Pivot - WHCD Shooting Aftermath, Musk and Altman Face-Off, Spirit Airlines Bailout

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Kara and Scott unpack the aftermath of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting — the suspect, the media response, and how Trump is using the incident to push for his ballroom. Then, as the Musk vs. Altman courtroom battle gets underway, they break down who has the upper hand. Plus, Big Tech layoffs, the DOJ dropping its Powell probe, and a potential Spirit Airlines bailout.Watch this episode on the ⁠⁠Pivot YouTube channel⁠⁠.Follow us on Instagram and Threads at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcastofficial⁠⁠.Follow us on Bluesky at ⁠⁠@pivotpod.bsky.social⁠⁠Follow us on TikTok at ⁠⁠@pivotpodcast⁠⁠.Send us your questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more at harvey.a.I. Support for the show comes from Arthur Miller's death of a salesman. A New York Times critics pick. It's a perfect salesman. A triumph, says the New York Times. Ben Brantley says Miller's classic has never before stunk quite so acutely or so beautifully.

A haunting dream of a domestic quartet, a Nathan Lane, Lori Metcalf, Christopher Abbott, Ben Ehlers. New York Magazine says Joe Montello's perfectly calibrated death of a salesman lands like a haymaker to the temple. Now on Broadway. I would say you are the wind beneath my wings, but really are not. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher with my annual cold. It seems to be semi-annual. See, the thing is, it's kids. Yeah, it is. But I haven't gotten sick for a while, actually. It's been a while, very long while. You remember I got sick all the time when they were babies.

I do remember that. Yeah. So I'm, this is going to sound very maha, but I think I've been sick two or three times as an adult. I'm convinced this because I never went to the doctor and never had antibiotics as a kid. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I get sick on the dime every 10 years.

Really? Of what? Yeah, I could sick. I don't know cough or something. But no, my point is, I couldn't tell you the last time I was sick. Oh, I'm trying to think you were, I don't know, maybe it's just a hungover. I don't know. Yeah, that's, no, that's weekly.

You had COVID, and I never did. I did have COVID, but I wouldn't have known I had it. Oh, I never had COVID yet. That's wild. I know. Yeah, you couldn't go to Germany, do you remember? Oh, yeah, because I tested. But the good news, though, I realized I tested positive the afternoon.

I spoke to a jam-packed room of people from Brazil at a speaking gig. So I definitely gave the majority of Sao Paulo COVID. Oh, that's nice of you. Yeah. That's so kind of you. Anyway, well, you'll have to endure. You'll have to talk more. What a surprise that won't be any different.

I feel shame. That's passive-aggressive. 70-30. You brought that up. 70-30. You brought that up. I do 70% of the words, you do 30. That is actually true.

You're a better interviewer, that's why. That's true. And I'm a narcissist who's verbose. Anyway, did you have a good weekend? I was around Washington during this White House correspondent's dinner thing, and it all went well until it didn't. Until it didn't. It was a spectacular weekend.

in here. London, when it's nice out, you know, cities, and upside to cities that aren't always sunny, is that when the sun comes out, the whole city comes alive. It's like Chicago in the summer or what, I mean, if you're in L.A. and it's nice out, no one cares. Right. But in London, I was, I spent a lot of time in the park with the dogs and the kids, and I have, I have my boys this, this week. What park do you go to, Regents Park? Beautiful Park. Oh, it's spectacular. Right. Anyway, let's get to the news. As we record, Cole, Tom. Thomas Allen, the 31-year-old suspect in the White House correspondent's dinner shooting, is set to be arraigned in federal court.

He'll be charged with two counts of using a firearm and one count of assault on a federal official using a dangerous weapon. U.S. attorney for D.C., Janine Piro, says more charges are expected. Alan was arrested Saturday night after running through a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton exchanging fire with law enforcement. President Trump and top officials were rushed out of the room while journalists and other attendees to cover under the tables, except one guy who kept eating his salad. The motive is still being determined, though Alan appeared to be targeting Trump and the administration officials, but not

Cash Patel for some reason. According to his writings, he also mentioned lack security and that he expected more security there. He was a guest at the hotel, and he walked very close to the ballroom. I have been there. And various people are debating it, but he was very close. He's right before the stairs that you go down into the ballroom. having been there. We'll get to Trump and the ballroom stuff, but what was your initial reaction and what do you make of the coverage? I was not, there's some people did a great job, but it's worth noting, by the way, the president, cabinet officials, and journalists experience Saturday night is something that many Americans face every day, especially school

kids, though, without the protection of the Secret Service. So this was the finest protection in the land, and it didn't really work as well as it should have, although nobody got hurt except for one. officer who was shot, but we'll see what happened there. Your first thoughts? Well, my first thoughts are so much superficial on that is the brand that is the U.S. is just eroding around the world. You know, Putin isn't chased out by a gunman of a hall that's supposed to be a social gathering. It's just America comes across as a rogue nation that is chaotic and has no control internally. But immediately, I don't think, I don't think it's fair to say that the president is so incendiary. the area that this is his fault, nor do I think it's fair to say that the Democrats, being critical

of the president, raises escalation of violence. I think at the end of the day, you have a large cohort of usually young men who have a mental breakdown or a psychotic break, and then they have access to firearms. And they typically go after, and what they believe will be a restoration of social capital in a heroic act of violence, they go after very, very famous people. And the thing about Trump, and I'm not saying his fault, but it is just a fact, he's in everyone's fucking face and in their brain all goddamn day. He said that. And over.

He's like, the biggest psychological tax cut in history would be if we elected a technocrat who may be checked in once a month. Yeah, I agree. But wasn't in your face every fucking. day in dominating the table conversation at dinner. And so the most famous people will always unfortunately be targets that mental illness will manifest in more shootings as long as people have access, this type of access to guns. If he had tried to fly, he wouldn't have been able to do it, but you can cross state lines on a train with firearms. Also my first, and I'll let you go,

also my first reaction is when I heard about this guy, a Cal Tech grad who was teacher in the year. He's a very good writer, by the way. And he's very eloquent. You read his manifesto, and it's like, Jesus, I don't agree with it, but the guy is, it's just such a tragedy. His life is ruined. Yeah. And to see an event, I think the event is fucking stupid. I was invited last year.

I have no desire as part of what I'll call the fringe alternative media show up and have basically a hijacker lecture me about air safety. I do not understand how people in the media go to a, go to a celebration and take. to hear a man say your fake news and your, I have no idea why anyone would show. Kudos to the New York Times who does not go. There were Times reporters there covering the president in the pool, which seems perfectly appropriate. Sure. They travel with him wherever he goes.

But I have to say, I just, I covered it as back, as I've noticed you said, I covered it back in the Truman administration. I mean, the Roosevelt administration, TR. I got that. I got that wrong. I'm sorry. It was, it was. Lincoln.

Yeah, that's right. I was looking for a friend. I couldn't remember FDR. So I hated it when I covered it 20 some years ago. I thought it was such a suckup between public officials and the media. I don't like the gridiron dinner. I don't like any of it. I hate it covering them. And even then, it seemed like so, it's one of the reasons I left Washington, sort of the cozy relationship. And now he was going to come and insult them all. First of all, everyone in that room in his cabinet has taken shots at the press in a really repulsive way. And even though other presidents have been hostile to press, this is explicit attacks. And so he was ready to, and even Carolyn Levitt said it, some shots will be fired. That's the last thing she said, like minutes before this happened to a media person. And he was going to attack everyone. And I was thinking, I was talking to a few people there.

I'm like, what are you going to do if he starts directly attacking you or your company? You're going to get up and walk in a really gross and grass way, which he was planning to do, I believe. And then, of course, he used the opportunity for propaganda. Every single one of his lackeys message the same thing about the ballroom. We'll get to that in a second. And it just is this sort of, and I thought the press were especially lap doggie throughout and also performative as influencers. Three people stood out as doing their job, which was Wolf Blitzer, who had. happen to me near the gunmen. He just called in from his phone and he said, what happened? That's it.

He didn't say, I lost my shoe, which he apparently did. He didn't say, oh, woe is me. He didn't act like it was anything but his job to say, to tell CNN what happened. Same thing with Sarah Seidner, very calm. Same thing actually was Stephanie Ruhl. She just gave the facts. Tons of people both online, especially online and on the air, were like, this is how I feel about this. And I was like, I don't give a fuck what you feel about it. What is happening? What's going on? And a lot of like, there was one reporter who was pointing the camera towards herself. Like, I don't, not what was happening. Like, I'm under the table. I'm like, good for you. If you're going to do this, point it outwards so we can see what's happened. There was plenty of video, by the way,

which was disturbing. But it just was this, like, all these media people trying to behave like and get their licks in, like they were influencers. And then, of course, the influencers were to, you know, doing, you know, all manner of nonsense. So I found it very disappointing in the press conference after they let him get away with stuff. The only, you know, at one point, Nora O'Donnell from CBS, which has been particularly obsequious to Trump, got the interview. But Nora did try her best to do like a tough question, not tough questions, but pertinent questions. And Trump called her disgrace. So he had just minutes from just the day before talked about unity.

and then he was calling her a disgrace and whatever words he uses for the press. So I thought it was a fail. The whole thing is a fail. But it's, and then there was, I mean, a party I happened to have been invited to, which I didn't go to, obviously, after they kept doing the party.

It's just weird. But we don't, in a culture of violence, or again, for me, at all reverse engineers, do we don't have a monopoly on political division. We don't have a monopoly on mentally ill men. We have a monopoly on political division, mentally ill men with access to just guns, such easy access to firearms. And also, the Secret Service, there's only so much you can do. If you want a president to go out in the public, if you want to be able to walk around freely, you realize, there are now more private

security guards. There was more private security employed in America than there are cops now. And the Secret Service can only do so much. The other thing is this levy is such an enormous tax on us. One of the things I love about my school here in London, you know what they don't have? They do not have shooter drills. Yeah. I just don't think any 11-year-old should have to engage in a shooter drill. I just, something's wrong, right?

And the other tax we're about to all pay is someone who travels a lot. I travel a lot to hotels where there'll be some political event or whatever, they're hosting the president of Finland, it's going to be another fucking 10 minutes to get in and out of a hotel now because part of the security lapse here was this guy figured out a hack and that is just staying at the hotel, being a guess, you get past the first level of security. Scott, you could have gotten all the way to the ballroom without that, I have to tell you. But didn't he have, wasn't it easier because he checked into the hotel? No, he could bring his gun in, yes, but he could have hidden a gun easily.

There is so little, I don't go to these things anymore because there's so little security. And it's sort of, and then the fact that you have to do security, I mean, although I have to say there was more security at a concert than, you know, than anything else that I've been to. But this should be the top level of security. And then you had the whole press corps hiding under tables. It's just, the whole visual is so bad. And then Trump, of course, took advantage of it in the aftermath of the shooting. was quick to say the incident underscored the need for his $400 million White House ballroom. He argued that if the event had been held in a military top secret ballroom, whatever that is,

the shooting never would have happened. Of course, well, no, the White House has been attacked, but still, it's not just Trump. MAGA accounts, and I said administration officials started, like acting AG Todd Blanche or tweeting about the ballroom instantly, of course, the worst part about it were these conspiracy theories floating around from the left and the right, claiming, the shooting was staged, or that they let him in so that they could create a situation so that they can pitch the ballroom or that it wasn't, they had him in a holding room. You know, this, that was insane.

Just a quick comment, because I'm asking this question, and I'm open to learning here, because I purposely try to avoid media this weekend. The notion that, okay, this is the world we live in, both sides will try and make political hay of it, that, in fact, one use of the ballroom might be an inability to have more secure events like this or events like this in my security. To me, distinct of the immediate politicization of a violent event or near violent event was wrong. But that argument to me seems reasonable. Your thoughts? Yes, yes, but not the way he did it. And he's just trying to jam it through. He just tore down the house without any. He is supposed to consult with Congress. He just wanted to

jam it through. There's also a whole facility under there that nobody knows anything about it. Probably should they. But the, except for the right people, but whose job it is to protect the White House, there's no question they need a ballroom at the White House. I've gone there a million times and it's really underwhelming as a facility. That said, this event couldn't have fit in that. It's too small, even though the ballroom is ridiculously large. So the fact that he took the opportunity for something it could have never taken place there was one thing. But I don't, I'm not,

I don't equivalent with an idea of a bigger gathering room at the White House. It makes sense for lots of reasons for King Charles, et cetera, et cetera, bringing more people in, having more events there. Although that's a thing of it in and of itself, if you've ever tried to get in and out of the White House. That takes three years sometimes.

But that's not the, it's not linked. Why link it suddenly here? And it just seemed like, oh, let's, any opportunity of a disaster or tragedy to push for something that is unreasonable to have a ballroom. It's unreasonable how he did it and then use this as an excuse to do so. I think it just makes us look just lots of people don't want the ballroom. Most people think it's a good idea if he had done it in the way where he's consulting architects

or he's consulting Congress and everything else. Instead, he's now going to try to shove it through. And then the instant something tragic happens, MAGA accounts and these administration officials, every opportunity is an opportunity for press in order to either shine up himself as a hero of some sort or to get what he wants. And that, to me, is not how America works. I'm sorry. I agree with you. It's reasonable to think we should have a ballroom, but they could only hold a certain amount of things in this ballroom, even at its gargantuan size. I just thought, you just walk away. You always want to walk away with, this was

right, this was wrong, this is who's it felt. I just looked at this and just said, this is bad. You're right. You're right. I don't think it illuminates anything about Democrats or Republicans or the president. I think what it illuminates is our country is in a terrible spate. And, okay, let me blame someone. I just, I think in 30 years, we're going to look back on this era, and we're going to be just horrified at how we put cyanide in our drinking water called social media. And kept drinking it. And just it makes everyone, more Americans are fearful of their neighbors than Russian soldiers pouring over the border in Ukraine. They're convinced the enemy is the guy with the wrong political sign across the street from him or her.

And every day you're taught to believe in what is a page out of the fascist handbook, which is incredibly unfortunately profitable, you're taught to believe that it's the enemy within. It's not climate change. It's not income inequality. It's not a fascist government or someone trying to invade Europe. It's not the cease... The enemy is within, is us.

The enemy is us. No, I agree with you. It feels very McCarthy era. And you're right, the constant non-stop pitching. I think the media... Trump has been doing propaganda for a decade now. It's a decade in our brains. And the media still hasn't figured out

how to cover him. They should get back. Back to the important things, Iran, affordability, gas prices. You know, I do think the Epstein Files is an important story. I don't think it's the most important story, but it talks about corruption, about corruption, about getting kids safe in schools. Like, if this is an opportunity to talk about kids, if they suddenly feel nervous because they had to toss under the table to understand what it's like for kids, fine. Like, I don't care. I just think no one behaved in any way that was any way that there's a lot.

American to me. Let me just have one side note because obviously I've been getting all these TikToks. I will say this. There was a contrast just going to this. Stephen Miller. I do not like the guy. Neither do I. He did walk out his wife. Did you see what the other men did? Yeah, they ran. They ran. I mean, Cheryl Hines was chasing RFTA. Yeah. I mean, I feel petty even saying this, but at least like, like, Stephen Miller's instincts were the correct ones. He had his hands-on his wife and was escorting his wife out. Anyway, there's no way not to come away from this and just feel a little bit shittier. I don't.

I would agree. I think that's exactly the reaction to have. I just, I would like the press. I don't, Trump is Trump. He's going to behave anyway the same way every single time. And then he'll switch right back to nasty. Let me say the press could do a better job. And I do give kudos to people who just were reporting the facts.

And I agree it's a new story. But seriously, I don't really, I know a lot of people are traumatized, but I don't want to know how you feel. I want you to tell me what's happening as a news organization. That's all. Yeah, report. And I don't want to know what you think of unity. I don't know what I don't want to hear about it. I just want you to tell me what's going on who this guy isn't do the reporting.

Anyway, I love the media and I was repulsed. Okay, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Elon Musk and Sam Altman head to court, big story, actually. Support for the show comes from Upwork. When you're ready to grow your team, the last thing you want is for the hiring process to become a headache. Instead of taking weeks to scour resumes and job boards, only to be disappointed by what you find, you can try Upwork instead. Upwork can make it easier to bring on the right freelancers right when you need them. You can browse profiles, review pass work and get help scoping the rule so you can hire with confidence and get started quickly.

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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. AI tailored for law. Learn more at Harvey.AI. Scott, we're back with more news. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are headed to court this week over OpenAI's conversion to a for-profit entity. Musk is asking for over $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft and for Altman to be removed from the company's board and a CEO, I think. Jury selection is taking place as we tape on Monday and opening arguments are expected on Tuesday starting off with several week-long trial. Musk Altman and Sachinadell as well as our big tech figures are expected to testify. We got a clip from actually CNN legal, senior legal analyst, Ellie Honig, who I've interviewed many times for.

I think he's really smart on what's to come. I thought he would have an interesting take. The thing about trial is it all comes out because both sides by now have engaged in discovery, meaning they have one another's internal emails, text, corporate communications. Three things I'm watching for. First of all, what were Altman and Musk and their principles saying about AI? Do they view it as an existential threat or something else? Second of all, what do the employees think of the bosses? What are the people who work in these companies really saying to one another about Sam Altman and Elon Musk?

What are they saying about Kara Swisher? I'll bet you're in there, Kara. I'll bet your name pops up in this trial. And then third of all, how will Altman and Musk fare on cross-exam? Because these are two guys, moguls, used to being told, yes, sir, yes, sir. Now they're going to get cross-examined by aggressive litigators who are looking to undermine them, discredit them, maybe even embarrass them. How's that going to go? This will be fascinating. Check it out. I thought that was pretty smart. I mean, the technical aspects of this are really interesting. What I don't understand is why this was going to trial, why they didn't settle. The only thing I think of is that, I mean, to me, open-in, I should have somehow settled with him. But there's no plus for Musk to settle, even though most odds are that he is going to lose. lose. It's a really complex trial. It's a jury trial, but the jurors cannot decide on damp remedies. The judge only can. The judge allowed certain things to go forward that most

people think are ridiculous. You know, most of the odds are Musk will not win, but I can't believe they didn't settle because my only thing is, is Musk loves this. He's already a villain. And when you start wrestling with a pig, a pig likes it and you get filthy. And so I don't think it's good for open AI at all. It's interesting. I had, and again, you might be right here, I might be wrong. My initial reaction was that Musk has more to lose and that he'll settle right as the trial's beginning or right after it starts.

Oh, okay, tell me why. Musk isn't doing this because he's, okay, so the basic premises, this is supposed to be a nonprofit focusing on protecting the public from AI. okay, he then, my understanding is, wanted to buy it, or he wanted to control it. He wanted to control it, yes. And he threw a fit and then walked out. He did walk out. And then when Altman said, no, you don't get to control it. He said, then I'm taking my ball and I'm leaving. And he signed a ton of documents saying, I no longer have ownership in this. And then when it converted to become the leading AI platform in the world, he went fucking crazy. And he has his own company. That he, but here's a guy who's very concerned with,

ensuring there's an entity policing AI safety and regulation, but he starts his own for-profit AI. Yeah, exactly. As the commentator very deftly said, these guys aren't used to a cross-examination with emails that says, I'm not impressed with you. You are full of shit. You wanted to control this.

When you couldn't control it, you threw a fit. You have signed papers that are legally enforceable with no ownership. And now... Like the Twitter, when he took over, tried to, get out of the Twitter deal. Yeah, this guy, he's angry that he walked away from what ended up being the best. I'm kicking myself because I've had two investments recently that have gone bad and they needed to raise more capital.

And one of the things about investing early is you have your pro rata. And I wasn't sure whether to invest or not. And on one specifically, I didn't do my pro rata. And then they figured out a way to develop these innovative turbines to power off-grid AI centers. And the valuation has gone up 10x. Wow. And so you feel like I'm a dumb ass. And now I'm fucking furious.

But I'm not going to go back and sue the company. Right, right. So I think discovery here, I think Musk's lawyers are going to say, you realize you can't perjure yourself. This isn't Twitter. You can't lie. And when they, he goes, this is the, and they, the day before in the briefing or the coaching of them, they're going to say, this is what I would ask you.

And you can't lie. And this is the evidence they're going to bring up. And he's going to go, settle this. Yeah. I think he's playing poker. He does settle, like, by the way, he has settled. Remember the Delaware Chancery Court? Yeah.

He was like, threatening, threatening, threatening? Okay. I think you're very smart here. I think that's probably my... I don't believe none of them settled. You know, I don't... I guess going to court is always like, why couldn't you possibly settle this, right, essentially?

Which I don't understand why neither of them did on both sides, right? And it seemed like... I mean, it's always up until the trial where they settle, right? That's always the way. Well, he's trying to slow them down. He's trying to create doubts. That's the other thing. It hurt their fundraising capabilities, slow them down.

Hurt their IPO. Musk, ideally, I believe, if he was, and he's very smart, would be trying to delay the case to create, to maintain this cloud. I think he has. I think he has done that. I think he's out. And Open AI wants to go to court and say, you signed papers legally forfeiting your ownership and governance here. Yeah. You're out.

Yeah. One of the things that's interesting about it is that obviously he created his own company and art doing as well is that when I both of them started talking about this back in the day, they were worried about the strength of Google and Facebook and others. They were maybe in their own self-interest, but at the time it was a real, I would say a genuine worry about where AI was being developed, especially that the government had abrogated its responsibility. So, you know, these two have come a long way. What's interesting, it's also a duel of their reputations. Now, Elon's full-on villain now, right? So it'll be interesting to see how the jury thinks of him.

Altman now doesn't have a great reputation, right? Is he a liar? There's a lot of, you know, after the Ronan Farrow piece and everything else. The thing is, I think most juries haven't really paid attention to the Sam Altman portion of this reputation. A decline. I think they all know Elon Musk is a giant asshole. So I think that probably, or, you know, every bit of him jumping up and down. and being so partisan and, you know, posting racist stuff all over.

He's doing that more than ever recently. I think he's on his back foot on this, because as much as they'd like to paint Sam as this oily liar, essentially, I don't think it's sunken with most people. I don't. I just don't. I don't think they even know who he is kind of thing. Not only that, the secret weapon here, I think, for OpenAI will be Nadella.

I think Nadella will reflect really well on Open AI. He comes across, is very measured. And I would love to be the defense counsel here. It's like, okay, so you're claiming you're so concerned about protection and safety. What have you done? Did you go and start? You're the wealthiest man in the world. Did you start another entity looking at safety?

Oh, wait, you started a for-profit AI, and you're competing against this. this company. Isn't this nothing but an attempt to slow them down because you're jealous, you fucked up in soldier shares? I just, I think this is going to be a very easy narrative for the defense to say this, the wealthiest man in the world is trying to abuse you, waste your time and get in the way of the capitalism, the small part of capitalism, the small part of the internet, he doesn't own and he's furious about it. He owns space. He owns ZVs, he hones, you know, a 180 character messaging application, but because he fucked up and sold the best corner of AI, he now wants it back. He wants everything. Yeah, he's this greedy

fuck, yeah, it's true. I don't think slamming Altman's going to work here, and he's tried to, trust, he's really tried to, and personally and professionally. But we'll see. It'll make them both look bad. There'll be emails that'll come out that'll be like everyone look bad. Everyone looks bad. Well, it's great. It's great for brand AI, again. The only one who looks good, Dario, whom I spent time with this weekend. Oh, yeah. What was your general impression of Dario? It was an off-the-record thing, but he was, I have to say, very funny.

It doesn't like any of these people, by the way. But very funny, very, I'm not going to call him Steve Jobs, but he at least had range to talk about. You know, I reread his essay Machines of Loving Grace, which I hated the headline of. It was two years ago and I was talking about that. And I have to say he's erudite. Like he was quoting from Arcadia and stuff like that. And I think he's a very complex and interesting figure and much more jolly than I give him credit for in a way. So he's having the time of his life because they're all like shooting each other in the head.

And he's merrily going along and being the successful one and creating the best technology. So anyway, I really actually hate to say this because I really enjoyed talking to him. I did. It was fun. He also gives as good as he gets. And I like that. Like, he wasn't scared of questions, which a lot of them get all. Did you do it? Was it on with Carous Swisher? No, not yet, but he's coming on with Caras Swisher. And I told him about your interest. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It was an enjoyable interview, I have to say. By the way, speaking of Sam Altman, he apologized to the community of Tumblr Ridge for failing to alert authorities about an account of a shooter who killed eight people

and whose chat GPT account was suspended for violent messages and the letter Altman reaffirmed a commitment to find ways to prevent similar tragedies in the future. It's always backwards looking like, oh, sorry, I don't know, I just feel like they can apologize all they want.

Why don't they create services that have some level of safety or reporting? Despite all the free speech stuff, there's some clear worries that people have if you had someone in your neighborhood who was doing this, you would turn them in. They would. So I don't know what to say. We had a school, I was involved in Florida.

You know, we had a kid writing or drawing violent weird images. Next day, FBI was at their house looking for firearms. And so there's got to be, I mean, to Sam's credit, he did what most of these guys don't do. He apologized. And he's, he is claiming to want to put in some sort of safeguards. But we should need their apologies and their safeguards. There should be regulation. Thoughts and prayers don't really help here.

It should be liability. It should be you guys have this. You have technology that can scan basically everything that's ever been written in history. And then start making really intelligent theses on what should be written about this topic by recognizing past patterns of everything that has been written in history. You should be able to highlight threats pretty easily. And then immediately using the agentic layer, notify that local police department, and not overwhelm them, but say, okay, this is level nine threat. Right, exactly. What do you want to do with it?

How can we cooperate with you? And that's where humans get involved. You know, they observe it. This is just reporting possible danger, and it should be easy for these people, but it's not. By the way, speaking of anthropic, Google plans to invest as much as $40 billion in the company. $10 billion now, and another $30 billion would be invested when Anthropic meet certain milestones. Probably smart move from Google, who is also a dominant player in this, who was quietly, I think, remember years?

I said, I think Google will win all this because they have all the parts. I think they've handled this really well, and I think investing in Anthropic, in this case, is probably a very good idea for them. Yeah, and then what I saw would shock me is there, the deal values Anthropic at $350 billion. I was potentially, I indirectly own Anthropic share. Oh, from you bought the Sandbankan-Fried stuff, right? Yeah, I bought the FTCS claims, which owned a bunch of Anthropic. But anyways, in the secondary market, I follow the secondary markets.

Anthropics trading at a trillion dollars. Wow. Anthropics now trading at a higher valuation in the secondary markets than OpenAI. So Google coming in here, they'll get a preference on it. They're strategic. Yeah, it's a great investment. I would invest in, hello, Dario. I would invest at 300.

of $350 billion valuation. Okay, I'll give me, I'll give you. Let them know. Let them know. Anyway. Not a journalist. Not a journalist. I do not want to invest,

Aero, but I really did enjoy talking to. All right, last thing, MetaPlan's lay off around 10% of its workforce. It sort of went under the radar, 6,000 open, and closed 6,000 open roles. The company's chief people officers said the move was being made to run the company more efficiently

and to offset other investments. Maybe that he lost 75 billion in the Metaverse, but meanwhile, Microsoft will begin offering voluntary buyouts to 7% of U.S. employees, one-time retirement program will be available to employees whose age and years of service total 70 or higher. These are just stacking up, these big tech layoffs where they're trying. I mean, I think they over-hire during COVID, as you and I both said. But this is a real tipping point to impact overall employment levels.

It seems these were the big hirers, and now they're the big fireers at this point. Yeah, so look, as I said, the AI is. corporate ozempic. It's turned off the signal that in order to grow, you need more calories. In this case, calories means employees. And I've had Andrew Yang on my podcast, who's having another moment because Andrew is very early and prescient about capital replacing labor. Capital displacing labor. And he's now getting a lot of attention correctly for, and he's on this whole, the capital, the capital destruction of labor here is just going to be dramatic. and he's pointing to these companies.

You do, though, have to have some perspective, and that is pre-pandemic, meta-2019, at 35,000 employees. Now they have 80. So firing 8,000 people, quite frankly, takes them back to, I think, late 2024, early 2025. Yeah, they overhired, that's for sure. So now these companies are, the scary thing is, these guys are early adopters of AI.

And as their revenues grow, they're actually shrinking their workforce, which is amazing for earnings. But if they're the early adopters, and this starts to waterfall down to other parts of the economy, you can see why people are scared. And Andrews said something really pretty sure, or I thought in Seifle, said, the easiest people to fire are the people you haven't hired yet. And this is going to put pressure on new hires out of college. And I don't want to come across as non-emothetic. But when I graduated from Berkeley, 40% of us had jobs on graduation day, which meant 60% didn't. Yeah, I didn't.

And we're so used to anyone under the age of 40 or 45 has only really known one labor economy where there's a war for talent, especially educated talent. What's interesting about this cycle is for the first time in decades, the unemployment rate among college grads is greater than the unemployment rate among non-college grads. So I look at this as, quite frankly, just part of an economic cycle. I don't buy the catastrophizing. The key question is there's no doubt this is a disruption that's going to displace certain types of information work that can be routinized. The question is how severe and fast it'll be. Because typically when we no longer need elevator operators or we no longer need

sewing machine operators or secretaries, it's been slow. enough such that the majority of the people are able to adapt, retrain, and find something else. Not all of them, but the majority of them. The fear here is that the V is so severe and so fast that even if there was a potential recovery, there's going to be so many people left out in the dust. Well, that's because people were going to those jobs, right? That was where, you know, I have to say, Alex Wisher called this one a while back. He's like, I'm going into mechanical engineering and energy.

He got right, I thought he would go into computer software and he said, no, AI will replace all these things, which I thought was pretty pressing of him. And so he's working on areas where there is, you know, making things. Making things forward employment. And interestingly, Louis Swisher now may have three jobs because he's working on a campaign. And he's trying, doing cooking jobs, two really interesting cooking jobs. So he's trying a variety of things which are not replaceable, right? which we're really, it's really kind of in his, it's just interesting. But I have to tell you, both of them were thinking about this without my prompting.

Like, where is the, where is employment going? But young people have to think really hard now about that and figure it out. They'll be fine because their mom is rich. No, I understand that, but they're making their own money. Little class warfare there. They're going to make their own money. By the way, Kara, how do you spot the blind man at Anudis Beach? Oh, how?

Kara, it's not hard. Oh. All these jokes now, they're like, take a minute. Your jokes lately. Little second order. I'm going for the intelligent stuff. I'm going for the stuff that takes me an hour to figure out because I don't think about that science.

I was like, oh, hard, penis, got it. Anyway, I just think it's, I think young people have to really think. AI is going to massively level up some people, massively level down others. Like, say, this was brought up in this, you know, someone asked about the idea that we sort of, of could care less about working class people during the NAFTA days. And now you want us to cry for information workers. People making a ton of who are making a timeline. Yeah.

And one of the things, it was off the record, but one of things I think is just an obvious thing that Dario pointed out was that it does level up the workers, right? Because like if you're plum, it does, it's, people have college level information at the fingertips that is easily digestible, which, which was interesting. There were more new business applications formed in the last. months than I think in any time in history. If Alex wants to start his own small company milling and manufacturing ball bearings for some weird esoteric use, he doesn't need $10 million in capital and 40 engineers.

He just talked about ball bearings to me. I didn't understand. He needs, you know, $50,000 and a bunch of side licenses and one or two co-founders. Interesting. There's a ton of opportunity. The very basic axiom and the thing I think the next, a lot of our candidates should be focused on is that if you loosely break down the later. economy or capital formation to shareholders slash investors, workers, and consumers.

It's pretty easy. We need, you've had a massive leakage of power, leverage, and capital from consumers and labor to investors. And we need public policy, whether it's alternative minimum taxes, taxes on shares that you borrow against, maybe some form of lowering a state tax, lowering estate exemptions. We need to transfer a capital back from investors to employees and consumers. Yeah, I agree. And it's a fairly basic dynamic.

These three entities, investors, as a percentage of our GDP, the market cap has never been higher. As a percentage of our GDP, wages have never been lower. This isn't rocket science. We need policies. You talked about one, increased minimum wage, stop taxing earners as much, start taxing owners more. it's not complicated. People will create this incredible, like, arguments that it's about things they can't control, like network effects and AI.

Don't tax, there's talk about an AI tax. You shouldn't have an AI tax. You should have an alternative minimum tax for any profitable company that's making billions and billions. This notion, Andrew, and Andrew, I think, gets a 70 or 80 percent right, and we had a really productive conversation. And I love Andrew Yang. I'm an investor in his company because I have so much confidence in him.

But if you start, I hate industry-specific taxes. There's a lot of talk about an AI tax right now. No, have a tax, lower payroll taxes such that it's not more expensive to hire someone than buy a robot, right? And have some sort of cap-don't let people depreciate CAP-X in year one and have payroll taxes such that it's more economically advantageous to buy a fucking robot as opposed to hiring somebody. That's a really good point. There's just like some basic tax law here. There are people now focused on, and I have to say that people are very much. And I think just because of these layoffs at Meta and Microsoft, they bring people's attention to it in a way that, because they're supposed to be the big job places.

Well, the bellwethers for the whole economy. Yes, exactly. So I think more and more people are thinking about this idea of where our employment goes, which is always a good thing. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back. The DOJ drops its power probe. Support for the show comes from NPR. Oh, my God, I love NPR.

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and also a better senator to my constituents. This week on America actually, we asked Gallego about predatory behavior in Washington, his plans for immigration reform and more. Scott, we're back. The DOJ is ending its criminal probe into the Federal Reserve and its chair Jerome Powell, although the U.S. Attorney Janine Piro is warning the case could be reopened if new facts emerge, as usual. They always cover their fucking bases. Still, Senator Tom Tillis says he's ready to move forward with the confirmation of Trump's nominee, Kevin Warsh. And with that hurdle removed, Warsh's confirmation by the end of Powell's term on May 15th is looking likely at his confirmation hearing last week. Warsh rejected the idea that he's Trump's sock puppet. How long after he's confirmed, does Trump threaten to fire him?

Let's just remember Trump hired Jerome Powell. He just, it wasn't a sock puppet, and that was a problem for Trump who's trying to take over. I think Tom Tillis did a great job here. Now, let's see if Janine Piroh tries to do some tricks after Warsh's is in place. They could do that because they're a bunch of persistent liars. So, and quick thoughts? I'm glad. Kudos to Senator Tillis.

I think he's the reason that it was dropped. And I'd like to see most of these cases continue. I love, I love the Patel, director Patel filed a suit against the Atlantic. I would love the discovery against Patel. By the way, that trial will never see the lie today. No, he lost you or he lost one. His lawyers are going to sit him down. Okay, these are the questions they're going to ask.

And so, yeah, I don't, but that was ridiculous. That was law fair. nuisance suit. I'm glad it's been dropped. That's just a distraction. But I also want to bring up, I've been very complimentary of Warsh. I was again rattled by his inability to state on the record that Biden won the 2020 election. I agree with you. He was a sock puppet. I think Warren did a great job interviewing him, by the way. It's okay. You're supposed to be, you're claiming you're going to be an independent Fed, which is key to the growth of an economy, and you won't. So it was Chairman Powell appointed legally?

I mean, at some point, folks, there has to be a truth, and you have to be willing to state that truth under oath, and they all state the same thing saying, he was duly sworn in. Right, yeah. Oh, my God. I know, I know.

He really was a whim, but he definitely took some shine off of him, I'll tell you that. And I think they all feel that way. Like, even Tillis said to me when I interviewed him, look, I had to say those things, because if not, I'd get run over, a martyr is dead, you know, a martyr is dead, so I don't know what to tell you.

And that's a really ridiculous way to hire this thing. And, of course, Trump will continue to try. He has two years to try to fuck up the Fed, so he will. So Kevin Marsh, get ready. You better start to find a backbone. Also, speaking of communism, the Trump administration is reportedly considering invoking the Defense Production Act to bailout Spirit Airlines, though it's still unclear what exactly the justification would be. There's talk of a plan that would loan spirit, which is filed for bankruptcy twice.

about $500 million in exchange, the government would own as much as 90% of the airline. It's a playbook we've seen before Trump with the government taking stakes in Intel, US Steel, and others, but Trump is facing pushback correctly from fellow Republicans with Senator Ted Cruz calling the bailout a terrible idea. You've said many times that some companies deserve to fail,

is spirit one of them? This is fucking insane. Insane. Let me get this. We're capitalists on the way up, and then on the way down, we bailout companies. We're cronious. So we're total, that's not even socialism, it's cronyism.

Bankruptcy is someone who has started companies who have gone bankrupt, as someone who's invested in companies that have gone bankrupt, is someone who's been on an operator, an investor in a company, as we pull it, emerge it out of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a feature, not a bug. Companies, the market changes, and the company no longer can support the assets and obligations it has given changes in the market. It declares bankruptcy.

They get an umbrella, basically coverage to get out of leases. to get out of capital or expenses or debt to Boeing or sell their gates. They get out of union contracts. They get to repackage and they reemerge to fight another day. When you start bailing out companies that aren't sustainable, all you do is invite taxpayers to bail out more. The government is not supposed to pick winners and losers here. Delta American and United all had CEOs who paid themselves $150 million in compensation due to options

that were artificially elevated because they took all of their free cash flow pre-COVID and used it to buyback shares, juicing their stock, juicing their options, see above 150 million in compensation. And then when shit gets real and COVID comes and the airline shut down, they all decide, all of a sudden, we're all in this together. And they go, fucking hat in hand. They should have all been allowed to go bankrupt. And guess what?

And we've decided that airlines are somewhat uniquely American and that we need to bail out. out spirit. Fuck that. Burn, baby, burn. This shit should absolutely go out of business. And guess what? In three years, it's more likely to survive under the protection from its creditors of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This is stupid. Stupid. I agree. I don't, you've said it best. It'll be interesting to see, like, I remember interviewing Chumath Polyhapidia who said essentially this, what he's saying now. Like, he's like, no, what we really need to do is protect these things. You're right. them, the companies deserve to fail. That's socialism.

And as Margaret Thatcher said with socialism, eventually you run out of other people's money. You end up with DeLorean. You end up with Air France, where you pick national champions and keep bailing them out. Do you remember what was called Air Chance? It was so bad.

You don't remember them. I've been involved. I was on the board of Eddie Bauer. They put me on the board when they were going bankrupt. Remember them? Yeah. And we decided, okay,

The way to do it was to, did you just say you liked it? No, I never did. Oh, really? I was shocked. I was always like I walked in because then Patagonia showed up or something, whatever else, or REI. Yeah, they don't keep up. But anyways, one of the wonderful things about America is that, one, we let people and companies fail. And two, we give them a second chance.

Yeah. And a key component of that, a key construct of that is bankruptcy. It's bankruptcy law. Yep. Yeah, it works well. It works well. It keeps everyone clean. Speaking of not clean, a U.S. Army soldier has been charged with making $400,000 by betting on the removal of Venezuela and Lied in Murdooro. On Polymarket, soldier used classified information.

He's quite close to the situation to make wagers in the weeks leading up to the capture. Polymarket said it referred the matter to the Justice Department. Again, of course, nobody's catching the Trump people. They get the soldier who pulls this shit. Exactly right. You know, but he shouldn't be exposing classified information, but they have got to clean up their acts, polymarket, and the rest of them, because insiders, it's got to be dead obvious to them who's doing this, right? Including the Trump family or whoever close affiliations are doing this.

They've got to go after a big fish, not this. I mean, the soldier did the wrong thing. He's betraying his job. But it seems like we're picking up the little fish here. Yeah, but okay. I mean, my defense would be, well, our commander-in-chief is doing it, isn't he? I mean, I think a really scrappy state GA or Attorney General should be suing this guy and then figuring out a way to have discovery at the highest levels to see if they're doing it. Because I think this is going on everywhere. Now, I don't, is it fair to say he revealed confidential information or he just traded on it? He knew about what was, I think he was part of that team. But he didn't reveal it. He didn't compromise the security. In betting on it, he did. In betting on it, he certainly did by saying, I know the outcome.

Nobody knew who he was, but he was using. So sideways, I guess. I don't know. I guess, yes, I think so. Look, it's not getting around it. It's wrong. But when people who make more money as elected officials are making more money, engaging in similar type behavior, whether it's trading on insider information in stocks or inside.

But the options activity before Trump announces anything about the war in the oil market is crazy. So there are clearly dozens, if not hundreds of people, perhaps even including cabinet members, who are making money in the predictions markets. And so. Yeah. Let's find them. Yeah. So have it.

And by the way, the enforcement division for crypto, that was one of the first divisions where they were fired. That's right. Anyone kind of, any sheriff, anyone with a badge actually looking into this stuff has been fired. The same way they've neutered the IRS because they're like the greatest way, you know, the easiest way to commit crimes is to make sure there's no enforcement. So I don't want to say I feel for this guy, but I think his defense is going to be pretty robust. And it's like, pointing up, pointing up. And it goes back to the same thing.

Polymarketing Calci shouldn't have to decide. I mean, so for example, I think Kalshief finds somebody for some Congress people for trading. No, they kick them off the platform, I think. Get them off the platform. Okay. I think that's like Ford Motor, figuring out that someone was going 100 miles an hour in their Mustang and then repossessing the Mustang. It's not up to Ford. It's up to the highway patrol.

It's up to the government. They have a business. They should make sure insider trading is not being used to bet. It's unfair to the people on their platform, by the way. It doesn't make for... I think it's the government's job. I know, but for their own self-interest, if there's all these insiders fucking with you, it's a shitty platform, right?

So they, in their own self-interest. Yeah, but they don't have. I get it, but it's good for their business, not for people to feel like it's all gamed by rich sons of Trump administration officials, etc. So there's, okay, to be fair, so I'm just thinking this through. There's in finance, there's know your customer, and to trade on a platform, they have to ensure you're an accreditive investor. There is some regulation by the banks around trading. They have compliance divisions. All investment banks do.

They all have compliance divisions. But isn't it easy to hide your identity? Did this guy sign up as master's argument? No, they can find them. They can find them. He did. He tried, but it's not that hard. But is it the platform's responsibility, or is it the government's responsibility and cooperation?

To alert people to unusual trades seconds before, that kind of stuff they can do. And then alert the government. I don't doubt it, but the enforcement mechanism in the penalty should be governed. No, they should refer it. Enforcement is referrals. Right? And that's the thing. Anyway, not a good look for them, but not a good look for anyone. But you know what? This soldier, he's a cheater, but keep looking upwards everybody. And you should because lots of people are benefiting.

All I got to say is, we're going to put the wrong guy in prison. That's right. That's right. All right. Anyway, one more quick break. When we get back, we'll have wins and fails. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos, different tools, different models, different models. models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place.

What it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenav.com. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields like software development and information technology. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca.

This week on Networth and Chill, I'm breaking down the institution everyone's talking about right now but nobody actually understands the Federal Reserve. With all the drama happening between Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell, you're probably seeing headlines. and wondering what any of this has to do with your money. Spoiler alert, it's everything. I'll explain what the Fed actually is, why it exists,

and how this one institution controls the interest rates on your mortgage, credit cards, student loans, and more. We're diving into why raising or cutting rates isn't just boring policy talk. It's the difference between affording a house or watching prices spiral out of control. Plus, I'm breaking down the current controversy over firing Fed board members

and why both Republicans and Democrats are, freaking out about it because this fight isn't just political theater. It could mean real chaos for your wallet. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BFF. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. You go for us. You know, I'm going to stick. In between this, the Trump administration terminated the board, the National Science Foundation's board, which again, he does all these things all the time. He's trying to hollow out any kind of compliance or people who overlook anything because he wants to do whatever he wants. But I would have to say, I think the media failed in this thing over the weekend.

It was really disappointing to see so many people acting like taking advantage of a tragedy to just stick their chests out and do these dramatic videos and act like they were influencers. I found it embarrassing and sad. I ran into some of them and I looked at my shoes. I didn't know what, for once I was like, I really would like to tell them they suck. It was disappointing. And obviously, continued disappointment with the Trump administration taking advantage of it, but I expected them to do this and then snap right back into shape.

So I have very lower standards for Trump administration people, but not for the media. And I just, this is not the way you chase audiences to chase whatever they were chasing. It was really painful to watch. And I do, some people were really traumatized because it is terrifying, I suspect, to be there. But again, your job is to report the news, and that's what I would really like it. So kudos to those who did. My win, I just, I don't know if you're watching Bet Midler on social media. She is so funny.

She sort of has a whole new life on social media, and it's so clever. It's not, she puts out so much funny stuff, and she just put out a protest song with the music video featuring her and her beaches co-star Barbara Hershey. They apparently go to a lot of these King's marches or marches together, And I just love the two of them. I love that movie, Beaches, by the way. And I just think she's using her platform and I'm really very much on brand with her.

And I think it's dovetails into her incredible, still incredible singing voice and cleverness. And I just really love her. And I love her all over again. So that's it. When I was, I think I was in college, and I went with my buddy Lee to see Beaches, as two men do, go see.

Yes. Anyways. And we're sitting in line. My friend Lee Lotus is literally the funniest person in the world. There's only two people to make me laugh out loud. One is Lee Lotus. The other's David Frey. But anyways, we're sitting in line, as he used to do, at the man brewing, like a line around the block to see, you know, opening night of beaches with Beth Midler and Barbara Hershey. And we knew it was about best friends. We knew one dies. And everyone coming out was sobbing. And Lee goes, it must mean that Barbara Hershey died. No one would sob if Bet Midler died. No one sobs about the overweight singer dying. And I thought that was so fucking funny.

I couldn't stop laughing. He's like, no one's going to be that sad about Beddler. I would. She died in the, she played Janice Joplin. Do you remember? What was that movie? Oh, no. Let me be clear.

In real life, there will be, there are a few people more beloved than Beth Midler. What I'm saying is in the movie. It's like, it's clear that the hot one, the pretty girl dying is the real tragedy. But it was how she died in the whole. Oh, the end. Yeah, I know. I'm going to go back. We should watch it together because I would say you are the wind beneath my wings, but really you're not.

You're not the wind beneath me. Anyway. Yeah, she was, Barry Manilow was her pianist. Yes. Her backup pianist when she was in the, the dude for gay audiences. Also, I got to be honest, she's the source of one of my favorite jokes. Which is? My favorite jokes.

My partner is Polish. And on Friday nights, I dress up like Germany and invade her. That's her. She said that. That was her joke. She said her husband. Her husband was German. Yeah.

Yeah, she has a lot of dirty jokes. She used to be a lot dirtier, but she's still delightful. Anyway, your wins and fails. So I got all bummed out. When I saw this shooting and I personally went up social media, and to make myself feel better, I find, I do find some solace or respite and data. and I looked up data about gun violence. And actually, in terms of homicide, America has never been safer.

And that is, despite all the recent public and political violence and the fact that you get served it on your social media feed, America's homicide rate fell by the largest amount ever recorded in 2025. And preliminary data tracking local murder rates shows that it could be get this, the lowest murder rate since 1900, the lowest murder rate on record. And the FBI has to confirm this later in 2026. But the decline has followed two sharp declines in 23 and 24, making this a sustained trend, not a blip. So while our blood pressure and anxiety is up, if you actually look at the data, on a lot of levels, America has never been safer or less violence.

Which has been the trend, which has been the trend, actually. But if you just watch TikTok or these videos, you would think it's chaos in the Wild West everywhere. Except in school, Scott. School shootings are way up. It's crazy. I think that's fair. And mass shootings are way up.

Mass shootings, yeah. But the actual number of homicides is that appears to be at an all-time low. Also, drug overdose deaths are seeing a sustained decline in the 12 months before November 2025, the US saw about 70,000 drug overdose deaths, which is a 16% decline from the year before. And in 24, overdose deaths fell 27%, the largest single year decline on record.

It feels as if we did recognize or started to move in on the opiate crisis and we're seeing a really healthy, wonderful decline in overdose deaths. Anyways, I always like to go to the data when I'm freaking out to see, should I be freaking out and upset? And I do find comfort in the fact that it does look America is becoming less, or the homicide rate appears to be at an all-time low. All right, good one.

My loss is more depressing. My loss is an increase in HIV diagnoses in Zambia. A year after the Trump administration froze PEPFAR, which is just America at its best, HIV services and parts of Zambia. Killing billions. They basically, it's collapsed, the funding, and now new infections are rising. Zambia had 84% of its HIV financing coming from PEPFAR at the start of 2025, which is one of the largest aid dependencies of any country globally.

And the cuts put 23,000 health workers supporting the HIV response out of work. 23,000 people working on HIV prevention response. This is a George Bush thing, by the way. Yeah, PEPFAR. It's his legacy, his most positive legacy. Absolutely. And in clinics where services were interrupted, new HIV diagnoses dropped nearly 30%.

In other words, they're not diagnosing it. And not because infections fell, but because people stopped getting tested. And for the first time in PEPFAR's history, the program put fewer people on HIV therapy than the year before. And without rapid restoration, models project HIV prevalence in Zambia could quadruple with more than one and a half million lives of risk. Children and women hit hardest. And globally sustained funding gaps could produce six million additional additional. and four million more AIDS deaths by 2029. So it's really strange.

It's, and I wrote about this in my newsletter last week, if you want to kill millions of people, do it slow and methodically. And there's definitely a zone of empathy where when people are thousands of miles away, you're somewhat comfortable with millions of deaths. I blame, this is all Musk and Trump. This is Doge and Trump.

This is just, and also, it's not only the wrong thing to do, this funding, these funding cuts, it's the stupid thing to do. Because what people don't realize is how much we benefit from the soft power and positive brand of America. They're obnoxious, they're a bit imperilist, but at the end of the day, their hearts in the right place. They know people who got funding, they know a soup kitchen in Ukraine,

they know someone who survived. This is why I was so fucking pissed off. I'm not pissed off. All the bullshits, oh, I want to call it, all the scrutiny and virtue signaling around Bill Gates, quite frankly, the four million people alive who would have died from malaria, don't give a flying fuck that Bill Gates fucks Russian prostitutes. Like in my mind, Bill gets a lot of hall passes.

Anyways, a little bit of a diversion there. Okay. But we have millions of people dying, and it reflects so poorly, our budgets reflect our values. And the fact that we decided to cut this budget, which is arguably the best money spent, both from a brand perception and just a morality viewpoint. Million. I mean, for God's sakes, four million people? I know.

There's going to be millions more. Can I just say I was walking in D.C. this weekend. It's so funny, apropos of this, is I was walking with my kids and Amanda, and this woman was walking behind us and then got in front of us, and then she turned around and realized who I was. And she said, can I just thank you and Scott Gowley for talking about this issue? She's from USAID, and she goes, I just want to say, you all talking about it all the time makes the biggest difference. And I was sort of, she's like, I was laid off.

The things were, the damage that's been done has been irreparable in many ways. And she just was lovely. She got very emotional. And I was like, well, you're doing the real work. Like, you know, not us. But anyway, I'm glad you brought that up totally separate, like literally yesterday it happened. I heard from. So there was this lovely young man in my fraternity.

named Greg Townsend. Everybody, one of those guys that everybody liked. Everybody liked, and we went to the same high school. It was a couple years younger than me. Hadn't heard from him in 30 years. We do that segment talking about cutting funding. He went to law school and decided he wanted to devote his life to hunting down and prosecuting war criminals for the UN

or some agency out of Switzerland. So he spent the last 20 years building cases against war criminals to try and create disincentive for people to think twice when they go out and start committing war crimes. And he got to notice that because of government cutting in Doge, he's out of a job. And I'm like, to have a guy that talented who could have been making $2 million a year

protecting white-collar crime for Scad and Arps decided no. I'm defending Elon Musk and his... Yeah, he said, no. I want to create disincentive such that leaders think twice before they start killing civilians. And he's... I can't think that.

This kid was so smart and so talented. We need to restore much of this, not all of it, but much of it. And what do we do when we get the gift of these people's humanity where they decide to apply their expertise against saving people we will never meet, disincentivizing acts of war, acts of horror, and then we cut the funding. Anyway, that's my virtue. Well, that's great. I think that's a great one. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to Nymac.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call. 8551 Pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week on on with Kara Swisher, I spoke to Estad Herndon, host of the new box podcast, America Actually, who's a former New York Times,

wonderful New York Times reporter. We talked about the show, what politics will be like after Trump and the playbook Democrats will be using in the upcoming midterms and beyond. Let's listen to a quick clip. It hasn't been necessarily, maybe it's become a little more progressive,

but it's certainly become more activist. It's certainly become more less passive, for, I think, the traditional Democratic playbook. So I think those shifts are some of what we're seeing in Maine and I think what we're seeing across the country.

Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Today's show is produced by Lara Eamon, Zoya, Marcus Taylor Griffin, and Todd Weissman. Ernie Endretteamette engineered the episode.

Rich Chibli edited the video. Thanks to also do Jibros, Ms. Sivari, and Dan Shilana, the Shaq, Croas, Vox Media's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from York Magazine.

and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at NYMag.com.com. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. I'll see you later in the week.