The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Raging Moderates: Trump’s Desperate Epstein Distractions

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Will Trump ever be able to shake off Jeffery Epstein? Scott and Jessica talk through it, and dissect all the distractions the White House keeps throwing in the way — like Tulsi Gabbard’s surprising (old) claims, and the lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch.  Plus: the latest on Texas’s sneaky redistricting efforts, what the Coldplay couple can teach us about dating in the workplace, and what Paramount’s cancellation of Colbert means for the future of late night — and media. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Aging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Jessica Tarlov. How are you, Jessica? I'm really good. How are you? That's nice. Why are you really good? What's going on? Just like everything's fine, you know? Like had a nice weekend, did the things city people do where they go out to the suburbs and they poke around and they say, oh, would this be a nice life?

And then I get bored in about 20 minutes and retreat back to an urban oasis. And that was kind of it. Are you considering moving out? No, we do though, like, oh, would it be nice to have somewhere to go outside the city? Because you remember what it was like when the boys were young though, you moved down to Florida.

Basically you spend all of your time when you live in a city trying to figure out ways to entertain your children and or get out of the city. Which makes you think, why am I paying so much money to be somewhere that I am actively running away from? So we're doing that dance. Yeah.

So I'm very good at running other people's lives. Let me tell you what you do here. Let's have it. So first off, let's talk about me. So I walked right into that one. There you go. Having two little boys in Manhattan when they're babies, they're fine because they're basically

like accessories. You hire someone just to keep them alive. I didn't pay much attention to them when they were babies. But then when they start getting less awful and recognizing you and expect, you know, calling you dad, I found having boys in Manhattan, two little kids, I think they were one and four, oh wait, yeah, one and four, I found it awful. And also the thing that was hard for us,

or I found hard was we weren't making, I mean, we weren't making good money. I was just starting kind of getting some traction as an academic, my partner was working at Goldman, and we were making what felt like a lot of money by most standards, and we were broke. And also it was in the winter, oh my God, get them dressed, get them out, get them exercised, get them home, get them undressed, get them fed. Okay, they oh my God, get them dressed, get them out, get them exercised,

get them home, get them undressed, get them fed. Okay, they're restless again, get them dressed, get them out, get them exercised. And I felt like I always had to have their hand for fear they were gonna run into the street. I found New York with kids and not having the millions of dollars to lubricate it, it just wasn't great.

And the lifestyle arbitrage, I'm a big fan of what's called the lifestyle arbitrage, and that is if you have mobility or the ability arbitrage, I'm a big fan of what's called the lifestyle arbitrage. And that is if you have mobility or the ability to mobile, which you may not, cause you have to go into the studio as I think about it with the five. But we'll talk about Epstein and they'll fire you and everything will be mobile again. So anyways, I'll handle that problem.

And we went down to Florida, but I took every dollar I saved including the 13% swing in income taxes. We went from $12,000 a month rent for a three bedroom to $4,500. We went from what would have been $52,000 a year in schooling each for them to 12. And I took all of that money and I was very disciplined about it and I put it in the market.

And this is 2010, you know, the story of the markets went crazy. And the reason why we're economically secure, a big part of it was this lifestyle arbitrage. So I'm constantly thinking about how people who are mobile can do a lifestyle arbitrage and it was moving from New York to Florida was just an enormous win. It was hard on me from Sunday night to Thursday, I commuted to New York which was not easy.

But it was an incredibly creative move for the family economically. So I'm a big fan when you have little kids of finding a way to find a better quality of life. Because the reality is you just spend a lot of time at home and you just want to be with your kids and your family. Anyways, I think you should move.

Yeah, it would just be to your point, unless I get fired today, I need to go to work. So, you know, the question is, we could do something like that, but then I would be the one missing out on the bulk of their day-to-day lives. But you're the woman. And I am full of estrogen

and very attached to these little people that I grew and then got out of me somehow. And so that's tough to think about. And you're weighing, you know, what am I giving up now for what future I'd be handing them, right? To have no student debt, you know, all those kinds of things. And it's just really tough. And this phase of life, I'm early 40s. I feel like any time that you go out with friends

or anyone that you meet, everyone is having the same exact conversation, basically no matter what they're earning. That they feel like it's not enough, they don't know how to make the right decisions. First off, you're not in your 40s, you just turned 40, right? 41, I'm here.

So in New York, that means you're in your 30s. If you're a woman, you gotta be in your 30s. If I had a dating profile, I would be 35, for sure. Yeah, you could pull that off, no problem If I had a dating profile, I would be 35, for sure. Yeah, 100%. You could pull that off, no problem. Just a little heads up for those of you out in New York. New York is optimized for two people. It's optimized for really rich guys in their 40s and 50s,

and really hot women in their 20s and 30s, and for everyone else, it's a soul-crushing experience. If you are not in one of those two demographics, do not move to New York. It is capitalism meets Darwin meets Three's Company meets I Dream a Genie. It is so harsh. If you're a dude without money here, I have a friend who was thinking of moving to New York, you have no game here if you're not making millions of dollars as a dude. The women who come here, and this is a very sexist statement,

they're looking to consume and have a great time, and they want to find a dude who can offer them a great time. And that's not you right now, because everything in New York, to leave your house costs $200 to $300. To have a good time at night costs $600 to $1,000, easily. So anyways, as I say in New York, for men, 60 is the new 30, and for women, 30 is the new 70. Is that wrong?

Is that wrong, Jess? It's deeply disturbing, and I think a little bit wrong. I actually, I don't know. I mean, I met my husband later in the, I don't know, later in life. We got together when I was 36. And so, you know, prime, like, my eggs are going bad. What's the deal here, right?

There was no time. It was also COVID, so we were just shut in. You're a TV star though, you're a TV star. My eggs could still go bad even though I'm on TV, that's how that works. But I don't know, I really liked the dating scene, I thought it was a lot of fun in my 30s even though I went out with.

Yeah, fun if you're just our love, but I'm not even gonna go there, anyways. All right, moving on, what happened with Epstein? All right, hold on, it took Ep Epstein? All right, hold on. It took Epstein to potentially bring down a guy already convicted of sexually abuse, and this is even the stranger thing that Epstein will be remembered for,

he made Rupert Murdoch look good. Rupert Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch looks like this thoughtful, honest, high integrity owner of journalistic institutions. The Wall Street Journal has done some amazing reporting talking about a series of letters that were sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday, including lewd drawings. And one of them was reportedly from the president. And the Wall Street Journal has established a reputation

is when they report that Elon Musk is addicted to ketamine. The whole world takes it very seriously. Unlike 98% of media outlets now, including some of the others owned by the same individual, and the Wall Street Journal has become sort of this arbiter or the nearest thing we have to an arbiter of truth around some of these sensitive things. And now the president is suing Rupert Murdoch.

Jess, do you think this controversy is finally cracking the MAGA shield? A little bit. I feel like we don't want to be boring and do the same thing that we talked about last week, but it's still surprising that something seems to have permeated his flawless, I could shoot anyone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and no one would care facade, right? That's clearly not true. There are some limits to it. That doesn't mean he would lose an election, right? Or that this isn't going to blow over. I think ultimately it kind of has to.

But we're now two weeks running of this being the lead story and more salacious information keeps coming out and you see people in the cabinet and the president almost realizing in real time that they have to do something to quench the conspiracy theory addled brains of the base. And they have all these buzzwords, right? Like Russia collusion, hoax, people that set the base off. Like if you say Comey or Hillary Clinton or Brennan clapper, et cetera.

So they're just rehashing all of this old tired news. I feel like I almost had to check my calendar. Like what day is it that you have Tulsi Gabbard talking about 2016 election interference? We have a new look at Hillary Clinton's emails. Did you see that? Yeah. Chuck Grassley is out with,

we should look at that again. The MLK files are released. So thank God for that. Look over here. Yeah, cause that's definitely what everybody wanted in all of this. And you see people that are really struggling with the monster that they created themselves.

It's just so strange that, do you think the MAGA movement cares more about, are they more offended by the possibility of powerful men raping children, or the fact that their conspiracy theory that they've invested so much, that it might not be validated or nullified. Do they really care about the crime

or scratching their conspiracy? I find this all so weird. I think some do. I've taken to checking out some smaller, very pro-maga accounts online, people who identify themselves as in solidarity with January Sixers, etc. There's a woman in Texas who was a Trump delegate, has been obsessed with January Six, wanting everyone out, which she got her way with the pardons.

And she has about 30,000 followers and she's gone completely scorched earth. It's not only about being lied to about the Epstein files or that they were going to come out. It's in part that she's realizing that Donald Trump is exactly who the Democrats said that he was, right? That he is just an elitist that doesn't really care about you and was using you for your votes. But she keeps harping on this.

There are children involved in it. This isn't your everyday white-collar crime, right? She could deal with a Ponzi scheme. Maybe she could deal with shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. But we are treating the abuse of young girls the same as your run-of-the-mill crime from a fancy businessman,

and that's just unacceptable to her. And she's certainly not alone in that. You know, when you look at the replies to it and people that are in those kinds of conversations. So yes, I do think that the content of these crimes matters. And you're totally right about the Wall Street Journal and the caliber of reporting there. But the real hero journalistically of the Epstein scandal

is Julie K. Brown from the Miami Herald. And we don't talk about local journalists enough and local journalism and how important it is that it continues to get funded. I mean, there were times when Julie K. Brown was personally paying to be able to continue her reporting and was all over the Alex Acosta settlement when that happened. Epstein basically got to like, you know, go golfing and go out to dinner or whatever he wanted after he was convicted in Florida. And that's my first place that I'm going for any information on this. And you see that there's such a well of extra info that we can get out of folks like Julie K. Brown,

plus all of this new salacious stuff that's coming out in, you know, the New York Times or the Journal. Well, you know it's going to help local journalism is cutting a billion and a half dollars for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That's what I was thinking, actually. This is a good route to that. Yeah. And what's so interesting is that the Republicans are much more strategic than the Democrats. The biggest tax cut in history, I believe, is not even a tax cut.

It's neutering the IRS. They want to fire or lay off about half of the IRS or professionals of the IRS. And who does that hurt the most? Does that mean 50% less audits? No, it means 90% less audits among the top 1%. Because people in lower middle income households can get audited because it takes a couple hours to audit them and figure out if they owe penalties or whatever. But supposedly

there's a tax gap of $600 billion. What does that mean? There's $600 billion that is owed and has not been collected because the tax code has gone from 400 pages to 4,000 and it's created such complexity that to audit somebody with pass-throughs and LLCs and a revocable trust, it takes a team of highly skilled professionals. And so they're smart.

They basically just said, let's neuter the IRS. And that's effectively a massive tax cut for the top 1%. But what's back to Epstein, what's interesting here is it took a conspiracy to create the first kind of bipartisan action of the Trump administration. Representatives Massey from Kentucky and Connough from California are currently leading the push in Congress to take an up or down vote on releasing the Epstein files.

It represents sort of this rare convergence of populist right and left. Just as an example, AOC and Lauren Boebert are co-sponsors on the same bill, and on Friday, Trump unveiled a lawsuit against your parent firm, Dow Jones and Cohen News Corp. The suit also names Dupre Murdoch, its chief executive Robert Thompson, and two general reporters. The lawsuit alleges that the journal's publication of a 2003 letter from Trump to Epstein containing a hand-drawn picture of naked woman is not authentic. Trump is seeking $10 billion in monetary damages.

Polling from Reuters, Ipsos, and Quinnipiac University shows that Americans overall disapprove almost completely of how the Trump administration has handled the Epstein situation. The polls came in at 54 to 17 percent and 63 to 17% respectively. Essentially just 17% Americans believe this was handled correctly. You never get 83% to agree with anything. So this story is not dying regardless of changing, you know, changing the name back from the Washington commanders to the Redskins or whatever attempts at weapons of mass distraction here,

which I find kind of hilarious what they keep coming up with. This isn't going away. Any predictions Jess on what you think is going to happen here? Do you think these files, by the way, has anyone heard from Tulsi Gabbard? Boy, they have her locks away somewhere. Jess Sweeney Well, no, there's the 2016 Russia interference game that she's playing now, even though she's literally on tape sitting down with Joe Rogan talking about Russian interference.

They're playing this game. And this goes back to what we were saying last week. The modern GOP feeds off of the fact that their most devout base will not do any legitimate research on anything. So, Tulsi Gabbard is up there basically trying to do a bait and switch and saying that Obama weaponized Intel about 2016, that they were lying

about Russian interference when Obama as well on tape, saying the Russians did not get into the voting machines, they didn't change votes, but we know that there was an influence campaign. And that's something that has been ratified by a bipartisan Senate committee as well. Marco Rubio, who has every job in the book, will probably be asked about that as he was lead on it from the Republican side. It also made me think how strange it feels for there to have been bipartisan agreement about anything. 2016, you realize how much things have changed, right? That if something like this happened again, like Russian interference that wasn't necessarily the collusion that the Democrats were saying it was, but certainly interference in the election to try to help Trump win, like could you

get Republicans to sign on to the fact that that had happened? I don't really know. So that's what Tulsi is busy with. I'm very curious about what happens with the Galeen Maxwell testimony side of this. So Trump's DOJ lawyer, Todd Blanch, has reached out to Maxwell's team, saying, we want to know what she knows. Also, you didn't think of that before. You have a sex trafficker who worked hand in glove

with a woman who was not only his business partner and his love partner, but is sitting in a prison cell for sex trafficking herself. And we didn't think like, oh, we should have a chat with her. And the House Oversight Committee just this morning approved a subpoena for her. So that may lead to something, but we've all got to get them on a Galeen Maxwell pardon watch. I don't imagine that we're going to be getting those Epstein files that have been sitting

on Pam Bondi's desk for several months at this point. They are always very precise in how evasive they're being, saying, we will release any pertinent grand jury testimony. And a lot of grand jury testimony will have to stay secret, but they're going to pick and choose things and they're going to do rejections and you know, some of the stuff should be redacted to protect victims and also people who didn't really have anything to do with it. Like there are a lot of people who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein who certainly weren't

doing it with 13 year old girls and they don't deserve to have their reputations mired as a result of that. So I'm a little bit hopeful slash interested in what the Galeen Maxwell angle of this reaps. But generally speaking, I think it'll be business as usual. What about you? Well, the most puncturing questions around trying to get to these conspiracy theories. I remember when I was living in Delray Beach,

there was a stop the steal parade and all these people in their trucker hats and their rav4s. I mean, I could not get over, thousands of people turned up, just convinced that 2020, that the election had been stolen. And a decent question is, well, if it's so obvious it was stolen, how come there hasn't been a single prosecution, folks?

No lawyer, no prosecutor can find enough evidence. 60 cases went to court, 60 losses. That's right. And meanwhile, Trump is saying that the whole Epson thing is a big hoax. Well then why is Jelaine Maxwell in prison? There's some issues here, but let's cut to the chase here. Jessica Tarlov, do you think Jeffrey Epson killed himself?

Yeah. Yeah, you think he killed himself? I do. I don't know about whether it was made possible that he could do it. But yeah, I believe that he killed himself. And I've spoken to people in law enforcement on both sides of the aisle who say that.

I do think that's what happened. But you're seeing the effects of what happens when you've put people on a steady drip of conspiracies for so long. The Venn diagram of the modern GOP and people whose brains have been destroyed by hoaxes and conspiracies, is it not a near perfect circle, but it's pretty close. It starts with what you're talking about with the big lie from 2020. Nearly six in 10 Republicans believe that Biden wasn't a legitimate president

and Trump was supposed to be president. If Trump hadn't won the QAnon vote, he wouldn't have won. He won that by 61 points. Wow. At Pizza Gate again, right? Hillary Clinton's running a pitot ring out of Comet Pizza. All of these things, you know,

I understand why someone who had only been tuning into media and influencers that were peddling this stuff and it had become such a regular part of their jargon. That's what always surprises me. And I'm sure that there are things that come easily to me because of my politics, right? That I'm online all the time, maybe a little blue-pilled on occasion. And so I know the intricacies of things in a way that a regular person shouldn't. But when we're talking about even the Hunter

Biden scandal or whatever you want to call it, sometimes my colleagues, I'll say to Jesse Waters, like, I don't even know what you're talking about they're talking about, you know, and then the Mexican billionaire and then the huge diamond and then the Bulgarian this and what it's, it's so much to have to keep in your head. I understand that the rest of the world kind of falls by the wayside and you become like a scene out of Homeland where you have a board and you have strings that, you know, connecting different people.

And you're just completely consumed by this web. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. All right, Jess. Oh, wait, I've talked way too much in this, but I want to say something and I want to hear if you're thinking about it too. So all of this matters.

And I've moved past the idea of like, you should only talk about Medicaid because I think that if the national consciousness is in a specific place and it is important and also politically good for your side that you should talk about it. But Donald Trump's numbers are just sinking and sinking and sinking and it keeps coming out like more of this. He only has a positive rating on border security, like 55% think that we're in a recession, 64% of the economy is getting worse, 70% say

he's not focused on lowering prices. Like there is such a tremendous hole in the GOP narrative right now. And the big, beautiful bill obviously strikes right through that with the 29% approval rating. You see the panic about the Epstein files themselves, but also in terms of what this means electorally for them.

So. Yeah, it hasn't, hasn't been a good month. Okay. You got that in there. Well, I thought you would be more interested, but you know, sometimes you miss your shot. You shoot your shot and you miss. It happens. No, that's why you're here.

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And the most important magazines were owned by Conde Nast, the glitzy publishing empire that's the focus of a new book by New York Times reporter Michael Grinbaum. The way Conde Nast elevated its editors, the way they paid for their mortgages so they could live in beautiful homes, there was a logic to it, which was that Conde Nast itself became seen as this kind of enchanted land. You can hear the rest of our chat on channels, wherever you listen to your favorite media podcast. This week on Net Worth and Chill, I'm joined by Dan Rossi, the hot dog king of New York City, and the owner of the most iconic hot dog cart of all time.

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the mistakes that cost him everything, and what he's learned about resilience, failure, and starting over. What happened was they took all the disabled vets that were selling merchandise, you know, to see the guys with the hats and stuff, and they kicked them out of Midtown Manhattan. Why?

You want me to name politics? Yeah, let's name. Donald Trump. He kicked every vet out of Midtown Manhattan by buying off all the politicians in Albany. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash your rich BFF. Welcome back. The redistricting fight is heating up and this time Democrats are ready to go on offense.

As Texas Republicans prepare to redraw their map to lock in a house majority, Hakim Jeffries is leading a push to do the same in blue states like New York and California. It's a bold, expensive, and legally risky move and a sharp turn from the party's— Oh, God, I'm bored reading this. David, where's our producer? David, on Sunday nights, I don't need you getting your kombucha sommelier and listening to The Daily. I need you taking an edible before you write this script and watching South Park. We're not gonna talk about redistricting in fucking Texas.

Jess, I'm calling an audible. Let's talk about Colbert. What do you think happened with the Colbert show? Well, that's just what we're supposed to talk about after this, so we can switch the order. David did his job. I mean, it's an important thing, right? If they're gonna get four or five new seats in Texas.

And it could be about spineless Democrats, you love that. Well, what do you think? Do you think that there's a risk that Democrats redistricting push backfires? No, literally no. Like I don't even wanna play that game of like, oh, what would happen to decorum and the norms? Like we do that all the time and then we get our butts kicked.

Like you have to fight in the same mud with the Republicans on this. I think Governor Newsom is absolutely correct saying, I will do whatever it takes if Abbott can add four or five seats, then I'm going to try to add four or five seats here in California. I saw originally that the New York Dems didn't have a big appetite for this. We'll find the hunger and figure out a way to do this. Apparently now New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Washington state, I think, are also considering what they can do. I had never heard the term dummymander though. Have you heard it?

I haven't heard that. You got to wonder what kind of president this sets for future midterms, especially if both parties abandon any pretense of fair, I mean. That's terrible. It really is gone. There is no more decorum and the gerrymandering has just gone totally crazy. It is, I mean, it's the boring stuff that's

important though, right? Because essentially what's happening with gerrymandering is that the general election no longer matters. And we have crazies on the left and right winning the election because they all agree to redraw their districts to keep themselves in office, which creates these hard red and hard blue. And the primary is the general now, and it's become a race to who's the craziest. And we end up with the squad and Ted Cruz. Do you think this is gonna go anywhere?

I think so. The special session in Texas is ongoing. And like I said, the Democrats have vowed to respond in kind. This would be, usually you have every decade, right? That you look at the census and then you redraw the line. So if we're now doing this every five years, what's to stop it from happening every two years? And what courts will we have that'll uphold fair districting laws? That remains a question, especially since the Supreme Court has not really been a friend on this

topic to say the least. But I was at the Smurfs movie last night and- That's a flex. Thank you. It is. Move to Florida and take them to the beach. Well, we still, I think in Florida they go to the movies too, but there's a reason that I bring up the Smurfs movie, which I did not love as much as I expected to, my toddler did. But there was this line that I think Papa Smurf said, don't mistake kindness for weakness. And I feel like the Democrats usually mess that up. And you can mistake kindness for weakness because we care about the norms and we

care about doing the right thing. And I don't think that we should lose track of that, but when it translates into weakness and when Mitch McConnell has eaten your lunch for several decades and maybe Senator Thune will be able to do the same thing, you have to learn to change your behaviors or at least until we have enough political control that we can effectuate our own agendas and have the Republicans on the back foot because they have been able to achieve big success like with this reconciliation bill with razor thin margins, which to your point from a few weeks ago, you know, we helped them with with having such old representatives

that passed away in office. But I'm smurfed out on the don't mistake my kindness for weakness. And I want to see backbone and, you know, the approval rating, the Democratic approval rating down to 19 percent. And my colleagues are rubbing it in my face like everybody hates you. That's not what the data says, actually. They hate the fact that Democrats aren't fighting. It's not about the policies. It's not about the agenda. It's about how you're actually doing the business of politics.

Yeah, this could be... Newsom's floated the idea. California has 52 House seats, 43 held by Democrats, and Newsom has said his efforts could add another two or three seats. I really do think people underestimate Governor Newsom. If I had to bet on anyone right now to be president and people get their hair on fire and California cities do have an issue, but do not underestimate Governor Newsom. I think he's very good on his feet. I think he has actually been aggressive.

I think he's pissed off people on the left by pivoting a little bit to the middle to become more centrist, which I think is politically very astute and obviously has a lot of, you know, attributes. which I think is politically very astute. And obviously has a lot of attributes. That he's very good looking. Is that what you're trying to find? Basically, by the way, I interviewed Governor Whitmer on Prop G.

Oh yeah, how was it? She's great. So what I do is I do these interviews and then I do a no mercy, no malice take on them after. And we're gonna interview, between the two of us, we're gonna interview every presidential candidate. I hope so. And so my take on her is that it's heartening that such impressive, good people go into public service.

She just reeks of integrity and confidence. She's just clearly, it would be, it's very difficult to imagine that she isn't a good person. And it's clear her heart is in the right place. You know, Michigan balances the budget. She has really good things to run on. The quality of life scoring in Michigan is really high

relative to affordability. The economy is not robust, but it's growing. They've done a good job trying to support manufacturing at the University of Michigan. They have a great state school system. So she has a lot to run on. She's likable. She seeks some integrity.

My criticism is that she's sort of infected with the same kind of rhetorical flourish. And I had a tough time sometimes getting her to articulate specific policies. I think we've moved from, in my opinion, my advice to Democrats is, okay, you can try to be Obama, but you're not. So stop trying. And it's time for specific programs. She did say that she would consider

means testing, social security, which I appreciate because that's been a third rail for some people. But it was a lot of like, you know, good hardworking Americans, terms like affordability rather. Okay, let's talk about specific programs. I think there's still gonna be a candidate that gets a huge amount of press by coming out with a specific, bold, aggressive proposals and programs. I think we've moved to that part of the program.

Yeah. But I did think she was very good. And I track record. I do think that there is going to be a lot of anxiety in the Democratic electorate about having another female nominee. Not gonna happen. No one under five foot 10 is gonna be the Democratic nominee. It's gonna be a straight white guy over six feet.

And I'm not saying this is the way the world should be, but the way the world is, the Democrats are gonna- So no Josh Shapiro either. I think he's under five foot 10. No Josh Shapiro, no Rahm Emanuel, no woman. Democrats are so freaked out, they're gonna take no chances, and they're gonna recognize that America's highly luxist.

I hope that changes. But I think it's gonna be a straight white guy over six feet. I just think they're gonna say, we just can't take any risks around anything. Are you Andy Beshear, pilled right now? I think everybody's desperate to find someone they know, but they don't know. So they've heard his name, but they don't really know him.

Everyone's looking for the Obama, the Clinton. Like where did this guy come from? Right. We're all hoping that someone emerges at the moment. And the democratic primary, when it's let it run its course, does mature, you know, incredibly strong battle tested people, but we don't need to relitigate that. Okay, Jess, let's take a quick break. Stay with us.

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Barry Diller was behind many of America's favorite movies and shows. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Barry Diller was behind many of America's favorite movies and shows. Now he's giving an intimate look into his personal life. To me, business risks were meaningless.

I couldn't care less about business risks. I'm Preet Bharara. And this week, Diller joins me on my podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, to discuss his sexuality, the end of Hollywood, and how the media industry broke. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, before we go, first off, I should apologize to our producer. Here it is, this story that I wanted, Stephen Colbert. He's out, Jess, or will be, come 2026. CBS says the late show is ending for financial reasons, but the timing is raising eyebrows. Just days earlier, Colbert mocked his parent company's $16 million settlement with Trump,

a deal that was meant to grease the wheels for a big merger. Now, Trump's cheering the cancellation, and press freedom advocates are sounding the alarm. What do you think happened here, Jess? What's your take? during the cancellation and press freedom advocates are sounding the alarm. What do you think happened here, Jess? What's your take? I don't wanna say that it's boring,

but my take is I really do believe it was a financial decision. We all got outraged at first and said, this is because two nights before he had gone after the parent company for capitulating to Trump on the $16 million settlement over 60 minutes, which I do think was a complete capitulation. But the show costs like $100 million a year and was losing $40 million. I think advertising had been cut in half and he's earning about

$15 million a year, which is a lot. I understand what it takes to put on a cable news show is dramatically different than a late night program. But I can't believe how much it costs to produce that thing. Were you shocked by $100 million? So, you know, this is the takeaway of the lesson. And I always try to be pedantic and pretend that I can articulate a lesson to younger people. I'm very guilty of I think, okay, I can assess the situation quicker than your average bearer and that I know what's going on in a situation. It's stunning Kruger, it's arrogance, and I'm guilty of it.

With this situation, I thought, okay, here we go. This is another example of our slow descent into fascism, where the president puts pressure on the FTC or the DOJ not to approve the merger, unless they agree, wink, wink, to silence one of their critics Stephen Colbert the show gets canceled and then I actually did the work and I've come 180 exactly to where you are I think this was a financial decision so late night TV this isn't the end of the Colbert show this is the end of late night television late night television in 2018 was garnering $400 million in advertising.

It's now below $200 million. Cold Bear's show has been cut in half. In addition, you brought up the most amazing stat. His show has gone from $120 million to $60 million in revenue, cost $100 million. The stat that blew my mind, 200 people working on Cold Bear. So let's talk about the numbers. It's gone from 4 million viewership to 2.4. And what's worse, those numbers are always somewhat illusory because the key is who's in the core demographic. The core demo is 18 to 49. That's who advertisers care about because 18 to 49 is in your mating years. You make stupid

decisions. You buy expensive coffee, watches, clothes, high margin products. Old people are smart and so advertisers hate them because they spend nothing but money on pharmaceuticals and their grandkids. They're smart, they're not trying to find mates. So they're not irrational, which translates to margin, so advertisers hate them.

Only 10%, actually 9% of his viewership, around 200,000 people were in the core demo. In addition, the show had been sliced and diced. It's no longer a monoculture where we tune in for late night and you see the best two minutes of Colbert on TikTok or on YouTube for which they get pennies on the dollar. So 200 people, let's do the math. And I never miss an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back.

If you look at the Colbert show, 60 million in revenues, 200 people. That's $300,000 per employee, right? In addition, they have all sorts of overhead costs. 60 million in revenues, 200 people. That's $300,000 per employee. Right. In addition, they have all sorts of overhead costs. That theater is expensive. The studios, the makeup, the wardrobe, the unions, that shit is expensive. Losing 40 million a year.

Let's talk about our universe, the ProfG universe. And that includes ProfG markets, conversations, office hours, raging moderates. It'll do between 15 and 20 million dollars next year. Total of generously 15 people. We're doing a million dollars in revenue per employee here. And we're going 20% a year. They're doing 300,000 dollars per employee and it's declining. And this is, I think, what happened. And this happens a lot.

They have the terms of the acquisition drawn up, but they have to meet certain terms to close. Basically Paramount has said, we will deliver to you a company on closing that's doing X top line and X and EBITDA. And one of the ways they're going to get to that EBITDA guarantee and ensure they close is they're going to cancel a number of shows or expenditures that increase the EBITDA. And this is a $40 million increase in EBITDA when they cancel this thing. And also when you acquire a company, part of the conditions are closing or that you have to do all the dirty work before you close. And they look at this thing and it's

weeping or it's hemorrhaging 40 million. I mean, it's losing a million bucks a week practically. And what Skydance and Ellison have said to Paramount is. I don't want my first all hands to be me announcing that I'm canceling the cold bear show. So you have to do this. You have to do the dirty work and clean this thing up and deliver to us a company. That is profitable and delivers on the numbers that you have said, you have presented to us

during diligence. So this is, in my view, I don't doubt that politics may have tipped it over, may have made it happen sooner, or that part of the reason of the decline in their advertising, which has been steeper than Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel, is because he's increasingly political. And there are a lot of advertisers who decide

they're not going to advertise on a show that is political. Our CPMs are lower than the other podcasts in the Proctor Universe because there is a smaller universe of advertisers. There's a lot of big advertisers that just say, we don't advertise on politics. And when there's an absence or a smaller number of potential advertisers,

your CPMs go down because there's fewer people competing for your ad revenue or your ad time. So this was what I think is being reported. I think this was a financial decision and Skydance saying, you got to handle this before we close. I, David Nelson doesn't want to show up and go, hi, my first act is to cancel the Colbert show.

They're like, click at get your house in order, deliver to us a clean company. Now, I'm probably just ranting, but I've thought a lot about this. This is what's gonna happen moving forward. Stephen Colbert, and this is kind of what's happening in the ecosystem. Stephen Colbert makes between 10 and $20 million a year.

In two to three years, he's still gonna be making 10 to $20 million because you know what he's gonna do, Jess? Podcast. 100. Substack. 100%. He's going to take the best dozen or two dozen people from the Colbert show and he'll wink, wink to his producers and say, and make sure they're not union.

And for a fraction of the cost of the means of production, he'll put out a podcast. Instead of it being a $60 million business, it'll be right out of the gates a $20 million business because that guy is remarkably talented and he has a huge audience. Just add water, all you need is two turntables and a microphone and a producer like David

and a few other people, sound engineers, some people recruiting guests. Maybe he needs a dozen people and he'll have no trouble finding 12 amazing people right out of the gates. He'll have a top 50 podcast, maybe a top 20 podcast, and he'll make the same amount of money and those 12 people will be producing a million and a half or $2 million. The people who lose here are not Stephen Colbert. The people who lose here are the 180 people who lost their jobs a few years ago when the world started moving away from ad-supported television and the means of production no longer justified the melting ice cube that is their revenues. And he'll attract a younger audience.

This is what happened with Megyn Kelly, with Tucker Carlson. Conan O'Brien lost his late night TV show, and by the way, I bet he's making as much money as he was with 10 to 15 people, not 100 to 200. This is a shift in the media ecosystem where basically these are becoming TV shows. You watch, within 24 months, half of our listens will be on a TV because people will be streaming it off of YouTube. In sum, what we're going through is an arbitrage

where we're going from one TV show to another TV show, but the means of production where it starts is an audio production called a podcast that then moves to kind of lower production quality, but acceptable minimum viable product production quality that people then watch on. We're getting 100,000 people watching our YouTube videos. I bet 40 to 60% on the core demographic.

We're getting kind of half the core demo right now of probably the Colbert show at a fraction of the cost. So this is essentially an arbitrage around the means of production. And essentially podcasts are the new TV show just reinvented with a much lower cost of production. What does that mean? The talent maintains their salary.

The people behind, right behind the camera, like holding it, hold onto their jobs, the top three or 5%. The 95% that were involved in producing a typical TV show are out of business and shit out of luck. That's gonna be ugly. We're gonna hear a lot of TikToks of people who are the associate producer

on Jimmy Kimmel Tonight, like really upset that they can't find work. The talent maintains the same amount of money. You know who also loses is the shareholders. There's been very few shareholders of podcast companies that have been able to capture revenue. Comcast and Paramount have been able to capture a lot of the value in terms of EBITDA. All of the margin here is being starched out by the talent

because the means of production are super easy to spin up with a small amount of money. Anyways, that's my TED talk. It's a good one. You should package that up neatly and go and do it and can take this stat with you. YouTube reports that there are 400 million hours of podcasts watched per month.

So people are consuming us this way. Just the other day was saying to Brian, we were walking around our neighborhood and someone stopped me, say, Oh my God, I love you so much. Usually you expect that it's a Fox thing. Your husband was saying that to you? It must be very early in the marriage.

Yeah, we're only four years in. Oh no, it was a stranger. A stranger. It was a stranger. A strange man that loves Raging Moderates. And he clearly watches it though. And I'm increasingly running into people that are consuming it that way. I mean, I'm sure social clips are flying around.

I think we should have a split screen that's 90 you, 10 me. No, people love you. I know people love my voice. They hear my voice. That's why you're a White Lotus star. Yeah, voice only. I have a voice for the whole other podcast about

how you can survive with vocal fry. But- No, thanks for podcasting. I, so I tuned in for John Stewart last night live to the point about, you know, is there any appointment TV anymore? And it felt like desperate to see what he was going to say about it.

And he said a lot of things that I agreed with. TV anymore and it felt like I was desperate to see what he was going to say about it. He said a lot of things that I agreed with and one of them that stuck out in particular was that he mentioned that this $8 billion valuation is rooted in the fact that 60 minutes is as fantastic and important and groundbreaking as it is. And late night, that the late night show matters and that Stephen Colbert, he has the highest ratings between him, Fallon and Kimmel. There's a whole other discussion, Greg Godfeld on Fox was beating them when he was in that hour, now he's at the 10 o'clock hour, still beating them

and in many less households, 61 million households versus 300 million households. But I thought that that was a really important point that Stuart was making, is saying people are not interested in buying you without 60 minutes being what it is. And you're chipping away at that by doing things like capitulating to Trump. And that is where the creeping authoritarianism argument has a place in it. There's also something that I think about a lot, which is like the variety factor. People want to hear something different and if you are watching TV at 1130

and you're either watching Fallon, Kimmel or Colbert, you're basically getting the same thing and that that has contributed to the downfall of late night. I find all of them to be individually funny. You can throw Seth Meyers in there as well that it's a similar line. Nobody likes Trump. Everyone makes similar jokes. I feel like Fallon tries to be the most apolitical of them, but it creeps into it.

And I think that that's a really bad thing. And it's not representative of where the country is either. You know, a bunch of people who voted the same way as me for their whole lives showed up and voted for Donald Trump in 2024, and also they're probably sick of seeing the same joke retooled in a different way. And I found that increasingly, and I really like Colbert, but anytime that I was sent a Colbert clip, it was basically the same thing. It was just finding another angle to shit on Trump.

And I'm all for that. But when you look at those operating costs, and then you look at the kind of content and the fact that enormous stars, they would still come on the show, but the success of their movie or whatever they were, you know, their book, whatever it was, is not dependent on making sure that you are the number one guest on Colbert that night. It's what viral clip can happen.

Or frankly, can you get on like with Rogan? Can you go sit down with Amy Poehler? Can you go on like with Rogan? Can you go sit down with Amy Poehler? Can you go on with a food influencer? Can you get, you know, subway takes hot ones? What, you know, there are all these different routes to being a big success right now. And the model just is unsustainable then

coupled with the fact that many nights sounded the same and we're looking for something different on a daily basis these days. Late night TV is over. It's fewer people and older people watching it. Advertisers don't like either of those things. But it's all being reinvented as a TV show. To a certain extent, it's Twitter.

And that is, Elon Musk, to his credit, said, I can give you a reasonable fact, similar to the old Twitter, it's Twitter. And that is, Elon Musk, to his credit, said, I can give you a reasonable facsimile of the old Twitter with 20% of the people. And that's what's happening here. Trevor Noah, he's back on podcasting. Conan O'Brien, all of these folks, Seth Meyers, they're going to reinvent themselves as a podcast

with 10% of the cost and 30% of the revenue, which is an accretive arbitrage. And that's what's going on here. Just as we wrap up, Jess, we really need to juice the downloads here. So you and I are gonna go to the US Open and get on the kiss cam. Oh yeah. What are your feelings about the Coldplay couple?

I feel like people that I know are on opposite sides of the spectrum even on what they should have done. A lot of the, well, if you just acted normal, my friend was like, why didn't he just act like he was giving her the Heimlich? Nat Senners That's natural. Jess I'm totally natural. Nat Senners Distinct of all the jokes, Jess, I think it's, let's just be serious for a moment. This is a woman who raised this guy's kids and thought

she'd found the love of her life. And to find out this way that her husband, in fact, is a Coldplay fan is really devastating. That's good. That's good. Why is Coldplay so embarrassing to people? Doesn't everyone actually like Coldplay? I actually do like Coldplay. Coldplay's amazing.

But the more meta or serious observation is that shaming is a key component of our species and it's something that feels terrible. And it's part of the reason that young people are more depressed is that shaming has been scaled and industrialized with technology online. But shaming plays an important role in society. You are not supposed to, you know, beat up your

friend's children. You're not supposed to, you know, beat up your friend's children. You're not supposed to lie with your neighbor's wife. And the community shames people for a good reason. It creates a certain level of guardrails and a certain level of stability and mends or holds together the fabric. Shaming has played an important part in society. Unfortunately, I think technology has scaled shaming to an entertainment or to a sport. And the algorithms scaled shaming to an entertainment or to a sport.

And the algorithms love shaming. And also I think this is a part of a larger trend. And that is I reverse engineer everything to income inequality. And that is the CEOs are now making 300 times what the ordinary worker is versus 30 times. And I find that the algorithms and society are much more up for shaming rich white people because they're fed up with how much money and disproportionate opportunity have been granted via income inequality. So if this had been to middle-class non-whites, this just wouldn't have gone viral.

People have had it and are looking for reasons to shame famous people and especially rich people. And I find the industrialization of shaming and the economic incentives around this a little, I think what used to be a means of keeping society more cohesive is tearing it apart now. So anyways, I find it interesting, but more people know about these two people right now than they know about the would be assassin

who was murdered of Trump. So what does that say about our society? And assassin who was murdered of Trump. So what does that say about our society? And also for the rest of their lives, no matter where they are, no matter what they do, the moment they're introduced to anybody, the moment before they show up, come up or leave, that's what people are gonna say about them.

These people are infamous. What are your thoughts? I largely agree. His daughter posted a TikTok of her kind of standing in front of a fire and the caption was like, you know, working it out when your father's affair, you know, goes viral like that. And I can't even imagine what it's like to be their families, both of them married and she was married to the CEO of a or is married to the CEO of a different company. I don't like the shame aspect whatsoever. I think life is complicated and you never

know what's going on behind closed doors. But the head of HR, the amount of trainings that I have sat in and had to go through these ridiculous scenarios and check the right box that I shouldn't be calling my colleagues, you know, honey pie and I shouldn't touch anyone. And what do't be calling my colleagues, you know, honey pie, and I shouldn't touch anyone. And what do you do if someone does, you know,

for her to go out and do that is such rank hypocrisy. And I hate that I expect more of the woman in this scenario, especially the woman who is the head of HR, but I do. It does always feel nice when there's a break from what the algorithm is usually pumping into my veins and you can see a bunch of very creative memes. I like the Van Gogh one.

I don't know. Have you seen that? Where they're like the scream, they've been turned into the scream. It's really good. By the way, I, it's very encouraging. I think all that training at Fox has really paid off. My understanding is that the firm has had no trouble with this type of situation. So it's good to hear that.

What is wrong with you? What's going on? What is wrong with me? I don't know. Let me talk a little bit about this situation. First is I've immunized myself from this type of problem because the first thing I do at an all-hands is I say to everybody and I've run small and medium-sized companies, I say listen I'm going to share something with you because I think vulnerability is the key to masculinity. I've been in a terrible accident and my inhibition sensors were severely damaged and there's going to be some locker room talk and some inappropriate touching, but I hope you are patient with me on my journey back. Boom.

That's how you inoculate yourself from a situation like this. But seriously folks, let's talk a little bit about sex in the workplace. Cause having been on a bunch of public company and private company boards, this happens all the time. And what you said reminded me of something, our dynamic and our species. And that is, and I love what you just said, don't mistake kindness for weakness. I love that. I think that is really powerful.

As a matter of fact, and I'm really going off script here, when I coach these young men, eventually they always say I would really like a girlfriend. I'm like, okay, women are attracted to men for three reasons. They need to signal resources. It's easy to signal resources when you have a Range Rover and a Panerai, but you don't necessarily need to have resources right now, you need to have a plan, and you need to have your act together and show that you're disciplined, that you can get up,

you leave parties early, you're not that idiot ordering a bottle of Grey Goose at 3 a.m., and women are attracted to someone who looks like they're gonna have resources in the future too. Intelligence, easy way to communicate intelligence, be well read, thoughtful, listen, and also humor is a fantastic way to show that you're intelligent. But the most under leveraged thing is kindness. Women instinctively know they're going to be vulnerable during certain periods of

their lives, specifically during gestation. And they want to see a guy who genuinely is good to people without reciprocal expectation or good to people that can't be, can't do anything for him. I mean, that's the most under leveraged lever for men. And it's like, well, you can't force kindness. I do think it's a practice. I think every day, if you make an effort to go out of your way to be kind of people, it becomes muscle memory and you start becoming, becoming kinder.

But, and I'll bring this back to this in a work setting. And people get very uncomfortable when you talk about this. Anytime you say men are different than women, it's like, oh, you're a sexist. Yeah, I'm a sexist. Men are different than women. I'm holding to that. And it doesn't mean we can't have respect for the 5% or non-binary. Just let me throw out my woke disclaimer. Men, what I have found, and this is true and there's evidence here,

will mistake, especially in a corporate setting, will mistake kindness for sexual interest, and women will mistake sexual interest for kindness. And the general policy I find is most effective at an organization or a corporation is the following. Below the executive level, 95% of the cohort, our policy has always been use your common sense. You do need, if you develop a relationship, disclose it to HR, but you can't expect young people

to work 60 hours a week and then not assume that in situations where they get to demonstrate excellence to each other, spend a lot of time together, it to HR, but you can't expect young people to work 60 hours a week and then not assume that in situations where they get to demonstrate excellence to each other, spend a lot of time together, that they're not going to fall in love or fall in lust, have sex, then fall in love and get married. I've had eight marriages at my companies and it's always like, literally, it's always the same thing. I found out they're engaged. I'm like, what? They were fucking? I didn't know that. And I think it's a wonderful thing. And 99% of relationships of work are consensual. Young people need to mate.

I think it's a blessing. I think it's a mitzvah above a certain level. And you need to identify that level and educate people. Once you hit a certain quote unquote, the executive washroom. It's great to be you. You're making millions of dollars. Probably you're powerful. You have a lot of game.

Your fly is up and locked. You cannot date people at the company. The moment we find out a CEO is using the corporation like Tinder because people are going to be unnaturally nice to you because you have power over them, you are guilty. I think that's the way to approach that. So this guy, both of them is C-level executives, consensual or not, they're guilty. They immediately get fired, and he was fired the next day. I don't know what happened to her. That'll be true.

I don't think we've heard. She should be fired. She will be fired. If she's a C-level executive, she should have known better, much less been the head of HR. But I think that's the right policy. Do most of these companies have morality clauses

also for infidelity? No. Because that's, right policy. Do most of these companies have morality clauses also for infidelity? No. Because that's different. I mean, it's different if you're just dating without being married to someone else versus that you're having an affair. Does it matter? None of my companies. I don't want to be in a position of being someone's rabbi or the priest.

They're consenting adults. But you're putting other people at risk. And the power dynamic at Strange, once one person is an executive and very powerful, and you're also putting the company at risk and the power dynamic at strange once one person is an executive and very powerful and you're also putting the company at risk. So I do think there's a difference between two 25-year-olds out of college who decide to date and the CEO misinterpreting signals or leveraging his, and it's almost always the dude, let's be honest, leveraging his power to unfortunately sometimes put people in awkward situations

or to start a relationship with someone who is impressed by this person because quite frankly women are impressed by power and then putting the company at risk and creating an uncomfortable power dynamic that may put the person in a very uncomfortable situation that they don't know how to get out of. But again, News Corp, I don't think that's happened there. I don't think that's ever happened at your organization. Oh my God, that's good. You're really feeling yourself today. I'm glad you said that though about dating within the workplace because it's such a loss for just growing up to think that you're going to go and dedicate majority of your time to something and that you're not going to be able to fraternize in that way with people at all.

I mean, you see this with Gen Z is that they don't do happy hours, for instance, for some of the most fun things that I ever participated in, right? Where everyone gets together after work and you know, you have a shared experience that you all work at the same company and you meet some really great people. And it's about experimentation and trying things. I mean this in absolutely the safest way possible If you tell someone yeah, you've got to be here 60 hours a week. Like also what would happen to doctors? I all of my friends who are doctors are married to other doctors because they did residency together You know medical school fellowship residency, whatever it is, you're trapped in Grey's Anatomy.

Gonna be the longest running show. They have no time to date anyone else. Well, right, and then you all sleep in the on-call room and inevitably you end up on top of each other. That's just what ends up happening. But in related news, I don't know if you heard this, but Bill O'Reilly, News Corp had to pay someone $25 million. It was so nice to see you this week, Scott.

Just in unrelated news, an unrelated news. That's fresh, like 2016 election interference. You're the Tulsi Gabbard of this podcast. Little kiss cam on steroids there. All right, Jess. I'm going to stop giving you a hard time here. Really? That's all for this episode.

Thank you for listening to Raging Moderates. Our producers are the excellent and smart and fantastic scripting. Amazing writer. David Toledo and Eric Genakis are technical directors. Drew Burroughs, going forward, you'll find Raging Moderates every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to Raging Moderates on its own feed to hear exclusive interviews with sharp political minds. This week, Jess is speaking to Florida gubernatorial candidate David Jolly. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Just have a great rest of the week. You too.