The Chris Cuomo Project - Why Scott Galloway Says the LA Protests HELP Trump

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Scott Galloway (author, entrepreneur, Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business, and podcast host of The Prof G Pod and Pivot) joins Chris Cuomo to unpack the political chaos surrounding the protests in Los Angeles and the federal government’s response. Cuomo and Galloway break down how both major parties are using the situation for political gain, why President Trump’s immigration crackdown is strategically timed, and how California Governor Gavin Newsom’s role could shape the future of the Democratic Party. Their conversation covers the risks of escalating authoritarian rhetoric, the economic roots of national division, and Galloway’s warning that America may be echoing the political tactics of 1930s Germany. He also makes the case for national service and explains why young men are becoming politically disillusioned, while Cuomo continues his longstanding critique of the two-party system and its destructive influence on American politics. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's happening all over the country with these protests or riots and all of the back and forth? Wrong question. Why is it happening? I know the answer and I'm talking to someone who's going to blow you away about it. Chris Cuomo here. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. We are desperate, not for an understanding of what's wrong. We see it all over and you're probably starting to disengage from it again. But why it's happening and how to make it better? Now we're talking about something that's worthwhile. Scott Galloway, entrepreneur, philosopher, social commentator, he's watching and he sees what's going on and he knows what should be done about it. But it seems that he is one of the few, not the many. And so I wanted to sit down with my friend, with my influence, with my compadre and talk

to Scott Galloway about what's happening in LA, who's winning, why they're winning, what to do about it, what's behind it. But most importantly for me, what we're not talking about while we're obsessed with this division in the moment. And I'm telling you, it is all manufactured. So what do you say? Scott Galloway, stuff you haven't thought of. Let's get after it. Scott Galloway, I love you. I appreciate you. I respect you and we need you and thank you for putting out what you've been putting out. Thanks brother. It means a lot coming from you. I feel the same way about you. You're the only, you're the

only, you're one of the few newscasters that I retweet pretty consistently. I like you. If I had to identify, is this true? People ask me what media companies are straight down the middle, and I say the Wall Street Journal. I actually think NPR is actually, they're liberal but they're self-hating liberals, so they always try and do a good job of giving the conservative side.

But I think you're as close to kind of straight down the middle as a person I could identify right now in the podcast world. Would you agree with that? Have people accused you of that before? People have certainly accused me of many things. Of that, probably not, but it is not a good brand strategy to not be picking a side.

Everybody hates you. Right now, and that's fine because I can't adjust and move fast enough to play that game even if I wanted to. And you know, over time, that part of me has just kind of died in terms of being responsive to what people say. So much of what is said nice and not nice is fake that, you know, I just don't care anymore.

Like, for instance, and a lens on the now. In assessing what's happening in Los Angeles specifically, but, you know, you see it in Philly, you see it in New York, and when Trump has his parade that's for the military, but for him, we're gonna see another wave of it. It is incredible, it's not incredible, but it is ridiculous to me how everybody is viewing what's happening through the lens of their own advantage.

Luckily, you got the majority who are sitting back and saying, I don't understand why I don't appreciate what's happening the way these people seem to want me to. That's the best thing we have going for ourselves, Scott, because it means that they're still reasonable, they're still critical thinkers and they know it doesn't make sense how people are obviously trying to foment situations for their own advantage.

Do you see that? Do you perceive that? Yeah, well, I find that, if we want to talk about what's going on in LA, it feels like both sides are looking for a TikTok moment that makes the other side look like either fascists or that they're out of control insurrectionists sowing civil distress that don't have or ignoring federal immigration laws, whatever it might be.

Everyone, it doesn't seem like anyone's actually interested in coming together and solving a problem. They're there to try and deposition the other. And you know my politics, I'm center left. I find that what's going on in LA is basically showing up and trying to fix a, I don't know, a smoke alarm with a flamethrower. I just don't see why we would want to escalate or why the president and Hegsath. In 1992, I came home from graduate school during the Rodney King riots to visit my mom,

and there was servicemen and servicewomen, and they looked like high schoolers, but they were in military fatigues with M-15s or whatever they used to carry back then, on my street corner in a suburb. And I remember thinking that it sort of, it basically feels like when a nation is failing. You have to put tanks on civilian roads, so you have to put our men and women in uniform. And so I don't, I think it's trying to rebrand patriotism with authoritarianism. So I see more fault from the coming from the president here. I think what's interesting, and I'd be curious to your take, I think it's sort of positions

Governor Newsom as a more viable nominee for the Democratic ticket, because I think it's shaping up that this is sort of two political philosophies hitting head on. And I think it's very unproductive. I think it's trying to tempt fate. And when I think of the job of the president and the governor, especially the president, you have, or a grown man, or when you get to a certain level of professional success.

The biggest compliment I get, I serve on several public and private company boards, is occasionally I serve as the intermediary between the board and the CEO when they're not getting along. And that's a really, that's a wonderful role to serve because it's saying that both parties will listen to you. The president of the United States is often called on to de-escalate skirmishes between

Pakistan and India or Iran and Iraq or the Middle East to just try and calm, take the temperature down. And that's what real men do in bars when there's a fight. They take the temperature down, they break up fights. And here we have what feels to me, and I hold the president more culpable here, he's trying to start a fight where there doesn't need to be one. I don't see, and I'd love to hear the steelman argument from you, but do we really need the National Guard and threats of deploying Marines right now in Los Angeles? I don't get the sense that there's really a need for this. It is absolutely not a need.

It is a want. And he wants it. This is a wet dream for him, what's happening right now. This is a perfect, legitimate, justifiable distraction from economic uncertainty and downturn that is not only on his watch, it is his fault. Nothing that he needs to focus on is going well. This is such a great proxy for MAGA. Look at these crazy lefties with their pro-Palestine,

they're protesting against ICE nominally, which I think there are totally righteous and legal reasons to protest what the administration is forcing ICE to do right now. I don't blame the agents, but the mandate is way too broad and too accelerated. But this is a great look for Trump. It is shallow aggression and macho and MAGA people, and then probably plus 25% on top of them, are pissed off by riots that pose as protests

and the left burning up cities and burning up cop cars like they did during George Floyd, and the left is giving Trump what he needs in terms of the want of his distraction campaign. Yeah, so a lot there. So I would agree with you that Democrats, I would argue our hearts in the right place. We go too far and we kind of invite,

we stick our chin out and invite an overreaction. And you invite the wrong people to the party. You invite the wrong people to the party. That's the problem with these protests is that these Guy Fawkes masks show up. The Antifa show up. The pro-pal slash pro-Hamas show up, people with their own country flags show up,

and it winds up diluting a righteous and rightful pushback against what ICE is doing in a lot of communities, which I do think is worthy of scrutiny, and they blow it, in my opinion. But I always go back to, you know, I'm one of these old men now. I'll watch anything starring Hitler. I stay up all night watching documentaries on World War II.

And I have said, and I've gotten a lot of pushback, that I'm being hysterical, is that I think America has a lot of similarities with 30s Germany right now. And if you look at early Nazi propaganda, it was very much emphasized that the real problems were internal, that it was saboteurs, communists, Jews, immigrants who were the problem. And when we have real, I think, issues with Russian troops and a murderous autocrat invading Europe, China stealing IP, I think some of Trump's instincts were right around an asymmetric trade relationship.

Iran spinning up its nuclear capabilities. I think we have real issues overseas, but instead of dealing with those hard problems or distracting from this tax bill, which I just see as the biggest transfer of wealth from rich to poor, young to old, from the future to the past. It seems like he's taken, and you don't have to be Hitler to take notes from the playbook of the 30s that were very successful, in that he's blaming immigrants, protesters, journalists, academics, it mirrors sort of the same playbook

and it takes me to a very dark place. And I worry that, you know, everyone thinks of America as just being so big and bold that America, you know, America ends with a civil war and it goes out with a bang. I think America could very easily kind of go out of business with a whimper, and it goes something like this. And I think this is a step towards it, or a potential piece on the chessboard.

And that is, Governor Newsom says, look, fuck it, I'm sick of sending $80 billion for you to deploy national troops against peaceful protests. We're no longer going to... They're a net creditor to the US government. They send $80 billion more than they take. And Texas takes $70 billion more than it sends. And Governor Newsom is, we're sick of this. And then, or Texas, if say Governor Newsom or a Mayor

Peter elected in the president in 2028, say we aren't certifying the election. We're not, we don't sign up for this president. And then slowly but surely you have California, which is the fourth largest economy in the world. Tech-based economy does a lot of trade with Asia. The South Texas leads an oil-based economy that does a lot of trade with the Middle East and Latin

America. The East Coast becomes very Europe-centric, a lot of trade, a lot of financial services, a lot of tech. Midwest becomes a manufacturing economy. Its strongest trading partners become Mexico and Canada. And then they develop their own currencies. They do what DeSantis did in 2022, weaponize or deputize civilians. And we essentially become the European Union, and that is kind of a series of member states.

And America kind of breaks apart with sort of hushed tones without like a lot of sirens, but sort of just, you know, very kind of background, you know, white noise. So I look at this stuff, I look at 30s Germany, and I look at how America ends, and I find this stuff really, really frightening. I think the winner here is probably Governor Newsom because the little, what I have seen of him is he's been, I think, fairly forceful yet dignified. And, but I don't, you know, I just hope at all the temperature gets taken down.

Because when I talk to my friends, I grew up in LA, when I talk to my friends, they're like, and maybe it's because they're privileged and they live in good neighborhoods, like I don't see any real problem. The protests I've seen have been pretty peaceful. Well, look, there's plenty of bad shit going on. It's always like that.

And it is what you want to see if you want to see protests you see protests You want to see people who are harming people and property and going after? Cop cars and everything else that's there too. Is it by percentage? It doesn't matter once once there's any of it You can see whatever you want to see. So are they protest? Yes. Are they largely protest? Yes. Are they only protest? No. Does Newsome win? Depends on the lens.

His party, what the people in the streets want, he is not their guy. And for him, this could go two ways. One, his state's on fire again, Scott, and he doesn't seem to be in control of it. And that is fair. He doesn't seem to be in control of it. And that is fair. He doesn't seem to be in control.

Him versus Holman is a decent look for him. We'll see how he handles it. I think Newsom does way too much lefty media. He's got to expose himself to less safe harbors. He can't just be talking to every little you know, little bookish MS, you know, correspondent they send out there. But his party isn't where he is. That's why he's been trying to distance himself

from the party, I get it. My review of it is on a macro level that you look at it, I see why you see what you see, although it's interesting because the founding fathers, many of them wanted exactly what you're describing. I mean, even Jefferson, you know, a lot of them wanted this loose association of member states.

But I think federalism has a lot of pluses for us, but let's put that to the side. America is unique in one way that really matters right now, versus the EU, versus the Middle East, South America, pretty much any other conglomerate you can look at. We make up our own problems here. Nobody else does it to the degree that we do. Everybody else that's dealing with real shit, even Russia,

they have real problems that are a threat to them. We have made ours up. Our culture wars, what's going on in Los Angeles, this is completely contrived, Scott. We don't have a murderous horde of illegal entrants in this country right now that are creating tension for our own safety. Transports, reproductive rights,

the legitimacy of our elections, these are all manufactured things. Lake and Riley, you should see how MAGA goes crazy when I say the following thing, and I'll do it again, because I love dumb and crazy. It's my favorite combination when I'm sparring, someone who's really angry and I know hasn't studied what we're about to do.

This is gonna be great, because it's all emotion and no technique, and I'm gonna take them right down. Lake and Riley mattered. Her family's pain matters. But if you care about who's killing Lake and Riley's in this country, you'll never arrive at a legal entrance. And they say, one is too many.

And I'm so mad at you for not seeing that one is too many. That is not a standard that we apply anywhere. And they'll grandstand and say, but it matters. They shouldn't be here. It's always been that way. We've always had people in this country who didn't come in legally. Should you limit it?

Of course. But the idea that that's the boogeyman to focus on is propaganda. But we make it up, Scott. That's what makes us different. We make it up here. Yeah, we're definitely, if this is a horror film,

a call is coming from inside of the house. We're energy independent, we're food independent, we have unparalleled natural resources. We're the largest if this is a horror film, a call's coming from inside of the house. We're energy-independent, we're food-independent, we have unparalleled natural resources. We're the largest oil producer in the world and the largest producer of chips for AIs. We cover the whole stack from a blessing, an unheard blessing of commodities to being able to create the best IP in the world

through our universities that result in exports that get 95 points of gross margin. Our stock market has been absolutely unparalleled. We used to be 10% of the world's GDP. Now we're a quarter of it. Demographically, we're actually look pretty good versus other Western nations. Friendly Canada to the north,

harmless Mexico to the south. Our problems are of our own, absolutely of our own manufacturing. Support comes from AG1. Listen, what happens when you stop taking AG1? You know what? Sometimes it's worth trying. You'll notice the difference.

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with your first order. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com slash ccp for the Chris Cuomo project. And get started with AG1's Next Gen. Notice the benefits for yourself. That's drinkag1.com. Look where Trump is right now in this moment. Strong bringing in the military to stop what a governor who's a lefty doesn't seem to be able to control all these people going after government agents for enforcing the law. This is law and order. And what aren't we talking about?

That crazy shit with him and Elon, the economy, the fact that everyone I know who invests believes that everything's been frontloaded and Q3 is going to absolutely be a recession and everything's been front-loaded and Q3 is gonna absolutely be a recession and everything's gonna look terrible and we're gonna have a horrible Q3, Q4. We're not talking about any of that. The fact that Ukraine is getting pummeled right now, the fact that Gaza is getting pummeled right now, no one's talking about any of that

because Trump looks strong in LA and he will play this out as long as he can and this parade on Saturday is gonna be a very formative moment. Yeah the parade what's going on in LA, the trot, even the Elon stuff, it's all what I call weapons of mass distraction because I think he recognizes that the most politically unsavory thing he's doing for his voter base is if they wake up and realize that we're about to register just a I mean I uploaded the tax plan into chat GPT yesterday and I asked it to summarize it I did

two things and it came back with a summary it said this is authoritarianism wrapped in bureaucratic language it focused on the transfer of power from civil servants who are career appointees to trump appointees that was the first thinget GBT zeroed in on. It also told me that I'm gonna save about 1.2 million dollars and I figured out meanwhile the reason I'm in a position to make this much money is because I got the chance to go to college because of something called Pell Grants because I came from a home that had that was in the lowest quartile of income-earning homes. And in this bill, a third of Pell Grant recipients are going to have their grant amount reduced or eliminated.

And I think you're just going to see – I mean, I've heard anywhere from 7 to 14 million people being thrown off of Medicaid rolls. I mean, this really is a bill. And I said, what percentage of the population is going to get a tax cut? And it said between 5% and 12% of the top will get a tax cut. Depending on your situation around state and local taxes, the middle will either be kind of even or negative. But the bottom half is definitely going to see most likely a tax increase. And then the biggest tax increase

is going to happen on future generations who will have to manage an unsustainable debt load. I mean, deficits, the Democrats don't do a good job of labeling what deficits are. They're just taxes on your kids. Kids are going to have to pay them back. So I think I agree with you. I think that immigration is still his most popular subject matter, and he absolutely wants to get people to look away from this tax bill,

which is really, really going after his core constituents. When you look at the people this is going to hurt the most, it's very much people in red states. So I think he doesn't want people to focus on the GOP tax bill and, as you said, manufacturing kind of these distractions. And he's getting exactly what he wants. And the left is handing it to them. And again, like you said it very well, your heart's in the right place.

ICE is doing what it's told to do. Trump is trying to get rid of too many people, too easily, too quickly. Now, is that a legitimate criticism? Yes. Is it a politically saleable one? Maybe. You'd have to go heavy on the due process side and you would have to create an appeal for a group of people that are easy to fear and hate. A legal entrance. And on the gross political level, Trump wins this current fight.

Why? So you're protesting against ICE that is trying to enforce the law and get rid of people who aren't here legally, many of whom have done shady shit. Yes, I'm protesting it. So you're against enforcing the law. Yeah, I'm against it with some of these people. Yeah, I'm against it. Okay you're against enforcing the law. Yeah, I'm against it with some of these people.

Yeah, I'm against it. Okay, so then you're a scofflaw and you're not a real patriot and I am. Trump wins. If you can get to the next level of it. Well, you said it was just bad hombres. And you're not just sweeping up bad hombres. You're screwing with the connective tissue in a lot of communities. One, a lot of white Americans and Trump voters don't see it that way or don't realize that.

And two, it's not as politically powerful as being law and order. So there are legitimate reasons to be going at ICE and how they're being used. 100%. I'm going to do it tonight on the show. I'm gonna do it with Tom Homan on the show. That's not what these look like. These look like pro, I don't know why they let the pro-Palestinian people be at the head of this. Why would they do that?

Why would they make it so easy to create resistance? They should have American flags, not Mexican flags, but we don't really want to have an honest conversation around this. And I mean, we constantly say we're a nation of immigrants, right? But what people don't want to have an honest conversation around is one, the most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration, because they come in, they pay social security

taxes, but they typically don't stick around for Social Security. Because they're worried about being rounded up in aggregate, they commit crimes and have a, they tax to a lesser extent our Social Services. Yep. They don't even, they don't like to go to the emergency room. They don't like to call the police. They don't, they pay taxes, but they don't use Social Services. And they are a flexible workforce, the likes of which they come in, pick our crops, take

care of grandma, and when the jobs drive up or the recession or the economy goes down, at which point a lot of Americans start to become socially expensive through welfare or other benefits, they oftentimes melt back into their own country. And if we were serious about illegal immigration, we would go after the demand side. And if you show up, 25% of fast food workers in a lot of regions in our country are undocumented workers.

If you showed up to McDonald's or Chick-fil-A and said, we're gonna do random spot checks, and if you have over 3% of your workforce is illegal immigrants, we're gonna find you a million bucks a day. They would stop, they would figure out biometric ways to screen for undocumented workers, and once the jobs weren't here, they would stop, they would figure out biometric ways to screen for undocumented workers. And once the jobs weren't here, they would leave.

That would be the most efficient means of self-deportation. But the thing is, we don't want to go after those nice business owners, right? And also, the reality is, we didn't wake up and have whatever it is, 20 or 30 million, whatever number you want to buy of undocumented workers. This has been profitable for us. They're this flexible, low cost, low wage workforce that is actually quite skilled relative to what they charge.

But we don't want to have an honest conversation and Democrats appear to be, you know, Democrats screwed up that terrible imagery of handing out phone cards and Harris Wall's hats and getting them hotel rooms when some Americans can't afford their own housing. We invited this, we stuck out a chin and this fist of stone of this overreaction

where they started demonizing immigrants came in. But it just feels like no one really wants to have an honest conversation. No, they wanna win, they wanna win Scott. They want advantage over the other side. I am obsessed with this and of all of my frustrations about my professional self. This is at the top of the list.

I know I am right, not just in a simple way, in a profound way, that the party system, the two party system, the binary system, and its zero-sum nature is killing us. I know I am right every different mode of analysis, whether you look at it through the historic lens. Washington took almost a quarter of his farewell address that was written with Madison first and then Hamilton to deliver that message. Sectarian will kill you, parties will kill

you. We saw it again and again with Monroe and Teddy Roosevelt and presidents and great thinkers. So we've feared this and we understand why they feared it. You now look at the state of play of politics. Everything gets passed through the same filter. Who's this worse for? Who's this worse for? Why do you go all in on Musk versus Trump? It's a little interesting, the richest man, the most powerful man.

Okay, but why? Because it's bad for Trump. Although I actually believe that Elon is one of the few people that made Trump look more dignified in conflict. I've never seen that before. But the left and the media go all in on it because of that. It's bad for one side. The guy Garcia, they're bringing him back from El Salvador. The Democrats go down there when they didn't go to East Palestine, Ohio.

And this is the guy you're fighting for? This is the guy that you want to make it about, an MS-13 gang member who hit his own fucking wife. This is the guy that you want to say, we're going to go down there, we're going to die on this hill? Really? That is what it's all about, our politics now. Gross advantage.

How do I make it seem that the other side is crazy so you gotta be with me even though that's all I'm offering you? Is that there worse? That's what it all is. That's the way this current situation is being processed. And I don't know how to communicate this. If you could get people to leave the parties

and then you have this really tricky systemic thing because we've allowed the parties to dominate our process in such fulsome fashion, you have to have your primaries opened up. Like in New York state, it's fucking crazy. The party deadline to switch parties was February. So, and all the primaries are closed. So you have to change that on the state level, otherwise you got to be in a party in too many places. But if you could get people to get away from the parties and just judge what's in the value proposition and get them away from being trained

of why they got to value their side, I know we'd wind up at a better place. I know it, I know it's our salvation, but I don't know how to communicate it and place. I know it. I know it's our salvation. But I don't know how to communicate it and I don't know how to break the grip of advantage with all these podcasters and people in the media who play to one side and win like this jackass Benny Johnson who said, I'm deploying to LA like he's going to war and that he's showing everything on the ground from the perspective of how crazy the left is and he's

killing it. He's killing it with clicks, killing it. And he is feeding what's killing us. Yeah, a lot there. Always is, brother. I speak in bundles. Well, look, the algorithms, the social media algorithms will always, they're like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. They like movement and they like violence. So if someone says they're putting on their vest and getting their zip ties and deploying to LA, that gets a lot of clicks.

And the conservative part of our country has been underserved from media that was largely dominated by college-educated progressives. And so the podcasters in AM radio and Fox just drove a truck through that underserved community. But we now see, now the algorithms basically trying to identify as left or right and basically gerrymander you and say, okay, we're going to try and take you as far left or as far right as possible.

And the right has really kind of conflated leadership with coarseness and cruelty, which I think is bad for America. And the far left has said, we're more interested in grabbing social virtue than actually addressing the material or the psychological well-being of Americans. And until we figure out a way to create economic incentives for more nuanced, thoughtful discussion online, which I don't see happening, and until you can do away with Citizens United or gerrymandering such that every political race isn't really the primary and isn't a contest to say,

who can we elect that's crazier from the left and crazier from the right? Also, long-winded way of saying, just moving to solutions, I really am now a big believer. I'm spending more time in D.C. I do think one potential solution is mandatory national service. And when I look at the great legislation

of the 60s and 70s, and while it was really robust, rigorous debate, we got a lot accomplished. It was because most of our elected leaders had served in the same uniform. And they did see themselves as Americans before they saw themselves as Democrats or Republicans. I think we would very much benefit from mandatory national service.

It wouldn't have to be military. It could be a smoke jumper. It could be senior care. It could be helping in dog shelters, whatever it is. But I think young people, we need a future, we need the next generation to see themselves as Americans first, not Republicans or Democrats. Because to your point, it's really a third of people no longer speak to their neighbors because of their political affiliation.

Young men and women aren't hooking up because they get turned off by the fact that women have gone slightly more progressive, but young men have gone a lot more conservative. Do you remember when we were dating in our 20s and 30s, Chris? Do you remember anyone's politics? I had no idea what their politics were.

We just didn't talk about it. Never. And now it's another reason why people aren't connecting and forming relationships. So I'm very much a believer and we need, to your point, Americans have to recognize that we're still each other's greatest allies and we need to start acting like it and restoring that sense of Americanism, my last, just thought around national services, some of the lowest levels of young adult and teen depression in a democracy

are in Israel, and they think a lot of it is because of mandatory national service. One, they're outside, they're fit, they're doing something in the agency, something bigger than themselves. They're meeting friends, mentors, and mates. I'm on the board of two Israeli companies, all the co-founders met each other on the IDF. I think we would really benefit from national service. I do too, I get what the pushback would be.

I get what the fear is. I remember growing up with all the ads on TV for selective service, and the people with their satin jackets that said selective service on the back. And I remember thinking about it and my family wound up shuffling me off to a military school that was a feeder to the academies and thinking through it there as well. I would definitely be in favor of it. I would definitely put my kids into it.

I think it would be good for us. But I have not seen the will in America to do anything that causes any kind of pain. And the only time I've seen us come together and beat back the exigency of advantage, which now is really just profiteering, and selective outrage as a form of branding in digital media, 9-11. And that is one reason, although I'm not doing it out of contrivance, I talk a lot about

extremism in America as the number one national security threat. The number one domestic national security threat is fundamentalism. And whether it's, you know, white dudes with bad attitudes who look like you, or the jihadis, or the guy who shot the healthcare CEO, or the guy who went to the Israeli embassy, or the guy who bombed the Israeli embassy or the guy who bombed

the IVF clinic, they're all fundamentalists and they've all arrived at the same conclusion which is the West, our democracy, our culture has to be destroyed. And I am seeing for the first time that our mainstream politics seems more like the extremism than it does like a moderating force. So I don't know who's in the business of fixing it. I just know that everybody is in the business of taking advantage of the dynamic and of the tension. And we're seeing it right now.

Who is saying what's happening in LA needs to stop and you need to have a conversation about what ICE is doing and how they're doing it and what the real goals are. Nobody, nobody is saying that. Why? Who the fuck wants to hear that? I'm not tuning in for that. I'm not clicking on that.

I wanna see Chris Cuomo in the middle of that thing punching somebody with a pro-Palestine flag, you know, who comes up and waves it during his shot, or him getting grabbed by some National Guard guy who doesn't want the media to be reporting on what they're doing, and he gets into it with, that's what I want to see, Ezra. And we're killing ourselves. I know we're killing ourselves. Support comes from select quote, okay?

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positive one and a negative one. I'll do the positive first. Scott Galloway, I love the attention you're getting. I love the message that you're delivering. I love how confusing it is in terms of type. Wealthy guy, made it as an entrepreneur, talks about how entrepreneurs and capitalism, that wealth without responsibility is nothing but greed.

We're not used to hearing that. About how the marginal utility of making more than $10 million a year isn't worth what it takes away from everything else. You never hear that. And then about your social politics and everybody wants to hear you, everybody wants you around, my kids,

you have three generations of admirers of my family, three generations, you are the positive. The negative is I'm watching Rogan and he has a fucking hack comedian on who's a clever guy who has decided to make a market and being a libertarian, which just means I'm smarter than you, but a libertarian does nothing. Libertarians do nothing. They've run nothing. They've controlled nothing. they've won nothing ever, so it's just a brand. And he's talking about Gaza and Israel, like he fucking knows something.

And Douglas Murray is there, and he is dismantling the arguments of this guy with Rogan with his mouth slightly ajar going, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know, I don't know. And I'm looking at it and I was like, here's the problem. Here it is, here it is. Rogan, mouth breather, seen as a proxy for most males

who want it to be okay to be simple and aggressive and that's all. Smith, clever, patronizing, twisting, misinforming, playing to break it all, disrupt the norms. That makes me better because I want to attack the democracy. And Douglas Murray mocking them, British accent, so defeat, a lefty you love to hate,

but completely right about everything he's saying. And in a metaphor, this was America, who won that debate? Totally depends what you wanna see. And it wasn't even close, Scott. Dave Smith has never even been to the Middle East, okay? He has no idea what the reality is, the way I do, or so many people who do what I do, who've been in the West Bank, who've been there,

who've been in Israel, who understand the dynamic from watching it and living it and seeing the people and who they love and who they hate and how. He doesn't get any of it, but all of MAGA thinks he won. All of Rogan's guys think he won, and all they care about is who won. Nobody took away anything from it. That's our dynamic, and I don't know how to fix it, except ridiculously severe crisis. That's our dynamic and I don't know how to fix it except ridiculously severe crisis. That's the only thing I know that can lock us out of a gratuitous manufactured division is where someone's coming to kill all of us. The pandemic wasn't enough. You needed to have like 50 million people die for that to make people look past inconvenience and to galvanize.

So I don't know what it is, but it's gonna have to be terrible. Otherwise we're gonna stay locked in this. What do I have wrong? Like, I go to, I think beyond obviously this manufactured crisis because we're angry at each other because we don't have real problems.

You know, I often sometimes when I get into argument with my partner, I'm like, God help you when we have a real problem. You know, I've been reading a lot of Buddhism lately and I love that statement that the healthy man has thousands of problems, the one with bad health has one problem. Yes.

And you're right, the last time, I think you're right, I think the last time we came together was around 9-11. I think if there's, if you were to reverse engineer all of this though to something that creates the underlying incendiary, I do think it's an income inequality. I think that while, if you actually look at the numbers, the poor and the middle class have actually kind of held their own. They're not doing as poorly as people think. Their consumption taxes have gone up.

Their prosperity or purchasing power has probably gone down in terms of housing and education, but they still have remarkable entertainment, fairly cheap calories, cheap clothing. But the problem is what's shoved in their face is what has happened in America is similar to what William Gibson predicted about the future. And that is prosperity is here. We have recognized more prosperity in the last 10 years than all of Europe since World War II in terms of an increase in market capitalization of our companies. There's more prosperity than in history in this country. The problem is it's not evenly distributed. And even if you're doing okay,

maybe even a little bit better, 210 times a day on your phone, you get wealth porn that basically highlights how someone you know is on a Gulf stream or partying at St. Barts. And the human brain is, okay, I know someone that got into MIT. I know someone who bought the Trump coin

the Friday before and is up tenfold. And it feels as if everyone around me is succeeding except for my son, except for me. And I woke up one day and realized, wow, I have $20,000. I'm one of the 40% of house American households that has medical or dental debt. And for the first time in our nation's history,

a 30 year old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. And that creates rage and shame. That's a breakdown of the fundamental compact, when for the first time in our 275-year history, your kids aren't doing as well as you were. And I think it creates rage and shame, and then that rage and shame is speedballed by algorithms

that want to pit us against one another. And then, you know, the topic I'm really focused on and every kind of nail, you know, every, every, I'm a hammer, so everything I see as a nail is that young men, especially, are really, are really struggling. Nobody wants to hear that. It's one of my favorite pieces

of what you're putting out right now. And everybody's like, oh, poor white privileged males or any males. You can't rape and take over all the places of business and all the opportunities anymore. Poor you. You have to compete with other people called women for school places. Poor you. Yeah. First off, I'm sensitive to the gag reflex, and that is we've had a 3,000 year head start. People of our age, if you look at being born a white heterosexual male, which I was in

the 60s, I think you were born in the early 70s. 70. 70, there you go. The amount of prosperity that has been crammed into America, I bet we're 60% of the global GDP growth. And not only are we only 25% of the population, but all of that immense prosperity was crammed into a third of the population, and that's specifically white heterosexual males. So I had an unnatural wind in my sails.

I acknowledge that. I can understand why someone would be very reticent or find it somewhat repulsive if I'm complaining about anything resembling my plight. I deserve that pushback. But what people don't understand is they're holding a 19-year-old's problems or they're discounting them because of the unfair advantage I earned. And the reality is, in our country today, and this is a wonderful thing, you'd rather be born gay or non-white than poor. And if you're a poor young man or come from the lower, lower, say, median, it doesn't matter if you're white or non-white, your prospects are really dim right now. Women under the age of 30 are making more money than men in urban centers, which is a great thing.

Men are four times more likely to kill themselves, three times more likely to be addicted. We don't have a homeless crisis or an opioid crisis. We have a male homeless and a male opioid crisis. And they're 12 times more likely to be incarcerated. And also what it ends up is that if you look at where boys come off the tracks and really become more likely to engage in self-harm or be incarcerated, it's when they lose a

male role model. And we have the most single parent homes in America. And even saying that boys need men involved in their lives triggers people on the far left. And what it ends up, if you look at the majority of the research, is that while boys are physically stronger, they're mentally and emotionally weaker. And we don't want to acknowledge that empathy is not a zero-sum game. Gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage, civil rights didn't hurt white people.

But you have a situation in America where young men are really struggling. They're struggling to attach to work, to attach to school, to attach to a relationship. And what it ends up is that while there's this myth of the young woman who can't find a husband, oh, that's the big tragedy, it ends up that actually men need relationships more than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies than when they're married. Widowers are less happy. And if a young man isn't in a relationship or cohabitated with someone, isn't married or cohabitated with someone by the time he's 30, there's a one in three chance he ends up being a substance abuser.

So the war between the genders, I mean, for me, I've been coaching some people who are thinking about running for president. I'm like, it's all about restoring alliances, restoring alliances with our great Western Democratic trading partners where we have incredible prosperity through mutual trade. It's not a zero sum game. But also, I think we need to restore the alliance between the greatest, amongst the greatest alliance in history, and that is the alliance between men and women. And the genders in America have figured out a way to hold the other responsible.

Men believe that the rise of women has come at their cost, young men. That's not true at all. That hasn't hurt men, women rising. It hasn't hurt them at all. And women, rather than saying, okay, men have problems, want to say, men are the problem. And if you go on TikTok, you see a big theme of how women are taking their life into their hands

when they go on a date with a man. That they could be unalive by that man. And they're just not looking at the data. 2,500 women are murdered each year by men. That is unacceptable, and 70% of those women are murdered by someone who knows them. But 40,000 men each year kill themselves. So the guy you're on a date with is 16 times more likely

to go home and hurt himself than hurt you. You're four times as likely to die on a car ride to your date. You're more likely to die of choking on the date or drown if you're near a body of water. likely to die on a car ride to your date. You're more likely to die of choking on the date or drown if you're near a body of water. So this notion somehow that we tend to pathologize all young men, label them as predators or evil, it's not helping.

And I say this to, I coach a lot of young men. My basic message to them is, you need to level up. It's not up to women to lower their standards. They shouldn't have to, nor are they going to. You have to increase your standards in your game yourself. You have to start making some money, you have to start working out. You have to develop a rap,

you have to develop some persistence, you have to learn the skills of making a woman expressing romantic interest while making a woman feel safe. But also, women on the left who feed into these algorithms of talking about basically pathologizing men and having absolutely no empathy for the real issues that young men are facing right now, like that's not helping either. So I would like to see not only a reconnection or a restoration of our great economic alliances

with our great democracies overseas, but for me, step one is men need to celebrate the progress of women. They need to start protecting women. If a woman who's 14, who is raped, who is non-white, we need to figure out a way such that woman feels safe and has access to family planning. Women on the street, men need to move to protection. It should be an age where women feel safe on the subway

because there's men on the subway, not in spite of that. We need to do a better job of leaning into our masculinity and making women feel really safe. And at the same time, I think that we need to stop this demonization and this pathologizing young men. They are really struggling. In this, you wanna look at how we re-elected a insurrectionist as president.

The three groups that went hardest from blue to red, 2020 to 24, were one Latinos who don't wanna be identified as a group. The Mexican Americans in Southern California are much different than Cuban Americans in Southern Florida. Number two is people under the age of 30 who are 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago,

whereas 70 year olds are 72% wealthier. And then the number three group was the most interesting, and that is women between the ages of 45 and 64. And my thesis, Chris, is that that's young men's mothers, because there's still a lot of women in America who will vote for who they perceive have the best interests of their husbands or their sons. We were expecting this election to be a referendum on women's rights. Women's rights did not show up.

What this was was a referendum on struggling young men and the people who are worried about them. And Donald Trump, to his credit, flew into the Manosphere, crypto, rockets, Joe Rogan, whereas all Democrats were clutching our pearls and say the assault on women is going to turn out people. It didn't. What turned out people was their concern over their son and trying to recast a more aspirational vision of masculinity, which Trump was able to do. Listen, you know that things are off.

The economy is all about uncertainty. You got wars overseas, you got inflation, you got borrowing costs, you got consumer issues, you got food issues. Every time you turn on the news another bank has problems. So question, what are you doing to deal with the uncertainty to protect what you built for your family? That's why people are turning to gold and silver. What is old and trusted is new again. and silver. What is old and trusted is new again.

Not because it's trendy, but because it works. When the system shakes, real assets matter. This is something you can hold, that you can trade, that you can count on. It's not a maybe, it's a hedge. But there's a trap, and this, this is what no one tells you, but I will. It's not just about buying gold. You gotta buy the right kind. Now what does that mean? Well, you know these flashy ads, special edition coins, celebrity endorsements?

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KEPM, Kirk Elliott Precious Metals, dot com slash Cuomo, and you'll get straight talk. This is about finding certainty in uncertain times. Get smart, get moving before the next shock hits. So, somebody looks at what's happening in the country, specifically LA, and says, good for Trump. Go in there. Calm that place down. Fucking crazy people who hate law and order, hate the country.

What do you say to them? Well, what's the end game here? What? I mean... Law and order. Obey the law. Well, what's the end game here? I mean, law and order. Obey the law. Stop destroying your own community. Let ICE agents do their job, which is getting people who aren't supposed to be here out of the country.

And I think there are less destructive ways that don't risk this type of fissure in our society. Don't threaten people's way of living, don't, I mean, I see a tank on the street, I see people, I see the reserve on the street, and it makes me feel like as a country we're failing. And I wonder, what I would ask them is, do you really think, do you have friends in LA? Call them, do they feel unsafe?

I mean, there's been some mayors who have refused orders from home, and I think that was a mistake. But do you really think this warrants this type of what I would argue is an overreaction? And do you feel as if the federal government should be in the business of deescalating versus escalating? You know, I get the narrative, but what's the net end here? And also, I don't see the president threatening to send in the National Guard

into any states that are governed by Republicans. This feels very politically motivated. To your point, it feels like a distraction. A lot of people call me and say, what do I do? I'm like, well, one, you can't respond to everything. You don't need to tweet about Musk and Trump. What are you passionate about? What are you knowledgeable about?

Focus in on one or two things. I'm focused on the war in Ukraine and income inequality and, you know, how that's impacting struggling young men. And I talk about that on my social media platforms. I don't spend a lot of time talking about the Trump-Must feud. Focus on the things you know. Talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors. Put out data-driven, kind of non-emotional data points. If you're willing to engage in peaceful protest, God love you, I think that's really important. And then try and rally your friends and take your time, treasure, and talent and vote for people you think have a better vision

for America in 26. But I don't think what's happening in LA is especially productive. I think that's a pretty, I don't know, you probably know better than me how it's playing in the polls, but I don't know, you probably know better than me how it's playing in the polls, but I don't like seeing tanks on the street. I don't, I think this again strikes me

as massive overcorrection here. It's all red, blue filter. If you're a red, you see one thing. If you're a blue, you see another. So the reciprocal question is somebody says, Trump is the next coming of Hitler. He's a despot. He wants authoritarianism.

He just is too stupid to figure out how to make it happen. And you see what he's doing with ICE. He's using them as a Gestapo. They are right to protest in the streets and to get angry. We have to get angry. That's the only way we get back in power and beat him. We're too soft. What do you say?

Well, I agree with most of that. So I think when you're attacking academic institutions, when you're trying to normalize violence by saying you're going to pardon the people who were found guilty of organizing a kidnapping plot against a Democratic governor. I think when you're threatening media outlets and saying, I won't let you merge unless you pay me $25 million, I think that cutting off research, I think a lot of these things feel,

and threatening your latest enemy Trump with deporting him, I think a lot of this feels very authoritarian. And picking winners and losers even shit like US Steel saying we need a golden share so the government can control this company. That's socialism. I don't, what the hell are they doing getting involved in US Steel deciding which mergers should go through. Also this, the demonization, if you look at the actual definition of fascism, people are very prone to throw out that word and not understand what it means.

It means extreme nationalism. We're getting taken advantage of. The notion we've been getting taken advantage of by global trading partners for the last 40 or 50 years, you could make the argument made with China, but on the whole, as global trade has increased, we have disproportionately sequestered a disproportionate amount of those spoils from global trade. Now, have we left people behind in manufacturing states? Have some people been on the wrong end of it?

Yes. But as global trade has increased, so has our material wealth, disproportionately. We import in a Mercedes that has eight points of gross margin. We export an Nvidia chip that has 95 points of gross margin. I mean, every time we trade back and forth, whoever owns the bananas that are bringing in, they're adding 10 cents on the dollar in shareholder value. When we export our services or our social media or our media,

we get three or four bucks for every dollar that they pay us in market capitalization. So it has been wildly accretive to us. So this extreme nationalization that we've been taking advantageretive to us. So this national, extreme nationalization that we've been taking advantage of makes no sense. This whole America first bullshit. If you want prosperity,

you want other countries to be prosperous such that they can buy more of our Big Bang Theory reruns and our, you know, our Nvidia microprocessors. Two, it's the demonization of immigrants. I think we've seen this. And three, it's a refusal to condemn violence against your political enemies. And I think we're seeing this now. And so I'm very sensitive to the fact that a lot of this has echoes back to 30s Germany. And what people don't recognize is if you were to pick one nation that over the last

200 years is the most progressive, enlightened, great economic growth, appreciation for the arts, music, education, appreciation for trying to be like more human, better humanity. I think most people or most scholars would pick Germany, but it had this 11 year descent into darkness. And a lot of the things that led up to that, nationalism and economic shock, or that's not, we don't have that yet, an economic shock,

youth, young men who have more time than prospects, a lack of economic or romantic prospects, a feeling in a, you know, we're sort of one economic shock away from what feels to me like 1935 or 1936 Germany. So I'm very sensitive to the fact that basically in this bill, this big beautiful tax bill, they want to transfer power from career civil servants to appointed agencies.

They want to make it impossible to hold anyone in the Trump administration in contempt of court, meaning they can refuse all requests to come testify or appear before Congress. So if you upload, if you upload chat GPT, like I said, into, or if you upload the big beautiful bill to chat GPT and say, summarize this into one sentence, the sense isn't about economic transfer. It's not about taxation or deficits.

It comes back and says, this is authoritarianism wrapped in bureaucratic language. AI looks at this 812-page tax bill and goes, this isn't a tax bill. This is an attempt to transfer power to the White House. And that frightens me. And when congressional Republicans are willing to acquiesce congressional power,

power of the purse, to Trump and his appointee. And we seem to have decided that your rights are perfectly correlated to your money. I'm not worried. What I see is people on the right are willing to have an autocrat. And by the way, a third of Democrats and a third of Republicans are in favor of an autocrat

as long as that person shares their views. So the right got their autocrat, and Republicans seem to be comfortable with coarseness and cruelty being conflated with leadership. These are hard decisions, but we need to make these decisions. And then on the far left, the most powerful among us, the one percenters, clutch our pearls in private,

but don't actually do anything about it because we're about to get richer. And that's the conspiracy here the conspiracy in America between the most powerful and Trump even those who don't like what he's doing is that We are gonna make more money and also our rights have become totally correlated to your economic well-being I the 1% is now protected by the law, but they're not bound by it Where's the bottom 99 are bound by the law, but they're not bound by it, whereas the bottom 99 are bound by the law, but they're not protected by it. And as a Jew, I can see an environment

where they start rounding up immigrants or Jews. They're rounding up people right now, and they're sending them to concentration camps. And people get triggered when I say that term. The definition of a concentration camp is an offsite detention center where the people sent there are no longer protected by the laws of their native country. There was a reason that Auschwitz was in Poland. We are rounding up people, many of them incorrectly, and sending them to concentration camps. But if they start doing that to Jews, I can shove a, you know, a cold storage wallet full of 10, 20, 30 million dollars of Bitcoin up my ass and peace out to Milan. I'm fine. If someone in my life gets pregnant, I will have no prob- I could be in

deepest, darkest red Mississippi. And if someone in my life has an unwanted pregnancy, I can figure it out in 24 hours because I have money. If Steve Bannon, who has said I should be sued by the Trump administration, comes after me me or even the administration comes after me, I can fucking lawyer up like no tomorrow. So my rights in America and rights in America have become a function of how much money you have, which has created an incentive system with a wealthy and the most powerful amongst us. We speak out, but do we really mean it? Are we really going to try and change things? Because the 1%, the global, the kind of, what I'll call the transnational oligarchs, have rights that permeate borders.

We can find a place where we're safe. We can find a place where our daughters aren't under threat for an unwanted pregnancy. We can find a place where we have all sorts of First Amendment or protective rights. But my sense is America, at least the American vision I have, is that it's about ensuring the rights

of kind of the bottom half more than anyone. And I think most of those rights have leaked to people with money. And I think Trump is trying to create an incentive system where he says, if you just either onboard with me or if you're not onboard with me, you just keep quiet. Hey, Bob Iger, just pay off that $10 million settlement and establish a terrible precedent

because it'll help your shareholder value and you'll make $70 million this year instead of $30 million. Hey, Sherry Redstone, you need that $2.5 billion. Go ahead and have 60 Minutes Pay Me $25 million and show legally that you were wrong and put a chill across all of our great media organization. Hey, Paul Weiss, agree to give me pro-bonus services and bend a knee and undermine our entire judicial system because the incentives are so great. And just as I wrap up this word salad,

the reason an autocrat is successful is one, he punishes his enemies and two, he makes billionaires of his allies. And this is what I believe is happening with this tariff nonsense. And that is, I think Trump probably realizes this shit just doesn't work. He's taken tariffs up 50 times and down, up or down 50 times. He's created more market volatility than almost any non-war action in history. I believe he's doing it on purpose and that he and the people close to him

are making billions trading against that volatility. And when his top cop, the attorney general, sells her shares in Donald Trump media, the morning he announces tariffs which take the market way down, she knew something. And if you look at the volume of zero-day options, the day, the hours before, the minutes before he announces these trade, these tariffs, somebody Chris knows something. And so if I'm a powerful hedge funder,

maybe I don't like what he's doing. But the closer I get to him, or the more I just stay the fuck out of his crosshairs, the more money I make. So I think a lot of Americans are not nodding to the fidelity and the underlying pillars of democracy and capitalism that made them rich in the first So I think a lot of Americans are not nodding to the fidelity and the underlying pillars of democracy and capitalism that made them rich in the first place, because they want to get even richer. And I think he has mastered creating a lens of incentives through which Democrats, powerful Democrats,

stay quiet and powerful and rich. Republicans want to tuck them in at night and find out if he's issuing a tariff tomorrow night, because if he is, he can trade against it and make billions of dollars. What worries you most over the next 18 months to a couple of years, and what do you believe gives you the greatest sense of optimism in that same period?

I worry that I think there's a lot of people abroad who would like to come for us and take our Netflix and our Nespresso away and would kill us. They will absolutely take advantage of us the moment they think they can. I think we have a lot of adversaries overseas who think of us. We have a disproportionate amount of the world spoils

and the moment someone thinks they can grab much or most of that back, they will. And I worry that creating these manufactured enemies and problems internally is going to give confidence and rise to, you know, does China decide to invade Taiwan? I think the thing keeping China out of Taiwan right now is the fact that the Ukrainian army, backed by Europe and the U.S. with the right technology really gives pause to any military power looking to invade a highly motivated, technically sophisticated workforce or a military force.

But I worry that if someone were going to get aggressive right now, they would see us as pretty distracted, pretty disunited. So I think we're less safe because we're not seen as unified. Now, maybe that might rally us together. And some people would argue that we're safer under Trump because he's seen as such a wild card. So people are afraid to confront.

But I worry about a foreign adversary deciding this is the time to strike because we seem so united. The thing that gives me hope is I think young people are more engaged, more intelligent, and are more informed. Is that correct? And I also, I think there's a lot of civil, I get very, very heartened when I see people engaging in civil and peaceful protest. I think that's a wonderful thing about America.

I think people are spending more time trying to really understand what they think the future of America is going to be, and I think we're going to see great voter turnout in 26. I think it'll be a record turnout for a midterm. But I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. I see the problems, Chris. I struggle with anger and depression, and it manifests itself in my prediction. So I think things are pretty bad right now, And I worry that we're slowly kind of, there's just a slow burn into this mix

between authoritarianism and fascism, which I think is really dangerous. And unfortunately, I think most democratic leaders brighten up a room by leaving it. I think the Democratic Party, their strategy of pushback on this slow burn to fascism is a strongly worded letter. I'm just so disgusted with our leadership.

I think the Democratic Party, I just addressed the Young Democratic Caucus, the representatives there, and they said, what's your advice for us? I'm like, we need to be the party of not fucking around. Why wouldn't you announce, why wouldn't one of you announce a president? I mean, there's like 15 of you running

that I know of already, but you just don't want to admit it. Announce the executive orders you're going to issue on day one. Announce a bill that will dissolve or puncture pardon immunity for people who have engaged in fraud or taken money from foreign governments illegally or who have incorrectly or illegally incarcerated people. I mean, but we're sending them strongly worded letters. So I'm scared and just, you know, scared and the term is horrified by what's going on on the right.

But I'm just so disappointed in the left. I just think we totally, who's the leader of the Democratic Party right now, Chris? Who is it? Who's pushing back? Who's standing up and in any way really saying what's going on? Well, they push back, but they're not pushing back by being about anything better. I keep saying that Democrats, and I know that there's something frustrating about this.

When somebody is doing something you don't want, you want to tell them to go fuck themselves and punch them in the face. I understand that. But unfortunately, in terms of moving the needle with the American majority, it's about being in the business of better. And AOC, even Bernie, or any of these other people where they get off some one-liners on Trump, they embarrass Trump, they shame Trump. It doesn't move the needle with the majority. The majority wants better. And if you wanna be a righteous warrior,

then you gotta be fighting for things that you're for. And you've got some guys in the Democratic Party, I think could make a difference. I think Governor Wes Moore could make a difference. I think Josh Shapiro, Governor Josh Shapiro could make a difference. I think Governor Wes Moore could make a difference. I think Josh Shapiro, Governor Josh Shapiro could make a difference. They've got the charisma. Wes Moore's got-

Where are they? We've got a good bench, but where are they? Why doesn't one of them announce the running for president? It takes so much oxygen. Well, because you, listen, I gotta tell you, I know. I know why. Because you do not need a minute, a second longer under the scope- The magnifying glass. because you do not need a minute, a second longer

under the scope than is absolutely necessary because I'm coming for you. The media is coming for you. I'm gonna find something on you. You're not gonna handle it right. And I'm gonna just sink my teeth into you and then everybody who's against you is gonna echo it. So why put yourself in that position before you absolutely have to? Yeah, although I think of one of these.

So it's obvious they're running. I'm sure you hear from them, I hear from them. They call me and want to know my views, which is the way of saying they want to come on my podcast or they want my money. And that's because they're running for president. My attitude is somebody needs to, through an organic means, identify themselves

as the spokesperson for the Democratic Party right now. I couldn't even identify who our leader is. Is it Senator Shimmer? That's what Cory Booker tried to do with his filibuster, but there's just something so, I don't know, man, there's something so clawing about what he does. I'm not saying he's not authentic. I know a lot of people who love him,

but there's something about it that just seems performative. Well, I think people want someone who feels as if they're the reluctant bride running for president, not someone who's been running for president since they were 18. And, you know, it's, I think there, I do think there's a big opportunity though, and we hadn't heard of a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama at this point in the election cycle, but I do think someone, there's an

opportunity for someone to step in. And I think the biggest opportunity and what's the weakest part of the Democratic Party is we've become way too focused on grabbing and establishing social virtue as opposed to proposing plans that impact positively the material and psychological well-being of Americans. We want to be virtuous, we want to be righteous, we want to be politically correct as opposed to saying, okay, the deficit's out of fucking control, this is a tax plan. We need an alternative

minimum tax on corporations of, say, 28%. We need an alternative minimum tax of 50% if you make more than $10 million as an individual a year, which by the way only takes us back to the 70s or 80s. We're gonna have to means test and increase the age on social security. I'm sorry folks, it sucks to be a grownup. And we're gonna take interest rates down,

we're gonna take the deficit down and that will take the cost of your student loans, your cars and your mortgage down 50, 60, 100, 200 basis points, and our markets will continue to go up because if we aren't seen as physically conservative or physically sane, the markets are going to crash. I think the world or Democrats are ready for an adult conversation as opposed to spending all their time talking about a high school high jumper and how it's important that she be able to compete. It's like, what the fuck? Okay, there are laws. Don't demonize this person. I get it.

But that's where we're going to, that's the wood we're going to put our energy behind. Why aren't they focused on the fact that, you know, they got to be more focused on 13 million people are going to lose their Medicaid. All right, now what's the solution? We know the GOP tax bill is bad. Well, here's an idea. We lower the qualification for Medicare from 65. We lower it by 24 months every year for 30 years, and we have nationalized medicine. The G7 nations, six of them, spend $6,500 a year for healthcare. We spend 13,350 million Americans. If in 30 to 40 years you could bring the cost in line with the G7, you literally solve the deficit. And if you paint a vision for it and do it incrementally

such that the lobbyists and the existing healthcare industrial complex had a chance to adjust, you would essentially solve the deficit. But it's boring and it's not that exciting, so no one wants to talk about it. It's not just boring, it is boring and it's not that exciting. So no one wants to talk about it. It's not just boring. It is boring, although I thought that that was actually pretty articulate and pretty good.

It's not immediate. The problem with social security, you know, I started in advocacy work with a think tank that was formed called the 2030 Center for when my generation, the meat of Generation X turned 65 and what was going to happen with Social Security. And what I learned in that process actually helped start the think tank with Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, who's now Kellyanne Conway, and now no longer Kellyanne Conway, now Kellyanne Fitzpatrick again.

But that's where I know her from, that long ago. It's not now. And if it's not now, it's not going to matter in the election. The deficit and the debt are real. They are real concerns. They will never change an election as more than a talking point because screwing your kids doesn't have enough teeth. And it's not a crisis right now.

And none of these people in office will be there to see the fruits of whatever change they make. So it's about now. So you have to figure out a campaign that is about now and it will affect us now. And I know that's not how corporations plan. It's not how intelligent people think. I know failing to plan is planning to fail,

but in elective politics, the midterm is gonna be about gas and groceries and whatever major social issue Trump can come up with for that moment. That's what's gonna decide the midterms. Yeah, but I think you can make the argument that long-term thinking will impact all of us right now. So the reason Nvidia Trades

is the most valuable company in the world is people think they're going to make more money in five or 10 years. And I think if you outline a series of policies that say within 10 to 20 years we're going to bring healthcare costs in line with the rest of the G6 and we're going to bring our deficit to neutral within 8 to 12 years, that the markets will soar and the interest rates and the payments on your house, your car, and your student loan will go down. And also the free gift with purchase is that you'll be able to look your kids in the eyes and say, okay, I'm trying to do something about this.

So I think the key to prosperity in the moment is what I'll call fiscal sanity of long-term thinking. The whole point of an elected populist in a democratic nation is they're supposed to prevent a tragedy that comments. And one of the things that ails us is we have the oldest electorate in any democracy. Our, Washington has become a cross

between the golden girls and the land of the dead. And one of the problems with that is that in 30 years, three quarters of them are gonna be dead. So they don't think about the deficit. They don't think about climate change. And if you look at what I believe, a sane approach to the deficit and not adding two and three-quarter trillion to it, I think our stocks go up. I think our interest rates go down.

I think our ability to borrow money, the depth of the pools of capital such that we can borrow money. I think all of these things, our national security, get more secure and more prosperous now. And I also think that there's an opportunity to have an honest conversation around young people and struggling young men and mating. For me, the unifying theory of everything,

I was talking to the, I get involved in democratic messaging, I'm like, you have to have a unifying message of everything. To your point, Chris, it can't just be he sucks. The message has to be more than he sucks. I'm like, I wouldn't even talk about him right now. And for me, the unifying theory of everything is that America should be a platform such that any young person under the age of 40 has a reasonable shot at finding someone falling in love and having the economic wherewithal to have a kid and know they're not going to

have medical or dental debt, know that they're going to have clean, safe water, know that they'real to have a kid and know they aren't gonna have medical or dental debt, know that they're gonna have clean, safe water, know that they're gonna have a decent job. I believe minimum wage should be raised to 25 bucks an hour. I'm anti-union. I think unions are corrupt and inefficient. And I think there should be one union, the federal government, that pays people $25 an hour.

And the states that have raised their minimum wage have seen an increase in economy, because the wonderful thing about poor and middle-class households is they spend all of their money, which has a more stimulative multiplier effect. But everyone, every young person, tax credits for third places. I'd like to see more bars.

I think this anti-alcohol movement is terrible for young people, more religious institutions, and I say that as an atheist, national service, decent jobs, vocational training, so we get some of our young men more emotionally and financially viable. But every young person in America, given the prosperity we should have, should not worry about medical debt, should have a shot at housing.

Six million houses in 10 years manufactured houses, which costs 30 to 50% less than other houses. A massive increase in permitting stopped us in NIMBY as in bullshit. I'll do the one thing I do like in this bill is that it says it's gonna raise taxes on colleges who don't spend their endowment, dramatically expand freshman classes.

Dartmouth has an $8 billion endowment and lets in 500 kids, that's fucking ridiculous. They should be letting in 1,500 or 5,000 kids. But paints a future that says, your kids are gonna have much better prospects because you have kids, Chris, you know this. If your kids aren't doing well, you got your role

to work, you got your role to friends, you got your role to kids. When your kids aren't doing well, your whole world shrinks to that kid. So I think that America would be very open to what I call a forward leaning thing. This is my job is to think long term. And if we present to the world a vision of why we are more

fiscally responsible than we have been, it's going to reverse engineer to cheaper capital and stronger markets, which will benefit you on day one. Listen, I love all of it. That's why I keep putting you out there every chance I get. And when I hear you somewhere else, I listen very carefully and then footnote you when I'm trying to argue things to people. I believe that as is true with many things in America, there's a blessing and a curse

and there's a ratio and it's really close to net to neutral, if we're lucky. And as much as I believe that what happens on social media and digital media is part of the problem and fomenting the tensions, there are guys like you who I think are counteracting it and using the platform that is well deserved. So thank you for helping me, Scott, explain the world around us. And more importantly, to talk about how it can get better,

and not just for us and the advantage of what we're pushing in the moment, but the advancement of the many as opposed to just the benefit of the few. I appreciate you for that. pushing in the moment, but the advancement of the many as opposed to just the benefit of the few. I appreciate you for that. You're being generous, Chris, but as a other person who considers himself unmoderate, I'm stuck in the middle with you and you know how we're doing our job is we get shit from

the left and the right. So I think we're doing our job. Well, you know, it ain't easy. And I don't have really good answers, certainly not as good as you do. And I just see the problems, I see the game, I see how things are architected to get over on people and it just keeps working.

And yeah, I see Trump as a huge player in that, but he's not the only one. And there's an intolerance on the left right now where I'm not allowed to say that last part. No, no, no. He's the worst. Nothing else matters. You must attack him. You must end him. And in favor of what? Oh, anything's better. Well, I don't know if that were true, then we wouldn't have wound up here. But I appreciate you and I look forward to seeing you when you're back this way. Likewise, Chris. Thanks for having me on. I told you, sometimes it's worth a listen just to hear how someone else processes what's going on.

And then once you see things differently, you see everything differently. It's literally like putting a different kind of lens in front of the scope of your camera. And that's what Scott Galloway is for me. Hopefully that's what he is for you as well. To understand what's happening around us, why it's happening, who's doing what to us and why, and what can we do about it and what would be better. Great questions. Answers are hard, but it doesn't mean you stop asking.

My brothers and sisters, let's get after it. Thank you for subscribing and following. I'll see you on NewsNation, 8P and 11P, every weekday night. Thank you for being there and giving me a chance. Thank you for checking out the sub stack and subscribing if you want your comments to be replied to by me and my guests. And if you want to wear your independence, get the free agent gear, my brothers and sisters. That's how I raise money to crowdsource

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