Pivot - Stimulus package stalled, how Airbnb, Tesla and Uber fare during COVID-19, and Corey Johnson (NYC Speaker) on small businesses and New York on “PAUSE"

Episode Date: March 24, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about the stimulus package in limbo and the Defense Production Act. They break down how tech companies like Lyft, Airbnb and Tesla are pivoting in the COVID-19 crisis. They think Airbnb probably won’t go public this year. In Friend of Pivot, we talk to New York City Speaker Corey Johnson about how New York City is the US epicenter for COVID-19 cases. He discusses the possibility of rent freezes, the new “PAUSE” order and how small businesses are faring in the upheaval. In wins and fails, Kara thinks Rand Paul being the first Senator to test positive for COVID-19 — and exposing other congresspeople to the disease is a major fail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, where are you right now again? We came home last night to Delray Beach, Florida. We live in a small town of Gulfstream. As I told you, the timing was inopportune. We were homeless in between houses and living with my in-laws, which is unacceptable given the situation. So we took off from Mexico and came home last night and are staying at a friend's place. Wow. Wow. You're like wandering. That's an interesting problem. So you had to get back because of all the declarations of people coming back to the United States, correct? You might have had to stay there. Yeah. Had it been up to me,

Kara, I probably would have stayed down there. I was quite comfortable down there. My family, or specifically my wife, just wanted to get back and cook in a kitchen. And, you know, it's really interesting, right? It's not, there's just such a draw to home, regardless of, I kind of wrote down a matrix around, okay, let's look at all the different scenarios here and do a weighted adjusted outcomes average because that's just the way I think. But the call to just get home is just so strong. Absolutely. And so, we decided last night to come home. And we're, you know, I wanted to just take a second to talk about this a little bit.

And that is, I think as we, I think we've spent a lot of time kind of evaluating what our leaders should or should not do or what they've done or not done well and talking about the world and the greed of, you know, should I buy Amazon, you know, injects, a lot of people are starting to realize that any great effort or any great war effort wasn't a function of not just the leadership, but it was a function of, in World War II, the Russian people had this just unbelievable willingness to sacrifice any one of them. The British had this incredible calm where regardless of being bombed every day from the skies by spookers during the Blitzkrieg, they just remained calm and carry on. And the Americans were incredibly innovative and productive and turned their incredible corporate manufacturing machine into a war machine. And I think that you're seeing a lot of Americans be very innovative and

also very generous. And I think key to this is that nothing really wonderful here is going to happen unless we have a collective effort of 350 million Americans. And there's really two key components. And the first is to ask for help. And the second is if you're in a position to provide for help to provide. And we ask for help. My wife sent out an email saying, we don't have a place to stay. And immediately some friends we know, good friends, said, we're in Montana, you can have our house. But if you don't ask, you might put yourself in a position where you become a tax on the government, a tax on other friends, or things get out of control. And then if you're in a position to provide, we've been trying to help some other friends out with some other stuff. But I do think that people have to get comfortable asking and providing really quick.

I think we're starting to see that. But it's a key component to getting past this, is people have to be very open and honest. I'm going to take the opposite side. I'm seeing, like my brother was just writing, that Marin County parks in California were full this weekend, people not social distancing. I know they need to get out and they're stir crazy, but they had to close the parks, all the Golden Gate parks. if people hadn't just rushed to them so quickly. The other thing is, you know, there's all kinds of messages on conservative media, especially social media, that the cure is. And Trump tweeted this last night, which I thought was super irresponsible.

Maybe the cure is worse than the virus or the problem. And it sort of was just totally irresponsible and people still going out to stuff that they shouldn't go out to. I think it's still a there was a great story by Don McNeil, who's an amazing reporter for The New York Times, who listed 10 different things that needed to happen, most of which are not are just not happening. One of which was, you know, they should give the press conferences over to scientists and not Donald Trump. And it was really astonishing. He meandered for an hour yesterday on these press conferences. Just obviously, he can't have campaign events and he's using them as a campaign. It's so clear that he's using them because he throws in all kinds of rude remarks like about Mitt Romney being quarantined. And it's really,

I mean, these people really have to not go out with friends. They have to not go out to things. And certain states are quarantined and certain are not. But especially in these hot zones like California and New York, and increasingly Florida is going to be another one of those states, is really important to just have to sacrifice. And I think it's really interesting. I think our country's changed drastically in that regard. I think other countries have behaved and ours is not doing that as much as they need to. And I know we're a bigger country

and everybody, you sort of have this independent streak in the US, but, and I don't want to sound like your mama, but Jesus, like it's really, it's going to continue and get worse if that doesn't if it doesn't, you know. But these are these harsh steps. And one of them, I mean, Don McNeil was amazing in terms of talking about them. One is scientists must be heard, which means these press conferences can't be run by Trump, who literally in our Mandarin, you have to stop transmission between cities. This is another one which is critically important. Stop transmission within cities, which is also critically important. Fix the testing masks.

I mean, a lot of them are just massive, heavy. Isolate the infected. That's a critically important thing is to find out who's infected and isolate them. Find the fevers. Trace the contacts, which I, you know, oddly enough, I watched Contagion this weekend. Have you watched that lately? It's quite good. It's really quite amazing. I think everybody's watching it. It's so good. Yeah. But just to your point, I do think they're two separate things, Cara. One is what I

was referencing was that I think it's important that people reach out if they need help. And I think you're seeing a lot of people who, when a hand is extended, a digital hand is extended, I want to be clear, are saying, sure, I can help. And I think a lot of that is going on, and I think we're going to need a lot more of it. Just as we're socially distancing, I think we're going to have to digitally embrace more people. And if you're in a position of security and comfort and with your family and safe, that you need to start reaching out to other people to make sure they're okay. What you're talking about is a function or derivative of one simple fact. And that is if everyone in this nation was able to distance themselves six feet from every other person for 14 days, this virus would perish.

Yes, that's right. That is all we would need to do. 14 days, six feet from each other, the virus perishes. And so every degree away from that— Because we'd know who was sick, because we'd know exactly who was sick, by the way, so we could isolate them. But go ahead. That's exactly right. And it would stop transmission. In 14 days, this thing could go away. So every degree away, every failure rate away from that six feet of distancing for 14 days lets this thing march on. And you have to be, you know, I want to be clear. I was one of those guys that, as you know,

three weeks ago was saying, I think this was more hype than horror. And here's the thing, when the data changes, I change my mind. What do you do? And this is what you should do, meaning everyone. The data has changed remarkably here. We are seeing entire, we are seeing super spreaders. We are seeing healthcare systems overrun. We are scaling. We are scaling. We are growing. Our curve here is now steeper than the curve was in Italy at this point. And Italy has gotten very, very ugly, very Right. And so the starting point is the following. Could I distance for six feet from everybody for 14 days? That is what you work back from.

That may not be possible for everybody, but I personally think we need to do what Israel did and pass legislation to start tracing people. I think it should be an opt-in via their phone. I think you should be able to opt in to say, can I get alerts or would you like to get alerts? I'm notifying you if and when you have come in contact. But I think that, I mean, if you look at the pattern here, what's unfortunate is, or interesting, is that the poorer nations tend to be more compliant and tend to be doing a better job. You know, as usual, we think it all comes down to money. Oh, those poor nations, it's going to go crazy. They're all going to die. And what's happened is actually the poor nations have been more compliant and more civic-minded than some of the rich nations that, quite frankly, are a little bit more indulgent, a little bit more

narcissistic, and a little bit more used to personal freedoms. But this is the starting point. Six feet away from everyone for 14 days, and this thing goes away. this is the starting point six feet away from everyone for 14 days and this thing goes away that's the starting point 100 so let's talk about this big story which does continue and i know it's been i think a lot of people want to talk about other things we will but there's these are really important because pretty much every company is focused on this um let's paint a a cheery picture for you sc Scott. According to many economists, the recession appears certain, meaning two consecutive quarters of economic decline. Morgan Stanley sees the U.S. economy plunging 30 percent in the second quarter. It was 4 percent last week that they were

estimating. Congress, the stimulus package is coming. They still are stuck on a couple of things, including this huge $500 billion fund that would be at the discretion of steve mnuchin to give out to people and they're looking at as possible the democrats think it is corporate gimmies um in terms of people being able to do whatever they want with the money of course trump was going on about we're not venezuela it wasn't quite following him exactly i think talking about nationalizing certain things but he wants to be able to have as much flexibility as possible. I think a lot of $500 billion in the hands of Donald Trump is a problem. As of Sunday night, Democrats blocked the proposal. It says it fails to adequately protect workers and impose strict restrictions

on bailed out businesses. So they have reached agreements on boosting unemployment insurance payments, billions of dollars for healthcare providers, loans to small and medium-sized businesses, and they're still negotiating boosting paid leave, which it was a very small group of people that got paid leave and left big employers out of it, which was a gimme to corporations, financial help for distressed industries like U.S. Airlines. And so that's going on. At the same time, I'm going to go through all of them. Many politicians have urged the president to fully employ the Defense Production Act to get supplies to hospital workers. Trump has not enforced it yet, though he has signed it. The act allows broad authority to direct private companies to meet the needs of national defense.

Again, he was comparing us to Venezuela, not making people, waiting people to come over the transom and offer to make things like ventilators. as well as not making people, waiting people to come over the transom and offer to make things like ventilators. And meanwhile, Senator Burr and many, several other senators, Kelly Loeffler, reports that he and others sold off huge portions of stock in early in February. In private, he told business leaders that COVID-19 outbreak would be catastrophic in the U.S. Publicly, he backed Trump's party line that the U.S. outbreak was under control. And if you remember this from Larry Kudlow, contained, almost completely contained, which it isn't. So what do you think of the stimulus package? And then we'll get to each of these things. Well, a lot there. I think you summarized it well. I think Democrats are worried that this is being used again, yet again,

as another opportunity to explode our deficit such that we protect our national treasure, which are shareholders, which are companies, as opposed to protecting people. And there is an argument, and it's a valid one, that there are certain industries that will collapse, and their collapse will create so much collateral damage that it'll only make things worse for people. For me, it all comes down to structure, and that is any money that comes from the government, and the Obama administration did this correctly, I believe, is that it's got to be in the form of a convertible preferred. And that is if the airline industry says, look, we're about to go out of business and take 300,000 people down with us, and there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to survive this, we just need money. It shouldn't be grants.

It should be in the form of debt, meaning that it's a loan, and it either gets paid back or it gets converted into equity if the companies come rolling back. The money that was lent to the banks, the government actually made money. That was a bailout that worked. The bailout of the auto companies, that was a bailout that worked because these companies were viable businesses that had a trope event. And when they took that capital and survived and came back, the government and taxpayers got that money out. That was the correct structure. But just having Steven Mnuchin writing checks to industries whose CEOs have given money to the Trump campaign is really, really dangerous and a bad idea.

So what they're going to have to do, give it up or who's, again, they're still politically selling it. It's really kind of crazy that they're trying these things at this moment in time. And I mean, I get the idea that we have to help these companies and that through helping companies, we help workers, but direct help for workers. So many stories about people really just plain out suffering. And other countries are, you know, and other companies in other countries are, you know, protecting workers, giving them up to 75% of their salary indefinitely at this point. And so it's a really interesting juxtaposition is that we should save the corporations before we save people. But I think most people, I get their overall argument,

but it certainly really falls down with the idea that Trump being able to hand out $500 billion a gimme seems problematic, to say the least. They're also talking about a package, a loan package or a loan program to small business where you could get up to, I believe it's one month's worth of expenses in the form of a loan. And that loan could be forgiven to the extent that you don't lay off employees and the amount of your employee payroll costs that month could be forgiven. And then back, flipping back to the large corporations, you know, the tough pill to swallow here is that a lot of these airlines have taken between 90 and 98 percent of their profits and use it to buy back stock,

which is, I don't want to call it financial which is... Yeah, buy back, that's another thing. I don't want to call it financial engineering, but it's basically an efficient way to return money to shareholders. And I understand why companies do it, but it's like, well, you take a risk when you do that. And the risk is when the tide goes out, right? And the tide has gone out. And there is, while everybody, you know, while the Republican Party and Americans and

leaderships always like to call themselves capitalists, part of capitalism is that when there is a trope event, companies go out of business. And that sounds harsh, but the companies that were very conservative, the companies that didn't spend a ton of money on share buybacks, that let their share price perhaps be lower but maintained a ton ton of cash on the balance sheet that got a lot of grief for it, well, they should be rewarded, quite frankly, for that conservatism. And the companies that have, I would say, lived more aggressively and bought back shares more aggressively, quite frankly, they're shit out of luck. And so, you know, if several, if a lot of businesses don't go out of business here, in my view, we've done something wrong. This is, this is, or let me put it this way, stop pretending that we're capitalists. Yep, that's a fair point.

That's a fair point. Now, the Defense Production Act, this idea of forcing people to make things, Trump has not enforced it. What do you think about that? Well, there's this weird, there's just this weird dynamic developing where it feels like the Trump administration is starting to set up this dynamic. He said something, he said, we're not a shipping service or a courier, where he's basically saying to the states, you know, kind of good luck, you're on your own, and it's up to the states. And almost as a means of saying it was never our responsibility and trying to immunize themselves from blame around this.

And it strikes me that anything around the supply chain, that this is a judgment call. I don't know enough about supply chain. I'd love to get a guy like a Mark Ibbotson from Walmart or an Oliver Sloan from Amazon. I would love to get a supply chain expert to say, what does it mean to federalize the supply chain here? And does it make sense? Because I get literally irate,

and I'm pretty sure you do, every time I read a story about the fact we don't have enough ventilators. I'm like, we can put, we can produce, we can produce, you know, 4 million devices that have more processing power than Apollo 13 called a smartphone every seven days, but we haven't figured out a way to produce more ventilators?

Yeah, well, he doesn't want to make them. He kept saying Venezuela. I don't know why that was his country. We can't nationalize industries. I was like, sure, we can on ventilators. We can do that. They're not doing anything else right now. They might as well make ventilators, you know what I mean, which really is helpful.

Well, they're talking Ford and General Motors. It's really interesting. Ford and General Motors. It's really interesting. Ford and General Motors. They want them to call them. That's what they said. They prefer them being called rather than them ordering them. Right, right. They're twisting their arms, I guess.

I don't know how much of it is hype because it's an item we can focus on, but I've heard the auto companies are starting to ramp up production. There's a lot of notion around innovation that, I mean, first off, let me back up. The wonderful thing about our species and the reason that we are kind of at the top of the food chain, it's not because we're the strongest, smartest, or fastest, it's because we're the most adaptable. And if you look at any race that's died out or survived, it comes down to one thing, adaptability. And it's important that we look at the data as this goes on and learn from it. And one of the things we're learning, and there's some bad things we're learning, we're learning that young people are not immune. We're learning that the mortality rates are probably lowered.

And that makes sense just as the denominator gets bigger and we get better testing, we find out the mortality rates are, in fact, lower. What we're also finding out is that oxygen, in most cases, can replace ventilation. That in a lot of cases, people who have oxygen can serve. We're also finding that ventilators can be hacked to serve numerous people. And we're going to find, as there's certain types of technology or companies producing technology that can be switched over, just as we switched washing machines over to propellers and aircraft engines, we're going to find out that we can do ventilators. But I think that kind of what I'll call the pointing fingers and figuring out who's responsible, I'd like to think that is subsiding and people are saying, all right, I got this, we can handle. The scary

dynamic that's developing is the federal government seems to be in protection mode and starting to say, dynamic that's developing is the federal government seems to be in protection mode and starting to say, well, it's not our responsibility, it's yours to the states. And that doesn't feel like the right war footing. Yep, yep, I agree with you. I think it's, I watch these things, even though they're saying don't broadcast them anymore, because I'm fascinated by the self-regard and stuff like that, that people are, some people are sucking up actually. And then Leslie said, uh, Senator Burr, uh, and, and others who have been benefiting, this is just, they should be prosecuted. That's the only thing I could think, like, come on, like, this is just really the worst. If this is what, you know,

this was in ProPublica, Kelly Loeffler was another one. She's making excuses that her husband does what he wants with their money, uh, in her name. Uh, in his case, it looks like he immediately sold when he understood the problems. What do you do about these? These people are briefed with lots and lots of information that the American public wasn't getting. And also he was sort of backing Trump's idea that this was no big deal. Well, I don't want to be an apologist because you hear this and it's just gross. You're providing one narrative to the public. Meanwhile, you're

selling like crazy, right? Because you believe something different. Trading stocks is largely a function of wealth management diversification, but it's also based on information. And once you feel you have insight into something, you buy or you sell. Whether it's you and I on a show, we keep hearing about Cloudflare or cybersecurity, and we say, okay, I'm going to buy Cloudflare because I have special insight into that. You can see, or at least I sort of empathize, that these individuals felt like they saw something and they said, okay, let's sell this stock. And that's something that happens every day. What needs to happen here full stop is that if you decide to run for Senate, if you decide to run for the House of Representatives, there's a lot of wonderful

things about it. And clearly there are a ton of wonderful things about it because they all cling to fucking power like it's life and none of them seem to ever want to give it up or actually go home and retire. So if it's so wonderful, one of the things you're probably going to have to give up, and there should be legislation and laws around this, is that once you're elected to the Senate, once you take an oath in the House, your assets go into a blind trust that is managed by a third party that you have no control over. There's just too many potential conflicts. These people have too much power. They get to see national security briefings on what is happening and what assets might be purchased in bulks of billions before the market sees these things. They see that shit every day. And the fact that Donald Trump still has power over his assets, again, is more,

in my opinion, more evidence of this problem that turns into corruption. So this hopefully turns into something good. You're elected to the highest bodies of the land, the greatest legislative bodies in history. Boom, sorry, your assets go into a private trust, which quite frankly is probably better off for all of them in the long run. Yeah, in the end, you're 100% right. And then lastly, and we have a friend of Pivot coming on in a second, is companies like tech companies, Uber and Lyft. Lyft, they were up a little because Lyft announced it will work with healthcare, government, and nonprofits to give away tens of thousands of rides to people in need. It includes everything from delivering medical supplies, getting patients critical medical appointments. And Airbnb, which I think is the biggest company hit here, which was

sort of going to be the great public offering this year. Their bookings are down 95% in Asia, 75% in Europe, and 50% in the U.S. In an open letter, they asked federal policymakers that they consider measures to financially support Airbnb hosts and gig workers, really. And these are gig workers in a lot of ways during this time of crisis, but that hasn't stopped frustrated hosts to take to the internet to suggest a class action suit against the company.

I don't know what they could possibly sue them for, the COVID virus. And then meanwhile, over at Tesla, Elon Musk keeps saying he should work on ventilators, but he's not being clear when and what, whatever. That's just Elon tweeting over there. But Airbnb, I think, is really interesting. And these other companies, which must be hit. I haven't taken an Uber and a Lyft, neither have a lot of people in two weeks, I think. Yeah, but that's a great contrast.

Let's look at Tesla versus Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb, their innovation, if you will, was they took these fallow assets that were being used 4% of the time, cars, and certain properties, people are are in 30 to 50% of the time. So they had these assets that weren't being monetized or utilized to their full capacity. And it's a better business on certain levels because, again, it comes down to their ability to variabilize their costs. Whereas Tesla can variabilize by telling everyone to go home and putting them on furlough, although it probably has to pay most of them. They can take their costs down 20%, 30%, 50%. But the raw materials are hugely, you know, the batteries that they already ordered are hugely expensive.

The factory, the rent they have to pay on their real estate and their factories is hugely expensive, their solar farms, etc. Airbnb will be the biggest IPO. Airbnb will be the biggest IPO. It'll just be the biggest IPO of 2021 because like Uber and Lyft, they can variabilize their costs way, way down. And I don't believe some people have said that people are going to rethink living in other people's places. I don't think that's true. No, they won't. They'll go right back to it.

Right. That's like saying they'll never go to hotels again. Of course they will. That's like saying they'll never travel again, planes again. Of course they will. Yeah, people forget very quickly. They're variabilized down their cost structure. If no one's taking an Uber, guess what? If Uber's down 90% in terms of revenue, their costs are probably down 70%. If Tesla's revenues are down 90%, their costs are probably down 30%. It's getting people back to driving and stuff like that. That'll be a lift for them, getting people to rent their apartments.

I think renting apartments is a lot easier, getting people to do that. And I think you're right. People will forget really quickly. But I do think there's some level of problem getting, you know, when you lose, like, when someone, a local coffee company here in DC, they laid off everyone. And I thought, wow, it's going to be, is it going to be hard to get them back or easy to get them back? Or I was just thinking about that. They laid off everyone. And when they are going to hire again, and Starbucks, of course, closed all its stores, what do they do once they aren't paying?

Like, it's a heavy lift to get everyone back and working. And I think that's the issue that these companies face, like other companies, not just tech companies. But they certainly, you're right, they do. But they do have this issue. But it's definitely, we're going to have no Airbnb IPO this year. There's going to be no IPOs at all, I would assume, whatsoever. There'll be some direct listings of companies that are actually doing fine. I'm an investor in an online mortgage company that is just tearing it up right

now because it's all done digitally. And obviously, people are refinancing like crazy because rates have plummeted. But there are, you know, what's really interesting is to talk about a post-corona world. And one of the things I've noticed immediately is that in frothy times, we look to nose rings and beards and shuffleboard. We want millennial visionaries. In periods of stress or crisis, we want gray hair. We want a steady, deep voice. We want Angela Merkel to say, all right, I'm a quantum chemist. Germany, 70% of Germans are going to get this, but guess what? We have this. We're very smart. We're going to pull together. And also, I don't know if you've seen, it's extraordinary how low the mortality rates are across Germany, given they have as many cases as Spain and I think

a fraction of the deaths. But anyways, back to post-corona, what I've noticed is, for example, with my company, I work for an online education startup, I made an offer to a woman who I've worked with before who is just brilliant. And she was contemplating it. She also had an offer to be a very good offer from a Fortune 100 consumer firm. And she was about to join us, and then this hit, and she's going with the large consumer firm. Because there's something very appealing about a company right now that has staying power, a huge balance sheet, healthcare. And also, quite frankly, their stock has been cut in half, meaning that the options that this person's going to get might be worth a lot more. their stock has been cut in half, meaning that the options that this person's going to get might be worth a lot more. So, people are, all of a sudden, people are thinking this boring, this boring,

fuddy-duddy company that I work for seems a lot better than it did a few weeks ago, because I know they're not going anywhere. I know they're going to be fine. Where startups right now, I mean, I get together with a group of entrepreneurs in Silicon Alley in New York, a third of us just might be swept off the decks in the next 90 days. If you're caught in the part of the cycle, small companies are generally raising money every 18 months. If you're on the back half of that nine months where you were about to raise capital, and you're in this—a lot of venture capitalists are just looking and going, maybe this is the excuse to pull the plug on this company. Yeah, which they're doing. Which they're doing. which they're doing.

Which they're 100% doing. There's a, you know, whereas everybody was looking, I bet in business school this year, the second year of business school, where they go to work is always very interesting. You're going to see a massive pullback from startups, and you're going to see a lot of people decide, you know, I'm going with that boring, well-resourced company that's going to be around. 3M is going to get a much greater yield out of undergrad and grad school this year. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Scott, we have to take a quick break, and we're going to be right back with Friend of Pivot. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. Okay, we're back. New York State is the third largest economy in America and a new epicenter of COVID-19 cases. New York City and its suburbs now account for about 5% of global cases.

The state has over 15,000 confirmed cases, according to the Department of Health, but those numbers are rising quickly. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered all non-essential workers to work from home, which started at 8 p.m. Sunday night. all non-essential workers to work from home, which started at 8 p.m. Sunday night. Essential workers include hospital workers, elder care, walk-in care clinics, public utilities, airports and airlines, hotels, pharmacies, gas stations, grocery stores, and the news media. Four temporary hospitals are being built as directed by Governor Cuomo. So we're on the line with one of the New York City's top leaders, New York City Council Speaker, Corey Johnson, to talk about what's happening on the ground. Corey, how are you doing? I'm okay, Cara. Every day is a little rough, but just trying to take it a day at a time.

So let's talk about how these shelter-in-place measures are working. Well, it just started last night, really, Sunday night at 8 p.m., and I think there has been pretty broad compliance where you've seen bars and restaurants and retail stores and office buildings closed last night, but also closed today. I think the real difficult thing is New Yorkers aren't sure how long this is going to go on for. And that uncertainty causes a tremendous amount of anxiety. This is a challenge unlike anything we've ever faced before. People are comparing it to what we as a country went through during World War II. I think that's an apt comparison. And like during World War II, we are going to have to make sacrifices and we will.

They were known as the greatest generation. And if we act selflessly, I hopefully will be known as that as well. So what industries do you think are going to be most impacted long term in New York City? We'll get to people in a second, but what are you most worried about as someone who's essentially running the city along with Mayor de Blasio and other council members? I'm most worried about our small businesses, our bars, our restaurants, our mom-and-pop stores, our small retail establishments, the hospitality industry, hotels, all of these jobs that really make up the backbone of New York's economy, both at the neighborhood level, the small businesses, bars and restaurants,

economy, both at the neighborhood level, the small businesses, bars and restaurants, but also the hospitality industry, which is so important for tourism. In 2018, we had 68 million tourists visit New York City, the highest number ever recorded. And before this crisis began, unemployment was at 3.9 percent, one of the lowest numbers ever recorded. So those local small businesses, the bars and restaurants and other ones like that are the ones that I'm most worried about because unless the federal government steps up in a real way that helps out businesses like that,

it's going to be hard for them to ever come back. Well, how do you reenter? How is your, is the federal government helping them? Or is it something that you all can do as governors of that city and of that state? Well, we're going to see this week what happens with the congressional bill. The Senate Republicans put forward a bill which would not have helped them. The Democrats in the House are wanting to do something, I think, that would help small businesses in this way.

I put forward a plan, just the beginning of a plan last week to start the conversation on asking for $12 billion from the federal government for New York City. And that $12 billion would do a few things. Number one, it would expand unemployment benefits to people that aren't currently covered in unemployment. So gig economy workers, freelancers, it would create broader eligibility. Number two, it would help a lot more people in small businesses. And it would also create a UBI, universal basic income, on top of whatever the federal government gives, because we know the cost of living is more expensive in New York City. So I put forward that plan last week. I hope that the New York congressional delegation is able to get some of that in. We also saw that the MTA, which

you and I spoke about before, has a $4 billion budget deficit now. And so we need that money to come through from Congress as well, given how important the MTA is for New York's economy. Corey, this is Scott Galloway. First off, thanks for your good work and your constant or your vigilance around this issue. If there was one thing you could ask New Yorkers and New York businesses or institutions, I work for NYU, if there's one thing you could ask of New York citizens or of businesses and institutions around the city, what would that one thing be? Well, for individuals, it would be to stay at home. And as hard as that is for so many people, we know that it will save lives. It is not

a cheap mantra. It is really just a truth. We want people to stay home because we have to halt transmission. Our hospital systems are already getting overwhelmed. We know that it's going to get significantly worse over the next few weeks. So every person that we halt transmission to will ease things up just a little bit. So that's the most important thing to do if you're a non-essential worker is to stay home. For institutions and businesses, I think right now is a time to really try to look out for your employees or former employees. What does that mean? That means making sure that they're getting the emergency food that they need. It means that you're making sure that they can qualify for unemployment benefits

in the right way. We have this dual crisis. We have the healthcare crisis that's upon us, and we have the economic crisis that's hitting us day by day, where you have now hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed people. And that is a really scary, painful combination that the largest city in the United States of America is going through right now. And the two things that we can do are have people stay home to help with the health crisis that is intensifying every single day. And then on the economic crisis, we need to come together and help each other. I'm not sure the feds are going to do it for us. So we as a city, a business community and the nonprofit community are going to have to look out for

currently poor New Yorkers, but also the entirely new class of unemployed people who are really going to be struggling economically. Yeah. Also, do you expect the Navy ship coming to offer much reprieve in the hospital part of the, because it's also the hospitals being overwhelmed because the denseness of New York, I think people in other parts of the country don't understand how, you know, incredibly dense it is. I think it's probably one of our densest cities. And do you expect that to reprieve problems or building of hospitals? I mean, it's going to help a small bit, but it's not nearly what we need. That ship, the USS Comfort that's going to be in New York Harbor has a thousand beds, a thousand hospital beds. And those beds are going to be used for actually non-COVID-19 patients to create more room in the hospitals for COVID-19 patients. I'm not sure if the military are sending along personnel. One of the big issues is we need more healthcare workers, but we actually have to be over the next five days, it sounds crazy, be building tens of thousands of new hospital beds. Not a thousand, not 2,000,

not 5,000, but tens of thousands. So that ship will help. You saw that they're going to start converting the Javits Center to basically a military hospital. And we have to find other spaces as well. The governor put out numbers the other day that said we basically have to double the number of hospital beds in New York City from New York State from 50,000 to 100,000. And we have to do that in a short period of time. And in that, we need the PPE, the personal protective equipment, and we really need ventilators.

And so what do you, when President Trump yesterday was talking about, we don't want to, we want to have people come to us and offer us things rather than national, use these war acts, these defense acts. What do you need from major manufacturers? And how do you get it? Because I think it needs to be done through the government, correct? The federal government. It needs to be

done through the federal government. And, you know, now's not the time for, I guess, sniping, but I'm just so distraught in many ways at the response from the federal government from the onset of this up until today when we're speaking, given the lack of help and the slowness to their response. What we really need is we need the personal protective equipment for folks that are administering the test to New Yorkers as testing is scaled up. And we need personal protective equipment for the health care workers taking care of sick folks. That's masks and gowns and gloves. And we need ventilators. And what we really need is that Defense Production Act to be kicked into gear so that we can use other industries to start manufacturing this. And it can be shipped to New York City. New York City is now considered the epicenter of COVID-19 on the entire globe

right now, and it is going to get significantly worse over the coming days. And the thing that I'm most afraid of, Scott and Kara, is that I don't think New Yorkers are psychologically prepared for what's about to happen. And I don't say that to scare people or to panic people, but in the United States of America, it is going to be frightening to see scenes like we've seen in Italy and New York City, and that is likely to happen here over the coming days and weeks. And so we need those supplies, and we need ventilators, and we need them yesterday, we need them today, we need them tomorrow. Corey, beyond the Defense Production Act, is there, or what can, if you're a healthy New Yorker with some resources, you know, what can you do? Is there a place to donate money? Is there a place you can go and get outfitted with protective clothing and be one of those people helping to create beds at

Jabbitt Center. There are a lot of New Yorkers. I know you were around for 9-11. New Yorkers are the epicenter. I think the capital of the world, they are as American as Americans come and are absolutely ready to bear arms, or that was the wrong term, or respond to a call to arms, what can they do other than waiting on or hoping for the federal government to make the right decisions here? What could they do today and tomorrow to help you and our leadership affect that type of preparedness that you're referencing? Well, I don't want to, you know, sound like a broken record, but the first thing, the most important thing is to stay home just to spread transmission, which will help in ways that people don't even realize. So that's number one. Number two, we need to help people that are struggling with access to food right now.

That's actually one of the most important things, which we need more attention to. There are a lot of now homebound seniors who were saying we're telling stay at home and who need access to food. There's a lot of poor people who are having trouble making ends meet. And then there's the newly unemployed people that are going to have food access issues. So we actually need people to give to some of the organizations to do that, do that type of work. The biggest one in New York City is City Harvest. City Harvest and the Food Bank of New York City are two of the biggest food distributors. to City Harvest or to Food Bank or to the Met Council. Those are three organizations that are doing that type of work. And they can tell you if they need you to volunteer and what precautions you would need to take. But also they need dollars right now, not just to buy food, but to hire new people to scale up the larger need they see now as it relates to food insecurity.

larger need they see now as it relates to food insecurity. Those are the two things. Stay home and give money to these organizations that are providing food to New Yorkers that are vulnerable. And what about a rent moratorium for not just public housing projects, but across the city of people that have lost their jobs, etc.? I support that. I think we need to do a rent freeze and a rent freeze not in a way that just 90 days from now, you'll then owe a cumulative three month bill, but a rent freeze in a way that looks at what we're doing for people that are paying mortgages. We're helping folks there. And for renters, which are a huge number in New York City, putting that off and then using

some of the federal stimulus money to cover some of these things for New Yorkers. We are eight days away from the beginning of April and all day long on social media. I am have people I'm having people tweet at me and send me Instagram messages and comment on Facebook that the thing they're worried the most about is paying their rent right now because of the cost of it. And so we want the state and the feds to enact a rent freeze that will give people peace of mind and then figure out from the federal level how to pay for that and how to compensate some landlords for that that may be struggling as well because of this. So how important to you, you just talked about you getting messages on social media with everyone sheltered in place. How is that? Is that more worrisome for you or do you feel like it's a

good way to reach your constituents? I mean, trying to govern in this must be very difficult in terms of being able to reach out. You saw in Congress, you know, people are getting COVID-19 from assembling essentially. How do you govern in this environment? How does it impact you all personally? I mean, everyone's talking about, I want to marry Andrew Cuomo, which is adorable, but still, you know, there is, communications are critically important for leaders like yourself. Yeah, you know, we have not been in session for, you know, it's hard for me to even remember because the days start to blend together now, even though it was the weekend yesterday, it didn't feel like the weekend,

given how life has changed here. So it's made things more challenging as it relates to assembly, assembling 51 council members. We have a big city council and having to have these conversations and make decisions. I've been on my phone all day, every day. I've not gotten much sleep. And it's hard to do this from a small apartment. I'm at my boyfriend's apartment. We're with our pets. I'm on the phone constantly.

I go outside for walks to try to get fresh air by myself, keeping that social distance from folks. But it's really challenging. You know, after 9-11, walks to try to get fresh air by myself, keeping that social distance from folks. But it's really challenging. You know, after 9-11, people could at least get together in a room and have conversations. After Hurricane Sandy, people could get together and come together in a community and talk about how to heal. This is much more difficult. And one of the big fears that I have for New Yorkers is that even though we're telling people to socially distance and to physically distance from each other, I'm really your single friends, check in on older neighbors, even if you can't actually physically be with them, knock on their door and talk to them through the door. People are really going to need that connection with each other during this time.

And I find that as an elected official, but I also know that as a New Yorker, that days are like roller coasters for people and it's going to get potentially worse. Yeah, it's very sobering. But I just want to reiterate, you said that both City Harvest and the Food Bank of New York, staying at home, reaching out and embracing their social distancing, and then there's sort of a digital embrace, reaching out to people. I think I hadn't thought about it, but reaching out to your friends who are single and maybe don't have the comfort or in some cases the stress of a partner. But I think all of those make a ton of sense. I'm curious at the city level, do the council people each day talk with the mayor who speaks with the governor? What's the chain of communication here?

You know, it doesn't really work that way. I mean, typically we as a council are all talking to each other. But again, this is unlike anything we've ever done before. So we've been having conference calls that I've been leading with the 50 other members. I've been speaking directly to the mayor and to the governor both. have been made here. And so I've spoken up on wanting to move more quickly. And sometimes I've spoken directly with the governor about that. The mayor has known my concerns as well. And so this is sort of, you know, it's an ad hoc individual basis thing. I'm not sure there's a real structured chain of command. It's people kind of trying to figure out on a policy basis by policy basis how to move things. It's so interesting, Corey, because if you look back, everyone talks about the St. Louis versus

Philadelphia examples during the influenza outbreak of the Spanish flu. It looks as if we assume that America is going to have one unified response. It looks as if we assume that America is going to have one unified response. It looks as if we're going to have a pretty broad disparity in terms of the damage here. The two cities I'm seeing compared most are San Francisco, which has enacted a lot of these measures and seems to be, I don't want to call it flattening the curve, they're far from safe. But it looks as if the viruses are on, or infections infections are on an entirely different trajectory than Miami, which doesn't seem to be taking it quite as seriously. Are you hopeful, or have you seen a big change in behavior in the last 72 hours? Do you think New Yorkers

are more like San Francisco or more like Miami right now in terms of how seriously they're taking this? I think New Yorkers are taking it seriously. But one of the things that's different about New York City, even from San Francisco and Miami, I think we're more like San Francisco in the comparison that you're making. But one of the big differences is that we are a much more densely populated city. And so we're more on top of each other, which creates unique challenges. You know, the parks have been really important for people to go out and get fresh air. But I've said, and the mayor and I have disagreed on this over the last couple of days, I've said that I think we need to close the playgrounds. We should keep the parks

open, allow them for social distancing and exercise as people need to get out of their homes. But I've said we should move towards a summer streets model. What does that mean? That means that you could identify certain streets to totally close down since there's not much traffic these days in New York City and actually use it for leisure and recreation for children and adults to create, to alleviate some of the pressure off of the parks. So even though I think we are more like San Francisco in that regard, we have a unique challenge that a neighborhood park has a lot more people in a neighborhood than these other cities across the country.

And that has been something that we have to contend with. And so I've put forward a plan today on what we should actually do on parks and streets and playgrounds to try to figure out a way to create more space for New Yorkers. Right. That's critically important. And last question, Corey, how are you doing? This is like a massive leadership challenge. When we talked last, you're one of the people running for mayor of New York. How does it, how are you doing? I mean, I know that sounds like, are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay. You know, it's a roller coaster. It's hard.

I've every day just been trying to do two things. Number one, be a good boyfriend to my boyfriend, and he's been a great boyfriend to me because we're really relying upon each other right now. And number two, be a helpful elected official. What do I mean by that? Getting out factual information, doing it in a calm and measured way, trying to come up with ideas that will help people. But have I been anxious at certain points? Yes. Has it been scary at certain points? Yes. But also, I try not to get wrapped up in that. I try to think of what is the next thing I can do to be helpful, one foot in front of the other. You know, one of the big things that's been most helpful to me throughout this is the lessons I learned

from my own sobriety. I've been sober for almost 11 years. And in sobriety, I take life a day at a time. I don't drink a day at a time. And that's been successful for me. Through this crisis for New York City, we have to just take it a day at a time as New Yorkers. We have to sometimes take it an hour at a time where it's difficult. And so even though I'm the Speaker of the City Council

and I'm trying to be as helpful as possible, it has similarly been anxiety producing, but I'm trying to be as helpful as possible. It has similarly been, you know, anxiety producing, but I'm trying to just focus on the things that I have control over, which is not much right now. I'm saying the serenity prayer a lot and trying to be as helpful to New Yorkers that are looking for accurate, factual, calm, measured information.

Those are the things that I'm going to try to do every single day. All right. So Kara, I pause. I just have one quick question. You're on the ground. Are you in favor of the federal government passing legislation or quickly passing legislation around GPS tracking? Do you think it would be a good or bad idea given the risks and the concerns? I haven't followed it enough. I saw some story last night on PBS about it. I think if we were going to do anything like that, it would need to be done in a way where you wouldn't be abusing the Constitution and civil liberties. I'm not sure I would trust them to do that. If we had another administration and another attorney general that could handle it in the appropriate way, then I might feel more comfortable. But I would have to look at the details.

This is an extraordinary time. So we are going to have to think about things and potentially do things that we would not do normally. But with these characters at the federal government government level we have to do it in a careful way that's why it's so important we have the democratic house of representatives which has been a check on the republican senate and the president throughout the this crisis and most importantly i promise this is the last question i apologize care i can't i can't resist this is key and really really will probably define

whether you go into higher office. What kind of pets do you have? We have a cat and a dog. What kind of dog? He's a mutt. He's beautiful. He's a rescue dog. Aren't they the happiest and healthiest dogs? He's making us so, so happy. What's your best guess? What was the mom? What was the dad? Oh, I'm not sure. But he's so beautiful. I posted a video on Instagram and Twitter two days ago of the cat and dog loving all

over each other. So people can check it out. They're a gift, aren't they? They're just a gift. All right, Corey, thank you so much and good luck. And here's a public service announcement. Text COVID to 692692 for updates on the disease in New York City. Thanks again, Corey.

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Okay, Scott, we're back with wins and fails. Let's start with wins, Scott. Do you have any wins? Let's have some wins. Corey Johns is a win for me. He's a win for you. You've known Corey for a while, right? I have since he was a teenager, actually. Really? Yeah.

He was, it's a great story. He was a football player. He came out, you met at the time of Matthew Shepard. He, you know, that story was a terrible story about gay people being terribly beaten and

killed. And he was a, he was sort of a great story in terms of he was a football player, his whole team supported him, and he was, it just was a great story at the time of really bad times. And he's been an incredible,

he was an incredibly young man when he was a teenager. I was sort of helping him and trying to figure it out, and he's grown his life in amazing ways. And I think he's one of the contenders for mayor of New York, for sure, but certainly has been a very good speaker of the city council. Just a really impressive young man.

Wow, that's a great story. I did not know that. Yes, indeed. So speaking of leadership, my win is I think that there's been a tremendous amount of leadership demonstrated at the state level. And there's a reason that the majority, kind of the recruiting ground or the farm league for the highest office in the land, the presidency, is usually governors. And I think there's been several governors who've demonstrated extraordinary leadership. Governor Inslee of Washington, Republican governors, Governor DeWine and Hogan of Ohio and Maryland, respectively. Hogan. Excuse me, Governor Hogan. Governor Whitmer of Michigan, Governor Newsom, who I know you know

of California, and of course, Governor Cuomo, and I'm sure there's several others who will emerge. But if you contrast their leadership style versus the leadership style coming out of the federal government right now, it's one where they are taking responsibility, not taking any bandwidth or time, because the attention graph is an asset here, to talk about politics or in any way be disparaging of other people. They're never self-congratulatory. They're ruthlessly adherent to the facts, constant communication, taking responsibility, being very open, having an open, sober conversation with their population, and ensuring them they will get to the other side, which is exactly what good leaders do. So my win are some of the governors stepping into the void here and demonstrating real leadership. I agree, except for the governor of West Virginia, who really is just a disaster in terms of things he's telling people.

Anyway, I agree with you. I think governors, it shows why they do become presidents. You're exactly right. I think a win for me, I'm going to, as some of these companies are stepping up, like Facebook just gave 720,000 masks to California, to health care workers. They had them. A lot of companies had stocked up on these masks for the fires in California. And so I think when I see, I do see companies doing bigger things. I think there should be more done by companies for their workers, but that's a win for me.

Good. All right, fails. You go first with fails, Scott. I don't have a fail. I'm sort of, I'm trying to stay, I'm literally, I feel as if every day the front page is a series of fails with a few human interest stories. But I don't have a fail this week, Kara. Well, I'm going to go with Senator Rand Paul, who became the first U.S. Senator. Oh, gosh. I knew you were going to say that. I literally knew you were going to say that. Yeah, that's a softball. We three have softball on that one.

It's not a softball. He's the first U.S. senator to test positive for COVID-19. But last week, he was the only no vote against the coronavirus aid bill. And then he also wandered around the Senate. Yeah, he went, didn't he go to the pool? Didn't he go to the Senate pool? It seems like it. It's just now they're denying that he knew about it, but he knew he was being tested.

And so I think there's more of a story there. And I think he's just, he was already the worst human being in the world in terms of the Senate, and he remains that way. Just a selfish, I guess. He's the only senator that's been beat up in his own home, which I find is an interesting fact about him. But the other, what's interesting here is in the world, like the mother of all karma, is that the Democrats might get a majority in the Senate because all of the all of the Republican senators he was hanging out with in the pool have had to self quarantine. Yeah. Yeah. Typhoid Randy. Oh, what a just a just karma. You know, you don't want I don't want him to be sick and I hope he gets better. But when he gets better, I'd like to yell at him.

That's what I'd like to say, is I'm glad to do that. Same thing, you know, Harvey Weinstein has COVID-19, which is really speaking of Harvard. That's very strange. But I want to be clear. He's in the prisons. The prisons are like the hotbeds for this disease. That's very strange. I hope we don't spend another second talking about Harvey Weinstein.

All right, we won't spend any more. I just want to say, Senator Paul, I don't agree with this politics. I do think he's a very creative thinker. And also, I would love to have dinner with him and his father. Remember Ron Paul? Yes, like Dick one and Dick two. Oh, sorry.

You don't like either of those guys? I don't like it. They're unique thinkers. Whatever. You got to separate the man from the ideology. These are both interesting people. These guys came out of Kentucky. You know what?

I'm sure, I'm sure. His father's interesting people. These guys came out of Kentucky. I'm sure. His father's a doctor. Saddam Hussein was fascinating. I'm sure they were fascinating. No. That's a fair equivalence. I just, I don't know. Lots of horrible people are fascinating. They're not horrible people.

Those are not horrible people. Oh my god. That guy would be fun at a football game. He goes swimming be fun at a football game. I would, Ron Paul especially. He gets a test and then he says, ah, I think I'll take a swim. I'll take a dip. In the Senate pool. Like, are you crazy? Like, thank you if you end up with the Democratic majority.

But honestly, sir, it's just like, ugh. And then secondly, I'm going to give one more fail since you didn't have any. It's after, you know, Romney was sitting next to him at lunch, Mitt Romney, and because his wife has immunocompromised, he's quarantining himself. Very dangerous situation for him. And then Trump says something rude. Oh, too bad about that. That was awful. That was awful.

What an asshole. And then pretending he wasn't being sarcastic. I'm sorry. Such a douche move on his part and just told me everything I needed. In this case, it's just gross. That's exactly who he is. That moment was exactly

just a douche mcdouche. And that was really rude. I don't care if you agree or don't agree with Senator Romney. This is just like... And again, I don't want Senator Paul to die or suffer or stuff like that. This is just like, and again, I don't want Senator Paul to die or suffer or stuff like that. When he gets better, I hope he gets better. I hope anyone who has this gets better. But it's just douche mcdouche. That's what I'm going to say. Thank you.

Shavings of douche on the douche salad. All right. Anyway, we got to go, Scott. Before we go, is there anything making you happy this week? Anything making me happy? Well, I was joking earlier that one of the things I've discovered is what assholes my children are hanging out with this much. Oh, no. It's terrible. We're a lot of moments of engagement, hanging out with my kids. They've adopted my favorite hobby, which is watching television.

They've adopted my favorite hobby, which is watching television. And we have a bit of a TV Olympics where the first round is Family Guy, The Simpsons, and The Wonder Years. And we're going to start with those three. And we're going to limit it down to two and watch three episodes each. And then we're going to limit it down to one and watch an entire season. That's how the Galloways roll. Oh, wow. Why don't you try West Wing? That was when we had a really good president. They're 9 and 12.

They're 9 and 12. They're precocious. They're not that precocious. And plus, what do young boys need more of? Screen time, Kara. That's what they need more of. Screen time. It's nice watching together. We've been doing a lot of movies together. I'll tell you what I like. Being quarantined with a baby and teenagers. I love it. It's great.

My son, Alex, fed Clara her first rice cereal. It's been a delight in terms of being quarantined with them, I have to say. It's really fun to watch them interact. A happy baby is a nice thing. That is nice. We don't have childcare now, which is going to be a challenge, but not compared to other people, for sure. But it's really nice to have a baby during quarantine.

And you have one that's thinking about college next year. It'll be very interesting to see how this impacts all of that. Supposedly, the SAT's been canceled, all kinds of things. Everything. There's no, I doubt there'll be a prom. There'll be, it's, everything will be canceled. I was just going over the schedule last night. Did you go to prom?

Did Kara Swisher go to prom? I went to three proms. I went in my ninth grade, in 11th grade, and 12th grade. I had a boyfriend that was older in ninth grade. Yes, I did. I had boyfriends out the yin-yang in high school, my friend. We will talk about that at another date. Wow.

Yes, I did. Good for you. I'm sure. I am sure that I have gone out with more men than most straight. Anyway, there you have it. Nice. My slutty youth. My slutty straight youth. I wish I had that. That sounds nice. Sorry. I had a nice boyfriend. He's very

nice. He was a nice guy. He is a nice guy. I don't know. I haven't seen him in years. Anyway, let's not forget, if you have a story in the news and you're curious about what you want us to hear our opinion, email us at pivot at voxmedia.com to be featured on the show. Scott, can you read us out with the credits? Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Our executive producer is Erica Anderson. Special thanks to Drew Burrows and Rebecca Castro. If you like what you heard, please download or subscribe.

Stay well. Distance. Remember, remember, six feet from each other for 14 days, and this virus perishes from the planet. Six feet, 14 days. Every degree back from that creates more risk for you, your family, and people who are vulnerable. We'll be back later in the week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for this show is brought to you by Nissan Kicks. It's never too late to try new things, and it's never too late to reinvent yourself.

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