The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Raging Moderates - Kamala on Fox News, Elon’s Election Gamble, and an Endorsement

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

In this live taping of Raging Moderates, Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov take you through the final sprint of the campaign, jaw-dropping early voting numbers, Elon Musk’s $1 million random payments, and the fallout from the killing of a top Hamas leader.  Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca This week on The Gray Area. What can Americans learn from the fall of the Roman Republic? What I think is alarming to me about Trump is I do not believe he cares whether this country is a republic or not. And that's different from every Roman who takes power. Listen to The Gray Area with me, Sean Illing.

New episodes every Monday, available everywhere. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarliff. And we are live at Maxwell in downtown New York in Tribeca. Okay, enough of that. Let's bring it back to me. So I'm pretty sure this place used to be trapeze. Do you know what trapeze is? No. Does anyone know what trapeze was? One person. Oh, tentative hands going up. It was a sex club at the turn of the millennium. True story.

True story. Second woman I dated in New York said, I have a really great idea what we should do tonight. And the good news is we went to a sex club. The bad news is only one of us had sex and it wasn't me. Anyways, how are you, Jess? Having a much more PG day than you. Yeah? I remember this as a Chinese restaurant from when I was growing up.

It was China Blue. Sex club, Chinese restaurant, tomato tomato. I'm 20 years younger. Oh, that hurts. Sorry. That hurts. Okay. All right.

Let's get back to why we're here. We're breaking down tonight the final stretch as we enter the home stretch in what is arguably the closest election in a while, at least. People will come up to you. What do you say when people come up to you and say, what do you think is going to happen? I get really nervous, like really sweaty, uncomfortable. And a lot of that is because I have a strong sense of optimism, which just might be the Pollyanna in me. But I don't want to get someone else's hopes up. I also don't want to be embarrassed on election night if it gets called for Trump and I'm sitting there like a complete asshole that was like, no, Kamala could win. So I say it's unbelievably close, but I still think that there is a decent likelihood that one of them wins by a pretty substantial amount.

And that doesn't mean Tuesday night that you know, but that the tea leaves are all going in one direction. Like certain tea groups are breaking one way. And honestly, I think that that is the safest thing for the fate of democracy. Whoever wins, that it's decisive. And he'll say whatever he's going to say about it, but that'll be better for us. What do you say? Do people say that to you? Yeah, I have absolutely no idea. But you said, you reminded me yesterday, we had coffee yesterday, and you said, whatever happens, we hope it's decisive. And I think that's actually a really fair point. So I don't know if you saw,

but Vice President Harris was on your network, Fox. I definitely saw it it like 50 times with with brett bear yeah i love brett yeah i love brett if if there's a zombie apocalypse i want brenda brett out in front of my house with a submachine gun protecting me and my family would you fuck with brett bear that guy looks like he's born to kill other people um not that there's anything wrong with that right anyways what did you think of uh the conversation and kind of the one moment that he apologized for later what's your take on it recognizing they pay you right everyone in the room please recognize that because that's foundational to everything that i do and i love my job not just saying that for the audience but it's a ton of fun and it's great um so i went back and forth as i was watching the interview and i had some moments where i was Not just saying that for the audience, but it's a ton of fun and it's great.

So I went back and forth as I was watching the interview. And I had some moments where I was like, she totally nailed that. I had some moments where I was just happy that Brett was asking her the things that are on the minds of lots of voters. I mean, you're thinking about such a small subsection of the population who actually is undecided. And I don't know if by today, this was last Wednesday, it's probably hundreds less than it was even when they filmed that interview that have their minds to make up. But in the aftermath of it, I think that both of them kind of won and that's the point of it. So for people that have been concerned about Kamala Harris, that she isn't competent or she doesn't have the kind of substance or the heft behind her to be able to sit down and take the tough questions, she proved that. I mean, she didn't waffle at all. There was no laughing or kind of circuitous talking, which she had been pinged for before. And I actually think that his style, which I know is one of the

commentary points about it, that he was interrupting her, I think it helped her a lot. Yeah. Because it didn't allow her to get lost in herself. He kept redirecting her to the topic at hand. I thought she did well on that enemy within question. And also talking about her proposals. I mean, that's one of the big issues that I think the media has with this race. And I mean, the media writ large is the double standard in terms of specificity that they say, well, Donald Trump's answering these questions. Like, I don't know if you guys saw, but he was with the Wall Street Journal editorial board and they said, you know, his acuity has never been better and he's offering all these specific policy positions. And I'm like, I listened to the guy talk about

Arnold Palmer's junk on Saturday night. Like, this is not what's going on here. I heard of this stiff Arnold Palmer or Jack Blackfria thinking it was hilarious. And the guy was like, we don't do that. You got the wrong sex club. So, see, it came back to you. Yeah, I'll have chow mein with that.

Did you, what did you think about it? I'm so triggered by it. I have trouble watching. I don't think she's great on her feet. So whenever I watch her live, I just get very stressed out. I thought they did a reasonable job. I think it's good that she's there. And like you said, I think you described it perfectly.

I think it was a win for Brett, a win for Fox, and a win for her just by being there. And like you said, I think you described it perfectly. I think it was a win for Brett, a win for Fox, and a win for her just by being there. So at this point, though, I don't know anyone who's watching Fox who's probably undecided, although you pointed out something I had not considered. Because I love CNN, and I go on Fox, but I don't love it as much. I'll just leave it at that. But you pointed out that actually Fox has more moderates watching than CNN, which was really striking to me. Yeah. I think the breakdown, and now I'll do a plug for the five, this will surprise you, but 22% now of the five's viewership are Democrats, 38% are independents, and the rest are Republicans. And the way that the cable news ecosphere has shaped out kind of in the Trump era is that if you are looking to watch something that isn't just 24 hours, I hate Trump, you are tuning in to Fox at this point. Now, you might

have your hosts that you like better. You might not be tuning in for the primetime programming. But you can see people from both parties being interviewed. And I think, I mean, this argument is sometimes a tough sell. But when you hear opposition voices on other networks and they're never Trump Republicans, you aren't necessarily getting a real look at what's going on in politics today. You know, I love a lot of these people. Like, I love Alyssa Farr Griffin, who's on The View and is on CNN. Where Alyssa Farr Griffin is, is not where

the majority of Republicans are. Liz Cheney, you know, God love her. Maybe she delivers us the election. I don't know. But the way Liz Cheney thinks about the world is not the way the average Republican does. And what if, but along those lines, so Vice President Harris has been campaigning with a lot of Republicans in Pennsylvania. These, you know, Adam Kitzinger, Barbara Comstock, Liz Cheney. Do you think that's effective? Or are they seen as, so what I find online is that Republicans just write me off. I'm like, whatever, he's a libtard, right? I'm used to that. What I find is where I get the most vicious attacks, though,

is from the far left because they treat me like an apostate. Like, we thought we could trust you. Right. And they're actually, there's no room for moderates is what I find online. You're either, and I find the far left, quite frankly, at least for center left, is much more unforgiving than the far right. They just write you off. The far left acts like you're a traitor if you don't sign up for the cult and the exact narrative they want you to buy into. And I wonder if, in fact, these people are seen as apostates and don't help at all. That they actually, oh, no wonder they're with her, they're traitors. I just don't know. I don't know if it moves the needle at all. You would logically think Republicans coming out in favor of her, but the Republicans coming out are the

ones that kind of what I'll call the MAGA Republicans just think are the establishment and no better than Democrats. Fair? It is fair, and also I think a little more complicated than that. So the latest polling out of Pennsylvania, for instance, shows that 12 percent of Republican voters are supporting Kamala Harris, which could be determinative if you think that— Do you know what it was for past elections? I need a benchmark for that. Is that low or high? Oh, it's really high. Sorry, did my voice not intimate that that was a good thing? Yeah, that's a big thing. Okay.

That's a big thing. In really positive news, and I think it's something like upwards of 30% of Nikki Haley's primary voters have said they're going to back Harris. Like, that's across the country, so that's going to be popping up in North Carolina. It's going to be popping up in Georgia. And I think what Kamala has been able to do that it seems like has the most chance ofy. Then she is having a conversation with minority voters. Like last week was the tour of that, the Charlemagne, the God, Town Hall, all of that. She is having a campaign that is just for women, talking about reproductive freedom and, you know, mind your damn business, as Tim Walz was saying. And I know that that makes some people uncomfortable. And we've talked about this. You don't like identity politics. I think it's a necessary evil. You might be right, yeah. And if you're going to show up and you're going to talk to a room full of X group, you better have something specific to tell them about how their life is going to be better when you're

president. So, let's shift gears to Trump. He's been serving fries. Yeah. He's had... Well, first off, did you ever work at a fast food restaurant? No, I was a hostess, and I fainted the first day from the stress of it. It was so embarrassing. My mom is here. My dad has to come pick me up. That's a stressful job. Thank you.

Like trying to assess the landscape and where there's an open table. Like plugging in the orders and when people have a modification. I get nervous just thinking about it. Did you do fast food? You fainted? I did. I was, it's a long story. I had had, I had gotten sick in Mexico like a week and a half before I was low on Gatorade, but it was also very stressful on top of it. It's not a good story. I have a response to that. I was a busboy, a dishwasher at a place called Islands. I delivered pizzas for this place called

The Pizza Joint in Beverly Hills. I did a lot of services work. I think it should be mandatory for every kid to do some sort of services work. I think it builds character, makes you less of an asshole. I'm a huge fan of service work. Anyways, not for the president. I don't think that builds character, makes you less of an asshole. I'm a huge fan of service work. Anyways, not for the president.

I don't think that makes a lot of sense. And so Fox News Women's Town Hall, which we found out was full of Trump supporters. How did you think that went? So, again, and this is where I wonder if we want to talk about Elon Musk. It comes back to this. I feel more intense. By the way, he's a tech executive. That's Scott and Kara really like. Yeah, they know he's wealthy and he's, anyway, I'm sorry, go ahead. I feel that my algorithm has done more damage to

my mental health in the last two weeks than it has the entirety of my time on Twitter. It's called Instagram. I could do that. I need to go other places. Why is that? Say more. Whether Musk, I don't know exactly how it's working. And this does coincide with him dumping like even more and more money into it. I feel like I am not seeing any good stuff for the Democrats. And I am only seeing incredibly positive stuff for Trump. I see some heads nodding out there. And I don't know, I'm not a big conspiracy theorist. I'm not saying that all the engineers there are out to get me and to ruin the 5 o'clock show, to have no opposition. But I at first saw only kind of positive things for him out of the town hall, and then I went looking for it. And then I saw that on certain grounds, you could say it was an abject disaster for him, that you had Republican women saying, why do you think the government should have anything to do with my basic rights? And then he just bragged again.

That I'm the father of IVF. The father of IVF, which unclear. I love that he said that. And then he admitted he had to ask Katie Britt what it was. And then he was like, oh yeah, definitely the father of that. My sense is the stuff that's trying to embarrass him when he calls Kamala, uh, vice president Harris, a shitty VP when he has these, uh, you know, Ave Maria moments. I think that, I think that actually helps him because we're all talking about it and we want to get our censors up and we want reasons to be angry and talk about what an idiot he is. And the issue is the people whose censors that tickles, we're already decided. And the problem is that that takes up oxygen in the room as opposed to talking about real issues that might

actually change voters' minds, such as if these tariffs ever become, if these proposed tariffs ever become a reality, and there's anything in congruence with what he's planning to do with immigration, both legal and illegal, that is literally a peanut butter and chocolate combination for runaway inflation. To me, that's the thing we should be talking about right now. Not what an idiot he is or how ridiculous. We know that. We get it. We've been there, right? We saw it with Biden, right? Now we're seeing it with him, right? He's aidled. But instead, but all of this stuff, I think they like it when folks like us or CNN or whoever it is, the algorithms are serving up all these ridiculous moments because the people who like them, they don't care. They know they're in on

that, whatever, right? And it makes us feel good. But any of the real issues just get squeezed out and might squeeze out or that might attract swing voters. I just think it's a strategy and we're being played talking about the stupid shit he does and how ridiculous he is. We already know that, but it crowds out anything resembling a conversation that I think swing voters want to talk about. The deficit would go up. His proposed economic plan, the deficit would be triple what it is under the proposed economic plan of Harris. That is effectively the biggest tax increase in history on young people, because I won't be here to pay back that debt. I'll get the champagne and cocaine that that will create. I'll get the stimulus for it. It'll

prop up my assets, which I already own. But effectively, the largest tax increase in history on young people is being proposed by an economic plan that'll massively explode our deficit. Because we have enough creditworthiness to pay it back for 20 or 30 years. We'll be fine. But when shit gets real in 20 or 30 years, it's going to be really ugly. I think that's a real issue. If I was a young person, I'd want to know, wait, that's about to be the largest tax increase in history on me? But we don't get time to talk about this stuff because we're talking about fucking Ave Maria. Back to you. Well, I would say, and obviously I have a little bit of a strange

job in the main scheme of things, but you only get, if you're going to push back on something, even if you're having a discussion with a friend, you only get a finite amount of time to actually make an impact on their thinking. And what Ave Maria does or Arnold Palmer or the late great Hannibal Lecter, whoever we're talking about, you get stuck for at least 30 seconds in this hellscape where someone is telling you, but he's funny, right? Or we like that he has a sense of humor. He doesn't take himself that seriously, which I like in a person generally. I mean, I'm big enough to admit that there are moments where Donald Trump is wildly charming. I thought that the hour that he did on my colleague Greg Gutfeld's show, if you didn't see it, was a side of him that I totally get why voters are into. He wasn't combative at all because he was with people who like him. And he was talking

about what it's like to go on Johnny Carson and like to party at Studio 54. You know, I went to see The Apprentice over the weekend, which I have many thoughts about. But part of it that was awesome was seeing Donald Trump opening up these incredible buildings all across New York City and how he navigated all that. And like, I can see the appeal of it. So if you get lost, if you spend 30 seconds to 60 seconds dealing with, we're talking about a commander in chief, we're not talking about someone that you want to go out and have a drink with, then you do lose people's attention to get back to them with the ammo of why do you not care that a deportation force is going to cause inflation like we've never seen? Or do you not care about the deficit? Or Kamala Harris actually has a plan for your aging mother who might have to

die in a hospital versus being able to die at home. We were talking about that last week. It's by far and away the best policy of either campaign. Agreed. To have Medicare cover that. And she can't get a word in edgewise about it because she's on the defensive constantly. Fox Creative.

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I've been flying Virgin for 20 plus years. And I do the same thing. and they get it right every time. They always have the financial times for me. And I ordered the chicken tikka masala. And that is my virgin experience. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And your drink was? What is your drink? Well, I used to drink a Bloody Mary or a beer in the clubhouse. I don't drink alcohol when I travel anymore, so I just do mineral water. But they have this kind of cool cocktail that's like a lemongrass or some sort of cool margarita thing, and I get a virgin one.

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up a few inches at a rally in madison square garden on sunday racist, sexist, vulgar, wasn't even a particularly good joke and etc. commentary from speakers. But did you hear the really weird part? The Speaker of the House Mike Johnson part? Look at him, such a nice looking guy, just that little beautiful face with the glasses. Got the little glasses. Yeah, that was also weird. But that's not actually what I'm talking about. Just a little later, Trump turned to Speaker Johnson and he said this. We can take the Senate pretty easily. And I think with our little secret, we're going to do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact.

He and I have a secret. We'll tell you what it is when the race is over. That comment is making people nervous because Trump does have a plan for if he loses this election. A reporter did some digging into it. We're going to talk toance sort of tried to answer the question he gets over and over. Do you believe that Biden was fairly elected? What did you think of his response? He's very slick. He's very good. I said today, of the four people that are the presidential candidates and the VPs, I think he's arguably the smartest and the best debater of all of them. And I think it's a fine word salad of the thing. But again, to the point

about Liz Cheney, for the voters who need someone to say Donald Trump lost the election and then he tried to overturn the result, nothing he says is ever going to be good enough. But it gives this kind of 20 to 30 percent who know better but want you to keep soothing them that way. And I just wonder also, how does that conversation go? Like, do you think Donald Trump ever explicitly said to him, you may never contradict me on this or it's just implied of a top lieutenant that you can never seem normal about it because i bet honestly if jd vance even broke a little bit that it could bring some voters back into the fold because is trump going to finish his term i don't know he doesn't he doesn't seem that mentally well he's exhausted he's talking about it now so i think people would find jd vance more palatable if they knew that he was a little bit more normal yeah there's mentally well. He's exhausted. He's talking about it now. So I think people would find

J.D. Vance more palatable if they knew that he was a little bit more normal. Yeah, there's sort of the issues we talk about, and a lot of them, I think, are more, again, just there to tickle our senses instead of the real issues. I think the most important person in this race that we don't talk about is a guy named Peter Thiel. And essentially, Peter Thiel is kind of—everyone's obsessed with Elon Musk. Peter Thiel is the power player that no one talks about. And that is essentially—Senator Vance served in the Marines, and he should be honored for that and respected for it. Wrote a wonderful book. I think it's a—that is a brilliant book.

He is a very intelligent man. He had a mediocre career as a venture capitalist, and that's being generous. And then a billionaire found him and essentially got him elected as senator and is now the man behind him ascending. I think the deal is something like this. We'll give your campaign a lot of money. I know how to game social media. This is going to be your VP. And the thing about a democracy, and there's a lot of studies showing that it works better than autocracies, is checks and balances. The reason why we have a lot of this intransigence, three branches of government, 555 people who don't get along, is we don't make stupid decisions really quickly. There's a wisdom of crowds. There is a

wisdom of democracy. And if Trump wins, there's a one, if you look at actuarial tables, right, a 70-year-old obese man over the next four and a half years has a one in three chance of dying. That means we are very, actually, you know, right now, if you believe the edges to Trump, which I do, I don't want to believe that, but I do believe it's gun to head. Yeah, I think he's got the edge right now. That means you have a guy who is essentially, I don't want to say owned, but senator, vice president, and potentially President Vance will never utter one word to Peter Thiel, and that word is no. He is there because of Peter Thiel. about to have the most powerful person on top of the most powerful nation, the biggest military, and the largest economy on the world is the guy who's going to have all the power, quite frankly, is a guy most Americans have never heard of, and we never talk about it. And I think if the

Democrats were better and on better messaging, they would talk more about Peter Thiel and say, this guy's going to run the country. Are you down with that? You know, one of the components of a democracy is there are a lot of people with a lot of power. This guy is literally going to be the guy who made the president. And I was trying to think throughout political history if there's ever been an individual who would have the kind of power that's not elected, maybe Rupert Murdoch, I don't know, that Teal's going to have if they win. Well, I think an interesting comp, and it shows that this would have been possible without such a truncated campaign. I mean, you have to remember that this, she only got four months to do this. So a lot of the groundwork that would have been laid would have come earlier. But in just eight to ten weeks, the Democrats have managed to completely socialize Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation and get it up to like an 80 percent negativity perspective or whatever the right way is to say.

People know what Project 2025 is and they hate it. Whatever aspect they're looking at, like if you're in the reproductive rights angle, I mean, you've seen the porn industry is taking out ads against Project 2025 because that's something that would be banned. You have, we interviewed Larry Hogan a few weeks ago and he hates Project 2025 because of the number of bureaucrats that are going to get laid off because of it. Because in Maryland, what do most people do? They work in the government. You think there could have been a way to have an anti-Peter Thiel campaign and you could have turned him into the human Project 2025, right, to talk about that. But it was a missed opportunity. And there was something that came out over the weekend. I forget what article it was, but it said that Democrats really missed an opportunity by excluding Elon Musk from the fold. And I wanted to ask you about it, that we could have

taken him in and told him all the stuff that is true, like you launch rockets, we all drive your cars, you get Starlink to people from everywhere, from North Carolina to Ukraine to Estonia. We want you on our team. And because he is, you know, the island of the misfit toys, he took the rejection of that from when he first started doing interviews and talking about threats to the First Amendment, etc. And we kind of banished him. And now we're paying the price for it. I mean, what is he spending, like a million dollars a day

or something on recruiting people or getting people to sign up to vote, the get out the vote effort that he's funding? And do you think we should have held him tight? So I hate to admit this because I think it's a terrible role model for young men, but there are millions, if not tens of millions of people who think he's the most impressive person on the planet. And you can empathize with that.

And I think one of the biggest strategic errors, if you go back in time, was Biden had an EV summit and didn't invite Musk. And that was just fucking stupid. That's so weird. That's just basically saying, I mean, Tesla has inspired the EV race. It's a great American company. It's created a ton of shareholder value. And to have an EV summit and just bring, you know, the CEO of the Pontiac Leaf, it's just, okay, what you're saying is you're, that's a big, you're sticking up the middle finger to Elon Musk. And I don't think he's ever forgiven them for that. Why would you? I mean, you never would. Oh, no, I don't want,

you're a far better man. No, no, no, no. I hold grudges for much less than that. But, and then when you see this projectile that is 16 stories crashing and barreling towards Earth, and then it ignites and somehow gets caught by a metal contraption. I look at that and I think, yeah, I'll vote for whoever that guy's voting for. I mean, the reality is that shit's just really, really impressive. And I think they massively screwed up alienating him. Now, to the extent, so let's use that as a bridge to, he is now giving a million dollars a day, I think, in a lottery for if you get someone to register to vote. And my understanding is legal scholars have pretty much weighed in and have said, it's not only deeply concerning,

but I've seen things highlighted that said, bottom line is, it's a violation of campaign election laws and it's illegal. But here's the problem, and that is the algebra of deterrence is not in place. What is the algebra of deterrence? The majority of us will never commit a crime, one, because we like to think we're good people and good citizens, but I would argue the algebra of deterrence is why we don't commit crimes. And the algebra is very straightforward. It's the likelihood you get caught times the penalty has to be greater than the potential upside.

So I have access to inside information occasionally, right, serving on boards and shit like that. I would like to make a lot of money. I could talk myself, I don't think, but I could see how people could rationalize a way to make money with insider trading. But if you're a straight white guy on a board and you're caught trading on insider information, you could go to jail for a very long time. The upside's just not worth it. The likelihood you get caught in a digital age is pretty high. The likelihood, based on your background, if you're that privileged to be on a board,

that they're not going to show you any sort of leniency and you end up in jail and the Southern District comes after you full-throated, I think a lot of people do that math and go, no, I'll make sure that I'm not trading in stocks where I have non-material insider information. The algebra of deterrence is in place. It is not in place in some key areas in our economy. I can have information that 15-year-old girls are cutting themselves and are suitably more depressed and engaging in self-harm. And I can see that information and I can cover it up and I can lie about it because if I get fined, or if someone says you violated your consent decree, the fine might be 11 weeks of free cash flow.

So the algebra deterrence is not in place in what is the largest sector in our economy, and that is the tech sector. Until someone shows up in an orange suit, an orange suit, when we find out they knew that their products were damaging young women or girls specifically, or that they were radicalizing young men, nothing's going to happen because we can't come up with fines big enough. The algebra of deterrence is not in place. The problem I see with the must thing is he's done the math. Yeah, it's illegal,

but they're not, if Trump wins, they're not going to kick him out of office because of an illegal campaign tactic. There is no fine big enough for Trump. His lawyers, I'm sure his lawyers, he said, can I go to jail for that? Like, no. Is it illegal? Yeah. But can I go to jail for it? No. How big will the fine be? I don't know, 10 or 59? Fuck it. Let's roll. Let's roll. The algebra of returns is also not in place with very wealthy taxpayers because very wealthy people have very complicated tax returns. And essentially, because of the underfunding that happened until the last year, the likelihood of you getting caught is so minimal that it encourages very, very wealthy people to be so incredibly aggressive with their taxes that the algebra of returns isn't in place there. And I don't think it's here either. There are just specific parts of our economy where it pays to break the law. If you had a parking meter in front of your house that costs 100 bucks an hour and the ticket was 25 cents,

you would break the law. And I see this as a perfect example until they actually say, if you blatantly violate campaign laws, you can no longer spend money on media. You have an injunction. You're done. You can't spend money on media. Or even maybe have a recall election after the fact. Until that happens, why wouldn't you break the law? Well, if you have no moral compass, yeah, 100%. Sure. That's a hard one for me. I'm so afraid of everything. It's like the Jewish female guilt, nervousness thing that there's no way that I'd be able to do it. But I think it's another reason that the Trump campaign is benefiting from this truncated schedule because Musk only started doing this like three, four days ago or something like that. So worst case scenario, oh, I did it

for two weeks. It's not like I had this plan in place and I've been doing it for an entire year. Yeah, that's totally the defense. It's also, it's been wildly ineffective what he's been doing. And this has been a theme that we're talking about. The Guardian had a scoop over the weekend that a quarter of the door knockers in Arizona and Nevada for the Trump campaign, so Musk is paying them, the money's coming from him, are writing fraudulent reports. They're not actually knocking on doors because they go back and they check, like, did you hear from somebody? And they just marked it off and took the money and went and got some beers or

whatever they're going to do. So I continue to be heartened by the Democrats' organization on a comparative level, like canvassing matters. And you're seeing all of these deeply reported pieces, especially in swing districts like in Arizona and Georgia, where people are talking about their interactions with voters and are meeting a lot of women in particular, which isn't surprising since we're trending towards this historic gender gap, people are coming to the door and they're basically saying, I'm voting for her. I don't want to talk about it. It's not like in 2016 when everyone was so excited, like, I've got my woman card here. Like, I have a 3D printed Hillary doll that is

in my daughter's room now. It's really cute. She goes like, that's mama. And it's a blonde in like a blue suit. So obviously it's not mama, but like there's this excitement that I still feel about her. A 3D printed Hillary doll. That a stranger sent to me and I wasn't even bothered that he somehow knew my home address

because I literally came to the door and I was like, should I report this or just sleep with it forever? And people used to be excited about their vote in a different way than they are in this election. Even if you're enthusiastic about turning the page, whatever way you're turning it, people, I'm sure you guys notice this in your lives, it's not as fun to talk about anymore over dinner. You're just like, it's happening. When is this going to be over? Soon enough, I hope. So speaking when it's over, early voting has kicked in. Georgia received more than 600,000 votes in the first days. North Carolina had massive lines despite being in some areas that were very hard hit by Hurricane Helene. What's your read?

Is this massive, is this tidal wave of early voting good or bad for Democrats or Republicans? So there are two schools of thought on it. I, in general, tend to think big turnout is better for Democrats and also just better for democracy. I want the most amount of, however it shakes out, I would be excited if the number of people that are involved

in the democratic process is higher. And I think that we should all feel that way. But I also really want to win. And the reason that I think that it's better is except in Georgia and Nevada, I think it is, it's been a higher turnout amongst women than amongst men. And Republicans have been running around, if you're very into talking politics, I'm sure someone has told you that Republicans now have a higher number of registered voters than Democrats. We hadn't seen this trend line in decades. And it happened, it came out like two weeks ago. The Gallup data showed it for the first time. But what they miss with that talking point is, does your affiliation mean how you're voting? Liz Cheney is still a registered Republican. And a lot of

these people are. So I'm not sure it's indicative of anything like that. But the high turnout, I think, is net-net good for us. And apparently the Gen Z turnout is massive. And I saw a video online today. That's incredible. Definitely. I saw this video of, there's kind of this asshole guy walking around interviewing young women about why they're voting for Kamala. And the point was to make fun of them because they kept talking about abortion and being able to control their own bodies. And I saw these Trump supporters being like, you know, you callous fools, like you think it's all about, you know, being able to go out and sleep with whoever at the sex club and then just go and get an abortion. And then order Chinese. And then order chicken with scallions, which was delicious here. And it's amazing to see a piece of content that means such different things to both groups.

So all the Republicans are dunking on it and all of the Democrats or the left-leaning supporters or people who just care about reproductive health are saying it is a completely normal thing for a 22-year-old woman to worry that she's going to have a health care emergency and not be able to get the treatment that she needs. So let's talk a little bit about the polls. I'm curious what you make of these. So far, a new general election polling shows that Harris is up by four in Georgia, up by two in Michigan, up by two in Michigan, up by two in Pennsylvania, which is sort of coming down to be kind of the most important state.

Definitely. He has no path without it, and she needs it too, but he really needs it. It's interesting because, well, I'll go through this in a second. Wisconsin, Harris up three, Nevada, tie, North Carolina, Trump up three, Arizona, Trump up three. See, I read this poll, and to me, it means it looks as if the edge is to Harris. And if you look at all, the majority of, quote-unquote, really thoughtful people I know are actually quite worried. It feels like her momentum was arrested about two weeks ago when it swung back dramatically. And then if you look at the betting sites, which I think would be where I would go for information, but my podcast co-host on property markets, Ed Ellison, pointed out that keep in mind the people who gamble are young men who are biased towards Trump. And then I got an email today from my friend Michael Auerbach saying it's a Democrat in there spending millions on Trump in hopes that it'll convince Trumpers to stay home because they don't need to show up. It just is like, there's all of this crazy kind of people trying to manipulate in the

role it plays. When I saw these polls, I thought, this is wrong because this feels decidedly Harris to me. Any thoughts on the polls? Well, this was part of the change in my mood. I said I'd been algorithm miserable for the last two weeks. and this morning I was like, we're back. We went to an apple farm on Saturday for apple picking with our little people, and I was like, there were Trump flags everywhere, people out doing their thing. And we passed by one Kamala Harris sign. And I actually like fist pumped, like I'm not a fist pumper. And my husband goes, it says Kamala Harris is an idiot. So, and then I remembered we're like five minutes from Bedminster. This is Trump country. But I saw that, which is from a very reputable pollster. And that felt more in line with the fact that we know that a majority of Americans have more aligned policy positions to the Harris campaign.

That doesn't mean that she's going to win, but it means that she's breaking through on a lot of levels. There was an AP poll out that she is leading on a number of economic issues, which is a really big deal, like keeping inflation down, dealing with the cost of groceries. And to your point about who's changing their mind, I think it was the Emerson poll had 60 to 36 ratio that people who have decided in the last month are breaking for Harris. So if you decided over a month ago, Trump was winning that by huge margins. But what she is doing, and whether that's just that she's more in the national consciousness, if you're just seeing her on The View, whether you like what she said, or you're seeing her

sit down with Brett Baier, or you're seeing her town halls, that it's making people feel calmer about a Harris presidency, which is what Brett Stevens was arguing in the Times today, where he said finally that he's going to vote for her. The undecided voter has now decided? Not undecided. Again, she was up 10 points with independents in the last Fox poll. But the poll we referenced is an AP poll, and it shows Harris and Wall's favorability up 5 and 4 percent respectively, whereas Trump and Vance are down 18 and 15 percent. So that feels very favorable for Harris, yet I don't know about you, but kind of the zeitgeist I'm hearing from people, quote-unquote, in the know, pollsters, is that I'm really, really worried. The bottom line is it just feels like it's within. Can I ask you if you think the betting markets,

the stuff matters at all? Because I know a lot of people that are complete truthers are that the Wall Street Journal had a big expose on how polymarket is being moved. I mean, your friend has an interesting counter theory, but they found all of these Trumpers were the ones that was pushing it because now he's up to 65% odds.

I think there's no doubt. I think there's more oxygen being taken out of the room by a, I mean, if you think about it, betting is like the stock market and the stock market absorbs millions of points of light. And it's seen as kind of the total arbiter. Whenever I go on a board, I always call the CFO because the CFO is the source of truth. From the market standpoint, the stock price is the source of truth. The the market standpoint, the stock price is the source of truth. The CEO can talk flowery, but at the end of the day, the stock attempts to absorb tens of millions of points of light and then make a very no-mercy, emotionless decision with one singular thing, like the xenomorphs from Alien. It's just totally focused on killing. It

has no conscience. It has no morals. It can't be bargained with. And stocks are the same way. They're just, it's people who just want to make money. And so when you see a betting market says that it's approximately a 60% or almost two in three chance that Trump's going to win, I think that's great for the Trump campaign

because it says this unemotional arbiter from people who are just focused on making money think he's going to win. And I think that's great for the Trump campaign because it says this unemotional arbiter from people who are just focused on making money think he's going to win. And I think that creates—I think anything that creates momentum that this person is likely to win is good for that person. Having said that, I have no idea. By the way, the polls, all the gambling sites were wrong in 2020. They also saw— Trump won. They also saw Trump winning.

And that goes back to Ed's thesis that young men have a bias towards Trump. Real quickly, do you think the death of Senwar has any sort of impact on the election at this point? Well, I think it's yet to see in the last few days stories about her trouble with Arab voters in Michigan and her trouble with Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. And I have a lot of friends, Josh Shapiro truthers, who are, you know, watching him handle the Jewish holidays with huge amounts of passion and inclusivity and And Grace and him and his wife just seem like wonderful ambassadors for the religion and everything that we're about. And they're like, I told you, like, Tim Walz is great.

These soundbites calling them weird and saying, mind your damn business was all well and good. But that guy, the Baruch Obama of it all, would have been much better for us. And time will tell. If we lose, I'm probably going to be pretty mad that I thought Wallace was a good choice. But it does seem like there are probably going to be young people that potentially set this out in Michigan, probably most of all, and that there are going to be some Jews more in our cohort, kind of, you know, overeducated and reading too much and in their feelings about it, who feel like they can't tick the box with her. But who knows,

like last week's Sin Wars, I mean, it was only like three weeks ago that the beeper stuff started happening. It feels like this whole thing is going at lightning pace. So I don't know what it'll be like. Do you think it's having a real impact? Well, I fail to see how it's anything but positive for the current administration, because the feeling of chaos, the existing administration pays the price for that. I think their messaging around Israel has been abysmal because this is the worst of both worlds. Biden and Harris, I believe,

have actually been pretty good on Israel. Whenever anyone complains about them, I grew up in Los Angeles and went to UCLA. I was in a Jewish fraternity. The majority of my close friends from college are Jewish. They're all voting for Trump. They're just like, no, I have family there. I want no milquetoast bullshit around it. I don't want empathy. I want someone who's squarely behind Israel, full stop. And right now, Trump has done a better job of communicating that. Because where Biden and

Harris have really screwed up is that no world leader has been better on Israel than Biden and Harris. There was only one world leader that immediately deployed two carrier strike forces to the Mediterranean, such that if the Iranians had any ideas about starting a multi-front war, they said, we got 4,500 incredibly skilled people

and we can deliver the violence of a big nation and it's sitting off your shore. So sit the fuck down. That was the most important move made outside of Israel. And Americans, Biden and Harris did it. But at the same time, all this bullshit, wavering, we're trying for a truce. I support them, but I don't. It's like they've handled it terribly because they don't get any credit for what they— everybody's angry at them. Jews are angry at them. Muslim Americans are angry at them. So my belief was, folks, you got to pick a side here. And trying to, like, thin them—they just haven't—they haven't thread the needle here. And he doesn't get—he and Vice President Harris don't get nearly the credit.

And just saying, my husband is Jewish is not a policy decision, in my view. So I think they've just handled the messaging terribly around this. But I do think his death can be nothing but positive for the current administration, or at least... Well, you would, you're kind of weeding out, when you kill a terrorist as big and as bad as Sinwar, you're able to weed out the people that were never going to be with you anyway, right? Like, that you had no choice of penetrating. So, like, I did a show, I did special report on Friday,

and we do this thing, and losers at the end. And I had as my losers for the week, terrorist sympathizers. Like these kids that are out there claiming that this is about a genocide or whatever it is. Like if you think in any way that a world without Sinwar is problematic, there's something problematic with you. And I'm not even sure we really want your vote. Now, when we lose by 2,000 votes, I'll probably take that back and say, I would have loved to have had your support for that. But I think it's definitely a good thing that it happened, and it has put Netanyahu in a different light. I feel he's almost moved to being a wartime president

for the first time. His popularity is surged. Yeah. But, if he overplays his hand, I think it was something in one of the strikes,

87 people in Beirut were killed, innocents who were not terrorists, not involved at all. You get a headline like that, and people say

there has to be a better way to do this. Now, I know on a historical level, he's still running a pinpoint accurate operation, but that is compelling to people. You see, you know, tiny innocent bodies blown up

and you think, what did they do to you? Yeah. We've gotten a lot of criticism online. A lot of people say, you might be raging, but you're not moderates. Scott loves the comments. Yeah, I look at the comments. He's in it all the time.

Everyone's addicted to something. I'm addicted to the affirmation of strangers. It's pathetic, but I'm working on it. So we wanted to do endorsements. And my understanding, and none of this is going to come as a surprise to anybody, but my understanding is you're not allowed to do an official endorsement. Is that correct? Everyone knows how I am voting, but I don't free it. I am happy to talk about why Kamala

Harris will be the best president you've ever seen in your life. It's not the same way that you're going to do it, but do your thing, and then I'll talk my way through it. All right, I'll go. So, I think a lot about young men, right? So if you look globally, the group that's ascended the fastest is women. It's fantastic. There are more women globally seeking tertiary education now than men. That's a wonderful thing. In the U.S., more single women own homes than single men,

three to two college graduates. Globally, you've seen a doubling of the number of women elected to parliament in the last 30 years. We've never seen an ascent of a demographic globally this violent and this wonderful, and that's a collective victory for all of us. And we should do nothing to get in the way of that. At the same time, the group that has fallen furthest the fastest in the United States is young men. Four times as likely to kill themselves, three times as likely to be addicted, 12 times as likely to be incarcerated. So you have an entire cohort of young men that aren't engaging with relationships,

they're not engaging with school. Three million able-bodied men under the age of 40 aren't even seeking employment. They've just given up on employment. So they're not engaging with work, school, relationships. And so I think about, and also just very strategically, I think that young men are some of the last swing voters left. We talk about swing states. It's not swing states, it's swing counties. It's not really swing counties, it's swing voters. And I think young men are still some of the last available swing voters. Specifically, a lot of young men are sort of like maybe going to vote, maybe not. And also, they're not as Neanderthal knuckles dragging along the ground as people would think. Young men way I think about it is it's really good and

important to have a code to guide you. Some people get it from religion. Some people get it from their work. Some people get it from their school. Some people get it by joining the Marines and adopting that code. But I think as a young man, you need a code. And I've been thinking a lot about masculinity, and this is where some people get very uncomfortable. I think masculinity can be a great code in an aspirational way for young men. And that is the following. I think that a decent proxy for masculinity is provider, protector, and procreator. And so let's go through each of those and why I think Harris would be the right or the best candidate. Provider. You can be good in a country with low growth. You can be good in Britain right now, but the fact that the country hasn't grown in five years because of terrible economic policies, it is difficult to be a good provider.

So you want a context where you can have a job, have good economic growth, and quite frankly, do well and be a provider. And I think every man should start from the viewpoint of, I'm going to take economic responsibility for my household. And sometimes that means getting out of the way of your partner who's better at that money thing than you are and being more supportive, as I like to think I was as my partner was working at Goldman Sachs and making a lot more money than I was at the time. But I think it's a good standpoint to start from, I'm going to be an economic provider here. And the reality is three quarters of women say economic viability is really important in a mate. It's only one quarter for men. So if you want to be taken seriously in our

economy, and I'm not talking about our nation, I'm not talking about what should be, I'm talking about what is, young men need to aspire to be good providers. You're going to have an easier time as a young man being a provider, I believe, in an economic environment based on the Harris plan. We have so far, if you think it's most likely going to be a continuation of the current policies, we have the lowest inflation of any G7 country while having the strongest growth. We are at full employment. We have the lowest unemployment since 1968. We have had 71 record highs in the market. We have added more shareholder value just with AI in this nation in the last 18 months than the entire global auto industry since the inception of the auto industry. The fact that these algorithms are trying to convince young

people that this economy is awful, there are 190 sovereign nations in the world, 189 would trade places with us. China has lost $3 trillion in market capitalization over the last three years. We've gained $5 trillion in the last seven. This economy is on fire. Now, similar to the future, it's here. Prosperity is here. It's just not evenly distributed. A lot of people are struggling. But unfortunately, there's this dynamic where when your salary goes up 10 percent, you think it's your grid and character. But when diapers go up 4 percent, you blame the Harris and Biden administration. This economy will be much stronger. Your ability to be a good provider is much more likely with Harris's economic plan.

Protection should be the default setting for people, and I think Democrats, specifically Vice President Wallace, did a great job. And if we want to have more young people pairing up, having sex, finding relationships, and having deep and meaningful families, we need to encourage people to connect both emotionally, mentally, and having deep and meaningful families. We need to encourage people to connect both emotionally, mentally, and physically. And women are going to stop, for good reason, if they maintain this type of risk, if we continue down this perverted track of taking bodily autonomy away from women. In sum, I can guarantee all young men listening to this podcast that you porn is bested by your porn. And my advice to you is to get out, get your shit together,

make yourself more attracted to women or attractive to women, pursue sex, establish relationships, and be a protector and a provider. And I think all of those things are on a code for masculinity, are much better served in a Harris administration than this weird, unhealthy version of the manosphere that is being projected on the right. So with that, I am endorsing Vice President Harris and Governor Walz for president. All right, folks, that's it for tonight. Thank you for joining us tonight. And special thanks to Maxwell for hosting us.

Thanks. Big shout out to Maxwell, our producers, our Caroline Chagrin and David Toledo, our technical director is Drew Burrows. Please follow Raging Moderates wherever you get your podcasts. That's right. Raging Moderates has its very own feed. What a thrill. Drinks on, Jessica. Thank you for your time.