Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Stephen Colbert Signs Off as Trump’s Revenge Tour Crushes GOP Critics

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov break down a major election week for Trump-backed GOP primary candidates, including a high-profile win in Kentucky where incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie was defeated. Massie was the de facto leader of the small faction of congressional Republicans who fought for the release of the Epstein Files. They also preview the next major showdown in Texas, where a high-stakes runoff in the GOP Senate primary could further cement Trump’s influence over Republican politics if Ken Paxton defeats incumbent senator John Cornyn, who’s served in the Senate since 2002. Paxton — the once-indicted former state attorney general — recently received Trump’s endorsement. Meanwhile, Democrats release their long-awaited 2024 “autopsy” report, after months of internal debate and delay. The document was meant to provide insights in detail about what went wrong for the party in the last presidential election, but, as DNC chair Ken Martin himself admitted, the document itself does not meet his standards. What happened? Plus: Harvard moves to crack down on grade inflation amid concerns about academic standards, prompting Scott and Jess to wonder if the brands of elite colleges and universities are still as valuable as they once were. And then: Stephen Colbert signs off from The Late Show marking the end of an era in late-night television, and Jeff Bezos sparks debate after his remarks on CNBC about taxes and the economy. And finally, the political world reflects on the legacy of Barney Frank, the pioneering congressman, LGBTQ+ trailblazer, and architect of major financial reform. For ad-free episodes, exclusive livestreams, and to connect with Scott, Jessica, and the Raging Moderates community, join us at ProfG+ on Substack: https://ragingmoderates.profgmedia.com/ Get The Monday Rage newsletter: https://profgmedia.com/s/monday-rage/ Follow Raging Moderates on IG, Tiktok, and Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/ragingmoderatespod/ https://www.tiktok.com/@ragingmoderates https://www.facebook.com/people/Raging-Moderates/61586910127414/ Follow Jessica Tarlov on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/jessicatarlov https://substack.com/@jessietarlov https://bsky.app/profile/jessicatarlov.bsky.social Follow Scott on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/profgalloway https://substack.com/@profgalloway https://bsky.app/profile/profgalloway.com Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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AI operating system designed specifically for legal work. Harvey, AI, tailored for law. Learn more at harvey.a.I. I think Steven Colbert is an amazing talent. I would like to see him run percent of it. He's a good man and smart and incredibly creative. It does feel like late night TV and kind of five white guys, it does feel like a bit of an anachronism. And the economics here are just crazy because late night TV is basically, it's not even dying. It's sort of already in the ground. You know, maybe it was buried alive and you can still hear it screaming. That's pretty macabre, but welcome raging moderates. I'm Scott Calloway. So starting next Wednesday, We're launching a new weekly substack live show, Raging Perspective.

It'll be hosted by Jesse and Friend of the Pod, Aaron Parnas, breaking down the biggest political stories of the week, plus taking your questions live. You can subscribe now at ragingmoderates.proptuMedia.com. Again, that's ragingmoderates.com. And while you're at it, please subscribe on our YouTube channel. It's free. It helps us with the algorithm, and it's the easiest way to keep up with the show. All right, let's get into it.

The Trump administration is facing. backlash after the DOJ directed federal agencies to halt ongoing tax investigations involving Trump, his family, and associated businesses. The move comes on the heels of Trump's new taxpayer-funded anti-weaponization fund. Democrats are already challenging the directive, and two Capitol police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the fund altogether. Jess, do you think any of these efforts have a shot? Yeah, I do, actually. I don't want to be too glass half full when it comes to actually stopping this criminal enterprise. But it seems like they've gone at least half a step too far for a number of Republicans.

I mean, some of them are finding their backbone. Like Bill Cassidy's has been gone for quite some time. And after he lost his primary, he's, you know, he's yolo about it. The ballroom is now out. Like they are having, the Republicans have to drop the billion dollar proposal for the ballroom, Sheldon White House. spearheading that from the Democratic side. But this anti-weaponization fund is really rubbing everybody the wrong way. Brian Fitzpatrick, Congressman in the House, you know, voted against the reconciliation

bill. He's pretty great in general. He said to reporters, I'm completely objecting to this and I'm going to do everything I can to fight it. By June 1st, the DOG must answer three basic questions. Where is the money coming from? Who's eligible to receive it? And under what legal authority is DOJ creating a discretionary compensation fund of this scale without explicit congressional authorization court approval or judicial oversight. We will see how many jump on that with him. Kevin Kiley, who's going to get redistricted out in California, definitely will be. Senator Tillis is called it stupid on stilts. And, you know, we've been, Tillis has been moderately dependable, but it's all to the good. And they are probably also being affected by the fact

that these J-Sixers are giving interviews talking about what they're owed. There's a guy on CNN who's like, I think about $30 million. Proud boys like Enrique Atario saying that he's owed a few million dollars. Like, nobody wants to be doing that. And Hunter Biden and Jim Comey and whoever they want to say from the left would be eligible as well. It's not going to be applying for this money. And it's going to be a slush fund for criminals. And I was thinking, like, if this is Trump's lame duck era,

or lame duckish, I guess. Hopefully it gets much worse after the midterms. It's kind of perfect that he's using capital to protect and compensate basic criminals like himself. Like, he's actually with his people now. And it takes you back to from growing up here in the city, like what people always thought about Donald Trump, the guy who shifts all his contractors,

the guy who won't rent in his apartment buildings to black people. the guy who cheats on all his wives, the guy who doesn't tip, the guy, you know, this is just who he is. And if his character can be on display in such an unabashed way and in a way that is taking money out of our pockets, that this is a taxpayer-funded enterprise, I'm not saying it totally shifts the needle, but it will go down in the proverbial history books as something to be associated with him. And I'm certainly here for that. What I don't get is the head of the DOJ defending this, anyone who feels that they're wrong by the government or another person or corporation has all sorts of avenues.

I mean, there are billboards. If I'm driving down I-95 in Florida, every other billboard is for, you know, injured at work or there are no shortage of lawyers will take your case on a contingency to try and get restitution for you. So for the DOJ to advocate for this, it's saying, well, justice in this nation does not work. And so we need a slush fund to compensate victims dictated by the president. I mean, people see this for what it is, and that is basically another arrow in the quiver of an autocrat that wants to reward his allies and punish his enemies. And I like what you said. I think the best, I think they should absolutely have film crews interviewing all the January 6ers. including those that are already back in prison for other crimes,

saying what should taxpayers be paying you after you decided to invade our capital and basically make our nation look incredibly weak and like we were a, you know, a banana republic? And not one of the January 6th cases was ever overturned, by the way. Like these are ironclad cases. And there were people volunteering their legal services to these maniacs. right? Like there's a whole list of lawyers who are going to be coming for their compensations, like the Eastmans of the world and, you know, Sydney Powell and Jenna Ellis, et cetera. Like, it is one of the more cut and dry black and white major events that we have.

You have to wonder how, without getting into pretending like I'm a psychiatrist or someone who can actually diagnose something, like what must be going on in Donald Trump's head? that he thinks that he should be doing these things. Because it's on every level, right? It's the stock trading. It's the slush fund. I mean, the kids, Don Jr., there was just a release about his fund

and how much money it's made and went from something like $250, $280 million in assets a year later, $3.5 billion in assets. He has $735 million in government contracts. This kid. Like, I mean, he's a grown man, but you know what I mean. RJ Reynolds, who makes the vapes,

They gave $5 million to MAGA Inc days before the FDA wrote a policy that allows them to make millions selling flavored vapes or resignation from the FDA over it is grift and graft everywhere you look and no policy. Basically no policy. It's a Congress that does nothing. Even Josh Hawley was out there talking about it and, you know, one of his moments of honesty. Like, who's going to want to vote for these people? We do absolutely nothing. each Congress it gets worse and worse, the do-nothingness of them. And despite low approval ratings and signs of Republican uneas on foreign policy, Trump's

grip on the GOP still looks pretty strong heading into the midterms. The president's revenge tour backing challengers against Republicans across him scored several major wins this week. The headline race was in Kentucky where Trump backed Ed Galeraine defeated incumbent Congressman Thomas Massey. You actually had sort of a contrarian take on this, that I heard you give on the five, Jess. You don't believe this is as good a news for Trump as the media is portraying it. Is that right?

Well, if you care about general elections, no. I mean, does he have an iron grip on a MAGA primary? Sure. He created the movement. It's a cult, and he sits atop of it. But it's been weakening. Like, I was surprised by the margins

in the Massey race. You know, it was only a 10-point margin in a 35, in a Trump-35 district. did to spend $35 million to pull this off. It's a lot of money. And that's also money that you could be spending on general election candidates. I mean, that's a safe Republican seat. So I'm not saying for Massey's district in general. But wouldn't you rather, when you see how much money, the Talaicos of the world are fundraising, Cooper, Poltola, you know, shared Brown, et cetera, wouldn't you hope to be able to use tens of millions of dollars to fight those fights rather than a

Trump plus 35 district. So, you know, I'm all for letting Republicans gloat and take their victory laps while hopefully Democrats are doing the hard work of what it takes to actually win elections. You know, I would like a policy platform. This is our daily reminder that we would love to hear what the Democratic platform looks like because the approval rating for Democrats was like 20. I think in the Quinnipiac poll or the New York Times-Sanapal, like really. really bleak stuff. And it's about the institution for sure. But, you know, this will be our last chance at running an election where it's us versus Trump, right? And him being intertwined in all of these primaries helps us with that, right? Because he's essentially getting his name on the ballot in that way.

But yeah, I wasn't freaking out about the results at all, you know, in Georgia having MAGA candidates for governor or for Senate, that's a good thing for Democrats. Like John Ossoff would love to run against someone who is lockstep with the president. It's even more effective than when he says, you're fighting the Epstein class. And this guy is cool with the Epstein class. Have I mentioned how many thousands of times Donald Trump, who's his biggest endorser, is in the Epstein files, quite literally. So, you know, they have a money advantage, an institutional money advantage that I think is a really big problem. We're going to talk about the DNC autopsy, which finally got released, I think, in the next section. But we are not fundraising well for the big committees, right? Like, people are

giving to the individual candidates that they care about. And I think that that's great and it has a grassroots feel to it. And that's how direct democracy should work. But the advantage that they have on the institutional money front is enormous. speaking of his influence or test of his influence and to your point and it's an obvious but an insight that I hadn't thought of that yeah he controls yes huge influence over the primary but where the rubber meets the road is his influence or lack the rub in the general and speaking of which all eyes now turn to Texas where next week's runoff could become another major test of trump's influence if ken paxson wins with trump's backing it'll

It'll be interesting to see what that means for that race. College Street currently has the odds of a Republican winning the Texas Senate seat of 54% to Talarico's 46%. Does that sound right, too, Jess? Yeah, it does feel about right. It's much better position than Beto O'Rourke ever was in one of these races. You know, we're always wary of, is Texas turning blue? Like, that's asking a lot of people. But Ken Paxton, I would rather Talarico be running that race.

against Paxton. Yeah. Then against Cornyn, who, by the way, is talking about being an independent candidate in the election. Because it looks like he's sure to lose the runoff on the Republican side. But he can stay in there. And even people like Brian Kilmead, who host Fox and Friends, was talking about, well, I hope Cornyn can still win. And the GOP caucus was really upset that Trump endorsed Paxton over Cornyn.

You know, he's been in the Senate for 30 years. They like him as a colleague. they also think if the electorate is shifting even purplish that Ken Paxton, who was impeached, a Republican-led impeachment, even, you know, wife left him, divorcing him on biblical grounds, you know, all around horrid human being, they think that John Cornyn would have a better shot. One argument that could work in Talleyco's favor against Cornyn, though, I'm interested because what you think of this, because we talk about the age and the new generation, you know, time for a change. bit of it. So James Talarico was in middle school when John Cornyn was elected to the Senate. And there's a very strong argument for how poorly Texas has performed with John Cornyn as their senator. You know, their wages are well below the national average, for instance, health care abysmal there, you know, big target as a result of the adopts decision and lack of women's reproductive health.

So I could see that actually being a good matchup for the moment that we're in, right, with the young person versus the older person and it just says, like, you've had this seat for far too long and you've wasted it, right? What have you delivered for us? And now you just rubber stamp everything that Trump wants. And he doesn't even respect you enough to endorse you. So a lot of the things you talk about are why people like Texas, shitty services, but really low taxes. I mean, no one likes shitty services, but, you know, but. but a lack of rights for women, you know, that translates to very conservative policies. You know, not great schooling. I don't say anyone actively endorses that, but small government spending, conservative values,

that people, that's one of the reasons people moved to Texas. And also, there's just no arguing with its success. I think Houston is the second fastest-growing city in the nation. They also, you know, for everything we talk about how conservative they are, they're the leader in wind and renewable energy right now in the U.S. Texas is just doing really well. The cities are fairly well run, and we Democrats don't like their values, but I think a lot of people, in terms of their quality of life, think when they move there,

I have a nicer quality of life here. So I think the people who can present themselves as more Texas, I think, is the right positioning. and I think the way Tala RICO presents himself as more Texas, if you will, is continuing to do what very few Democrats have been able to do. And that has not come across as hostile towards religion and embrace it and figure out a way to weave Christianity into his politics. I think that's the positioning that Tala Rika wants to go after. I think young versus old is pretty interesting. And I think that that's effectively what's happening in America. and that is it's, you know, people say it's left versus right.

I would argue it's up versus down, specifically the poor and the middle class, getting soaked every year by the rich, specifically a transfer in capital from consumers and labor to shareholders, and that tends to be older people. You could also distill it down to young versus old. The problem is old people vote, and so unless you can find more young people to start voting to switch the complexion of the election, it's still going to continue to be old people voting themselves more money. And I think Talleyko's message around religion and how it foots to his political beliefs is a really powerful message. Young versus old, I just don't,

I just don't know. Status quo versus change. Yeah. Adaptability, you know, like calling a spade a spade, and spark Tullrigal. Like he said when we had him on at South by Southwest for the live taping. He's not trying to turn Texas blue. He's trying to turn it purple. Right. And that's the way all of this was designed, right, that there would be bipartisanship. I just looked it out because you mentioned Houston. The mayor of Houston is a Democrat, but actually got censored by the party for working with Republicans too much.

There you go. I just wonder if people in Texas don't want to move forward. They want to go back to the 50s. And I know I'm making a broad generalization about a huge state. But I'm fascinated with Texas. I think it's a really interesting. But they can't give up. I mean, you watch Greg Abbott, cowtow to President Trump when he knows what wind and solar energy has done for his state.

And he can't say anything, right? He just goes like, yes, sir, yes, sir. And then there's reporting from private donor meetings that he's been having where he says that a Democrat could win statewide. Like, that's how bad the environment is right now. But because Trump has created this environment where if you even step. five words out of line. You become anathom, and he's going to unleash all of his energy against you. No one can have any sort of productive conversation or even push him to change his mind. On the age front, I just wanted to add in the Massey primary, he won everyone under 55 by like 30 point margins. And then Galrain won 55 and up by the same level of margins. So this is older people deciding the fate for younger. people not just in their wallets, but in the totality of their representation. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

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Welcome back. So while everyone is focused on the midterms, Democrats are looking backwards. The DNC's long-awaited at 2024 autopsy was finally released today after months of pressure on chair, Ken Martin, who apologized for the delay and said he didn't want it to become a distraction. Jess, some of the report is just a, it's kind of a dog's breakfast and not up to standards. what, if any, are the takeaways that you drew from this? This is such a big own goal for Ken Martin, especially when you look at it. He could have released and he did a whole substack post

about, you know, why the delay and what the issues were with it and they've annotated it, like, you know, the autopsy is in black ink, right, that was typed up. And then there's a lot of red that comes from the DNC side. but he looked like he was guilty, that he was hiding something. When you should have just put it out there, you marketed it as some big deal. You're supposed to be bringing transparency to the organization. I mean, over the years, a lot of people have had problems with the DNC, specifically when it does come to, you know, protecting their own or not being straight up with people.

This goes back to the 2016 election, right? And I just think it was a huge mistake. I mean, he made the stories bigger than the actual results, which mirror absolutely everything that we already knew about what happened in the 2024 election. And I get it that it was finished right after we had had these big wins in November of 2025 with Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill. And you think, like, we're riding high, Mom, Donnie. Like, we just want to move on. But he created this huge swirl. And also, it seems like this guy, Paul Rivera, who wrote it, he's a Democratic strategist who's known Ken Martin for a very long time.

said frankly like a really shit job. Like if you're going to put data in there, it has no citations, you know, conclusions that come from interviews with no information about who they were interviewing. Like, why would this person, I get it that he didn't want someone who was affiliated with races in 2024 or was a big figure at the DNC? But this guy seems quite ill prepared to have done something that was going to carry this level of weight. the best line I thought in it, and also a good plug for our podcast, Democrats operate in an ecosystem defined by reason, even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage. And this party, our party, does not understand a rage cycle. They have moments of it, right, where you stand up to the big bad guys and you win a lot of those fights. Like I think Hucking Jeffries has been successful in a bunch of those standoffs, whether it's about, you know, government shutdowns, discharge petitions. I think they just got their seventh discharge petition over the line. But that really spoke to me. Yeah, like, duh, the transgender-focused ad was a big deal. We've lost a lot of grounds since the Obama era. We're not as good on, like, state and local

parties. Biden, the White House didn't prepare her. Like, obviously, we know this was interesting. Israel and Gaza wasn't in it. And people say that that's like the be-all and end-all of the election. No, the little I saw of it, I thought this document reflects poorly on the DNC because it's just not very well written. There's not as much data in it as you'd like to see. It felt like it was an underfunded study with someone who just wanted to check a box. It felt like a, you know what it felt like? It felt like a senior in their second semester after being accepted to college and it's just phoning it in. It really should be the kind of document that's written by a group of people.

I would argue that aren't even that politically affiliated who can just look at data. I would have loved to have assembled the team to look at all the data and just write about what they thought happened. But it felt like, look, we got to get this out. We don't want to offend too many people. But it just, it felt like a giant nothing burger. And there were other reports that were very well done. Yeah. You know, that really focused on the heart of the issues that the party has, that we become the party of elites and not of the working class, the impact of identity politics.

You know, the stuff that you always talk about with the people want you to be. strong and wrong versus weak and effective. But we knew all of that. So why are you hiding this? Because it's a messy document and you let how many news cycles happen, right? Where people are like, what is Ken Martin hiding? What is Ken Martin hiding? He's hiding a sloppy document.

So that bummed me out. They did note, though, that Kamala Harris helped down-ballot Democrats more than Biden would have, which is something that we know. But I do think it is one of the most important things that happened in 2024, for that she does not get credit for. Like, we would not have Senator Rubin Gallego, Senator Alyssa Slotkin, without the switch to Kamala Harris.

And she deserves a lot of credit for that because the people had seen Biden at the top of the ticket. Maybe they wouldn't have voted at all, but they certainly wouldn't have ticked down the box on the Democratic side there. That's interesting. So let's move on to my industry. Harvard is finally trying to crack down on great inflation.

the university just voted to cap the number of A grades professors can hand out after data showed nearly two-thirds of undergraduate grades were A's last year, up dramatically from just over a decade ago. Jess, do you have any thoughts on this? This is all you, baby. So grade inflation at elite universities, it's not really about grades. What it's about is it's about incentives, and that is elite universities evolved from institutions of evaluation and certification to, luxury brands. People say the greatest brands in history are Apple or Amazon. They're not. The greatest brands in history are MIT, Stanford, Harvard, because no one's going to give Apple $10 million to put their name on the side of a building on their campus. And I task anyone with

identifying a product where they can charge $300,000 just in tuition, $600,000 in total costs for a product with 90% gross margins. That just, that product doesn't exist except for higher ed. So effectively, these brands in terms of their scarcity and their pricing and their margins have become luxury brands. And you don't walk into Hermes to get a participation trophy. You walk in to be treated really well. So the median grade right now is an A minus. And that's a, you know, essentially what they're saying is we're here to make you feel good and we're here to get you into graduate school because you're paying $90,000. And schools defend this by saying their students are exceptional.

That's just not true as someone who's worked with a lot of people from these elite institutions. At some point, the grade sees this to be a measure of performance and becomes sort of customer service inside the Armaz store. The bigger issue is what happens after college, and that is employers can no longer distinguish between confidence and excellence, because everyone arrives sort of pre-certified as outstanding. So the burden and the distinction kind of comes down to pedigrees, networks, and internships, which, as always, advantages affluent students even more. It's about your dad getting you a job at J.P. Morgan, or you have a network because you grew up in a wealthy neighborhood.

So ironically, great inflation undermines meritocracy at the very institute. that are supposed to champion it. It's similar to when universities thinking they were being progressive and woke did away with the SAT and standardized tests. And standardized tests were initially implemented such that a smart kid from an inner city, a non-white who was good at math, could stand out.

It was meant to level the playing field and level up people. And unfortunately, the entire testing complex got weaponized by wealth, and now a middle-class person gets 130 points more on the SAT and a wealthy person gets 250 points more than a middle class person. So if you were going to be really honest, you would spot a kid from a lower income household 380 points just by signing their name on the SAT. A university's job isn't to maximize self-esteem. And that's what

luxury brands are meant to maximize self-esteem. I feel really good about myself because I'm wearing a panorai. I feel successful and good about myself when I can afford a Porsche. And that's what people want you to feel or feel like they owe you when they're charging you $82,000 in tuition. And that's not what they're there for. Again, the basic communication of the signal here is that you're supposed to help people or graduate schools and employers discern between the people at these institutions that have the grit, the competence, the intelligence, the perseverance to get the A. But when everyone gets the A, the signal dies and all the signals that now serve is a means of evaluation, turn more to who your parents are. So I think this is a good move,

and I like the idea of ranking students. I think great inflation is a real problem. And you see it at private schools, because their job is to get more people to feel good about the extraordinary prices they pay. And just to give you a sense for this, you know, at private schools, we're spending about $72,000 per student in America. Public schools are spending $15,000. So if you're going to spend $72,000 and your kid is working really hard but continues to get seized in French, you're going to get angry. And you're going to put pressure on the school and maybe you don't show up and bid $50,000 at the school auction. What people don't realize about education is they think of the student as the consumer. It's not. The consumer is supposed to be corporates.

operations, who pay a real premium to hire someone who has the resilience, mental well-being, effort, intelligence to get into a college and graduate. Instead, it's more from that to the consumer is what the parents feel, such that they'll give more money and continue to want their kids to apply to these elite universities that they can reject 94% of them, which is an input into the rankings. And the rankings go up. More people apply. They have more pricing power. And they can hire 17 people for everyone that teaches MIT. 17 people work in MIT for everyone that actually teaches. So this is, again, further morphing from universities which are supposed to be public servants to luxury brands that are basically hedge funds that offer classes. I'm curious as to what you

think about the potency of these brands today. I don't see them carrying as much weight, the brand names, as they certainly did when I was growing up. Do you think that the brands of these institutions carry as much weight as they used to? The short answer is, yes, there's just been a transfer in brand equity. It's not that college has diminished in value. It's that it's no longer the same value it used to be.

And the fact that we hoard the miracle drug that is higher education is a real indictment on how morally corrupt my industry is when they have the endowments to dramatically expand their freshman classes. In terms of brand equity, what you're seeing is not a diminishment or an erosion in brand equity. You're seeing a transfer. And specifically, I believe, it's because what a lot of parents and students saw, specifically after October 7th,

they were so turned off by the wokeness and the tolerance of protests that would have never been allowed in a million years at a university. And I think a lot of kids and a lot of parents, even if they're pro-Israel, anti-Israel, Israel, poor Palestine. They just thought, you know what, I want my kid to get drunk and lose his virginity in a fucking fraternity, not go to a protest. I want my kids to have football, fall leaves, get a good education. And so what has happened is the brand equity of the ivies has gone way down. And the brand equity of the southern schools, Vanderbilt, Duke, UNC, has the University of Georgia, what they call the R-R-R-R-R-R-R-R has now become a huge brand attribute. And the public universities are thriving simply because it is a great product at a fraction of the price.

Stanford costs $72,000 a year. The in-state tuition at UCLA in-Bercl is $18,000. Is Stanford on a risk-adjusted basis a better school than Cal or UCLA? I'd say yes. But is it four times better? Abs of fucking not. But for those of us who think that when you hear school no longer matters, I get the kids are upset. They're a little bit spoiled because if you're under the age of 40, you think every kid coming out of a good school should get an offer for $120,000 from Google or Amazon.

Those days are over. But when I graduated from Berkeley, only 40% of us had a job. So 60% didn't. So some of it is relative, but I would argue these brands have never been stronger. There's just a transfer in value from the Ivy to the RAAs. I think the brands have never been more important, but I think that the administrators and faculty and leadership have demonstrated a total lack of service and have artificially constrained the supply of freshman seats. And it creates more unnecessary manufactured anxiety across middle class homes. Essentially, higher education is a collision of luxury brands, administrators who have this veil of nobility, who are actually just as capitalist and repaid.

as anybody else, unreasonable expectations of parents, and what I find is a corrupt cartel in pricing that transfers $1.5 trillion over the last 20 years in the form of student debt on young people to the faculty administration endowments of universities. I think higher education has moved from being a public servant to morally corrupt luxury brands. I just want to add, and this is, I have little kids,

but something that I'm thinking about when it comes to school, and all of my friends are thinking about it as well is the type of people that are in these schools and how we don't want our kids hanging out with, spending vacations with people who we think are gross. And I don't think that our parents were thinking about that in the same way. They were like, this is unequivocally the best option.

If you can get her or him into the school, you go for it and, like, we'll deal with the social, repercussions or we don't have to hang out with them. I think millennial parents are looking at the totality of the experience and especially the quality of the families a lot in making these decisions. Let's take one last quick break. Whatever your thing, it could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing.

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Welcome back. Tonight marks the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Let's listen to a clip from early. this week. Negotiations with Iran have totally stalled. So on Sunday, he went online and posted, for Iran, the clock is ticking, and they better get moving fast. Or there won't be anything left of them. Time is of the essence. You hear that Iran? Get your rack together, or next week, I don't know what will happen, because I will be in a hammock, ass deep, and a pinocolada. And a fantasy romance novel about centaurs. It's called, it's called, it's called

trampled by passion. I'm happy for him. I mean, I hope that he enjoys whatever comes next. Insane guests this week. Mm-hmm. I really liked Letterman as well, you know, like talking about the evolution of the show and they did this thing. They threw, like, furniture off the roof of CBS.

And thinking about the differences between the way the show has been managed and governance of CBS in general. I don't know. I think it's a bummer. I think you can have all the conversations about how much it costs to run that show and, you know, the dollars and cents of it. But I think it comes down to the fact that Stephen Colbert is a great talent and he's a really good fucking guy. He's just like a good human being. And I think it's a loss for all of us that he won't be on our screens in this way.

I'm sure he'll be in our ears. And if you watch on YouTube, he'll have an enormously successful podcast or whatever it is that he wants to do. but good people are few and far between, especially in positions of power these days. And so I'll miss him for that. I feel like this is like my ex-wife's birthday and that it lasts three fucking years his goodbye to her.

I'm just... You're done? I'm... I think Steven Colbert is an amazing talent. I like him. I agree with everything you said. I would like to see him run for Senate. He's a good man and smart and incredibly creative.

It does feel like late-night TV and kind of five white guys. it does feel like a bit of an anachronism. And that is, in the economics here are just crazy. If you look at Johnny Carson, who I grew up with, as a percentage of households who watch late-night TV, it's down 90%. And that is, everyone wants to blame Trump.

And the FCC's corrupt and trying to intimidate. But quite frankly, it was just economics that is kicking these guys off the air. This late-night TV just is not an economically viable model. The band, the unions, the fancy theater, They just, they don't get the audiences anymore to attract the advertisers to justify the economics of, of these programs. What you're going to see is pretty straightforward. He's going to have a podcast.

He does 60 million now. It costs 100 million. He's losing 40 million a year. He's very culturally relevant, but that hasn't translated to a working business model. He'll go to a podcast. He's hugely talented. He'll make $20 million, not 60, but he'll do it with eight people, not 200. and it'll make $10 million in EBITA.

And that's why you're seeing this giant sucking sound of talent from broadcast TV, whether it's Amy Poehler or Anderson Cooper moving into podcasts. You can bet that Anderson Cooper is going to take that energy and time. He spent on 60 minutes and he's going to put it into a podcast. Amy Poehler just won the Golden Globe for Best Podcast. I mean, it's just... Good Hang is so good. Yeah, by the way, the podcast community was not outrage,

but it was a bit of a scandal because there's people who've been doing it for 10 or 12 years and kind of Amy shows up, and a year later, she wins best podcasts. Maybe because she's that good. Yeah, because maybe she was the best podcast. But, yeah, I think late-night TV, I'm not, media has a tendency to be, I think, overly sentimental, and they're subject to the same economic concerns as everyone else. Stephen Colbert is going to be just fine.

The people you should feel bad about are not Stephen Colbert, but the 190 people who are employed by the Colbert show that are going to have to find new jobs. because late-night TV is basically, it's not even dying, it's sort of already in the ground. And, you know, maybe it was buried alive and you can still hear it screaming.

That's pretty macabre, but it just doesn't, let me ask you this, once the last time you watched late-night TV? Like in real time? Yeah. I mean, and not like that if you watch it, people say, well, I watch it. I just watch it on YouTube or whatever.

It's like, okay, someone else is making the money. CBS is getting pennies on the dollar right there. Anyway, he's an enormous talent. He's going to be just fine. It does indicate, though, it's kind of an end of an era. We just consume our information differently now and get entertainment differently.

It'll be interesting to see what he does next. I hope he runs for Senate. I think he'd be... Well, who are you kicking out? Andy Kim or Corey Booker? Well, that's the hard part, right? That's the problem. Is there like, there's not an infinite amount of Senate seats, but...

Wasn't he planning to move back? to his home state at some point. Oh, is he going to? I don't know. Because for now, he's part of, you know, that big cultural enclave in Montclair, New Jersey. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. All right. Well, now one person we probably would like to see maybe less of on the big screen is Jeff Bezos, who was on CNBC this week talking about taxes in the economy. Here's what he had to say. And Elizabeth Warren has made this point repeatedly. I think she's made any reference to you and others are able to pay a lower tax rate, even though you're paying an enormous sum,

taxes, a lower tax rate than maybe I am. These people sometimes say that, you know, I don't pay taxes. So true, I pay billions of dollars in taxes. And it's a perfect, again, if people want me to pay more billions, then let's have that debate. But don't pretend, you know, that this, that's going to solve the problem. You could, you could double the taxes I pay and it's not going to help that teacher in Queens.

I promise you. This is, this, so you can. can't connect those two things, not logically. I say we give it a world that whole doubling of taxes. Just see what happens. Yeah, I was like, that's not logical. Let's just see what happens. Well, it's also like, I wish Andrew Ross Sorkin had been like,

I would like take a moment and talk about your tax rate. It was 0.98%. And now I think you pay a whopping 1.1% because you sold stocks and had to pay tax on that. Like, Bezos, I don't know, the thing that turned me off, in general was he said, like, we've got to give Trump credit. Like, he's more measured or something like that, you know, in this term. And he has a lot of good ideas, more mature. And I was like, are you alive?

Like, I know Lauren Sanchez is like a whole vibe and you guys are on cloud nine all the time. But like, you don't have to kiss his butt at that level, right? You don't have to call him more mature. Yeah. Jeff Bezos talking about, he went on to talk about how people. people making less than $75,000 shouldn't pay taxes. I think that's just a misdirect. Okay, because you talk to Corey Booker about it too, right? Because he has a, that's similar to his plan. Yeah, Corey wants to have a tax holiday for people making less than $75,000. Both of their math is a little bit fuzzy.

But I think when Jeff Bezos, who pieces out from the state of Washington, such that he doesn't have to pay state taxes in the state that provided him with the infrastructure, education, and culture for him to amass $120 billion, and then decides he wants to spend more time with his father in Florida where they happen to have zero percent capital gains tax, you know, my viewpoint is if you're going to talk about tax, I don't know, sit down, just sit down. This just isn't, this is the mother of all eye rolls. Jeff Bezos was talking about his worry or concern about taxation for people not making enough money. This is a guy who engages in the ultimate full body contact violence of capitalism with quotas for his workers who do make 15 bucks an hour or 18 bucks an hour who have to pee in bottles to try and optimize their time such that they can make their quotas. And he's feigning concern for the person under the nurse

in Queens who just make $60,000. So I just, you know, sorry, boss. Pardon us if we're a little bit cynical about your concern for the nurse in Queens. And also he does pay, prisoners of war have an obligation to escape or trying to escape. People have an obligation to avoid taxes. and he does this. I'm not even, it's not even really his fault. Whose fault it is is Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who constantly bitch about people not paying their fair share, and they're the fucking referee. You've been in Congress forever, and yet as you have been in Congress, taxes continue to go down. We need to do away with the state tax exemption stuff, this dynastic wealth aggregation. There's going to be $120 trillion that queeth to the next generations. It, government needs it back to

pay off the deficit or at least part of it. I was just in Portugal where they've taken their debt from 120 percent of their GDP down to 90 percent. We've gone well over. We need an alternative minimum tax on people like Jeff Bezos of, I would say 60 percent now. I've gone full socialist, not socialists, not socialists in long term. Capitalists, 50, 60, 70s, and 80s when America was healthier, better economy, people felt better about their country. We had top tax rates of anywhere between 60 and 90%, because what you want from a tax system is you want the least taxing tax possible. If you taxed education, food, and health care, you'd end up with a less healthy, less educated populace. That would be a bad tax. But when you have alternative minimum taxes,

say, on people making more than a million dollars a year or corporations making more than a billion a year, no one is any less happy. If someone makes $8 million a year instead of $6 million, they're no less happy. But if you take that $2 million, and you give a $10,000 child tax credit to 200 homes, they're much happier. So in sum, Jeff Bezos talking about his concern around tax policy and that nurse in Queens. Again, see above, sit the fuck down.

I just don't, I don't think he's the person to feign concern about our tax policy. And yes, he does pay billions. He should pay a lot more. I don't buy the far left argument from AOC that nobody earned, no billionaire earned their money. He earned it. He absolutely earned it. He was born to a single mother when she was 17. He's a genius. I love that Elon Musk has earned $600 billion. I love that Jeff Bezos has earned $120 billion. I want to see tax rates on that money they earned of 60, 70, or 80%. You don't,

brothers keep on earning, but you need to reinvest back in the country that has provided you, with the infrastructure such that you could make that much money. That's my TED Talk. I like it. All right, Jess. Real quick, we lost an icon of Congress, Barney Frank. Any quick thoughts, Jess? It's really sad.

Legacy-wise, Dodd-Frank is obviously the thing that springs to mine. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has returned $21 billion to consumers in the wake of the financial crisis, which is a pretty big effing deal, to say the least. I loved his sense of humor. The way that he ran town halls was hilarious. There was a great clip floating around of him actually insulting one of his constituents in a very funny way, you know, describing himself as a left-handed gay Jew. And he just never took himself too seriously, but he took the work so immensely seriously and thought that we put them in office to make change and to make power. change and that it's their obligation to do so, you know, referencing back to our earlier conversation was do nothing Congress. Barney Frank would not have accepted being part of a

do nothing Congress. I loved his relationship also with Nancy Pelosi. It was really beautiful. She gave a great tribute to him. And he will be missed. And I hope that he is feeling good up there now because he deserves a wonderful afterlife. That's nice. He was also, a really courageous leader around the issue of gay marriage. And I think that... Absolutely. You know, I think he passes with what I think all of us would like to think about our life and that is his life really didn't make a difference.

Anyways, let's leave it there, Jess. That's all for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us today. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory,

e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-free at Odu.com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. Support for this show comes from O-D-O-D. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?

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