Pivot - Saudi Comedy Festival Controversy, Threads' Major Milestone, and Trump's Movie Tariff

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss comedians participating in Saudi Arabia's comedy festival, Threads surpassing X in daily active users, and Nexstar and Sinclair caving on Kimmel. Then, Trump says he's imposing a tariff on foreign-made movies, but who are the real winners and losers? Plus, former FBI Director James Comey gets indicted, though Trump insists it's about justice, not revenge. Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. Have you ever noticed how nearly every pop song has a Swedish mega producer on it? I'm Charlie Harding from Switched on Pop, from K-pop to R&B to dance music. It's literally everywhere. Check out Switched-on Pop wherever you get your podcast and take a trip to Sweden on our latest episode where we chat with Zara Larson, who tells us all about the land that is sometimes all sun, sometimes all night, and how it has taken over the sound of pop music.

Megan Rapino here. This week on a touch more, it is sports with a cat. Capital S. We break down the WMBA semifinals, Asia's historic fourth MVP, and all the other postseason wars. Plus, we put our biggest bicker of the week to bed. Check out the latest episode of A Touchmore, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. What is your latest scheme of health care? You know, I don't really do much of vitamin A, vitamin D, NAD, testosterone, Botox. Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, I just made the best kale shake. Look. Best kale shake? Yeah.

You want my recipe? Yeah. No, I think it's all of a sudden, I had actually had a question for you. You're doing all this health stuff. Yeah. Would have been the most surprising things you started doing and stopped doing after digging out?

You know, I actually had a pretty basic regimen, so it wasn't like I was one of these people that partook of all the things like you do. You partake a lot as the word goes. You partake and whatever thing crosses the line, essentially. I started running again, and I love it. I got a great new pair of shoes for that and really good structure, and I started running, and I run three to four times a week, and I love it, love it, love it. And then, you know, just little things. I've actually, unfortunately, my Poor family is now, like, in my crosshairs because I'm, like, no more sweets every night of the week, you know, dessert. Like a former smoker? You're just obnoxious about it? Yeah, you know, but they shouldn't. It's something I should have done, a lot less processed foods.

Like last night, I made myself. And I don't eat a lot of meat, but I made a nice steak with a potato and a salad. Like, I, like, cook a lot more, a little bit more. So all sort of whole foods. I'm eating less processed foods, I would guess. But no supplements or? I don't take any. Really, I don't.

I don't even take a multivitamin. Just a lot of keffre. I drink keffre. I like keffer. A lot more, not over protein, because I think some people like all those sort of dude protein things are over the top. Sleep a little better, stuff like that. Makes sense? And a little bit of an attitude change of like not getting all worked up about everything all the time, I think, probably.

Hmm, I haven't seen that yet. Uh-huh. Anyway, thank you for asking, but my kale shake is delicious. Cale, fresh pineapple, fresh banana, a little bit of coconut water, and kefir. Nice. And some chia seeds and stuff to give it a little bit of a soup. It's delicious. Anyway, but thank you for asking.

What is your latest scheme of health care? You know, I don't really do much. Vitamin A, vitamin D, NAD, testosterone. Yeah. I'm going to start testosterone, obviously. Botox, and I work out four times a week for the last 40 years. Other than that, it's all, you know, just like you, I guess. I think the last one is the most important.

That would be my guess of all the things. Because of your mental health, not just for physical health, but mental health. Oh, 100%. 100%. Anyway, I'm thinking now of playing badminton. I like all of them. I like badminton. We should do that.

You and I should play badminton. Anyway, how was your weekend? Was it good? Yeah, really nice. I was in the U.S., as you know. I got home yesterday. Yeah, I had a wonderful weekend. I had a wonderful kind of week and a half in the U.S.

It was great. Oh, good. How's London? How's the weather? Is it cold yet? You know what? It's a beautiful day today. And I'm going to the Chelsea game tomorrow with my youngest

and my oldest is home, and we're starting to go through his apps and that whole process for college. And we went and bought him a movie poster or looked at movie posters today. So, yeah, it's been a really good weekend. Where's your favorite? You know, I was at the university.

of Wisconsin, they asked about your son. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, because I was doing a journalism thing with our friend Jessica Yellen, who was wonderful. Love Jessica. She's amazing. And then I went to the university, I went to Minneapolis, interviewed the senator there, and they've asked about you at Michigan, too.

So, so anyway. Yeah, we loved UW Madison. It's beautiful. We love Michigan. his, I would say, his top picks or, I mean, it's easy to say because he's, unfortunately, the schools he's going to don't like out-of-state students, but he was just blown away by UNC and UVA. But he loved Michigan, UW Madison's, it seems wonderful.

Yeah, they're all great. They're all great. Yeah, we do. Like, America does a small number of things really well. We make the best weapons in the world. We make the best software technology, the best media in the world. And hands down, I do believe we do. the best job at universities.

Barbecue. Yeah. Barbecue. Okay. There you go. Barbecue. Yeah. I agree with you.

I heard you were, air quotes, teaching at Michigan. I am. I am teaching. You know that. I'm almost done. But let me ask you question, how was your weekend?

But Ari sent me, left me a voice message where he told me to fuck off, which is great. Fuck you, Karras Swisher. And don't ever say fuck me because fuck you, Karraswisher.

I know, you've farted me a voicemail with all this profanity. I'm like, what's going on here? Yeah, yeah. Well, that's our way. That's our love language, Ari and I. Was it fun, at least? I'm not exaggerating.

I'm scared to say anything. They literally, they scare everybody. What are you like going to the comedy festival in Saudi Arabia? You can't say anything? All I will say is I had a fantastic weekend. Oh, okay. I had a great weekend. You people.

Oh, you fancy people. You are. The Saudi comics. We'll get to them in a second. Anyway, we have a lot to get to today. We have a lot. There's, again, more and more, more news. Donald Trump just announced that he's imposing 100% tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States.

You know, I explain when this will happen or how it will work. Remember, he made the same threat back in May. I just, they make a lot of movies outside. This actually will affect Netflix, finally. But what do you think of this situation? I think it's more unnecessary own goal, cell phone, stupidity. So more than 50%, one of the best performing stocks in media and arguably what has kept the entire media ETF ecosystem above, you know, that's kept it from being just abysmal and has fueled Hollywood with record content budgets is Netflix. And more than 50%, the majority of Netflix content budget is now produced overseas.

So does that mean he's going to start tariffing Netflix in Germany? dramatically increase the cost of subscriptions, dramatically decrease the amount of content people get for their Netflix subscription, and gut the stock price, which has been one of the best performers over the last 10 years. Yes, that's what is in petitions. And almost every Marvel movie now has some component of it made overseas. All of them. All of them. Yeah. So if you think about, I love the term arbitrage, and that is there's two ways to add shareholder value.

One is to increase the top line. The other is to decrease costs. And if you think about media, media has mostly, well, it's been both. There's been, because of streaming, there's been a war and an increase in subscriptions and top line revenue because everyone now has three or four subscriptions per household, which is inspired in arms race where there's a ton of content spending on the top line. The other way you add shareholder value is that $18 billion in content that Netflix produces is $30 billion for the content from 10 years ago because they say, okay, we can make Squid Games

in Korea for 70% of the price it would cost to make it in Atlanta, and for 30% of what it would cost to produce in Los Angeles. So there's been a geographic arbitrage over the last 10, 20 years. And by the way, Los Angeles has been on the wrong end of that arbitrage. It's just too damn expensive. I'm going through this right now. We're producing our scripted series on Big Tech. And we really did try to make it in LA. There's no way. There's just no way. Yeah, it adds to costs, yeah. Unless you absolutely want a certain look, right? That's the In some cases, you want it to look like what it looks like, what you're trying to do, correct?

But a lot of things can be made to look like that. Sure, but what we'll do is we'll film, we'll cram a bunch of shots, in this case, in the Bay Area, where it's also irrational to film. And again, probably end up filming is in New Jersey because New Jersey just supersized their tax credit budget and it's near New York, and we'll do a lot of filming in New York. So, and then the other arbitrage that's about to take place,

is through AI, I think. Yeah, especially storyboarding. I just, as you know, I did the CEO of Runway, and we were talking about a bunch of just storyboards, production, how to create, you know, try these 10 outfits on someone and this and that. It's a, you know, I know California and other states have been trying to get better and better terms

for movie makers to bring them back, but they did lose it. They did, like, act like they had no other choice, and then it was obvious they had another choice. And so Trump's trying to solve it by this. This is just ridiculous. So what will likely happen is the same thing. One, I don't think this is going to go anywhere because I think he's impressed by movie stars.

And I think a guy like Ted Sarandos probably carries a lot of weight or Reed Hastings. And in addition, all that's going to happen is the following. His attempt to punish foreign firms who ship almost no films into the U.S., I mean, some but not a lot, they're going to impose reciprocal there. Canada had this, used to have this, well, I don't know if they still had it, but like a quarter or some percentage of content had to be locally produced in Canada. Often they do that. A lot of countries do that. Right.

And then we would say, no, let competition rain because we're just better at it. So what nations will do is they love the idea of saying, we want to support a nascent film industry in Poland. So we'll impose reciprocal tariffs, which will do nothing but reduce the consumption and the business for U.S. media firms. So this is just, it's just stupid. And I don't, I don't know where this is coming from other than his AI came back and said, what can I announce today that we'll keep, that is crazy, we'll command media attention and keep the word Epstein out of the news. Let's say it again, Epstein. Let's make a movie, Epstein, the movie.

Oh, trust me, they're coming. Let's do it all in the U.S. They're coming. We should make it in the U.S. There's going to be a lot of nervous people about Premier. They're not a nervous people about that. Yeah. One of the things that's critical to remember here

is that these movie companies all acquiesce to Donald Trump and this is what they get. I'm just saying, boys, guess what? He'll kick you in the fucking nuts just the same as, look, take your money. Anyway, speaking of taking money, top comedians are criticizing their peers for participating in the Riyadh Comedy Festival,

a state-sponsored Saudi event. The event will feature over 50 comedians, including Kevin Hart, Hannibal Barras, and Dave Chappelle. As a reminder, the Biden administration held the country responsible for the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist, Washington Post columnist, Jimal Khashoggi. People, different comics, have put up the terms. It's enormous amounts of money these people are getting. But they have to promise not to talk about the kingdom in negative ways.

So these are all the free speechers being completely paid off not to speak. I don't know. What do you think about this? It was pretty shocking when I saw the contract itself. So let me be clear. I have gone to Riyadh and spoken and cashed their checks. And I do so openly and wholeheartedly and with a total absence of guilt. I don't.

And also, I spoke last week at Nashville and I got paid a lot of money to speak in front of the leadership of a tech team or of a big tech company. And they asked me not to bring up the struggles of young men because their parents in the audience. And they said, it's kind of a downer. if people are paying you. Yes, but these are comics, Scott. These are people who go on and on about free speech and insult everybody about it. Let me just say, I don't think you do that, but go ahead. Yeah, but I think it's really easy to be a purist with other people's money.

And the kingdom, one of the things I love about living in, so let me be clear, I believe MBS ordered the murder of Khashoggi. In our nation, we're letting, you know, we're taking away health care from people. We're removing security details from former officials. We're incarcerating and pulling people out of work, people in mass. I literally think we're in no position to wave our finger in anybody right now. I think we should wave our, I completely disagree with you. I think we should absolutely wave our finger at these comics, because these are the comics that literally

lectured the left on free speech. Then haul them out, say to them, look, yeah, but I, if you want to go to... They can do it, but they got censored. Like, they talk about censorship and literally make you feel like

shit for doing it. And they're they, they cosplay that they care about free speech and they've agreed. Comics are supposed to talk about anything they want and to agree, I'm giving comics a particular thing. You are different. You were doing a speech there. They're like, we don't want to hear about men, we want to hear about marketing, whatever the heck

you're doing. But if you're going to literally lecture people about free speech and then get paid an enormous amount of it, not to do your act, which would be, they would easily make a joke. And one guy who did, I think it was, who was it, Tim Dillon, was someone, one of them made a, talked about it and said, yeah, I don't care, I'm getting the money. That's right, I'll do whatever they say. He got dumped from the festival because he's, said what was everybody knew was happening, which was censorship. That's the only issue, is this particular gang of people, especially Dave Chappelle, especially the rest of them, went on and on and on about free speech. So I just, that's all, you're, you're not that person.

Look, if you're, if you're a free speech warrior and you're accepting money to have what is a highly edited censored version, I was never, when I was in Riyadh, I was never, I've spoken in Riyadh. I've spoken in in Dubai several times. I have never been asked to censor my content, ever over there, too. Just the real politic of the following, I'm focused on American interests. Well, first, let's be honest, I'm focused on my own interests and I get paid a lot when I go there. But also, I personally believe the new swing votes in terms of geopolitical power are the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and India. They're the two largest, fastest growing economies. They're the only kind of two economies that are up for grabs. It could either go towards Russia, towards Iran, or

could go towards America. I think that we want to bear hug and really strengthen our relationship with the kingdom and with India. And I think it's so ridiculously fucking stupid that we insult India and thrust them into the arms of China and Russia. I think our relationship with the Gulf is really important and our relationship with the kingdom in terms of peace with Israel, peace in the region, and also having secure, safe pipelines and sources for fossil fuels. And also, we have a lot of army bases there. They are a strong ally. And in terms of reforms. They're starting from a bad place. Let's be honest. We're starting from a better place. We're headed in the wrong direction. They're headed in the right direction. I don't have a problem with Saudi

Arabia, actually. I do have a problem with these comics. Now, at Suko Okatsuka, I think that's her name, she's a comic who was invited and go, this is the content restrictions. This is, this is the crowd that you can't, that always goes, you can't say anything anymore, right? This is the crowd that, like, knocks our fucking block off about how open. they are. And what they get to, they don't get to say what they want. Well, guess what? This is what they agreed to. Artists shall not prepare, perform any material that may be considered to degrade to fame or bring public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, culture and people, the Saudi royal

family, legal system, or government, and any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice. Sorry, guys. And it's mostly guys. You realize most companies in the employment agreement, have a defamation agreement that looks, smells, and feels like that. Great, except for these guys. They don't get to because these are the ones that literally couldn't shut the fuck up about how they couldn't say things. And here they are agreeing. So I don't, I don't want to, if they say it one more to me, one more time to me,

is it just also, by the way, someone who's going, Pete Davidson is performing. His father died on 9-11. He's allowing them to censor him and taking their money. That's his choice. Or again, you're right. That's his choice if he wants to do that. But yuck all over from Caroswish. I just want to acknowledge a point, and I had not thought of it.

Oftentimes, you eliminate me to things and create nuance from my thinking. If you're one of these comedians that is constantly saying how you're censored and you can't say stuff and the left has no humor, sense of humor, fine. I see the hypocrisy there. I have spoken there. It reminds me the debate when everyone was giving Uber a hard time for. from accepting money from the Middle East. And I'm like, cash their fucking check. I didn't have, I don't have a problem with that.

And I remember, you were kind of with me too. Remember how much shit Uber was getting for taking money, dirty money from the Middle East? It's like, okay, you just want them investing in Chinese companies. The lower our cost of capital, the more jobs we have, cash their fucking check. And I'm kind of, the comedians, if Louis C.K. wants to go there and make a shit ton of money, I've never heard him preach about censorship or say that his speech is being squelched or whatever. Also, I have found when I've gone to the Gulf, America has a tendency to wrap every country there in the same blanket. The Qataris have a strained relationship with the UAE but are close

to Iran. Meanwhile, they host our largest Air Force base, Saudi hates Iran, yet gets along with us. We as Americans are so reductive and feel like we can make these blanket statements about every country there. Would you sign that I'll never say a word about this? You might, you might, but you never have, have you, signed? I won't say back. I've probably spoken in the Gulf. First of up, I've vacationed there. I know a lot of people there. I really enjoy it there.

And it is much different in Doha than it is in Riyadh. And it's much different when you're at a bar in Dubai for a lot of reasons. So you have to go country by country. I'm going to have fun in Bahrain, and I'm really excited about it. And I have generally found the people in the Gulf to be warm. It's not where I would want to live. I think they have real issues as we do. For the most part, that region I'd like to think is headed in the right direction

And also we have a very strong strategic interest, geopolitically, just being selfish as American and establishing tighter bonds with some of these governments. Having said that, so I'm sort of like make money, take their money. If you are constantly preaching about being censored and you sign up to something like that, you should be called out as you are doing. I had not thought of that. But what I find in general is that one of the problems with the left, oftentimes is we- Oh, now it's about the left.

Come on. Go ahead. Well, who's going after them? Other comics, no, but I mean, no, of course not, because they would like, they would like literally put their mother in. This is one of the problems I have with the left and one of the reasons I think we lose elections is we are more prone to virtue signal and whine and bitch rather than focus on the material or economic well-being of people and our country's strategic interests. And we are oftentimes very moral with other people's money. I don't, again, I don't care about Sadie Baby. I care about these comics who exhausted me with their ridiculous performative free speech.

All the tech people who do the same thing. Oh, free speech. And then they don't do it. I don't want to hear word fucking one from them anymore about these issues. I just don't. But who, I haven't followed this closely. Who amongst them? A lot of them did.

Trust me, they're all like, can't say anything. But I am, I am consistently asked by people who I'm, they'll say something along the lines of, like, Amazon's our biggest client. We'd appreciate it if you didn't make fun of Jeff Bezos and Lawrence Sanchez. You got in trouble for that. I got yelled at at a conference that they were one of our sponsor. And I want to be honest, as much as I think of, I'm a purist, that's an easy give for me. I'm like, okay, I get it. And then I got yelled at and then we lost them as a sponsor, just if you recall. And I didn't, did I once tell you not to say it? Did I once tell you not to say it? No, you have always been supportive. You have never said to me, Scott Dallaback. And I've said some stupid things that have reduced

our revenue. And you have never once said, dial it back or don't say that. You've, oftentimes you've said to me that was stupid or whatever, but you've never once checked me back. But what I'm saying is, if I go to a conference and they're paying me a shit ton of money, and I can always tell they, like, are really worried about speaking to me. And basically what they're saying is, it's the organizers usually who just, they're like, do me a favor. Don't talk about this because it's a real hot button. And oftentimes it's something weird that I never would have thought of. And I'm like, yeah, I don't want to make your life any harder. Fine. And I'm not a politician. I'm not a comment. I'm there talking about AI and I'm there

talking about, you know, incremental, I'm there talking about or making my predictions on tech or the algebra of happiness. And the reality is when you cash people's check, you have two choices. Either kind of sign up or you don't cash their check. And as long as they make the terms, as long as they make the terms transparent up front and you feel like you're, you know, I don't When people pay a lot of money, they're probably going to have some conditions. By the way, a lot of times, you know what they tell me? They say, when I speak at Walmart, Scott, lose the F-bombs. This is a very religious community.

Do not be profane. But who I'm, this is an honest question, because I haven't been following it that closely, who among those comics are constantly saying I'm being censored and are going? Almost, I get off the top of my head, all of them. Like, all of them, I've heard a version of that. Chappelle certainly has. They all are like, you can't say anything. You can't say anything.

And, of course, they can. But I would love it for one of them to say something. That's what I would love it. I think great America, I think our comics are an incredible export. And I think the more comics in different parts of the world makes us look good and makes them less likely to declare war on us and feel affinity for us. I'm in. Go cash their check.

Have a great time. HIPocrats. If you say free speech to me, I'm going to punch you in the nuts. Anyway, next start. Sinclair have brought back, oh, speaking of people like paper tigers, Next star and Sinclair have brought back Jimmy Kibble live to their local stations. After the standoff with ABC and Disney, Sinclair said it received, quote, thoughtful feedback from viewers and advertisers during the blackout and propose some measures for ABC to adopt, none of which ABC adopted. Remember they were asking

him to give money to turning point and apologize? Fuck you, Sinclair. Being generous with other people, being virtue signaling with other people's money. Exactly. Nextor also referenced constructive conversations with Disney and a statement, but Disney and ABC have not made concessions to either company. I mean, seriously, these two. Former Elever Secretary Robert Reich wrote in The Guardian in the Kimmel drama proves consumers have extraordinary power. He seemed to be taking a page from Scott Galloway. Trump is now threatening another company, Microsoft, telling him to fire their head of global affairs, Lisa Monica, who served in the Biden administration. Again, these are the people who are actual, like, trying to tell people what to do. I'm just pointing out. I mean, these next

Our people? Any thoughts on what they, what happened there? I'm just really into this idea of the economic power of American citizens that they, if they, if they're coordinated and can rally around, I was film, I was doing a live podcast with these two Canadian kids. I wish it was called, what's on your mind or something like that? And this guy came up to me and shook my hand and he's like, no buy Friday. I have gotten so much positive feedback from the idea of an economic strike. And it's really intoxicating and inspiring. Lots of people have come up to me and mentioned it to me.

And said, because look what these guys did. Clearly, a bunch of advertisers, a bunch of stars, a much of people called Iger canceled cruise ship reservations, canceled trips to Disney, people calling saying, I want to cancel my contract or I don't want to advertise with Sinclair. And you know what? They back the fuck down. And so I love this idea of a co-equal branch of government, of which there are none right now. There's no co.

There's no equal. There's Trump. There's MAGA right now. Being established, we have people's purchasing power. And this is the first time, kind of shockingly enough, that it has really changed the tide. It is literally reversed. The flow of the river was reversed in about 72 hours. And it speaks to that. And it makes sense. America is such a consumer economy. Why would they ask for like that from Kimmel? Like ask for demands. First of all, by the way, these contracts are somewhat strict if they dump shows too much. in breach of their contract, that's one thing. All they were doing it for was in order to get the deal from Brendan Carr. That's all they were doing. It was they had no values they were trying to protect. They had no public interest they were interested in. And they were interested in this deal to buy Tegna. Both of them, I apparently want Tegna. And that's all this is about, just so you know, it's money. And then they had to go this step further and ask for ridiculous things like that Jimmy Kimmel give money to Turning Point. He shouldn't have to do anything. Like, it's ridiculous. And

And then, you know, this new one about Lisa Monica, who I know, who's a tremendous public servant, demanding that Microsoft get rid of her, what, let me, let me just say before you saying anything, if they do that, Satchinadella, I'm, I'm going to make your life so uncomfortable if you do something like this. If you give in to someone you hired who's perfectly qualified for the job you hired her for, you fire, or Lisa Monica leaves, I'm going to just talk about it endlessly for you. years to come. I don't think he's going to. And I think that I'd like to think this sort of represents a firewall, the first I've seen so far. I mean, they totally had to backtrack. I again, I hate this note. I thought that was just ridiculous that he should give money to a turning point. Well, I'll tell you what, Sinclair and Nexter, whatever the, or Nexstar, whoever, or Tenga. Tegna. That's a stupid name. You guys should really donate money to the ACLU. I mean, and And that's an obnoxious statement. Yeah, I agree.

You don't say that. But this is, they have the right to not carry Kimmel. They were trying to curry favor with the president. People recognize that all the free speeches are actually more censorious than anyone. And consumers and actors and travelers and advertisers push back. And it was, what they accomplished was, they accomplished in 72 hours what no one in the Democratic Party has been able to accomplish in a, months. And I understand that the Democratic Party is neutered, but no one in the Democratic Party, Charles Schumer hasn't been able to rally a bunch of advertisers or cruise shipgoers.

I mean, you saw their texts this weekend over the shutdown, honestly. So I think this is really exciting. I think I hope that a Democratic or a civic or business leader comes up and figures out a way without being too preachy and too drunk with power, figures out targeted ways to deploy the economic path. We're in America. That's It's all about money, folks, to deploy that economic power. But asking different individuals get fired. They did that to Chris Krebs, who had to leave his company and is now involved because they threatened all kinds of investigations. And so he had to fall on his sword because the rest of the company was under threat, right?

This is the kind of thing that autocrats do. If you ask Microsoft to fire someone they hired and by name, that is sickening as far as I can tell. The left is guilty on a lower level, and that is the left for a while was really into the idea of, oh, you said something that hurts our feelings or offends us. We would like you to fire them. Oh, you're an actress in the Mandalorian, and you said conservative things that offend the sensibilities of people in Hollywood or offends our sensibilities. We want you to fire her. And they removed her from the series. That was wrong. The Republican Party and Trump have taken it to an absolutely new level where they are trying to go after entire industries, in companies and also basically weaponize the government to go after people and threaten to put them in jail. So they have taken, this is generally speaking the pattern of politics right now. The Democratic Party does something really fucking stupid.

They say, okay, or the Democrats, let's let a transgender woman swim in a woman's meat. Let's have a DEI department of 200 people in Michigan when 55% of the fresh freshman class, are non-white, and we take pride in just not letting in people. That's actually not fair for Michigan, Harvard. Harvard's a better case study. And then the Republicans come in and use all of that, that wrong, and come in with a nuclear

response where I know let's kick all transgender people out of the military. I know, under a false flag of DEI and GI correction, let's take the most well, deployed capital in history and cut it against research funding. It's like the Democrats do something stupid, well-intentioned, but stupid. Take it too far. And then the Democrat, Speaker Amerta is allowed to trade stocks. The S&P is up 200% in 10 years. Warren Buffett is up 300%. The Pelosi family is up 697%. They engage. It's not insider trading, but it's clearly trading based on information the rest of us do not have. So what is, What does Trump do?

He comes in and he says, I know, I'll make $5 billion on a crypto scam. Or letting that company, the Gulf company, into this TikTok deal at a ridiculous $14 billion valuation. Or dividing up TikTok among your donors. For $14 billion. $14 billion. Which is probably about a 60 to 80 percent discount to what the thing is worth. And by the way, Democrats not allowed to invest in it. And nor should, it should be an auction.

It should be capitalism. So it's almost like we do something really fucking. and stupid, and we give them cloud cover to come in and be mendacious and scale that ridiculous behavior. But I find all of this very, I'm very excited. The silver lining here is that, and I didn't think it would happen over Jimmy Kimmel, it appears that people have figured out a way to push back, and that's encouraging. Yeah, we'll see. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Threads just scored a major win over X. support for the show comes from zbiotics for many of us friday night is a time to unwind with a drink

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Threads just hit a major milestone passing X in daily active users according to data from similar web. The number of threads users is steadily growing while the number of daily active users on X continues to drop, so they're sort of crossing streams, essentially. Though data shows users spend more time on X than threads, the Wall Street Journal is also predicting

the next Elon Zuckerberg battle is going to be over humanoid robots. They're both into this. And speaking of that, President Trump said he would make TikTok 100% MAGA if he could. President made the comment while signing an executive order to pave the way for American investors to own a majority share of the app. But then he added, unfortunately, it won't work out that way, saying every group philosophy and policy would treat it fairly.

I'm not so concerned about that. I'm concerned about the price and the gimmie. You know, it's a really good deal for his friends. And speaking of his friends, in a recently resurfaced Q&A, Larry Ellison, predicted the rise of modern surveillance, which would cause citizens to be. on their best behavior, and that's a good thing because they're being surveilled. I don't know. There's a lot here. Larry Ellison just really has managed to do really well, but Zuckerberg has really done a nice job with threads, and Blue Sky's also growing. They're both

growing, but X is really, nobody thought that threads would do this. I did, because he's good at this stuff. Any thoughts on that, and then their humanoid robot battle? So a lot there. So with respect to threads, I think threads is fantastic. So I invested in one of these things. I invested in post and it got a ton of traction out of the gates and then it kind of lost steam and now it's closed down. People love blue sky. I was using blue sky and threads. I got off a Twitter for my own mental health and because I love your quote, I'm not going to paint that guy's fucking fence and I found it just so ugly. And I've been on threads and blue sky. And I'm curious. what you think, but I find myself increasingly using threads. I find it so seamlessly integrated into Instagram, which I love. And also, I find the content that they elevate on threads is a little bit more positive. Yeah, your feed is probably done that way because of what you pull from. It depends on the feed, right? Because Amanda tried threads, and she just doesn't have a good feed, and I'm like, because you're pulling from doom scrolling or something, I have a great feed on

threads. It's all like cooking and like there's a there's a thread of something called fabric something where they they take old toys and old old things and refurbish them. There's a guy who's a gardener on threads who's like this hunky gay gardener who I like. There's a lot of pleasant stuff. It's a lot like Instagram, as you said, but a little easier to consume. I really enjoy threads and I again, you know I don't throw Mark Zuckerberg a bone if I can avoid it, but it's a really good product. I find it really enjoyable. I do like I think blue sky people are smarter a little bit

although they're much more like finger waggy, you know? It's a little bit more artisanal and a little bit more like Atlantic kind of. Yeah, yeah, but I like it. I don't, I find interesting news. I have to say my news consumption, threads is not as good for news consumption.

You like Bruce Guy's better for news consumption. And I like both of them because you can block people easily and get rid of all the shitty people who like either lecture at you or say vile things. But not many people say vile things on either of them. It's rare. It's usually just irritating. Just like, leave me the fuck alone if I like Scott. Like stop bothering me essentially. That's their beef with you? Whatever. That's their beef. Some of them just like whatever.

Yeah, that's good to know. They, it's usually fine. And it's never, I'll tell you, it's not what happens on X, which is just vile and gross and a little scary. right now. And so I'm thrilled that people are seeing all these different competitors. So I'm kind of hoping for all of them, if that makes sense, you know. Yeah. Well, first off, I mean, and it should probably be broken up, but Threads has just an unnatural advantage because three billion people are on Instagram. And so the data they can mine that informs the Threads feed when you go on to threads about what you already like and also just making it really seamless for those three billion people to say, hey, you don't need to log off and go on to Twitter. If you want to share content here,

we're just going to make it easier and the content's more likely to be elevated and get more of those precious likes for whatever it is you're trying to build, whether it's social capital or drive people to your website. We're just going to make it very seductive and very seamless to go for the 3 billion people to just ease of slip over here to threads. They have a huge built-in advantage, and I would argue that at some point, you're probably going to have more innovation if these companies are separate companies. Having said that, I just find I really like threads. I got to admit it. I'm spending more time on Instagram, less time on TikTok, though I love TikTok. I think the nicest vibe of all of them is LinkedIn. I think it's because everyone's

thinking maybe someday this guy will give me a job, so they're just nicer to people. No, it's just because it's useful, right? It's meant to be used. But people are generally speaking are kinder. I also, to be honest, I think the environment, at least on the stuff I post, on YouTube is quite positive. Yeah, same thing with Reddit. I would say there's lots of choices now, which is great, actually. Reddit is really enjoyable. I go there all the time to find different and discover things. News discovery again, I would say Reddit and Blue Sky threads is sort of fun and food and silly and ASMR stuff. You know, there's a guy who just does the lawn and I watch, he does the I forget what is. He's from Australia, I think. And I like that. I have to tell you,

you know what, it's replacing TV? I find myself not watching as much television. It is. I was on Smirkanis last weekend with Richard Reeves talking about young men, and I said to Drew, my tech guy, I'm like, pull up CNN. I didn't have it on my TV. My live Hulu thing had lapsed, or I had too many locations. I tried to pull it up on live on CNN. We couldn't figure out the credit card situation, and it kept timing out, asking me who I was with, Cox, and everything, and finally I gave up. I haven't watched CNN live in a year. I don't watch live TV, and I've also noticed like you, I'm watching less streaming. And I hate to admit this. I used to get my news from The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. Now I'm getting all of my news

from social. Well, it's from those places. Yeah, a lot of times it's clicked. But they do a better job of curating the New York Times, and the New York Times does have curating the New York Times. Well, I would agree. I would agree. That's which was interesting. I have become, I want to say the enemy, but I'm not, I am, the only time I turn on the bigger screen in my household is for Premier League football. Or my boys want to watch something and I want to trap them somewhere. Or you want to watch a movie with your kids, right? Yeah, and even now, like my kids are, what I advise people who want to be in the media ecosystem is the following. It's very easy.

The bigger the screen, the lower the ROI. If you're doing anything, anything that depends upon your ability to monetize content on a 30-meter-by-10-meter screen called a movie theater, you're fucked. Don't go into that business. I thought about going the movies the other day, and I was like, I don't want to go to the movies. I do particularly watch, like I watch the Gilded Age. I watch, I'm very excited for the diplomat to start again. I'm very excited.

But think about how we grew up. I used to get home from school at 3.30, wait until I watched cartoons until my mom got home, and then we'd watch Happy Days and Night Rider. I'd watch seven hours. I'd watch seven hours of TV. Yeah, me too. Six times a week.

Yeah. I mean, and now I'm down to maybe an hour, an hour and a half. And then, again, that screen, big business still, still money in it. But the screen where there's champagne and cocaine is if you can figure out a way to monetize content on a tiny screen called a phone. So, ROI is inversely correlated to the size of the screen. Yeah, I think that's true. In the last 24 months, and again, it's pulse marketing,

I have literally stopped watching TV, and I hate to say this, going to the original site of the media. I go to Bloomberg's site, but only after an article is recommended to me on threads or blue sky. Yeah, it's true. And eventually, if you're the gatekeeper,

you will find the way to start the margin from the initial creator. Yeah, it's true. We are a perfect case study. I watch everything on my phone, you know, I wanted to watch the morning show the other day, and I was like, oh, should I put on the TV? I'm like, you know, no, I'm going to sit here and eat dinner and watch it on my phone, like that kind of thing. So anyway, it was a lot easier and easier to pull up, by the way. But tell me about TikTok, this, I don't care about the 100% MAGA. It'll be what it is, right? They could maybe manipulate it. I'm sure they have on occasion. I feel like this whole thing, it's going to lease the algorithm from the Chinese. It, the number of $14 billion is what Snapchat is worth right now. It was in the $55 to $100 billion range before. So they're getting a deal. And I have a feeling TikTok's going to go down. This is my feeling at this moment with this gang of old men running it. But what do you think? Well, first off, do we want the Ellison family or any family controlling CBS, CBS, CNN, and TikTok. And keep in mind, TikTok, and this is in the Ellison's.

TikTok has more mind share of our youth than CBS, NBC, and ABC head of adults in the 60s. We wouldn't have liked the Kremlin control him. So I am all about banning TikTok, and I haven't been for a long time. What is illegal here and wrong is carving it up and giving it to your best Republican donors at a discount. Because ByteDance trades at a valuation of about 300 or 350 billion. in the private markets. By the way, most undervalued tech company in the world, it's trading it about, I think, two times revenues. Open AI is trading it like 30 times forward revenues, and it's still growing. About 20 percent, I believe, of the revenues come from the U.S., which means

based on the suppressed valuation of 350 billion, it's worth about 70. So these guys are getting an 80 percent discount. And by the way, there isn't a single, there isn't a single Democrat, in this fucking thing, of course. So what do you get? You get to, I mean, this is totally anti-capitalist. You don't force, you don't ban a company and then carve it up and give it to your biggest donors. And don't auction. It should have been an auction.

Don't get the best price. And also, I'm convinced that the only way this goes through, and I got this wrong, I said, this isn't going to happen. And by the way, I met the CEO of TikTok, and he's like the most likable guy in the world. if there's if there's anything if this does go through I think the only way it goes through is if she figures out a back door into the algorithm and figure because if they the algorithm is everything TikTok really has I believe they're using the algorithm they're using the Chinese algorithm apparently but that's my point my point is as long as the CCP can dial up or down things that continue to make young Americans. Americans feel bad about America or continue to dial. Trump wanted to, Trump was going to ban it. Didn't like TikTok.

You know what they did. They said, take the dial on pro-Trump content and dial it up. They will notice and they will decide they like TikTok. Dialed down content saying that an invasion of Taiwan is coming and would be banned. Also, the CCP wants Trump to dial it down on Taiwan. There was a big story in, I think, the journal or the one of them that he really, she is hoping to get is Trump to shut up about Taiwan so they can soften up their approach there. And then secondly, he wants a summit. And so this is a nothing burger because he doesn't. I don't think the Chinese

think they're giving up anything. I think they're tap dancing in Beijing. This is a great deal for them. And then these stupid rich guys get get something in a real discount. This is such a gimmie. But this is what we're missing. I mean, it's all of the, it's all of the bad taste of an oligarchy. and it's like oligarchy meets cronyism meets socialism with all of the calories of the fact that it'll still probably be a propaganda tool for the CCP. And this is what I am pissed off about Democrats.

If I were running for president, I would say Mark Andreessen, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, I am going to hit you so fucking hard when I'm in the White House because if you're engaging, you're all free market until you get a chance to be total fucking oligarchs.

With the comics, they're all anti-censorship until they get censored. Well, this is like, okay, fine. And it's the same message to the folks in El Salvador. You're found incarcerating good Americans. I don't care if the previous president said it was okay. I'm coming for your ass. And I would, if I were Rahm Emanuel or Governor Newsom or Governor Moore, I would be saying, look, my reach,

and my memory are, are long and far. And for those of you who claim to be free marketers engaging in this type of cronyism and this oligarchy, be clear. I'm coming for your ass. Yeah, you need to break the back of that immediately. And start saying, for those of you, for those of you engaging in this type of ridiculous,

you know, ridiculous prosecution of your political enemies, okay, we can do that too. I'm going to start making a list. That's their nightmare. But instead, we're like, this is illegal. This is wrong. This is, America needs to come together. Fuck that.

Guess what? Scott and I are coming for you, people. We're coming for you. Speaking of paper tigers. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Trump's Retribution campaign, speaking of Retribution. Support for Pivot comes from Zoc Doc. Look, there are just some things in life that you can categorize,

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as promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants. At the end of the day, LinkedIn wants you to feel confident that you're getting the best because the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates. And based on LinkedIn, 70% of small business owners using LinkedIn, say that the platform helps them find high quality candidates.

Plus, you can let your network know you're hiring by adding the hashtag hiring frame to your profile picture to get two times more qualified candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash pivot. That's LinkedIn.com slash pivot to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Scott, we're back. Donald Trump is insisting the indictment of former FBI director James Comey isn't about revenge saying it's really about justice.

Comey was, oh, whatever. Comey was indicted on two felony counts last week, both tied to his 2020 Senate testimony on the Trump. Russia investigation. The indictment came after Trump put his former attorney Lindsey Halligan and former beauty queen in charge of the case despite the fact that she never prosecuted a federal case. In a video posted on Instagram, Comey declared his innocence and said he would welcome a trial. Let's listen. My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump.

But we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees. And you shouldn't either. He gets to take the high ground. Not one of my favorite people, I'll be honest with you. But still, he didn't do anything wrong. And Lindsey Halligan has made like error after error in the filing of this thing. And the grand jury only indicted on two counts, even though there were three.

Every lawyer I know said this is going to be a slam dunk for Comey to get out of. By the way, people within the White House said don't do it, including Pam Bondi. Trump is also indicating more indictments are likely pointing to New York Attorney General Letitia James, as well as George Soros and Reid Hoffman as potential targets. I don't know. He's putting up really shitty cases and probably, will lose. So thoughts? This isn't about legal victory.

It's about intimidation. And first off, if anyone should have a gripe with Director Comey, it should be Secretary Clinton. Going into like weeks left in the campaign, you're never supposed to discuss an investigation until you have actual indictments in the FBI. That's standard practice. And James Comey, always posing for the fucking cameras who likes to think of himself as a bald eagle flying into an apple pie, he's so fucking sanctimonious. decided to pose more for the cameras and put out a letter saying that they had found more emails with no specifics, which casts this incredible doubt

on Secretary Clinton's campaign. If anyone has a beef with the director, it's Secretary Clinton. And the fact that he's doing this, again, I think it's another data point, another suggestion from Open AI. It will not, from what I understand the case, is it, if it's not swat it away right away,

It'll be soon swatted away. Meanwhile, he will have to raise millions of dollars to defend this. But this isn't about winning cases. This is about intimidation. And convincing people, it's better to just give him what he wants and stay out of his way. Whether it's cut him a check for $14 million or $7 million or just don't say anything. But Director Comey, even a statement there, Director Comey is really poorly advised. We will not live on our knees.

Oh, Jesus Christ, you're not Emiliana Zapata. Just get over yourself, all right? It's like, look, this is, this is political vengeance, and it's one thing to say, you know, he should have read that quote from the minister. First, they came for the socialist, and I did not say, he goes, just be clear, folks, at some point they come for you. And this is awful. It will not go anywhere, but it's more distraction.

It keeps Epstein out. And it intimidates people. People stop speaking their mind. It does. These are all intimidations, whether it's to Microsoft or anybody else. That's what it's doing. It's sending a flare saying, I might be wrong. It may not hold up in court, but I am going to distract people.

I'm going to come after you. You know, the Comey household right now, the job of a government, the job of you, to a certain extent, as a man, is the job of a woman, and the job of the combination of masculine and feminine energy is to create leadership, nurturing, care, concern such that you ease people's pain and make them feel comfortable. Make them, you ease their anxiety. You make them have rewarding lives. You let them focus on the tough stuff, losing people they love, how do they deal with kids who are struggling.

And the people who are supposed to be the best at that and have the most resources, are elected leaders. Our elected leaders are supposed to remove anxiety from our lives. They're supposed to give us a sense that you're safe and you're secure. We're going to lower the crime. We're going to give your kids more opportunity. And if your wife gets lung cancer, it means you're not going to go bankrupt. That is what the government is supposed to do. We're going to come up with great research such that if your wife gets metastatic breast cancer, we've done this incredible research. You don't need to understand it, but there's better prospects every day that she will live. You don't need to worry about being invaded. You don't need to worry about, you know, if someone commits

a crime against you that they go unpunished. And instead, we have a government that seems more focused on increasing the anxiety of certain groups of people. Because this is now, this is now a party of vengeance. It's not a party of preventing a tragedy to the commons. It's ridiculous. They're always so angry. How do you get so angry? Seriously. And while he's spending all his time trying to figure out how to keep Epstein out of the news and how to harass fellow Americans and weaponize our great institutions, not against our enemies, but against the enemy within, Putin and she are taking advantage of it, establishing new alliances and sending attack aircraft into NATO countries. And we're sitting out here, you know, trying to like dodge

incoming missiles that are fired domestically from Pennsylvania Avenue. Agreed. And by the way, we didn't, we didn't have time to talk about this today, but the Epstein, there were more Epstein file stuff coming out that had come out and including names of, people like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, Elon's denying it. I think he probably was invited and didn't go. I believe him on that. And I know he did go to the New York thing. I was invited to the New York thing and I didn't go. So I'm not, I don't know necessarily if it means anything. But more Epstein files, the better. And you saw Marjorie Taylor Green saying she's going to be killed that she's keeping going on this thing. People should focus on the Epstein files some more. That's what I say. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins. and fails. Hey, Pivot listeners. I want to tell you about a new podcast from the Box Media Podcast Network called Access with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger.

It's a show about the inside conversation happening across the tech industry. You may know Alex Heath from shows like Decoder and The Vergecast, and he's a founder of sources, a new publication about the tech industry, and a contributing writer for The Verge. And you'll probably only know Ellis if you worked in Silicon Valley yourself. He's the former tech reporter turned tech industry insider working closely with today's hottest startups. Their first episode features an interview with Mark Zuckerberg about META's latest smart glasses, the AI race, and what's next for the social media giant.

You can find the Access podcast with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. There is a lot to talk about when we talk about Donald Trump and Jimmy Kim. One big question I've got is why in 2020. our late-night TV shows, like Jimmy Kimmel's show, still on TV. Even in our diminished times, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, they're just some of the biggest faces of their networks. If you start taking the biggest faces off your networks, you might save some nickels and dimes,

but what are you even anymore? What even is your brand anymore? I'm Peter Kafka, the host of channels. And that was James Ponozozic, the TV, critic for The New York Times. This week, we're talking about Trump and Kimmel, free speech, and a TV format that's remained surprisingly durable for now. That's this week on channels, wherever you get your favorite podcasts. How does everyone know what everyone knows? It's a state sometimes called pluralistic ignorance or a spiral of silence, where everyone

mistakenly thinks that everyone else believes something, and no one actually believes it. I'm Preet Barrara, and this week, cognitive psychologist Stephen Pinker joins me on my podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, to discuss his latest book. It's called When Everyone Knows

that everyone knows. We discuss what common knowledge can teach us about collective behavior. The episode is out now. Search and follow stay tuned with Preet, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Would you like me to go from this?

Would you like to do? You know, Hakeem Jeffries is my fail this week. First of all, his social media is so bad. I just want to cry. He could benefit from a Gavin News and social media intervention. It is so boring. It's so dumb. He should just get off so for me if he's not going to do it well.

But when Eric Adams dropped out of the New York mayoral race, which I think people expected, although he did it after his name now still on the ballot, I believe. He's still not endorsing Amandani, and then he effusively complimented Eric Adams. It was so strange. And I just, you know, I had a lot of hopes

for Hakeem Jeffries that he would live up. I know you don't like Nancy Pelosi, but she was good at her job, what she did there. Very strategic. Very strategic. This guy doesn't seem to have a clue. I just feel like what a... Everything Hakeem Jeffries is he was a big L on it,

as far as I'm concerned. Again, just like, it's just so ridiculous. especially with Trump, on the opposite side, saying that if you vote for him, I'm going to hurt New York. And what's the point of voting? He's, you know, putting his finger on the thumb of everything, which is also grotesque, but typical from him. And then my win is, I'm excited for the slate of movies for, I know you say, like, I'm going to see them not in the movie theater, but there's all these, like, great movies coming out in the fall. I do always like the fall. I just keep seeing all these, you know, ads and stuff. for different movies and things opening. And I'm super excited. Obviously, I'm most excited for Wicked, as I've noticed, Wicked for Good. And they keep dropping stuff, and I'm very pleased with that. I really like that.

And so I'm excited. I'll be talking about them as we move forward, but there's a ton of really cool stuff that looks like it's coming out, including this movie that George Clooney's in. It's called J. Kelly, and it looks, it's by Noah Baumbach. And I think it looks really good. He's playing himself, really, and it looks funny. Are you going to see the Leo film?

No, I can't do it. I don't have enough energy. It's supposed to be outstanding. All is his. I didn't see the one, the Indian one, or he poisons Indian Native Americans. Oh, peak artistic masturbation? I don't know. I just can't.

I just, I'm so tired. I want to see fun things. So I'm going to go see it. It's just be great. I'm going to see it tonight. I'll report. All right. Well, tell me how it is.

Tell me how it is. Yeah. So just a couple things. And with Leader Jeffries, I've met him, interviewed him on stage, really like him. In the corporate world, we, we, have this pattern or this problem where oftentimes we, when people are great at what they do, we keep promoting them until we find a position they're not great at. In other words, you promote them out of their competency. And so they came up with this idea of, I think it's called

solar or solo contributor where they say, look, this guy's a great bond trader. He or she can't manage people out of a fucking paper bag, right? So just keep them as a bond trader. Don't put them in charge of the fixed income department. And some people are just good at what they do end up being great managers. I think that applies to Leader Jefferies. I think he's an outstanding elected representative. I think he's a great representative in the House for his core constituents in Brooklyn. He lacks the killer instinct and gravitas and what I don't want to call leadership ability, but ability to capture narrative and compel people to be the Speaker of the House. I just don't think he has those skills. And especially for this moment. And him,

him and him and Chuck Schumer, it's kind of like wet meat blanket. I mean, it's just, it's just. I agree. It's just, these aren't the guys for the moment. And I think leader Jeffries should should go on and be his representative. And he's outstanding, maybe run for Senate someday. But he's not the person for this moment.

And Senator Schumer is literally become the visible man. Like, I just don't even, I don't even see him when he's on screen anymore. Anyway, so my, my fail is, it is so insane that we are now talking about bailing out farmers. I mean, let me get this. We go, we walk up to someone, the U.S. government, shoot them in the leg, and then borrow money from future generations to pay for their hospital bills. and essentially, what do you know, we place all these tariffs on foreign goods, and China, who's much smarter than us, goes, I'm going to go after the heart and lungs here and put on a huge tariff on soybeans for all those farmers in red states, and they're basically their entire business

is collapsed. And by the way, without previous government subsidies, many of these farms are no longer economically viable anyways. So what do you have? You have circular payments. The government collects tariffs, which is a tax on U.S. consumers, then pays billions to farmers hurt by those same tariffs. So everyone loses. Consumers pay higher prices. Taxpayers fund the bailouts and farmers get temporary cash, but permanent loss of China market. The Chinese have already established new trade relationships with Brazil and Argentina, and they're not coming back to Iowa, folks. They're not doing it. This is done. This is not a shift. This is a structural shift. So unless the government and taxpayers and can keep propping up these people to pay for the stupid tariffs, eventually they're

going to go away. The money props up inefficiency instead of investing in infrastructure. What they need to be doing is crop diversification. And it's just pure political theater. Its bailouts are less about economic policy. And they're just, they're doing what Democrats do. And that is, they're throwing money at people for votes. And we've literally, we've lit the house on fire and then sent taxpayers the bill for the fire department. They don't, these payments, this circular payments, they don't build competitiveness, they build dependency. And they're doing it just because they're, they're mega. They were, they were Trump supporters and they're not helping others who were not. It's the same thing that's going to happen if this government shuts down. And so while young people,

so while we cut a check on young people's backs in terms of debt, Brazil builds railroads and steals China as a customer. It's just, this couldn't be more stupid. Anyway, all right, so that's my fail. My win is what we talked about before. Sinclair and Nextar had blacked out Jimmy Kimmel on their affiliates. And I think that I think the blackout was pretty significant. It covered about, I think, about a quarter of U.S. households. It did, mostly small places except for Seattle and D.C.

Yeah, but these late night guys need everything. And then on the 26th, both companies announced that would end the boycott and restore the show to their stations. It's not because they saw God or decided that they weren't censorious. It was because of the backlash of consumer, the backlash from viewers, media observers, advocacy groups, and all kinds of pressure from different consumers. Sinclair is the bigger one. They own about 15% of U.S. television households via ABC affiliates, and Next Star is 9%. So it's almost a quarter. And after the reversal, Jimmy Kimmel regained its reach in those markets, obviously restoring viewership.

And the bottom line is the distributors blinked, and I love this. You can try to mute dissent, but when the market and money push back, they restarted. And I think it's a good moment for us. And also, this really isn't just about one late-night host. It's about broadcasters recognizing that bowing to the president's pressure is a precedent toward censorship and can cost their shareholders money. And we need to start connecting these really, this overreach and vile activities on the part of the White House with economic punishment. That's the connection we need to make.

This socialist government is really getting on my nerves. Anyway, I think those are both good ones. I agree with you. And you were correct about this idea of economic pressure that consumers can bring to bear. We want to hear from you. Send us your question about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show oracle. 8551 Pivot and elsewhere in the Kara and Scott Universe on on with Kara Swisher.

I recently spoke with Matt and Maria Raine, whose 16-year-old son died by suicide after starting to use chat GPT. Let's listen to a clip. What would you right now say to Sam Altman if you were looking at him? Why did you put out a product that killed my son? And why haven't you called me and expressed? any remorse. I don't know, among other things, but I just, I don't understand how he can just be going through life knowing that my son is gone.

Like, my son doesn't matter. It's your product that matters. That was a tough, tough, tough show. It's well worth listening to. It's really upsetting, but at the same time, really incredibly cold. argument they're making as parents and as consumers, too, Atlanta. You did a really nice job. You were able to thread the needle there, and it was very, I listened to it this weekend, I had to turn off a couple of times, but you were very,

you made it about as just the facts as you could on a very heavy topic, and I thought was very emotional, but you managed to just kind of get through it in a way that felt, I don't know, very journalistic. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have been able to do that interview, so. It was hard as a parent, I can tell you that. I am incandescent. about some of this. And I just think AI should be limited with kids. It's just now absolutely of that mind. It shouldn't be in toys.

It shouldn't be in anything we have to do. We have PG-13 content for people under the age of 13. We have R-rated content where an adult has to be present. It's not to say we can't have AI for kids, but it should be severely different. Severely different. And character AI should just not exist for people under the age of 18.

Yeah, I agree. relationships? No. No. There's nobody there, people. Do not, you know, it's fine if you want to, like, figure out your business plan, but this is bullshit. And I have been talking to, let me just say, a lot of legislators about a lot of this stuff aimed at kids. And every time I get the chance, and I'm going to continue to do so. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara and Amy and Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Injitad engineered this episode.

Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Gibros, Mr. Vera, and Dan Chalon. Your stock crew has Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine, NYMag.com. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.