Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump’s “Affordability” Agenda—A Masterclass in Backward Economics

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov dive into Trump’s new “affordability” push — from $2,000 tariff rebate checks to 50-year mortgages — and ask whether any of it actually makes economic sense. Then, California’s Gavin Newsom takes on America’s masculinity crisis, warning Democrats can’t keep ignoring men and boys. Plus, Texas Democrat James Talarico gets caught following OnlyFans models, and Trump’s influence hits a new low (or high?) — the “Mar-a-Lago face.” 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

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide.

Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlov. Okay, in today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing Trump tries to claw back the

affordability message. Governor Newsom takes on America's masculinity crisis and just let James Tala Rico look at hot women in peace. Oh, my God. Figured that would be your favorite topic. Yeah. Yeah, word. So, J.T., my brother, let's roll.

Your rap, your looks, my money. Come to New York. come to New York my brother I'll take you to the dark side yeah not just the the only fans ladies so come to the dark side do you want to hear

I only have two movie impersonations do you want to hear one yeah definitely the first one is Darth Vader hold on search your feelings you know this to be true so Jane search your feelings

you know this to be true you want to roll with a dog in New York you want to go to the dark side let's go out and Let's go out and commit a few of those sins. Damn, do you want to hear my other one? Yeah. I'm not in my other person.

This is Dr. Evil. How about no? Come on. The kids love it. It's like the five-year-olds? No, my kids roll their eyes. My kids freak down. That's what happens when they really love you.

They must love me a lot. They do, I'm sure. We have to get into the show, but, you know, your mid-pivot tour, You got to tell me, though, about Curtis Sliwa. Oh, he was the star of the tour. He came out and started calling Cuomo a slithering snake. He hates him so much. Oh, he hates him.

And he also claimed, I don't, I wouldn't be surprised what makes news. He claims that the quote-unquote billionaire class, he may even name names, but I'm not going to name names. He's on tape so you can look for yourself. He said that he was offered $10 million to drop out, $10 million cash money to drop out. And it's, I mean, I guess a hat tip to you or beret tip to you that you didn't, ethically speaking, but also you kind of effed people over. Or that's how folks feel about it. They did. He fucked people over because.

Well, if he had gotten out, if it was a two-man race, and I'm not saying that these are the ideal men to have been in that race, that it would have been within the margin of error. And who knows what people would have thought if they were looking at a ballot with just two names, you know. It felt to me like Mondami's win was so resolute. Or he won by, I think, eight or nine points, and Sliwa got seven or eight. So unless... It was a big win in the vibes and the heart and the message of it. It was not that big of an electoral win technically. You know, usually the mayor gets between 62 and 67 percent of the vote.

He got, you know, just over 50 percent. And like you said, you know, with Slewa getting seven percentage points and Cuomo losing by you know, about eight and a half. Obviously, it would have been a very different race if Sliwa had dropped out. But also, Cuomo could have, like, run a better campaign, not taken a month off. You know, he could have cared more and actually, you know, looked like he wanted the job versus this is what he was condemned to. So there are a lot of reasons that Mamdani is mayor. But it will be interesting to tease out, you know, the effects of not having that enormous coalition that it feels like because, you know, he's on the cover of.

New York Mag and all the vibes are going, you know, we're all getting J. Cruz suits and copying his effortless style. But actually in brass tax, it wasn't that big of a win. Yeah, I still think he would have, I mean, because the assumption, I guess, is that if Slewa had dropped out, all of those votes would have gone to Cuomo, which I don't think is true. And it's interesting you say that it was a vibe vote because I felt like Mondami, you know, what's really, it's kind of blown my mind is, did you see the posters around town or the bus shelters, the digital shelters? I think it was from Kalshi showing the odds, the odds of Mondami at 92% and Cuomo at 8%. It, that, those just fascinated me, because when you see someone

is up by that much, if you're voting for Cuomo, it feels to me it really favors the candidate that is portrayed as the person winning, that it just sends like, it just creates momentum. Yeah. And, I mean, now we have even more excuses for people to gamble because they feel like it's semi-legitimate. You know, there's gambling on blackjack. There's gambling on sports where people think, oh, I know what I'm doing. And then there's gambling on political outcomes and all sorts of strange stuff which makes some people feel like they're Paul Tudor Jones or a macro investor.

But what was most interesting is someone did some analysis and the majority of money being placed on these bets for political campaigns was coming out of the Middle East in China. Oh. And I just think it would be. Another way that they're messing with us? Exactly. I would describe it as election interference. Do you really think that Chinese have a huge interest in the mayoral campaign?

I would bet that they have run the AI and said, all right, how do we create more division, run these ads, or take the number way up above or below what it should be based on what we think will create more division. And I'm not saying, yeah, I'm not saying that Mondami's election would create more division. I actually think it's nice to have young people kind of feel. good about something for a while, or just for a change, I should say. But it just strikes me that if all the money coming or the majority of the bets being placed on these, what I'll call for lack of a better term, brand campaigns that they know are going to be, have influence, I just wonder what they're up to. I'm very curious, Jess. I'm very curious. Let's get them on the line. But, no, I think that your assessment is correct. There's nothing that adversaries like more than us at each other's

throats and good news. We have been since 2016. Yeah, they're winning. So you guys are winning. We continue to hate each other. But that is very interesting. I hadn't seen that they were the ones behind those ads. And, you know, whatever. The mayor election will be talking about for a very long time. But we have to talk about the news. Okay. So let's get into it. President Trump is trying to reclaim the affordability message. Even as voters say he's lost touch with their economic reality. After Democrats won key races last week by hammering the cost of living issue, Trump first dismissed affordability as a con job and then turned around and announced a flurry of pocketbook-friendly policies. He's touting $2,000 tariff rebate checks funded by new tariffs, ordering the Justice

Department to investigate possible price fixing in the meat industry, cutting deals with drug companies to lower cost of weight loss medications, and even floating 50-year mortgages to bring down monthly payments. The White House insists these moves have been in the works for months, not a reaction to last week's losses, but together they paint a picture of a president more focused on affordability than he's publicly willing to admit. Still, Trump always finds a way to undercut himself. Here he is on Fox last night. Is this a voter perception issue of the economy, or is there more that needs to be done by Republicans on Capitol Hill or done in terms of policy? More than anything else is to conjure by the Democrats. They're saying,

They just have a say, you know, they put out something. Say today, costs are up. They feed it to the anchors of ABC, CBS, and NBC and a lot of other, you know, CNN and et cetera. And it's like a standard. I'll never forget they had used a word like manufactured. Do you remember the word manufacturing? It's a manufactured economy. Nobody uses that word.

Every anchor broke through manufactured. They do exactly what they say. It's such a rig system. So are you ready? Costs a way down. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's this terrible gestalt in our society that, unfortunately, a lot of people have picked up on, and that is if you repeat a lie long enough, it feels less like a lie. And to a certain extent, social media has promoted this new, the attack on what should be a key component or is a key component of any democracy, and that is that there should be an objective truth.

And because social media loves novelty, i.e. bullshit, misinformation, and elevates it, and it circulates more, when you get a message that says, or you see something that says MRNA alter vaccines alter your DNA, you go, oh, that's ridiculous, that's bullshit. But when your sister, your cousin, and, you know, some stupid blogger are putting it in your feed and you see it over and over, you start to think, well, maybe there is some credibility to that. So this has become, you are where you spend, your time, and Americans now, two-thirds of Americans now get their news from social media, which loves to spread misinformation. And even if you recognize that it's unlikely, it becomes less unlikely the more you see it. And I think politicians have picked up on this. And especially Trump thinks, if I just repeat a lie over and over long enough, it feels less like a lie. And the numbers around inflation, and he's tried to basically new to the Bureau of Labor statistics or weaponize it or politicize it, it's pretty clear. Inflation is still pretty sticky. It's still up around 3% on a lot of the products that consumers kind of get signals from on how they think

inflation is going, whether it's housing or rents or certain food products. It's up, you know, it's up more than that, and then it's the producer price index. But you want to target of two, and we haven't been able to get there. Let's talk a little bit about the rebate checks. What do you think of this? Well, it's bullshit. They don't even have the money from tariff revenue to be able to be sending these $2,000 checks. The Nonpartisan Committee for Responsible Federal Budget must be the most fun place to work, said that the checks would cost $600 billion and the tariff projections are only around $300 billion in federal revenue by the end of the year.

So it's another, it's a marketing tool that he's using. It's been very effective in the past. he was the one that was signing all the checks and Biden decided not to personally sign the checks. And so no one knew that Joe Biden had given the money but just thinks Donald Trump gave them money. So he's very good at trying to sell that way. But looping back to what you were just saying about social media and how if you repeat a lie enough, people start to believe it, with what's going on in the economy, it feels like one of the only areas in which it's kind of BS proofed because we all have to go to the grocery store. I guess not the people who are

earning the absolute most. They send somebody who goes to the grocery store for them or maybe don't even look at a bill like that. But you can see right through it when you show up and you're going down the aisles and your staples now cost more than they ever did before. And you see like the beef prices is obviously a main topic of conversation and the agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins is getting hammered over it constantly. He's talking about, you know, going after the companies. What is it? The price fixing in the meat industry, which remember when Kamala Harris was talking about going after people that are doing price fixing and she was a communist and we were going to have price controls, but when Donald Trump says it, it's fine. But the economy is one of those areas where it is

very hard to make your lie stick because it is the one thing that you can go and see for yourself, or I should say one of the one things. And Donald Trump knows that he's in enormous trouble over the economy, double ditches underwater on how he's handling it, minus 30 on handling inflation. And the number that I find most interesting, and you see this over and over again, you know, 65% plus of Americans say he's not focused on bringing costs down. And that was the directive when he was elected into office, was secure the border. And for some people, deport everybody, but for most people just get the criminals out. So they're not doing so well on that front. But it was to bring down the cost of living. And that has just been a massive fail. And this idea that you could just wake up and

say, oh, I'm going to own the affordability message. Affordability is many things, right? It's just a proxy for whatever cost of living issue is top of mind for you, whether it's, you know, your prices at the grocery store at the gas pump, whether you can't afford to buy a home, you know, if you can't afford school for your kids, school supplies, like, whatever it is. But he can't keep himself on message. I mean, he has these moments of clarity where he shows up after the election and says it was a really bad night for Republicans. You know, I think the shutdown really hurt us. We're going to have to talk without the press here about how we're going to handle all of this. And then he can't help himself in front of a camera sitting there with Laura Ingram, who I think gave him

you know, the potential to seem like he's actually cognizant of what's going on in the real world and just say, you know, like you, inflation's been a bit sticky. These are the things that I think we can do to make it better, not just I'm going to sign a big check that I have no money for or what he say? He's going to give air traffic controllers $10,000 bonuses. She says, where is the money coming from? Oh, I don't know. I'll find it somewhere. Maybe in the big crypto pot or whatever he has going there. But, you know, this news that Italy might stop sending us their pasta because Trump's proposing 107% tariff on Italian pasta. Like, these kinds of things make it impossible for everyday Americans to live, first of all, but for you to have any semblance

of a platform going into an election. Also, can you imagine if we don't have the Italian pasta in the aisles? Yeah, no, that's Armageddon. It is. End of days, Scott. Just some data here. The government collected about $195 billion in fiscal year 25, an increase of 250% over fiscal year 24.

So if you were to give that money back to Americans, and you divided it by the American population, it would be about $573 per person. So a $2,000 payment would only be able to give it to $97.5. million people, but what he's probably proposing is that he increases the deficit. The thing that's just so asinine about this concept is the following. I'm going to raise the prices of your fruits and vegetables, your housing, your lumber, your drywall gypsum, your Toyotas, and everything else that's imported. And then I will run it through this administrative complexity or bureaucratic mess, and then I'll distribute checks to you. One of the tenants of the GOP and Republicans

sort of fiscal conservatism is a really powerful tenet. It's the following, that if the government taxes you and then they run all these social programs to try and show you it's worth it, that process of taking that tax revenue and then delivering a service, that it would just be much better to lower taxes and let people figure out their own means of finding housing. There is leakage, right? This is the biggest criticism of the nonprofit. sector. And that is essentially a lot of these nonprofit institutions are there to give ladies of lunch something to do. And then they throw a benefit in a windowless basement room of a nice hotel where they serve bad chicken and everyone pays $1,000. And then about 80 of it ends up actually

at the homeless shelter that they're raising money for. And there's been real legitimate, rigorous studies showing that foreign aid, they build these huge infrastructures to try and deliver, you know, help women in poverty in a developing nation. And what they have found is that, quite frankly, it'd be better off getting rid of the agency, not spending money on all these bureaucrats who are expensive and hard to fire, and just giving money to the people who you want to help instead of, you know, layering in the administrative state. In addition, the non-economic costs of tariffs are the thing that's really difficult here. I have some friends who are in small and medium-sized businesses that six months ago, literally like, I might retire, I'm going out

of business. There's no way I can figure this out. I can't transfer my supply chain to Vietnam fast enough. And then they try. And then he levies these huge tariffs on Mexico. And he says, well, I'm going to Canada. And it's more expensive, but they're a trusted trade. No, oh, he's just implemented 150% tariff on can. Companies are paralyzed right now. And people who should be focused on product market fit and how to retain, attract and retain the best employees are trying to figure out who the fuck they're waking up next to and how to plan their business. So as much as these are, these tariffs are inflationary, inefficient, cost Americans, increase prices, reduce prosperity, reduce our market, size of market for our products overseas

because there's going to be reciprocal tariffs. I think the biggest cost is non-economic costs. And the notion that he's just going to tariff you, raise your price, and then give some of that money back to you and propose a rebate check that's just going to raise the deficit. It's as if, like, I keep thinking, okay, maybe, I keep layering on stuff for a senior year in high school, but it feels like there should be a financial literacy course. You know, my kids can do integers and calculus,

but they don't understand the interest rate on their credit card. It feels like basic economic theory. You know, there's this fairly mendacious conspiracy theory. The Republicans love cutting education, because the stupider people get, the more they vote for Republicans. And, you know, that, I would argue, is a little bit conspiratorial. It just feels like basic economic theory doesn't take hold. And for a newscaster not to push back on a journalist on, well, okay, so why are you charging

tariffs in the first place if you're planning just to cut everyone a check? Wouldn't it be easier to let people decide where they want to spend their money and have all products slightly less, you know, cost them less rather than having the government get in the middle and then divide it up. So anyway, I just, this is going to surprise you, but I don't think this policy is a great, a great idea. You're blown my mind, Scott. I totally agree with you, though, on basic economics and financial literacy being mandatory when you're young. And, you know, it used to be, do you know how to balance a checkbook? The world is much more complicated now. And I even feel as someone who went through PhD level and did a political economy, PhD,

thesis. Isn't that you? Yeah. I said as someone who did that there are still. I thought it's someone who knew. No, I don't just know her. I am her. But that there are even lessons that I should have gotten, certainly before I got to the graduate school level, but things that I am even missing on, you know, basic ability with financial planning. And it's part of the beauty of being in a relationship that you each bring certain things to the table. And my husband is really good with this. stuff. But you see this all the time, especially with athletes, right, that they show up and they're going to go to the NFL or the NBA or even at college now with NIL deals and they have no financial literacy, right? And they're going to blow all of their money in 20 minutes and not be

set up for the rest of their lives and they might only have a few good earning years. And I'm not putting them up there on a pedestal as like, oh, whoa is you. It's still incredible that you could earn that much money in that little amount of time. But this is a huge problem. I want to ask you, though, quickly if you think that there is any, I don't want to say merit to it, but like, do you think it matters that there are so many Republicans that are pushing Trump or pushing members of the administration about what's going on in the economy? Like Laura Ingram last night, you know, she's asking, what's this idea about a 50-year mortgages? I don't know if you thought that they're, you know, proposing that. I already mentioned that she brought up the price of beef. She says

the Republicans were demolished in the elections last week. Steve Bannon expressing similar sentiment. There's this guy, Sean Davis from the Daily Caller. He wrote, Republicans right now have no accomplishments, no plans, and no vision. Why on earth would anyone be excited to go vote for them 12 months from now? We cannot have a viable country or future when half your country and all its young people are locked out of the economy and locked out of ever owning a home or much of anything beyond next month's streaming subscription. Does anyone in Washington, care about this, anyone at all. And those are sentiments that I would not expect someone like Sean Davis. You probably don't know who he is, but he is very MAGA and usually very much in line putting that out there. So what do you make of those kinds of pushbacks on the administration? They're almost, you know, a day late and a dollar short. And that is as we get closer to the midterms, as his popularity goes down, and some as his power decreases, Republicans are finding their testicles. It's like when you see a Republican who's left office and goes on Marr and starts talking about how bad shit crazy the Republicans are. Those are my favorite episodes, but it's so disingenuous.

Yeah, and it's like, you know what? Where the fuck were you? It's like, you know, they're showing up and warning us about a fire, about fire safety after the house is burned down. It's like, you know what, that doesn't add any value now. Yeah, all of a sudden you're like hard hitting truth teller when it doesn't matter. So as his popularity goes down, as it becomes clear, he's not going to run again because he's probably going to start babbling even more, and he's going to start to look even more affirmed. Because again, biology is undefeated. I think you're going to see more of this. But I just want to go back to the idea of stimulus. The greatest intergenerational theft in history was the stimulus for COVID. And I understand what Yellen said and what Biden felt and to a certain extent

Trump, that you'd be much, you're better off overdoing it than underdoing it. But an analysis of the COVID stimulus checks, the CARES Act, show that these types of stimulus programs only work when they're means tested. The recipients of the stimulus that had over $3,000 in the bank didn't spend a cent of the CARES payments. And the analysis I've seen is that the $7 trillion or so of stimulus that was flushed in the economy, somewhere between 70 and 85% of it was not spent, meaning that the majority of people didn't need it. It wasn't spent on rent. It wasn't spent on food. But what it did do was flush so much capital in the market that people started thinking, in addition to spending more time at home, well, maybe I should upgrade and buy a

bigger home. Or I'm going to take this money, this stimulus money, and I'm going to buy Amazon stock. So what happened? The price of houses went from $290 to $4.10, which is great for the incumbents and terrible for the people trying to buy houses. And because of all this additional deficit spending, the market's got jittery about our ability in the future to pay back our T-bills. And you saw mortgage interest rates go from 3% to 6%. So what happens? The average mortgage, on an average home, pre-COVID, about $1,200, post-COVID, $2,300. So we doubled the price for entrance while increasing the asset base. of the incumbents. And then the market skyrocketed. And one of the key parts of the economic cycle

to transferring capital back from the incumbents to the entrance is to let the natural cycles of capitalism and world events register. What do I mean by that? In 2008, we bailed out the banks, but we didn't bail out the economy. 700 billion to bail out the banks. By the way, they got the money back. I think that was the right decision because that could have caused a financial panic. but they let businesses fail. And then what happened? People coming into their prime income earning years, maybe a professor who's starting to finally make some money,

can buy Amazon, Apple, and Facebook in a home at a good price, and then gets wealthy. And unless you let the market burn, all you're doing is entrenching the incumbents. When you bail out the baby boomer owner of a restaurant, all you're doing is robbing opportunity from the 26-year-old graduate of the Culinary Academy that wants her shot. And so what we've essentially decided is that the deficit and the full faith and credit of the government isn't there to make forward-leaning investments in technology and education that benefit future generations.

It's there to bail out the incumbents when a natural part of the cycle, whether it's war, famine, and natural disaster hits, that is a natural part of the economic cycle meant to transfer capital back from the incumbents who will always use their power for regulatory capture and get richer and richer and richer. So we've essentially said, sorry, not only you're not going to get to buy a house or a stock on sale, as we usually do through cycles, we're going to artificially support these prices on your credit card. So these stimulus, the best investments from the government are basically long-term investments that help the material and psychological well-being of Americans, whether it's universal child care or invest big, bold investments in technology like DARPA or vaccine research, putting that money into universal. so they can come up with better forms of chemotherapy and then it spills into the private sector, the pharmaceutical sector. But the idea of just a straight stimulus outside of a natural disaster, okay, maybe, but you should absolutely means tested because all you really do is take money from future generations because it's always deficit-fueled to entrench the incumbents. So again, these economic policies are so short-term and it just upsets me that people don't

have a basic understanding of economics and deficit spending and inflation such that they would say, no, this is a really bad idea. Okay, thank you. Not to mention the massive fraud that gets committed at these moments. I mean, the small business fraud, the, you know, all the money that went to public schools that didn't get spent as well. I'm not, I don't want to, I guess I shouldn't have said it right after because I'm not saying that it's fraud. But to your point, they're not using the money for what it was supposed to be allocated for or we overestimated the threat at that moment, right? Because they obviously didn't need to use it in that way. But our government is going to be clawing back money that people stole from the United States at a moment of crisis

for I don't even know how long. I mean, it's disgusting some of the things that people did. And you're right, without like a huge crisis moment, it is very hard to make the case that we should doing things like that. So I never missed an opportunity to virtue signal. Let's have it. How is Scott a good guy? I know. I know. What a guy. What a guy. Talarico call me. I'll show you the dark side. Anyway, pre-COid, I started a company called Section. And what Section does is it helps upskill corporations to better adopt and leverage AI. These corporations, a Nestle of PepsiCo spent a ton of money on-site licenses from OpenAI and then wake up six months later, and nobody's actually using it. So section goes in,

builds an AI layer, does seminars courses, and takes different departments and says, this is how you use AI to become more productive and efficient. And we raise, in 2019, we raised $37 million. Is that right? Yeah, $37 million. And then our board meeting, first COVID board meeting, or second COVID meeting, the CFO comes in and says, I just need you guys to, sign here and here, and I'm like, what is this? And it's CARES Act. All we need to do is sign this paperwork, and we're going to get $240,000. And all we have to agree to is that we won't lay off anybody for a year. So we just raised $37 million. We were not only not laying off people, we were hiring like crazy. By the way, there was never an audit done. You could, there was so much

fraud. You could take the money, fire people the next day, right? And to my board's credit, you know, we looked at each other and said, okay, everyone around this table is wealthy. We just raised $37 million. We don't need this. Yeah, we don't need this. And a quarter of a million dollars is about what a good public school spends on their entire after-school programming for the year. And one of the reasons I'll name check them, General Catalysts, this was not my experience with VCs. They looked at each other and looked at me and said, yeah, that makes sense.

We shouldn't take the money. I've never seen VCs act that way. I've never seen them. I've never seen them give up a nickel for the Commonwealth. Anyways, but there was so much money. I mean, do you remember Shake Shack was taking tens of millions for their individual restaurants? And they brought the CEO, and he's like, well, we're all in this together. And he's like, well, why the fuck is you taking money you don't need mean we're all in this together?

So these stimulus programs, I feel as if COVID or the CARES Act or the PPP program, were essentially nothing but an excuse to transfer money from the young to the old. And then it would have been somewhat legitimate if they'd said, okay, we were in a crisis here. We need to bail some people out. Fine. We need to overdo it. Get it. But now that the economy is really strong and ripping 12, 24 months later, we need an incremental, we need kind of a, we need to raise taxes to pay the $7 trillion back. Oh no, but that never happened. Why? Because, Because Congress is so fucking old that as long as they can outlast the 10 year before it crashes, they don't give a shit. And the people are going to actually have to pay this shit back.

You know, this is going to come. Anyways, we're going to take a quick break. But if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit subscribe. Our subscriber growth is great. We're still hoping that we need to get to a certain level to attract a certain quality of advertiser. And if you're listening on audio, head over to our YouTube channel for bonus content. Oh my gosh, I'm teasing it right now. Look at you.

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Search for The Long Game. wherever you get your podcasts. From the Vox Media Podcast Network. What was yesterday like in the neighborhood? It was terrible. You know, we lost quite a few people from our neighborhood. Someone mentioned in the chat, say, hey, they are targeting vans, working vans, and stopping people.

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But all the AI companies right now, whether it's open AI or anthropic or perplexity or even Google, would love to change the way you think about your browsers. Because if you do, they might win in big and important ways. This week on the Vergecast, we talk about why that's happening and why it's going to be a mess. Plus all of your smart home questions and lots more on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts. Welcome back. My man, my man, my general, my little soldier, Governor Newsom is calling out his own party for walking away. That's a direct quote from the masculinity crisis facing men and boys. Over the weekend, he said rising suicide rates, school dropouts, and suspensions are, open, quote, off the charts, close quote.

I can confirm that's true, and warn Democrats can't afford morally or politically to ignore it. Let's take a listen to what Governor Newsom said on CNN. I'm really proud of the work we're doing with Richard Reeves and others. Scott Galloway has been a rock star in this space. We've leaned in, California, we did an executive order. We've got a whole team working on the issue of the crisis of men and boys. The suicide rates, the dropout rates, the suspension rates are off the charts. You're going to see graduation, almost two to one women.

four-year colleges in a few years. This is a crisis. 30-year-old young males doing worse than his parents did, first generation in history. And obviously, college graduates now are having the worst employment opportunities in history. So Trump has done nothing to your question, literally nothing for men and boys. So, Jess, first of all, is that your favorite voice to hear, say, Scott Galloway? That, that, that girl gravel. I didn't even hear. hear when he called me a rock star. And I just want to acknowledge to our listeners to listen, to have to listen to me host a podcast where I cut to an interview where I get name check is

literally shavings of shit on a shit salad. So I just want you to know, I'm a narcissist, but I am in touch with my narcissism. Jess, do you think Governor Newsom of the party more broadly can actually talk about masculinity without it turning into a bit of a, I don't know, a culture war? Do you think this is a good strategy? I do. I think that last week, the elections were a roadmap back towards this because they weren't actually talking about masculinity. They talked about affordability without social issues. That's the thing. It's like the only, what did you say during the election or afterwards, the only color that matters to people is green?

So if you're giving people opportunity, if you're saying, I hear you, I understand what your life is like. These are the things that I'm going to do to make it better. I'm going to build more affordable housing. I'm going to cut red tape. I'm going to make sure there are apprenticeship programs. You need to get your GED. I'm going to help you do that. I'm going to make sure that there are more mentors out in the field.

That's what the California, the executive order that he's talking about there, was about unleashing mentors and people that folks could look up to out into the general public to make sure that young men felt like they had someone to look up to and who actually cared about them. Like, you can do all of those things without actually having a couple of. conversation where you're explicitly saying this is my program, you know, for men and boys, right? Your program is to get you on your path to having a good life. And that starts with economic opportunity. And I think that Democrats absolutely nailed that messaging for the elections last week. I just want to say, you know, returning to normal levels with black men, which was one of

the big swing categories for the 2024 election towards Trump, Latino men, young men coming back It wasn't as big as the shift, you know, it was like plus 40 with young women. But in the mom-dani election here in New York, it was plus 40 with young men, right, who showed up for him. So obviously he was doing something right. And that thing that he was doing right was saying New York has to be a place where you can afford to live and to have a decent life. So I am optimistic on this front. But you are, you know, mid-book tour talking masculinity all over the place. How are you feeling?

Well, it's definitely, it's better to be lucky than good. And, you know, I'm kind of going into a storm with my sales up in the form of the book, and there's just a lot of wins. So I've gotten lucky here. This is a conversation that people were kind of ready to have. And I've gotten some really, I think, thoughtful pushback, you know, that these issues are real, but they've been real for women for 3,000 years. And is this, is this? just another attempt to check back on the progress of women with sort of a thoughtful, you know, argument that basically might arrest the progress of women. And I don't believe that's true. I don't believe it's a zero-sum game. But the reviews of the book are generally kind, but there's generally, like, the driver I saw in the election results was age more than gender or identity. Young people are just fed up, and they just want change. And Cuomo represented, you know, but status quo. But I've gotten a lot of, you know, thoughtful feedback on things like Scott's answer to everything is for men to be economically viable because he is obsessed with money. That's a

direct quote. And I think there's some truth to that. I've always been, I'm very focused on economic security and on men being providers in a capitalist society. But this woman who's a psychiatrist is saying a lot of these men, if they achieve economic security, if they don't find other means of purpose and self-satisfaction, they end up on my couch. And that also that I recommend finding a girlfriend and that if they don't understand themselves and love themselves first, that they still end up in bad relationships. And I hadn't quite frankly, I still think bad relationships are better than no relationship because you learn from them. And I mean, of course, not an abusive relationship, but. Just a normal, like, we spent a year together and it

didn't work out. Yeah. It happens. I think that helps you figure out how to behave better or how to be more patient or what you're looking for or what you're not looking for. You know, I think that stuff, I think I've got to try on some stuff before you find something that fits and vice versa. I think it's also good to get your heart broken and occasionally break a heart. I was mostly in the former camp. But I'm getting a lot of, a lot of feedback. And some of it is very thoughtful and some of it makes me, you know, pause and think about, all right, how do we ensure, I don't know, it's like Dr. King said, you need to bring along the white poor in this moment, and I'm very focused on how, and so far, so far we've mostly achieved this, but how does the message resonate enough

to bring along feminists? Because what I think we mistake sometimes is the center of conflict. And we like to think the center of conflict, because it's easier, is between people of different identities, that this is a fight between, the genders do a great job of convincing themselves. It's the other gender's fault. We oftentimes couch men versus women, men's problems versus women's problems. And I think if you actually look at what's going on, it's sort of liberal versus illiberal thoughts. So Title IX, which lifted women up and said we can, anti-discrimination law to be meant to promote women's entrance or admissions into college when it was 40-60 female to male. Now at 60-40, there's no talk of affirmative action.

for men, and I don't think there should be. But I think it's important to acknowledge that 50 years ago, when that law was passed, it was passed by electoral bodies that were 97% male. There's been a lot of men on women's side for a long time, and there's been a lot of women, quite frankly, who are part of the patriarchy. I think Donald Trump kind of represents her as a decent evangelist for the patriarchy, and 54% of white women went for Trump. And he also has elevated women to enormously power. positions of power. But that's always the contrast within him that people who like him will point out to me. And I'm like, yeah, both of these things can be true, that he can be a misogynist and Susie Wiles is the first female chief of staff. Yeah. Yeah, but what I would argue is it's not about whether you have women or non-whites in your cabinet. It's about whether you have people who are qualified and, quite frankly, aren't corrupt. It's great to have a female attorney general, but if she's corrupt and it's basically acting as personal attorney.

So I just, I find that on these issues, it's essentially the division here is between liberal and illiberal. It's between people who want to go back to the 50s and people who think, you know, we need to advance the rights or be empathetic, whatever the term is. But I think it's really unproductive to continually couch everything. So, for example, I've been thinking a lot about this, that the best thing we could do for young men is just to put more money in the pockets of young people, and the easiest way to create, put money in the pockets of young people is not an increasing minimum wage,

but universal child care, which most people associate with a program that somewhat would benefit women more than men. I don't think that's true. I think it would benefit young families and actually reduce the economic strain and reduce divorce levels and reduce the levels of self-harm among men who seem to be much more prone to self-harm after divorce than women. 70% of divorce filings are from women. Basically, men have not kept pace with women in terms of their assent. And a lot of women wake up and do the math and say, I'm out. You're neither a provider or doing your job as a procreator.

And I mean, helping to take care of the kids at home and support me, and I'm better at this money thing. They just do the math and they're out. So I think universal child care that makes it easier for dual income homes and takes financial stress off of young families. In some ways, would actually be, you know, as beneficial, maybe more beneficial to young men. who benefit more from relationships.

Anyways, I'm getting a lot of really good feedback. Some of it hurts, and what I find, and I'll end here, the lesson around feedback is that if it hits you hard and you get defensive, that probably means there's some truth to it. Because it's the criticism that's accurate. I have found I go through this every semester at school. The students give you very detailed feedback. And when they're paying $7,000 to sit in a chair amongst 160 kids and listen to you, talk about strategy or brand, they will give you very robust feedback on whether they feel they

got their $7,000 worth. And the feedback that really hurts is the feedback that is accurate, that, you know, it kind of cuts to your soul. And so what I've, anyways, my lesson of young people is that if someone's mean or stupid or says something, fine, that should just roll right off you. This person is angry or trying to lash out. But if feedback immediately you check back and you get defensive, it's probably because there's some truth there and you just need to take a beat and absorb it. Anyways, here you are with Astaire Perel. You didn't know. You didn't know. I didn't know. That's what I was going to get this morning. But I'm thrilled to see you, lady. I love you. I'm glad to hear you kind of, you know, talk about the swirl around the book

because obviously, you know, there have been some fancy ink spilled about it, like in the New Yorker. And how I see it as someone who identifies as a feminist is that there's this clash going on between traditional feminism and more modern day feminism, which sometimes is called intersectional feminism, where, you know, economic opportunity is the silver bullet that kind of rises all tides, right, or that all the tides rise all boats. And this is what Bernie Sanders was arguing against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, which was when I became, you know, first aware of this shift going from Gloria Steinem to, you know, what modern day feminism looks like more and, you know, the elements of allyship in it. And I at least from the New Yorker piece felt like I don't know how you took it. But I saw it more as contextualizing you and Richard Reeves in the broader conversation rather than attacking. you. I certainly have seen people that have attached you. Yeah, I thought it was quite thoughtful and kind of going through the history of this and where the conversation is. So I thought that that was

a bit of a feather in your cabin. It's obviously a big deal when the New Yorker wants to write about your book. But, you know, what you said about universal child care really resonates to me, not only as a New Yorker who's hopefully going to get that because it's one of Mondani's, you know, main promises and Universal Pre-K was such a boon for our community. And now that plan has been outsourced all over the country. But I feel like when a lot of these, I don't want to just say more traditional feminists, but even when our high-end culture is discussing what goes on at home these days, like in the pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, that they have a very outdated vision of what. rearing a family looks like today, that millennial dads do three times the level of child care work than their boomer fathers did, which is a massive amount. And I am not here to say that it is even Stevens at all. But, I mean, you know what 40-year-old dads are like now. And they are as likely, at least the ones that I know and certainly the one I'm married to, that if they hear a cry, that they're getting up as if their wife or partner is getting up.

And I think that that has been lost in the conversation, much to the detriment of all of us, frankly, that are trying to forge a better path where we can have dual income households and earn as much as possible and also enjoy having these families as much as possible. Because, you know, the moments where I'm alone with my girls, you know, we have a great time and we do girls weekend and it's cute and we have a little dance. But when you're actually with your full unit and everybody is as enmeshed in it or dedicated to it as possible, it hits differently, you know, those moments and you've described it as when the four of you are sitting on the couch watching something together and your legs are all intertwined and it feels like you're really connected to one another, that those are when you're most at peace. That's what you said in your 92nd Street, why talk last week with Ben Stiller, and it really stuck with me. And I feel like that element of it is kind of missing from some of the discussion around the masculinity crisis or where we are. I mean, your provider, protector, procreator model, you said these are qualities that can be applied to women as well. It really wasn't about, you know, like pushing women down so that men can get up. It was like, how can we all rise together? Or at least that's how I read it. I did an hour-long interview with Nicole Wallace, who I adore, and she asked me for some examples of masculinity or role models.

And one of the role models I gave was Secretary Clinton. She just has this very strong code. It's always been about protecting people, domestically, internationally, specifically children. And that's the clip they played at the top. And you cannot, that's where the comments got really ugly. Oh, really? She really inspires a lot of, I just have never understood. Anyways, yeah, it's a, look, I should bring us back.

Do you think that this is a good idea for Newsom, for Governor Newsom, and by the way, he's gone from, on Calci, Newsom's chances of winning the next election are at 21% and that's up from just 10% in June. I think he's the leading candidate right now. Now, granted, you don't want to be the leading candidate. Very rarely has a candidate who's at the top of the polls this early. I'll go on to win. Some of the people that were leading, my favorite is some of the people who are leading.

in the polls in the Republican race. Herman Kane, remember him? I do. Fred Thompson from Law and Order fame. Rudy Giuliani was the leader early on. So you just, it's almost, it's almost, it's not a curse, but you want to be, you don't want to peek this early, and I don't think he's doing that.

What he's doing is so necessary that, I mean, the party needed someone to kind of coalesce around, and he's showing the way on how you can, back and fight back effectively. I mean, we just got a big win in Utah on the redistricting front. It looks like now it's basically going to be a wash, whatever, even if the Republicans get their best map. And Newsom was the first person to stand up and just say, like, not on my watch. And Prop 50, the margins are crazy. I think it's at like 28 or something right now. So, yeah, I think it's the right thing. I think you can always gauge by how well you're doing with how much the right. is attacking you. And I have to talk about that about Newsom every single day, which means you are doing a good job. So I think, you know, he's identifying core issues that bedeviled us in the 2024 election. And, you know, we'll see the primary is going to be huge. There are going to be a lot of people up on that stage with very compelling cases to make. But I think that Newsom being able to say, I've been in this fight since Donald Trump. got reelected, and these are the wins that I can show you up on the board will make him a compelling candidate for a lot of people. And they respect how hard he's going. We have to talk about James Talarico being a little horn. All right, but first let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

before we go is just referenced two stories we couldn't resist talking about. First in Texas, Democratic Senate candidate James Tallerico, who's built his campaign around faith and moral values, is under fire for following several adult film stars and only fans' models on Instagram. His team says it's just

part of engaging with high followers come on, brother. Come on, we feel you. We feel you. Nobody minds a little horny Christian man, but it's not exactly the kind of Christian values. headline he was hoping for. I got it.

I got a bounce. I love the story. I love him. And in Washington. Right. He was fabulous when he came on. He's so great. He's great.

And in Washington, plastic surgeons say Trump World is literally reshaping itself with a surge of request for what they're calling the Mar-a-Lago face. I think gold-leafed energy means Botox maximalism.

Surgeons say the look is all about being over the top, a kind of physical reflection of Trump's aesthetic. Jess, let's start with Tala Rico following. Why does this make me happy, Jess? Because he's like a normal dude, and we've been craving normal dudes. Okay, first off, any guy who spent a lot of time in a church and isn't horny for women, okay, I should probably keep away from this one. This is a good sign.

This is healthy. Anyway, I promised for this stuff I wasn't going to say anything here. What do you think here, Jess? This is the Maraschino cherry of the episode. You weren't going to say anything. like this is the fact that this was a scoop kills me like obviously in the commercialization of news we have gone too far and everything is breaking news major update and then it's like somebody went to the bathroom but like this of all things to be something that all over social media is so ludicrous and i mean the things that we've seen on the things that we've seen on the other side that people have, you know, just accepted. I'm not even talking about, like, I follow some hot girls online, but like, I literally, you know, cheat on every wife that I've had.

It doesn't even matter if they're pregnant at the time. And there, the thought was that we were going to get upset about this. I've literally seen not a single negative comment. Adam Mockler, the YouTuber, who we both really, like, posted breaking. James Talariko revealed to be a chill-ass dude like he also follows i think like 3 500 people it wasn't like he has an account that only follows naked women i would probably think that was a little bit weird or he should have not had that attached to his actual name but like i don't i don't want to be like boys will be boys maybe that's a toxic thing to say but who cares he's like a 36 year old guy likes to look at pretty girls i'm all for it yeah i don't i think this actually this actually uh helps him

Helps them. Call it all reds. Start following all the naked ladies. I'm convinced that essentially Instagram is either wealth porn or just porn. Or actual porn. I'm convinced their greatest sign-ups are when U-Porn crashes. It's like, well, I don't got you porn, but I got Instagram. And so I don't, I think this helps them. I think this puts them in the news. I think he comes across as a red-blooded male. I think he's doing exactly what he should be doing.

I don't, you know, I don't think there's anything. I don't think. Anyway, I think this helps them. James, we support you. Come back on and show us your friends. Seriously, dude. I'm just so dying to roll with this guy. So the Mar-a-Lago face. What do you think? So this has been going on for a while. And I think it was New York MAG after Trump got elected that did a whole thing on, like, Republican face. I don't know if they had an actual name for it, but like the Caroline Levitt. And this was how it applied to younger women. But whenever. you see those pictures from like a great Gatsby party at Marilago while the government is shut down and people are starving, you notice that they all look the same and not in the good way. So it doesn't surprise me. It's like they're a Kardashian is Donald Trump.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, my plastic surgeon suggested a scrotum lift. He said it was low-hanging fruit. I couldn't resist. You knew it was coming. You knew. You knew. No, actually, I didn't think that we were going to talk about your scrotum. So my mistake. So let's talk about plastic surgery or cosmetic trimies. I'll go first. I get Botox. I'm actually crying right now.

You just can't tell. Do you get Botox? You're on TV. Yeah, I do. Actually, the nurse who was working in the office where I get Botx is a fan of the pod. I found out. Yes. Do you get numbing cream or no numbing cream?

Oh, are you kidding? I'm a dude. I'm the biggest wimp in the world. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to say you don't because you're a dude. I'm like, we're talking about you getting Botox. Women have a much higher tolerance for pain because they have to endure childbirth. Guys and anyone in a plastic surgeon's office or a cosmetic or anyone will say, oh, yeah, the dudes don't do well with pain. I go in and I get fully numbed up. And then my doctor comes in, Dr. Anilic, he makes a few jokes and then throw some needles in my face and charges me $6,000.

I also get the pico laser, which I think makes me look 59 again. And I love him because he's super quick. He's kind of the, I don't know, the cosmetic, whatever, cosmetic dermatologist to the stars. No, no, he's here. Oh, should I be lying there? I do like my face, though, but. The thing I love about him is he just kind of comes in. He doesn't even tell you what he's going to do.

He's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom. All right, see you next, you know, see you next fall or whatever. But it's, yeah, I never thought. would do shit like that. Now I don't. Yeah, as well, you start out, you're like, I'm going to be an academic. I'll wear, you know, blazers with elbow patches. And now you're like, inject me anywhere that you possibly can to make sure that I look. 100%. I was with, um, I was with my partner and she was putting on makeup. And I said, sweet, I said, sweetheart, you don't need makeup. And she's like, oh, thanks. I'm like, you need plastic surgery.

Is that wrong? Yeah. Is that wrong? It's really wrong. And she legitimately doesn't need plastic surgery. She's beautiful skin. Yeah. I hope she's listening to that.

All right. I'll try and fix it then if she is listening. Okay. Well, yeah. My family has absolutely no interest in what I do professionally, which is probably healthy for all of us. Anyways, that's all for this episode, folks. Thank you for listening to Raging Month. moderates. And Jess, have a great rest of the week. Yeah. Have a great rest of your tour and then take a nap.