Pivot - Signalgate Sequel, Trump's Baby Boom Plans, and Netflix Earnings

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Kara and Scott discuss Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth getting caught up in another Signal scandal, Tesla’s latest setbacks, and whether Google will have to spin off Chrome. Then, they dive into a busy few days for the Trump administration — from getting blocked on deportations by the Supreme Court, to reportedly planning an overhaul of the State Department, to taking suggestions on how spark the next baby boom. Plus, do Netflix’s Q1 earnings prove the streaming giant is tariff-proof? Follow us on Instagram and Threads at @pivotpodcastofficial. Follow us on Bluesky at @pivotpod.bsky.social. Follow us on TikTok at @pivotpodcast. Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And it's working. That's on channels wherever you hear your favorite pods. Megan Rapinoe here. This week on A Touch More, we open up the mailbag and answer your burning questions. And we have a great conversation with two-time Olympic medalist, Lauren Holliday, about the business of women's sports and how to support and grow the next generation of female athletes. Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. We know how to get people to fuck. Scott and Kara know how to get people to fuck. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher, RIP Pope Francis, who died doing what he loved best, which was calling JD Vance an asshole. So last night my kid, my 14-year-old comes into my room, middle of the night all upset and he said, Dad, on my group chat, it says we're bombing the Hooties in 1900 hours.

Should I be worried? By the way. We're mixing. We're mixing. We're mixing jokes. Scandals here. We're mixing scandals. I'm serious.

I think everybody, this is my suggestion to everybody should you decide that there's so much, there's so much ridiculously insane deprived weirdness and competence every day that we don't know where to start. Every text message I send out now, I end with 1700 hours cash F15s coming into Yemen. Every message I'm putting in, fake military information. Scott's referring to the second signal gate,

or probably the 10th, probably the 20th. Pete Hegsatz was including his wife, his personal lawyer, friends in attacks on, I think it's Yemen, right? Was it Yemen? Yeah. Whatever. What a, Jesus, this guy's got to lay off the whiskey. Yeah, that's who I want.

That's who I want commanding my land. Honestly. And then just add to this, the Pope died, JD Vance visited him yesterday and the Pope took his time to insult JD Vance in his Easter, essentially what JD Vance represented in his Easter homily and then died soon after. But one of the third thing that just come in is Christy Noem got her bag snatched in DC and it carried $3,000 in cash she had in it, which she accused the guy that she sent to

the El Salvadoran prison of being in MS-13 for holding $1,500 in cash. What was she doing with cash? Anyway, the stories, these people are just, I feel we're in a simulation, Scott. I'm just so here for Christy. It's such a Cinemax film waiting to happen. She is Cinemax, she is. Anyway, she lost her money.

Sorry, Christy, you shouldn't be carrying that much cash. Should we bring this all back to me? Ask me what I did this weekend. Oh, I will, okay, what did you do this weekend? All this shit is so upsetting and boring, Kara. Let's talk about the dog. It's not, it's not, it's not boring. Let's talk about the dog. It's not boring. Let's talk about the dog.

So when I moved to Florida, after I lost everything in OA, my kid didn't get into school because it was speech delayed preschool. I'm like, that's it. We're out of here. We're moving to Florida. We. Bid on a house, got it accepted. And then Goldman, who at that time was managing my money, cause they were investing in

small entrepreneurs, came back and said, last year you made negative one and a half million, so don't qualify for a mortgage. So I had to go home and tell my partner that we couldn't get this house, I couldn't close because I couldn't get a mortgage, which was really a nice conversation for me. Anyways, we ended up buying a home in Delray.

We built this home and we had to have a pool because we had young boys. And every morning on the weekends, we would get up, make breakfast, and our kids would immediately start jumping in the pool with our dog Zoe. I would play what is my favorite album in the world. Is it my favorite album? Other than Damned to Torpedoes by Tom Petty.

I played Morning Phase by Beck. Have you ever listened to this album? No. Oh, it is so beautiful. But I shall. It is so beautiful. It won best album. It was probably the biggest surprise of best album

12 or 14 years ago. It's an instrumental, orchestral album. OK. Don't rush me through this. This is, I'm revealing a little bit about my soul to you. I'm trying to wait to see where this is going. So last night, I went to the Royal Albert Hall and I saw Beck play with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra,

which is one of the most talented in the world. And me and Beata just sat there and cried for an hour and a half, remembering like our kids jumping into the pool. Such a night. Last night was literally the moment, also the mushroom gummies helped, but that will be the moment.

That's like my crowning moment for London. It was such an outstanding performance and took us back to this really nice moment. Oh my God. Music is so powerful that way. It is. But in any case, you want to ask me what I did this weekend? Why, okay. Oh.

All right. What did you do this weekend? We had Easter. We did the Easter. Oh, yeah. Did he rise? Is he risen? He's risen.

Christ has died. Christ was born. Christ has died. Wow, you're more Jewish than me right now. I'm Catholic. I'm actually Catholic. If you can believe it. You know what I'm me right now. I'm Catholic. I'm actually Catholic. You can believe it. You know what I'm excited for? Honestly, Conclave. Like that movie. Did you see Conclave? I don't even know what that is. It's a movie. It was up for Oscars with

Ray Fiennes. They're going to have a Conclave. It's when the cardinals get together and they all vote and stuff. There's some interesting prospects for new pope, including a very young one. I actually, I love, I don't want to say I love Easter, but Easter for me is something I gotta do. You know I hide Easter eggs. Where? Don't tell me.

Cause I don't want anyone to know that I'm fucking a chicken. Oh my God. That's good. Oh my God. That's good. I have so many beautiful, my grandmother used to make Easter foods, and tallied.

He has risen. He has risen. She went to mass every day. She would be very interested in who the new pope is. Anyway, we'll see who the new pope is. He was a good pope. He was a good pope. You wanna understand an organization

that understands branding, that burning the ballots to create white smoke that signifies there's a new pope. Yeah. The garb, the candles. The outfits, yeah. The music, the artisanship. It's all about the music. The burning the ballots to create white smoke that signifies there's a new pope. Yeah. The garb, the candles. The outfits, yeah. The music, the artisanship.

It's almost like they're gay. It's very gay. It's very gay. I'm so glad you said that. And what a shocker. It's so gay. And you can't sleep with women and what do you know?

Oh, I know. What do you know? Conclave. Conclave. You have to watch that movie. Do yourself a favor and watch it with your wife. It's a great movie. It has Isabella Rossellini in it. She's a nun and watch it with your wife. It's a great movie.

It has Isabella Rossellini in it. She's a nun. She's a nun. She's fantastic. She was up for an Oscar, I think. Anyway, word of advice to the next pope, stay away from JD Vance. Anyway, we have a lot to get to today, including the Supreme Court handing Trump a late night loss.

Netflix is staying strong and market chaos. Yet another Tesla setback. This company is really done for, I feel like. Signalgate too has dropped, as we just referenced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegs says, shared attack plans for strikes in Yemen in another group signal chat, including his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. Hegseth is blaming disgruntled former employees for leaking the information about the use of his chat.

They are. In fact, let me tell you, these employees aren't being quiet. One of them wrote a piece for Politico saying how much Pete Hegsath sucks. In the group were there around a dozen people from Hegsath's personal and professional circles and was named Defense Team Huddle. Hegsath created the Signal Group himself and conducted the chat from his private phone. It just gets worse and worse. The details shared were the and conducted the chat from his private phone. It just gets worse and worse. The details shared were the same as Jeffrey Goldberg. It looks like he cut and pasted.

And who among us has not cut and pasted more planned details in all our group chats? I mean, will he go? Because now his people are after him. His little, you know, his little stormtroopers are after him now. So do you think he'll think he's finished or not, or will Trump not care? Well, that's a question for you because what I saw, I love News Not Noise with Jessica Yellen.

Yeah. She said, what's going on here is a phenomenon in journalism. I'm curious to get your take on this, called taking out the trash. That is, when your own team turns on you and starts leaking everything, you're done. Yeah, I agree. There's no way to plug the boat.

Do you think that's what's going on here? Yeah. I mean, they're explicit. One of them, who was a spokesman for John, I think it's Bouliat or something like that, he wrote a whole piece saying, still saying he loves Donald Trump, blah, blah, blah, but Pete's head has to go. Essentially, that's what this piece said, which was explicit. You don't often just see an explicit one.

Now, four people in this group chat dropped a dime on him. And I can tell two of them, the ones, two or three, who were just fired by him for things he lied about. These people didn't do what he said they did. So he turned around and fucked them, and then they're like, you're not fucking us, we're fucking you. And yeah, I think there's, and then the guy in his piece said more to come, which is like probably around his drinking or whatever.

But it sounds like a fucking disaster there. I don't know how Trump can save this. He's got to dump him. I think there's no question he has to dump him. But it's Trump. So you never, I mean, any other president? Absolutely. He'd be gone by yesterday. But, you know, he's maybe he's thinking the Pope will give him cover or the Pope's death will give him cover.

I don't know. I just think he's done, he's done. I thought that the last one, I thought that was, I thought that Waltz was gonna get fired. Yeah. Trump has a different behavior system. But I wonder if at some point the Joint Chiefs go,

you realize at some point people are gonna question orders for fear that surface-to-air missiles are waiting for them because shit for brains over here is playing, is next thing is going to put it out on his Nintendo Wii what the attack plans are. I mean, at some point this begins- That's funny not funny. At some point this begins to compromise the safety

and security of our- Already has. Of our men and women in uniform, if it hasn't already. Private, it's a private phone who knows where he was. Like come on, are you kidding? Did he just appoint his brother to some sensitive defense position? His brother is in the defense department.

His another friend of his, a personal lawyer, was on this thing. Like I wouldn't put my, oh God, this whole thing is just the, I sense, it seems like there's a deeper story here because they were signaling it, this one person. And to use your name in public to do it, this guy is either kamikaze or knows something,

like this is gonna get worse. So they're gonna find an elegant way to get him out because Trump apparently likes the way he looks. He is a handsome man. Very handsome. In a kind of a cheesy, unctuous way. No, I think he's very handsome. He's a handsome man. Very handsome. In a kind of a cheesy, unctuous way. No, I mean he's very handsome. He's a handsome man.

Very handsome. I think Trump likes his look and feel, but they're going to put someone else who's more competent in there. He says he can do five sets of 40-some pushups. I can do five of 35. He should go back to Fox News. That'd be great. He should go back.

That's where he belongs. So speaking of which, the Google and the Justice Department, speaking of people in trouble, are headed to court as we tape Monday to argue on how to remedy the company's online search monopoly. The outcome could result in Google being forced to sell off Chrome and share more data with competitors. Witnesses from Microsoft, Mozilla, Perplexity, and Open Air are set to take the stand. Closing arguments will be on May 30th, a decision coming by August. And for once, I would agree with Bill Barr, the former attorney general, who's just a sack of shit, really. In an op-ed he wrote in the Wall Street Journal,

all the solicitude we express for free markets is hollow talk without a willingness to confront bad actors that use illegal practices to squelch rivals and establish monopoly power. Well done, Bill Barr. Nobody says you're stupid, but anyway, what do you think is gonna happen here? Because they also lost the advertising case too,

just last week. So this is the first case. So they're in the remedy section of it. I think they feel the wolves are circling and it does feel real this time. It feels, you know, while you were sleeping, you know, we're so focused on everything else that it does feel like the momentum here is pretty staggering.

Um, I wonder if they're, they're just so smart and they have so many connections. I wonder if they're going to do a blood offering and offer to spend something or offer a pretty big fine, like some sort of big bargain. No, I can't. I think it has to be a remedy. I think it has to be a spinoff. But yeah, they, my guess is they offer to do something prophylactically, because I think they see...

But what? I don't know, a spin of... It has to be a spin-off. A spin of their ad group, a spin of what used to be DoubleClick. I'd like to see a spin of YouTube, because I think it'd be so incredibly valuable. I think it'd be good for shareholders and be pretty clean.

They don't seem to want to spin any of them, not Mark Zuckerberg, not Amazon, not any of them. Well, they get to share data and it's also, it all comes back to money care. This is the point it all reverse engineers to and it's the following. Except for Zuckerberg who I think just at this point likes control, although maybe that's not true. The way a CEO gets compensated is the following.

There is a subcommittee of the board called the Compensation Committee. And basically they're there to approve, to make sure that we have enough options in a private company for new hires and also to deal with the hardest part, and that is CEO's compensation. And we hire a Towers parent

and we pay them two or $300,000 because we don't like to do any actual work ourselves. And they come in and they say, okay, New York Times company, you're a $5 billion revenue company in a media space. 50% is the exact, exact median of CEOs of media companies making $5 billion. And this is what happens.

You say, well, Janet Robinson's doing her level best. We'll pay her at 60% because we don't, it feels weird psychologically to pay someone average. But keep in mind, this is the average of CEOs in $5 billion media companies. So you pay them, generally speaking, 60%. But what that means is when you're paying everyone 20% more than the medium, it means every three and a half years,

the compensation is doubling. And what that means is in 40 years, we've gone from CEOs making 30 times average worker salaries to three or 400. Now, essentially what happens is that that metric that, that scale you get is based on the size of the company. So when the bank of America CEO says, I want to make more money. Even if he's making shitty acquisitions that may not pay off in the long term. His compensation goes up based on the size of the company.

So there's this disincentive or you're de-incentivized a little bit from shareholder value, although you have options, but everybody wants to sit on the iron throne of all seven realms versus Westros. And this is why I have always highlighted, uh, Jeff Bukus. He sold the magazine group about two years ago before magazines went into decline. He sold, he sold the cable companies before the, the, before the deployment and cable company, he sold time. He sold Time Warner about five years before it went into structural decline because he said,

my job is to get shareholders as much money as possible, even if it means putting myself out of a job. Do you imagine they would offer this? I don't think they will. I don't think it's just because of money. I think they're hoping to play the long game here and just delay and delay, and obfuscate and delay. When in fact they should have done it, so should Mark. They should spin off YouTube, it would be a very successful company. They need to spin this thing off. They need to just take

their lumps and do it because they clearly use data and other advantages here to dominate the market. And again, if Bill Barr and Kara Swisher are in agreement, it is a real moment in time, I think. And real Republicans don't like this stuff, right? The question is, is Trump going to throw them some sort of lifeline here? Although I'm not quite sure what he can do, because in the advertising case in Virginia, there are state's attorneys general. But the White House looks like it's continuing with Pam Bondii and I'm saying the White House and Pam Bondi,

because there is no independence between the justice department and the White House anymore. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. And give me one quick prediction. I think it's a prophylactic, I think they're so focused on shareholder value. I think a prophylactic spin of WhatsApp, Instagram or YouTube. But WhatsApp is over at Facebook. I know, well, right, or so is Instagram.

But this is Google. Right, but isn't Instagram, isn't Meta also, that case has got more momentum now. Yes, that is also, that is also, but that's in the midst of the case, that hasn't, but go ahead, yeah. Anyways, you asked for a prediction. I think we're gonna see a spin

in the next 12 to 24 months. And by the way, I've been saying that for a long time and I've been wrong. Yeah, well, we'll see. They are definitely, it looks like Tompkins isn't gonna save him a lifeline, but we'll see, he might do that if he gets enough money. Just for people who don't know,

the production of Tesla's Model Y has been delayed. This company has one mess after the next recently. The Model Y, a more affordable version of Tesla's electric SUV, was promised in the first half of this year, a potential way to boost sales. Production plans will be pushed back a few more months, though Tesla still plans to produce them, maybe. They think it's because he wants to double down

on robo-taxis and the Optimus Prime. He thinks that's where the future is, not in these cars. Obviously, people are running circles around him, including Japan and China and others. And legally, it's settled a racial discrimination lawsuit after a black and blue alleged harassment, gender-based insults, and racial slurs on bathroom walls, which were pretty heinous. Tesla's also facing a proposed class action suit claiming this one is amazing, too, claiming it speeds up odometers so vehicles fall out of warranty faster.

What a, oh my God. It's just all over the place. So his car company's given a lot of yips. We're taping this on Monday, Tesla reports earnings on Tuesday afternoon. Any predictions? Like, it looks like he's not interested in making cars anymore or he's making other things. He wants to shift Tesla. And I think it could emerge XAI X and this together in a big.

And Tesla. Yeah. And make it an AI company. Make it an AI company. Oh, that would be really interesting. And use the AI kind of halo as a means of propping up the company. Actually, I think that's really interesting. Look, this company should be a $14 stock

and I'm not suggesting you invest here because it's a meme stock and there's forces outside of your control. And now that the SEC has been neutered, who knows what kind of manipulation has taken place here. But it used to be the CEO from the street, the best thing you could do was kind of under promise and over deliver. And there's still a market for that in traditional mature companies.

It, unfortunately, the, the ground has shifted a bit that in the kind of fake it till you make it economy, it's over promise and deliver just enough. You can under deliver, but just enough. So for example, some of the promises Elon has made, uh, 2200 days ago, he said there would be 1 million Tesla robotaxies within the year. So seven years ago, he said we'd have robotaxies, robotaxies in one year. Uh, nine years ago, he said all superchargers were being converted to solar. And that hasn't happened. Um, another nine years ago, he said, since Tesla started charging customers

for self-driving software that he said would be able to drive from LA to New York city autonomously by the end of 2017. He said that that would happen by the end of 2017. Nearly eight years since the second generation Tesla roadster was announced. You can still pre-order one on Tesla's website for 45 K. That's interesting. Uh, some of the promises that did come to fruition, but the details were still a little fuzzy.

The Cybertruck was scheduled for production in 2021 and was supposed to cost $40,000. It came to market in late 2023 and the base model was over 60k. And it's a heinous looking vehicle. They're getting, yeah, that makes no fucking sense. They're getting hit with- They haven't sold that many. They're getting, yeah, it makes no fucking sense. They're getting hit with- But they haven't sold that many. They haven't sold that many.

They're currently getting hit with a lawsuit concerning the alleged speeding up of odometer readings. Tesla does not have incentives to fib the odometer numbers. Warranties expire faster, meaning less Tesla covered repairs and extending the alleged range of the Tesla, which is, I remember when I was buying used cars, I thought, why don't people just fuck with the speedometer? They did, that was a big thing,

is fucking with the odometer. Yeah, but that's literally kind of like fraud on a different sort of masculine level. It was like, do not ever accuse anyone of fucking with the speedometer, the odometer or whatever it is. So like, I think he's lost interest in it. I think your speculation that they might combine it all

into one company is really interesting. I hadn't thought, I hadn't considered that. Cause he hid to, he hid hiding X's shitty business within the X AI. That's right. By the way, they don't have that many customers. What is their revenues? Open AI is making 5 billion, 6 billion at least, and actually growing.

They have to have, it'll just have this halo. So he's moving it to a new meme stock, just a better meme stock from, because the Tesla meme stock isn't going so well. That meme is over. And then he'll take, and then he's getting all kinds of contracts. He might be in charge of Golden Dome, all this other stuff. And so he's got other, he's got better fish to fry, better women to impregnate, I think here. But anyway, let's go on a quick break when we come back, the Supreme Court's late night rebuke to Trump. Support for today's show comes from Chevrolet. Whether it's a quick jaunt or a long journey, no matter where you're going, the all-electric Equinox EV allows you to travel with confidence, comfort, and connectivity. Equinox EV comes equipped

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Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond, and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. Scott, we're back. The Trump administration has a busy few days. Let's dig in for a few. The Supreme Court handed down a rare overnight order on Saturday blocking Trump from deporting a group of Venezuelan immigrants in Texas. The court's order bars the government for now from using the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime

law from 1798. This was a 7-2 ruling with Thomas and Alito in the minority. Alito wrote in his dissent, the court's decision to intervene was not necessary or appropriate. The Trump administration quickly asked the Supreme Court to roll back the decision, saying the order was premature as lower courts had not properly weighed in. It's none of his business what they're going to do. Actually, they're working. This guy is putting them to work in terms of making decisions. They might try to keep Trump in check, or at least they're at least moving to do so even before things like that.

Also the Trump administration appears to be preparing for a drastic overhaul of the State Department, a plan described by one US diplomat as bonkers crazy pants, and that's a technical term. A draft that's an ambassadorial term as bonkers crazy pants, and that's a technical term, a draft that's a ambassadorial term, bonkers crazy pants. That's all the name of Scott's in my band. A draft of an executive order reveals plans to shut down embassies across Africa and eliminate State Department offices focusing on climate change, refugee, and human rights. So the entire continent of Africa and anything nice for people. The draft also calls for ending a foreign service exam, laying out new hiring criteria in line with the president's foreign policy vision, which means you

have to agree with him. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded to New York Times report on the overhaul on X writing, this is fake news. Oh, little Marco. If these plans do come to fruition, we'll see how it affects our standing abroad. And lastly, and then you can comment all these things, Scott, the White House is reporting looking into new policies that will incentivize more Americans to get married and have kids, according to the New York Times. Some proposals for those policies include a $5,000 cash bonus given to every American mother after delivery.

I wish I got that. Government funded programs educating women on their menstrual cycles to better understand when they conceive. I wouldn't be against it, except it feels very controlling. Giving the National Medal of Motherhood to moms with six or more kids. I'm almost there. As we discussed, this is a cause that's near and dear the hearts of Elon Musk, JD Vance, Conservative Heritage Foundation for his part. Trump recently coined himself the Fertilization President. He's also pitching for the idea of baby bonuses for a while. Let's listen to what he said at CPAC in 2023.

We will support baby bonuses for a new baby boom. How does that sound? That sounds pretty, I want a baby boom. Oh, you men are so lucky out there, I wanna baby boom. You men are so lucky out there, you're so lucky. You are so lucky men. He's so gross, he's so incredibly gross. Anyway, I like your thoughts. Let's start with the first,

which is this Supreme Court situation briefly, go ahead. Well, one of the two pillars of the way we approach justice or the how we prosecute or acquit or deliver justice and some general themes and Alito gave a very eloquent speech on this, I apologize, it was Justice Scalia saying that every nation has a really powerful bill of rights and we keep focusing on when these decisions come down, but that's not the bigger issue. Russia has a bill of rights that says you are entitled to free speech and anyone who gets in

the way of your free speech should be immediately imprisoned. Where a nation's metal and justice system is proven or dissolves is your willingness to enforce those bill of rights. And that's where we are now is that for the first time in our nation, it used to be when the Supreme court or lower court made a decision, it was just a given it was going to be enforced. And that the president wouldn't think of turning back planes against a court order. And we're giving the president credit right now. It's almost as if we're saying, see, he's actually listening to the Supreme Court because we no longer have that certainty.

To me, that's really scary. The other thing is generally speaking, we have decided with our justice system that it is worth the trade-off and there's always a trade-off to have some people who are guilty be free, OJ, versus imprisoning innocent people. Joe Rogan just said this yesterday, but go ahead. Who did? Joe Rogan. Really?

He likes due process. Yes, he did. He said it's better than that. Okay, for him. That 100 people that are guilty get off if one innocent person gets convicted. I think that was his. And right now I can hear a lot of Americans saying,

okay, now do black people, because I think there's a lot of black Americans who've been incarcerated unfairly. But those are kind of two pretty significant tenants. And those have been, so the notion that this Republican talking point of, well, yeah, it's worth it. If there's a couple of people in El Salvador

that shouldn't be, it's worth the general progress we've made. Meanwhile, the 60 minutes that 75% of these folks haven't committed a crime. So I think the bigger issue is we just have to, at this point, make sure that these decisions are upheld because we have a strong man who's kind of picking and choosing it feels like what decisions he's going to decide to comply with. In terms of the natalist movement. Um, I do believe, I mean, I think of a unifying theory of everything around what the democratic message should be.

And I should, I think it should be the following that anyone under the age of 40 who works, uh, should be able to form a household, buy a home or at least afford rent, meet somebody and afford to have children. So minimum wage of 25 bucks an hour, national service, seven million homes in 10 years, do away with capital gains tax and a tax structure that transfers money from young to old, universal child tax credit. There's a ton of actual programs I'd like to see the Democrats actually put forward instead of fucking whining all the time.

But here's the bottom line. It's about economic prosperity such that if the 60% of 30 year olds that had a kid, now it's 27%, want to take it back to 40, that's fine. But at the same time, if they decide they want to not have kids and spend that money on brunch and same barts, that's their right. So I want a program that takes the people

under the age of 40 that are 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago, and not the 72% wealthier of people over the age of 70, and levels up young people and gives them a chance to meet each other and gives them economic viability, but only rewarding them for some sort of kind of weird propagation. The reality is- Having babies, right. It's a good thing to have babies. I've had four kids. I love children. It's that it should be one is your choice if you want or don't want them. But this idea that you didn't put anything else in place, like why isn't he talking about daycare?

If you really want people to have kids, give national daycare to everybody. 100%. Good daycare. Like if you really want to have kids, this is very similar to the abortion thing. If you really want people not to have as many abortions, make it so it's easy to have children perhaps and maybe people would make different decisions. It's the same. They never want to solve and they also don't like the kids after they're born, right? They don't help any of those kids that get born in problematic homes and everything else.

So all they want is, and you can see it, his giveaway was, uh-huh, man, you're going to get to fuck. I think that's really what he was saying. He was saying that. I don't think it. So this idea of baby bonuses is fine. That seems fine. The idea of IVF being inexpensive, great.

It's all like individual grade, but it's not followed by anything that really matters to people who have kids, which is daycare or childcare, which is important at every income level by the way. Even if you can afford it, it's difficult. Same thing with elder care, by the way, on the other side. Also hard. But they don't want to do any of this thing. They just want men to have 14 babies. Elon, what do you care if you're a shitty father?

None of that matters. So just be able to realize these expanded child tax credit would be better or a baby bonus would require an act of Congress, by the way. But expand child tax credit, that's a great idea too. That's right. But just the other things matter much, much more. And Scott is a hundred percent right. If you don't want to have kids, you should not be like, you kind of, as you remember when people were giving money to people, giving people their college, for giving the loans, why does people who have babies get it and people that don't, don't get it? There's that moment.

That's exactly right. Right? Like why do they get money? Because we want them to have babies get it and people that don't, don't get it? There's that moment. That's exactly right. Right? Why do they get money? Because we want them to have babies? That's kind of sick. You need young people who are economically viable. And if you want to talk about a baby boom, you've got to reverse engineer to why the baby boom happened.

And effectively, it was the following. We don't like to talk about this because some of it sounds politically off-putting, but seven million men came home from war, and they had demonstrated heroism and uniform and they were fit. And we put a bunch of money in middle-class homes through the GI Bill, through FHA loans, and we said, okay, young people, here's a bunch of attractive men. Quite frankly, we aren't producing enough attractive men

for the women who have ascended. And we should do nothing, including some sort of weird tax credit that somehow pulls women out of the workforce and how, we should do nothing to get in the way of women's incredible assent. What we need to do is lift up men who quite frankly aren't keeping pace. And the way you lift up men is by lifting up all people under the age of 40 and giving them a chance to meet, giving them a chance to fall in love, giving them economic viability. We have to make, we have to get them together. Do you know, and I know that sounds 40% of nightclubs in London

have gone away since COVID. If people aren't going into work, they're not going into bars. They're not going to church. Where does a man or where does a woman who has a much finer filter for sex? Cause quite frankly, the downside of sex is so much greater, ever have the opportunity to let a man demonstrate excellence. Like where, if you talk to people who've been married longer than 30 years, 75% of them say that one was much more interested in the other in the beginning,

it was always the man that was more interested. Women are just more choosy for very strong instinctual and biological reasons. So where does the man have an opportunity to demonstrate excellence? And now you have men who quite frankly, aren't demonstrating excellence. As women have ascended the earnings ladder and can contribute more to a relationship, men have not filled that gap.

You know what it would have more babies, JD Vance, in case you're interested? And by the way, I have more children than you again, let me stress that, is $25. Hello? Let them, like that would be a baby boom. Housing would cause a baby. 100%. If you really wanted to, we are, we should run the fucking government, Scott Gallo. Seven million new homes, manufactured homes that cost 30 to 50% less than homes built

on site, $25 an hour minimum wage, national service, dual way long-term capital gains. More nightclubs. $25 an hour minimum wage, national service, do away with long-term capital gains. More nightclubs. Quite frankly, subsidies to places, businesses, whether it's putschack, whether it's bars to get young people together, whether it's nonprofits, sports leagues, anything that gets people together so they can go,

you know what, I didn't like him at first, but he's funny. He's nice to his parents. We know how to get people to fuck. Scott and Kara know how to get people to fuck. I'm gonna go out with a group of people. I'm gonna have a few drinks and make a few bad decisions in my payoff.

The most rewarding thing in life is the opportunity to partner with someone, fall in love, and raise children with a competent person and have a government that has wind in your sails to be economically viable so you're not fucking stressed all the time. My point is we need to level up young people. I don't like programs that target specifically one gender

because I think it gets politicized. We need to level up all young people. Yes, I agree. Can I ask you a question? Of course. You mentioned it. So were you the one that was, you know, you said after 30

years, they say which one liked one more. Your wife liked you less than you liked her, correct? At the beginning? I'm just guessing. Is that right? I'll give you the exactly what happened. You've told me this story, but I saw someone wearing nothing but a thong who was wearing at a pool party at the Raleigh hotel.

And I promised myself, I'm gonna speak to that person before I leave to that woman. And she was with another woman and another guy. And without the benefit of alcohol in the light of the midday sun, I thought I'm gonna go up and I'm gonna introduce myself. And I'm like, you can make all sorts of reasons not to take your shot.

It's like, how do you do it? What do you say? So I went out to the valet, I got so angry myself, I went back in and I walked right up to him and I said, hi, I'm Scott. And I introduced myself, where are you guys from? 18 months later, our son's middle name is Raleigh. But I'm saying she liked you less than you liked him.

I'm going, my stories obviously take too long. And I said to them, I hung out with them that day and I said, come to my place and I'll make you dinner. I have no idea how to make dinner. So I called George and Holly Matson, who I was sharing a place and continuum in Miami with. And I said to Holly, I was out on a boat with George, I said, you need to get home and make dinner for me and these three people,

because I'm really into this one ridiculously cool hot woman. And we had a few drinks, we were having a great dinner, we sat down on the couch and I sat down across from her and I said, look, I pride myself on my transparency. This is exactly what happened. There's no adjectives or embellishments. I said, look, I pride myself on my transparency. This is exactly what happened. There's no adjectives or embellishments. I said, look, I pride myself on my transparency. I feel a really nice vibe with you

and I'm super interested in you. And I just feel a really nice connection with you. Do you feel the same? And she paused and thought about it. And she said, no. And the worst part was the pause so she could think about it. Yeah, but she looked around and paused and went, she really wanted to give me an honest answer.

She was moved by my transparency and she's like, let me think. No. No. Then the next weekend, I lied to her and said I was going to a party. It was actually the rehearsal party for my friends George and Holly Madsen, a rehearsal party and she showed up in jeans and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, and she was about to kill me because I lied to her. It was a rehearsal dinner.

And we spent every weekend together for the next three years. Oh my god. Well, there you go. You worked on it. Well, that's good. You know, with Amanda and I, it was equal. I have to say it was equal, although I did say to her, I can't believe she's actually agreed to marry me, when I said I'm beachfront proper,

I was single for a very short amount of time. I haven't been single since I've been. I remember you were dating someone and then you weren't. Yes, I know. I don't wanna talk about that relationship. But Amanda, we went out right away, like immediately after we were fixed up by friends of ours on a blind date, we were fixed up on a blind date.

But I literally said to her something very soon after, like we started seeing each other, it was very equal, I have to say, was that I was beachfront property and she better grab it now. Oh. Do you like that? Beachfront property?

I know. Is that the most obnoxious thing ever? Yeah, that's pretty bad. I'm beachfront property. You better grab it now. It was not, it's going fast, going fast. I'm like a bad condo that's been repossessed in an auction. You're lucky to have me.

Can I have a very brief thing on this bonkers crazy pants, getting rid of our African embassies across Africa. That was the subway. And also cutting all the things that make us Americans, which are refugee help, human rights, climate change, etc. Any thoughts? Look, my view is that with brand, what is a brand? This is a brand, right? That's why I'm asking.

A brand is unearned margin because of soft power, the promise of what you will get if you buy this brand and you got to deliver against the performance. And the promise is what I would refer to in terms of aid overseas is soft power. And people feel good about us. When you see an American embassy, you know it's going to be well-staffed, you know they're polite. You know that if you're an American abroad and you get mistreated, you go straight to the embassy.

And the fact that we're reducing our soft power all over the world, all that means is a reduction in the promise of reduction in our brand, which will reduce our unearned margin across our business relationships, our safety. Do you think how many people on the problem is you're not even going to realize how much damage it does. Do you realize how many people call our intelligence services when they suspect a terrorist cell somewhere? They call American embassies because they're like, you know what? Those are nice people.

They're the good guys and we're losing that. This is the reduction in soft power across America. Also across Africa, we just decided to give Africa over to China anyway. Which by the way has been a hotbed for quite frankly, it's not only playing, not playing offense. America is probably, Africa likely will have the greatest GDP growth over the next 40 or 50 years. It's just kind of time, right?

And it has huge, unbelievable human potential, unbelievable natural resources. At some point, Africa is going to have its moment and we want to be in there in establishing strong business and military relationships. In addition, there are some hotbeds of terrorist activity in Africa, and we want African nations and governments cooperating with us. It all comes down to the same thing.

To believe that you can build a bubble around your shores is just naive. I've always believed you not only take the fight to foreign nations, you take the empathy and the goodwill. It has to be a carrot and a stick. Yep, I agree. It's an astonishing thing. We're just giving stick. Yeah, I agree. This is, it's an astonishing thing. We're just giving up.

Literally, I know it sounds dumb. Do you remember like sort of the image I have of youth is, you know, Hershey bars by GIs and stuff like that. Like all this stuff we did. It sounds like it's such a trope, but it's so like, we are the good, we, we've not always been the good guys, but we're the good guys. And now, now the Chinese are going to be the good guys. And they are not the good guys, but we're the good guys. And now the Chinese are gonna be the good guys,

and they are not the good guys, by the way. It's just grotesque. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back China's latest salvo in the trade war and Netflix. The regular season's in the rear view and now it's time for the games that matter the most. This is Kenny Beecham and and playoff basketball is finally here.

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available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Scott, we're back. China is warning countries not to make any trade deals with the US at China's expense and is threatening retaliation against countries that do. They're doing the carrot and stick situation. China said it was responding to foreign media reports that the Trump administration was trying to pressure other countries as a negotiating tactic. Harming the interests of others for one's own selfish and short-sighted gains is like negotiating

with a tiger for its skin. Oh, that's an interesting metaphor. The Chinese ministry of commerce said in a statement, they went on to say in the end, it will only lead to a lose lose situation. Why do the Chinese seem so reasonable at this moment? What does it make of the strategy? I mean, obviously they're going to have to threaten too, because we're threatening presumably. Our threats mean less and less. I do think that one of Obama's biggest mistakes was not responding when Syria crossed that red line.

You should make very, very few threats, but what they should be is not threats, they should be promises. And unfortunately now we're just, we're threatening everybody. So no one takes this seriously. They're like, I just don't think we have, there's no veracity with our threats.

Because it's like, well, he didn't threaten Canada, but he came after them for no apparent reason. And then when he threatens to ban TikTok, he does. Harvard, it was a mistake? We are not a serious people. It just doesn't, we have absolutely no authority or reliability. We come home every day to a drunk,

manic-depressive, bipolar mate. We don't know who we're waking up against, or we don't know who we're waking up with every morning. And the fact that any nation is going to respond and back down other than saying, oh, okay, sorry, and wow, have you lost weight, Mr. President? And then just back channel to the China and say, hey, we really should have those talks we were talking about, about lowering trade barriers. And China, oh my God, they must be licking their chops, as is Vietnam, as is Turkey, as is the EU.

The EU is, I mean, obviously this has hurt them, but they're making all sorts of, they're doing all sorts, they're working overtime. They're doing all sorts of trade deals right now. Yeah. And they still don't want to turn their back on us if they don't have to. Anyway, amid all the economic turmoil and confusion, one company that is weathering the storm is fine.

And people were worried about this. Netflix, the company reported in its Q1 earnings last week beating revenue and earnings targets. In a letter to shareholders, Netflix said the revenue and profit growth outlook remains solid. It's not making any changes to its forecast for the year. Look, this is the one company that stays going even despite the volatility because it requires, I would imagine maybe making, they make a lot of films elsewhere, but a lot of their stuff is sort

of tariff protected in a weird way, correct? Yeah, I don't see how it's subject. I mean, eventually, eventually it'll impact them. But I mean, this is, this is arguably, I mean, we always say this about a lot of companies, but one of the best managed companies in the world, but arguably the best pivot in the world. They were sending out DVDs. A real insight was they said, the real insight was the best broadband in the world

is the US postal system. That rather than trying to send a movie over pipes, send it in the mail. And then when the pipes caught up to the mail, they said, we're pivoting. And that was the ultimate pivot. And it worked. They then adopted a page out of Bezos playbook and said, if we can paint a really compelling vision for this company and deliver against it on an incremental basis,

we can attract more cheap capital, which gives us more and more money. And we're just going to literally outspend, we're going to overwhelm the competition with capital and they spend $18 billion a year. And then when they kind of pulled ahead and it was clear no one was going to be able to caption in terms of capital, they then globalize the industry and did to LA what Tokyo did to Detroit. And that is they moved huge production facilities overseas. And now they can on $18 million on $18 billion in content, which is what five to eight times what HBO, Apple, all of them spent. Apple, I think spends 5 billion.

They can spend, if they're spending three times what another company spends in gross dollar volume, they can produce four times the content because it's just a better managed company about, I think now almost 40 or 50 percent or maybe even more of their capital is spent overseas in production than spent domestically. Yeah, they really were smart about that. They also brought shows from there, either remade them or use them from there.

They were very good about the globalization. Let me give kudos to Reed Hastings, who has stepped down as executive. He was executive chairman. He was very quite involved to chairman of the board. I met Reed when he was selling those DVDs, I mean, he was moving those DVDs very early in Netflix's history.

And there had been a series of companies like this, if you recall, that were trying to do this, what he was doing. I did a very famous interview with him, I think it was 2007 maybe, with him, the head of Hulu at the time, Jason Kylar, and Chad Hurley, who was the head of YouTube. And we were put down in a basement and I always thought that these three, especially Reed Hastings, really had a vision for the future.

But he really, even though he's dropping his status, he's the pivotal person who made a lot of these decisions and he has smartly followed with executives that he has cycled out some that haven't worked, even though if they did well for a while, I have to say he really has to go down as one of the greatest. I agree, but I mean, and kudos to Reid, he brought in Ted Sarandos and Ted,

whose job as a young man, he ran six or eight video rental stores. I mean, the guy just has a feel for content. And they now are leveraging their platform. They're going into video games, they're going into sports, they're going into, this is a scary one, they're going into podcasting. The really interesting thing would be

the clash of the titans, the celebrity death match would be if Alphabet spun YouTube. I mean, the war between Netflix and HBO and Disney, and that's not the war, that's over. The war, if there is one, is between Netflix and YouTube. That's why they should spin it off. By the way, YouTube happens to be bigger, by the way. 13% versus Netflix at 11.

Yeah, anyway, you're right. And who would be the CEO of that? I mean, they would try to get Sarandos, obviously, right? They'd try to grab him, but. Of YouTube? Yeah. Oh, I think Neil Mohan's done an incredible job. I'm just wondering if they would go, but that would be great.

He has, and before that, another person who I had great regard for, Susan Wojcicki, who died, also did a great job there while she was running it. She was one of the very earliest, in fact, one of the earliest Google executives. They started Google in her garage. So yeah, you're right. YouTube versus Netflix is the story. It's really the story. Anyway. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Why don't you go first this week?

You have an easier time disassociating than me. I've been so stressed and upset about everything that's going on that to just be at the world, Albert Hall, listening to beautiful music that reminded me. I think it was Gloria Vanderbilt, Anderson Cooper's mother, who said that the happiest time in her life or the happiest time she believes in anyone's life is when you have young kids at home. And I do think I'll look back on that and look at that as the happiest time in my life. But feeling that music and that venue,

it was just so extraordinary and just absolutely gave me an hour of peace and emotion to share with someone I care a great deal about in the content. I mean, we just knew exactly how we were both feeling. I felt very connected to London. I felt very connected to music. It was just a nice hour of respite. Does anything else remind you of that? Saul was wearing this shirt that Louie used to wear

this weekend and that gave me the chills in a good way. You know what is incredible is a woman who used to work with me at L2, I don't think I'm speaking out of school. I wouldn't say her name, but she just took on a strategy role at Apple's and she's overseeing memories. You know that, do you have those things that pop up? Yeah. Oh my gosh, that, I'm, you know, as you know, I things that pop up? Yeah, I love them. Oh my gosh,

as you know, I'm fascinated with death. I'm just gonna play that shit over and over and live my life again. Those, that does, music does, seeing certain people does. I mean, that's, and the piece of advice I would give to anyone, especially men who have a tough time with this, you know, from the, I've said this,

from the age of 29 to 45, I didn't cry, I didn't cry when I got divorced, I didn't cry when my mom died, I just kinda forgot how. And it is a real gift to, in a practice, an effort to really lean into your emotions. If you hear something funny, force yourself, this is one of the things I really like about you, you laugh out loud, you have a wonderful laugh

and it's infectious. And it gives everyone else permission to laugh and it just makes everything a little lighter. If something upsets you or it moves you sentimentally, let yourself weep, let yourself cry because it informs what's important to you. When you see a piece of art or a piece of creative that inspires you, sometimes I even rewind it 15 or 30 seconds and say, wow, this is such a wonderful scene.

I want to watch it or I listen to music. Really lean into your emotions because our advantage as a species. You're a crier. You're a crier. Oh, I cry at the drop of a hat. You do. I cry at the drop of a hat.

You really do. I'm scared to watch certain movies with you. And it's one of the things I like. I like the messy part of myself. My kids see me cry all the time. All right, your win, your fail. Excuse me, your fail. Don't rush me through my personal parables.

As I open myself to you and you jab, you jab. But my lesson here is- Oh, come on, I let you cry. I let you cry, I like your cry. Our advantage as a species is our cooperation and the way we cooperate is we communicate a close second is we're able to feel things. That part of our brain is bigger

with the exception of elephants and killer whales, which by the way, should not be locked up in tanks when you realize how emotional they are. If you don't lean into your emotions, you're not taking advantage of what it means to be human. And it's very rewarding. It really informs your life. Otherwise, you're like me, 29 to 45, and just kind of sleepwalking through life and thinking, okay, how do I make more money and have more sex? Which was an empty meaningless experience. It was a pretty good empty meaningless experience, but this is better. Anyways, my win is the Royal Albert Hall and back,

and listening to Morningphase and thinking about my boys. My fail is at the end of the day, management is just one thing. It's your ability to allocate capital to a greater return than your peer group. The cruel truth of capitalism is every organization has a finite or scarce amount of resources. So Tim Cook's job is just to allocate capital more efficiently than the CEO

of Metta or Samsung. And the president has more capital to allocate than anyone in history. And the best allocation of capital, and we talked about this, is the investment in our universities. And probably the greatest innovation in history was our race to split the atom. If we hadn't gotten there first and Hitler had, we'd be doing this podcast in German. And that effort, and one of the things I don't think they did a great job of in the movie Oppenheimer, was nodding to all of the universities that were involved.

Oh, yeah, you're right. And I'm gonna get some wrong here, but Caltech, Berkeley, WashU, Purdue, University of Minnesota, Chicago, you've heard Chicago played a huge role, Rochester, Princeton, all of these universities were working on different things from the effects of radiation to the risk of us lighting the atmosphere on fire. And these individuals were so, who had this incredible esoteric, generic, ridiculously mile deep,

any centimeter wide expertise in something, were all coordinated by the army and the government to try and figure out a way to get there first to literally save the world. That has happened every day since then and has given us unbelievable return on investment. And it's not only capital through investments in our great universities, but it's the ability to attract the best human capital that know how to deploy this capital because they're so brilliant. And when you start sending out errant emails, which by the way, end up are not legal, telling

people, graduate students to self-deport. Let me give you a basic rundown on who our students are in our universities. The undergrads at our elite universities are a mix of rich kids and freakishly remarkable Americans. And then a combination of the two from foreign countries. At business school, I won't speak for other graduate schools, the MBAs are the following. The Americans at business schools

are what I affectionately called the elite and the aimless. They're good smart kids who hated their first job, don't know what the fuck to do with their lives, so they go back to business school to try and figure it out. There's nothing wrong with that, I was one of those people. And then the foreign students are the richest kids from Paraguay, whose dad owns the licensing agreement from L'Oreal and the ultimate luxury brand is to send their kid to NYU or Stanford.

And by the way, those are the kids you want to party with because they're rich kids and they love to party and also they're going to be running their country at some point. And then there's the PhD students. The PhD students, we don't cash their check for $72,000. We pay them and they come here and take on a very narrow topic and they're so good at what they do that they teach students and then they go on to do nothing but focus on a tiny part of the world and decide, I am going to know more about this tiny part of the world than anyone in the world.

Arguably the most impressive cohort in America is our PhD students. We get the Tom Brady's of every nation who decides, I'm super into liquid particle propulsion dynamics, and I'm gonna go to the University of Wisconsin at Madison and devote my life to it. We find these people that have done nothing but go so fucking deep around this specific topic that they know more about it than anyone in the world.

And yet we've decided we want to scare these people from coming here. We haven't. One person has decided. Well, we elected this guy. But it's as if we're a team and we get the number one draft choices from everywhere. And then Tom Brady shows up and we said, you know, Tom, I hate to say this, but there's a chance he might show up one day and ICE might be there and ruin you and your family's life for no goddamn good reason.

We are scaring away one of our core competences. Our core advantages globally is not only the fact that we allocate capital to this university, but we attract the finest human capital to allocate this capital, resulting in unbelievable innovation that has driven prosperity, that has driven unearned margin. My fail is an unnecessary turning away of the strongest human capital in the world. And that is our... You meet a... Just trust me on this. You meet a PhD student from India.

I don't care what fucking field there are. You're talking to someone who was the best at their elementary school, then the best in their region, then the best in their, their state, and then the best at IIT and then figured out a way to come to the University of Pennsylvania and study options theory and helps banks figure this shit out. It is incredible what they're doing here. The destruction around, not just there, but in any way.

Okay, mine are. I have so many wins today. One, I recommend you reading Larry David's My Dinner with Adolf, which is a sort of a tech. It's a very funny thing of him having dinner with Adolf Hitler and making fun of Bill Maher. It's very, very, very funny. Bill Maher needs to step down on defending. Nobody thinks you shouldn't have had dinner with him, Bill. You're moving into Gail King territory here in defensiveness. But it's really funny, Larry David's little essay in the New York Times. I love Larry David so much. My other win is, more seriously, is Alaska Senator Lisa Markowski, one of the few Republicans criticizing Trump. She admitted last week she was afraid and fears retaliation,

but she's doubling down and being sort of a leader in that way. And she has won, she won despite an attack by Trump in the last election, so she's safer than most people at this moment in time, but good for her for doing that. And I think it's infectious, just like Scott was just talking about at universities. When Harvard did it, then MIT did it, then others did it. Now, Columbia looks like it might be finding its spine at some point. So I really admire her for doing that. Also, just for a little thing, this is a picture, speaking of medical students, this is a picture my mom found of my dad from, it fell out of a drawer of hers this week. And this is me as a

kid. My mom's pregnant with my brother, but there's our little family. Being very fecund Donald Trump, but we did it because my dad was a poor guy, like you said, and he got a break. He went to the Navy, paid for medical school, built his family, was able to lift himself up from not poverty in West Virginia, but not means in order to go to West Virginia and to go school there and stuff. So- That's nice. in order to go to West Virginia and to go school there and stuff. That's nice. And then my fail is this continued, it's sort of coming together. Wired has a piece, something I have talked about on this podcast. The scale at which Doge is seeking to interconnect

data, including sensitive biometric data, is unprecedented, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to the disastrous privacy violations for citizens and immigrants alike. I've always said their game was uniting the data. I heard this weekend, I'm not going to say who it was, by someone who's considering leaving the United States. European countries are offering our greatest technologists, speaking of what you're talking about Scott, it dovetails perfectly. Countries are trying to get our technologists to go there by giving them visas so they're

safe. And a lot of people who I never thought would consider it are considering it because they feel retaliation. The thing, the executive order against Chris Krabs has been chilling to a lot of people I know who've been working on really important things. And the whole point of DOGE is to unite this data, as I've said, to create an Uber data situation which has never been united, to create an ability to cross-reference things that have never been cross-referenced and for good reason.

It's not for efficiency. They don't do it. It's because we're scared of creating a surveillance state the way they have in China. And so the fact that it's a reverse brain drain going on really dovetails on what Scott was talking about about is we are rejecting the finest from elsewhere, but our own people will be leaving our country to develop in other countries. And that is the biggest tragedy of this. At the same time, the government is creating an uber database. I have said this over and over again.

I know you said Elon's leaving, but the legacy of what he's doing here is Over and over again, I know you said Elon's leaving, but the legacy of what he's doing here is incredibly dangerous for our freedom as far as I'm concerned. So I think we should pay a lot of attention to these databases being joined in a way that you'll be searchable and findable. And there will be so many mistakes in the data that it's terrifying. A lot of people considered dead that aren't dead have to prove they're not dead now. People that are getting arrested that are American citizens now, we shouldn't be arresting these immigrants without due process. But now it's moving because of mistakes and everything else. And also it will not be mistakes at some point. So we should be very wary about what DOJ is doing

in that regard and pay attention even if Elon's been out of the news a little bit recently because of so many other ridiculous situations. So I just please pay attention to that. My art has a great story on that this week. And so that is my fails. We don't pay attention. They will have all our information and then do terrible things to us. CB I'm sort of blown away by your speculation or thesis that both the government and Musk are bringing all this information together to develop sort of one, I don't know, Skynet of surveillance, of surveillance control and capital. It'll be used against immigrants first, but it's always for more.

And by the way, I don't want Democrats having this power either, FYI. I don't want any of them having this power. You can have your opinion about whatever you thought about the various things of leaking information, but the government should never have this much power and information about people in one place. It will always be abused, as has been shown throughout history. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech

or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, I talked with Melinda French-Gates and on with Kara Swisher. Let's listen. I never with Melinda French Gates and on with Kara Swisher. Let's listen. I never, never would have guessed that USAID would essentially be folded. You know, it was endorsed by Republican and Democratic administrations because they saw that people could live where

they were if they had good health and they had peace and some chance for prosperity. And so to see that 16 million women won't have access to maternal health services because of that pullback, how does that make us look better? How does that help us with peace? That's just what you were saying, Scott, same thing. You and Melinda Gates are on the same wavelength. Also, I'll be interviewing Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, speaking of badass women, live on stage at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. this coming Monday,

April 28th, a week from now. If you want to hear a smart conversation about semiconductor chips, industrial policy, and the future of AI, Google Kara Swisher and Lisa Su, SU to RSVP, tickets are free. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.

Today's show is produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Severio and Dan Shalon. Nishant Kherwaz, Mia Severio, and Dan Shalon. Neshat Kherwaz, Vox Media's Executive Producer Podcast. Make sure you subscribe to this show

wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pop. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Beck's morning phase.

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