Pivot - Stock market reacts to Trump’s covid diagnosis, end times for Regal Cinemas and Advertising week 2020
Episode Date: October 6, 2020Kara and Scott talk about how the stock market and media have reacted to the rollercoaster of Trump's covid-19 diagnosis. They also discuss the closing of the US' 2nd largest movie theater chain as mo...re Hollywood releases are postponed. In wins and fails, Kara talks about Google giving money to news outlets as the company deals with antitrust lawsuits. And the hosts take live Q&A from the audience at Advertising Week 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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ConstantContact.ca Hi, everybody.
This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Hello, Kara. Kara, Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway. Hello, Cara. Cara, what did you do this weekend?
What did you do this weekend?
Just a second. We're doing a podcast live with Advertising Week 2020, just so you know.
What a thrill.
What a thrill.
Anyway, what did I do this weekend? What did I do this weekend?
What happened? I've seen you playing with that thing.
It's not like a lock you can pick.
It's stuck.
You're twisting it.
Very funny.
You're twisting it.
Yeah, I am.
It's weird to be wearing a ring.
I got married this weekend before the Supreme Court could try to overturn gay marriage.
I did actually get married.
And Scott was not at the wedding.
He's not invited.
That's the first thing you say.
That's the first thing you say. That's the first thing you say.
That's your go-to.
That's the second and third and fourth thing I say, actually.
Scott was not there.
Yeah.
Do you want to know the toast I would have given?
Do you want to know the toast?
What?
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
I give the same toast.
So this may come as a surprise to you.
I've been a best man at several weddings.
All right.
The toast I give is the same.
And it's my advice to, and it's usually to the husband because that's usually who I'm standing for, or the dude, but the same goes here.
One, never let Amanda be cold or hungry because that'll screen out.
Okay.
Take a giant pashmina posing as a blanket wherever you go.
Always have protein bars because, one, when you look back on the fights that almost explode the marriage, somebody was cold or hungry. So screen that out.
Okay. All right. Okay. That's one.
Two, don't keep score. In relationships, especially as we're younger, we have a tendency
to think, okay, her in-laws are over. I mean, her parents are over. That means my parents.
And just decide that you're always going to be in the plus column. Always try and be ahead.
Okay.
Because you'll always inflate your own contributions relative to the partners.
So, anyways, commit to never getting the score.
And the third is let your saucy, horny minks fly.
Always express desire and affection.
It identifies the relationship as singular, and I think we all want to be desired and feel loved.
So, I would say every time you feel a source of affection or desire, express it.
Those are my three things, Kara.
All right.
That's my recipe for a good marriage.
You've just displayed why you were not invited to this tiny wedding.
You will be invited to the big one and you will dance.
I think that is really all I want to do.
You will drink tequila and dance.
Nonetheless, I had a beautiful wedding. And again, the disturbing statement out of two of the Supreme Court
justices around the gay marriage that passed many years ago, sort of calling for lack of gay
marriage, which was disturbing. But nonetheless, I have a regular marriage. I don't have a gay
marriage or a straight marriage. I just have a marriage. And so I'm very excited. But let's
move on to the
stuff we actually talk about. There's all kinds of stuff going on besides this happening this week.
Obviously, we're going to talk a little bit about President Trump in the hospital and the
implications of that. A lot of stuff is going. There was so much news over the weekend, it was
kind of ridiculous. The Justice Department just, you know, appealed the judge's ruling that the
Trump administration can't impose a ban on WeChat.
A whole bunch of things happened over the weekend, but largely it was essentially an infectious joyride from the president of the United States.
So obviously this is huge news.
Let's talk about President Trump's COVID diagnosis and how it's affecting the markets,
because I think that's the most important thing right now, because he seems to not care that he has COVID.
because I think that's the most important thing right now, because he seems to not care that he has COVID.
More people at the White House, including the press secretary, now have COVID.
This is a larger spreading event than in all of New Zealand, I think, at this point in one White House.
Late last Thursday, Trump announced via Twitter that he tested positive for COVID-19. By the end of the day Friday, he was in a helicopter to Walter Reed Hospital
where he is being treated now.
He may be out at this moment, although he shouldn't be,
according to many, many doctors.
Several other White House officials have tested positive
as well as people who are doing debate prep
and so many more.
Obviously, he did that weird drive-by,
putting at risk secret service agents
because he's full of COVID right now.
In order to wave
at reporters, he made a series of videos that were odd and felt odd to watch. And on Friday,
the stock market took a tumble because of the news, but made a jump back, as doctors suggest
the president will be released from the hospital. So what do you, and there was also not a lot of
great information and conflicting information, including by his doctor, who
apparently is not a doctor, who is like the Frank Burns, for those who are a little older
of this episode.
So, Scott, what do you make of this?
And let's talk about the stock market in relation to the U.S. president's health, because this
has been the strangest episode, I think, of the many strange episodes in the Trump administration. The data is fairly unclear around disasters or perceived disasters impact on the market. When
Eisenhower had a heart attack, the markets began to sell off. The attacks on 9-11 brought a pretty
serious correction or decline or markdown on the markets. But when Reagan was shot,
there was a brief blip down and then it came scorching back. The markets are up today. I think you summarized it pretty well last week. And you said that you
think the markets have now decided to see beyond Trump. Because if you think about it, all right,
what's the worst possible scenario? He dies, right? Medically speaking, that's the worst
possible scenario. But at the end of the day, okay, so the virus has a say in this, but right now the markets are saying that the people are deciding in 28 days that he's probably going to be gone and that his existence, your health is important and you can't control it. The
virus didn't get the memo around these individuals' beliefs that they're exceptional. And the way I
would describe, the other thing that is just striking here is the image that will last. And
the image that may actually summarize his presidency is him in a hermetically sealed
vehicle while he has COVID, asking other people who work for him.
I mean, everyone talked about George Bush Sr.'s reverence for the Secret Service and how much
time and attention and gratitude he demonstrated quietly towards the people who worked around him.
And what does this guy do? Hey, I've got some weird notion that I'll somehow express strength. And the imagery here has been so stupid. Even
little things care. He puts on a suit and tie to walk to the helicopter to go to the hospital. It's
like, boss, you're trying too hard. Cut yourself some slack. Just put on that cool jacket that
Obama used to wear and get on the helicopter. It's just the imagery here, the hermetically sealed SUV and the
other image that will haunt them is that rose garden picture, that elevated aerial rose garden
picture. I was thinking about you this week and I thought, okay, Kara's getting married. If there's
one event you would decide, life is risk, if there's one event you would decide to take some
risk, it would be a wedding. There's nothing more joyous, more important than a wedding. And I
thought, okay, that picture, you could almost justify it if it was a wedding. People decide
to take the risk. But it wasn't. No, in fact. But you decided, you decided to do Zoom and distance
and mask. And here's the thing. You and your loved ones are citizens, just as the gathering at the
Rose Garden, they're citizens. But the difference is you demonstrate citizenship. And everyone else has decided, well, it's more important to have a
political photo op and introduce a new Supreme Court nominee. And you look at this and then you
see what happens. And this notion that it's totally backfired on him. He's tried to project
this image of me strong like bull,
and the image he's projected is me stupid like fucking idiot.
Me stupid like fucking idiot.
Every image that comes out, whoever manages the imagery there,
is terrible at what they do.
Talk about it from a brand point of view, because, you know, we're not,
well, we are political, but from a brand point of view,
what does it message?
Because it did look really uncomfortable and weird standing there.
I was sort of like, please stop making videos.
Be quiet, perhaps.
Be sick and then come out looking good.
There was so many other brand imagery that you could have done there for a positive political spin.
I mean, do you see?
What would have been the right way to do it from a brand point of view?
You're a brand guy.
Well, just not lying to us.
The other image that's going to haunt them is him signing blank pieces of paper.
Yeah, I saw that.
Let me look presidential like I'm working.
Oh, but don't realize the cameras can zoom in and they can see we're signing blank pieces of paper.
You know, something in the hospital, they talked about how Reagan said to his doctor, I hope you're a Republican.
And the doctor said, today we're all Republicans.
And that Reagan was very optimistic, although he was in a terrible place.
And then the other thing that comes out of this is, again, we undermine our institutions.
How much credibility has the medical profession lost?
A doctor walks out and says, straight question, has he received supplemental oxygen? And he goes, he currently isn't receiving it and refuses to answer the question. So it could
have been an opportunity for him to say, you know, to have a couple pictures, a couple of things
surrounded by, you know, I don't know, anything, anything other than what they've done. They don't
understand imagery. And my sense is he's calling the shots here and just a series of terrible mistakes. And they've declined four points in the polls
relative to Biden because of this. And then making fun of Biden for his masking and now who looks
like the idiot. And then what did the Biden campaign do? They did that great 30-second spot
that just shows him in front of American flag putting on a mask. That was fantastic imagery.
So whoever's running
the imagery for the Trump campaign, they just don't understand it. And the larger...
But I want to talk about why they think it's going to work. Why? Is it just because they're
just listening to whatever he says? Because there's people that are smart about imagery
on that campaign. So they've been very effective on Facebook, or maybe Brad Parscale was. But what is the goal here?
But greatness is in the agency of others.
And when you have a team, not a team of rivals, but a team of felons and incompetents, they've gone from the A team around social media to the B team to the C team.
And now everyone's either infected, in jail, going to,
I mean, at some point there's no one home,
and he's clearly decided that he's going to call the shots
and not recognizing that he's not in a position
to make good decisions right now.
But the biggest...
Plus he's on steroids.
That's not always not a good decision to make decisions on steroids.
The biggest trend on a meta level
is that we will look back on this time.
People, like I said, what was the moment where American civilization went into decline?
Everyone said, oh, it was JFK's shot.
No, it's not.
For the next 50 years, this was still the shiny beacon on a hill, whatever you want to call it.
The moment we ceded geopolitical power to the Chinese was COVID and Trump.
power to the Chinese was COVID and Trump. And they now, if you look at the imagery coming out of China, whether it's them enjoying concerts, I mean, they know how to manage this. And we look
like incredible, the smart, quote unquote, the smartest people in the room, the people who are
leading our country right now, decide to get together and not distance, and then they all
start getting infected. This cements brand America right now,
which is these terrible associations of incompetence,
sickly, arrogant, and just this...
Stupid.
It's stupid. Perfect. There you go.
So what does that do, really, do to the election?
What do you think it does to the election?
Well, I've been doing all the talking.
What do you think it does?
Well, it's interesting because, you know, my mom, as usual, is a Fox News watcher and continues to be so, and it continues, I have to say, to warp her brain. And she kept
saying, well, it's not his fault that he got COVID. And I was like, are they saying that on
Fox News? Because it is his fault. He didn't wear a mask and he didn't, he relied too much on instant
testing and not social distancing. And so it was really, I think, you know, it was just weird to see all those people outside
of Walter Reed.
It was a small group, you know, the press acted like it was this massive rally going
on outside the hospital.
50 sad people who are really going to get COVID and be sick, unfortunately.
But it still is this lasting thing that it's someone else's fault that,
you know, and I think Matt Getz was pushing that idea of the, it's not the virus, Trump gets the
virus, it's the virus gets Trump and they're in trouble. It's an old Chuck Norris meme,
essentially, which is kind of idiotic. But this idea that you can muscle through illness and
the messaging was interesting from,
you know, it was like, I've learned a lot about it. I'm like, well, it doesn't really care if
you learn a lot about it. It wasn't like, it was this weird, I've gone to school on this. And
you're sort of like, wow, people have died. It's not a game. It's not anything else. And I just
wonder if people are just looking with their slack-jawed mouth open like, what? Or not. We'll see. I think
we're going to see. I think it looks ridiculous at this point, but you just never know. You just
never know how it'll shake out. I do think most elderly people who are intelligent, who, not my
mom, I have to say, she's really quite lost the narrative here. And she is intelligent, but she's
certainly lost the narrative. We'll look at this and think, I've had to stay in.
I've tried to be careful, and this clown is running around infecting people.
I think that, to me, is the part that is ridiculous.
I think beyond the Sharpie thing on the blank page,
that, to me, is that ride was really quite.
I'd love to know the person who said, let's go and do this.
This is good for us, but it's certainly not.
But, you know, it doesn't help anything.
It just helps him.
And someone's going to die here because what you have is you have the New York Times now doing contact tracing.
And they've said, okay, these are the people who got it.
And they'll find it somewhere along the line.
I mean, you do have, this is a
very sensitive topic because you don't want anyone to get sick. A pathogen, some people just catch it,
can't avoid catching it. But we do as citizens have an obligation to take certain precautions
to not become another node on the geometric spread. That is a form of citizenship.
They don't care. They don't care. They don't care. They don't mind. I see them going to work even with COVID. Like, look, he's going back to the White House even
with COVID. And it's really, it's we don't care. We do not care who gets sick. And we're going to
find in probably just the way his luck is going, probably the week before, they're going to
directly be able to reverse engineer someone who'd caught it and died because of their little
Contagion 2 party in the Rose Garden.
And it's going to bring home to people just what it means to be a citizen or a poor citizenship.
One would hope.
Well, it's already happening.
The polls are already reflecting it.
No, I see that.
I see that because it's so stupid.
But let's go to the real impact on—this is a group of people in Washington that went
and will continue to radiate outward.
But let's go on a quick break and come back to talk about more chains and businesses closing.
And we'll get to some wins and fails for the week.
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HubSpot.com slash marketers. Welcome back. Regal Cinemas, the U.S.'s second largest cinema chain,
is closing all of its locations nationwide. The others are struggling.
The decision came after another postponement of Hollywood big budget releases.
Most recently, the latest James Bond movie was halted, much to my chagrin.
Meanwhile, I wouldn't have gone anyway.
Meanwhile, big airline job cuts are expected this week, barring additional federal aid,
which has been slowed down because everybody in the White House has coronavirus.
They can't get a deal done, and Nancy Pelosi was just talking about this.
U.S. airlines are on the verge of shedding more than 30,000 jobs, according to CNBC.
And data released by Yelp shows that 60% of business closings due to the pandemic are now permanent.
So let's talk about the business changes because these are the real reverberations around the country.
People are sick is tragic.
This is also going to be very tragic.
So we've talked about cinema closures and what was going to happen.
So talk a little bit about these job cuts and where you see the next ones coming, because we talked about this quite a bit, this idea of job cuts.
So a really healthy exercise to do professionally is to take the three biggest trends in your
industry and then just take the
slope of the curve for the last 10 years and extend it 10 years forward and then take it out 10 years
and that's where we are now. And if you had taken theater attendance out, I mean, just an example,
last year, motion picture, total volume of motion picture or total gross domestic box office
receipts was $7 billion. And they estimate the home video market is $120 to $150 billion.
So the domestic box office motion picture industry does not command or does not occupy
the space of commands in that we're fascinated by it. But the reality is the denim market is
now bigger than the motion picture industry. And every year, it got worse and worse. And there
was some innovation, Alamo Drafthouse, iPic. But for the most part, every year, they became increasingly, the industry, not only, the revenues were not
only flat to declining, but it became less robust. What do we mean by robust? Nassim Talb talks about
the financial services industry isn't robust because if JP Morgan goes down, it could take
the global economy down. So he gets to call the president, get bailed out whenever he wants.
The restaurant industry is a robust
industry. We're going to lose a third of them. And quite frankly, you're still going to be able
to get great food delivered to your doorstep. The motion picture industry, domestic box office,
is not robust because it's become increasingly reliant on a bunch of men in tights, right?
It's become basically seven or 10 tentpole films make or break the entire year. And in addition, it hasn't listened to the consumer.
Consumers will pay $10, $20, $100 pay-per-view to be able to see Frozen or Milan or Avengers
in their home, where by the way, the innovation, look at your home viewing experience.
In the last 20 years, what's happened to it? Look at the movie theater experience in the last 20
years. One has changed dramatically.
The other still has sticky floors and overpriced popcorn.
And not only that, it's just not a – so this was – this is nothing different.
It's just an accelerant.
These things were going away.
Moving on to the jobs, I'm a capitalist around this.
I think two-thirds of the PPE did nothing but delay the inevitable.
around this. I think two-thirds of the PPE did nothing but delay the inevitable.
I think one of the things we've decided in a capitalist society is that in order to reward the winners, we have to punish the losers. I think we need a broader safety net and more retraining
and extended unemployment. But I don't know if we need airlines to be as big as they were. And we
decided that because airlines have this kind of national feeling about them, that we consistently
bail them out. And I don't think that's fair. I
think they should be allowed to go under. I think the debt holder should take license to the
aircraft and they need to reshape. It'll have all sorts of ramifications, including it'll be much
more difficult to live in a quote-unquote secondary city that's not as populous because
you'll start losing flights. But look, I think we have to exit the consensual hallucination that
everything's going to go back to normal.
And we've decided in this country that we let people go, we let companies go out of business.
We let people get fired such that when the economy returns, we can have new businesses, new people get hired.
So, yeah, it's terrible.
But I think it's overdue.
I think the PPP loans were nothing but a temporary sugar high that did nothing but end up in the hands of some very wealthy small business people.
What should happen now with stimulus then? They are trying to get this, I think, $2.2 trillion.
They're going between 1.6. They're in the middle of that somewhere. It was much higher for the Democrats, very low for the Republicans. I think it was $300 million. What should happen now? What
should the government be doing to put some economic activity into the environment?
Because this gets, you know, you're going into the fall season, you're going into Christmas,
you're going into the flu season.
We still don't have a vaccine.
I just did an interview with Monsef Slaoui, and he was saying most people will not be
getting this vaccine until the spring, essentially.
Most people, even though first responders may get it by December and the older people in January, February. So what do you do to stave off that six to seven-month time
frame where there's going to be enormous amounts of people out of jobs? What would you think is
important? Simply put, I think the theme around stimulus should be to protect people, not
companies. We've had a tendency to personify and idolize companies. Companies are
inanimate legal entities formed in Delaware. They're not concerned with the condition of
your soul. They're not going to take care of you when you get older. And the notion is we'll
maintain the jobs. And my feeling is you let the economy reshape to a new normal. And there's some
harshness in that. But if you were to take those 110 million households in the U.S., if you would
take the bottom 55, the bottom median, the ones making less than $60,000 a year who are vulnerable, and said, all right, instead of $3 trillion going to airlines and low-cost loans, that's 50 million households.
That's $60,000 per household.
I say just give people who are most vulnerable just a check and say, all right, find the food, find the help you need.
You might get laid off, but you don't have to be afraid. And I think you let the economy do
what capitalism does. I think you let the gears grind, and some of it's ugly and some people get
hurt, but it's okay if companies go out of business. What we need to make sure is that
the people least advantaged in our society aren't afraid about feeding their children.
They don't feel like they have to leave their house and turn on their phone and go drive an Uber or go to a dangerous job.
So I think we get it all wrong.
I think we've decided to protect people, but mostly protect companies.
No, you don't.
Give all the capital to people.
People are smart.
They'll decide which company should survive.
They'll spend the money where it should go.
And those companies should survive. They'll spend the money where it should go, and those companies will reform. But instead, we've created this zombie economy with a bunch of
companies that shouldn't be alive, that shouldn't. Small business, I'm a small businessman. Small
businesses in America, we're the fucking wolves of the global economy. And instead, they've turned
us into these little bitch poodles waiting for the government to come home and feed us.
We'll be just fine. What you need to do is protect people, not businesses. All right, little bitch poodles. Listen,
little bitch poodle. But I'm your little bitch poodle. I'm yours. Not even slightly. Rub my
belly. Oh, my God. I totally send you to the pound. Give me a pig's ear. No. Listen, listen to me.
What new job? Where are the new jobs then? Where do you imagine that? Let's go out to where it would happen if we're having a smaller airline industry, a smaller restaurant industry, a smaller, you know, retail industry. Where are the actual jobs from your perspective? San Lucas. And the thing about Cabo San Lucas is there's something about the architecture.
I'm horrified at how privileged I sound right now. But anyways, it has this topography here with a slope of the beach. Wait, you're in Cabo San Lucas? I'm in Cabo San Lucas.
Anyways. Hola. All right. Hola, mi amigo. Anyways. Okay, let's move along. You horrible man.
So this place manufactures these perfect waves.
And every time I come here, I fall under the delusion that I can actually surf because the waves are perfect.
And I always tell kids, you'd rather be a bad surfer where there's perfect waves.
So where are the perfect waves?
What are the tsunamis of growth?
And there's just some obvious ones.
growth. And there's just some obvious ones. $4 trillion, $4 trillion in healthcare spending is up for grads and is going to be reformatted over the next five years. The number of people who are
comfortable getting their healthcare remotely through a telemedicine, over the phone, regulations
have come crumbling down because they wanted to administer healthcare remotely. The technology,
the amount of capital, there'll be more money
invested in telemedicine and remote care and new formats, innovation around the largest sector of
our economy, healthcare, in the next two years than it's been in the last 20. Get to health tech.
My industry is going to go through changes. Ed tech, the unbundling of industry. Think about
the amount of time. If you just loosely think, all right, how much time was I spending in an office?
I'm going to spend 20% to 30% across America, 20% to 30% less time in an office.
That probably, most of that shifts to the home, which means there's going to be a 20%
to 30% reallocation out of what is the second largest asset class, commercial real estate,
into the largest asset class, residential real estate.
So everyone from restoration hardware to lumber prices
are going to skyrocket.
Housing had its best month ever last month.
So I think you just want to get in front of these tsunamis
because market dynamics trump individual performance.
You would rather be a marginal executive
in the health tech business
than a great executive in the motion picture cinema business.
So get to ed tech, health tech, residential real estate,
and there's probably another 10 to 15 waves
of between 100 million to-
Delivery.
Remote.
Delivery.
Anything remote, delivery, supply chain, cold storage,
vaccination of supply chain.
There's just some enormous waves forming.
Get to the waves.
All right, what among the things that were there before,
do you imagine coming back? I do imagine restaurants a little more, not as many restaurants,
but, you know, I was just in New York this weekend and everybody was masked up, but it was astonishing
how adaptable everybody was. Everybody was outside, they closed roads. It was so creative to watch,
you know, businesses try to stay afloat
and they were doing a great job, you know, in terms of being full and full of people. Now,
obviously it's going to change with the weather, but it certainly was heartening to see adaptability
by a lot of small businesses. We're doing various and different things. And so
in a lot of ways, it's heartening to watch that. What do you see as coming back?
You know, you talk about things that are cyclical or, in this case, COVID-affected versus stuff that's just going, that's just going away completely.
What do you see as not going away completely and coming back?
Probably travel, for example.
The minute we can travel, I know I'm getting on a plane to go
somewhere to a vacation spot or something, even though you vacation for a living. What do you
imagine will be stronger, say, once the vaccine is more widely dispersed by next summer, say?
Well, I want you to answer the same question because I'm not sure I've got a lock on this.
So the big question that all companies are asking is cyclical versus structural, right?
One of the, on a meta level,
I think one of the things
that's cyclical is cities.
I think if you look at economic history,
cities actually do really well
post-pandemic.
And I think there's,
it's situational.
I think San Francisco
as a consumer product
could best be described
as expensive but bad right now.
And people are leaving.
But I think cities like New York,
I think big city, you know, Dallas, Austin, whatever you want to call it, I think cities
will continue to thrive. Costs will come down. There'll be a lot of money lost around the people
who own buildings. Debt will be restructured. Office buildings will be reformatted into
residential. But I think cities are going to boom. And I would argue if New York's costs get cut by
20 or 30 percent as long as crime doesn't return and the age goes down, it could be a fantastic,
you know, I'm not sure that's a bad thing if costs get brought down. So, I think cities
do really well. Restaurants will have the same amount of dollar volume, but it'll go through
different channels, right? You'll see 20 to 30% of it move to delivery. And unfortunately, there'll be a culling of the herd and
the independent, a lot of the small guys just won't have the balance sheet to survive it. And
we're going to see a consolidation there. In other words, we'll see the 100 biggest providers from
Chipotle to Panera will grab a lot more market share.
In travel, business travel is structurally impaired.
I traveled 150,000 to 200,000 miles a year.
I'm now going to travel 50,000, and 30,000 of that is going to be resort travel or leisure travel. Resort and leisure travel will not only come back, it'll actually come back to greater levels because people will be spending more time with their families and have more time freed up for leisure travel.
So it depends.
The question I would put to you is where do you think media goes post-pandemic?
How do you think the media industry shapes and what's cyclical and what's structural?
industry shapes and what's cyclical and what's structural? Well, I think continuing in the way that I've already sort of started to see when I started doing all things Z and code, smaller,
more limbo, faster, don't need as many people, essentially. But that's something that's been
happening forever, right? That's something. And at the same time, major brands being more powerful
than ever in terms of, I mean, look at, I mean, you found out a lot of medical information from the New York Times and the Washington Post and other news organizations and also Claudia Conway, apparently, on TikTok.
Thank God it wasn't banned.
Is that 2020?
Does that mark 2020?
You can imagine that Kellyanne.
She's just now on.
Kellyanne was literally on a conference call with advisors, the White House, this is how we're going to spin it.
And then they go, your daughter just announced it on TikTok.
I mean, that is genius.
Anyone with teenagers knows there's your life and then there's what happens when you have a teenager in your household.
I know.
Well, she just announced she has COVID.
She just announced she has COVID, which makes it even better.
The daughter has COVID?
You know, you're right.
Yeah, she just announced it.
Oh, I didn't know that.
That she does, from her mom, because her mom lied to her about it.
That's what she's saying.
It's just, it's really, I mean, that's, I'm getting to a bigger point now, right?
Mind blown.
It's like this reality show.
This reality show both sucks and is impossible
to look away from. I hope George doesn't get it.
I think it's the, yes, that's true. Your boyfriend.
I think that they, yeah, he's not my boyfriend. I think he's very clever on the Twitter.
Ooh, I touched a nerve. Someone's got a crush.
No, I just got married. No, I just got married. No.
Yeah, just so you know, I can tell you this.
Once you get married, you're no longer attracted to other people.
Yeah, it definitely goes away because you're so in love with your spouse.
Yeah.
I am.
I'm so in love.
No, I haven't noticed all those hot women by the pool here.
Yeah, I'm totally blind to that now.
I'm totally blind to that.
Listen, listen.
You know what?
Try – stop wrecking my new marriage if you don't mind.
I'm your bitch poodle.
I'm sorry.
No, anyway, listen, we're going to get to wins and fails in a second.
No, not ad week.
Advertising week 2020.
Oh, advertising week.
You're not supposed to say ad week 2020.
Oh, got it.
As usual, you make a mistake.
Those guys suck, ad week.
They suck.
I think I'm going to finish up.
I do think certain things like leisure travel, I think you're right about cities.
like leisure travel, I think you're right about cities.
I do think people, a number of people I've talked to who have moved out of cities seem like they want to just run back to cities right now.
I think they've had enough of the lakes and the beauty.
I got a lot of texts about how beautiful the sunsets and lakes were,
and I've been staying in a city,
and they seem more and more like sunset lake, sunset lake, or whatever,
wherever they have any suburbs, somewhere
where it isn't a city.
So I do think you're right about cities, and they will return strongly.
I just wonder what's going to happen to the streetscape in a lot of these places without
retail, without downtowns, traditional downtowns.
And I'm not creative enough to know what they're going to do with them.
I do think they will get—
Could be wonderful.
It could be wonderful.
We could take a third of the combustion engines out, cars out.
We could make streets, keep streets permanently for open-air dining.
You want to talk about some niche structural or cyclical.
You know what's going to come roaring back?
I mean, just fucking roaring back is Disneyland.
What?
When Disney, when we have a vaccine, you're going to see record,
absolute record attendance at Disney parks.
You know it's also
a cyclical bump. Alcohol sales are up 55%. They're going back to where they were pre-COVID.
Yeah, we're surprised. That's mostly you. That's mostly you.
I'm five of that.
Anyway, we're going to move on to wins and fails, and then we're going to get some questions from
listeners. Scott, what is your wins and fails? Well, my win is second marriages where hope
What is your wins and fails?
My win is second marriages where hope triumphs over experience.
I think it's wonderful. I move that you had the discipline not to invite people that you admire and love as an expression of citizenship and that you masked up.
I think you're a good citizen, and I'm happy for you and Amanda.
Thank you.
I think it's important.
We potted people, too.
We put everybody in pods who were together,
so they got to sit near each other,
but they were away from,
we kept everyone eight feet apart.
I'm happy you have three kids,
and I'm being somewhat serious here.
I think Europe,
one of the things that challenges Europe
is the birth dearth.
I think when people decide not to have children
because of economic strains,
as in Japan or Italy,
it threatens their society.
Everyone blames it on immigrants.
No, immigrants add value to a society.
What is really wonderful, if you will,
is when good people who love each other
and are economically secure and competent
decide to have children.
I think that's key to the species.
So, you know, my win is the citizenship
and the parenting brought to us
courtesy of Amanda and Kara. Congratulations
to both of you. I think it's a wonderful thing. Oh, that's very nice. What's your fail?
What's your fail then? My fail is American citizenship. We like to blame it on Trump,
but I'll see anything starring Hitler. I went to a movie this weekend and I saw A Call to Spy and it's about the British
planting. You saw the streaming. You didn't go to a physical movie theater, did you? No, I did,
but I made sure there were only four people in the theater. It's one of those I'd pick and there
were four people and I masked up and here we go. Anyways, and I hadn't been in the movies in a long
time. But basically we started dropping and planting women because we thought they'd be less obvious, or the British did, into France during World War II, and they were tremendously effective.
And about a third of them were captured, tortured, and murdered.
And what was striking is I did some reading on it, and supposedly 80% of the women that they asked to do this said yes on the spot.
And I just think about the levels of citizenship America has demonstrated in the past that we seem to have lost. And I don't know if it's because our leaders demonstrate such poor
citizenship, but during World War II, when word got out that we were short on rubber because the
Japanese controlled many of the southern islands that produced rubber, immediately Americans
started driving 30 instead of 60 because they thought, I need to save my tires. And we won't put on fucking masks to go into Walmart. And so I don't think we can just blame the Trump administration. I wonder, and I'm with this guy who's in the Special Forces for the Navy, and I hear some of his stories and just about the mental toll and some of the citizenship that we have clustered around a small cohort in our society, and we've asked them to be uber citizens, and the rest of us are just supposed to, you know,
are just waiting on our stimulus check.
So my loss is my collective fail.
I do think America has lost its sense of citizenship across our populace,
and I don't know what repair is it.
I don't know whose fault it is,
but I think the first thing is to acknowledge that citizen is a real word,
and we are failing.
We are failing as a populace to demonstrate citizenship in small and big things.
Okay.
My wins and fails, they have to do with companies we actually cover.
Google is giving a billion dollars in licensing fees to news publishers as the company gears up for a government antitrust.
That is a, you know, I'm not surprised they're doing that.
I think they're trying to do whatever they can as they face this government antitrust lawsuit,
which has sort of been delayed, it looks like.
It was supposed to be last week.
At the same time, the Wall Street Journal obtained Facebook's 14-page argument
for why the government should not break up the company, anticipating this with the FTC.
Their argument is that Facebook deals with Instagram and WhatsApp were approved by the FTC,
and unwinding those deals would cause consumer harm. So what do you think of that? I mean, what is your, I mean, because they're going
to be trying to battle these things. And if Biden wins, they're certainly going to accelerate these
calls to break up these companies and to bring them to heel. I think they should not avoid the
inevitable and just begin to understand their businesses in a new paradigm with more guardrails, possibly breaking up parts of it and do it proactively.
We've talked about this again and again.
I'm not clear why they're doing defenses when it looks like the writing is on the wall for them, especially in the case of a Biden one.
Yeah.
And the billion dollars to media companies from Google, that's Pablo Escobar building a park. That's Jeffrey Epstein sponsoring the youth, you know, the youth
gymnastics team in Palm Beach. It's so disingenuous and ridiculous. Pedophiles and drug dealers. Okay.
Compare them to that. Go ahead. Too much. Look, I'm sailing my thunder because this will be my
prediction next, later in the week. But I think there's a decent chance that Barr announces a deal with Google in October because I think he'll offer Google a deal they will not get in a Biden administration in exchange for the ability to pretend that they're actually doing something and they're effective. I think there is a backroom deal done between William Barr and the board of Google and Pichai that says, I'll slap you on the wrist and I'll pretend I have a victory,
and you're never going to get this deal in a Biden administration. Or with our administration,
we get reelected. So I think there's corruption taking place behind the scenes between William
Barr and Google right now. To do what? What would be the settlement?
You spin YouTube or you pass a bunch of money. We basically, it's okay if you cop early, you get a fine and you don't go to prison.
I think they want an October surprise.
I think they have a list of things.
And I think they want to say, we're tough.
We did this with Google.
And Google will hit the bid because they realize that they're going to pay a much bigger price once it's Biden.
And if Elizabeth Warren is anywhere near the room that makes the decision. Well, in this case, in this idea of doing that, it doesn't mean they escape a Biden administration deal.
I mean, attack from Elizabeth Warren and others.
Even if they strike a deal with Bill Barr, it's not over.
I think they should just—
It doesn't.
It doesn't—it means they're going to come back and get worse, or they'll abrogate it.
And so I think what they really need to do, which you've talked about it, is see it as a shareholder boon. It's a boon to them as
corporate citizens that they're able to try to be proactive about this versus it being imposed
upon them. I think that they can sell it as a shareholder plus that we have new companies.
Everybody's richer. Jeff Bezos is richer than ever, that kind of stuff. I think that's, and you don't have to appear in front of Congress endlessly to do what inevitably
will be happening to you. So I think they should just get way out in front of this and break
themselves up or find themselves or find some way. Yeah, why not? I mean, that to me is-
To your point, most valuable company in the world, and we've predicted this, AWS in 2025,
it'll spin at some point. And you said something that really struck me when we interviewed Suna
Prachaya after it. You said, you know, I get the sense that he would feel relieved if he was broken
up and then he could just focus on product and strategy and not just be constantly apologizing.
All of them. All of them. You know, I'm not sure what, the only person I think really wants to
resist being broken up is Mark Zuckerberg.
I think that is the only one that I think has, has not entertained the idea that he's going to
have to do that on some level. And I think that's going to be the, that's the problem for them,
I suspect, um, because they don't have enough, uh, uh, you know, they don't have enough, uh,
ability to understand what life is going to be like post
that. So I just, I really do hope they think really hard instead of doing these things like
these licensing fees or try to come up with elaborate defenses. I understand why they do
that, but I don't understand why they would continue to resist what is inevitable. And
this is inevitable from my perspective. Stop reading your text, Scott.
resist what is inevitable. And this is inevitable from my perspective. Stop reading your text,
Scott. Palantir. Anyway. Palantir down to nine bucks a share, five bucks a share before the,
if, if. Oh, really? Why? Okay, we'll talk about it. Why? Because Biden's up four points. You watch.
Palantir stock is going to be inversely correlated to the Delta, to Biden's lead.
Anyways, I'm sorry. Okay. All right. Well, that's interesting. All right. One more quick break.
We'll be back for listener Q&A with our live advertising week 2020 audience.
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Okay, we're back.
This is a question for Scott, I think.
Can you talk about the structural changes in the advertising industry and which companies can benefit or which players can benefit and perhaps which players do not benefit?
Scott?
I think the biggest structural change is that the – so if you think about the conglomerate. benefit or which players can benefit and perhaps which players do not benefit. Scott?
I think the biggest structural change is that, so if you think about the conglomerates,
WPP, Omnicom, IPG, Publiscy, first off, just a sense of how much their star has faded. Google and Facebook lose or gain the value of all four of these companies combined at a given trading day.
Now, having said that, as it relates to those four companies, you're going to see them,
two of the four, split into a good bank, bad bank, because they have some remarkable assets.
They have some data-driven, really interesting assets that help brands. And then they have some
old economy dying assets that are strong cash flow, such as their traditional ad agencies.
And the problem is with
the conglomerate structure, it used to work, and Martin Sorrell fashioned it, where he'd say, okay,
by diversifying our revenue streams and smoothing them out, we traded a multiple of 10 to 12 times
EBITDA, we go buy these companies for six to eight, and it's an arbitrage and the market loves
it. And that worked for about 30 years. Now, the market looks at ad agency conglomerates and finds the shittiest business in the portfolio, which is an ad agency or media
buying company declining 3% or 4% and 10% of top-line revenue and EBITDA, respectively.
And it assigns that multiple to the entire conglomerate. So, it pays a conglomerate discount.
So, you're going to see some smart people at WPP or an Omnicom, they're run by very smart people, go good bank,
bad bank, and they're going to split up. So I think the biggest structural change is there's
going to be, just as we're talking about force breakups of big tech, there's going to be
voluntary diversification and good bank, bad bank split ups in the next 24 months across
the big four in media. And then where will they end up?
Well, they'll end up, they'll just be, they'll be like this data-driven data company that, you know, the tech trading platforms,
companies will be the smaller, fast-growth ones. They'll trade at a much higher multiple.
And then the other companies, which will also be probably pretty good investments because they'll
go out at a terrible valuation. You know, everyone's doing this. Simon Property did this.
Simon Property took all their shitty, dying real estate and spun it into bad bank. You're seeing this across a lot
of old industry where they split them up. But I think those companies are going to be split up.
And the reality is the advertising industrial complex is getting the oxygen sucked out of the
room. And that is, it's very simple. Do you work in an environment that involves subscription, involves data,
involves Facebook, Google, or Amazon? But if you're dependent upon an ad-based model,
if you're supporting the advertising industrial complex, it's just going from bad to worse.
Bad to worse. Scott, so nice with this audience. So, in other words,
get another job is what you're
saying? I think it depends on your age and your situation. These organizations aren't stupid.
They know they need to pay people to hold on to them. But loosely speaking, it's going to be a
shitty place to work or invest for the next 20 years. 20 years. Okay, then. All right, next
question. Looking at the explosive growth of Shopify as well as other platforms like Uber
and Instagram, will it democratize wealth? And is this sort of the
businesses of the future? I'm going to start with that. I do think these Shopify, which Scott has
talked about quite a lot, is sort of the play and the sort of anti-Amazon kind of thing. But I think
you can have both at once, the giant platforms like Amazon and then these more democratized
platforms for everybody else.
Scott?
So Shopify is probably the most innovative company in the last decade.
Everyone was so scared of Amazon, and they said, let's absolutely become the non-Amazon Amazon
and let third-party retailers keep their data, keep their branding, keep custody of the consumer,
and generally be an infrastructure company. And now Shopify is worth more than FedEx, UPS,
and throw in, shit, I don't know,
throw in Nordstrom's and Williams-Sonoma and Target.
I mean, Shopify is extraordinary.
I think it's got about $120 billion market capitalization.
But the question is around the democratization.
100% no.
Uber embodies our dangerous economy,
and that is we have 25,000 people working at headquarters splitting the value with their investors of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler combined, while 7 million people get software.
Who work on the platform.
Yeah, who aren't their employees, but are quote-unquote their partners, which is Latin for no minimum wage protection, and we're going to kick you in the nuts economically and turn your car into a payday loan.
protection and we're going to kick you in the nuts economically and turn your car into a payday loan. And a lot of this is public policy fault. It's not just the economy, it's the economy we
choose. And that is we have payroll taxes, meaning if you hire somebody, you have to pay an additional
tax on them. But if you turn their job into software or robot, you don't have to pay taxes
on them. Everybody demonizes immigrants. It's not immigrants taking jobs, it's robots. And if
that's fine, you can't get in the way of it. But Christ, at least tax them such that we can put some of that money into retraining.
All right.
What about an Instagram or other platforms like that where people do small businesses?
There's all kinds of small businesses popping up on those platforms.
Yeah.
And eBay, half a million people make their living on eBay, Instagram.
But slowly but surely, essentially what these platforms are really good at is over time, they start starching all the margin and excess surplus wealth and capturing it.
I mean, it's like YouTube.
There'll be some very well-publicized YouTube stars that make a million dollars a year.
And there will be tens of millions of people who spend a lot of money on YouTube to get some awareness.
Maybe they monetize it somewhere else.
But be clear.
I mean, YouTube's not in the business
of making other people's livings.
No, they talk about it.
Sure.
There'll be some winners.
It's like our economy in general.
There'll be some very well-publicized examples
of people who dropped out of college,
followed their passion, and became billionaires.
You should assume you are not Jay-Z,
and we should assume that these platforms
will do nothing but leverage their extraordinary power over the rails to slowly but surely suck
the oxygen out of the room for everyone but them. And occasionally, they'll say,
oh, we're giving $300 million for election privacy or to sponsor newsrooms to put lipstick on
cancer. But the concentration of power here, and it's happening again, ride-hailing now or
food delivery is going to have two players control 70%
of the market, and it all leads back
to the same place. We need a more diverse ecosystem
with a more robust
environment or ecosystem. What about
a Shopify when you have a platform
like Amazon? I don't understand the question,
Cara. Is Shopify
of that ilk, too, sucking all
the oxygen out of the system for
the retailers on its platform?
Or do you feel like that works?
No, I think Shopify, so a couple of things.
Shopify makes a more robust ecosystem because people have now more of a choice.
A small retailer of surfboards has a place they can go and own.
Nomad Sports can own the, or Nomad Surf can own the custody of the consumer, maintain the data, has another option to Amazon. I think that's a really, really good thing. But when you have $110
billion across one company, I mean, it's just, there's only so much capital to go around and
the market is becoming such a, you're either a story stock and have vision and have extraordinary,
crazy, irrational multiples, or you're a company
that's dying and you're trading at kind of a value. It's this K-shaped recovery. There's
nothing in the middle anymore. But I think Shopify is an inspiration. I'm rooting for them. I think
they're fantastic. I think it's nice to see Canada put a win on the scorecard after watching RIM and
BlackBerry basically. So there can be versions of these platforms that are helpful to people and there can be ones that are exploitative. That's what
you're saying. Essentially, there's two different kinds. Just going from one platform to a kind of
a distant second creates much more health in the ecosystem, much more options, much more choice,
more jobs, broader tax base. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. I think overnight,
if you had a Google and a YouTube,
we'd immediately have two search engines and two video.
They'd no longer be coordinating and cooperating.
They'd be competing.
And overnight, you'd see the tax on small businesses
that feel they have to be on Google come down.
You'd see more startups, broader tax base.
So I think competition's fantastic.
I love Shopify.
I absolutely love Shopify.
What do you think?
I think that some platforms can be exploitative and some aren't. You know what I mean? It just
depends. I do still think that if there's, you know, you look at something like Substack,
have you seen all these people, all these reporters going on to that? Casey Newton just
went there, but there's been lots of others, Andrew Sullivan, a whole bunch of people,
which they're sort of staking, they're creating these platforms that allow them to publish and
go to their fan base.
Now, I only think a couple of people have a fan base to do that.
So that's, you know, it depends on certain people that have a differentiated product.
And so if you don't, that's your real problem.
I think if you're competing with Amazon on basic stuff, you're not going to win.
I think you just came up with a new acronym.
It's not DTC, it's not direct-to-consumer, it's DTF, direct-to to win. I think you just came up with a new acronym. It's not DTC.
It's not direct-to-consumer.
It's DTF, direct-to-fan.
I like that.
Hashtag pivot recode.
All right.
It's all yours.
DTF.
But you have to have a fan base.
You have to have a fan base, and not everybody does.
All right.
Recently, Amazon's been running a lot of self-positive ads, sort of patting themselves on the back.
I've noticed them, too.
And there's a lot of them complimenting themselves how well they've conducted themselves.
What do you think of that?
I think they're smart ads.
I'm not surprised.
Yeah, they're good ads.
They are good ads.
They're showing, I mean, Amazon's not the second largest employer.
They are hiring a lot of people.
They are paying them $15 minimum wage.
It's an inspiring company.
You know, I think Amazon's an incredible company.
I'd like to see Amazon be three incredible companies.
And it's interesting that we always look at these things through the lens of antitrust as some sort of punishment.
I think we need to reframe antitrust as an award.
Like, oh my God, you are just incredible.
Congratulations.
We're going to give you an opportunity to expand the economy, oxygenate the ecosystem because you are just so fucking awesome.
We're breaking your ass up.
So should we go up there and give them this gift?
Should we deliver the message?
You've got to run for Senate and I'll just manage your imagery.
Yeah, yeah.
But hey, stranger things have happened.
Start sexting.
Yeah.
Start sexting.
Okay.
No, no, no.
No, no. I like that. The, no, no, no, no.
I like the Amazon ads.
I mean, if you want.
Me too.
I think it's interesting because Uber's been doing a lot of ads.
Uh, uh, Amazon's been doing a lot of ads.
You're seeing some from Google.
Uh, all of them have been doing advertisements, uh, on regular, you see them pop up all over
the place on whether it's cable or elsewhere.
Um, but it's But it's an interesting,
why not burnish your reputation during a time when other people can't spend? You know,
you give yourself that extra. Amazon, so just to go to Amazon, and this is where their advertising
is going. There's been three huge unlocks in the business world that have created a trillion,
500 billion to over a trillion dollars in value. Apple's recognition to reallocation of capital
out of advertising into stores,
opened 550 temples of the brand.
Amazon getting out of a transactional business
into a recurring revenue business with Amazon Prime,
developing a monogamous relationship
with 82% of US households.
Walmart deciding that they no longer wanted to tax people
with the in-store experience,
which is basically the American freak show,
and do click and collect and give them their groceries without taxing them with the in-store experience, which is basically the American freak show, and do click and collect and give them their groceries without taxing them with the in-store experience. The fourth big
unlock is Amazon presenting the first vaccinated supply chain. Amazon figured out this shit's
going to be with us a lot longer than anyone thinks. And if you're a supplier, a vendor,
a customer, a worker, a delivery person, and you want a COVID-free or a near COVID-free experience,
there's only one supply chain in the world and it's Amazon.
And it is just, God, my mind's just blown how genius it is. It takes advantage.
They're going where no one else can go. No one has the capital, the vertical nature of the fulfillment, the delivery, the credibility to say to the street. Even a guy like Doug McMillan,
who's, I would argue, one of the best leaders in business right now, he can't go to a shareholder
base. It's not his fault and say, sorry, I'm taking earnings down $2 billion to invest in PV and new protocols.
The stock would go down 20%.
Yep, only Bezos can do it.
Only Jeff can do it.
You're right. He should do it. Walmart should, because they could really sop up business here
in this pandemic, very much so. There doesn't have to just be one. All right, last question.
this pandemic, very much so. There doesn't have to just be one. All right, last question. If we could write an ad for the Trump campaign right now, there's so many fantastic anti-Trump ads
right now, and he just gives them material every day, but what would the ad be, Scott?
What would the ad be for the Trump campaign? You are called in by Donald Trump. You are hopefully
in a different room from him because he's full of germs.
What would be the ad?
Gosh, you first.
You first.
No, you first.
You're the ad guy.
I'm the ad guy.
I'm the ad guy. I'm the brand guy. I think that it would be something around hard decisions and sacrifice.
We're going to get through this together.
You know, unprecedented challenges.
They don't make hard decisions.
They don't sacrifice.
Well, he would claim, if you're going to be aspirational, the thing they would have to run to is, I'm strong.
I'm decisive.
I'm willing to sacrifice. I think they're a touch of humility. I've learned a lot. Stick with us. The markets, the economy, America's greatness will continue. Let's continue our good work. And I think he would have to add a Scotia humility around, I've learned a lot. I've learned some things. That's what I would do. I would say, let's continue the strength and the
decisiveness. We're just, you know, I'm going to take unemployment of people of color down to new
record lows. The markets are going to hit new record highs. We're going to see a superior trade
policy. We're just getting started. I think I would try and craft a narrative around
let's continue the strength of the economy.
That's where I would go.
Yeah.
Yeah, he seems to be hitting on the same notes
and they're pretty old.
The economy isn't a good one anymore.
The COVID management isn't good.
What would you do?
I think I would say I fucked up.
I have.
Give me another chance.
Forgive me. Yeah, I don't think that works with his base i think you can say he's learned yeah but i don't think that learned i've learned
yeah really i don't know i i it doesn't i hate to say it because i'm scared to say this out loud
there is no ad there is no ad we're. But it looks like the landing lights are on here.
He is way down, and there's not a lot of time.
What about the son of a bitch you know?
What about that kind of thing?
The devil you know?
Yeah, devil you know.
We knew Biden for eight years.
That doesn't work either.
Yeah, that's true.
We knew the Obama-Biden thing.
If I were Biden right now—
Hillary, but the emails. If I were Biden right now. Hillary, but the emails.
If I were Biden right now, I would announce, and I wouldn't even commit to it, I would announce it.
I've asked Barack Obama to be Secretary of State for 24 hours with the simple charge of repair.
I'm going to have Barack Obama try and repair our relationships across the world for the next 24 months.
Oh, I like it.
That's really sassy.
Interesting.
But we're talking Trump.
You have not come up with a good campaign. I've learned. I don't think there is a good. I've
learned my lesson. I don't think there is a good campaign. I don't, I don't, again, he's got a go
to, his go to's, and that is strength and decisiveness. I'm politically incorrect. I will
always do what is right for America. I'm not afraid. I am, I'm, I'm strong, decisive, and I'm
a wartime president. I put myself out there because I
thought it was important to create the right symbolism around the virus and get the economy
back. I'm paying the price, but it's a price worth paying, and we'll be back on track. Give
us another four years. So I may be an asshole, but I'm your asshole. Well, you said it. The
devil you know. Decisive and strong. Yeah, devil you know. It's the devil you know.
There's some strong metrics they can point to.
The markets, unemployment pre-COVID. You know, they can spin this.
They can spin this a lot of ways.
They only have a few weeks to do it.
I think it's probably too late, but you never know.
All right, Scott.
Cara.
Thanks again to Advertising Week 2020 and our live audience.
Would you please read us out?
Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis,
engineered by Fernando Finite.
Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.
Special thanks to Drew Burrows for the language.
Please download and subscribe.
Kara Swisher, married again.
Married again.
I just, I just, I just love it.
Once again. why not?
She's so good at it.
Let's do it again.
Congratulations to you and Amanda.
Thank you, Scott.
I think you're a good citizen and I'm happy for you.
I'm really, I am.
I'm happy for you.
Thank you.
She's taken, ladies.
All right.
Thank you so much.
And thank you very much to Advertising Week.
We appreciate it.
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