneys a little bit tense. And so it was creating a little bit of high blood pressure. And it was creating, you know, a little bit of inflammation in my joints. So by taking that down, my blood pressure dropped, and it wasn't anything more. And by the way, it's a natural amino acid that they give you in that methylgarde that reduces it. You know, look, I'm 62. You look good. And I've got the good Italian skin, thank God,
Starting point is 00:06:46 but I'm keeping it together, but I think that stuff has helped me. And it's not, it's not the, you know, I've gone into some life transformation cell and come out of it or anything like that. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not that, but I have taken the genetics. Scott takes, tries anything that goes by, any crazy shit that goes by, he's always like, I'm trying this and they get, he gets, he abandons it and stuff like that. Anyway, it's an interesting issue and I want more people to be more healthy because actually the number one indicator for longevity is don't be poor because you don't get the right food, you don't get the right health care, you don't get the right living, it's stressful living
Starting point is 00:07:23 conditions and stuff like that. And if we can help more people out of poverty or get them to a level of feeling not stressed, the health care savings are massive. We're going to live forever. That's what's happening. There are certain people on planet Earth that don't want you and I to live forever, Carrer, Swiss. But I want you to live forever, Cal.
Starting point is 00:07:43 Thank you. It's mostly a joke. So speaking of someone like that, Donald Trump says the war in Iran is nearing completion, but the U.S. will hit Iran extremely hard over the next two to three weeks bombing the country. back to the Stone Ages, which is just a lovely term. A 19-minute address to the nation on Wednesday night, Trump tried to justify the war but didn't offer anything new. It was rambling. It was problematic. He lied a lot. He also downplayed concerns about economic fallout, calling the spike in the gas price, a short-term increase in saying the Strait of Hormuz would open up naturally after the war.
Starting point is 00:08:15 He said the same thing about COVID. It would end naturally, which really didn't. He didn't say anything about putting troops there or falling through on threats to leave NATO. He talks about it, and then doesn't do it. Talk about the speech, because I thought it really was a big flat zero. Like, it really was flat and nobody was paying attention to it in a weird way, although the markets certainly were. Well, I mean, the speech is about power. Okay, so CBS News, still in Trump's mind, the Tiffany Network, said, hey, no problem. Our reality show that's been on the air for 25 years survivor, we're going to interrupt the programming to bring you this speech. So it's not just going to be a cable news speech. I mean, network speech. Trump was like, hey, definitely doing that. And so that
Starting point is 00:08:58 shows you a little bit of the corruption of the media. I think he has decapitated. The reason why your show is doing so well is that he's decapitated corporate media. He's got them chilled. He's got their lawyers triple checking everything they say. And so Trump's looking at it saying, hey, I'm going to get attention and people on me. I'm going with the speech, even if it's a speech about nothing. But to your point, the market said, oh, whoa, we're likely going to have ground troops in there. We're likely going to have a really tough time and a result of which it was full risk off after the speech. So, and, you know, and people are saying to me, they always say, oh, Trump cares about the market. Trump cares about the market. Trump doesn't care about the market.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Trump cares about manipulating the market. Trump cares about making money from the market for himself and the people around him. He doesn't care about your portfolio. or your market. He doesn't even care about the polls anymore because he's not running for re-election. So guys, get off of those notions of first-term Trump caring about the market and the poll numbers. He has worse poll numbers than Jimmy Carter did at the peak of the oil crisis in 1978, 1979. The poll numbers are terrible. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. So what did you, what was the reason for the speech? What is he doing? Why is he making such efforts if he doesn't care. The reason for the speech, and as an American speech, I think it would agree. But there was
Starting point is 00:10:25 something he said in the speech that people should be listening to. And as an American citizen that's still exercising my First Amendment right, I denounce it as an American citizen. He said he's going to bomb Iran into the Stone Age. Right. Okay, that was the reason for the speech. And let me explain why that was important. Tell me. That was important because I'm putting the ground troops in. I have a 12th. year olds mentality. And when I'm moving stuff into the region, guess what, guys, I'm not using that as a leverage point. I'm using the stuff. So the 82nd Airborne is going in there. So are the Marines. 50,000 troops, right? And but by the way, you know, General Kane told me that they booby-trap Kargaiolin and they've got all these little Vietnam-like guerrilla things they're going to
Starting point is 00:11:12 do to our troops. And our troops are really set up for Cold War Army to Army battle. So I've got to spend the next three weeks blasting the living daylights out of Iran before I can get the troops in position. So I'm going to give you the speech. And it's going to be I'm going to bomb them back to the Stone Age speech. So this is going to be the speech when historians look at the wreckage of Donald Trump. They're going to say, what were you guys doing when you let somebody that inhumane into the White House? And so in preparation for this, I prepared something for you. Can I just go over this very quickly. Go right ahead. So it is not enough for MAGA the following. We're going to release the Epstein files. Oh, wait a minute. Trump's in the Epstein files. We're not going to release
Starting point is 00:11:57 the Epps Files. We're going to bomb people to distract from them. We're going to bomb a school in Iran with young kids in it, mostly women. We're going to create alligator alcatraz, which is this disgusting penitentiary for immigrants in Florida that has sewage backup, and we're going to laugh about it while we're down there. We're going to murder people in Minneapolis. We're going to kidnap children and not even know where we're sending them. We're going to manipulate the markets, Kara. We're going to take bribes, particularly a big $400 million jet, and I'm going to keep the jet after I leave. I'm going to excoriate our allies that have been our friends for over a century, and I'm going to threaten to attack a NATO country, Greenland.
Starting point is 00:12:39 I'm going to shit all over Canada. And then I'm going to come after. your first, fourth, fifth, and 14th amendment rights in the Constitution. And oh, by the way, every price in America is going to go up as a result of my tariffs. And I'm going to lower corporate taxes, big, beautiful spending bill. And so if you're making a million dollars or more, you're going to get a $7,000 benefit. And if you're making $50,000 or less, I'm taking $500 of benefits away from you. and this is what I'm going to do, and you're going to shut up
Starting point is 00:13:16 and you're going to like it, MAGA. You're still going to support me 34%. But let me tell you what's going to kill them. It's the gas prices. So it turns out that the red line for MAGA, carous swisher, or the gas prices. Because they don't want to go into the 250th birthday of America grilling hot dogs at $8 a gallon in gas.
Starting point is 00:13:36 And so his approval ratings are going into the gutter, but everything I just read, including the gutting of the Department of Justice, and we could name 50 other things, hollowing out USAID, was acceptable to these people? Scientists, attacking lawyers, attacking media. No NIH grants anymore. We're not going to do any cancer research in the country. But you said he doesn't care. Doesn't care. Doesn't care.
Starting point is 00:14:04 So why do it? Self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, self-interest? He's doing it because he likes putting people in pain. He's doing it because he's a miserable SOB, and he's doing it because anybody in his path gets destroyed. You know, some people say nihilist, other people say nihilist, but that is him. He's attacking Macron this morning. Macron is in his field of vision today.
Starting point is 00:14:37 Then he'll attack another person. Last yesterday afternoon, he said, you know, J.D. Vance is out there negotiating this thing. If it works, I'll take all the credit. If it doesn't, I'll give him all the blame. That is Donald Trump. Can I ask you, is it cognitive issues? I mean, you spent, it seems like that. That speech last night was like, looked, I hate to say, looked like my mom on a bad day at the nursing home.
Starting point is 00:15:03 Okay. So I'm the contrarian on this because I've known the son of a bitch for 20 years. slight cognitive issues, but he's not in full-on dementia. He's an 80-year-old guy that's a little bit forgetful. He's stooping a little bit. He's lost some posture. Maybe his spine is a little bit weakened through old age. A whole bunch of inflammation. Speaking of inflammation. Yeah, inflammation. His ankles are swollen. But he has not lost it. And whether people like it or not, he has a lot of energy for an 80-year-old. He does. He's moving himself around. Okay. And so, But what it is, what it is is hatred of self and projection of that hatred onto others.
Starting point is 00:15:44 And you got to see it for what it actually is. Okay. The other thing is let's say that I'm not saying anybody's an agent of Putin, but let's say I was an agent of Putin. Okay, let's just say hypothetically, I happen to be an agent of Putin. And I happen to, oh, I happened to be the president of the United States. So let me do the following. Let me go after the NATO allies. Let me threaten to pull out of NATO.
Starting point is 00:16:10 Let me pull aid and material from Ukraine, excoriate the Ukrainian president. Let me, oh, here's a good idea. Let me attack Iran and that a result of attacking Iran, I'm going to lift the sanctions on Russian oil. And I'm going to lift the sanctions on their ally, Iran's oil. So now the Russians are going to make billions and billions of dollars off of this, which will help my budget. Vlad. And I don't know. You tell me. I don't know. How does that sound? I don't know what he's doing. I felt
Starting point is 00:16:44 like it was slightly cogniz. But, you know, he is having a rough week in courts because courts are pushing back on him everywhere you look. It was like 10 of them yesterday. Let's go through some of his losses. A federal judge temporarily halted construction on his beloved White House ballroom saying it needs Congress's authorization. And Congress doesn't seem to be moving on it. Trump's executive order cutting funding to NPR and PBS was struck down. judge ruling it violated the First Amendment. Another judge ruled its civil suit against Trump for his actions on January 6th can go forward and that the presidential immunity does not apply to his speech that day, talking to his supporters before they marched the Capitol. And one more, a judge in
Starting point is 00:17:18 Texas blocked a Trump-back deal allowing churches to endorse political candidates. Trump also was at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, very briefly listening to arguments out whether his executive order will limit to limit birthright citizenship as constitutional. The justices seemed skeptical, and that's being kind. His latest. His latest. disorder restricting mail and voting ahead of the 2026 election, is already facing legal challenges, and he's going to lose. He's going to lose badly on that one. So pick a case, any case. And do you, I mean, this is what he does. He transgresses with illegal actions. And then everyone's picking up the pieces and pushing back legally. And he does damage in that wake.
Starting point is 00:17:56 What is, he's going to lose on every one of these things, it seems like. Any, does it matter? Well, I see, I don't, I don't. The only one he cares about is the ballroom from what I can tell. Well, see, I actually think there's a bigger thing going on here because remember, Trump to a group of right-wing intellectuals is an empty vessel. Okay, so they bought call options on him on January 7, 2021. Low point for Trump right after the insurrection. Everyone said he was politically dead. And so these right-wing lunatics that couldn't get the time of day of a Mitt Romney or George W. Bush, they said, let's team up with Donald Trump. He's probably going to come. come back. He still has lots of MAGA popularity. And if he comes back, we can take all of this
Starting point is 00:18:41 intellectual nonsense that we believe and we can run the card table with Trump. So let's talk about one of the cases, which is the argument against birthright citizenship. So remember, everybody's looking at the case like, oh, he's trying to repeal the 14th Amendment, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's going to lose the case. Oh, ha, ha, ha. I don't see it that way. this is a maximalist position. Okay, this is a group of people to Trump's right, these intellectual imbecils that want to expand Article 2, executive power, and they are pushing for a maximalist position.
Starting point is 00:19:19 Okay, so every fight, whether it's win or lose, expands the boundaries of what future presidents will try, Kara. And I think this is the point that people need to... Even if he loses, like... Like, dead lose. Even if he loses, you just put on the table that everything in this Constitution is negotiable. You see what I just did? I went to the court to intimidate them for my base.
Starting point is 00:19:45 Didn't work. My base hates black and brown people and they hate anchor babies. And I'm sending my base a message that I'm fighting for them. Okay. But imbecile, let me just point out something. If you, let's say they ruled with you, you would. create a situation that is ridiculous. Okay. And what is that situation? You would have children born in the country that are actually have no citizens rights anywhere because a lot of the parents. Yes. The
Starting point is 00:20:17 justice has pointed that out. The justice is. Okay. So you would have that. They wouldn't be able to work legally in the country. They wouldn't be entitled to schooling. This is, this is a constitutional intimidation. Why do the max when the minimalist thing is how they get things. That's how they got to abortion. They slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly aid at it. This is going to never be brought up again for 20 years, 50 years. I got three years to push and shove you guys. Okay. Now, if I can only get control of the elections, what I can then do is install another right winger to further weaken everything in the Constitution. You know, Peter Thiel, these guys, I don't like the Constitution.
Starting point is 00:21:01 The Constitution is very, very messy. I don't like these people that I don't agree with. I want the things to go my way or the highway. And so I need the orange wrecking ball. I've got three years left. I got to smash into that Constitution as hard as possible. And see, and by the way, good news for me, I've already weakened the Constitution in the eyes of 30, 40, 50 percent of the people. And so I got to keep going on this.
Starting point is 00:21:31 I see. So they're going to just keep trying to smash until they can't, even if they don't win. But I have a question for you if you don't mind. Are we living you and me? Are we living at a rogue state? Meaning. Okay. Well, let's go over what a rogue state is. No, I know. Who's the rogue? Him or us? Well, I have to say that our government is the rogue. Yes. Yes. Our government is the rogue. Parts of it. Parts of it. So are we living? Are we living? We're living in a rogue state. We're living in an executive that wants to take more power than ever, which is something that happens in Silicon Valley. It happens in, which you're trying to apply their Silicon Valley.
Starting point is 00:22:13 You spoke of Teal and the others, Silicon Valley management style to the government, which has been growing for decades and decades and decades. That's not a new fresh thing. And some used to accuse Franklin, Donald Roosevelt of a similar thing. If you were, you know, I was not alive then, but if you read history. So I think there's always been this push for unitary executive power. It just tends to get pushed back every single time because of the Constitution. Let me ask a different question then.
Starting point is 00:22:41 If a smaller nation was indiscriminately striking another nation in direct violation of law and was applying this type of violent behavior with the Americans, the old-school American governments be designating that country a rogue state? Yes, yes, I would think so. But I think it's a rogue group of people within the state because what I've been struck by is how enduring some of it is, right? You're seeing pushback everywhere. And I know it's, I think one of the things that I think about a lot is it's very easy.
Starting point is 00:23:17 When you run for office, you can be, and I don't like to use this phrase as much, but a bomb thrower, right? You can make trouble everywhere. And when you're governing, you change as a governor, right, to govern. things and you aren't a bomb thrower. So this is a government that just never governs. It bomb throws and breaks and doesn't fix. Just like, I mean, the White House ballroom is a perfect, like it's a construction pit. They just destroy. And I don't even know if that ballroom's ever going to get made. It's a, it's a kind of a physical manifestation of the mentality of just destroy.
Starting point is 00:23:52 And once we've destroyed, we've won the fight already because now we have to do the rest of us pick it up. But I am struck by the power of the pushback, actually. Well, there's symbolism in destroying that, by the way. You know, I'm here as a wrecker of everything. And this is the thing that the Americans have to answer for. The American people have to answer for the following. You got a system that got put in place, tremendous checks and balances, tremendous processes. You had states, men and women abide to the system, even Richard Nixon. And the system made you the most prosperous country and arguably one of the most, if not the most powerful country in the world. And you've now decided that you want to wreck that system. And so, and I understand it,
Starting point is 00:24:40 because you and I grew up with these people, so I understand it. You want to wreck the system because you think the system is unfair to you. There's a few fat cats getting super rich, and you're in a full on affordability crisis for yourself, and you've gone from economically aspirational to desperation. So, try. Trump is your avatar for anger. System's not working for you. Blow up the system. Yes.
Starting point is 00:25:03 Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, but that's going to be very bad for people. The people that want to blow up the system, it's going to really hurt them. Yes, it will be. I mean, I know that sounds crazy. When I was in college, two guys ran for the student body presidency, right?
Starting point is 00:25:19 And they had a whole, they basically had a nihilistic thing. Like, we just want to party. We want to spend all the money on ourselves. And they won, right? They won, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they do good government. Um, and there is a moment where I think voters do like chaos, right? And I think it does, I think we'll be picking up from this guy for centuries, like, it's not a century for decades. Um, and I think, I, it's not a good thing, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have to be battered. right, for a second just to see what holds and what needs to be fixed. And it does allow us to reflect on who we are and what we want to be. I mean, it's kind of interesting that we're in this 250 years.
Starting point is 00:26:09 And it says, okay, what doesn't work? What does work? What do we need to think about? And it does knock everyone into a sense of what matters to them. And I don't think, I think it's a painful way to learn something, but I think it's a way to learn things. I do. All right, so this is a big question.
Starting point is 00:26:27 Okay, and I follow you, and I love your podcast, and I read your writings. So I'm going to stipulate something and I'm going to ask a very big question. All right. So I believe that this is a very young country, and we don't have the cultural mores of Italy, France, Germany. You picked the country. Okay. Not saying it's a bad thing, but I'm trying to explain to you what happens in our country is we go into the shitter every 80 or so years.
Starting point is 00:26:55 Yep, we do. Okay. So 1770. into the shitter Civil War. We've lost all the institutional memory because 80 years is enough where the generation dies off. And then we go 80 years out from the Civil War. We're in the Great Depression. We go into the shitter again. We have to pull ourselves out of it. And then we build the post-war War II society along with our allies. And we have this moment of great peace, generally great peace and prosperity. But we're 80 years out again, Kara. And so now we're going
Starting point is 00:27:26 into the shitter again, which... Well, we've been in the shitter, but go ahead. All right, well, we're in the shitter, but America has been always, in these moments, to your point that you just made, reflective, redemptive, and then it renews itself. However, there's something going on right now, and this is the Karas-Swisher question. All right. Something going on right now, the proliferation of social media. Right.
Starting point is 00:27:52 And the addiction of the social media, which is creating. this tribalism and created these stove pipes, these silos. Is this going to prevent us from coming out of the shitter? Are we going to be able to have a postpartisan moment? I think they're finished. These cases that are starting to build up, I think people are, it takes, you know, as you know, sick cigarettes, 20 years. So this is Philip Morris then?
Starting point is 00:28:18 This is Philip Morris again. And everybody is like just a fucking second. And I think, I know it sounds crazy, but I have so many people now coming up to me after I wrote Burnbook, which at the time, people were like, oh, you're so mean to them. They're such important innovators. People come to me down and they're like, you weren't mean enough. You weren't mean enough. Like, you weren't tough enough on them. And I think people are suddenly taking control of themselves, whether it's social media. I think young people are. My sons, I see, and that's an anecdotal thing. But I see people pushing back across the globe
Starting point is 00:28:49 against the tech. And I think the fact that the technologists put theirs in with Trump was the final moment of, oh, they are the villains, like the Marvel villains. And I think, I really do think there's a very healthy pushback happening. And I don't think, I, I feel positive for the first time that people understand what I. It's very optimistic. Look, I hope so. It's very optimistic. I'm going to say something that does not reflect well on me or Deirdre. Yeah. I let the kids have the iPad, and it was ruining their personalities. And I let them have it for too long. I've taken the iPad away from them and the phones and all that other stuff, I've got my children back. They have been de-zombified by that process, okay?
Starting point is 00:29:33 Yep. So a shout out to Jonathan Hayes. Is that how you say his name? Jonathan Hayes. And a shout-out to Karas-Swisher, a shout-out to Karas-Wisher for putting out the Surgeon General's warning label before the Surgeon General did that these stupid products give your kids' brains lung cancer. I know it's a mixed metaphor, but you get my point.
Starting point is 00:29:54 I'll tell you, one of the themes in this series I did, the Carous Wynne Sluttebrer, is about the danger of chat bots with kids. You know I've been talking to the parents and doing interviews with them. I think the most dangerous thing right now is relationships with AI bots and the sycophantic relationships. And I'll tell you, I'll do a plot spoiler, this entire series. Guess what the number one indicator of longevity is? You'll know.
Starting point is 00:30:20 Money, right? Or no. Money, of course. Yes, don't be poor. But what's the actual? number one. Genetics? No, not sleep, not diet, not exercise. Friends and family. Friends and family. That makes sense. Community, not just people you know, but walking to a coffee shop and saying, hey, how's your day going? I do that now all the time. People, you know, they look down and you go,
Starting point is 00:30:42 hey, how's your day going? They go like this. Like, you can see them go, oh, I'm okay. And I go, are you sure? Is everything good? It's amazing. If you talk to people you don't know and you have friends and family on you, you live longer, you're happier, you're healthier, it's less costly. It's, and it's not, it's not correlation. It's causation. It's absolute. And the more time you spend with bots and online, the sicker you're going to be. Kara, I'm loving you more every, every day. Can I put out a public social message to billionaire dickweeds? Can I just have a public social message? Hey, hey, hey, billionaire dickweeds, are you out there? Listen to me, okay? No more asymmetrical relationships, okay? If you don't,
Starting point is 00:31:24 call me, guess what? I'm not fucking calling you. You're not that important, okay? You have to take a crap every day. You have to go to the bathroom. You're really not that important. So you know what? I want to live a long time. So I'm going to have symmetrical relationships and bilateral relationships with people. If you think you're too fucking important to call me back, you're never getting another call from me. Okay. All right. Let's go to the next topic. Speaking of this, we're going to Christy known because I brought props. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Let's go on a Quick break, when we come back, SpaceX officially files for an IPO. Hi, I'm Brne Brown.
Starting point is 00:32:04 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.
Starting point is 00:32:20 You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes. every Thursday. Support for the show comes from Back Market. Listen, there's a lot of ads out there telling you to buy new products. I've actually found that buying a new car makes no sense. I've owned cars my whole life, raised in California, and I've bought a bunch of new cars and a bunch of used cars, and I think that, quite frankly, use this the way to go.
Starting point is 00:32:45 And it's the same with tech products, but Back Market is giving you the option to find sustainable tech products at a much more affordable rate. Back Market offers a range of high-quality tech, inspected and refurbished by professionals. It's all they do. They have phones, computers, gaming consoles, vacuum cleaners, and even iPods. All of the tech at Backmarket has been inspected and restored by professionals to ensure it is in perfect working condition. They offer 30-day returns and a one-year warranty. And not only is Back Market refurbished tech more affordable than buying new, it's also more sustainable. Back Market is on a mission to reduce the environmental toll
Starting point is 00:33:18 that Fast Tech has on our planet, as refurbished tech has proven to use less raw materials, leave behind less waste, and create fewer carbon emissions than new tech. They say, E-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, and it's an issue that Backmarket wants to actively address through initiatives including their Earth Month campaign. Shop now at backmarket.com. Anthony, we're back with more news. SpaceX has confidentially filed. I don't confidentially.
Starting point is 00:33:49 Everyone knows about it. Filed for an IPO. The filing puts the company in track for a June listing ahead of other upcoming massive IPOs from OpenAIN Anthropic. There's a lot of them coming this year. SpaceX reportedly seek a valuation of 1.75. brilliant. It's not making that much money. Companies will probably allocate as much as 30% of the offerings.
Starting point is 00:34:07 Just small investors. That's nice. It's really, I'm going to go through a whole bunch of market things, but I think it's $15 billion in revenue, and the numbers are really crazy for this. It's highly overvalued at the same time. People will probably run into it. A couple of things, Oracle stock has been fluctuating after laying off thousands of employees. Microsoft dropped almost a quarter of its value in the first three months of the year. Worst quarter. Open AI is beginning to let individual investors access the stock months before It's planned IPO.
Starting point is 00:34:34 Lots of companies gotten hit. Palantir's gotten hit. It's really kind of an up and down thing. Talk a little bit about the SpaceX IPO and where the markets are from your perspective. And, of course, if you'd like, Bitcoin, tell us what's happening there since you're Mr. Bitcoin. All right.
Starting point is 00:34:48 Well, I mean, let's start with SpaceX. I mean, listen, the cult of personality around Elon Musk is such where he gets an excessive, exogenous premium for his companies. They are off of the scale. Even if they're suffering like Tesla. Even if they're suffering like Tesla, they get enormous metrical valuation numbers. Okay, you're talking about a $1.65 trillion. $675 trillion valuation. He's going to raise apparently $75 billion, so that would crush the Saudi Arampo IPO record. Okay. And it's two to three, three times larger than any IPO ever. Okay. And he does have a good product with Starlink.
Starting point is 00:35:38 We have to tell people that it's good, but we don't know the revenue splits yet between Starlink, the launching business, the defense business. We don't know the breakout of the profitability. Okay. And we also don't know the CapEx burn because it would feel like the Starship stuff is a blast furnace, if you will, a blast furnace of. of CAPEX. Okay. Now, having said that, I want to disclose this to people. I do own SpaceX.
Starting point is 00:36:07 I have participated in one of the private rounds of SpaceX. Why did you do that? Because you thought they were far in a way the biggest provider? I did that because I see this Starlink being worth a fortune for him. And I see this idea, and I'm not saying it'll happen. And this is why it's venture capital in my portfolio. but I see the notion that creating interstellar or orbital data centers, where you're getting the energy from the sun and not from the electricity grid,
Starting point is 00:36:39 and you're beaming it back down to Earth using satellite technology, I think that's near science fiction. I think that becomes science fact, and I think he's well positioned to do it. I also think that he's merged Grock into this, and I think GROC on its own, which I, again, full disclosure, I was an investor in XAI. I mean, I think you know this, Antonio Gracius and I worked together at Goldman.
Starting point is 00:37:07 Obviously, I would have been smarter to invest earlier, but he's been helpful in getting me access to these investments. And for me, in my venture portfolio, that's side of my portfolio, I think this guy has done a very good job of executing. And the valuations may be high, but what I've learned in life, and you and I are, I'm 40 years as an investment, investor, I missed out on a few things early like Amazon because I was reading Warren Buffett's annual reports and the valuation for Amazon was too high. But ultimately, the guys that bought
Starting point is 00:37:40 Amazon were right. I missed it. And it was a big miss for me. A $10,000 investment in Amazon on the May 15th, 1997 IPO worth almost $20 million today. Right. And so I want to have a few things. Although it could have been touch and go. There was a point where Amazon. We could be five years from now, kind enough to invite me back on, we could be saying that was a big miss for SpaceX. That was a big miss. But again, what I would tell investors is you got to have a little bit of your portfolio in the dream because it is America and we have to believe in that dream. Now, I have most of my portfolio in stocks and bonds and I have most of my portfolio in the garden variety, S&P 500, some Berkshire Hathaway, et cetera. But I do, I do own this stuff. Would you, would you buy OpenAI
Starting point is 00:38:26 comparatively? Now, they're in a much. more competitive position now with Anthropic and others. Or would you buy Anthropic? So I own both. And, you know, I had this nightmare situation with Sam Bankman-Fried, which I've well documented and talked about. But one of the things he did for me, he bought Anthropic. He told me to buy Anthropic and I bought Anthropic very early. And let me tell you how this works in life. Anthropic is up 140 to 1 from where I bought it in terms of his current private market valuation. So anthropic is a larger percentage of my net worth than certain legacy assets that I have, Cara.
Starting point is 00:39:07 And so this is another reason why I always tell people, it's okay. And by the way, you don't have time in the day for all my zeros and all my stupid decisions and stuff. You know, I had Travis Kalanek, is that easy? I had him in my office, $50 million valuation for Uber. I said, wait a minute, an unknown guy in an unknown black car is gonna drive my 16 year old daughter,
Starting point is 00:39:28 around Manhattan. Get out of my office. Get out of. Yeah. And I missed it. Right. So I can give you all my losses as well. Right. But you got to me, I believe that you have to have some of these in. So Open AI has its challenges. Obviously, he's fighting it out with Elon and all the different things that we could describe. But I think he's got lots of market share. And I think he's going to grow his mortgage share. And by the way, I think Claude is going to win, Anthrop is going to win his case against the government. Trump's going to lose that case too. Right. So when you look around, you like, look, take these risks. And as long as it's like, it's not a situation where it's not a real business, right? And in this case, Starlink is a real business. The rocket business is a real business. It's a much smaller business than the valuation by far, but especially when you zero it against a Facebook. Like it's worth more than Facebook. And Facebook has a talk about a real, real business. That's like a significant and ongoing business. And the threats, Scott feels, like there's a real moat that they have. I never think there's any moats ever, especially when you
Starting point is 00:40:32 look at Tesla, how quickly. A couple of years ago, I was like, Tesla's going to get killed by China and competitors. And everyone's like, no, Tesla's the winner. I'm like, there's no way they're keeping a 70% market share. It's not happening. And of course, it's gone down and down, and he lost interest in it. And instead of putting out really innovative cars, he put out the cyber truck, right? And so once I saw the cyber truck, I'm like, this thing is watch out below. But his particular, as you said, he has a lot of misses, but he has a lot of wins. And so you kind of have to go with him in that regard in this particular thing. Can I add just one thing? Because this is something we have to accept, and that's called memeification. And so we have to
Starting point is 00:41:15 accept that there's a prolific number of bee swarming retail investors, Wall Street bet like investors, that are with Elon and that there's a personality cult around Elon that is affecting valuation. And by the way, they are way sturdier than any of my short selling buddies thought. And they've knocked out a lot of my short selling buddies. They have. So I would just tell people, listen, I'm a market realist. Okay. I'm not a market purist.
Starting point is 00:41:51 Okay. Yes, I've read Buffett and Buffett is the papal. edict giver of value. You know, we're going to get the Bitcoin, but Buffett thinks Bitcoin's rat poison or rat poison squared and all this other stuff. But the point I'm making is that I'm a market realist,
Starting point is 00:42:07 not a market idealist. And this man, Elon Musk, has a memeification in bed in him. It may not last forever, but there's a memeification in bed in there and that I am not too proud or to idealistic. Not to take advantage of it.
Starting point is 00:42:25 I get it. I get it. You know, it was interesting. One time I called, because he had never made an internet investment. This was a decade ago or more. More than that. It was more than that.
Starting point is 00:42:34 And I called up to ask him. I wanted, I was doing, I was the Wall Street Journal, so it was a long time ago. And I called up and I said, I thought I was going to get a PR person. And the phone rings through and it's him. And I was like, oh, hi.
Starting point is 00:42:47 Hi, hi there, Warren Buffett. And he's like, I just don't believe in this internet thing. And I was like, I think you're wrong. I can't believe I'm giving you advice. but he was very much against internet investments. And he admitted he was wrong about it much later, like that he was wrong about all of them.
Starting point is 00:43:02 And there is some value in understanding it's going to take a while for people to catch up to Musk in this area. But as I always say, they will catch up because it's a great market, right? As you say, if we have these data centers in space, if you think he's going to be the only one running the show, you're absolutely wrong.
Starting point is 00:43:18 People will, greedy people will rush into the business, whether it's Amazon with Kuiper, or whatever. It's going to be a lot of people, but it'll take his attention, which it fell away from, because I think he got red-pilled in many ways. If his attention wanes, it's in trouble. If it doesn't, it's hard to compete with him and his meambocation, as you talk about. I think you're right. Well, again, a portfolio approach. I own a lot of them, and some of them will work, some of them won't. But my lesson from 30 years ago, is I wasn't bold enough. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:57 And again, I'm talking about 5%, 7% of the capital. Right, not the whole thing. Yeah, that's all right. Very briefly, Bitcoin. Where's it at today? Well, Bitcoin is in a significant bare market. Bitcoin got hurt by Trump. I know the Trump lovers and the Trump crypto lovers don't like me saying this,
Starting point is 00:44:16 but I said when those meme coins came out, Trump and Melania mean coins, he's going to crush us. He's going to hurt us because he hurts everything that he's out. And so what ended up happening is the regulation that should have been passed didn't get passed because of the hatred of Trump. And so, so result of which we're in a typical Bitcoin bear market. So it's 66,000 almost 67,000. But it's been pretty sturdy during the Iranian war. Yeah, it has. And I, I will say. But it hasn't rushed upwards, which one would think it might. But I would say to Bitcoin enthusiasts, this is a typical four-year cycle, having cycle situation. This point in the cycle, Bitcoin, loses roughly half of its value. It did. I'll make a prediction on your show. Sure. I've been humbled by markets. Probably could be wrong. I think the $60,000 bottom is in for Bitcoin. And I think that Bitcoin starts to rally in the fourth quarter, which would be consistent with the four-year cycle of Bitcoin. So even though you've got more buyers in Bitcoin, you were offset by whale selling in the last
Starting point is 00:45:21 12 months. And guess what? You got the typical four-year cycle of Bitcoin. And since I'm a long-term holder, I'm okay with that. I mean, you're right. Trump came in and made a mess of it by all the shit coins, all the, all the scams. And so it linked to Bitcoin. And he sucked so much money political donations into his coffers from guys that thought Trump was going to help him. He doesn't help people. He doesn't help people. You don't like people because they don't like himself. So this is the trough. We are in the trough of Bitcoin. I'm going to keep that prediction.
Starting point is 00:45:54 We'll find out. All right, Anthony, we're going to a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about those photos of Christy Noem's husband. Anthony, we're back, and Scott is going to be very sad. He's missing this one. Christy Noem is, quote, devastated and blindsided by the allegations that her husband is it Brian's activities in online fetish communities. Earlier this week, the Daily Mail published an investigation into Nome's husband, which included a photo of him wearing pink, hot.
Starting point is 00:46:26 pants and fake breasts with nipples. The story also alleges he spent at least $25,000 communicating with women in the bimbofication scene. I didn't know about this, but fascinating, which fetishes people with surgical enhancements. Republicans are a party of family values. This couple was particularly performative. I don't know what to say here. I just don't know. I'm in hot water with my mother-in-law because last night when I came home, I said, Ma, were you in one of those chat rooms? She got pissed. Oh, no. It was bad, right? Well, look at me. because I know Scott Galloway isn't here, but I brought props.
Starting point is 00:46:59 What is that? Is that them? Those are boobies. They're actually dodge balls that my kids play with. Oh, my God. You can put the boobies on. Do you want me to send you them? No, I don't.
Starting point is 00:47:06 Do you want to wear these later? No, I do not. Do not dare, don't you dare put them on. Okay. I'm not putting them on because I don't want to make fun of somebody, but I just saying I did bring props. Let me say. Let me say what I think.
Starting point is 00:47:16 I feel sad for this guy because I think he has, I, listen, I'm from San Francisco. If you want to marry a goat, I'm pretty okay with it. Not great with it. But that's okay. I'm okay with it. Yeah. I think it's, he obviously has an interest, and I don't, I find fetishes somewhat interesting,
Starting point is 00:47:33 and I think you should express yourself, and it's not hurting anybody, right? Is it really hurting anybody that he likes this? No. He seems, he seems, my part is he seems very sad about liking it, right? And that, you know, some of these, actually, some of the women he was, he hired are actually quite wise. I have to say some of these sex workers are like, well, he really liked it, and he seemed sad.
Starting point is 00:47:53 And I was trying to make him have fun because he seems to. and they're the most reasonable people in this entire affair. So I felt bad for him that he had this furtive life and he couldn't express himself. That's one. I also think he's a huge hypocrite in that all this performative religious stuff when he has a life that's more interesting and more unusual. And he should have that life without feeling ashamed, shame himself. In her case, I do think she didn't know about it.
Starting point is 00:48:22 I suspect she did. I don't think it's any excuse for her behavior. with Corey Lewandowski. I put this stuff up saying I felt sad for this guy, and everyone's like, don't you know that Corey Lewandowski leaked this to get the focus off of them and there. And what we should be focused on,
Starting point is 00:48:39 not this poor guy, which is sad, but for him, I wish he enjoyed himself more, as I said, but on their grift, right? Their enormous grift and what happened there, and the investigations into the two of them and their behaviors in there. And by extension, Donald Trump should continue and focus in on those two. We've normalized corruption, which is like hopefully we'll have to come back from that as well.
Starting point is 00:49:04 But here's three quick things I would say. Number one, you're coming down from heaven and you're on the assembly line and there are some fetishes like feet fetishes or eyelash fetish. I don't know what the fetishes are. But then the supervisor stops the assembly line and brings out the inflatable boobies. I said, hey, we're sending you to Earth with these, okay? I mean, that was a rough one. Okay, so I feel bad for the guy because I think you're born with that, maybe. Number two, okay, MAGA men are repressing a lot of stuff.
Starting point is 00:49:35 And you know that? My buddy Don Lennon tells me that the grinder stuff lights up at all these Christian conservative things, okay? We spot Lindsey Graham with the magic wand down in Walt Disney World. Yes, just so people don't know. He was Disney World with a little mermaid bubble wand. did one photo and waiting in line for Space Mountain and another. He said he was meeting with Trump and Steve Whitkoff and then went to Orlando to meet friends just for a quick.
Starting point is 00:49:58 You never go quickly to Disneyland. Look, look, look. But go ahead. The problem is the problem, right? Like, so to me, I'm going to tell you that MAGA men are repressing a lot of stuff and then they're taking it out on the rest of us, right? Like, if you read The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs, okay, guys, relax, whatever it is, whatever your orientation is, let it go. Nobody cares. Okay, we're in a totally
Starting point is 00:50:27 different environment. In the fine words of frozen, let it go. Let it go. Yeah, exactly. I think these guys are- Can't hold it back anymore. You know, you know this, Kara. I do. I let it go a long time. Born in the 40s and 50s, and with all of that repression, okay, and who the hell knows with Donald Trump's father did to him as a kid. And the guy's a repressed sad guy. Okay, he's decorating the Oval office like Liberace. He wants the ballroom. He took over the Kennedy Performing Arts Center. He wants to take his pain out on us. Calm down. Let it all go. Okay. And I feel bad for this guy, but I'm telling you, this type of repression for some reason has found its way into our politics. And then the last point, because I had three.
Starting point is 00:51:18 That's a serious point. The last point, look at me. I thought you were just going to make booby jokes, but go ahead. Last point, look at me, look at me. Look at me too. I'm a normal fucking guy. I can't believe. I thought I was a looney tune.
Starting point is 00:51:31 I'm in the bell curve of normal male nuttiness. I know. I'm fucking crazy. I thought I was nuts until I met these fucking people. You're totally boring compared to most of these people. I'm living a boring life. What does it do to? She has no political prospects now, correct?
Starting point is 00:51:48 Or will she go the, I didn't know, I'm a victim route? They took the couple hundred million dollars off the ad thing. So what do they do? They put the $200 million into the ad thing. They hired a consultant. The consultants skimmed like they do with these political action committees. Let me tell people from Pivot. Guys, never put any money in a political action committee.
Starting point is 00:52:09 Because what they do is the cronies at the top, they skim all the money, and they charge a 15, 20, 30% advertising consulting fee, and they're laughing at you. They're laughing at you, okay? So what Noam and Corey did was took the money, okay, and it diverted it, and they're going to go live somewhere. God bless them, they got some money, okay? I don't want to make the money like that, though.
Starting point is 00:52:33 Well, they'll be, they will have a problem. They'll have legal problems forever, I would assume. She has no presidential prospects, correct? Because I know that was not at all. She's got no presidential prospects, but she's also, come on. These are the people that we want running the country. Come on. No, no.
Starting point is 00:52:53 Okay? I mean, you're shooting at, you're shooting at people. You're kidnapping kids with ice and you're proud of it and you're riding around on your horse. You know, I did see one great meme, though. You mind if I share it? You know, we had to fuck, marry kill. Yeah. So we had to marry the guy with the big boobies.
Starting point is 00:53:08 We're fucking Corey and we're killing the dog. I thought that was really funny, okay? But anyway, sorry. That's a good one. That's good. It's interesting, though, it's really interesting. Someone, a company that I didn't think was going to do it, I'm friends with Harvey Levin from TMZ, but he's been publishing photos after asking people to submit pictures of lawmakers on vacation
Starting point is 00:53:28 during the DHS shutdown. And I'll note it's a bipartisan shaming targeting Democrats and Republicans alike. It's part of a larger push by TMZ, which is amped up its political coverage, showing what it calls the intersection of politics and pop culture. I kind of like that. they're doing this. So you can let us see you what you're doing versus how you're talking, right? You're exposing the hypocrisy, you know? Yeah, exactly. And here's the thing I would tell you, you know, they had Thune last week bypassing the entire TSA at the Reagan airport. I think he was in
Starting point is 00:54:00 or maybe Dulles. And guy, you're a hypocrite, you know, fix the country. You know, there's a 14% approval rating for the Congress. It's just slightly above Kim El-Jung. Okay. But you know what? 95% of these guys get reelected because of gerrymandering and Citizens United. They pick the voters. That's the only thing they're able to do. Are we in a real democracy, Kara, where the politicians pick the voters? I thought the voter is supposed to pick the politicians.
Starting point is 00:54:29 And they get unlimited money from the corporates. And so they can stay in power. It would be like you and I opening a restaurant, our food sucks. We got one-star Yelp ratings, but we can't ever get fired. Right. Okay? It's appalling. Yeah, it is.
Starting point is 00:54:46 And I think they're paying the price for it, though. I love that these pictures are there. I think people should do more of this exposure. Like, here's how they live. Here's how they behave. I did like when Delta said, we're not going to let them jump the line if they're on Delta. You know, we're not going to let them have special things.
Starting point is 00:55:02 And now I think things are calming down at airports. Apparently, TSA's sort of started to organize it a little better. But it's still the fact that they can't pass a basic funding bill is really quite solid. you know, without making everything partisan. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Anthony, let's hear a prediction. All right.
Starting point is 00:55:28 So listen, you know, listen, first of all, happy Easter and happy Passover to you and your family. Thank you. And I mean, I'm going to make three predictions. Okay. So the first prediction, Pam Bondi is long gone. Okay. Zeldon will replace her. This is Lee Zeldon.
Starting point is 00:55:44 They have gutted the Department of Justice and it's become the Trump family lawful. And so that's actually good for these Supreme Court decisions because I got nobody there to argue these stupid cases, but just very bad for the country. Number two, and I think this is also one that I don't like, is that we're going to have ground troops in Iran. And again, the bomb the people back to the Stone Age, which to degrade them in such a way where we can put the ground troops in. And then my last prediction is that the Chinese are going to be involved in a resolution of this. So what Trump is going to do, and this is the reason why he delayed the meeting with Xi, he's going to get the people to Cargoyle, he's going to get him in the street, he's going to shut off the oil. He's going to pick up the phone and call Xi and say, listen, you're getting 40, 50 percent of your oil out of here,
Starting point is 00:56:33 and this is a satellite state of yours. You've got to secularize that state, and you've got to let me and the UN, whoever, go in there and take the uranium out of there. And when we're done doing that, I'm going to open the oil spicket. again, and you can have the oil. I understand that you've got to run your economy, and I want to be a cooperative economic competitor of yours, and I do need those rare earth minerals. But that third prediction is where we're going on the chessboard, because there are some smart people in the Pentagon, and now that they're in this thing. Now that they're here, why not take advantage of it? That's where they're going. So those are my three predictions.
Starting point is 00:57:12 Might as well as. But that could cause a lot of deaths, American deaths, which could be problematic. consequences, but they don't care. You know, he doesn't care. You're an object in Trump's field of vision. You're not a person. Right. So for there, we might as well take advantage of the situation. Let me ask you, what do you think of Lee Zeldon? Well, Lee, I know a long time. You know, Lee was District 1 out here on Long Island. He was. Yeah, he was the House of Representatives guy out here. He's a conservative guy. He ran for governor here. Lee is formerly reasonable, as I recall. became crazy. That's where I was going.
Starting point is 00:57:49 So Lee is in that group of people that went into the MAGA chamber and came out with the red hat and the long tie and the Kukulala. But he was not that way. But now he is. And so we'll have to see... For now.
Starting point is 00:58:03 Yeah, we'll have to see how many pirouettes he's willing to do for Donald Trump to destroy his reputation, too, because that's what you do. You go in, I want the power, I want the significance. Trump moves the goalposts on you. Hey, Kara, prices are going down, no forever wars.
Starting point is 00:58:22 We're ending our involvement in the Middle East. Okay, okay, well now, are you guys loyal to me? Yes, you're loyal to me. Now we're going to do the opposite of that. Right. We're moving the gold post. You've got to stay loyal to me. And so that's Lee Zeldon, it's the type of kid.
Starting point is 00:58:37 He's going to look back on this because I know how he grew up, you know, he's out here on Long Island with me. He's going to look back on this and say, wow, I really screwed this up. shouldn't have done the things that I'm doing. But he'll be a lackey for Trump. So is there a redemption? There are a lot of Republicans. I just interviewed Tom Tillis. He's sort of run out of Fox. There's a lot of people that, to me, even Marjorie Taylor Green, do you see a pushback anywhere? And what are the implications of that? Are you seeing? And I'm not talking about like the Jeb Bush Republican.
Starting point is 00:59:07 No, Thune goes down as a scarecrow. You know, it goes down as one of the worst of the worst. You know, like when we have, you and I all be dead or maybe because of the red light, therapy on your new show, you and I will be alive. But it'll be 50 years from now. And the people are going to look back and say, what the hell happened? And John Thune is the poster boy for cowardice. Okay, because he could have called Schumer and he could say, hey, we're shutting this down. Okay, we are Article 1 of the Constitution for a reason.
Starting point is 00:59:36 And we're shutting this down. You and I are going to the White House today. And we're going to tell this asshole that he's the most un-American president that's ever lived. and we're going to go in a different direction or we're going to blow him out of the seat. But he didn't do that because he's got no Coyones and he wants personal power over the serving of the public
Starting point is 00:59:56 and he wants to bypass the security line. Okay? And guy, you used to be a good guy. I knew you a long time. When I was on the Rambi campaign, you were a good guy, but you are now a loser. So what happens? What happens to these?
Starting point is 01:00:09 Because something's going to happen after November. They've lost in Palm Beach. They've lost in Kansas. They've lost, they're losing everywhere. They'll lose the midterms on the House. They won't lose the Senate. Maybe. Trump will go, maybe they'll lose the Senate, but they won't lose it enough for Trump to get impeached because they need two-thirds vote.
Starting point is 01:00:27 Trump will strong arm everybody. The last two years will be about grifting and making money and market manipulation because they tell them people they want to be the richest family after they leave. And on the 19th of January, he will pardon himself and his family members and the people that are close to him. It'll drop that in the lap of the Supreme Court in the Congress as whether or not a president can pardon themselves. And he will leave an unbuilt ballroom and a complete catastrophic shitstorm for whoever the cleanup crew is going to be. And by the way, as people have said, in a democracy, you sometimes get the people that you deserve and we'll have to look at ourselves
Starting point is 01:01:09 and say, how do we let that happen? And this is the point of the book that I'm writing, which you've been nice enough to read for me, is that we let this happen through bad decision making, but we left out the people, Kara, that you and I grew up with who once felt unbelievable about the American dream and unbelievable. My father was making money by the hour. He was a union guy, but he was like, you know what? My kids are going to live the American dream. Let's get to work.
Starting point is 01:01:38 Now those people are like, hey, man, I can't get a job. And by the way, my kids are not going to get a job. Fuck you people. Burn it down. And we've got to go, you're talking about burn book? How about burn the whole thing? Burn the social contract. So it's burnt.
Starting point is 01:01:53 So now. So now we've got to get some people in there that are postpartisan, transformational leaders, that are going to run a restate a vision for the country. Like I said, we go through this every 83 years. We're in our 250th year anniversary. Here are the things that we need to do to redeem ourselves. We have to clean up these certain things that have happened. We have to take big business, big pharma, big zillionaires out of the political equation.
Starting point is 01:02:20 We created a separate but equal democracy with Citizens United. That's the Plessy versus Ferguson case of our democracy. Brown Board of Education overturned. That we're 16 years out from Citizens United. We have to overturn it. And we've got to put these rich people back in a box where they belong where one vote equals one vote. All right.
Starting point is 01:02:40 I'm going to ask one final question. Who are, pick two people who would be, each side. Two people you are like, those people could do that. I mean, listen, you know, you know, here's the thing, okay, like your roommate, Scott Galloway. Mm-hmm. Okay. He's the type of guy that could actually pull it off. Honestly, I think he could pull it.
Starting point is 01:03:00 Cuban. Why, you live? You don't think he could pull it? I think he could. Not Scott, but Cuban, yes. Okay, okay. All right, Cuban. I mean, somebody like that could probably pull it off.
Starting point is 01:03:08 But then they have to do something that is ridiculously Lincoln-esque in terms of its heroism. You've got to piss every single person off in power to reframe the argument. Okay, Teddy Roosevelt got the robber barons in place and said, hey, MFs, we're going to break up your trust. We're going to knock out your monopolies. I got these poor people, the tenements are coming down on them. and they're going to come after you with a pitchfork and a torch. You want them to set fire to your mansion? Knock it off.
Starting point is 01:03:45 Knock it off. So it requires somebody that doesn't care about the power structure. And that's why I can't name somebody because everybody that's in the power cares about the power structure. I don't give a shit about the power structure. It has to be you and me. That's what's going to happen. Well, you can have the top job, by the way.
Starting point is 01:04:05 We'll give you the top job. I don't want the top job. I would be so bad. You'd be the red light therapy president. Oh, no way. Those things don't work. You'll be the longevity president. Don't work.
Starting point is 01:04:15 Don't work. The sauna president. The sauna president. Just being a sauna naked, I'll do from there. Anyway, Anthony, as always, fantastic. And I love to be in on with you. Thank you for inviting me back. Of course.
Starting point is 01:04:27 I miss them and wish them happy. I will. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Let us know what you think of Anthony. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Submit a question for the show. or call 85551 Pivot.
Starting point is 01:04:39 This is a big week for both of us. We got nominated for Webby Awards. Pivot and On with Kara Swisher got nominated. And your limited series podcast was Scott. Lost Boys also got nominated. We want your vote because we're not too proud to beg. Go to the link in the episode description to vote for us. I'm very pleased for you.
Starting point is 01:04:59 And congratulations. And I will see you next week. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. I will read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.
Starting point is 01:05:14 Ernie Androjet engineered this episode. Manola Moreno edited the video. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot and anything Anthony does on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at NYMag.com slash pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things. Tech and business. Thank you, Anthony.
Starting point is 01:05:40 Great to be on with you. Thank you. Happy Easter again.

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