Pivot - RFK Jr.'s Bash Clash, AI's "Jurassic Park" Moment, and Elon's Midterm Millions

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Kara and Scott break down RFK Jr.'s combative CNN interview with Dana Bash. Then, Anthropic joins OpenAI in revealing alarming AI hacking incidents, raising new questions about regulation and cybersecurity. Plus, Big Tech earnings, Elon Musk's midterm spending plans, and the Trump administration's Reflecting Pool feud. Don't miss Kara revealing her Scott-Free August guest co-hosts!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

Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from the secure data sources, run subagents in parallel and draft work product ready for your review. So you can delegate work and own the judgment. Trusted by more than 60% of the AM Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is an AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI, tailored for law.

Learn more at Harvey.aI. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu, it's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-free at O-D-O-O-D-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. Powders, pills, plunges. Everywhere you look, there seems to be a new wellness trend. We all want to feel good. And if there's a way to feel better, I think,

Wouldn't you want to try it? I would. What's the cost of being well? And why are we so obsessed with it in the first place? That's this week on Explain It to Me. Find episodes every Sunday wherever you get your podcasts. You know, everyone on Twitter, go fuck yourselves. Scott Rocks.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Gallow. Do you think people were tuning in today hoping to get someone else? No, it's not Scott. Oh, fuck. I thought he was gone.

I know. You thought it was Scott three August, but he wanted to stay an extra day. You did. Yeah, that's what happened here. It's a sad thing when you go away, but at the same time, I get to date. You know, we have an open relationship. I get it. As long as I can watch, and that's what I do. The next day I listen. You do. You always are like, oh, that person is good. I get texts from Scott. Like, hmm, mm-hmm. Let me give you a little listing of who's coming on to the thing.

All right. It's a good one this year. We had a good one last year, but this is really good. We have Hillary Clinton opening the show later this week. My hero. You've heard of her. The secretary. The secretary. She's very excited. She's hoping to displace you.

We have Kevin Ruse and Casey Newton, who have recently left the New York Times to strike out on their own. We have Chelsea Handler, who's very excited. Oh, I love Chelsea. She's so excited to, like, say anyways, and a number of things. We have Adam Mockler.

Oh, the 23-year-old Wonder Kid? Wonder Kid. Yeah, he's a smart one, I thought. Impressive. Mr. Mark Cuban. Oh, Mark. Yeah. Yeah, that's going to be great.

Oh, is so much to talk about. We have Roy Wood Jr. Who? He's a comic. He's amazing. He does Have I Got News for You. He's an amazing. Oh, is he on The Daily Show?

He was. He was. But now he does, have I got news for him. I love him. I think he's so smart. He's very sharp. Guess who else we have? The very fine Caitlin Collins.

Kalin's coming on. Yeah, just recently appearing in Donald Trump screamed at me and I maintained exquisite poids. That's she's coming up. We have Jennifer Welch. I've had it. She's very funny. Is she the one from Oklahoma?

Yes, she's from Oklahoma. Oh, yeah, yeah, I went on the podcast like a couple years ago. The angry women from Red States. Yeah, but they're funny, but they're super funny. They're like always drinking and like making comments. And then we have someone with the most amazing hair. Jacob Soberoff from MS. Now.

He has a new show there. He's really handsome. He's a great reporter. Do you know him? He has like exquisite hair. I've heard his name from you. I'm looking him up. Yes. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. He looks like the dude from Nobody Wants to us. He looks like a handsome Jewish kid. Yeah, he's really lovely. That's probably a hate crime. No, he's really. What do handsome Jewish people look like? Can Jewish people insult Jewish people?

That's an interesting question. I'm insulting him by saying he's handsome. Jesus Christ, he was born in 1983. No, my God. He's born in 1883? Oh, wait. What does that make them? Oh, fuck, that makes the mold up, which makes me ancient.

Yeah, yeah. How do you like the list? It's a good list, isn't it? That's a great list. But I'll miss you. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, it sounds like you're real broken up about it. I've really enjoyed our recent shows.

I think they're very bracing. People are calling them. Bracing. Bracing. But speaking of bracing, did you catch Dana Bash's interview with R.FK. Jr. on Sunday? I mean, let's listen to an exchange about childhood vaccines and autism in which he sounded like a rapid raccoon. Are you also trying to find out how it interacts with people's DNA, what's predisposed, to have an autistic child? Are you doing both?

Yeah, but Dana, you probably don't understand this because you're not a scientist, but genes don't cause. I understand genes epidemic. A gene provides a vulnerability. A gene provides environmental. That's what I'm asking. Are you studying the environmental exposure? We're looking at all the different environmental exposures, but your statement, you have been fooled. Your statement that this has been studied is not true.

He was lying there. It was full of errors. He was crazy. He was also aggressive physically, I thought. I thought Dana handled it beautifully. He seemed insane. Thoughts? I'm all for if, and this isn't that ridiculous, if Fox News can literally pollute, litter, defecate all

over the cabinet, then my attitude is, okay, let's go to cable news. We get to know them. We get to see their intellect. I thought that in the last week, Caitlin Collins, Dana Bash, and Margaret Brennan demonstrated his skill. I think a lot about this. I do not have this skill. I really don't. And people don't realize what an incredible skill it is. And that is in an impromptu, you know, sort of ad hoc, audible, quick on your feet way to push back in a forceful yet dignified way? I mean, these three women put on a master class because, and I'll come back to his comments. I mean, no surprise. He's full of conspiracy theory, has absolutely no scientific background. But the thing that struck me was just how adept, the aplomb,

you know, people are shipposting the cable news doesn't matter anymore. Some of the most talented people in media are still in those seats. Yeah, this is important. This was an important interview. The way that, the way that Dana was able to forcefully push back, but not be disrespectful, and also what Margaret was able to do with that village idiot that said the accusations against Max Miller shouldn't be fodder for media. It's like, oh, bitch, the media talks about every elected official

that has accusations like this. I mean, that was just such weak sauce. And she was able to say just very quietly and elegantly or softly and elegant, well, actually, we cover these stories from both political parties all of the time. But I thought Dana was outstanding. And the moment that stuck out to me, and I'll turn it back to you, was when he raised his fingers for finger quotes and then said the experts. It's like, well, okay, who are we supposed to trust? Of course we trust experts. Expert means you have certification, you've done the diligence, you have the domain expertise, and perhaps you've devoted your life to not only trying to, okay, it's arrogant to say they have the right answers, but they have the least wrong answers of anyone because they've

devoted their life to understand the shit. And the thing about, quote unquote, scientists, that doesn't get enough play, in peer-reviewed research, if a younger academic comes along and challenges your views and is right, academics celebrate it. They're like, that's great. We've made this better.

They don't double down and say, no, my now incorrect information is the right way. And so let me ask, the question I would have is who's he going to put in between these air quotes then that we're supposed to listen to? Some housewife who got a following on TikTok, of course we listen to experts. That's the whole fucking point.

Yeah, I would, I thought this was really a critical interview. Now, interestingly, he's obviously running for president. He just posted a picture of him sailing, except he's like a, like speaking of Temu J.FK. He was, he's trying, he's running for office. Let's just be clear. He is. Let me just tell you, Cheryl Hines is no Jackie Kennedy. You mean the marvelous Mrs. Measles?

Yeah, right. I love that. Yeah, this guy is it like, His brand is measles and raw milk and rabid raccoons. No, you forgot exploding diarrhea. Exploding diarrhea, yeah. And she was trying to get answers out of him, but he was blaming everything on the Biden administration. I don't know how you could blame exploding diarrhea on the Biden.

He took no responsibility for the measles outbreak, which is unprecedented if you see the charts. It's like thousands now versus like three, a small amount of measles. He took no responsibility. He was screaming. He seemed insane. And he was fiscal. I was sort of like, Dana, he was leaning into her. He's so aggressive.

He's a dangerous person, I think, in a lot of ways. And very volatile, clearly, you know, his history of drug use is, like, on display. Like, has never gotten help for it in the way he needs. And it's just, it was a really disturbing interview. But I thought, Dana, well, I thought Margaret, this is Mike Turner, who was the person. And by the way, speaking of someone who really failed on his video was Max Miller himself, where he said, do you think if I was hitting her, I'd have made her, and she'd have made me dinner? Yes, actually, that's like the classic abused wife syndrome.

He looks terrible. His father-in-law, Bernie Marino, who is a senator, finally slapped back as a father and a grandfather to him and called him psychologically ill, essentially. He had apparently been threatened because there's rumors. He was gay, but Max Miller actually implicitly threatened him, really, withouting him, I think. That's what it was doing. I mean, the whole thing is so sordid and grotesque, but they think they're going to flip that seed, that Max Miller seed.

And he is, you know, he had had previous relationship with Stephanie Grisham, who has talked about him being abusive, this guy. And then they, you know, of course they're going to start to surface all his various drunken abuse stuff that he has. There was pictures of him in college. This is two troubled people, RFK Jr. And then, you know, I just think a lot of these interviews, and Caitlin, of course, last week have been,

you're right, dignified, answer the question, please answer the question, here are the facts, and they've done a great job. I think there are certain red lines. I think the left needs to come up with an aspirational vision of masculinity. Otherwise, that void will be filled by really, by dominance and misogyny from the right.

And one of those things, I think, is a move to protect The whole point of amassing a certain amount of strength and power is such you can protect others. That's the whole shuny amounts. That is the ends. And when someone insults your wife's looks, you don't support them for president, Senator Ten Cruz. That's a red line. That's it. You don't need to be a senator.

You need to be a husband. And if there is anything, anything resemble, I do believe in due process. I do think in our society we have a tendency that the accusation is the conviction. conviction. I do think innocent until proven guilty, but on certain accusations, when there is a ton of corroborating evidence in a fact pattern, when the daughter of your daughter, there's evidence that this individual broke a two-year-old's collarbone, you don't wait and focus group tests this and get worried about being outed for having an account where you were soliciting, possibly soliciting for gay sex. That's it. You use the whole point of a massing

that power, even if you have to spend it all, even if you lose the power, even if you get voted out of the whole point of amassing that power is to protect the people close to you. And it's like, these aren't men. These aren't. Yeah, these aren't men. That's exactly right. The whole point of power is so you can protect your wife and your granddaughter and your daughter.

And the fact that he waited this long to say anything, it's like, Jesus, Christ. dude. What's the point of all of this shit? This is Senator Marino. I know. The whole thing is really gross. And actually, it's very on-brand for these people, aggressive, dunking, angry. I don't know if you know that someone, you got, you got dunked on by Spencer Press. Oh my gosh, you sent that to me. That made my weekend. Oh, my God. Should we read the tweet? Hold on. Scott Galloway is a perfect example of perhaps the most pernicious people in society. So first off. He doesn't know pernicious. What's the over under on? he actually understands the word pernicious.

I don't think he wrote this. Anyways, I'm sorry guys. I got always a perfect example of perhaps the most pernicious people in society. The stupid smart person, educated beyond his intelligence, smart enough vocabulary to justify his ego and smugness, but too stupid to understand basic realities of communists, smart people. Okay, this is what stupid, stupid people do trying to use AI.

This was so clearly written by AI. Why did he pick you out? Was it your Bill Maher thing? I don't, I literally have no idea. You were very supportive Fauci, and because you just slightly laughed at him, and the Belmar joke, they were like giving you a hard time.

But it was like, I think it must have been, Bill Maher, he must have seen you, right? I guess. Or the Mamdani doxing thing. Maybe the Mamdani doxing thing. But why would he go out, wouldn't he like the mom domi daxing thing?

I don't. I don't know what prompted him. I was like, all I can say is, and the reason I read it. We did call him a moron many times when he was running. not as fair. As FDR said, please judge me by my critics. Spencer, if you're out there, please

continue to shitboast me. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, there are a few people. Who's next George Santos? What, what in the fuck is? Bring it. This is like, and I'm not on, I'm not on Twitter, so I don't care what people say about me there. I know, I know, but so I don't, yeah, but I didn't, I was trying to figure out. I'm like, when, who decided let's go after Scott now? I don't know. And, and, Anyways, but look, he lost to a socialist and an incompetent. Yeah, he did. I think he's fading into the distance, and he's desperately clinging to some form of relevance by shit-posting people. He had a reality show of him running for mayor, and I guess that's over.

He must don't have many choices. He's going to pick some fights. Anyway, Spencer, you're a Pratt. That's a British term for idiot. Anyway, it made me laugh my ass off when I saw it. Yeah, you noticed you were the first person afforded to me. Well, I was like, what? Someone said it to me.

I was like, who? Like, it was such a, like, why is he bothering Scott? I mean, there's so many more worthy people to bother Scott, you know, on the regular. But this was weird. Anyway, congratulations. We've got to dig into, let's get to actual things. Big tech earnings. Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft added a combined $1.5 trillion in value following Q2 earnings of note.

Amazon sales totaled over $880 billion up from 13% a year earlier. and Meta's profit was down 14% from the previous year as the company's Cappex forecast for the year increased to $130 billion. We're recording ahead of SpaceX's earnings on Tuesday. Speaking of SpaceX, Tesla executives reported had been told to prepare to separate the company's China business ahead of a potential merger with SpaceX,

which I predicted here. Elon dismissed the report as fake news, which means it's true. So talk a little bit about any predictions on SpaceX earnings and you're going to be on vacation. So give us a guess of about the stock. crisis when you return. So let's start with Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft. These companies are just incredibly well run and continue to, I mean, as someone who loves earnings reports and I read these things, and I'm just sort of like consistently blown away. Amazon AWS sales jumped 37%. That's

its fastest growth since 2021, blowing past the 31% consensus. Total revenue crossed 200 billion for the first time in a single quarter. Net income get this care. I searched 245. Yeah. Now, most of that are some, a lot of that is from, these firms have become now tracking stocks for, for their investments or for some, for AI, because 53 billion of, of that was an anthropic investment game. Investment game. So could not be possibly not real eventually. But go ahead. Well, not recurring. Or it's Alibaba, right? Not structural, unless they continue to be great VCs to get a, they would argue we're going to continue to have access to these types of investments. But they're not VCs. This isn't a business. they're in. So the market typically discounts these types of one-time gains. JASI raised CAP-X guidance to $220 billion. Like, and their stock was up. Amazon stock was up dramatically. Meta, revenue reached $60 billion, up 28%. Their EPS missed estimates by 14%. My guess is because they keep increasing CAP-X as they're now.

He's doubling. He is making a bet. Yeah, they're fully in this AI capital war. He confirmed the meta's fielding buyout offers for its compute, hinting at an eventual cloud business and infrastructure business. I think this is a really big story, and that is everyone's moving from the front end to providing infrastructure. I wonder if it's flipping. Analysts called the AI monetization answers vague, even as cap-back guidance rose, and shares tumbled as much as 11%. So this really was a tale of two cities. Microsoft revenue hit $90 billion of 18%. while EPS was a beat.

Azure passed 100 billion in annual revenue growing 43%. Co-pilot seats doubled sequentially to over 30 million, up from 20 million. The thing that's interesting there is that I work or an investor in a company called Section that helps companies upskill their AI. And the general consensus among companies is that co-pilot is probably the weakest of the AI products. And yet what people don't realize is,

when you have a recurring revenue relationship in salespeople, and someone's saying, you know what? It adds a feature. You may not, we may not have the best frontier model, but guess what? You have a recurring revenue relationship with us. It integrates into your workflow. And also, we're very security-minded. Do you really want to take a chance on this new AI?

It's not the best model. Yeah. Well, that's what they do with everything. That was Explorer. That's Microsoft, right? That's Microsoft. It's good. It's good enough.

You know, good enough was always the Microsoft thing. They are, actually. I'm finding I use Alphabet Search for a little. lot of AI answers. Their CAP-X guidance dropped a bit. Their commercial backlog climbed 84% to $680 billion. The only thing here, but this, again, speaks to how smart they are investing in the growth areas of technology. Their legacy products are eroding as Windows devices fell 7% and Xbox content drop 10%. But these companies, imagine if you're a cable company and you had, So their legacy products are struggling with the same thing that most media companies' legacy products.

But the thing is, Warner Brothers Discovery or, you know, name the company Paramount, they also don't have TikTok or Instagram reels. These companies early recognize that some of their legacy assets are declining and where they're so brilliant as they take that cash flow and they invest really adeptly in the future. I mean, these companies, it's just crazy how well. And then finally, Apple, revenue hit $109 billion, up 16 percent, with iPhone sales climbing 22 percent of $54 billion. Apple got dinged a little bit because some of the earnings were tariff-related, right? Correct that they got money back or something. There was, it lost a little action. Well, they're about to get a $2 billion refund check on tariffs that consumers have already paid for.

So what do they pay for the two-bill? I mean, that thing is just so inefficient and so stupid. Services revenues was a miss, which I think took the stock down, and Cook warned memory-driven supply constraints will worsen through the holiday quarter. His final call is CEO, and by the way, the guy deserves to take just the biggest of all victory laps. EPS beat estimates. 11 cents of that came from a one-time tariff refund. Shares dropped roughly 7%. Because the tariff thing.

And guidance. That seemed to disturb. But the stock has just been an unbelievable consistent performer. I have to say, of all the companies, someone asked me, who's going to win in the A&A thing? I'd go, I'm not sure the number the other one, but it's Alfa, 100%. So this quarter just validated again. Google was never dead. Revenue hit $120 billion up 24% beating the consensus $117 billion.

The business everyone assumed AI chatbots would gut, specifically search, grew 17%, right? So the notion that the bare case on Google, that chat GPT and perplexity would eat search, it just isn't showing up in the numbers. It's not, yeah. Cloud is now the real story, not search. Let me say they scrambled. They were behind, and they scrambled to catch up. Well, they figured it out. Yeah.

Google Cloud revenue climbed 82% to $25 billion with operating income. To grow a business, 82 billion while, or I'm sorry, 82% while maintaining 33% operating operating. I mean, that's just, that's staggering. So it's a cloud business that's going from an all-sur-round to profitable at scale, which is hard to do. Cloud backlog grew to $514 billion. So. Sooner Pichai. He's the next Tim Cook, I think.

The overhang is CAP-X, and that is the stock sank in extended trading as Alphabet raised their CAP-X guidance to $200 billion from the prior $180 billion. That was a number. And quarterly free cash flow went negative at 5.9, because, 45 billion in CAP-X outpaced operating cash flow. This is the same tension we're seeing across most of big tech with the exception of Apple, and that is, okay, we get that AI works, but will AI pay in the CAP-X you're allocating, will we see the type of return you're expecting?

But Alphabet, these earnings, cleanest illustration of a great quarter stock puttished anyway because the results were, I mean, I saw the results as just being strong on any sentence. Yeah. The one tech company suffering for too much spending and too much debt is Oracle continues to like that. Stocks been cut in half the last 12 months. Keep going. Yeah, they're the ones people that people trust Google to be able to keep.

Not that Oracle's other business, their legacy business is hurting, but people are questioning their spending and their debt is close to junk, which is interesting. And a lot of debt. A lot of debt, Larry. Sure you want to buy Warner? Anyway, SpaceX. So it'll file its first earnings report. It's going to be really important. interesting. It'll also, the more interesting thing that probably the earnings will be that it'll be,

it'll unlock the largest insider share sale in market history. Now, oftentimes when people are scared of shares being unlocked for sale, the markets have already anticipated that. But the company reports after market close on the fourth. And the report triggers a lockup release, letting insiders sell get this, 912 million shares. percentage. It's a big percentage. And get this, the options markets are pricing a 15% swing in either direction after results. And roughly 219 million shares are sold short, raising the odds of a squeeze if results of B. It's sticking right now, but it's down. In one month, it's down 31%, essentially, six months, 31,

year-to-date. Yeah, it's been cut in half since its intradate peak up 225, and it's 20% below its IPO listing price of $135. So it's technically a broken IPO. And this is despite the fact that underwriters typically set first quarter targets low during the road show to guarantee an early beat. Whenever I've been on a board where we take a company public, we basically book, we basically lock the first quarter earnings call that it'll be a beat. So prediction? Give me a prediction for space. Will Tesla be folded in? Well, you said it, this is your prediction. You said that you think Tesla will be folded in, that he's planning to put all of it under one roof. Yeah. And that's a lot. And that's, That's why Tesla shares are holding above 300.

I think it would crash if that wasn't a possibility. But what do you, okay, SpaceX prices. I'm on 10 right now. When you return from your sojourn. So as much as I like to ship both SpaceX, if I were to make a bet, it would be that there'll be a significant pop because of all the short selling. And anything but bad news will result in a short squeeze

that sends the stock up temporarily. But it'll be a sugar high, and the stock will it's downward march. But on earnings, unless there's a surprise to the downside, which there shouldn't be on the first earnings call, any glimmer of like, oh, maybe there's some, you know, this is a great company. Any buying is like a bunch of people trying to get through a crowded door

because so many people have shorted the stock. So if I have to predict, on after hours, after hours, a bit of a short squeezing up, and then it quickly resumes its downward march. And also Elon's behavior so far. So far, he's had a pretty bad couple of weeks. And maybe if Gwen Chottwell is the one talking, maybe if he shuts up, that would work.

And there's, like, he's, he's really posting a lot of crazy shit right now. Like, like, do you have anything else to do but post crazy shit? I mean, it's not Spencer Pratt level crazy, but still. All right, let's go on a quick break when we come back, AI hacks and cyber chaos. Support for the show comes from Framer. If your team wants a website that looks and feels handcrafted, but is still fast to ship, Framerer is still fast to ship, Framer is built for that.

You design on a visual campus with responsive layouts hosting and a CMS built in so the work is production ready from day one. Agents work alongside you to draft pages and polish sections, then you review and publish what goes live. Framer is the pro site builder for creators, teams, and businesses that want a professional site and care enough to get every detail right. Agents solve the gap between AI-generated ideas and production-ready website work and the agent works in the same place where the real site is designed, managed, reviewed, and public.

That means it lands on the canvas, stays editable, and can be published when the team is ready. Learn how you can get more out of your side from a framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com slash pivot for 30% off. That's framer.com slash pivot for 30% off. Framer.com slash pivot. Rules and restrictions may apply. Support for the show comes from BetterHelp. You've heard me say before how useful talk therapy can be when working through a hard problem. and that BetterHelp has been a great option for a lot of people. But at the end of the day, the best way to know if BetterHelp is a good fit for you is to check it out yourself.

More than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally. The consistent feedback from real users makes it easy to see why many people continue to choose the platform. BetterHelp reports on average live therapy sessions rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client session reviews. Better Help therapists have at least three years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. They also hold all required education training and certifications across a range of mental health specialties. And they make it easy to get started. You just have to answer a few questions, then get matched with a therapist based on your needs.

And you can switch therapists at any time if it's not the right fit. See the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com slash pivot. That's BetterHELP.com slash pivot. Support for the show comes from Vanta. What's the one thing in business that's spreading as fast as AI? It's not inflated egos or vicious backstabbing or delusions of grandeur among CEOs, frankly. That stayed pretty constant for years.

It's AI risk. Every new tool your team signs up for, every vendor that turns on AI features, every new integration. Each one is an opportunity for something to go wrong. And most security programs weren't built for AI's pace of growth. Enter Vanta. Vanta is the number one agenetic trust platform used by over 16,000 fast-moving companies, including Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey to ensure they're always audit ready. And now Vanta is helping companies, including yours, watch for the risks that show up between audits,

across your vendors, your AI tools, and your whole environment. How? The Vanta agent works like a 24-7 GRC engineer in the background, finding issues, drafting fixes for you, and cutting vendor assessment time by up to 50%. Whether you're a fast-growing startup or a global enterprise, Vanta is here to help you automate your security and compliance and earn improved trust. Get started today at Vanta. dot com slash pivot. That's VANTA.com slash pivot. Scott, we're back. It's being called Cybersecurity's

Jurassic Park moment, which is kind of frightening and not the good part of the movie. Anthropics says that its models hacked into three outside companies during testing. The news comes just days after Open Ag revealed one of its AI agents escaped a test environment and hacked a startup uging face. The hacks are increasing pressure on the White House to address AI security. Trump signed an executive order in June asking AI companies to voluntarily submit their most powerful models for government testing before releasing them publicly, but there's still no real AI regulation from the administration or Congress. What a surprise. This cyber chaos era is really, I think, problematic and dangerous given the lack of AI regulation.

And speaking of cyber attacks, something that Nicole Pearl Roth told me in a recent interview, what was going to happen, federal authorities are warning critical U.S. infrastructure could be at risk after seven states reported cyber attacks on water and wastewater system, which is precisely. which you predicted. The warning comes after U.S. officials say Iran was likely behind the coordinated cyber attack on water systems in Minnesota. Trump is blaming Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for that, saying Iran has bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota. I don't even know what he's talking about. Talk a little bit about this because they really, these things are jumping out of sandboxes because that's their job to jump out of sandboxes, right? If you're going to be a hacker, if you tell it to hack,

it'll hack. I think a lot of people are really under reporting this story. These, attacks because with AI you really can, it's not just Iran, it could be just anyone, it could be Spencer Pratt attacking Minnesota, you know, with these tools. Yeah, but you use the correct term. This is more Jurassic Park than Terminator or Skynet because someone left the gate open. But they purposely did, right? No, they didn't. They got out.

They jumped out. But someone, someone in my understanding is gave the AI directions on how to go get this. It just, they were shocked by how creative and ambitious it was. Right, right, right. And so it's more, I think this is a story of competence, not sentience. Okay. And that is, this is why we need regulation. If you were to, if you were to have AI, basically say, the moment you perceive an existential threat launch our birds, our missiles, you have to have a person somewhere in there. Or you have to have an AI that says, okay, any kind of existential threat to humanity that results in the harming of anybody or economic harm or doing anything illegal

needs to send up red flags that notify a regulatory body, the executives. So what I don't get is, I think this is super interesting that these things might, it's like the thing I thought of, and this is a weird analogy, but there were Japanese soldiers in the hills of the Philippines 20 years after the war ended. who used to come down and terrorize the villages and shoot at perceived enemies because they had orders. They were sent in the hills towards the end of the war, and they said, go into the hills, we have to withdraw because we're getting beaten, but terrorized the fucking village and Americans in the enemy. And 20 years later, these individuals, who were part of the Imperial Army, they were still following their orders. And they actually, I thought this was such an interesting story. in one case, they had to find the commanding officer.

This is like, I think, in the 50s or 60s. To stop. And then transport the commanding officer to the hill where they think these guy was hanging out and start yelling, I am, you know, major or general Takashito, come down. You are relieved of your duty. And that was the analogy I thought.

These AIs are taking their orders very seriously. But someone did give. it the order. And where I go is the same place, and that is you wouldn't sell, if this technology according to the leaders of these firms is more powerful than nuclear bombs, well, you wouldn't let Oppenheimer sell these bombs into Procter and Gamble. Right. Now, I agree. So we need a thick layer of friction and, let me use the R word, regulation. That doesn't mean, and by the way, folks, good regulation is good for industry.

They know what rules they're playing by. It shields them from frivolous lawsuits. I think we're getting to the point with these guys, where they're actually pretty sincere in saying, let's figure out a way that we don't just ruin it for all of us. And let's figure out, again, 60-day waiting period on any new product to battle to test this shit out of a given. Start asking it, hey, is there any way you can figure out a supervirus

and see what happens? I mean, one of the things that, you know, game, of function dusting is a little bit disturbing, actually. One of the things that strikes me every time, because I've interviewed dozens of people who exactly explain what could happen. They're like, this could happen, this could happen. Every time that one of these stories breaks, these companies are shocked, it jumped. And I'm always like, when are you, it's like your kid, like your kid is a troublemaker and you're shocked. Like, it's sort of like me saying, I'm shocked that that Saul found the starbursts hidden in my drawer.

Like, I just am not shocked. I know he will. He's a very inventive kid. It just is he wants the Starburst, right? It just, it's, that to me is the, like, and it's, since they're shocked, why don't we just make the rules for them? Like, since we're not shocked, this is what happens. And, you know, the fact that, I mean, the Trump administration has been one big giveaway to

the AI industry in a way that's now very dangerous as far as I'm concerned. I'm curious that you speak to more, and I'm going to use air quotes, experts, as in their actual experts. Yes. who know what they're talking about. Yeah. And you know how I feel. I tend to think some of this catastrophizing

as a fundraising strategy. But what have the people you've talked to about this, hugging bear, jumping the lab, what do they think about, what have they said about it? Is this the threat that people are worried about? They feel as if they are not correctly anticipating the problems. It's sort of like, okay, if you put a knife on the steering wheel, steering wheel, maybe if there's an accident, someone's going to be knifed. Like, that's, they're sort of, like, not

in, you know, normal, normal, one of the jobs I was going to do if I worked for the government, if I had gotten in, but I'm gay, was anticipatory. Center? Center. Yes, I know, Senna. Sina was anticipation of stuff like this, like really true anticipation, like, okay, here's the, you know, I love, remember the movie Three Days of the Condor? That's what he did. That's why, Got Robert Redford and one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century. Who am I talking about? Faye Donoey. Spectacular.

Yeah, that's a fantastic fucking movie. What amazing movie. Chinatown, the Three Musketeers. Yeah, beautiful woman. I am so dating myself right. Did I tell you about the time I had a highball at the Polo Lounge with Angie Dickinson? I used to party with these cool cats in Cuba. Yeah, Lee Grant.

I've met Johnny Carson. Lee Grant. I'm trying to think of people that here. Beautiful women. I'm not here. Yes, I mean... Anne Margaret. Jesus Christ. The best. The best. Okay, we're going to aging ourselves. Let's move forward.

Oh, my God. Anne Margaret is hot, hot. Go watch Anne Margaret dance in any way. And she's as relevant today as she ever was. I had a little thing for Charo when I was eight. Yeah, her and Barbara Eden. Yeah. Yes, Master.

Do you go to your bottle? It's a... I have come so far. I have come so far. If you had Jeannie, you would put her in her bottle. I would know that. Oh, no, I wouldn't. No, you just keep.

Stay out of your bottle. I think Barbara Eden, did I tell you I sat next to Barbara Eden on a flight to New York when I was a first year analyst of Morgan Stanley? She's still beautiful. Gorgeous and super nice, too. Yeah. She's lovely. She's lovely. Anyway, we're getting off.

Sorry, go ahead. This is dangerous and could kill us, okay? So, guys, we need some. The AI has escaped a bottle and is killing Larry Hagman. He's stuck a shank in his neck. Sorry. Anyway, guys, we need regulation. It's not coming from this. And the danger is we'll have overregulation if something terrible. That is what it will happen. That is like we have time to do it in the right way now. And you need to stop. Okay. Now, I'm going to get to another story. Elon Musk is diving into politics despite recently telling the economists he got too involved before. Now he's authorizing his super PAC to spend between $120 million to help GOP in the midterms. He's already spent a lot. The U.S. PAC has a poorly plan on spending on House races in states, including California, Wisconsin,

and Washington. It's also targeting key Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio. Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate candidate who's running against Susan Collins in Maine, released an ad about Elon's spending. He's specifically, he usually talks about him being a logger and being a man of the people. But let's listen to this ad that he put out this weekend. And here's why he's spending $100 million across these states, because he wants to have people that are totally beholden to him and Donald Trump, making sure that we're getting

tax cuts for billionaires on the back of our health care system, on the back of our hospitals. That's what Elon Musk wants. He doesn't care about us. Really, he doesn't care about Susan. He cares about him. So I would say, and to you, Elon, Maine and really the whole United States doesn't want your dirty money in our politics. You know, you don't get to buy the government that you want. This is about all of us. coming together and fighting for the government that we deserve, and you're not in it. Ah, you're not in it.

Oh, I love dirty politics. Elon lost in Wisconsin, who spent 25 million there. I think this is very effective at. And he also sounds like he's about to go fell a tree at any moment. The silver lining here is that it appears that money is showing a lesser and lesser return on electoral politics. And some of these packs, I wonder if at some point if attaching musk money to a candidate begins to hurt them. I don't know if you've seen what it's going on. If I were a candidate, distinct of your values, I wouldn't take money from APEC right now.

Yeah. I think it has become such a toxic brand APEC. So can billionaires have to be on your own. Whether you agree with them or not. But I wonder if at some point, I mean, the example I keep going back to, Tom Steyer, who I thought was a reasonable candidate. Tom is not a bad person. I don't care what you think about. My son liked him.

Yeah, I don't care what you think about his politics. He's, I think it's hard to argue he's not a good man with his heart in the right place, cares about the environment, understands business. He spent a quarter of a billion dollars and he came in third place. And, you know, it ended up, he'd hired influencers and they think that that's some sort of controversy. I'm like, welcome to politics, folks. I know that was stupid. I'm wondering how many of them with money are doing the same thing.

Anyways, it's Citizens United, so broken record here. Okay, the problem isn't that people, well, the problem is that people can spend money on politics. The problem is we have so much income inequality and so much concentration of wealth, which equates to power in a capitalist society. Are we comfortable? He could spend $15 billion, and it wouldn't mean anything to him. Are we that comfortable? I mean, we have our billionaires.

We have, you know, George Soros or whoever on the left. But at some point, when you have someone who could. say if they get emotional or pissed off or really high when I think, you know what, I think I'm going to spend $10 billion. Are we comfortable with that? I'm not as freaked out about this because I wonder if at some point, the economists did a great article on this and it said that money in politics is having less impact than reported, which I think is really interesting.

It could be. It could be. I'm just curious what you think, I'm going to let Scott talk more of this episode because I think this is actually right in it. Is this an effective ad to attack Elon? I think it is. I think it worked in Wisconsin. I think the people Wisconsin are not unlike the people of Maine.

I don't think they like it. He also sort of just dismisses Susan. He doesn't really care about Susan. She's hardly matters here. He's just buying his way into our government. And the two things that I thought were effective here were doesn't want your dirty money in our politics, which I love. I thought that was beautifully said.

And then this is about the government we deserve and you're not in it. There was a little bit of, you're not from here, are you, fella? Like, that kind of thing. Like, I thought it was quite effective in this state. I think it probably is. If you rob a bank, there's typically within the money or there's a bomb that goes off and sprays you with indelible ink. I think these people are trying to put a bomb of indelible ink around certain types of money. Yeah.

And do you think it's effective, this particular message of Troy? Well, look what's happening. with APEC in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, the attack line against, God, I'm blanking on her name. Paley Stevens. An attack line is, you've taken APEC money. Yeah, yeah. I wonder if it's about to become, you've taken Musk money.

And that's what they're trying to do here. They're trying to nest inside of this money from him with a paint bomb. And I actually think it's quite effective. Yeah, I think it's effective and you don't have to be, you know, Alex votes in Michigan. I know he mentioned it to me. He's like, what the heck? Why is all this A-PAC money here? And I have to say, you know, it's interesting to some money worse.

Like, Louie really liked Tom Stey. I don't know how, I don't know either have been voted, but he is certainly not averse to Al-Said. And Alex is more conservative, I would say, than Louis. Louis is like DSA, essentially. But Louis was attracted to Tom Steyer. That's because it's your egg, right? No, no.

I still understand how that all works. I wouldn't vote for Tom Steyer, but that's, I mean, I like Tom Steyer. But I don't know who. I didn't like any choices in California. But I'm saying it depends. I think I would assume Louis found out about Tom Sauer from these paid influencers. I don't know. But it's the APEC thing is sure.

I don't think you're giving him enough credit. Maybe he just did the work on his own. He did. He did. But in Michigan, a lot of young people like my son do not like this. And they're, you know, I know they're trying to say they're anti-Semitic for doing that. I just don't think they like the, like, get your money out of our politics. I think that's the stronger thing.

And in Michigan, it happens to be A-PAC in other places. In Maine, it's Elon Money. Well, again, another woman who did just an amazing job and was forcefully dignified was, I believe she's the editor of The Economist. I'm blanking out. Yes, Zanny Beddow. She's so impressive.

Yeah. But she highlighted, I thought the puncturing moment, the pop that really showed you how just ridiculous it is, he's all over British politics. Like our new kind of export, biggest export from the U.S. is political divisiveness. We've decided to export that into other countries. And she asked them, and I thought that she's like, when's the last time you were in England? Years ago.

And he's like, oh, a few years ago. And she's like, you know what the fuck is going on here? When people ask me about the U.K., I was caveat with, I don't live in England. I live in Marlebone. I'm in such a bubble. I don't really feel. But I think she was making the point that it's not like covered with, with immigrants killing people.

If you would believe Elon Musk, you would think that England has been taken over by Muslim rapes. She made that point, and she was like that's a good. And he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. And anyways, my point is, he's the last person to be talking as if he has his finger on the pulse of what's actually happening in England.

And also, it's one thing to be pouring money into Michigan as a U.S. citizen. It's another to be exporting political divisiveness to another country. That's just like, I don't, I don't, you know, it's like, quite frankly, boss, it's none of your fucking business. Yeah, get your dirty money out of our politics. And I wonder, I wonder, well, actually England has much stronger campaign finance laws. And also, you know, not that it's helping. I think I'm on my fourth prime minister since moving there four years ago.

I'm like, who is it now? I'm like, I'm literally, it's like when my dad used to show. When my dad, after he left my mom, would show up with my new mommy, I wouldn't get attached because there'd be someone, another lovely lady, the next week in the living room drinking Lancers wine with my dad. Lancers. But you're really going back, Scott. Anyway, Elon, your dirty money doesn't work. Nice job, Troy. All right, let's go in a quick break when we come back. Oh, my favorite story, Scott. Trump administration turns on each other over the reflecting pool. By the way, there was controversy over whether they could use the term master, even back.

then and whether she could show her navel. And, spoiler alert, Larry Hagman had a reputation for being exceptionally difficult on set because he had creative differences. I love that. It's like when the go-goes broke up over creative differences. I'm like, that is so ridiculous. Amazing in Dallas. Come on, J.R. Ewing. What an amazing role. That was turned from the hero to like total villain. Anyway. Hottest woman in the world. What was that girl? Oh my God. Victoria Principal, another hot. Oh, my God. Okay. All right. Oh, my God.

Went out with Lance Rensel, wide receiver from the Los Angeles Rams, who got a misdemeanor public exposure charge. I'm going to let you do this today because you're leaving. But I'd love to see those two go at it. She was so hot. Okay. And we'll be back. So hot. Goodbye.

Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. Harvey was built on legal agents that analyze draft and execute with precision. But great lawyers don't just complete tasks, they strategize. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel, and draft the work product ready for your review.

So you can delegate the work and own the judgment. Harvey agents support work across fund formation litigation, regulatory compliance, M&A, and more, adapting to the complexity of each matter and the way your team actually works. Trusted by more than 60% of the AM Law 100 and leading Fortune 500 legal teams, Harvey is the AI operating system designed specifically for legal work, helping teams move faster with greater precision and confidence. Harvey, AI tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.aI.

Support for the show comes from CoreWeave. AI isn't just a new tool. It encompasses so much more. It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future together. CoreWeave is at the center, powering some of the biggest names in AI. As the essential cloud for AI, Corweave provides an AI platform that combines next generation infrastructure, intelligent tools, and expert support. It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads, faster and more efficiently,

from medical research and diagnosis to education from complex visual effects from movies to breakthroughs in science and technology. If it's AI, Corweave is uniquely ready to power it with purpose-built tech. The big ideas, the wild visions, and what ifs, and why not? Corweave is working to build what's never been built before. Corweave is the essential cloud for AI, ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how Corweave powers the world's best AI, go to corweave.com slash ready for anything. Support for this show comes from Odu.

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-F-Frey at O-D-O-O-O-D-com.

That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. Scott, we're back with more news. The Trump administration is now feuding with itself over the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, my favorite story of the year. U.S. attorney, Janine Piro, was in the hot seat after dropping the vandalism case against former Olympian. She also called out the damage as a result of a botched installation. She had to tell the truth when it came to court, as it turns out.

This didn't sit well with Trump, who said he disagrees 100% with Janine Piro, and noting that there may have been a contractor difficulty, but major damage was caused by vandals, which there is zero proof. And Interior Secretary, Doug Bergam, who is like the definition of, of a suck-up is trying to stand Trump's good graces, saying he gave the US attorney expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals. Vandals.

This is crazy. Janine was like, I'm not getting disbarred for this ninkum-poop. And speaking of pushback, Marjorie Taylor Green posted a photo or the weekend alongside Tucker Carlson and Thomas Massing, a few others writing, the movement has begun. So the anti-Trump, the anti-ant-ant-Trumpers, I don't know, whatever. Anyway, I told you this reflecting pool is indicative of other things. Yeah, it's just such a distraction.

I wonder if it's planned for them. But Janine Piro did her research, and she found that essentially every lawyer, I mean, literally every lawyer that gets near, whether it's Rudy Giuliani, whether it's Michael Cohn, any lawyer that gets near Trump ends up getting disbarred. Yeah. I mean, it's striking. If you look at eight of the 10 last lawyers that, they were representing, they end up getting disbarred or fined or worse.

And there's no loyalty there. There's no, I mean, you want to talk about, in Vietnam, they used to take, I think, the second lieutenant or whatever it was, the platoon leader marks off your helmet because that the Viacong was given strict instructions. This is the person you take out first. Yeah. You think she'll refile, given all the pushback? I don't see if she can because the judge, the judge in this case said, you've got to

better be very careful young lady, our old lady, drunk old lady. The judge was very explicit that you will be in trouble if you keep going because this is really bad. But then, you know, the fact that Bergam or the others, they just, when are they going to give? I just, I have no idea. This guy had a relatively okay reputation. But him and Bessent, to me, are the real shockers in terms of, like, how much of a suckup

they can compete being in this situation. I think the guy is actually taking the biggest reputation hit is Todd Blanche. People who knew him at what is the Southern District really had a lot of respect for him. Some is an outstanding lawyer and a person of integrity. Adam Schiff said that. What happened to you? And so I think I think Gene Piero is like, you know, I don't want to be disbarred. This guy's going to be out in two and a quarter years or whatever. You know, I think I think her own lawyers have said to her be really,

careful here. This is, there's no evidence here. Do you think she'd refile? You think she'll try to refile anyway? I don't know, but the sad part of this is that the more time, the more time we spend talking about a reflecting pool, good or bad, the last time we spend talking about bombs inflation and exploding diarrhea. I agree with you, Scott, but as I said, this is indicative of shoddy work, lying, cult. It's a little, it's much more important in terms of what these people are doing. This is how far they'll go to protect an addled old man's ego, which is, which I think is, and it links to Iran, like saying, oh, no, we better not do this. Or the stuff he was posting on a weekend was crazy. Like, they're willing to let crazy person who has, like, I just think this is exactly a distillation.

That's why I think it's important, because one, it's incompetent management. They couldn't fix the reflecting pool, and then they made it worse. Two, they then tried to blame an American citizen, you know, of something he didn't do. Like these weird prosecutions are also days. What they did to Renee Good, what they did to everybody else, what they're doing to immigrants. It's like they're just jail people and just to please him. And so that's why it's important. It's a bigger trend of saying, yes, sir, we think this is amazing.

And let me tell you, Doug Burden, the shame of this will not outlive you and I will be around to remember it for all of us. Same thing with Bessence. And you're right, Todd Blanche. You're all, like, Liz Cheney is the one who said this, is long after this guy has gone, the dishonor on you will remain. And Janine Piro decided to get out before that.

Anthony, Skaramucci, I mean, he's summarized it correctly when he tries to, you know, the flame, the side, by the way, I saw the Odyssey this weekend. Oh, oh. The flame, the sirens call of power and proximity of the president, everyone believes. believes they're going to be the one that can navigate it and serve the country while not being guilty. They all hear the siren call and they think that they cannot be immune to it. He is political Chernobyl.

Who has gone on to great things from his first administration? And in the latest episode of where are they now, I just want to go over where Trump's lawyers are now. Roy Cohn was disbarred. He's dead now. Michael Cohen, disbarred, pleaded guilty to tax campaign and false statements crimes. Rudy Giuliani, disbarred in New York and D.C., 150 million in defamation damages. Alina Haba, sanctioned $1 million for frivolous litigation. Boris Epstein pending AZ criminal charges in fake electoral case. John Eastman, disbarred in California and subpoenaed in D.C., Arizona criminal case pending. Kenneth Chesboro, disbarred in New York, Wisconsin case pending.

I mean, literally, it's second lieutenant in Vietnam to be a lawyer for this guy. Listen, the old man's losing it, guys. You better get on the Janine Piro Express out of town. And, you know, Green and Tucker Carlson and Massey are going to take advantage. There is a trend. And right after the elections, as long as they're done correctly, it's done, guys. It's done. You better get off this fucking train.

If Judge Winebox is getting off, you need to exit as fast as possible. Yeah, Kenneth, Cheeseboro, if I'm saying, it's not Chesboro, Cheeseboro. Chesboro, I think. He was the attorney who was basically the architect of the fake elections narrative. He was just disbarred in the state of New York. Oh, God. Just. I mean, wake up, folks.

He's Chernobyl. You stick around this guy long enough. You're getting leukemia. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. And then Scott departs the scene. Ready to take your investing knowledge to pro-level? This is Fidelity Connects, your daily edge in the markets.

Get deep insights on real-time market topics that may impact your investment portfolio. Listen to Fidelity Connects on Spotify today and power your next move tomorrow. Hi, everybody. It's Megan Rapino. I've been thinking a lot about this one question I've been asked over and over. A question about the choices I've made. made, the colors of my hair, the things in the world I've spoken about, and the things that I haven't. I've heard this question asked so many different ways, but it always came down to, why are you like this? And as you know, there's no simple answer, because people are not simple. We're messy and

complicated and contradictory and layered. So on my new show, I'm sitting down with the ultimate disruptors, the athletes, the artists, the activists, and the architects of our culture who looked at the way things were and asked, why do we do it like this? And can we do it differently? My hope is to give us a little more space to that question and to the person on the other side of the mic, not to tell us their answer or read from their script,

but to take us on their journey. Check out my new show, Why Are You Like This, on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. New episodes drop every Thursday. Lenin. Democratic Socialists keep winning primary races In Michigan, Abdullah Syed, not in the DSA, but endorsed by them just won a fiercely fought Senate primary. President Trump appears worried enough about the DSA to have started conflating some things.

I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be ready to free rent for the rest of your life. What they don't say is that you'll be living in squalor in 12 months. The Trump administration has raised the specter of the far left in various ways during Trump's second term. But the recent arrest of an American communist insubes. Spain, what year is it, at the request of the American government, is a more concrete step. Coming up on today, Explain from Vox, real communist threat or new red scare. Today, explain, drops every weekday.

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Why don't I go first? I'm very quickly. My win is Columbia University School of Journalism, which I went to and as an alumni, hired Sharon Alfonci and Scott Pelly as journalist in residence this year. and I couldn't be more happy. I never go when they asked me to speak. Oh, my God, you're so white. I am white.

I am white. I think that's the widest thing we've ever said on this podcast. And we've said some pretty translucent things here. In any case, I'm very happy. They did that. Congratulations. They're all, let me tell you, I've been in touch with a lot of these people.

They're all working on some really great things. The New York Post got it wrong about Bill Owens this week. But they're all going to cool things and a little bit invigorated. Like, you know, and I was with Don Limon, Lemont, this week. And he's invigorated. I was on Asted Herndon's show. America actually, which I loved. And I got to say, invigorate it. All these people feel

infigurated. So it's not always a bad thing. It's bad for 60 minutes, but it's really good for you and your souls. You'll have a great time out here in the wilderness. And my fail is there's a story in the New York Times about Paul Weiss, the law firm. And the downfall of how they acquiesced to Trump, largely because of a single partner who seems like an asshole, is and sort of the ruining of another guy who had been a beacon of civil rights pro bono work, et cetera, is really devastating, just how quickly speaking of people giving in and being, you know, ruined by the Trump people, this was a really sad story. These are the people that should defend us. This was a firm that was well known for defending people, like people who marginalized people, all manner of things,

just a very legendary firm, which just essentially took the money and started treating like behaving in a way that was so grabby. You're so rich, you lawyers. It's really gross. It was a grotesque. I recommend you read it. It's a long read. And it was just, it was really, it was really upsetting to read, I have to say. And I'll just say one more thing. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has scrapped his proposal to sell stakes in the World Cup after backlash.

And it looks like he may be in trouble. There's many more reports. I think several people who don't usually speak out have said he should leave. But we know someone who predicted. this. Let's hear a clip from last week. My prediction is that this ridiculous notion that one of the most corrupt organizations is going to get financing from a crime family, the Trump family, to take FIFA private and or turn it into a public company, this won't happen.

There you go, Scott. All right. All yours. There you go. You stole some of my thunder. I could position one as a fail, but I'll position both as a win. These global athletic oversides, whether it's the IOC, FIFA, or even, I would argue, the NC2A that was comfortable with white guys in their 50s making millions of dollars and claiming that the non-white people on the hardwood were not allowed to make money because of the purity of the sport,

there's just so much, these organizations benefit so much from the goodwill, and the fact, especially the international organizations operate in this netherland, John Anfentino is so corrupt, FIFA is so corrupt, and the fact that it really does, it's just, this sport really does bring people together, and at some point they're just going to, do you know how many people really talented? I mean, take a guy who's lost an elect, take a guy like Mitt Romney. I don't find somebody just an amazing person whose integrity is unimpeachable. Scott Galloway. I think I'm, I'm, I think you're impeachable, yeah.

Yeah, I'm impeachable, at least according to Twitter this weekend, I've heard. Both of us are impeachable. But my point is, find somebody, there are so many people who have incredible integrity, character, understand sponsorships, understand business, who absolutely, adore this game and would take this job for a dollar and say, okay, what's the job, not only the tournament, but how do we get more young people playing sports? How do we raise the visibility of emerging nations? How do we bring people together in between the World Cups and make nations feel better about one another? How do I just write in my final act a love letter to the sport? Instead,

we have these corrupt individuals that see it as a corpus for their own enrichment. Yeah, he should just leave and go hanging out with rich people. So I am really pleased that the public and their love of the game just threw up all over this guy and his idea to get the Kushners to finance, taking it private, and trying to figure out a way to monetize what is the UN that's actually working, and that is football. It's actually bringing people together. In any case, you're right. This was a great prediction.

So is he out, out? Do you think he's out? You did say you thought he wouldn't. I don't know. These governing bodies are so, like, what court oversees it? Yeah. And so it's difficult. And in addition, these guys, these guys grease everybody and pay them off. They have friends everywhere because they give money in the form of quote unquote development revenues to, I mean, they have, they're not dumb. They've, they've greased a lot of palms. They're a mob family. I think your first prediction is correct. I think he's out. Oh, really? I hope so. Again, it's the same problem we have with Trump.

We need ideas and a vision for FIFA, not just shitposting the incumbent. Yep, that's a fair point. And let's find someone unimpeachable who would raise their hand and say, you know what? I would like to do this. Like, you know, I think, you know, I don't know if it's... Cuban? I think he'd be great. I think I've always been a fan of Tony Blair.

He evokes a gag reflex from people. He's got a lot of hanging on him, Cuban. Yeah, fair enough. But there's got a lot of it. be somebody out there that people just have a ton of goodwill around who loves the game and says, what I'm going to bring to the game is the following. I'm going to bring goodwill and unimpeachable integrity. I'm going to be, I'm going to be fucking Mormon. I'm going to be literally, I'm thinking about Mitt Romney again. I may get it wrong, but I will never deceive you or enrich myself.

I still say Scott Gallo. I don't know enough about the game. Can I ask you one question? I'm going to prompt you. Are you saying all the way, I'm so sad you said not a word about it, but Wicker, all the story of the basket that fucks a woman. Have you noticed this going all over the internet? I'm surprised you haven't because there was all these penis jokes about Wicker. Jesus Christ, I feel so out of it. I didn't find out that failed mayoral candidates were shit posting me until you forwarded. When I'm not exaggerating, when I go into August, I try to put my phone away. I try not to go on social media.

I know. I try not to read the news because I find by the time I get to August, I'm a nervous wreck. All right. When you come back, I want Wicker jokes. There's one that say, I wonder if J.D. Vance is going to see Wicker. There's a lot of very funny, funny jokes. The Wicker Trailers called, someone called the Wicker trailer, Hornokio, and all I can say is,

I guarantee you, that was the original name of the script and film. Anyway, it looks for me. I didn't see that. I didn't see The Odyssey, though. Yeah, and? In a word? Epic. Absolutely epic.

And I just, the thing that really struck me about it was, I think it could have been, I really respect filmmakers and directors and studios, that greenlight something that has so much downside risk, because it's like a scene with a cyclops, it could have so easily been cheesy, CGI, and you believe there's a cyclops. And every scene that you'd heard about, there was just a certain grit in Ronis.

I thought the performances were outstanding across the board. I want to go to an island where I get high and fuck a hot model and forget how to get home. I'm like, what a shocker I love like, I've forgotten how to get home, so I have to hang out with Charlie Sorone and get high every day. Yeah. But I've forgotten how to get back to my wife. You'd still be on that island. Oh, my God.

Where is that island? You would be like. Charlie's, I'm coming. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That was fucking hilarious. Good. The guy, he's literally in Ibitha, doing X, fucking the hottest woman.

And he's forgotten how to get home to Liverpool in his life. Yeah, anyways. Very nice. Very nice. I'll move on. My win, the outstanding journalism and forceful yet dignified performance this weekend of Danabash, Margaret Brennan, and last week, Kailen Collins, I just think, I think these individuals define the term professional.

Yep, and Caitlin will be here to replace you. There you go. Talk about an upgrade. But the clips I saw this weekend, I used to watch Meet the Press and Face the Nation the whole show. Now I'm part of the Pepsi generation. I just watched the clips. I thought, I admire that they are so calm

and just right on the spot, pushback thoughtfully. You actually do this quite well. Thank you. And Jess Tarlov does this quite well. Yeah, she does. But I was so impressed. What are we all having comments got? Well, the future is female, Kara.

The future is female. And you did you say that before you left. The future is female. No, we're, yeah, no, we're totally. That's a perfect. We're replaceable. We're just here, we're just here to build data centers. And then we have no use.

No use, no use. Although lesbian mechanics can do it. Anyway, in construction workers. That's my, anyways, my win is, my win. multiple wins are throwing up on Gianni Anfantino in this ridiculous monetization of the world's, you know, the beautiful game. I thought the Odyssey was spectacular. And I went into it with high expectations because Christopher Nolan is my favorite director. And also just the, just the professionalism of Dana Bash, Caitlin Collins, and Margaret Brennan. Yeah, there you go.

Oh, my goodness, as you say. There you go. Scott. There you go. 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. Submit a question for the show or call 85551 Pivot and elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week. And on with Kara Swisher.

I'm speaking with Rosie O'Donnell. She's staging her one-woman show in New York right now. And then she's headed to L.A. a guest host, Jimmy Kimmel later this month. Let's listen to her explain how she plans to deal with Trump. I plan on doing what Jimmy Kimmel has done so beautifully, which is giving it to him in a comedian. honest, truthful way. And I will do that as big as I can. Now, the song that I sang in my show,

if he only had a brain, I wanted to do that on Kimmel, but they just told me I can't. Oh. That they couldn't get permission for the parody because it's political content. And I was like, well, that is absurd to me because we used to do parodies every day on my show. Wait, I don't understand. Well, I've been told I'm not allowed to do that. Now, I don't know. It's not Jimmy. A bit of it here? Yes. His approval rate is 30. His diaper's always dirty.

I think the guy's insane. Da-da-da-da-da-da. It was a good. It was really good. Go watch her show. It's terrific. And Scott, as I said, this is our last show together

before Scott Free August gets underway. The saddest time of the year for me, obviously. People might be wondering about your whereabouts over the next month, So we're getting ahead of things by releasing a proof of life photo right now. What is that? I can't see it. Oh, my gosh. I'm Elaine Chow. That's hilarious.

Of course, our friend and the late Mitch McConnell, the late, possibly late Mitch McConnell. We'll put that proof of life picks on our social media. Okay, that is the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Make sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I'll be back on Friday with special guest co-host Hillary Clinton. Scott, enjoy your time away. I miss you every year, and please call me.

Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Weissman. Ernie and your Todd-Eyneered engineer this episode. Thanks also to Dubros, Ms. Sivir and Ancelon. Nishad Karua is Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things, tech, and business. Kara, have a wonderful August.

I'll see you. I'll see you in September. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair.

With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home.