Pivot - World Cup Controversy, Trump Accounts, and DOGE Farewell

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Kara is joined by guest co-host, the one and only Anthony Scaramucci. Kara and The Mooch break down Trump inserting himself into the World Cup, and his latest line of attack: communism. Then, Trump Accounts are officially launched. Despite the name, are they actually a good idea? Plus, DOGE officially ends, Zuckerberg gets real about Meta's AI progress, and why Taylor Swift's wedding was better than Jeff Bezos'. 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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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott is off today, so I brought in the one and only Anthony Scaramucci, the mooch, podcaster, founder of Skybridge Capital, and author of the upcoming book, which is getting a lot of kudos, all the wrong moves. And I think I gave you a blurb, Anthony, didn't I? I got a blurb at a, hey, listen.

I never give blurbs, you know that. I got a, you know, I had to use the crowbar, ladies and gentlemen, to get the, I pivoted on pivot. I had to use the crow bar to get the blurb out of her, but it worked.

No, it's a big deal when I give a blurb. I gave one to you. I've given one to Ari Emanuel. Those are the only two. But I used his to insult him. I'm looking forward to his book, actually. It's good. I feel like you're going to learn a lot about Hollywood in that book.

Actually, you learn a lot about him, I have to say. Okay, better yet, then. If I'm learning more about him, then better yet. It's got a sadness to it, actually. It's got a depth to it. How about a depth to it, like struggles that he had, and he never shows it. I think what you and I love about people is authenticity and honesty,

and it sounds like we're going to be getting that from Ari, so I look forward to the book. Yeah. All right, but so be honest with me. You were at Taylor Swiss wedding, were you? Well, I'll be really honest with you and tell you, I would have liked to have been invited to Taylor Swiss wedding because when you look up in the dictionary name dropping and star fucking, there's a picture of me. But alas, I was not invited to her wedding.

It made no sense, the invitations. I mean, I got the dancers and everybody else, like all her friends and her cousins and everything. But the celebrities were just odd. It was so, some of them were obvious, like, you know, Bradley Cooper and those kind of people. But, you know, like Adam Sandler being the officiant was interesting. It was such a dog's breakfast of celebrities. It was fascinating. What do you think?

Well, what I love about it is it was original and it was true to whatever they wanted to do. You know, at the end of the day, it's your wedding. Have at it. Oh, I liked it. And they went crazy. I mean, I one time got married with a lot of fanfare in a Roman Catholic Church. The second time I got married, Diers and I got married in our living room. So, I mean, you know, it's a time in their lives.

They're both first time married. I wish them nothing with great success with their marriage. But you know what? If you don't mind, I'm going to give them a shout out because they did list 20 charities. And I'm on the board of City Harvest, which is one of the largest food banks in the country, if not the largest. And they gave a million dollars to City Harvest. And so God bless them for doing that because we have a lot of food and secure people in our great city car. Yeah, they gave a bunch to Dali Parton.

They gave a bunch to all these, like, amazing. They gave $26 million, which is 13 times, too, if you're a Taylor Swift person, which is her favorite number. But it was really interesting. What was interesting is how they handled it. I was going to compare it to the Bezos wedding. I wanted to be fair. But for some reason, that one felt awful, and this one cracked me up. And I don't know why the difference, because it was obviously an over-the-top wedding.

It was directly in the middle of New York City, which I loved. And, of course, they did it to protect them at Matt. You've been to Madison, Oregon, 100 times. right, presumably. Yeah, I know. I consider Madison Square Garden one of my homes. I'm a Nick and a Ranger fan,

but I think the difference was the the Bezos wedding was trying to be the Venice Film Festival, but for the Bezos family. And this was like, hey, we're corny people. We're going to have a little bit of a cornball situation go on and we're going to do whatever we want. But oh, by the way, we're good people.

We're going to write some big checks at charity. So, hey, listen, you know, I'm a cat. I'm all about, if Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Bezos, if they want to spend money like that, God bless. I have no problem with I know other people get very upset with it. My attitude is, you know, you make the money, spend the money, no problem. And people forget how many jobs are tied to events like this. You know, you've got porters and waiters and you've got people in the hotels. And to me, I like people spending their money because it goes into the system and it takes care of a lot of people.

On an experience, right? Now, what's really, to me was interesting is one is there's rather private, even though it was in the middle of New York City. One, there weren't, you haven't seen pictures very many. You've seen very few pictures come out, and the ones that are out are just people, hey, I'm going to this wedding and sort of bragging about, which I'm fine with. The Bezos one was so performative, like waving from the docks and the outfits and everything else. I think that was one of the differences. I suspect there's going to be a movie of the wedding. I suspect that's coming for all of us. Let me ask Kara Swisher a question, though. Would you have promoted that you were going to the wedding?

Would you have had like a selfie, a Swisher like selfie? I kind of would have to. Because it was such a strange. I'm totally shameless. I would have been promoting it. Yes. I maybe even gotten a drone for myself. Yes, you kind of have to.

Yeah, following you. Because I'm a revolting person. Yeah, I think they wanted that. I think they wanted that. And I did like, even the celebrities were like showing off, right? Like I was there. Oh, by the way, I was there. And showing off their dresses.

And it was a little bit like the Met Gala. But what was fascinating me is very little leaked. And it seemed adorable. It just seemed, you know, I like everything Taylor Swift and Scott doesn't. But I felt like now I'm thrilled for you here because you probably like her. What's not to like? I mean, I like success stories, you know, God bless her. What's not to like?

All the girl, every kid likes her, God bless, you know. And by the way, he's won, you know, how many Super Bowls does the kid win? Three. Three. Three. Okay, there you go. Come on. I know.

They're a very handsome couple. Although I will say this about him, and he can respond to me, he can direct message me on Twitter. He might be mad at me. He has the thinnest arms and the least amount of biceps of any tight end. He's a hunk. Look at his arms, okay? I'm just thinking this kid is very slender for a tight end, which made him, in my opinion, faster, quicker, and a better receiver. I don't see him as a blocking tight end.

Okay. He's almost like a third receiver from a home. which was part of the warfare there and part of the offensive success story. Yeah, I guess. I don't know what you're talking about. He looks handsome to me, and I'm a lesbian. I think he's hot.

Am I allowed to say that I'm also a lesbian? Or probably it's not appropriate. Yes, you may say that if you like. Okay, yeah. That's my pronoun. But anyway, I was happy for New York to do it, and it actually was in juxtaposition of something happening down in Washington,

which was just a disaster. But first, let me start first. Since we're talking about sports, President Trump's officially insert himself into the World Cup, this is really bad. Even I know this is bad. U.S. soccer star Follerun Balligan is set to play against Belgium after FIFA overturned his one-match suspension from a controversial red card. Trump personally called Fife president Gianni Infantino to push for a review of the decision.

Trump posted on true social saying thank you for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice. As we tape on Monday, Belgium has been granted the right to appeal the ruling so things may have changed by the time you listen to this. I mean, why did he do this? It seems like it's just sort of sullies. And by the way, reminder, Trump was awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December. Thoughts? Well, I mean, I think we, if you're ever on Jeopardy, they don't answer the, they don't ask the questions like this. They say, what organization in the world is more corrupt in the Donald Trump White House?

The answer is, boeing, FIFA. Yes. That's the answer. So, I mean, so, you know, it's like the two of them got married and did something very corruptive and delicious to the world's most favorite sport. But to me, because I want to channel Trump for you, so get the barf bags out, guys, because I want to take exactly how he thinks, I am the man, everything is about me. Let's insert ourselves. Where's the attention this week? Oh, my God, there's billions of people watching the World Cup. I've got to get myself inserted into that.

Right. And Taylor's. He tried to do. insert himself into the Taylor Swift wedding. You saw that. He tried to do, nobody was at. He tried to do that because she hates him. He hates her, but-ba. But-ba. But let's just roll. Hello, Butler. Howard. Howard, are you there, Butler? Okay, get some evidence together. Okay. And then he calls Infantino, who we're calling sick of Fantino. And he says, this is what I want done. And he basically does it. And everyone's looking around scratching their heads and saying, why, this is low for America, you know, because it just makes. us look crass. But to Trump, he's patting himself on the back. You know what he's saying? Nobody could have done this other than me. This is like another war that I solved. I need another FIFA peace prize. Look, FIFA is very corrupt. And I did a whole show on this about the corruption and the ticket sales and everything else. But the game seemed to be going well, right? People seem to be enjoying the people here from other countries. You know, you had Cape Verde. You had Mexico last night. Even I am paying attention to this a little bit.

But this sort of, it creates, does it create a problem here if this guy gets, by the way, just for people don't know, this soccer star was born in the United States. His parents are from London. So he's what, he's the kind of the birthright citizenship that Trump rails against at the same time, which I think is kind of, of course, ironic. It's not ironic. It's typical. Well, yeah. I mean, that's that's Trump. You know, he doesn't, he's probably not even aware of that. And so that's another big irony of the whole thing. But, but. But. But. But. Just remember it has to be about him. Enough of me talking about me. What do you think of me? And how can I get myself inserted into every situation? Even if it's controversial, it sort of sullies a U.S. win if there is one? Yeah, you see that.

Okay, so now that's at FIFA's position. They're like, okay, the Americans are going to win anyway. It'll mean more ratings. But somebody, look, that was supposed to be done on the QT. And then Trump can't help himself. He's got these AI-generated. truth socials, which are incredibly revolting, where the guys pulling out the Trump card on the refs saying, yeah, you're trying to throw me out, but I've got the Donald Trump Trump card,

so I'm back in. And so, you know, what happens is it's just a turnoff to people. And I got to say this to you, Karen, I'd love to hear your opinion on this. I thought the games were going great for America. Yeah. I thought people were coming in, very, thought the place was so hospitable. And I'd be like, all right, where America's finally getting a slap on the back from. That's because he was out of it. He wasn't near it. That's why. Exactly.

You know, and speaking of being near, I mean, I think it'll just, right, if the Americans don't win, it hardly matters, but which is probably what Infantino was thinking. He also marked America's 250th birthday, which was kind of a dud by giving a speech. It was essentially a MAGA rally on the National Mall after storms delayed the event. He honored veterans and astronauts while also touting his own record and pushing for the Save America Act. He also focused on his latest obsession communism. saying communism is a loser and it will always be the night before at Mount Rushmore where there was hail, a lot of weather his way, which was interesting. He called communist menace a greater threat than Pearl Harbor and 9-11 argued American identities under renewed attack. I thought communists were losing. And speaking of threats to American identity, hundreds of mass members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front March through DC on the 4th, carrying Confederate flags and chanting reclaim America. Those photos were kind of bizarre to look at there on the subway. Talk a little bit about what was happening here.

And also, you know, you couldn't see the fireworks because there were too many of them and too much smoke. And there's smoke all. We all have been advised to stay inside over the next day or two in D.C. because of the heat and the particulates from the fireworks, which nobody could see very easily. Talk a little bit about this communism thing. I hadn't heard communism from him. So thoughts on what's happening here? Well, it's Mondani related.

This is all related to the electoral success. that the Democratic Socialists have had recently. And this is also related to the speech that the mayor of New York gave from George Washington's desk, which obviously was very polarizing to some people. My arched nemesis, Steve Bannon, somebody I can't stand, actually nailed it, in my opinion. He said, hey, you better pay attention to Zora Mandani because he's a great communicator. He's got a vision for things. He understands where people are and how upset they are.

And especially young people. Exactly. And Trump's response is to label everything with a broad bush that it's communism, Carl. And I think that's a big danger because when you do that, you're missing the elements of what's got people upset. And this isn't communism. If you listen to his speech, I sort of felt like it was Scandinavianism. Yeah, right. It was northern Europe.

It wasn't communism, you know. Yeah. And Trump's trying to label it something that it isn't. He does that very successfully at a lot of people. Who's thinking of this? Who is this successful? Because everyone's like communists. I haven't thought about communists since like the Cold War, essentially.

Yeah. So I don't think it's going to be successful because you remember, Zoran Mondani is not flat-footed. You know, when you're calling Hillary Clinton crooked or Joe Biden sleepy or Jeb Bush, low energy, they're more like standard politicians and they're a little flat-footed. You know, this guy, in my opinion, has made one mistake. I won't name the billionaire, but when he docks a billionaire in New York City with social media, I thought that was bad. I mean, because you don't want to put people in harm's way.

If you want to put a peer to tear tax in and people can pay it, no problem. But don't name the people because you're going to get – Agreed. You're going to make people, you know, in a dangerous position. But to me, this kid has only made one gaff, and I'm – I wasn't a supporter of his. I think the city's a lot cleaner. The city looks very safe to me. you said to me last week that New York is back, New York is flourishing. Is that not true?

Yeah, absolutely. When you go there, it's hard to walk the street. It's so full and vibrant and exciting. And it's along with the Nix, the Taylor Swift thing. It's just, there's a lot happening there. But what is the, you know, having the white nationalists show up again was sort of my, I was like, oh, my God, them again. In those weird outfits, they wear the blue shirts and the khakis with the weird white mask that they have to hide themselves because they're, I was like, oh, oh, my God, them again. I was like, in those weird outfits, they wear the blue shirts and the khakis with the weird white mask that they have to hide themselves because, because they're not proud of who they are, presumably. Yeah, well, okay, but you see what's going on. Elon Musk said that this was a false flag operation. This is hard left people that are sending out these white supremacists. And there was a photo of a young African-American woman on the bus with them. And people saying, okay, that photo was contrived. Okay, I don't believe, I don't believe any of that, by the way.

But I'm just saying to me, they're doing that for publicity. They're doing that for the shock and awe effect. And unfortunately, for this country and perhaps most countries, we do have racist assholes in this country. And we do have white supremacists in this country. But unfortunately, we have somebody in the White House that sort of blows a dog whistle for these people, as opposed to denouncing these people or ignoring these people. It's like, oh, that sounds like a lot of fun. Can you guys bring the matches over here? Right, right.

Let's light the door flame log for the white supremacist's bonfire. That's the stuff that I really can't stand. It's all around the Save America Act, though. I mean, that's really the focus. There's, you know, story after story of him, the desperation of either passing this or pulling some emergency powers, you know, declaring a national security emergency around voting and everything else. To me, that's where everything funnels down to is this fear of November.

Yeah. I mean, listen, I mean, that's the goal, right? We've got to get black and brown people not to vote. And so we're going to get ICE agents out. we're going to scare you. I've got to get this legislation passed, the Save America Act. And if we get that passed as well, you know, hopefully you'll stay in your house. And we can organize as much of the white vote as we possibly can to win these elections.

And so Trump said something people should really listen to. If I can get this thing passed, we won't lose an election for the next 100 years. Did you hear him say that? Yeah, he said that. Pay attention. So now, thankfully, Thune is American enough still where he's blocking Trump and he's stopping him. But, you know, listen, you know, what comes next is the answer, Cara? Because I think we got Trump.

I think the courts have knocked him to the ground a notch. I think he's ages getting him. I think some of the podcasters have broken from him. Some of the traditional Republicans are just waiting him out. Okay, so I think we got Trump. I'm worried about the next lunatic that shows up with the same message, you know. Yeah. Any thoughts on who that would be?

None of the current lunatics. You know, they don't have the Riz, Kara Swisher. It would have to be a young lunatic that we don't know right now. Not Tucker Carlson. I've never asked you about Tucker Carlson. How do you look at him? You know, Tucker is a typical dweeb in the high school. Like, I wasn't a clique guy in the high school.

My uncle owned a motorcycle shop, so I did have a leather jacket, but I was also the captain of the football. team. So I was like not into the whole click thing, but Tucker would have been that kid that was like a sneaky bully. And so a sneaky bully is no one's looking. I'm going to poke care in the eye, okay? No one's looking. I'm going to do something devious or pranksterish to somebody that's weaker than me due to my insecurities, right? So Tucker wasn't the out and out bully because when you saw that guy, you just walk off to him, punch him in the face and make him go away. And so what Tucker does, he's like a dodgeball bully. Okay. So here. So he's,

Hear me how to say, remember when you were in elementary school? You were probably the smart kid in the back lurking with the ball. I was too small to hit. I was always the last kid before to get hit at that. And you were always waiting for the big jock to hit the other jock, and then you snuck up and hit the big jock. Correct. Thank you. Okay.

But Tucker is a dodgeball bully. Okay. He's been sneaking around bullying and terrorizing people, okay, for his adult life. And now he's got a very big broad podcast that he can do this on. My buddy Chris Cuomo, people should go look at the tape. He took a karate shop to Tucker's Adams Appal as he was spouting his BS about Russia. Okay. And Chris doesn't give his.

She just took him to the ground. And so I say to myself, number one, is he on a take from Russia? I don't know. So I'm not going to say yes or no. But he uses Russian talking points when he talks. He does. Yeah. Number two, what, you know, he's. He's all of a sudden anti-Israel.

And we can debate that. I'm not saying Israel's got a great brand right now. I think they've had a lot of mishaps. But you went from pro-Israel hanging out with Huckabee to now you're anti-Israel. And I'm like, what are you doing exactly? And you know what he's doing? He's feeding the ducks of his audience. Okay?

So he's a dodgeball bully who feeds the ducks of his audience. Does that give him a chance or not? No. No, he's got no chance. And I think he's a complete tool. Also, if Trump is alive when he announces his candidacy, Trump is going to send like orange-manned cruise missiles up to Maine and blow Tucker out of the water because one thing about Trump,

he knows the Achilles heel of people like Tucker. And I predict Tucker won't run because, listen, that is a big boy sport, as you know. It's not podcasting. It's not hanging around waiting for your next massage. It's like, okay, we've got to get on the road, and you can hate Donald Trump. But Donald Trump is a grinder. I watched them, you know, eight in the morning till midnight, let's grind this thing out. Tucker doesn't strike me, is that?

I see. You know, pass me the nail file. I'm about to get a manny-petti Tucker Carlson, the Dodgeball bullet. Can I ask you one last question on this? So what's Trump's move? We got July. August, everything's quiet. What does he have to?

He doesn't have much time until the midterm. besides trying to stop the election itself. What does he do now? How does he get attention? What is he going to do? Well, we have more of revulsion coming. So on July 19th, he'll be in the Meadowlands. He'll be at the New Jersey, New York Stadium,

handing the trophy to somebody who has won the World Cup because Infantino Sicafantino is going to let him do that. So that's going to be a big day for him. Lots of attention on him. He'll have billions of people watching him. He'll be very happy about that. Right, exactly. And he's announced his.

grift to the public. Okay, so if you ever thought that he hasn't learned from the KGB, he has, actually, because what does the KGB do? They spy out in the open, right? Remember, John LaCaree would explain to you that the person shows up. They look like a KGB spy. They act like a KGB spy. So you don't think they're a KGB sky. But guess what? They are one. And so Trump is like, let me announce to you my grift. Okay. And so here's all the different things I'm doing. He even put the $15,000 of Infantino tickets that were given to him on his financial disclosure, the FIFA tickets that were given to him. So what he's going to do is he knows he doesn't give a shit about his party. He doesn't care who wins the election. As long as he's not overly investigated, he's going to

pardon himself and his family. He's going to try to make $10 billion over the next two years. All right. Well, that'll get us into. So that's what he's working on. That's what he's going to do. Yeah. He's about glory, self-angorendizement, and Mullah. Those are, That's the holy trinity inside his brain. All right. Okay. Well, we'll talk about that because we're going to talk about something that you know a lot about, which is cryptocurrency. Okay, Anthony, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, millions investors lost billions on Trump's meme coin. Support for the show comes from Vanta. Every new tool your team signs up for. Every vendor that turns on AI features, every new integration has a chance for something to go wrong. And most security programs weren't built for AI space 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 like yours, what's the risks that show up between audits across your vendors, your AI

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You can learn more at harvey.aI. Support for the show comes from Anthropic. Not every question has an easy answer. And when you're working through something complicated, it helps to have a thought partner to kick ideas around with and uncover what's really going on beneath the surface. That's where a Claude comes in. Cloud is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you.

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That's clod.aI slash pivot and check out ClodPro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude.a.i slash pivot. Anthony, we're back. Nearly one million people who bought President Trump's meme coin of lost a combined $3.8 billion. Guess where it went? same time, Trump disclosed earnings of $636 million from the meme coin in 2025. Trump profited whether the coin price rose or fell, collecting fees every time the token was traded, which he just called the Vig, which he often prompted his followers on true social to do. Meanwhile, Michael

Saylor's strategy has abandoned its famous Never Sell Bitcoin. It wasn't a holder anymore, mantra. The company is launching a $1.25 billion monetization program to raise capital with Bitcoin sales already is sold to. 2016 million. Trump's disclosure, by the way, showed active trading of strategy shares. You know, for people who don't understand what was happening, we talked about this last week, he made several billion dollars largely related to crypto, very small amount in real estate, similar to what he always makes in real estate, essentially, nothing more or less. But there's a lot of, you know, and of course the kids have their own grifts going on,

and Jared and Ivanka have their own grift. So talk about how we should be thinking about crypto now and what has. happened here with Trump. Well, I mean, it's important to people to understand how dramatic this griff was. I mean, he needs an Academy Award or a FIFA World Cup trophy. Maybe FIFA will give him the grifter, you know, crypto, you know, we gave you the FIFA Peace Prize, but the grifting has been so good. Here's the FIFA grifter prize, because this is unbelievable. Just to put it in the context for everybody, all of the publicly traded crypto companies combined made, like, less than Donald Trump did in crypto. Just so everybody knows, he made more money than Coinbase Cracken,

put them all together. Crackin's not public, but you get my point. They do disclose their financials. And remember this, okay, Trump's disclosure was 927 pages. Barack Obama, his was eight pages. Okay, so this guy filed a phone book. He didn't file disclosure. But the crypto stuff is so bad. It is so egregious, so many people lost money and the differential of $3.8 billion losing and him making $800. It's just to me insidious, but I'm going to say this to you, and I know you get this. The Emirati royal family bought $500 million stake in his company before the inauguration. Right. Okay, so I don't know.

You tell me that was just a, hey, that's a nice gesture. Hey, Kara, how are you doing? You know, there's a Kara switcher. It looks like it's from your longevity documentary behind you. I'd like to buy that from you for $500 million just because, you know, you're a nice person, Cara. Is that how the Emirati, Royal Family, treated that situation? Right. So to me, it's again, I'm taking the money.

And by the way, you stupid crypto bros, what did you think was going to happen? Oh, you thought I was supporting you? No, no, no. this Clarity Act, which everybody would like to get past, that can happen because my opposition hates me and they're going to vote against it despite me. And oh, by the way, that spites you. But ha-ha, guess what? I didn't care about you. I didn't care about your industry. Right. So what happens to the, what is happening? Like what Sailor has done? Obviously, he's been super aggressive. And you've been deep into crypto and Bitcoin particularly. Does this hurt the Bitcoin

business because it was actually improving allegedly under Trump with all these, you know, Gensler was gone, everything else. Where does this leave crypto now? Because it then has this taint, as the World Cup has, of Trump's finger, dirty fingers all over it. Yeah. So nobody likes me in the crypto community for saying this, but I'm going to continue to say this. Gary Gensler was a pain in the ass to the industry. But you know what Gary Gensler did?

he blocked a lot of the low lives and a lot of the people, a lot of the scammers out of the industry. Trump has opened up the floodgates and became the scammer in chief in the industry. So people said, oh, this is going to be great for the industry. It's not great for the industry. You would want the mama bear. You would want propitious and ordinary, transparent, crypto regulation with a defense system against scumbaggery. We didn't get that. So when Trump announced that meme coin, Kara, I was at the,

the World Economic Forum with Brian Armstrong on a panel. And I said, this is going to be very bad for the industry because this makes us look terrible. And his opposition, there are young Democrats that would probably support the cryptocurrency industry that are looking around saying, I can't do it now because of what Trump has done. And so to me, I think it's a big issue. You mentioned sailors, we might as well bring him up. You know, Michael's got to be careful because He is an absolutist and he's an extremist. So he said at one side of his mouth, I'm never selling my Bitcoin. You should sell one of your kidneys to buy and hold Bitcoin, but he's got pressure on him and he's got a cash imbalance. And so guess what he's doing? He's starting to sell his Bitcoin.

Like, Michael's not going to take advice from me and I like Michael, but I would say, Michael, you become part of the story. Go on your yacht, sail off into Sicily somewhere, stop tweeting about Bitcoin. Get out of the. story-making business, because what happens in a situation like this is like a fighter squadron, let's say we got B-17s about to strafe Berlin, and one has engine trouble and is lagging behind the others in the squadron, what are the Messerschmiths going to take out first? They're going to take out that one, and this is Michael right now. So get out of the story.

I wouldn't sell any more Bitcoin, by the way. Your job is to have Bitcoin go back up, and you getting out of the story will probably help. that. I'm long-term bullish on Bitcoin. I think we're in the typical four-year cycle where we've corrected 50 percent. We could correct more, but I think the long-term bias for Bitcoin is up. And I think if you hold it for five years, you're going to be well-situate. Here you have Trump sort of dirtying up the industry in a ways. What needs to happen from a bipartisan? How can it return to a way where you don't have, you know, too much regulation at the same time? you zero out all the, all the scammers.

So I think there's only one thing, and that is time and demography. So I think if you're above the age of 60 and you're in the Democratic Party, you hate crypto. I think if you're below the age, if you're in the 50 to 60, you're crypto, biurious, but you're like cryptosceptic. If you're below the age of 50, you're generally like, okay, I get this. And there should be an ecosystem allowing us for tokenization. and for general improvements of the financial services slash fintech community.

And so I think he set the industry back. I think it'll be three, four, five years before we see the right type of regulation. I want to be wrong. You know, Cynthia Loomis, Tim Scott are saying that the Clarity Act is going to get passed. If you go to the Polly Markets. Explain what the Clarity Act is. Okay.

So the Clarity Act in the most simple elevator pitch is exactly that. we're going to offer you clarity on regulation associated with crypto. Where is Bitcoin going to be regulated at the CFTC or the SEC? Where are these other coins going to be regulated? What's going to be allowed in the industry? How are we going to deal with stable coins? Are they going to be able to pay interest on the balances that you put at a stable coin company?

What will the banks be able to do? Will we charge the banks on their balance sheet, which they would do right now? If I held my Bitcoin, I can't hold it at JPMorgan, but if I was able to, they hit them with an overcharge on their capital account. But let's say they could segment it out. Will the Money Center banks eventually be able to custodian Bitcoin? And so why are we calling it clarity? Because the pendulum has been swinging back and forth between the administrations.

You get hard left-leaning regulation from the SEC, and it swings back to hard right-leaning regulation. we were having regulation by enforcement under Gensler. Now we're having light-touch regulation. This would provide a clear signal to Democrats and Republicans. Here are the laws as legislated by the Congress, signed by the president. And so this is the interpretation bandwidth you have now, as opposed to this, you know, this wider bandwidth. It feels like grift again.

That's what it, it has more of a nervousness around it because the Trumps are. Well, well, well, Well, let me explain why it does, though, because all Gillibrand and these people are asking for is, okay, we don't want the president's family to steal another couple billion dollars of crypto. So can we at least legislate or create a rules-based system that's ethically guided? And the White House said, no, we like when the president steals. Scott Besant said that the $2.4 billion that he took is a sign of U.S. innovation is what he said in an interview. This guy. I mean, you know, I mean, you got to be kidding me. I mean, it's just literally unbelievable. This guy. Jesus. But it's, you know, you know what it is? It's like a sock puppet at this point. It's like that used to be a person, you know, like Prince, formerly known as Prince. That used to be a person formerly known as Scott Besant. He's now a sock puppet for Caroline Levitt and Donald.

Trump. Okay. And you're saying that with a straight face and an interview guy? I mean, come on. Yeah, I know. I agree. So, small thing, July 4th officially marked the end of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as Doge. And a post on X, the agency said, well, the formal mission of Doge has come to an end. The mission to eliminate waste fraud and abuse will continue. Good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and accountable government are not temporary initiatives. Researchers estimate Doge's cuts to U.S.AID and humanitarian aid contribute to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. Judge claims it saved tax payers about $215 billion through spending cuts. The original goal was $2 trillion.

Many people feel it costs the United States, actually. One thing we won't be getting is a final assessment of what actually accomplished budget director, Russell, vote, recently told Congress, we have no plans to publish a closing Doge report. Of course not, because if they did a good job, they would tell you. I think this was just, as it turned out, as I said it would, it was a nothing burger of massive proportions and actually led to death of people around the globe, especially children. So any final thoughts on Doge? Just another waste of time. I mean, again, there was a Doge. It was the Clinton Gore reinventing government. That's right. I just want to remind everybody, we took 426,000 jobs, and we eliminated them over

eight years through attrition and buyouts and process redesign. And what I never can understand for the life of me is I think I'm a reasonably smart guy, but I know I'm stupid in a lot of areas. But if I had a B next to my name, you have to explain this to me care because you hang out with these people more than I do. So I've got billionaires that troll me on Twitter because they're smarter than me, and they know more about everything than I could possibly know. But, and I understand that, yes, you know more about neurology than neurologists and more about the military than the military. Yes, you have a billion dollars. You're the smartest. I understand that. But why wouldn't you have gone to 25-year veterans of the GAO, the government administration office, and said, okay, where are the worms in the system? How can I plug a few holes? I'm not going to save a trillion dollars or two trillion dollars. But you know, from an engineering perspective, the structural design and the embedded cost of the government, what could we do to stop some of the bleeding? And how could we do that gradually. And they didn't want to do that because why? Because they wanted to please Elon and let him jump all over the place with, I don't know. I think he just was to please Elon. I think Elon felt like this was important. And that's where they had the falling out over the tax bill when he started to show what he really was made of, which was spending more government money. And I just think it was just all act. I thought it was all nonsense and idiotic and possibly gave Elon and his minions access to.

to lots of secure government data. I always thought it was about the data, but that's just me. Well, it was definitely a missed opportunity because we could have gone back to Paysago legislation that got us to the budget surplus during the Clinton era. We could have gone, we could have gone with a Clinton-esque doge-like system that was bipartisan. We could have said to our fellow Americans, hey, we're not going to fix the problem in 10 years. but you know what, over a 20-year period of time, we could get the debt,

we could get the spend in line with where the GDP is. And we didn't do that. And you know what's going to happen. And you know this, and I know this. My buddy Ray Dalio knows this. You're going to have an American president in 2036, 2040, dealing with a $55 trillion budget deficit. And they're going to be sitting there saying,

okay, the money's not worth anything anymore because the only way we can pay for this, guys, remember, unfunded tax liability is what a deficit is. That's what Milton Friedman said. All deficit spending, unfunded tax liability. And guess how we're paying for it? We're using the most pernicious and most regressive form of taxation because we're cowards. We're using inflation. And so we're going to blow out your bank account. You think you got $1,000 in your account. It only has $750 worth of purchase. power because that's our way of monetizing our debt. And that's a problem. And that's one of the reasons why I am long gold and one of the reasons why I'm long Bitcoin, because I do think that

these will be part of the, as we reinvent ourselves once again, they will be part of the answer to the way the monetary system works in the future. Yeah, this was a missed opportunity and it was all performative. Performative. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back, the pros and cons of Trump accounts. Support for the show comes from NPR. Is social media bad for your mental health? Are we spending too much on other people's weddings? Why is heteropessimism trending?

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Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. Is Donald Trump still cool? Well, at first, there was what he was promising to America. He was promising change. Yes, promising big change. Has he lived up to that? No. No, I wouldn't say so.

I'm disappointed. We're in Washington, D.C. for one of the events that Donald Trump is throwing for America's 250th anniversary, and it's UFC night. Pride to be American. We got free tickets. It's just going to be a great time. That's about it. It's an opportunity to talk to a group that was central in the 2024 election, young men. Why do we think Trump and men seem to have a connection? I feel like he just knows how to advertise himself with the younger proud. It aligns with masculinity, I feel like, to a certain extent.

But if they don't like Donald Trump, what do they prefer politically otherwise? I care about my family. I care about my country. I want people to be safe and happy where they live. Care about my wallet, too, man. I'm a Sted Herndon, and this is America Actually. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Anthony, we're back. Speaking of trying to make money for American citizens, Trump accounts, which I hope the name will be changed after he leaves,

the new investment accounts for children have officially launched. Trump marked the occasion by ringing the bell to open the markets from the Oval Office on Monday morning. Six million Trump accounts have already been open for children under 18, according to the Treasury Department, a fraction of L.A. It's a small amount, actually. Babies born during Trump's term between 2025 and 2028 will receive a $1,000 deposit of seed money in these accounts.

The Social Security Administration is an interesting process for parents to enroll their babies in these Trump accounts at the hospital. As they register for social security numbers, we've seen a number of individual and corporate donors to these accounts, including Michael Dellen, as you mentioned, Ray Dalio. The latest is SpaceX President Gwyn Chottwell, who just announced she's donating company stock. What do you think about these accounts? I'm not necessarily against them. I don't, I think it's, I just, I feel like grift will happen because Trump's involved with it. And at the same time, I feel like maybe we should just have, you know, childcare, maybe we should just have health care. Maybe should we just have these kind of things that cost people.

I don't mind for savings, which essentially this is. And I have accounts from my own kids for college and things like that. but and everyone should be able to avail themselves to them in a tax-free basis. So, and at the same time, relying on the stock market's problematic from my perspective, but go ahead. Let's hear. Well, I want to, listen, you know, I have to say this one straight for me as a Wall Street person. I like this because I, even if it's going to be six million people, that's what it looks like right now, getting these people auto-enrolled in the stock market and the idea that they have some invalienable,

which means they're technically invested in something. And if it could spark some aspiration, if it could spark some interest in long-term thinking and saving and investing, I like those things. You know, listen, Michael Dell, I think, gave $6.5 billion. I know he's a very wealthy man, but I think it's a very generous statement that he's trying to make. I don't like the Trump name on it. But of course, anything that Trump does, he's going to have to put his name on it. He's trying to get his signature on your money. He's trying to get his face in your passport. He cannot help himself. But here's the thing I would say about this, and people should really be concerned about this number. 40% of the Americans own nothing in a retirement account. And I want you to think of the

pressure on that. And so that also, we do know this and we don't teach it in school, and perhaps we should. We know we have a lot of financially illiterate people in the country. And if you're listening to this podcast and you're financially literate, and you're financially literate, don't look down on those people, figure out a way to educate those people because more educated people and more financially literate people will mean there'll be more self-sustaining people, okay, and there'll be people seeking their aspiration. So I do like this one. Trump is taking more credit for it than he deserves. This was an idea that was proposed 10 years ago. Lots of people blocked it. I think, believe it or not, Vice President Harris, if she was president, would have

accepted this at this point in our culture. You're making a different point, though, and I would just say not to conjoin those. The point that you're making, which I agree with, we need a platform of good food in the school so the kid doesn't go to school on unhealthy or hungry. We need some sustainable educational ideas, and we need some health care for these kids. That's more important than putting $1,000 in their savings. I accept that, but I would just say to you, Carr, and people listening in, you got to deal with the world the way it is. not the way it should be and not the way we want it to be. And so this one I like, and I would like to see more billionaires.

I'd like to see more people do this. Giving money. So is this like, although some people feel like Open AI doing it as a way to get a bailout at some point, or you give him the money and he takes credit for it, and then you get some sort of break of something else, that giving money these things gives you something else? Well, that's been the case with Donald Trump. I mean, we've learned that. You give him money. You buy a documentary from his family. You get more rocket contracts. You line up behind him. He takes care of you. You know, you've got people that have given him money or given money to his pact. And Howard Butler-Buttlick has written him out of certain tariffs and has gotten them an exemption on certain things. So, yes, we know that there's a pay per play system going on. And so, yeah, there's people thinking, you know what, I'm going to give this. I'm going to get the tax.

got, and Trump's got two and a half years left. I may need a favor from him, and he's a guy that pays for play, and I can get in there and ask for that favor and probably will get it done. You know, there's a queue of people, and I'd be very interested. I'm not an investigative reporter, but I would love somebody to work on this. There's a queue of people that are lined up for pardons. And I know it's into tens of millions of dollars is being paid to get these pardons. They're hiring lobbyists. They're hiring attorneys. They're buying, I don't know, fragrances from the family.

All manner of Kelly Ann Conway's. Yeah, they're buying meme coins. I don't know what the hell they're doing. But I'm sure there's a legion of people. They're like, hey, we got a two and a half year window. We broke a lot of laws. But this guy could pardon my ass. And this is Trump's personality.

Rather than using the norms in the system, he breaks the norms. And then he brags about it. And only I. Only I could have gotten our player back on the field. Only I could take in billions of dollars for myself. These other presidents were stupid. They could have made billions of dollars for themselves. I'm the genius.

You see what I mean? And it's very corruptive. And let me tell you what it does, which pisses me off the most, if you don't mind. Because we grew up similarly. When I was a kid growing up, maybe Richard Nixon was corrupt. But he wasn't so corrupt that I thought the system was broken and unfair. I looked up at the system. I said, all right, the guy's probably correct.

up, but you know what, if I go to a good school and work my ass off, I can move classes in this country. This guy is putting a suppression on middle and lower income people. They're like, holy shit. There's a two-tier justice system. You're either one of the president's crony friends or you're not. And if you're not, you're not going to make it. And I'm going to do way less economically than my parents did. And I don't have any hope and I don't have any chance. That's what the corruption does in a society, and that's what pisses me off the most. Yep, I would agree. I would agree. So we're both sort of for these things, but it just seems like I'd love to get the Trump name off of it. I almost signed up for one. I almost did. But then I was like I have enough stockholdings. So last thing, very briefly, so Mark Zuckerberg told meta employees the company's AI agents aren't advancing as quickly as expected, like a lot of corporate people.

Zuckerberg said meta's AI reorganization hasn't delivered. The results are the company in hope for, though, expects progress over the next three to six months. In May, META laid off around 8,000 employees and reassigned about 7,000 AI focus team, Zuckerberg said this move has not as clean as should have been. Meta is expected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure. this year. Everybody's a little worried about. Even the Palantir, even though you said it in a crazy way, was making a lot of sense around the high price of tokens, the effectiveness, the safety of your data, whether you want to hand it over to these things, all signs of possible highs of this spending. Do you think how much impact, how much patience do investors

have if companies keep saying progress is slower than hope, including the center companies in this? Yeah, well, I mean, you know the answer to that. I know the answer to that they have patience until, bam, they don't have patience. And this is very reminiscent of global crossing and very reminiscent of Cisco. And you and I are old enough to remember Web 1 where we were building the infrastructure. We're putting all the switches in. We're going to have all these transatlantic, trans-specific cables. We've got cables coming down the Persian Gulf all the way into the Strait of Hermuz. And we are going to electrify and globalize everything. everything, and they overspent. And they had too much leverage in the system as a result of which, like a real estate speculation, the system got built, but it collapsed and the people that were owning the equity and were buying the hopium at that time actually got crushed. And so what I'm fearful is also the way this stuff is booked, right? Because if you're spending on the R&D and then someone else is booking a profit at the same time, you know, to me, you've artificially stimulated some people's earnings,

particularly the data centers and things like that. And so I'm worried about that because that's exactly what happened in Web 1, and you and I are old enough to remember that movie. And that movie ended in tears. Yeah, that wasn't a happy Hollywood ending. Although, then there was Google, then there was meta, then there was, you know.

Well, yeah, well, that's the bet. So now you've got your cards, you're playing this hand. You've got to hopefully you can close your position out before the thing blows up, and then you wait for, whatever replaces it, right? You know, listen, Altavista, ask Jeeves. Yeah, I'm saying. Okay, we could, you remember the search engines. Remember Internet Capital Group? Scott and I were reminiscing about that. Remember Internet Capital Group? Remember the boom in Internet Capital?

They named the, they named the Patriot Stadium, the Internet Capital Group Stadium or whatever a holding company was. And so to me, what I'm worried about here, and I think, it's fair to be worried about this is this is a great technology. I think it'll add to productivity. It'll boost things. The Internet certainly did that. But as we invest, there were pockets in the railroad industry that blew up, pockets in telecom that blew up.

And there's going to be pockets here that blow up. Do you expect to blow up because a lot of economists are suddenly sounding alarms? Now, it took years before that happened in the one you were taught, Global Crossing and everything. else. It took several years before it broke, essentially. Well, you got to tell me where rates are going. You tell me where the rates are going, and I'll tell you where the fuse is, because if we managed to stave off, despite the economic data and the specter of current inflation, and remember, we've had a hundred basis point

differential on rate expectation. So if you and I were doing this podcast, January 1, Anthony, what are you expecting three 25 basis cuts this year? What is it now? We flipped it over to one 25 basis point hike. So that did affect a large part of the markets. It did affect crypto and obviously gold also sold off as a result of that. But if you're telling me we have a 50 basis point, 75 basis point rate increase due to the quagmire and Iran, all the assortment of different things, you're going to shorten that flu. Somebody could say, hey, I'm going to miss a bond payment here. Sorry. I think it's very telling Cara that Facebook, which means, money and Google that mince money. I think they combined went out to raise in bond market activity

something like $140 billion in the last six weeks. And so that's telling you something. They're like, holy shit, we're spending so much money. We better get another hundred or so billion in reserve here to protect ourselves and to create a layer of protection on the interest rates that we're going to be paying. We're going to be paying. So we'll see where that goes. Anyway, One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. I'm Seth Matlins. My new show, Creator Destroy Reimagining Marketing, explores how every decision a company makes,

not just the marketing ones, but the HR, IR, pricing, org design, and planning ones, the ones most don't consider marketing at all contribute to either creating value or destroying it. Each week, I sit down with CMO, CEOs, founders, cultural thinkers, the people building, breaking, and reimagining how businesses grow or, don't for conversations about what creates value and what destroys it. It's a business show. It's a marketing show. Creator destroys the show that argues. They've always been the same thing from the Vox Media Podcast Network and the Wisdom is company. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. As America reaches its 250th anniversary, how should Americans assess their

country's strength relative to the rest of the world? We're moving into a genuinely multipolar world. We're moving into a genuinely multipolar world. And that's a world in which every nation is basically for itself, because nations can no longer rely on the United States to protect them. I'm John Feiner. And I'm Jake Sullivan. And we're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, we sat down with the historian and foreign policy expert Bob Kagan to assess America's role in the world at 250 and the future of American power. The episode's out now. Search for and follow The Long Game, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Anthony, let's hear some wins and fails. You go first.

Well, listen, I mean, we talked about it. So I think the win of the week is the Trump accounts, actually. I don't like to call on that. But I want Americans to get into saving and the investing mindset. And certainly if you can get children into a saving, investing mindset, it could be a life changer. So I think that's the clearest win for me. The second clearest win, which is obscure to people, but I think it's meaningful, is the birthright. citizenship. And we talked a little bit about that last week on my show. I think that is the big message. I say, sorry, you know, you pushed and shoved us around. We are afraid of you here at the court. But you know what? It was a six-three decision. And we're going to stick with the Constitution over the Orange Maniac. And I think those are two big wins. All right. So losses for me are FIFA and Sickenino. I think this is a big loss for him. And I think, and I think weirdly, you know, and

Sadly, I think he's hurt the game. And I think it sucks because the World Cup to me is about togetherness. When you want to love people and you want to love the world, I think of the World Cup. I'm like, all right, look at all these people. You know, the happiness and the sadness is based on a sporting event. It's not based on a war. I love the whole environment. I love the whole carnivalry of it.

And I just think the notion that this guy poisoned that too, it's like he won't stop at anything. stuff and anything. So those are the wins and those are the losses. That sort of goes into my fail is the continued sucking up of people like Bessent and others about, like, yes, there's plenty of people behind me. The cultism is so strange. And it's so at some point, when are you going to say the emperor has no clothes? That's that kind of, which I don't want to see Donald Trump naked necessarily. But this.

Have you ever thought about it though? No, no. Because you're an imaginative person. Has it ever just gone into the brain? I have a sense of what it looks like. And it's like an open spam can. Like you just opened a spam can. And there he is.

There he is. Open spam can with a penis, which a bent penis. Well, you don't know. Yeah, we haven't confirmed to deny that. It just could be an open spam can. I believe porn stars is what I do. But the sycifancy is just astonishing. And Douglas Bergam in particular, with the whole,

thing around the reflecting pool. I mean, first of all, everything, like that fair. Nobody was there and they were pretending they were there. That was hysterical. But he was going on and on about these cuts and without any proof. And then why are you media people, why don't you just accept this? And they're like, because you're a liar, Doug Bergam. Like, to me, he seemed to be, even though he's an obvious suckup, obvious suckup, but the level of suckuppery is really, and I'm like, you're not stupid and you're sucking up. And that to me was really a fail. I just can't believe it's going to continue.

I just don't know when it's going to stop. And I'm sort of waiting for the moment where somebody points to him and says, you're naked, essentially. My win is over the holiday, I went to see Supergirl because everyone didn't want to see it, right? Because it's this big disaster for Warner and people aren't going to see it.

And I have to tell you, it's a pretty good movie. It's a pretty good movie. I know it's not going to win. I see the numbers. I can see why it would be hard to get a man to go to it. It's pretty woman-focused. There's a sex trafficking thematic. It's dark.

But I do think this actor who's in at Millie, I think it's Alcock, is amazing, was amazing. And I think it's a lovely, I think it's a good, it's a really solid. There's been some bad movies in this genre and the superhero genre, and lots of bad ones. This is not one of them, and I'm sorry, it's not doing better. I bet it has a life outside of this time. Later, it'll become a cult favorite, I think, because it's really interesting and strange movie. I'll definitely go see it. Look, I'm a big Superman aficionado, and I love Supergirl. Yeah, she's really interesting. It's dark, but it's dark, and I can see why people wouldn't necessarily go to it.

So I get it, I get it, I get it. Anyway, and, of course, the biggest one of the week is Taylor Swift. Congratulations with you and Travis getting married. It's just two crazy kids. You two crazy kids. I hope for the best. I hope you can make it, both of you. It's great. But, you know, if guys, I would like to be, if you're probably not going to have another wedding, but if there's an anniversary party, Karen, I would like to be invited.

We will go. We will sing for you. You may have invited me to this, but I may have just missed it in the mail, but I, you know, I would like to be involved. Agree. We will be there for you. Anyway, Anthony, I really appreciate it.

Just for people know, we want to hear from you, send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com. Slivit. submit a question for the show. We'll call 85551 Pippet. Okay, that is the show.

Thank you, Anthony. As always, people can check out your book All the Wrong Moves this fall. It's a really terrific book. Thank you for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Again, Anthony, thank you so much.

It's always great to be on with you, Kara. Thank you guys. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Ernie Anderdat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Kate Gallagher and Brad Silvestor. Nishot Kerwa is a Voxmede's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast.

platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Box Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things, tech and business. And hello, Scott, whatever yacht you're sailing on in whatever fancy sea. We miss you.