The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Raging Moderates — October Surprises and the Final Campaign Stretch

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Jessica Tarlov and Scott Galloway discuss Jack Smith’s filing and what it means for the Trump Campaign. They also give their thoughts on Harris’s media tour, recent endorsements for both the candidates, Melania Trump and her memoir, and the year it’s been since the October 7th Hamas attack.  Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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charges, and expenses. This and other information can be found in the Innovation Fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash innovation. This is a paid advertisement. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlev. Jessica, how was your weekend? It was glorious. Weather was amazing in New York. Really? You know how, like in London, like the city comes alive, especially when you're not supposed to get good weather at this point. It was like 70 and sunny. And you're not home.

No, I'm in Los Angeles at my favorite hotel, the Bear Leaves Hotel. I just took off my pink robe for you. Oh. just took off my pink robe for you. And yeah, I had a really nice weekend. I went to two of my closest friends, my roommates, my sophomore year in the room of the 80s, which we rebranded one of the rooms. And our fraternity had their 60th and like tons of kids and grown kids. It was really, really nice. And then I went and saw my dad, which is my dad's at that point where that's kind of rough. But I did that. And now I'm back. And I'm going to do this at O Dark 100 hours.

And then at 1 o'clock, I'm going to go down and I'm going to order a club sandwich, put on big, big dark sunglasses, put an unlit cigarette in my mouth. And every woman that walks by me, I'm going to scream, Jackie, marry me. I make you very happy, woman. That's it. Jackie. That's an Aristotle Onassis reference, Jessica. It's one of my go-to lines. Oh, I hadn't heard it before. So the spark is still alive here. Very much. Since we're new to each other. Yeah. Very much. And it's kind of sad. They recognize me. I'm turning into a much less wealthy version of Howard Hughes here. They're like, hello, Mr. Galloway, and how are you? And they talk to me like I'm a very old man. Anyways, today we are talking about the final stretch of the campaign,

Liz Cheney campaigns for Harris and Elon Musk rallies for Trump, Melania's book tour. That's a snoozer. And finally, we reflect on the year it's been since the October 7th Hamas attack. All right, with less than a month out from Election Day and the October surprises are rolling in, last week, Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped a 165-page filing detailing Trump's alleged desperate efforts to overturn the 2020 election. According to the document, Trump told a family member just days before January 6th that it doesn't matter if you won or lost, you still have to fight like hell. The filing also claims Trump knew his court claims wouldn't hold up, but pressed on anyways. Jess, what do you make

of this? Could this really, could this have an impact or is it just, I don't know, is it a lot of jazz hands here? Well, I think that there's something more important afoot than whether it has an impact or not. And that's that there's 165 pages of available information now about how Donald Trump, as a private citizen, so that's what Jack Smith had to do with this post-Supreme Court immunity decision. He had to show that this was a criminal plot to overturn the election by a private citizen acting as such, using private lawyers, using private money, et cetera. And that's meaningful for the American public, even if it just goes in a time capsule for all of this, to really understand the breadth and depth of the effort to overturn the election. We're all political animals, some of us more than

others. So yes, could it have an electoral effect? I think that that is linked to, you know, when we start talking about Liz Cheney being out there and campaigning and the Adam Kinzinger's of the world and this undecided voter or potential swing voter where protecting democracy is their number one priority. You know, these primarily women, suburban women that are being interviewed saying, you know, I don't agree with Kamala Harris's policy positions, but I want to be on the side of protecting the Constitution. So I think it matters in that sense. But this is, it feels so much larger than what happens on November 5th to me when you look at this filing. And some of my colleagues said, you know, well, we already knew all of this. And then I started rattling off all of this new information that was in this filing. And they said, oh, well, it's connected to the spirit of what I knew. Well, that's really different, right? People don't remember the spirit

of things. They remember the anecdotes, like the Michigan GOP official who Ronna McDaniel called for Trump to try to get him to do the fake elector scheme. And he said, that's fucking nuts. People are going to remember that or that Donald Trump said about, you know, that they wanted to hang Mike Pence, that he said, so what? And I feel like that is going to stick in the national consciousness for a lot longer than the outcome of this election. What'd you make of it? I'm of two minds on it because I agree with you that reminding, just saying, just FYI, folks, just remember as you head into the voting booth, this is the guy who tried to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power, which is kind of job one if you're trying to hold up our democracy. Every other president, even when it's been close with Gore or Clinton, they did concede and they showed up at the inaugurations and they facilitated. This was like, there were certain things we thought were just always going to happen that we took for granted.

And he still has yet to concede the election. And I think that it's important to remind people that remember this, this should not be normalized. This was outrageous, unprecedented behavior. And some of the stuff is really shocking. At the same time, I was pissed off. I mean, physically angry at Comey when he decided, hey, look at me a few weeks before the election and said that he was going after Hillary's emails or indicting her. To me, that just said, I need to be in the news and I have some weird perverted version of what it means to be a leader and it means doing stuff without any care for the political. I mean, there's just no way around it. If you do something right now, it's political. The political calculation has to come

into the calculation. So I think the criticism from Republicans that this seems very politically motivated given the timing, I think that's fair, which also leads to another level of anger. There's a loton luggage that's somewhere in my brain that comes with me everywhere. I think I inherited that from my father. Anyways, I have a tough one with this. I think that, you know, people cases. He was able to claim political prosecution that no one else has been subject to. Because our guys, if you will, if you think of the people that are trying to highlight some of Trump's shortcomings, they didn't bring these cases to three years. It strikes me as just incredibly democratic in the sense that the Democrats have a habit of being right and ineffective. What do you think about the timing of all of this? And do you think that Trump, do you think Trump's people are just going to say another example of how they are trying to steal the election again? Well, definitely.

Because they only have one thing to say. And it's, this is lawfare. And I'm a victim. And that works for a lot of people. But I do think that this is different. So I want to be in like 50 percent agreement with you about Merrick Garland and that this should have been all gas, no brakes. The second that Joe Biden was in the White House, everyone was confirmed this process should have begun. And it started a couple years too late. And, you know, it has taken a while, and there are a lot of cases involved. And it looks like

the Clarissa case, the Mar-a-Lago case, who knows when that moves forward? Because, you know, Trump got his bestie when they drew straws on that one in Eileen Cannon down in Florida. But I see this as amazingly distinct from what happened with Jim Comey and coming out 11 days before the election with nothing to say besides we considered something and decided against it. And Jim Comey has revealed himself. And I think a lot of these now-never-Trump Republicans suffer from this self-absorption that goes so beyond what they purport to be about, right? They say, I value country over party, but really I just want to hear myself talk, or I've got a bunch of books coming. And Liz Cheney doesn't do it like that. She actually seems like the one who is completely dedicated to making sure that we preserve our

democracy. And who knows if Kamala wins in 2024, I don't know where Liz Cheney will be in 2028 if there's a normie Republican on the other side. She'll probably go back to her roots because she actually believes in things that the Republican Party used to be about, like small government and fiscal responsibility, which is not a feature of the Trump agenda. So Jim Comey did that for himself, and he had nothing to say but to just publicly crap on Hillary, who was already running a deeply flawed campaign, which we all know and have accepted at this point. What's different about the Jack Smith filing is, A, it's the continuation of something that has been in the ether for over a year. So it doesn't violate the 60-day rule. Not these are formal rules, but the kind of code of conduct. And Jack Smith has taken

the hit from the Supreme Court, waded out through this. They slow rolled that. The Supreme Court did everything that they could to make sure that Trump would not have to deal with this before the election. Jack Smith abided by all of that, you know, hat tip to Judge Chutkan to make sure that she was still going on schedule no matter what, that she wasn't going to fall by the wayside for some stupid reason. Because the truth is, this obviously isn't going to trial in advance of this, but there's no reason that the wheels of justice should stop turning because people are going to vote on November 5th for a case that was already open, that has now been through two

grand juries to boot. So I think that people who are actually receptive to hearing the facts about Donald Trump and his legal cases, and there is a whole subsection of people who are not receptive to it, so this doesn't even matter. But those who still have that little light on where they can hear things deserve to know who it is that is standing for election on November 5th, the totality of that person. And I don't think that that counts as election interference. I think that that counts, again, as justice doing its thing and giving people the fullest picture of an incredibly important decision. And I don't know if that satisfies your anger about it, but I've given it a lot of thought and tried to be

as nonpartisan as I can. And I also, to your point about Democrats being losers or ineffective, as you put it more nicely, like this is actually us not being those kinds of losers. This is not letting Merrick Garland get a hearing before the election like Mitch McConnell did, just saying, no, we're not going to stand by and not talk about this because of a norm that you, first of all, invented and is not being violated because this was already an indictment that was out. I think that's well said. The Harris campaign has already released an ad using the story to their advantage. Let's have a listen. We fight like hell. And if we don't fight like hell, we're not going to have a country anymore. New evidence about Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

This is bombshell after bombshell after bombshell. Trump was pressuring Pence to take action. Mike Pence has betrayed the United States of America. Trump looked at him and said only, so what? Wow, that's pretty dark. What do you think? I mean, it's like a movie trailer, right? Like when we used to go to movies and you'd be like, oh, I want to see that. Which is the best that you could do for a filing, right?

To make something as exciting as that sounds. I think that's exactly the right thing. And two things at play with this. One, the Harris campaign has so much money that they can make an ad about toilet paper if they want, and it's not going to put a dent in the bank. So why wouldn't you cut ads on this? And then add to that the ad that they did right after the debate when Walls asked J.D. Vance if Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, and he couldn't answer. So all of this is, you know, part of that bubble. And I think it's totally worth the dollars. And I want to put something to you that I have been workshopping,

and this is my first public go of it. The Trump campaign is not seemingly making a real effort to win the election when it comes to the mechanics of it, like the get out the vote operation. And people have been publicly decrying this. Ronna McDaniels talked about it. Other Republican officials, Republicans have said in swing districts, no one has canvassed. I haven't seen anyone knock on my doors. They have Charlie Kirk in charge of it, who's a grifter of the highest order. And marrying that up with what we know from this filing, part of me feels like they don't even really intend to win in the genuine way. That he's going to say, again, I won, knowing full well that the recounts are going to have to happen,

George is going to have to hand count, etc. And that was just kind of like this red flag that went off to me this weekend after looking at the Jack Smith filing and thinking, are these people actually playing to win or they're playing to say they won? Wow, because I actually think he is very, well, he personally, there's him, there's the campaign and how they're going about it. I would imagine that he desperately wants to win

because in my view, there's a very decent chance that one of these courts, I mean, he has, I think, four juries at some point coming for him. And those, I looked at those jurisdictions, they have between, depending on the jurisdiction, between a 70 and 90% conviction rate. And the majority of the crimes, except for the one in New York, probably typically the sentencing guidelines would probably offer up some sort of jail term. Now, a guy that age, the president, they might say, just stay out of politics. We're going to put an anklet on you, hang out at your golf course, you know, have Melania and porn stars swing by. He still could probably figure out a way to come to some sort of accommodation, have a nice life, but that's not going to be pleasant. And if a 78-year-old man, obese man, is sentenced to prison anytime

at all, it's probably a death sentence. He's not going to come out. He may never leave. He may leave feet first. And when he comes out, I think he'd be a dramatically changed person. So I would think he's exceptionally, genuinely all in on winning. I wonder if the campaign, what you're describing to me, quite frankly, is a little bit of incompetence. They don't have the ground game that previous campaigns have had. The other question or the question I would have for you is, I think you brought up something that's kind of interesting, and that is money. Vice President Harris has raised so much money. Where does that come in? Is it just ads or is it a get out, you know, is it get out the vote? Is it turnout?

Other than just more ads, I would have thought that basically every news station that has people who are 95 watching it has already sold out all their ads. Where else does the money help? Yeah, it's definitely the ground game. And she is supporting down ballot races at unprecedented levels, transferring things like $25 million to the DNC to make sure that we can retake the House. You know, everyone is even sharing. You have Gavin Newsom writing to you, like, can you chip in for Bob Casey? So it's going to all sorts of down-ballot races, get-out-the-vote legal teams that are going to have to deal with recounts, making sure everything is free and fair in the aftermath, you know, paying people. And they have a huge apparatus.

I mean, this is massive what they have going. And I think you're probably right that it is more incompetence than anything. But they have they do have smart people like a Susie Wiles, who's one of his, I guess, co-chair of the campaign, who knows how to win elections. She's supposed to be very smart. Very smart. And she's not screaming about this, but I think in a deadlocked election where no one reasonable is saying it's going to be a landslide in either direction. Odds are we're going to go back down to the margins that we had in 2020 or less. Why wouldn't

you be preparing at the highest levels for that, which we know includes canvassing, door knocking, texting, calling, all the things. We'll be right back. Support for this show comes from Constant Contact. You know what's not easy? Marketing. And when you're starting your small business, while you're so focused on the day-to-day, the personnel, and the finances, marketing is the last thing on your mind. But if customers don't know about you, the rest of it doesn't really matter. Luckily, there's Constant Contact. Constant Contact's award-winning marketing platform can help your businesses stand out,

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Your kids are getting a little older, and I know that might be a little scary. Jesus, don't I know it. But they might be ready for some new responsibilities, like getting themselves to school or even carpooling to practice. And while it can be a scary time, it can also be a wonderful moment for them to stretch their wings. But of course, you want to make sure they stay safe. For that, you might want to try Life360, a family connection and safety app that makes it easy to keep track of your family members' locations in real time. Life360 notifications let you know when your kids arrive or leave a location like school, practice, a friend's house, or the bus stop. And with a tile from Life360, you can easily attach and track items including backpacks,

duffel bags, or even a pet's collar, all to help alleviate the mental load of managing a busy family. Family-proof your family with Life360's Tile Trackers. Visit Tile.com today and use code PROFG to get 15% off. That's Tile.com, codeVG. Vice President Harris also made some major media appearances this week, including Call Her Daddy, 60 Minutes, The View, Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert. She's clearly kind of got the message about getting out. These aren't exactly hard-charging interviews. 60 Minutes asked some pretty good questions. I thought she handled it pretty well. What did you make of this media tour? Well, it's not done yet. So, you know,

I'm interested in seeing all of it. It's weird. Being a liberal that works in conservative media, I'm wired a little bit differently. So I want things or have an expectation for Democrats that I think is a little bit unfair because I work with people who are like Fox interview or bust. And we should say Tim Walz went on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream on Sunday, and he did a pretty good job. I thought Shannon did a great job, too. It was one of those where everybody got something, which I feel like is the best case scenario for an interview. But I feel like what the Harris campaign is doing is rewriting how presidential campaigns are fought and hopefully won with the media. And they're trying to set a precedent for the future of this. And I think that they're doing

it, A, because this is the way that media is shifting, and B, because they have a candidate that can't do as well in the normal formats that presidential candidates usually do. I think that if she was like Biden was in 2020 or certainly an Obama or a Hillary and, you know, snappy and concise and very sure of herself in interviews, they'd be doing all the normal stuff, plus as many of these podcasts as possible. But they are making lemonade with the lemons that they have. And lemon is too harsh, but you know, that's how the phrase works. And doing something different. And I listened to the Call Her Daddy interview with great interest. I thought that the host, Alex Cooper, did a fantastic job. And if you haven't listened to it yet, at the beginning, she gives a very thoughtful introduction where she talks about how she has never wanted politics to be part of Call Her Daddy, that the Daddy Gang

is not interested in it. She has 5 million downloads for each episode. She's the number one podcast for women, 18 to 34, the number two podcast in the world behind Joe Rogan. So this is a massive audience that she doesn't want to tick off. And she had actually turned down the presidential candidates when it was Biden and Harris wanted to come on in January. I think she said no. And then as we got closer to the election and she realized also how many of the issues that they talk about a lot, like mental health, like women's reproductive rights, like sex and dating, abuse, were themes of the election that she should open her proverbial doors to the candidates. And

she also invited Donald Trump to join her, and he has not replied at this point. Scott, what do you think about this new media tour? Well, it bodes well for Jessica Tarloff and Scott Galloway and that podcasting. You think we're going to be the next stop for Kamala? It won't be this time because we didn't get our shit together until like October and launch this thing. But I think we're going to be huge in the midterm, Jess. Look, it really speaks to the medium. And that is, when you go on, when you look at 60 Minutes, you know, it's highly produced. You don't really get a sense for them. And podcasts, there's just more nuance and they run longer and it feels like you're actually in the room with them a bit. And I think people really like the medium for a long-form interview. Also, the medium has had a chance to kind of settle and mature. And you have a podcast like Color Daddy, which just wouldn't work in any other medium, where it begins from a place of kind of feminism and female strength, talking about issues that women weren't supposed to talk about, and has aggregated an enormous audience. I mean, Alex Cooper, I think she just signed a $100 or $125 million contract. She deserves every dollar.

And at the end of the day, what it really says is this medium, podcasting, it's growing faster than any other medium. I think Joe Rogan reaches more people than literally any TV show exponentially. And the other thing about podcasting I've noticed, it really moves book sales. So if we have an author come on Prof G or Markets, it tangibly moves book sales. And I would imagine people who buy books also over-index in terms of people who vote. In some, this is, I think you're just going to see more and more candidates on podcasts. What do you think, Jess? Absolutely. I think that they are, for the sheer reach numbers, also for the ability to be able to frame their answers in a way that they think is positive to their campaign. I mean, the problem

with, quote, mainstream interviews is you're going to have to deal with the framing of a question in the way that you might not like, and then you have one minute to respond and you have to spend 30 seconds talking your way back into the approach that you wanted to take. And I think that's why you see people moving to other spaces. And it's not just Kamala doing it. Obviously, Trump has been doing this. You know, Theo Vaughn, Lex Friedman. I'm sure if Rogan said, come on here, he would be there in a second. I think Kamala should do Rogan. He was gushing about how great her debate

performance was. You know, tell Rogan I'll give you half an hour. Don't try anything funny. And I bet he would play by the rules, understanding how important that moment is. I mean, the Howard Stern interview, his audience might not be as big as it used to be. It's still pretty large. But there was the, you know, Hillary Clinton regretted not going on before the election in 2016. He gave her, it was the best interview that anyone had ever heard Hillary do. And she was able to do that because it was long form like that. And I think one thing that they can do with these podcasts is it doesn't lend itself to clip culture in the same way, which I think is so damaging. And I realize that a lot of people consume me from the five through clip culture, and I am thankful

for everyone who has found me that way. The clip culture has made Jessica Tarlow just, you know, you literally feel it there. I am just a clip. Yeah, but you're all, that's how I know. You're all over TikTok. You are literally, you're the clipster. I mean, you are everywhere on social. So back to the TV thing in terms of how mediums are changing. I'm a narcissist. I love seeing myself on the big screen. And this week I was asked to go on Anderson Cooper 360. And I love Anderson.

I think he's a huge talent. And I'm out here on the West Coast. They wanted me to come on and talk about Musk and Trump. And that's kind of in my wheelhouse a little bit. And I thought, you know what? I'm not going to do it because I find TV so difficult. It's basically make a point that has a twist, a phrase, or some sort of insight on something everyone else has been covering for the last 48 hours, make it emphatically, make it crisply, and then shut

the fuck up because we got to go sell more opioid-induced constipation medication. There's just nothing thoughtful about it. It's so constricted by time. And then if you look at the numbers, the reality is very few people are watching television. I mean, I used to jump at every attempt 10 or 15 years ago when I was asked to do TV, no matter where I was. I'd be like scrambling to figure out a way. Now I'm, you know, I'd rather just hang by the pool. I'd rather hang by the pool, Jess. Okay. Well, counterpoints to that. 60 Minutes still gets 10 million viewers, says a TV clipster. But I would be willing to bet, I don't know how much, that you have a devout fan base that came for your Morning Joe interview.

Go on. Your Morning Joe interview about October 7th and the Israeli response. And you gave all the numbers of how many fewer casualties there were with the way that Netanyahu was executing this versus what happened during World War II. And I know I had friends who weren't Scott Galloway people before that who saw it and said, oh, I really like this guy. So you have benefited from the television greatly in the last year. So first off, thank you for being generous. There are a few shows. Everything comes down to some form of Gini coefficient or income inequality. I don't care if it's actual income inequality or mating on Tinder. Everything's becoming kind of a winner-take-most atmosphere. There's a small number of podcasts making all of the money,

and it's absolutely happening everywhere. It's also happening in TV. Morning Joe, The View, your show, The Five, there's like a handful of numbers or a handful of shows that are just kind of mopping up the entire audience, and everything else is in the long tail. And that's true in podcasting, too. Anyways, Jess, I hate to move on because I love talking about my favorite subject, me.

But let's move on. You had referenced earlier that Liz Cheney is out there campaigning for her. We have a clip for that. Let's take a listen. I tell you I have never voted for a Democrat. But this year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. I just can't figure out if, I mean, I get the theme. I just can't figure out if Representative Cheney and Representative Kitzinger, everyone already knows how they feel.

And if it has no impact, I do think if I were the Harris campaign, though, and I think it's coming, I would have this ground invasion leading up to the election. And I guess we're there, the 30 days out of literally the world's best team of surrogates in history. I think people from all walks of life are really interested. Famous athletes you wouldn't expect. Former Republicans. I think they're just going to roll out, oh, by the way, this person's also very much supporting Vice President Harris. I don't know if celebrity endorsements work. Democrats have always gotten more celebrities than the Republican, and I'm not sure it's ever been shown to be that effective. But I think they're going to just

literally overwhelm the airwaves with famous, high-Q, whether it's Taylor Swift or Bruce Springsteen, and they're going to have Musk and Ted Nugent. I don't know if there's that many people willing to go out there and talk about talk about trump right now do you think the surrogates have you heard anything about the quote-unquote the surrogate strategy yeah and i've spoken to the campaign about it and they it's very specialized and it's very targeted and this group of disaffected republicans like the nicki haley voters from the primary i don't want to say it's the number one target but amongst swing voters that they think they have a shot with, it definitely is. She is doing, I want to make sure that I get

this right, she's up 18 with white voters with a college degree. Biden was plus nine. It's a huge shift. So Hillary won that by five or six, then up to nine with Biden, and now plus 18, if this holds, which makes it the biggest swing voting bloc in the country. And those voters are Liz Cheney voters, or a lot of them are. They're white suburban women who can't believe that their daddy's Republican Party looks like this. They care about abortion and the right to choose, but they do care about this protecting democracy argument, perhaps more than anything. And I think it could be one of the biggest realignments in our politics that we've seen. So yes, the effort is big. There's a ton of money behind it.

It's very targeted. I agree with you about the celebrities. I think that will matter a lot less. It probably galvanizes young people. You know, if you see, oh, Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish, you know, what will Beyonce do? I assume at some point the endorsement is coming since she's leased Freedom, the song, to them. But people are most affected by a personal olive branch. So someone showing up at your door explaining why it is that they support X candidate, they know where these voters are. And all of Nikki Haley's infrastructure, I found this fascinating from her primary campaign, are now for Harris. So Trump isn't sitting still. He's been making headlines on the campaign trail as well. Over the weekend, he returned to Butler, Pennsylvania,

the place where he narrowly escaped the first assassination attempt. This time, he campaigned alongside Elon Musk. Huh. Let's hear what Musk had to say. Oh, shit, let's not. Okay, let's. Go ahead, Caroline.

Play the clip. President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America. Yeah, there's nothing like a billionaire with a South African accent to lecture me on the Constitution. What did you think of this? I found it frightening. Well, first of all, the good side of it was I do think it's cool that he went back to Butler.

It was a great move. Great move. And I think that he was also giving a lot of people who had come to that rally the experience that they were expecting to have that day and obviously were robbed of and a man lost his life and there was a celebration of that as well. I thought Trump was funny when he

started. He said, as I was saying, which is a pretty good opener considering what had happened. So I think that's important in the plus column. The Musk aspect of this, and you know way better than I do, he seems completely off his rocker at this point. I mean, this is a guy who said he had to buy Twitter to make sure that there were no politics in it because Jack Dorsey was too left-leaning, someone who I assume his politics are Democrat-leading, but as far as I know, was just sitting around on a beach in Bali, not really doing anything. And now Musk is censoring accounts, putting $45 million a month into a Trump PAC, out there advocating for him and saying that the country will cease to exist if Trump doesn't win. What is that? What happened here?

What strikes me in Musk is part of, I think, a larger issue in America, and that is everyone always talked about character as it relates to the president. And I think most recently we've come to realize that Americans really don't give a flying fuck about character. At least that's my takeaway here. Trump is just the guy you would shudder if you found out your daughter was dating. He doesn't appear to—I mean, world's president and sent people hunting for him who had nooses. I mean, but it doesn't seem like people don't seem to care. And then Musk, what I see on the other side is I interview all the time these people in tech and venture capitalists. And any venture capitalists or banker or other person in tech, they begin, they sort of do the caveat like, yeah, some of his tweets aren't alike when they're talking about Musk. Sometimes I think he gets a little, you know, he lets his

fingers do the walking. They're constantly making excuses for a man who has 12 kids by three women and doesn't live with any of them. In my opinion, that's like job one. That just kind of disqualifies you as a man when you're not living in the same household as your children and you could be. It's not because of resources. It's not because of family court. It's not because he had to make a living and go somewhere else. He chooses not to be around for his children. He accuses his employees of being sex criminals when they're not, such that they actually have to move homes. He refuses to pay severance, legally obligated severance to employees that he fires. And the absolute, the worst thing I have seen across any public figure recently is, other than maybe what's

going on with Diddy, is a father going publicly on Jordan Peterson and saying that his daughter, who went through transition, is now dead to him. And then these VCs go on to talk about the great things he's doing and his genius. And it's like, do you realize what money has fucking done to us? Because this guy is rich, we have decided that regardless of how depraved his behavior acquits him with respect to being a dad, being a citizen, being a boss, being a friend to people, that he is an awful human being, but he makes a great fucking car. So let's just shove all of that to the side and there's a chance I'll get to invest in the D-round of SpaceX. So I'm going to ignore all of that. And that same turning a blind eye to anything resembling what we would expect of men, we just decide, no, I just kind of like the cut of his

jib and the policies and his brashness, and he's going to burn everything down, and my life isn't going great. And Instagram is reminding me every day that my life isn't going nearly as great as everyone else. So I just like this guy because he's such a fucking pyromaniac and it's going to burn the place down. There's this element of if you're brash, you're angry in your course, that masks for, that's a bad imitation, a rich little imitation of what it means to be masculine and a man and a leader. And the country just appears to have embraced all of this shit. I want to ask you then about, this is current events and it's Musk, and how you apply your prism to the Starlink and what Musk has been able to do for the victims of Hurricane Helene, which has been devastating. And we know about Trump proliferating these lies that Biden wiped out the FEMA funds to give them to undocumented people. And everyone,

all these Republicans elected officials have been saying, like, cut it out. People are not getting the services that they need because you're lying about this. But one thing Musk has done is delivered satellites to people in Ukraine, in Estonia, in North Carolina. I can't just see you through this negative prism. Well, this is the issue, and that is on a net basis, I actually think there's a very decent argument that Elon Musk has been a net positive for society. He has inspired the race around EVs. The satellite technology is really inspiring. He puts things into space for less money than anyone else. That will have a hugely positive impact on our society.

The problem is with the word net, and that is I don't forgive people for being a net good when they have that sort of blessing, and it wouldn't be hard not to accuse your employees of being a sex criminal. It wouldn't be difficult to have a baseline level of fatherhood running through your veins and not say that your daughter is dead to you. I think pesticides are a net good, but we still have an FDA. I think fossil fuels are actually a net good, but we still have emission standards and are trying to deal with climate change. And what I hate about kind of our societies, the rubric as you put it, is that we look at technology and if you have innovated around technology, you get 10 times the affinity, the goodwill, the forgiveness to get out

of jail cards than if you innovate around agriculture or you innovate around public policy. That's like he or she is a smart person. But if you can figure out a way to put satellites into space or have a really cool electric car or even a photo sharing app, you're Jesus Christ and should be forgiven for all your sins. So, yes, you know, is Musk a net good for society? I think he is. The problem is with the word net, and he should absolutely be held accountable for these really vile things he does. I find the whole thing very unsettling. I think there are few people that could be worse role models for young men than Donald Trump or Elon Musk. And I keep hoping that young men, and I'm curious what you think here, I keep hoping that young men who are kind of leaving the Democratic Party because they don't feel seen towards the end will break for gender equality and bodily autonomy, which actually young men supported some of the same levels as young women.

And then someone just kind of reminds me to say, Scott, they're not going to vote. They're not going to be important here either way. They're not going to vote. What are your thoughts? I don't think they're going to vote in the same kind of numbers, obviously. But I think there's a strong chance that they will vote. And if the referendums post-Obs have been any indication, young men are showing up for that as well. And that's a hyper-excited segment of the population. But I wouldn't completely

write them off for it. I think there's a reason Trump is doing a lot of this low-propensity voter media, like the Theo Vons of the world. But it will be interesting to see, because I imagine, you know, people have found a way to consensus, usually. I'm not saying that it's even, but we've found a way to some degree of agreement. And I think to push that forward or to get us closer to that result, obviously, there's a lot of work that Democrats need to do around messaging, around policy, around opportunities for men. But I am hopeful that we're not going to have like a 20-point gender gap. Frankly, it shouldn't be in either direction. Looks like the female one because of reproductive choice will probably be that way, but that men will

hew closer to it because some things will be more important than machismo or how they're being spoken to or just a feeling of inclusivity. I actually don't want to demean it down to be some macho thing. You want to go somewhere where you feel included and spoken to. And we haven't been fostering that environment for a while. OK, we'll be right back after a quick break to discuss Melania Trump's press tour for her new book. Stay with us. All right, Jess, Melania Trump is making headlines while promoting her new memoir and taking a stance on a key election issue, one that actually puts her at odds with her husband. Let's take a listen. Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard. Without a doubt, there is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth, individual freedom.

What does my body, my choice really mean? I'm sorry. It's like an SNL sketch. Whenever I hear this shit, I'm like, is this really real what what do you think is going on here oh i think it's a completely cynical play set up by her husband to make them seem less radical yeah like jd vance got the ball rolling um at the debate with a a very uh fact-free answer to put it politely about being pro-family and steering away from any talk of national abortion bans, which it was on his website until it wasn't. But I don't believe anything that comes out of Melania's mouth. And, you know, it seems pretty nakedly fake. It really does seem, I mean, Melania has been pretty absent from the campaign until now. And then here she is delivering a message

that undercuts Trump's stance. I'm curious if it has any impact, but I do get some joy from the fact that she can't... My impression is she can't stand him. Like, she just doesn't want to spend time with him. Am I... Well, they're always separate.

Yeah. So, yeah. They're never together. So, I grew up in New York City, and the Trump kids grew up here, and I had friends who—I mean, Barron is much younger than us, but went to the school that Barron went to and said that she was an incredibly hands-on mom, like doing pickup and drop-off, had friends, seemed remarkably normal for the circumstances. And if the rumors are true about it, that she, you know, got a new prenup when he ran, then she got a new one when he ran again.

And again, you know, I guess hats off to her as a businesswoman. But this does not seem like what she bargained for. I think she just wanted to marry an older rich guy and have a nice life in New York City. And she's ended up with what this is. And is Melania probably pro-choice? Yeah, I would expect so. I mean, most women are anyway, especially most women who grew up in a European context, who think it's absolutely insane that we would be regulating something like this, at think, is a pretty gross move. And it doesn't have any crossover appeal. Like, I don't know anyone who doesn't like Trump who thinks that Melania is a messenger of anything besides her husband's bidding. Before we wrap up, this year marks one year since the October 7th attack on Israel. And now there are growing concerns about a broader conflict in the Middle East.

Just last week, Iran launched its largest missile attack ever against Israel. I want to point out, this is the largest or the biggest missile barrage in history. And over the weekend, and by the way, it failed, Both American and Israeli forces were able to basically neuter this entire attack. It was totally ineffectual. Prime Minister Netanyahu warned that the country is now fighting on seven different fronts, referring to them as the enemies of civilization. Heavy Israeli airstrikes hit southern Beirut overnight, targeting Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has made it clear that U.S. support for Israel remains

unwavering. Jess, any thoughts on, I wonder if one of these three October surprises, the Longshoreman strike, what's happening in the Middle East, or potentially something around the hurricane, might in fact swing the election one way or the other. What are your thoughts about some of these potential October surprises that are sort of out of either campaign's control? So far, a longshoreman strike handled. I don't think anyone will remember that that happened. And you don't think the Biden administration or Harris gets any credit for that? I think they get minimal credit,

but frankly, if you want the pro-union argument, you're going with the autoworkers, you know, with them on the picket line, which was revolutionary

in American politics. And also, the longshoremen union boss, it seems like such a corrupt criminal. I mean, the stories about

the RICO charges that got dropped because the guy ended up in the back of a car, the stories about the RICO charges that got dropped because the guy ended up in the back of a car, the trunk of a car. So I think that's off the table. I think the Middle East definitely could matter in this. And I was struck, you know, I spent this morning, we're recording on October 7th, reviewing old missives from the date of the attack. And I was particularly upset by there was someone had put together all of these text messages, like the last text that some of these Israelis who were murdered were sending to their loved ones.

And it made me think of 9-11. Heartbreaking. Completely gut-wrenching. And what kept coming up over and over again was this feeling on behalf of the Israelis that the army was coming. And they didn't come. They were hours and hours and hours too late for this. And the sense of letdown that this people that put so much stock in the IDF and the importance of serving your country, and they do it with such pride and such magic, were left alone. And the feeling has, I feel like, shifted so much, so much more goodwill towards what Netanyahu is doing to the

point that Benny Gantz wrote an op-ed in the New York Times over the weekend, which basically signaled we're all aligned at this point. We have to finish the job with Iran. And it feels like they are weakened at this moment and that this is the time to do it, which is such a scary thing to say, because that means a much broader conflict, but that you almost can't say no at this point. I don't know if you felt that as well, but it was stark for me. Well, look, we're both Jews. So I think this impacts us, and not more, because I think there's a lot of people who are very concerned, but in a different way. This year for me, politically more than anything, has rattled me because as of October 6, 2023, if someone had asked me what the state of anti-Semitism was, I felt that America had sort

of grown past anti-Semitism. And some of my older Jewish friends would say, Scott, you don't realize that this exists and it's always there. And I'd be like, oh, you're being paranoid. I understand your concern, what you saw, what you experienced. And I could not have been more wrong. I think that is the most surprising thing that has happened to me over the last year was that, you know, that adage that two-thirds of an iceberg's flow is below the surface line. And what I've come to believe is that 99.9% of anti-Semitism was lying below the surface and it just erupted. I think Biden has handled this terribly in the sense that I think he's actually been quite supportive of Israel on the ground. There was no other leader that immediately deployed two aircraft carrier strike forces. And yet he comes across as milquetoast, says,

we're handling this, we're putting pressure, I'm disappointed. So, he gets no credit for the immense support he's provided, and yet gets blamed for looking weak in the face of Netanyahu, who's like, oh, thanks. Thanks very much for your advice. Now hold my beer. And I'm shocked at how much support Netanyahu, how his fortunes have changed over the last 30 days. I guess,vering than Vice President Harris. Do you think this has any impact on actual voter on any of these swing states? of Michigan, I guess, Arizona, but really on the margins. And we're a small but mighty group, but we are really small. And it takes a lot for someone who is typically center left to move over to voting for Donald Trump. That doesn't mean it isn't happening. like i have a couple a friend a couple where um the wife it sounds like is going to probably vote for donald trump even though she's pro-choice etc um but the husband will stay home and i think it could be more stay home than it would be voting for trump and that a lot of these people also are in New York or California,

where that isn't going to make a massive amount of difference. But I think it's something, and it's also emblematic of a foreign policy that people could look to and say, okay, well, we have a war in Ukraine, which we didn't have when Donald Trump was in office. Now we have this war in the Middle East that we didn't have when Donald Trump was in office, and we had the Abraham Accords, and we moved the embassy to Jerusalem. Now, I don't believe in that argument. I think that you have a very strong counterargument to that, but that's persuasive for a lot of people.

Yeah, I think Harris and Biden have handled it really poorly, not on the ground, but because they haven't been able to figure out a way to take credit for it. Well, Harris's answer on 60 Minutes I thought was very interesting when she was asked if Bibi was an ally, and she said the American people and the Israeli people are allies. And I think that that's spot on. But that's a tough one as well at this moment. I saw a lot of Jews outraged, like, this is the moment to kick Bibi. You know, he's the one that's actually going out there and winning this for us. But I think long term that that is a very smart place for the American government to be, that we are a united people, Israelis and Americans. Yeah, 100% agree. All right. That's all for this episode, Jess. Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are Caroline Chagrin and David Toledo. Our technical director is Drew Burrows. You can find Raging Moderates on the Prop Sheet pod every Tuesday and on YouTube every Wednesday. Jess, have a great rest of the week. You too.