Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Confronting the Ethical Vacuum Exposed by Trump and Epstein

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov break down Trump’s signature move: flooding the zone. From a massive Epstein document dump that swallows the news cycle, to Trump inserting himself into active investigations and openly pushing to “nationalize” voting, the noise is the point. Then, they zoom out to Trump’s broader project — remaking Washington in his own image, from cultural institutions to public monuments — and ask whether it’s ideology, ego, or legacy-building. Finally, they look at a very different kind of power: Bad Bunny’s moment, celebrity resistance to Trump’s immigration crackdown, and whether culture can still move politics when politics feels overwhelming. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Ashton Hernigan, and this week on Today Explain, I traveled to Minneapolis to speak with Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is suing the Trump administration over ICE descending on his state. It would mean that we had federal active duty troops patrolling our streets, which is concerning because the way ICE does its business is been proven over and over again to be deeply problematic. New episodes of Today Explain drop every day of the week wherever you get your podcast. And you can now watch our Saturday interviews at YouTube.com. Welcome, Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlev. In today's episode of Raging Moderates, Jess, we're discussing how Trump has over flooded the zone, how he's trying to remake D.C. in his image and bad bunny's influence in this moment. If you aren't already, make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube page to get up-to-date coverage on everything happening.

We're doing more and more hot takes. And if you want to stay abreast of current events, please, subscribe. All right, let's get into it. This past week feels like a masterclass in how Trump floods the zone. The Justice Department dumps more than three million pages of Epstein files, heavy on Trump references, light on new facts after months of delay. Instantly, devouring, swallowing, occupying the news cycle. At the same time, a whistleblower complaint involving Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard remained so classified, Congress still hasn't seen it months after it was filed. And in Georgia, the FBI, FBI seizes 2020 ballots with Trump reportedly inserting himself directly into an active investigation.

That Georgia move comes as Trump openly calls for Republicans to nationalize the voting, reviving his baseless claims about stolen elections and previewing interesting things. He says will emerge from seize ballots. Each story on its own raises red flags. Together, they show or reflect a familiar strategy. Move fast, create noise, overwhelm attention. Jess, how do we break this down? want to start. I feel like we have to start with how overwhelmed everyone is. Yeah. Because I don't know

if it's something that is weighing on you, like it's weighing on me, but I feel like someone is sitting on my chest, basically every time that I have to prepare for something or even to talk to a friend who I know is interested in politics. It doesn't even have to be interested in politics anymore. I mean, these stories are breaking through to normie folks that are going about their business. You know, my friend texted me asking, do you know a place where I can get an objective take on what's in these Epstein files? I had no answer for her, right? I can't even point to major publications to say that they've been doing a good job of ingesting these files or telling us what's in them, being able to call through three million documents in, you know, a matter of hours is impossible.

There were huge mistakes made also that, you know, naked images were released at first. Names of survivors unredacted that had to be, you know, taken down from the DOJ site. And, you know, it's like a poo-poo platter of hellscapes that you can pick from with what's going on in this news cycle. Epstein, the 2020 election ballots, Donald Trump's conversation with Dan Bongino, which I want to get into, the story about. you know, a shake buying a 49% stake in the Trump family crypto account four days before inauguration. I mean, that should be a presidency ending story on its own. And the Wall Street Journal did a huge investigation into it. And I feel like it barely made it into most people's algorithms because of how much is being flooded.

And I went back and revisited Steve Bannon's original Flood the Zone comment from 2019. and he said every day we hit them with three things, they'll bite on one and we'll get all our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang. Three things. Three things would be the slowest newsday of the Trump administration. It's like 10 things on a daily basis. And I'm feeling like I can't keep up and this responsibility to the people out there who depend on us, right, to be a good filter for this and to have a well-informed perspective. And I don't want to let people down either with a rush to judgment about some of these things.

They're complicated issues, too. And so I'm stressed. How are you? Yeah, I think overwhelmed. And I keep trying to parse how much of it is I just get older and more depressed or if this really is alarming. And I've decided it's a mix of it's a mix of the both. It's definitely alarming. But they definitely understand, all right, the Epstein Files are coming out.

let's let's just throw, let's talk about nationalizing election, which is nothing but an attempt to pervert democracy. One thing that came out that's not getting any attention that would be the impeachment ready news item of any other administration of the past 50 years is that essentially it looks like we have a sheik from the UAE, Tanun bin Zayad al-Nayan, I apologize if I got that wrong, who's a UAE National Security Advisor, he signed a deal to purchase a 49% stake in the Trump family crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. So that's approximately $190 million directly

to Trump family entities. And what do you know, a couple months later, Trump admin approved a framework allowing the UAE to purchase 500,000 advanced AI chips annually. And the big fear is that these chips, which are essentially kind of the information age version of plutonium in the wrong hands, they serve as nuclear guidance systems, GPS for missiles, submarine navigation chips.

I mean, this is, our most sensitive military items are instructed, maintain rare earth materials, and are all powered by or guided by some form of AI, sophisticated chips. And I just want to set some historical context. Because the president seems to be down with it or is the beneficiary of these brides, we've just sort of lost all historical context. And I just want to take us back to the 50s, and that is Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. And they were associated with communist circles in the 30s and 40s, and they were accused of espionage for the Soviet Union. But the similarities to me are striking, and that is the passing of sensitive information that could make an adversary more dangerous and

lethal to our security interests, an attempt to keep it quiet on the lowdown. But the outcomes here are much different. In one instance, the scientist and his wife were put in an electric chair, and in another, we have people advising the president to release more and more documents that allege he might have engaged in pedophilia. I mean, just to give you a sense of just how far our democracy and our perception of the rule of law and what it means to be a patriot or commit treason, how much it's gone just 180. But anyone who studies history just looks at what has gone on here and said many of these, many of these actions would have traditionally put people in electric chairs. Anyways, that's where I am. I'm a little bit depressed. Yeah, I was going to say

so you gave me those two options. Like, are these big stories or am I just depressed? And I was leaning towards just big stories, but now I'm like, we got to get you to a doctor. I like it, though. It's a good dramatic effect at the top of the episode. But while you were talking, it made me think about just even the history of what's gone on during the Trump administration in terms of sharing secrets and all of the interplay between the administration and foreigners from getting them to stay at Trump International in D.C. What we know from the Mar-a-Lago documents case that Jack Smith had, which, you know, most of the most of the. people admit Republican or Democrat was the most ironclad case, right, where he had all of our secrets sitting in ballrooms and in bathrooms. And there was a story about the Australian billionaire

who was there that was talking about our submarine capacities too, because everything's just a big party, right? And no matter what's going on in the world, you show up at Maralago and there's a girl in a martini glass, right? Because he can't stop the fun in Maga world. And I think that that is an apt story to use and kind of comparison to the current moment. And that's why this is flummoxing and disturbing so many people who have not only studied history, but just have been alive for longer than five minutes. You know, you talk to Gen Z's about our current political moment. And they all say, we know nothing but Donald Trump. Right. Like they, they don't know another. Who was Obama again? Yeah. Well, I mean, hope and change is a pipe dream at best

for them. But the Biden years, you know, he was obviously president, but it was still even dominated by Trump vibes, right? And this fight for democracy and conversations around us versus them and the magification of the right. And then 2024 took a lot of those young people with them. It seems like they're coming back, but it still happened. And just to kind of hone in on the Epstein story for a second, And, you know, like two major things are really sticking out to me. You know, one, how hard it is to get people to actually care about young women being sex trafficked and raped and abused and this huge, you know, alleged pedophilia ring that was going on. And I saw a post on social that really struck me about how it wasn't enough to hear from thousands of women that this was going on, right, that we had to, you know,

see the evidence like this. And even for some people, they still don't care, right? Like, you can see the documents and have heard testimony from these brave women who talked about what has happened to them over decades and still doesn't even move the needle. I'm no more convinced today than I was ever that there will be any accountability for folks involved in this. I mean, some people will lose their jobs. You know, I assume Peter Attia, the longevity influencer who was just hired as a CBS contributor, you know, and wrote emails like, pussy is indeed low carb, still awaiting results on gluten content, though. Like, I don't know how you live with yourself if you actually can type things like that and

then hit send. But the more disturbing email, I guess, that he sent was the biggest problem with becoming friends with you, this Jeffrey Epstein, the life you lead is so outrageous. And yet I can't tell a soul. Dot, dot, dot. Like, these guys knew what was going on, right? And anyone pretending otherwise needs to have their heads examined or just go into hiding. But I think that this statement about whether we actually have a functioning government is the most important takeaway from it because you see how essentially Epstein was running like a Soviet-style business or governance institute almost.

where he was doing favors across all aspects of our society, not just people involved in politics, but business, the arts, culture. You know, you have the highfalutin academics that are in on this as well. And you see that we actually have, our democracy leaves such room for power vacuums that bad actors can step into, like an Epstein and the willingness of people, no matter how they vote or what kind of political or moral value. they purport to have, just not just get sucked in, but willingly jump in feet first and are so excited by it. And I mean, you hang out with titans of industry all the time and you definitely spend more time with rich and powerful men than I do. But are they really this gross?

Like, is this the standard to which I should assume people who have these kinds of jobs and run the biggest law firms in the world and thanks and, you know, people who really should be the cream of the crop are guys who are talking about, you know, how low-carb pussy is. Because I feel like I can't live like that. And I don't want to send my kids off into this world to go work at these organizations. And they might be finding out later that, you know, the head of the firm was sending things like this or visiting the island, even just knowing that somebody. behaved like this and being okay with it. And shout out to the people who pushed back, like Norm Finkelstein, the leftist academic, you know, Tina Brown's team at The Daily Beast,

really putting Epstein through the ringer saying, like, if you want to come into access, we're bringing a reporter with us. Like, that's how you handle Jeffrey Epstein. But mostly, you just saw a lot of people who were downright charmed by somebody that they knew was into 12-year-olds. Yeah, so I think the collective answer from the two of us, if people ask, you know, are you all right? Reminds me of the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction when Vin Rames is raped with a gag ball. And Bruce Willis says, are you all right?

And he says, I'm pretty fucking far from all right. It's just like this stuff is, I think if you're feeling, you know, Mel Robbins or Esther Perel, I think if you're feeling very stressed and anxious around this stuff, I think that's the correct response. With respect to Epstein, the thing that struck me, so you asked me a question, I love to have a good time. I love to go to foreign environments

where there's a ton of people parting and dancing on tables. I get, I've had the opportunity to party with very wealthy, powerful men. There's a small group of men who are very, very wealthy and will rent boats and create environments that oftentimes involve a party atmosphere, and not just young women, but young men, to kind of like create more of a party atmosphere. And sometimes you walk into these events and you think, okay, this is a little inappropriate. Some people would describe New York as that, that you go into a lot of these social establishments,

and it's a lot of guys in the 40s and 50s who are wealthy and a lot of women in their 20s and 30s. I've seen that. And as you get older, you start thinking, okay, I don't need to be involved in this environment. This just feels sketchy. And anything you wouldn't feel comfortable ringing your partner to, you don't do. but there's a lot of wealthy people doing that all over the world. That's kind of what fuels St. Bart, Santropay, and these Master of the Universe,

Ibiza places in the kind of key moments around the years. Very wealthy men and the people who kind of their posse of people, which oftentimes involves women younger than them. That is a far cry. I have never seen or witnessed any situation with famous people or wealthy people like this on an island with or in any environment with underage girls. I have never seen that.

And as a matter of fact, when I was in Davos, I was hanging out with a bunch of different people, including a globally known actor in a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. And we were going to an after-hours thing of a guy, this guy who was a VC, and he rents out a big room, drinks, fun, party, a DJ. and we walked in and there were just more women than men.

And the women weren't young, but there were more women than men. And both of them kind of looked at me and said, we can't be here. And that's how, that's their view. It's like, look, nothing illegal is going on here. But this is just the wrong impression for me, my family, my shareholders in the media. I can't be here. This is just not the environment. The people I represent, my, you know, the constituents I represent back home,

my shareholders, my family, my wife, this just isn't, I shouldn't be here. Yeah. And that's the correct response. And so what struck me about the Epstein files was, you know, and I think I would think, okay, I was in New York and the, you know, the 90s and the 2000s, I loved a party. I'm in constant alcohol-fueled environments with wealthy people creating a scene. This is like nothing. This is a, I mean, it's hard to even imagine that these people would have such

extraordinarily poor judgment to not believe that this would get out and that this would ruin their careers in their families and potentially land them in prison. And a couple of the observations I had when I saw the more salacious parts of this was one, we overuse the word pedophilia in the sense that pedophilia, I believe, is a psychiatric condition, you know, a mental, a disorder when you are unnaturally sexually drawn to minors and children. And there are pedophiles who recognize they suffer from this and they seek help such that they never act on it because they realize it's wrong. I actually don't think while some of these individuals may be guilty of pedophilia in the criminal sense, I don't think they're pedophiles. I think there's something even worse. And that is they're not,

they're not, I don't want to call it suffering from an affliction. I wouldn't say that about pedophiles because I don't want to let them off the hook. But these individuals aren't the classic term or medical clinical definition of pedophiles. What they are is individuals who have been become so powerful, so wealthy, and so delusional about what they are entitled to and the lack of any guardrails or structural or social moors that they are entitled to adhere to, that they can literally do anything. Well, I can hang out with a guy. Yeah, maybe he was a pedophile, maybe he wasn't, but he throws fucking amazing parties. And if I'm on an island and I get fucked up, there's a report that a man in his 50s, a fairly, you know, important person, impregnated an 11-year-old.

And this stuff is so the level of entitlement and immunity they feel. And then my second point is I can feel your jonesing to comment here. The second thing is, unfortunately, all of this is stirred into one amorphous blob. And I think as a critical thinker, you need to distinguish and parse these people into distinct groups. First off, there are people who need to be criminally prosecuted. There's enough evidence about people who actually committed a child rape, who trafficked in it, who've provided the infrastructure for it, and facilitated.

that. There needs to be indictments and criminal prosecutions. There's a second concentric circle that's much bigger of people who thought, this guy's fun, I get to meet powerful people, I get to be around hot young women in a party environment, that's fun for me, maybe I grew up working my ass off, I never had access to this kind of thing, that's fun. Those people, I think individuals have to decide how much they want to shame them. Should that person be the CEO of the company, should they vote for that person? Should they listen to that person's podcast? But there's a big line, I think, thick line between that and committing child rape. And then there's an even bigger concentric circle. And let me be clear, the smart thing to do here is a podcaster, is just to blame everybody and roll

your eyes and be totally disgusted. But there are a lot of people here who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, who thought they were going to an event about philanthropy and technology, and don't do diligence on everyone they're having dinner with. Katie Kirk had to come out and apologize because she went to a dinner that Jeffrey Epstein was at. I think that was the right thing to do, but quite frankly, I don't think she owes anybody an apology. I don't conduct due diligence on everyone that invites me to dinner. So unfortunately, what I think we need is more criminal prosecutions for the inner circle and quite frankly, more grace for the outer ring. Because what I see is that everyone conflates, is conflating people who have committed.

at heinous crimes with people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Your thoughts? I don't disagree with you. And this is a similar conversation that we were having at the height of Me Too when everyone was putting like Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken in the same bucket. In the same boat. Yeah. It's like that's obviously insane.

And I am not trying to do that at all. And I think part of what I'm reflecting and some of this is. definitely maternal that, you know, I have two little girls at home, right, that are going to head out into the world and that there are going to be men that look at them when they're 11 to 14 years old and find them attractive, grown men, not just like little boys to, you know, have your first boyfriend, girlfriend, and kiss and maybe gets a second base, is, stirs something in me so fierce that I'm having trouble containing it. And that's where I would say, yes, there are wrong place and wrong time folks in this and the way that the files work and also the fact that he received a ton of newspaper clippings.

So there are lots of names that were just in newspaper clippings that are now, quote unquote, in the obscene files where those people certainly don't deserve to be in there. But majority of the people that were interacting with him, even if it was cursory, was after he had been convicted of sex trafficking. That goes back to 2008. Right. So you say, I don't do due diligence on everybody whose house I go to for a dinner party. I totally get that. But I would put money on the fact that you haven't gone to a convicted of. sex traffickers house for dinner.

Not that I know of. Although I must, did you hear, you didn't listen to Pivot yesterday. Kara said, I was so relieved. I did a search and I'm so relieved you're not in the Epstein files. I'm like, you thought I was in the Epstein files? Well. You said something, though. Let me be clear, Jess.

I get admits all the time. The luckiest thing that ever happened to me is I'm an introvert that enjoys hanging out with my dogs and my kids. So I turned down 98% of invites unless someone's paying me. You even turn out invites for me. Well, there you go. I'm just, my favorite thing is Netflix. edibles, my dogs, and my kids, and that's about it. Everything else, I'm not especially interested in.

But anyways, which pays off, it ends up in many of these instances. But you said something that's really interesting, and I want to comment on. You have a natural, healthy parental reaction where you think, I want to protect my children and other people's children here. And we need to create a series of incentives where if you're some wealthy guy who's fallen under the illusion that you can get away with anything, you think, oh, wouldn't it be fun to have sex with a really young girl? And I'm not going to worry if she's 18 or not, and then there's, it's drug or alcohol-infused, and you rationalize your way into child rape, you need to know there is a very good chance, a more than likely chance, you're going to go to prison where no one cares how rich you are.

And that incentive has not been put in place clearly to the extent it needs to be put in place. Now, the sad thing is, if you look at the data, is that predators, and people who traffic in these types of crimes. And this is what makes Jeline Maxwell's crime so depraved, is they are very good at targeting potential victims. And they purposely, and this was true in the Catholic Church with pedophile abuse there, pedophilia there. They have a tendency to seek out and target kids from low-income, single-parent homes.

And a lot of pedophiles will say if the dad is present, if I see a dad drop off someone in school, I would avoid that kid. And if you look at the victims in the Catholic Church, if you look at the victims in the Epstein case, most of the time it was boys and girls from low-income homes, oftentimes single-parent homes. And that is, they didn't have active involvement, protection, people all over them. because the reality is upper income homes can afford lawyers. They have the time to invest in understanding what the kid is up to. And also, and it sounds sexist, but the presence of a male very involved in the kid's life

tends to be like, you know, there's all the studies, the best security system you can have as a dog. It's better than alarms. It's better than gates. Criminals just avoid dogs. They avoid homes of dogs. It's like, okay, go to the next one. This one has a dog. the presence of an involved father tends to be one of the greatest obstacles or, I know what the term is.

Impatiment. Impatiments, thank you, or discouragements, I can't find the right word, to people who purposely seek out and target victims of their crimes. So unfortunately, the people with all the power, and this kind of goes back to a lot of what infects the U.S. around big tech, around quite frankly males who aren't as worried about the problems of sexual assault as they should be. It's that when you're never victimized, you have trouble empathizing with victims. If you're a dude who's 6-2-200 pounds, you're just not as worried about men on the subway. You don't see, you don't perceive those dangers in that discomfort. And when you're upper income and you're all over your kids all the time, you're not as worried. You're outraged, but it's not as big a threat to you.

And there needs to be a new set of incentives. there needs to be more thoughtful discernment and parsing of these people in the Epstein files. In some, more criminal prosecutions and more grace around the people who ended up at a fundraiser that are on some list of invites that he sent out. Because right now, courtesy the Trump administration, oh, bribes did it from the UAE to send classified IP and technology. Oh, they're funding my kids' crypto scam. Oh, we want to nationalize elections. Why?

So we can bastardize elections. That's before or after we invade Greenland and, oh, throw out three million pages of the Epstein files, including accusations against the president. And what I would like to see is a bunch of attorney generals and DAs around the nation in different states, start seeking grand jury indictments and start indicting and serving people. they get swatted down in the upper level courts or whatever. But I think the nation is screaming for some sort of action from the one branch of government that does not appear to have been fully contaminated, and that is our justice system. You're so right. I mean, the American people

are wanting to be mobilized. They are willing and able, but need direction. And that's the question that we're asking basically every Democrat that we interview, right, or even the Republicans that are showing backbone against Trump, like the Thomas Massey's of the world, and Marjorie Taylor Green, who's obviously not serving anymore, but is, you know, now in full pushback mode that, you know, you have these moral soldiers ready, but they need to be pointed in a certain direction and hearing from the president, I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Frankly, the DOJ, I think, should just say we have other things to do. And then I don't know if you saw that Todd Blanche, the deputy AG, was on with Laura Ingram last night on Monday night. And he said,

it's not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein. Well, actually, yeah, it might be. It might be. Because he was doing crimes. And if you were doing what he was doing, then you deserve to rot in a prison cell. And also consider the fact that Todd Blanche was the guy who went and interviewed Galeen Maxwell and put her in that cushy prison, right? And so you just, you, if to go back to where I started with, it feels like someone is sitting on my chest, we are being governed by people who have no moral compass to speak of, but who you can't get even to be moved by the fact that there were 12-year-olds that were raped. Right.

If you want to say, oh, we can excuse away Trump's weird griff stuff or him talking about Greenland like a crazy person or blowing up NATO or selling the Ukrainians out to the Russians or cowtowing to everyone from the Chinese to the North Koreans or any dictator or given the time of day, I guess I could kind of rationalize all that. But I'm watching these fathers, right? I don't know if they have daughters, maybe they're just boy dads, but I think a lot of them have daughters.

Excuse away a thing that would cause them to get a gun and show up and kill someone that did this to their kids. And because these girls were poor, because they don't have a personal connection to them, or because power is just, you know, power is just, you know, just more important than anything else, they can sit there and look you in the eye through the camera and just say, it's not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, the lack of interest isn't even digging a layer deeper and allowing Trump to walk around saying, oh, I don't know him.

I don't know him when he's shown up in 5,300 Epstein vials so far, more than 38,000 references to his name. Some of it is duplicative. This does not mean that he raped anyone, that he is a pedophile. I'm not going down that road. I'm just saying that the comfortability with something so sick and depraved blows all of the other stuff out of the water. It makes it seem like petty crimes, right?

That he was like stealing a dollar from the cash register when he worked, you know, at a summer job, right? Like taking that money from the UAE if you're comfortable with what happened to these women. Yeah, but this is a. pattern. They take someone's reputation. They give them talking points. They tell them to be forceful and push back. And then they throw the reputation on the funeral pyre. I mean, Pam Bondi is now just, I can't even imagine she's going to get offers to be on boards after, you know, hopefully Trump is booted out of the White House. I think her reputation has just been so. I think Palm Beach actually becomes like a colony unto itself after this. And they're all just there. And like they can,

work and make money within itself. You know what I mean? And it's a little bit like it cult is the right term. A cult leader typically ends up sexually abusing his cult members. And the men go along with it and everyone goes along with it. And because of this notion that somehow this person is otherworldly or, you know, a once in a lifetime leader is Bannon or like a wholly ordained leader as Bannon has said about this individual. But when you have the personal lawyers of the president, representing the DOJ, just one of the greatest institutions in the West, has just obviously been severely, severely impaired. The good news here is I think because of the Me Too movement and what's gone on here, I mean, what's interesting is this notion of being canceled. Peter Atte is getting a ton of

attention right now because of these salacious emails that the algorithms love. I, you know, I think that people can decide whether they want to listen to his podcast. He probably won't be canceled because cancellation usually means you get fired. Matt Lauer could be canceled. Someone who has their own podcast, as long as the audience keeps showing up, some advertisers may leave. But I don't think. I'm curious what you think, though, on this point. So he was just hired as a CBS medical contributor.

And apparently Barry Weiss is dug in. This is according to the most recent reporting that I saw. And by the time this comes out, who knows, you know, he could have been let go, but she doesn't believe in cancel culture, right? And it's very foundational to the free press and that kind of, you know, those vibes to not fall victim to the mob mentality. So she's dug in on that side, whereas other people... Well, I could have predicted that. I mean, Barry. So you think he should keep the CBS job, too? No, I mean, in my view, there is a point where... So I generally believe that for the most part, that you should be your personal life and your political viewpoints, I think it was wrong for that woman. I forget her name when she expressed a conservative viewpoint to be fired from the Mandalorian. I don't think, I forget his name, the kid was master of none when someone wrote an anonymous letter saying that he did not pick on her visual cues that she was not enjoying giving him.

Oh, I was on, sorry? Yeah, that she was not enjoying giving him oral sex that he should have picked up. on a non-visual cues, anonymous letter, Amazon rings its hands around rather than cancel a series. I think that is way too far. A person who is going to try and establish trust for CBS evening news speaking on issues as sensitive as health should be able to point to their personal life and say that I am concerned about the well-being of other people and I equip myself of a certain complexion and format and language and all of my dealings that maintains trust amongst a group of people who are following me for health care information. And I think it's reasonable to say that

Dr. Atia has lost that trust and as a result, CBS should not continue employment with them. And for the most part, I don't like cancel culture. I think that people, I like the idea of someday if you haven't committed a criminal act. I kind of went through this at NYU Stern. his kid and his father were accused of insider trading three months before he was graduated. He graduated and then all the virtue signaling, you know, far-left wokesters who have lost relevance since they wrote that seminal paper on Gap to accounting stood up and convinced everyone that we should expel the kid and not give him his degree. And the reality is that the DOJ and the SEC showed up and said, we're going to put Daddy in prison forever unless you cop to it. They were guilty of insider trading.

I'm like, this is a vocational school. He passed accounting. He paid the money. If he hadn't come to school, we wouldn't let him in. Fine. But if he'd already graduated, we wouldn't take the degree away. But there's a bunch of people in this room are going to commit a felony called drunk driving,

and we're not going to kick them off the faculty. I generally believe that for the most part, your personal behavior, unless it's criminal behavior, should not impact your professional work and your well-being. And I don't like how all of a sudden people's economic well-being is being in any way connected to their political viewpoint or the way they acquit themselves personally. Having said that, there is a line. And when you're giving people, you're trying to get people to trust you about health care and health information. You know, some of those emails just feel like,

okay, this is probably the wrong person to maintain the trust of people we are trying to convince that this individual has the credentials and the complexion and the demeanor and the judgment to tell you what types of activities or nutrition or lifestyle to engage in to be healthy. But I could have told you right away that Barry was going to say, no, this is cancel culture, we're holding strong. And a lot of people will agree with her silently. A lot of people will say, oh, this is the Democrats looking for another skin or another head to hang on the wall.

This was locker room talk. I wouldn't want my emails published, right? But this feels like, okay, when it comes to health, when it comes to the trust of people that you want to maintain the trust of the CBS Halo. If I were Barry, and I'm not, or she called me and she did not, I probably would have done a slow fade and said, look, it'd be better if you resigned and said, I don't want to, I don't want this scandal to get in the way of the great work of CBS and I'm going to back away. That's what I would have made that call to him. And I would say, this needs to be your idea so you can maintain some grace, but we can't

have, he's going to be a distraction. Can you imagine the first time he appears on CBS News? Totally. And it's going to be every time after that. But what I wanted to say was what you're describing is the need and the desire on behalf of basically every normal person for us to have some semblance of moral leadership. And that's for anyone who has a special job. I'm not just talking about, obviously, you know, the leader of the free world. But when you turn on the TV, right, and you see someone who's supposed to know something that you don't know. and be there to impart, you know, some information upon you, that you want them to have some good discernment, good judgment, right, in how they conduct themselves. And we are so desperately lacking in people of good moral stead in positions of power when you see things like this. And I'm not saying it doesn't make people, they can be incredible lawyers, bankers, artists, like all the things. And I know that people are complicated and, you know, I'm a bit of a

poliana about things and a prude. And so, you know, I'm not here to pass judgment on all of that. But it does feel like as a society that we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel sometimes with the folks that are rising to the top and in how they are conducting themselves. And it's underrated at the time, how meaningful it is. is to have good and decent people in these roles, right? That you never were thinking like, oh, is Barack stepping out on Michelle, right? Or the Bushes or the Regans, right? Like, it doesn't have to be partisan in any of this.

Like, people said awful things about Joe Biden. You know, he was a guy who was clearly obsessed with his wife. And that matters, right? that you're not thinking about that he's going to show up in some emails like this, even in a tertiary way. And I would really like to respect people that are running society. There's different shades of gray, though, because I think there's people who are unfaithful, and actually more women are unfa.

We always assume that women have no agency and that there are these helpless little doze that are waiting around to be cheated on. and, you know, there's actually a lot of evidence showing that infidelity is a lot more rampant among married women than we believe. And also emotional affairs versus physical affairs. Well, and we have a tendency to scoop everything into the same, you know, and I'm for the most part, you know, if President Clinton can bring back peace and prosperity and economic growth and not break laws, what he did, I thought, was reprehensible. and an abusive power with a woman that age, and I've always felt, I think Monica Lewinsky is just an incredibly

impressive, smart woman who would have gone on to just do incredible things, and she has gone on to do incredible things. But he showed himself to be infected with this same type of entitlement, that if I achieve this level of power, I'm immune from any scrutiny or adherence to any sort of real, real morality. There's different shades of gray. For the most part, I generally err on the side of, I think people are entitled to have secrets. I think when someone's writing a profane email to their friend, you know, you got to say they didn't think it was going to come out. And, you know, but then when you start layering on, okay, well, he knew what kind of guy this was.

This was more than just an irreverent, provocative, profane email between dudes. This was him implying that he knew what he was up to. I mean, it's just you're forced to put on your critical thinking cap a little bit, but there is two negative things to work on, sides of the poles. The first is there are a group of individuals who I think had so little fun or so little adventure romantically and sexually when they were young because they were socially awkward, working all the time, that when they get to this position of power where people are interested in them or pretend to be sexually interested in them, they can't, they seem to

fall into this level of abuse more easily than other people because they feel they are just no longer subject to any standards. And I would also add that as someone who knows a lot of very powerful, very wealthy people and have gotten to know them pretty well, I find that on average, they're really high character good people. So I don't, one of the most unfortunate things is I do think America's starting to believe that once you become a billionaire, you become a grifter and a pedophile. The billionaires I know, and maybe I'm naive, are actually very high character people who've usually have been married for several decades, super philanthropic. And the reason they are billionaires is not because they were born into money,

but because they've created so many allies along the way because they're such high character good people that they've been put in a room of opportunities, even when they're not in that room. So there's this dangerous subset of these really powerful people who've just decided the rules no longer apply to them. On the other side, I do think that if you look anthropologically at how you get prestige,

and not be shamed and not potentially kicked out of the tribe where you die, a slow death, or you're eaten. There's two primary characteristics you want to foment. The first is strength, physical strength, to kill things, kill other people, strength of intellect, or you're wise, you're smart, you make good decisions. And one unfortunate way people try to communicate wisdom in a modern age and a digital age is that when you insult someone else's character, impress on their soft tissue and say how outrageous this is, you are essentially saying, by virtue of me judging them and pointing out how wrong what they said is, I have virtue. I am wise. I am someone you should look up to because I can highlight and articulately point out what a bad person they are. And everyone

seems to be pursuing their gotcha of guardians pin or their moral virtue merit badge. And what I would argue is that the functional families are the ones you don't know and that people do have a right to secrecy and at a digital age, we need to either provide more grace or eventually we're going to find out everyone is a fucking horrible person according to some blogger who takes, makes a cartoon of someone's comments so they can dunk on them. So again, I go back to the same place. I want to see more criminal prosecutions and a lot more grace based on where they are in these concentric circles. Any other thoughts before we take a quick break, Jess? Take back my mass. You're all terrible and just say some of you are terrible.

So anyway, I've got it off my chest. There you go. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us. A lot of us have spent a lot of the last week watching videos of what's happening on the streets of Minneapolis and understanding what it is that we're seeing, but also what's real and what isn't and what's AI and who is taking these videos and how we're supposed to understand the source feels harder than ever. So this week on the Vergecast, we're talking about what's happening in Minneapolis, how information moves in an AI age, and what it means to make sense of it all. All that plus what's new with the new TikTok, why everything feels like it's falling

apart on TikTok, and more on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts. Welcome back. What we're watching right now isn't just a Trump presidency. It's a Trump redesign of Washington itself. He's taken over the Kennedy Center, purged its board, installed himself as chairman, and is shutting it down to rebuild it as something he says will be more patriotic and less woke. At the same time, he's pushing a Grand Prix-style race through the streets around the national mall, floating a UFC fight on the White House grounds, and backing a massive triumphal arc that would tower over the Lincoln Memorial, culture, monuments, even public space. Trump isn't just governing D.C. he's branding it. Jess, is Trump's push to remake cultural institutions and monuments about ideology, fighting wokeness, or about his legacy, physically stamping his presidency onto the Capitol? I think it's just all ego.

Yeah. I mean, I think about Jesse Waters, my colleague at Fox, told the story about talking to Trump about the big, beautiful ballroom renovation and everything that he's doing to the White House. And he says to him like, what, you know, why are you doing? And he goes, if I don't do it, who will? And no one will, right? Because this is also not how it's supposed to happen. You're supposed to come to the people's house for your four years or your eight years if you win re-election. And you're supposed to leave it basically as you found it with reasonable renovations that are necessary. And if you want to quibble about a bowling alley here or there, we can. But in

general, you are not supposed to demolish the thing and remake it. Like, what did you say? Like, an Iraqi whorehouse? Yeah, the best, the best whorehouse in Baghdad. The best whorehouse in Baghdad is in Washington, D.C., folks. So I think it's all ego. That's the ego of wanting the branding aspect, but then also closing the Kennedy Center is about the ego of being so embarrassed that you're not selling enough tickets. So on average, it's about 57% full that includes all of the comps that they're doing to and the pay for play schemes that are going on with big business that, you know, need to be on the right side of Donald Trump. You have performers canceling left and right. And I think it's just frankly a lot easier to say, we're not going to even

be open for business and give yourselves 24 months to sort it out, I guess, or at all the steel. I think they're doing a big steel renovation. But yeah, it's two sides of the ego coin as far as I'm concerned. And it's just like a, it's a joke, how insecure he is. I can't, I said this last week when we're talking about the Melania documentary and how embarrassing it is to be so comfortable with fake flattery all the time. And I say this is someone who loves a compliment. Sometimes some of them are fake even. But like, I just can't imagine what it's like to be him and be in that mind. What do you think about Washington, D.C. turning into Trump, Inc.

What I don't get is, is he's not ready or doesn't think there's going to be the mother of all rebranding on January 21st, 29. I mean, the first thing a new president is going to do, unless it's van. is just, okay, we're calling this to Kennedy Senator again. I mean, they're just going to remove everything. I'd be shocked if they even leave his portrait there. I think he wants to make it too difficult to get all of it down. Yeah, it's all very strange, but the nation doesn't seem to be that offended about it.

And I got to be honest, I am so here for F1DC. Yeah. I think that would be awesome. Are you kidding? those amazing machines zooming around the Washington Mon. I'd go to that. I think it would be Around his arc to triumph.

I think it would be, I got to be honest, I do love, I love the idea of F1 and D.C. I'm here for that idea. That's one thing I really, I think he got the asymmetry around trade with China correct and F1DC. Those are the two things. Those are the bright spots of the Trump administration for you?

Yeah, so also removing Maduro on about 37 minutes. I was there. I'm here for that as well. But, you know, occasionally he can't help, stumbling into something right. And I think F1DC is it. But the other stuff is just, it's just weird. Banners across the city with his face on them has been proposed. Trump accounts.

National Park passes with Trump's face. I don't know. The whole thing is just, it really is kind of. I wanted to ask you about World Cup. Like, do you think that what? People keep being when I'm emailing me. Are you still going to World Cup? Well, you come here and you're a mayor.

But I'm curious as to whether you think that people won't come. Because I've heard both schools of thought, right? Like, this is not going to stop anyone. But some of the biggest sports fans in the world look like bad hombres, right? As far as ICE is concerned. And I went to World Cup in Russia and was nervous about that. And everything went great, actually. You know, and Putin was on his best behavior.

and the cities were beautifully done and everyone had a fantastic time. But I'm wondering what you think the psyche of the soccer fans will be thinking about coming here when the U.S. is in this kind of condition and foreigners have been detained. So I didn't know.

I was in Russia as well. I was in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Which cities did you go to? I did St. Petersburg and Moscow, too. I was at the Belgium semi in Moscow. Oh, yeah, I saw that. Oh, like on a TV or we were in the same stadium. I think Lukako played that game.

Yeah. Yeah, and by the way, I thought Russia did a fantastic job, and I was glad I went. It was so cool. I can't imagine. I'll be back in Russia any times now. Yeah. And St. Petersburg is arguably, like, if St. Petersburg got a new coat of paint, it'd be the most beautiful city in the world. Well, when you're a city that's basically the best of every European capital mush together, you know, they nailed all of it.

So just from personal experience. Except the human rights. You know, I don't want to agree to about Russia, but it's beautiful. But will people show up for the American World Cup or the North American World Cup? It's going to be, I think, in 11 cities in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. So I'll just use personal experience. I am not a fan of the nation of Qatar. I don't.

They fund a lot of, you know, they were the primary funder, as I understand it, of Hamas. And so I have real issues in the nation of Qatar. Oh, I was in Doha in a minute. up for the World Cup. And call me hypocritical, you know, call me inconsistent, fine. I'll take those arrows. But the chance to go see the World Cup with my kids, and I think the majority of people who were planning to count, I think every game's going to be sold out, except for the early rounds. I think there'll be some posturing. You know, people will, the beautiful game has such a call in resonance with people. I could not have been more disgusted with the ridiculous

FIFA Peace Prize that went to Trump, I mean, oh, by the way, I've been nominated for the Taco Bell National Prize on Literature for my most recent book. So you got a gold gordita? There you go. The Bell. Oh, my God. I used to get so high in college and we go to the Bell for 29 cents. I've never had Taco Bell. Oh, it's amazing. Is it? I've heard that. And then some people are like, it's not worth it. You could get a bean burrito for 19 cents in 1988. And when you just did like eight bongloats and listen to Led Zeppelin with your buddies. It is literally the best tasting. It is the best tasting thing in the world. I love the bell. Anyways, how did I get here? Oh, the Taco Bell National Prize in Literature. Oh, World Cup. Okay, here I am. We're back. I know. I am so disgusted. I think FIFA,

so the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, there's these international athletic bodies that kind operate in between the rainchops and sort of this nether, netherland of laws, and they are so fucking corrupt. I mean, they are literally the griftiest of grift. But it doesn't stop me from going to the World Cup. I wasn't that excited, you know, people were saying to me, are you sure you want to go to Russia? I'm like, it's going to be the safest place in the world. The last thing he's going to do is letting anything happen to tourists. Qatar, huge funders of terror in the Middle East, you know, not a great place. I was so there.

And I think there's more people like me than not. And, you know, and Kara gave me a bunch of shit for going. Oh, I'm so there. And I will be all over those. I will be in Monterey, Mexico City, Miami.

I want to go to Mexico City. Yeah. I've already lined up. I'm already kissing the ass as sponsors, trying to get invited to games because the whole thing is a giant corporate rub and tug.

But anyways, a long-winded way of saying, I bet Jess Tolloff is at the World Cup And I bet everyone who was planning to go Goes and all the people Sitting it home on their keyboards Shaming all of us for going Yeah, I get it

We're powered to you, it's not stopping us I'll have a gordita and think of you All right, let's take a quick break Stay with us Investing is all about the future So what do you think's going to happen Bitcoin is sort of inevitable at this point I think it would come down to precious metals

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Welcome back before we go. The Grammy show just how influential Bad Bunny has become in this moment as stars wore ice outpins and turned the show into a rebuke of Trump's immigration crackdown. It was Bad Bunny who cut through using the biggest stage in music to humanize immigrants and say plainly, we are Americans. Days before an all-Spanish Super Bowl halftime and already drawing attacks from Trump himself. Bad Bunny isn't just reflecting the cultural mood. He's shaping it. And the backlash tells you how much power that he carries. Just what makes bad bunny different from past celebrity activists? Is it the size of his audience? Is it his cultural identity?

Yes. Yes. I say yes to every. It's all of it. I mean, he's the most dreamed artist of all time. I think how I don't want to say unapologetic because there's no reason to be apologizing for it. But the fact that he's going to do this all in Spanish and that he just continues to emphasize and he had a good joke at the, Grammys with Trevor Noah about how Puerto Rico is actually part of America, despite what people think, is just an important message right now. And I've seen some athletes commenting on it and how great it is as a signifier of what a melting pot America is. And I was really impressed. Roger Goodell was doing a press conference and was asked about Bad Bunny's ice out message and whether ice would be operating.

at the Super Bowl. And so he went in a little bit on the levels of security and that we'd be working with the federal government as you do at every Super Bowl, but, you know, don't expect anything different to be happening. And then he also just talked about how important bad money is and how excited he is for this opportunity. And Roger Goodell isn't doing anything that isn't going to make money, right? Like, he's not trying to take some political stand. He knows where, the future is headed and it's headed more in Bad Bunny's direction. And then I think adding onto it that Green Day is going to start things off, like one of if not the most liberal band right out there is sending a message to Magaland and the president himself that this is where he thinks the country is and actually the base for football. I mean, it usually has a reputation as being, you know, more of a right wing. sport, obviously. And I don't know if you saw this breakdown that was flying around on social media of athletes and how they vote. And NFL has many more Republicans than the NBA does. Obviously,

it was interesting. It was concentrated in a few positions, though, like kickers and punters and things like that. But I liked that Goodell stood up for the decision. And I'm excited for it, basically. Well, Goodell, they're smart. They realize if 50% of people under the age of 18 are non-white and football needs to be, can be culturally tied to this unbelievably culturally resonant medium called music, it's just, it's just, they're not doing it for morals, they're doing it for economics. There are more people who like Bad Bunny that are angry at Bad. I mean, it just, it makes a ton of more importantly, you want to hear about my first date? Like ever? Yeah, my first date. Yeah. Yeah, because I'll bring it back to this. So Maureen Burke, it was like, I think I was a junior or a senior in high school.

I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but I didn't date a lot as a young man. Late bloomer, but you've made up for it. Yeah, we'll see. Maybe when I hit 80. But anyways, so she asked me out. And my friend Adam Markman, I called him, he was a total player. And he was dating this really good-looking girl named Patty McLaughlin. And I can say, girl, because we were all 16 and 17.

I'm like, what are we doing? He's like, I got you covered. We're going to go to the Bruce Springsteen concert or the, the Grey Western Forum. And it was 11 bucks a ticket, which was a lot of money for me. And I was a box boy at San Vicente Foods. So I got my 22 bucks and tips.

I gave it to Adam. He bought four seats to see Bruce Springston. And the reason I bring it up is Bruce Springston and his team had been calling me saying they want to come in the pot and talk about modern masculinity. I think it's part of the promotion tour, the movie that just came out.

Cool. And the thing I remember about it was we walked in and I was so excited. My mom was excited for it. My mom was desperately trying to get me laid because she realized it wasn't going to be easy. And so she gave me her credit card, and I went to the store, and Westwood called At Ease, and I bought brown corduroys, a Ralph Lauren, Oxford shirt, Bass Weegean Pennylofers. I looked so good.

And it was a relatively mild acne day for me, so I was feeling very confident. And we got to the Great Western Forum, and we literally went to the very top, like the last row in the corner in the rafters. and Adam and Patty were already there, and I remember looking at them, and I'm going, I'm like, and I meant it. I'm like, these are such amazing seats. Look at how high we are. How did we get these seats? I had never been to a paid event. So I thought the higher you were, the better the seats. And I was just really impressed that even though we'd spent $11, we were able to score such incredible seats. Anyways, Bruce Springston, it was his darkness on the edge of town tour. And he went for like three and a half hours. Anyways, that was. That was. I was. I love that. I love that was. I love that. I was. I love that. I was. I was. I love that. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was my first day. Amazing. Did you have a kiss? I don't think so. You know what?

I was so insecure and uncomfortable in my own skin and with myself that like unless the woman made it kiss me, I just couldn't. I was just very immature and scared and just not comfortable in my own skin. I didn't, so I don't, like, I didn't get a lot of action. It's okay. And in high school. I think that's actually probably a good thing. Yeah, there you go.

Everyone needs to move. That's a great first date, though. What was your first date? Oh, I don't. I did, like, there was this place called the pizza box. There was a pizza place on Bleaker Street that we all went after school. Bleaker Street? You're a total New Yorker.

Yeah. Yeah. I went to the Little Red Schoolhouse. Communism is in the name, right? So you would walk up Bleaker and go get a slice of pizza after. And so everyone was there, but you could kind of branch. out until you're a little couples, right? Like there would be people sitting alone at a table, just the two of you. So my first date was just alone at a table with a boy. And we liked each other.

There was no kissing. But he paid for my slice, which was like a big deal. That's a pretty big deal. But you strike me as the kind of girl that in the 10th grade was going to senior prom with some cool senior. I wouldn't call him. He ended up. Oh, so I'm right. So I'm right. No, he's not. I didn't even go to my prom. I conflicted about this. Anyway, I'm going to tell you actually who my first no offer I'm going to tell you my first boyfriend was because now actually it doesn't even matter and he broke up with me and it was very traumatic for me but I for like a few months went out with this boy who runs the carbone food group can you get us reservations well I hope you guys ended on good terms I mean I took it well I guess where he was just basically

like yeah summer's coming I don't really want to deal with you and I was like I was like oh, but I thought we were getting married or whatever, and he's like, not so much. Anyway, so he ended up being very successful, and I enjoy eating in the restaurants, but I have never tried to tap back in, like, could I get a reservation? And I probably should because I would like to eat at Carbon more. Anyway, Pizza Box. I've got to leverage that. Absolutely.

All right, before we go, if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure to hear more about pathetic and less pathetic high school dating lives of your co-com. They were both bad. Make sure you hit subscribe. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to Ridge and Moderates. Jess, have a great week. You too.

See you later.