Pivot - USS Lincoln Fallout, Spotlight on Natalie Harp, and Press Secretary Succession

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Kara kicks off another week of Scott-Free August! Gen Z political commentator Adam Mockler is in the guest host chair to discuss the growing fallout over conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, and Jon Ossoff’s swipe at Trump and his aide Natalie Harp. Plus, Democrats shake up the 2028 primary calendar, the latest midterm predictions, and will Adam’s nemesis Scott Jennings be the next White House Press Secretary?Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Learn more at harvey.aI. Support for the show comes from CoreWeave. Everywhere you look, AI is expanding what we thought was possible. And at the center of it all is CoreWeave. Medical research and diagnosis, education, complex visual effects for movies, science and technology breakthroughs. CoreWeave powers AI pioneers around the world with purpose-built tech, building what's never been built before.

CoreWeave is the essential cloud for AI. Ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how Corwave powers the world's best AI, go to corwave.com slash ready for anything. This World Cup has a chance to reach 150 million viewers. Welcome everyone to Nielsen's The Roundout. We're here to take the data and the numbers that Nielsen sees every day to help it all make sense.

Find us anytime at the Roundout.com, and we'll see you there. I'm not going to speculate on what Trump and Natalie Harper doing, but Natalie Harp has been obsessed with him for years. There's a bunch of photos of Natalie Harp smiling at him, like that new movie obsession. You know the new horror movie that's coming out? Yeah, doesn't end well.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher, and I'm kicking off another week of... Scott Free August. I never get sick of that. Yeah, Scott is still away.

I don't know where he is. He has not been in touch, which is a good sign or a bad sign. So I think he's on some island. Who knows where he is in some expensive place. So I brought on a co-host, Scott would approve of a young man. It's Adam. No, no, that sounds weird.

Okay. It is sound weird until you said it sounds weird. It was fine. Anyway, it's Adam Mockler, Gen Z commentator and host of the Adam Mockler show. Talk a little bit about your background for people who don't know. First of all, I just want to say thanks for having me on. I'm excited to co-host. I really appreciate how you guys do put attention on young male issues.

which is obviously what you were getting towards. You guys talk about it in a very unique way, and that means a lot. I'm 23 years old, and I'm building a media company in Chicago. I've got a team of five to six scrappy people. I do a lot of debates and a lot of political content online. And I've just built this over the past two to three years, but also over the past decade or so.

I made my YouTube channel when I was nine years old, and I used to make call of duty videos. Okay, that was like decade, you're 23. Okay. Oh, I used to make these call of duty in Minecraft videos. Many young people have experiences where they would make like these gaming videos. And that kind of sprouted into me doing political videos when I graduated high school. I would go to Trump rallies and debate the supporters there.

And now it's turned into this. Now I speak to some young male issues, political issues. So where did you go to college? You went to college, correct? Yes. And in Indiana for one year and then I dropped out after going to college for a year. It was too much of a balance between doing work. Little Mark Zuckerberg action.

Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People always say Charlie Kirk is he dropped. dropped out too and did politics, but I don't know, I think Zuckerberg, I like that a little bit more. Okay, try to use that one. What is your hopes and dreams of what you want to make? I just want to make politics accessible for a younger generation

by using the vehicles to my advantage, such as short form content. Short form content is a really powerful vehicle for posting debate content and clips. And I just want to keep building my own show, my own apparatus. I worked with Midas Touch for a while, and now I'm building my own sort of machine on my side. So my goal is to just keep scaling and expanding and making politics accessible. Right, because it's been a lot less expensive. I mean, I hate to tell you, but I happen to be the OG of this decade, two decades ago, really, when we left the Wall Street Journal.

And it's very exciting. It is, you know, one of the things, a lot of people who are doing this like you are always like, oh, should I leave? I'm like, yes. Like, it's such an interesting time to do this. I find independent media to be unique, and you probably found this as well, because you can build a quite nimble, fast-paced team, and you can scale. almost infinitely with content.

Like there's always another podcast to do or hit or appearance or interview. And then you can post it on Facebook, on threads, on YouTube. It's like there's so much you can scale and you can have a really tight, nimble team, as opposed to mainstream media, which there's like a few different conglomerates that own it. There's five layers of approval if you want to ever post anything. It's a lot more nimble in this space. Yeah, I always joke that I was a bad employee, and so I just left. So you're self-funded, correct?

Yep, I self-fund. the revenue from YouTube back into the business. So YouTube is your principal place to do this, correct? Yep. Is there anywhere, how do you look at that? How do you think about that? My business model, I kind of look at it as a pyramid where YouTube is my main priority, and then I trickle it down to Facebook, Spotify, and the organizations that are like audio,

and then it trickles down to short form content on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter and all of those. And so you make most of your money on YouTube. It is television now. I tell this to people all the time. YouTube is television for you. It is. Not just for young people, by the way. Everyone's like, it's for young people.

I'm like, yeah, but it's not. It's interesting. If you look at the change, there's more people watching my show on their TVs now. You can see on the YouTube backend analytics. There's more people watching on their TV, watch hour-wise, than on their phone. So it is the new television.

And then I'm able to actually go on TV and do these debates and combine it with my YouTube. So it's an interesting model that we're building. Well, one of the reason I'm having yours, I see you're very clever. you do use television as a marketing tool. But how do you, where do you look at your audience? Obviously, you have probably a very low skewing demo. Oddly enough, Pivot has a very low age on compared to cable where like almost babies. It's interesting. I actually have a pretty diverse audience age-wise.

I've got a lot of people in the 40 to 60 age range and of course a lot of people in the 18 to 34 age range on different platforms. I think there's a migration happening from places like MS now or like some of the bigger networks to digital media. And you see that in my comment section. You see that from people that said their disillusion from mainstream media. Now a lot of the big media organizations are using people online, online personalities,

in their shows. And it's becoming really symbiotic in a way. So I think the relationship will become more symbiotic. Like we said, independent media allows you to be so much more nimble with lower overhead. I mean, I can have a scrappy team of five people who are fresh out of college and we all are growing together while we invest a lot of our time into this ecosystem.

So I think that there's a lot of mileage for this independent media ecosystem. One of the big questions is during the next administration, after Trump is gone out of the spotlight, what's the attention economy gonna look like, right? Like I think everybody is asking the question about the attention economy. And I think that honestly,

it's probably a good thing for politics to be boring. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, but the way the environment works is gonna be much different when there's not a clown cabinet and a constant train record. to watch, you know. Yeah, Trump has said that, I said it years ago. I think Jeff Zucker even said it, like, thank goodness for Trump is really, he is. People do like the show, essentially. They liked his

original show. It is getting a little tired and weird at this point. But one last question. What do you worry about? Like, what do you think you have missing, or what do you worry about? What I'm worrying about a lot, like what I think about most of the time is longevity in the space, is building something that isn't just a quick blip that rises and falls. I feel like there's so many examples, and I can't even pull them off the top of my head because they fall in, of people that have this infrastructure that they're reliant on. They're reliant on one single contract or one single gig, rather than building a long-term infrastructure around them that they can own and rely on. So I'm thinking about longevity. I mean, Bill Maher has had his show since

like the late 90s. Like hasn't he had a show since the early? He's had it for 20, 30 years at this point. Different shows, of course. Same thing with like John Stewart. Same show, but different shows. These people have longevity in the space. And that's what I'm trying to build towards, a show or an infrastructure that I can own, rather than being reliant on the next booker hitting me up. Right. Right. Absolutely. That's a really smart thing to think about. Are you worried about things like libel and stuff like that? Yeah, I have a lawyer and I would talk about it a lot. And sometimes with this political space, I have to either title things or use like outrageous, sometimes titles and ways that I frame things. But at the end of the day, my reporting is pretty

spot on. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't float conspiracy theories. I've reject a lot of the conspiracy theories that are out there. Anything about Trump's fake assassination attempts, I don't believe. I think they were real. I think the assassination times were real. I think the elections have not been stolen. I'm not into conspiracy theories. I'm not into gossip or rumors. I'm generally pretty on point. Like, like I made a video about Natalie Harp and I relied on Maggie Haberman's reporting from the New York Times. It doesn't worry me. It's rather well-sourced. Yeah, right, exactly. And of course, you still have to rely on reporters. But eventually, you

you'll get into reporting. Like, ultimately, that's where it goes. But we've got a lot to get to today, so let's dig in. First, there's a growing concern about the 5,000 sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carry, which has now been deployed for more than 250 days and hasn't made a port call in at least 200 days. Military families and lawmakers are sounding the alarm about the food shortages, contaminated water, and mental health struggles. There's reports of multiple attempts by crew members to jump overboard. Defense Secretary Pete Higgs has said concern about conditions on board have been completely misrepresented. And acting Navy secretary notes the Lincoln's deployment was extended because the mission demanded it.

The ship will soon be replaced by the USS George Washington. Obviously, it's complex and people push back against Exxat and President Donald Trump. Let's hear what he said about the Lincoln. Well, no, that ship is moving. No, they're not. That ship is moving right now, well, very shortly, and it's being replaced with another very similar ship. No, no, no. Not nearly long enough. So that was something to say. I think the families are very upset. Now, also, Georgia Democratic, John Ossoff this week had some thoughts on all of this. And Trump in general, let's listen to what he said at a rally on Sunday night.

And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president's leaps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. I just want to explain to listeners. Natalie is Natalie Hart, Trump's personal aid, also known as the human printer. She's sort of his binky or comfort blanket as Maggie Haberman, you speaking which recently put it. Natalie was even with him in the catering Cart during his plane decoy operation last month. Talk a little bit about these stories. These are all like merging into one story. And also, by the way, Maggie talked about the Secret Service being

nervous about Natalie Harp and her love notes she leaves for Trump all around his private spaces. Talk a little about these stories. This is bizarre on all levels, Adam. Yeah, first of all, John Alsuff did a really good job of weaving everything together there. I think he's a really talented communicator. Natalie Harp has been leaving a lot of these weird notes for Donald Trump saying, you are all that matters to me, and she's inseparable from him at a time when Malani has kind of been missing from all these public events. Honestly, putting that aside for one second, I just want to return to the USS Abraham Lincoln because this is wild to me. The war has been going on for 170 days. These sailors, many of whom were in their 20s, like early 20s, have been

trapped there for hundreds and hundreds of days with the tier rating conditions. It reminds me a lot of the prior wars. When I was really, really young in the mid-2000s, the same leaders, many of the same people would go on TV and say that this will make America more safe and protected in the long term. And we had to watch as these wars turned into grinding counter-insurgencies, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan. We were told that we were winning. They went out there and they said, we're winning.

We killed the bad guy. Saddam Hussein's dead. Then it turned into a grinding counter insurgency that cost us trillions of dollars. We are seeing the same thing repeat. We have these leaders going out on television claiming that this war is being won, that their military is destroyed. That's obviously not true. If the military were destroyed from Iran, then why is Trump still in danger? Why are Trump and Natalie Harp in this catering cart?

Why is the Strait of Formuz closed? It's very clear that Iran still has a chokehold over the region. They still have enough of a military to close the Strait of Formuz, and it's not making us safer. I think there's a really strong parallel to be drawn that a lot of millennials, that a lot of or a lot of people in my generation, especially people of your generation have seen play out over the years. Being in the Middle East doesn't just make us more safe because we're in the Middle East. We have to be getting political concessions from the country. So, sorry, all of this is to say that we're not getting any political concessions out of this war.

Trump is more focused on hanging out with Natalie Harp, and Americans are struggling right now. It's bad. The USS Abraham Lincoln has 20 years. Do young people think about this ship and what's – did these stories break through? The war is absolutely breaking through. It's a pretty big promise that you can't ignore or avoid. It's a complete 180 from what he said on the campaign, which was no new wars. And that really bothers a lot of young people.

You can see it in the way that it manifests on, like, Joe Rogan's podcast or Theo Vaughn. Theo Vaughn's a comedian who's not even MAGA. People always try to ascribe these beliefs. He's just a dude who kind of pays attention to the news when it's there. And when it comes to Iran, he keeps saying that this is an illegal war. It's a war of aggression, that it's not right. Joe Rogan has echoes similar thoughts about us being stuck. I think the broad populace of young people and these figures don't like the same war because

of what I just said, the echoes of the prior war is in the mid-2000s. Absolutely. One of the things that's really interesting is I've noticed both my sons very much focused on it. And they're between your age, one is 21, one is 24. And this is at the top of mind for them. But this seems to have resonated in a way that a lot of news stories have. I don't, I'm not, they're aware of the Natalie Harp of it all, but I think they were super offended by the way they talked about these families. My dad was in the military and was in the Navy and I was offended for these families.

What has to occur here? And why do you imagine this is the way Trump is handling it? I think that he's kind of cornered right now. He's trapped himself and he's trying to negotiate with the carrot. He's trying to entice them via negotiations and use the carrot. it's not working. And then he's trying to use the stick and bomb them over and over, and that's not working. So he's cornered himself to a point where he's entirely trying to reject this idea that he's cornered. And it does break through to young people. It's just such a brazen, broken promise.

I also want to point out, we're going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on this. We already spend $1 trillion per year on the interest of our national debt. Just to service our debt, we spend $1 trillion per year. It's one of the most expensive line items. that we have on our country. Like my generation, your son's generation, we're going to have to bear the brunt of all of this debt that is accumulating right now. And again, I think the most offensive part

is the way that Trump and the people around him are lying about it so brazenly, acting like it's not existing, trying to blind themselves. They have people like Caroline Levitt, even the Scott Jennings of it all, going out there in trying to say that there's nothing wrong,

that we're winning this war. It's a really sickening lie. Is it out of touch thing? Is it an age? When you listen to them or is you just saying just good at line? They're just trying to tow the party line. You know how when we ask any Republican who won the 2020 election, they have that line that they run?

They're like, most of them that are trying to be a cabinet member say this. They're like, Joe Biden was certified. They have this weird way they go around it. I think they have to tow the party line and they have to hold faith in the Iran war. But one more time, it started 170 days ago. What do they say, four to six weeks? at the beginning of this? Yes, they did.

And I was with actually a pretty prominent Republican center. He goes, if this is more than two weeks, Kara, everything's fucked. And I was like, I text them. I'm like, it's more than two weeks. It's pretty bad now. Did you see the Chris Christie clip where he said that Trump is going to be Jimmy Cartered? That Iran learned one lesson from the Jimmy Carter debacle that you can hold something hostage. And if you do it for long enough, it begins to look bad for the president every single day.

Oh, it's his biggest favor. I was with a pretty prominent foreign affairs. They were talking about the attempts by Iran to kill him, and they're like, why would they? He's good for them, like, in terms of giving them a lot of cover and inability to just make exactly what you're talking about, Jimmy Gard. He's being Jimmy Carter. Does the Daly Harp story get a lot of residents? It seems a little prurient, but at the same time, it's weird. And she's right there, like all the time.

So does that matter to your listeners? Yeah, people find it very interesting, combined with the fact that Melania is also gone. I mean, listen, Melani is clearly not enjoying this. And I'm not going to speculate on what Trump and Natalie Harper doing, but Natalie Harp has been obsessed with him for years. I found this thread from Decoding Fox News, a Twitter account, and they point out that Natalie Harp on OAN used to sign off her show by quoting the Bible. And sometimes she would quote Trump in lieu of the Bible.

So she would either quote Trump or quote the Bible back in 2020, 2021. She's been obsessed with him for a while. And the more I cover it, the more people are rather interested in this weird note passing that's happening back and forth. Apparently, the Secret Service, as you mentioned out, said this was sort of a security concern. There's a bunch of photos of Natalie Harp smiling at him, like that new movie Obsession, you know, the new horror movie that's coming out. She's standing in the corner, like, smiling at him. I swear to God, if you look at these photos. Explain obsession.

It's like a curse. It's like a horror movie where a guy wishes that his girlfriend is obsessed with him. And it turns into a curse where she's really creepily obsessed with it. And that's Natalie Harp all the time. Doesn't end well. That movie doesn't end well. Anyway, Adam, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Press Secretary, Karen Levitt, steps down.

Support for the show comes from Mint Mobile. Kids know how to live in the moment. That's why they love summer. No school or teachers to structure their days. Well, that freedom doesn't need to go away as you get older, especially when you actually have spending power. So save your money this summer for the things that are fun and free and do it by saving money on your phone bill.

Get the coverage you know and love at a fraction of the price, and you can do that with Mint Mobile. Right now, all of Mint's premium wireless plans are only $15 per month. All plans come with high-speed, 5D data, and unlimited talk and tax. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com slash pivot. That's mintmobile.com slash pivot. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com slash pivot.

That's it. There's no catch. Up front payment of $45 for $3.30 for $6 months or $180 for 12-month. required 15 dollars per month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot capable device required availability speed and coverage varies submitmobile.com support for the show comes from vanta what's the one thing in business that's spreading as fast as AI it's not inflated egos or vicious backstabbing or delusions of grandeur among CEOs frankly that stayed pretty constant for years it's AI risk every new tool your team signs up for every vendor that turns on

AI features, every new integration, each one is an opportunity for something to go wrong. And most security programs weren't built for AI's pace of growth. Enter Vanta. Vanta is the number one agenetic trust platform used by over 16,000 fast-moving companies, including Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, to ensure they're always audit ready. And now Vanta is helping companies, including yours, watch for the risks that show up between audits across your vendors, your AI tools, and your whole environment. How? The Vanta agent works like a 24-7 GRC engineer, in the background, finding issues, drafting fixes for you, and cutting vendor assessment time by up to 50%. Whether you're a fast-growing startup or a global enterprise, Vanta is here to help

you automate your security and compliance and earn improved trust. Get started today at vanta.com slash pivot. That's VANTA.com slash pivot. Support for this show comes from Harvey AI. The future of law is agentic, not just tools that assist, but AI agents that navigate complex matters. Harvey was built on legal agents that analyze draft and execute with precision. But great lawyers don't just complete tasks, they strategize. That's why Harvey created agents that can do the work from end to end. They build a plan, pull from secure data sources, run sub-agents in parallel,

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

Harvey, AI tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.aI. Adam, we're back. Who will replace press secretary Carolyn Levitt as of this recording we don't know, Trump announced last week that Levin is stepping down at the end of the month to spend more time with her family. She just had her second kid. Some of the rumored candidates replaced Levin include Trump's former personal lawyer, Alina Haba, who was with him at his dancing to YMCA at the club in New Jersey recently.

His daughter-in-law, Lara Trump and political commentator, Scott Jennings, your best friend. I'll mention that after, but Scott was asked about this on CNN. Let's listen to what he said. Scott, who should replace Caroline Levitt? Obviously, she is stepping down. Are you throwing your hat in the ring? Yeah, well, first of all, are you throwing your hat in the ring? Will you serve, Scott?

Answer the question. No, look. Answer the question. I don't know, but I'll tell you this, Caroline Levitt has been maybe the greatest White House press secretary in the last 30 years at least. She's been nothing short of brilliant. She's done it while raising young family.

I think it's great that she's going to go spend time with her family, but I don't know a single Republican in the country who isn't in all of and an appreciation of Caroline tonight. So Godspeed on your journey back to your family. You've done great speed. Do you want the job or not? Let me help Scott. Democrats are afraid of Scott Jennings becoming press secretary.

There you got. Ah, I want to remind people before we get into this. You have a little history of Scott Jennings. This was so sweet. Let's listen to a clip. Scott Jennings is more than happy to defend a war with a country that starts with letters, I-R-A that we are currently failing that is going to put us trillions and trillions of dollars more in debt. I was only a few years old while you were in the administration

defending prior endless wars. Now, this war is failing. Eight weeks is endless to you? Okay, you said it was going to six weeks. Wait, wait a minute. I debated you on TV four to six weeks ago and you said we were weeks away from it. Now you're making condescending remarks because you can't defend the fact that this war is not going your way. Wait, one more time. Not going. Not going your way. Name one political concession. Name one political concession. Yeah. Yeah. I was a second hand on myself.

That got a lot of attention. So talk a little bit about that first, and then the press secretary's job. Does it matter one way or the other, if Scott Jennings goes there, or any of these other names we've mentioned? I mean, I think that Scott Jennings would make a perfect press secretary from all of my past interactions with him.

Unfortunately, it's probably too much of a pay cut because he likes doing the media stuff where he's always towing the line, but he's really built up a unique talent that I respect in constantly garage. at Donald Trump's feet, constantly making sure he's towing the party line, and kind of pivoting around questions. Even in that clip that you just played right there, you see how he very quickly brushes off the actual question

and goes in to trying to sane wash and whitewash all of Caroline Levitt's history. If she was doing such a good job over the past 16 months, Donald Trump's approval rating wouldn't be underwater across every single sector, both immigration domestically, immigration at the border, immigration overall with ice, the economy, everything. When it comes to Scott Jennings, I mean, I can explain how that clip came to be.

It was the Iran War putting so much pressure on him. Let me reword that. Him putting pressure on himself because he kept lying about the Iran War week after week after week, and we blew through the timeline. I was sitting next to him on these panels, and he was saying this was going to be a four to six week timeline, right? Four to six week war. We blew through that, and then it was seven to eight weeks, the nine to ten weeks. then we were 12 weeks in, and I would probably feel a lot of pressure, too, if I were the one who had to keep lying about this war.

So as I point out, he'll lie about any war that starts with the letters IRA, and I really do think he had quartered himself and felt the pressure in that moment. There's something weirdly fragile and not masculine about constantly trying to dish it out and be condescending on these panels. But then the moment someone tries to reciprocate and at least like press you on something, you freak the hell out. there's something really fragile and, like, hypocritical about that, in my opinion. In that moment, what was, you handled it really rather well, and you didn't have your hand in his face. Let's be clear. That was so strange. I was like, what are you talking about? And he actually got physical. I've noticed a lot, interesting, a lot of physicality when RFK interviewed Dana Bash, was interviewed by Dana Bash. He got, he was moving forward to, it's very strange and weird. And you're right.

It's, I wouldn't say non-masculine, it's something weird. It's something else that's very strange. It's a very strange reaction to what I thought was a legitimate point you were making. And, you know, you're very good at debate, so that probably irked him. You know, you probably are irksome to him in some way. The reality of it is, I had been on multiple panels with him in the weeks prior, talking about the Iran War, and every single time, I don't play the game that he plays. Like, he plays this game where he's able to lie and dodge and weave on the panel.

And then everyone kind of collectively moves on. And it's fine. I get it. There's only so much time in the show. It's just part of the show. But sometimes I'm like, wait a minute. I genuinely don't want to move on from this guy weaving around this right now.

So I pressed him on it, and I pressed him on it, and he didn't have an answer. I think that you could just admit the Iran war is failing, and it would be much easier than blowing up and doing that to yourself. So him leaving to be press secretary, thoughts? I don't know. I don't think it's going to happen.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if he's probably floating his own name just to create the headlines and the bus surrounding him. I do. I believe that to be true. I do think you're right. He likes media attention and money. I guess the question would be what's the upside versus downside? The downside is that you have to constantly be a part of these clips where the media are trying to pin you down and press you. And we saw right there, he doesn't have the temper at this very moment. I don't know what's going on with me. He doesn't have the temper. On the other side of that, he probably takes a pay cut as well. So there's a lot of downs. side. What's the upside? You become like a figure and then usually you become a media figure after. He's already a media figure. I just, I don't see the calculation of becoming the press secretary. Yeah, he doesn't want to go right to dancing with the stars like Sean Spicer. But one of the

things that it isn't, I'm like, there's no plus to being on Nero's barge at the last part of it. That to me. And Scott is smart enough to do that. He's making more money for doing the same thing, basically. Right. And Alina Haba doesn't really have a lot of options. You know what I mean? And Lara Trump just likes to be looking at it. me kind of stuff. So who would make a good one of these people? Is there another person you're not thinking of? I'd have to think about it. I mean, anyone in the Trump orbit who is well-versed, I wouldn't be surprised if he puts like one of his ex-lawyers, like Alina Haba, could work. I saw a clip of Natalie Harp when she was an OAN anchor. That would not work. She was not very good.

She was doing like a discount Tucker Carlson. Scott Jennings would be really good, but like I said, there's too much downside. I mean, good in like a infuriating way. Who do you think? Who do you think is on the top of the list? I think probably it's Alina Haba. She was sitting there kissing his ass. You know, I just, I think she doesn't have a lot of choices. And I don't think she's a lot of financial choices either. Is she going to be good at that job, do you think?

It doesn't, does it matter? I mean, does it matter? I mean, Karen Leavitt is good at it, except you're, I think you make the salient point. His polls are going down. So it's not, she's not that good, like, ultimately if she's the, probably she got a lot of pressure. Apparently she was yelled at quite a bit by him constantly. She was a little bit too obviously good at lying. It's like a bad episode of the boys.

Yeah. be interesting to see where she goes. The reason they made her a senior advisor, outside advisor, is because she gets protected in executive, the way he said it. They're all going to need, the other thing is Scott doesn't want to need a pardon, right? That's the problem. Like, they all are going to need a pardon. And I don't think you can give blanket pardons to that many people. Maybe you can. He probably could. I think there's a doubt. I think it hardly matters now after the midterms. Like, that's going to be a shitty fucking job for whoever it is. Yeah.

Caroline got it out at the right time. Yeah, she really is. She's very candy that way. So, let's move to the Democrats. They've officially signed off on a new presidential primary calendar for 2028. South Carolina and Nevada are now first replacing Iowa and New Hampshire as the top two. The change moves more racially diverse states to the front of the calendar. DNC chair.

Ken Martin says the new calendar will battle test our nominee, putting them in the strongest possibility to win back the White House. Talk about the calendar. I've heard a lot about this in which candidates it helps and it hurts. It probably helps Kamala Harris in some ways and others. But talk a little bit about, because she's a known quantity down there, talk a little bit about this shift. Yeah, so obviously folks in Iowa will be disappointed. That was a huge state in the process for a while, even in the Obama race, Iowa was like a huge turn. So people are going to be upset. I went to a lot of the Iowa primary rallies and the Iowa state fair a few years back. I'll miss it myself. But from my understanding, it's pretty simple. It's meant to empower and give more weight to black and Latino voters. There's a very big labor presence in the state of Nevada, which will be one of the earliest states. And I think the Democratic Party is really trying to move in that direction. And overall, there's just a lot of distrust in

the current establishment. You have to remember in, of course you remember, I'm just saying. You have to remember in 2020, the Iowa caucuses didn't really go too smoothly. And Pete Buttigieg's campaign had a lot of problems. The app had a lot of problems. This comes at a time when you see the DNC not bringing in a lot of money, which is interestingly because individual candidates are bringing in a lot of money. If you look at the DNC, it's really struggling as an apparatus. But people like James Talariko and John Alsuff are outraising their opponent. I think James Tala Rico is raised $72 million or something. So there is energy, but not for the establishment, if that makes sense. Yeah, and so who does this put in a position for the nominees?

You rightfully pointed out that Kamala Harris will do well. Again, there's a strong labor presence in Nevada, so it might not be the candidates that people think. When I think of a strong labor presence and who people like that vote for, it's not always inherently the more progressive candidate, which kind of breaks the archetype of a lot of people think. So I could see Kamala doing well. I could see if somebody like John Ossoff ran doing very, very well, I'm a big fan of him. lately. Like, you played that clip of him. He's just so good at communicating. Yeah, Hotlanta. He's vehemently rejecting the idea that he's going to run. Is that like a game? Like,

do they just say that they're not going to run? I don't know. I think he can't say anything because he's running for his office. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So if he's like, of course I am, then the citizens of Georgia are like, fuck you. Like, you know, he can't. He's got to be vehement. And then he was like, oh, as I began to hear people, I understood that my my future has to be with help. Is that what he sounds like? Something like that. This isn't the head. These people wake up every morning,

and as Scott says, saying, hello, Mr. President. They just do. Come on, like, stop it. But I don't know who would do well in Nevada. I mean, it'd be interesting if AOC runs. There's all manner of people who have appealing in different states. I think it also goes to show where the Democratic Party

is trying to move back to. We lost a lot of ground with the Latino vote in 2024, like a surprising amount of ground. And now it's immediately shifted back, very much so like a rubber band where Trump's ice raids. Like, he sends ice surgically and intentionally into these majority Latino communities in order to intimidate and terrorize them and then wonders why Latino communities are moving far away from him again.

So I think Democrats could really make a move, realign a lot of the demographics again. We just need a strong candidate. It's going to be a really interesting ideological primary. Yeah. All right. Speaking of ideological, before we get to 2028, we've got to get through the midterms. in Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is trailing Republican Mike Rogers by four points in the first poll in the first polly.

Though, it's up and down. Like, the market is a different thing. I don't always rely on them, by the way. You've re-shared some polling numbers the other day on the Senate race in Kansas, showing Democrat, Adam Hamilton, just one point behind Republican incumbent Roger Marshall, which is a big deal. And you said, the blue wave is here. Careful with the waves, as they say. So what's your latest prediction on the midterm Senate and House and how?

the Democratic anti-establishment aggressive movements factor in. A lot of my tweets are just formulated to be as simple as possible. Yeah, I get it. I'm very reductive on Twitter. But listen. The best way to be. Yeah, yeah. Listen, so I think that at the end of the day, people want change in the Democratic Party. It's that simple. Like, Democratic voters aren't reading marks and turning far left.

People want change. They don't want the establishment. And that's leading to more and more, you know, progressive candidates winning. that can use social media in a more savvy and nimble way and have these newer platforms. I think that we're in a good spot to take over the House, come the midterms. Kalshi and Polly Market, like you said, it's not the best indicator, but there's a lot of,

there's millions of dollars. Yeah, they kind of fucked up on Francesco Hong. Oh, it's bad. It's bad sometimes. There's millions of dollars flowing into some of these markets, and right now it seems like Democrats have a good shot at winning the House in the midterms, and the Senate is up for grabs. I want to point out with the House,

were already at a five-point inherent disadvantage due to the redistricting that Republicans did. This radical mid-cycle redistricting put us at a five-point disadvantage, so we have to fight back there. But I think Democrats are in a really good position. We have a lot of strong candidates. I'm not really trustworthy of the poll.

I'm not trusting the polling right now, nor the betting markets, because they effed up with Hong really badly. They effed up with Abdul al-Sayed very, very badly. At the end of the day, Democrats are in a good position for the midterms. Democrats want change. And Abdul al-Sayette is a really strong candidate, in my opinion.

People keep saying that he's an example of these, like, lefty, progressive DSA members, but he's not even DSA. He's a self-described free market guy who likes entrepreneurialism. He likes small businesses. I think there's a really strong, accessible version of, you know, liberalism there. Well, it's interesting because there's two. I have a friend who's from Michigan, and he said all his relatives. And he's a, he's not progressive. He's a Democrat. He's a solid Democrat. Can't vote for him.

Like he won, these are sort of suburban kind of people and they're going to vote with their noses held for Rogers, which I cannot believe they would do that. Wow. I know. And I was, this is a long-time Michigan there. And I was like, huh, interesting. Then again, my son who lives in Michigan and all his frat bro friends are voting for El Saeed. And, and they did in the election over Haley Stevens. And war was the issue, issues of the A-PAC was certainly an issue for them. There was a bunch of others, and I'm like, which one is going to win here? Like it was, but they're very committed to him. And I wouldn't call my son even slightly liberal. He's not. He's just not. It's a really interesting thing. I think people don't know. It's a question of how well this guy can, because if he

if he chokes and doesn't win, he'll, and it costs the Senate by one Z, that'll make him sort of widely reviled. And if he does, then it's what? What does it say? Yeah, well, first of all, I think that there's still a few months left of the campaign, and we just got out of a primary where there were $60 million spent against Abdul, like negative spending against his character and his past and his policy. So right now, Mike Rogers on the other side didn't really have a very competitive primary where there were negative ads against him. I hope at this point a lot of money begins to flow into the negative advertising against Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed is able to consolidate some of the base.

But I've heard similar concerns out of people that are voting in Michigan. People are concerned about him. I hope that as the general goes on, he's able to make a stronger case and able to continue to captivate Michigan voters. Right. They're sort of attacking him. The Trump, terrorist, communist. Yeah, no, I mean, they're overstepping. Listen, like a really hard, divisive Democratic primary is always going to splinter part of the base. I'm sure people got some crazy ads about Abdul coming from Haley Stevens campaign, but now we're going to consolidate. Mike Rogers is going to have so many ads going against him, and this guy's got a wild pass that they're going to keep highlighting. If Abdul wins, first of all, if Abdul loses,

it's going to broadly be a rebuke of not him personally, but this more progressive strand of politics. He's not even DSA, but he does represent a new wave of insurgent candidates. If he wins, I think it'll only further emboldened that sort of movement. I personally hope it's not the DSA taking over with their candidates. I hope it's a more progressive, pragmatic, liberal view of people who want to redistribute wealth. That's fine. A higher minimum wage and more health care is fine. I'm not for some of the more farther left DSA ideas.

Well, he is not. As you point out, he's not in the DSA. He's not either, yeah. There's been a call for him to not stick with the Hassan Piker. another, you know, political pundit, who, by the way, may be suing Scott Jennings for defamation and correctly so because those clips were really manipulative, I would say. He said a lot of, he says, look, he's clearly narcissistic and says a lot of, like, inflammatory things, but that he should go move forward with anything that he feels was manipulated. But should

Al-Said separate from him? Listen, Hassan says things I disagree with, too, but that Scott Jennings clip was over the pale. It was like the most maliciously clipped up series of events ever. Yeah, I went back and watched all the real thing, and I was like, this is really easy. I mean, he's like reading comments out of chat or whatever, and then they're taking that out of context. I think he didn't know. I think Paker said this. I think Scott was not aware of what Hassan was doing, which is...

That's even worse indictment. You've got to be more media savvy. Agreed. Stupidity is not a defense, but go ahead. He's got to be more media savvy than that. It might be. Maybe. Maybe. If it's not malicious, then I'm not sure. By the way, it's Syed. I mispronounced it

a second ago. But I think that when it comes to Asan Piker, Lynn Abdul, there doesn't need to be a disavowal. I think that's fruitless, and I think it's just conceding to these right-wing frameworks. I genuinely think that Donald Trump surrounds himself with people that are just as radical as Asan Piker on a daily basis. The way that Stephen Miller is always screaming and frothing at the mouth on Fox News every single week, I mean, Donald Trump surrounds himself in campaigns with many extremist radical people. The Republican Party is like uniting around Max Miller after he allegedly broke his two-year-old collarbone. I'm not trying to compare any of that to Hassan Baker. Yeah, it doesn't really matter. I'm just saying that the Republican Party holds themselves

to one standard and then holds Abdul al-Sayyad to this impossibly high guilt by association standard. No, he shouldn't disavow it. Keep campaigning, keep moving forward, keep laser focus on Mike Rogers. I'd say that's my framework. In any case, we'll see what happens. You feel like he could win. if he got through to voters, even with the attacks that are coming from the Republicans. I'd like to think so, yeah. I mean, listen, Michigan is a purple state. It's a swing state. And right now, he's a more progressive candidate than we've run in that state in a while. Again, there was just $60 million of pretty negative spending directed at him. So now he has the chance to put Mike Rogers on his back foot and spend against Rogers. It's definitely possible.

The polling has been a bit misleading lately. But I guess the rebuttal to that is, it's It's been overestimating the progressive candidates. So we just have to see what happens. Mike Rogers has some skeletons in his closet. Yeah, we'll see. All right, Adam, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, will President Trump help the Tate brothers? Recommendations can be amazing.

I mean, maybe someone recommended that TV show you've been obsessed with lately. But when it comes to home projects, it's different. If you don't like a show, you might lose a few minutes. If you hire a friend of a friend of a friend to fix a leaky ceiling, you could end up with a flooded kitchen. Maybe I know a guy just isn't enough for your home. That's why Thumbtack works so well. They'll match you with a top-rated local pro,

and you can see photos of past work, credentials, and reviews, all right in the app. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the right pro today. Want to talk ETS with the people behind them? Join me, Etienne Jean-Cabouchard, on the Upside Ticker Talk. We dive into what's moving markets

with timely analysis, trends, and answers to ETF questions you've actually been thinking about. Hit play on the upside ticker talk and elevate your ETF investing IQ. Megan Rapino here. This week on Why Are You Like This? I got to sit down with legendary Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve in Chicago during All-Star Weekend. We get into her personal style of activism, how she supports her players as people, and why she proudly considers herself a dyke. Then we learn if she's more of a mommy, daddy, or baby. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This,

wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. Adam, we're back with more news. Supporters of Andrew and Tristan Tate want them freed. Many gathered outside the Miami Federal Detention Center, chanting for their release and even doing group push-ups. The brothers have been in federal custody since July 18th as they fight extradition in the U.K., where they face charges, including rape and sex trafficking.

Tate's attorney has said that if the judge doesn't agree, the brothers are innocent, they will go straight to President Trump's office. What is the groups doing push-ups? I don't even begin to understand, but I actually don't want to understand. Will Trump end up intervening here? I don't think he'll intervene in this case because he already did in February of 2025, January, February, and it didn't really go too well for them. I've been doing a lot of coverage on this, but back in 2025, early 2025, the Tate brothers were being invested by by the UK and by Romania.

There was a travel ban. They weren't allowed to leave Romania during this investigation. And members of the Trump administration specifically asked Romania to lift this travel ban so the Tate brothers could leave during this investigation. Baron Trump is reportedly very good friends with Andrew Tate and talks to him on the phone.

And Paul Ingrosia was one of Tate's lawyers and he now works in the Trump admin and has been lobbying for the Tate brothers to be freed for the investigation to be dropped. You might remember Paul and Grosia from his leaked text about a year ago. He's the one that said he has a Nazi streak in him. So just some real great gems in the Trump administration,

advocating for some real great people. The Tate brothers, they very insidiously would manipulate and abuse and basically traffic women who were in very bad positions in their lives, coerce them into doing webcam modeling by acting like he was in love with them, then intensely, intentionally isolating them from their family members and from their hometown and making sure. sure they had nowhere to go. This is an extensive law and order special business union.

It's wild. It's wild. And like they allegedly would skim 95% of the profits off the top and just pay the women nothing and then spread rumors about them in their family and their hometown. So the women had nowhere to go. It was awful. Then he would go brag about this and poison the minds of young men in my generation. Sorry, that's a lot right there.

But I'm passionate about this case right here. No, I know. Listen, my sons, we both had long discussions about Andrew Tate. And initially it was attractive. It absolutely was to a lot of people, you know, the be your own man, that kind of stuff. But soon turned them off pretty quickly. But I remember early, I was like,

I think these guys are really toxic pieces of shit kids. But you watch them and you make your own decisions here. But this is my take as your mom. It's like attractive in the way that some of Nick Fuentes clips are attractive. And I know that sounds controversial. But like it's not. It's like a guilty pleasure for a lot of people. It's like I'm not supposed to be playing this.

video game, I'm not supposed to be playing this at midnight. It's even more fun. It's like agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Green. You're like, oh, she's still terrible. And then there's some sort of allure to it. But the reality is, Andrew Tate is somebody who's uniquely awful because he's like living the worst stuff that he's speaking out loud. Some of these people are just fakers.

They're playing, they're role playing. They're acting like they're these big tough guys who like do this shit. They don't actually do anything. Andrew and Tristan Tate built an empire based off of manipulating. in allegedly trafficking women in multiple different countries. And now I have friends like reposting their reels because they're slightly funny or whatever.

It's- So what happens? Trump is not good. There's no plus for Trump to do anything. Though he might. Especially after the Epstein stuff. Yeah, it's related to Epstein. Yeah, I mean, it's all related to each other, but my, I have, he might.

That's my feeling. He might. He could. So the Tate Brothers lawyer, Joe McBride, has been trying to get a hold of Trump or Marco Rubio. because Marco Rubio is the one that's in charge of extraditions. Marco Rubio said he wants nothing to do with it. Nothing. But at the end of the day, I don't know.

I think that Donald Trump did it in first time in an attempt to court these younger male voters. Andrew Tate and Tristan Tate's lawyer has been saying that if Trump doesn't allow them to be released, he's going to tell all their young fans never to vote for Republicans again. So they're kind of like dangling it as leverage over Trump and the Republican Party.

I think he would have to be pretty dumb to do it. Like, after all the Epstein saga, this would be very bad PR. But he does stuff like that all the time. Then Scott Jennings has to defend it. Imagine that. Yeah, I know, right? Even he did not defend the team. I don't recall.

No, he didn't. No, I'm saying imagine he's depressed. Let's give Scott a fucking barred here. All right. All right, Adam, one more quick week. We'll be back for wins and fails. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this.

Cadillac Optic was the number. one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19 speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations

for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Get your tickets now for the dog stars. It's no surprise how fast civilization can disappear. Go! Out there, it's kill or be killed. Jacob Allorty. There are people out there? They need our help.

Josh Bruland. Shoot first and inquire afterwards. Margaret Quali. Okay, tough guy. And Guy Pearce. Arm up! The Dog Stars, directed by Ridley Scott. In theaters, August 28th.

Get tickets now. Retailers want you to believe September is a fresh start that comes with a brand new shopping list, But the only thing back to school season really refreshes is their profits. I'm Vivian 2, your rich BFF, and on this episode of Net Worth and Chill, we're breaking down how to save big this fall. Scoring tech for a fraction of the price with trade-ins and refurbished deals, the college money hacks that keep you from ever paying full price for a textbook again, and the parent-tested strategies to outsmart every retailer trying to cash in on your kids.

Everything from 529 accounts to student discounts, you can maybe milk a little longer than you should. We've got you covered. Ready to hit this school year with a fuller bank account and zero buyer's remorse, listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Okay, Adam, let's hear some wins and fails. Why don't you go first? Okay, so I'll start with the fail.

I did a seven-day trip to a few different cities, multiple different hotels, and I lost my car keys at some point in that seven-day trip, and I flew back to O'Hare Airport, and my car was stuck in the parking garage, no keys, nothing, really bad situation. Really bad situation to be in, you know. I'm only human, and yes, I am like a young. I'm in early 20s. I'm just like your son. I can be aloof.

I could be aloof. The win is that we've just been hiring and training our new assistant over the past month, and I asked him if he could do a favor for me. So he drove to O'Hare Airport, found a locksmith, got the key, and my car is now back. So the win and the fail are a bit connected. What kind of car do you have, Adam? It's Buick. You know, some of these cars you can open with an app.

May I help you? Oh, really? Yes. When I lose my keys or leave them in the car, you can open them with an app. Thank you. All new cars you can do that with just now. That's actually a really good. That's a really good tip.

Did your son teach you that? No, I stopped. Are you kidding? Hello. I don't need help with tech, my friend. I teach my son's that. No, my son dropped his credit card out of his pocket when he was ice climbing. I could have killed him and like it went down to the canyon.

And I've had to replace so many credit cards from my son. who drops credit cards. I'm not giving them anymore. I'm like, get it on your phone. No, I drop them too. They make them too easy to replace. It almost incentivizes you to be like,

you just get it on your phone, Adam. Just get every, you can do, you can get into houses. You don't need keys anymore. Let's hear your win-fail. My fail today is Jason R. Day. And actually, I'm going to link it with Hayden Paneteer. I think she's, let me start with her backwards.

She's just died. She's 36 years old. Wonderful actor. Just a lovely presence. She wrote a memoir recently. very clear showing her struggles with postpartum depression, drinking, etc. There was, there's sort of this heinous neutragina dumped her for talking about that. I just, it's such a sad situation. We don't know what happened to her, but it could be problematic, let's just say. And it's just sad. And one of the

things she talked about was the relentless attacks of the media on her as a young woman. And she couldn't believe how much she'd been attacked and as, as, you know, an attractive young woman and talked about it and the toll it took on her. And I get celebrities not easy, but it was really, she did in a way that was really ugly and was not unable to sustain it in a lot of ways and it affected her. I'll connect this with Jason Arde, who was the youngest black professor at Cambridge in the UK and he was found dead late last week. And he was under a lot of pressure because of pleasures and allegations, but the pile on, and we can debate all the nuances. There's a very good Atlantic story that debates the nuance of maybe he was doing things, taking shortcuts. At this point, I don't

really care because there's a lot of white academics who get out very easily compared to this guy. The attention that this guy got was so out of size in Britain, the attacks on this guy were so oversized of his alleged crime of plagiarism and some other falsehoods that he might have told. It doesn't mean you don't care about those things and accountability and academia, etc., etc. But the overwhelming ability of social media and the press, in this case, I blame the media for both of these, of just not knowing when to stop with this kind of stuff, is really disturbing in every. I think we all participate in it. But the ugliness that you see here, especially with both of them, and Jason Moe recently, is really quite,

something has to shift in the way we cover things. I doubt it will. It's been going on forever when their tabloids have been here for a long time, but it's gotten amplified and uglified in a way that's gross. And everyone who was a part of this should feel some regret and responsibility. I'm not sure they will. I feel their families, it's just so unnecessary what's happened in these cases that contributed this kind of thing. I'm going to do an opposite win that's different. I've been watching the D23 stuff. I don't know if you are a child of Disney, but my guess. I have two younger kids, too, watch Disney.

My older kids watch Disney. And they're doing this amazing gathering of all these different Disney products. And I have to say it's the most entertaining thing. And it's not just a, you know, it's a showcase for their talent. But it's very beautiful. And whether it's Anne Hathaway giving a wonderful speech about her career, and I know I'm being manipulated, or there was this incredible song by Lynn Manuel Miranda, which was sung to a song from The Little Mermaid that,

about his career because he was inspired by the little mermaid and Howard Ashman and others. And I have to say it was just wonderful. And this is when I love celebrity and I love that kind of thing. And you see someone like in Hathaway who's grown up also in the public eye who's done, who's thrived and Hayden who did not. It's really, it's a really interesting week for that, both incredibly talented, by the way. So those are my wins and fails. Were you a Disney child, Adam? Yeah, yeah. I like Disney a lot. There was this movie named Bolton. about this dog that went on this. Do you remember that? Do you remember both? I remember watching that all the time. I have four children. I know all the movies. Okay, okay.

So you watched it a lot of the D23 stuff even excites me. They're doing all these new casting announcements on stage where they're talking about this is the new X-Men. Yeah, they're great. They're good X-Men. I like a lot of that stuff. Is there an X-Men you object to? I think people kind of like the X-Men choices. No, no.

I think it's good so far. I really liked it. I really liked the cast. I like Sadie Sink. Is her name right? She's really good. Yeah, yeah. And she was in the new Spider-Man movie.

Have you seen that? No, I'm going to. I'm about to. Check it out. I am going to see it this week. My girlfriend refuses to watch the original Toby McWire movies because she says they're too corny and old, and I'm like, dude, I grew up on those. What?

How do I convince her to watch those? Oh, my, I'm sorry, she has to watch them. I know. Are you seeing the new one with your kids? I, my one son is living in San Francisco, and he's not a Spider-Man fan, and the other is in China hiking right now, so he's not going to be able to do it. The older ones are too young to watch Spider-Man. They're not ready for it yet.

They're four and six. And so they are still on in the, they went to see Paw Patrol Dino Island, which I'm so glad I didn't have to see Paw Patrol, which I call copaganda, is they just make a mess. The Paw Patrol people make a mess and then clean it up and declare themselves heroes.

I hate them. I hate them. Oh my God. Paw Patrol's Copaganda? Copaganda. The cute little puppies? They're copaganda. They're copaganda.

I like cops, but man, they don't need more shows celebrating them and not little animals that destroy things, men. I like May, I'm for mayor, what's his name? Paul Patrol Mayor. Paul Patrol Mayor is Mayor. Humdinger. Humdinger, yes. Yes, thank you for telling me that.

He is so bad, and I'm with Humdinger on all things. We'll move on from that. Anyhow, I will go see Spider-Man this week. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com. to submit a question for the show or call 85551 Pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week on on, I talked to author Ryan Holliday,

who's been popularizing the philosophy of stoicism through his books and his podcast. I'm really a fan of his. And he used to have a lot of high-profile fans in Silicon Valley and Tech. But many of them have turned on him as they've turned toward President Trump, also because he's pointing out the things they're using from stoicism, they pervert completely, which is why I love Ryan. Let's listen to a clip. It's been weird.

I don't feel like I've changed that much. And it's been interesting to watch people radicalize. Like I talked about this in the book I did on Wisdom, like watching Elon Musk go from reading Soviet rocket manuals to like getting all his news from social media, you realize just how easily smart people can fry their brains. And I think that's kind of the main problem of our time is like how to avoid getting brain fuck.

Yeah. Do you think that, Adam? That's that how you feel? It's actually very, very well said. I've actually wondered a lot throughout the past few years how Elon Musk can simultaneously be somebody who seems rather clever at times and can build and hire and push humanity in a visionary direction. But then also at such a minute level, get caught up in these weird lies about like black crime statistics and trans statistics. How can you simultaneously get caught up in both of those? Well, this is your brain on drugs.

I don't know to say. Allegedly. Allegedly. You know, it's more than that. He really was really an interesting character and not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but what's happened to him has been really disappointed. For those of us who know him pretty well,

the shift has been dramatic and disturbing and multifaceted, and it's a waste. It's an enormous waste. He's a little bit like Howard Hughes or Henry Ford. You know, this happens. This happens. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot,

and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday with another special guest host. Adam, I'm a real fan. You're doing an amazing job. I think you're going to have longevity. Let me say the way you're talking about your business is really smart. And just keep changing, I would say. Just keep changing and shifting.

And I'm sure you'll be around for a long time to come. Thank you. You and Scott are a huge inspiration. Thank you for having me on. And I'm sure we'll cross paths again soon. Absolutely. Thanks, Adam. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman,

Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Ernie Enderdot engineered this episode. Nishat Kerwit is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced Ellie Me products for always 375.

And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready with a whole world and more.