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the great rebuild is available now. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Karris Swisher and I am out of Vermont and you are out of Greece, correct Scott? Yeah, I'm in, I just got to Munich. And Varum? Yeah, no, I'm going to see... That means why? That means why, and you're... Oh, yeah. Volkswagen. Fartofen Nugan. I'm here. I'm here for the Spain, France, semi-final tomorrow at
Allianz Stadium, which I'm super excited about. And here with my boy and his mother who was born and raised in Germany and tonight I'm going to dress up like Poland and she's going to invade me. Oh, you did that again. That never gets old. You just get old. That never gets old. That is the last time you get to see. Never get old. Can you understand that? I have now put a...
I'm going to Ansheloucio if you don't stop. But lots happened since we were away. I was off to Vermont, having beers by the hardware store with a guy named Kevin, an old guy who was lecturing me about the country, which was interesting. So yeah, it was interesting to be there. Vermont and New Hampshire are two very idyllic places, but which there's great poverty too and a lot of disgruntlement. And it's interesting to get not in cities kind of thing, far from people. Lots of people.
And it was just interesting, finished by a pancake breakfast, which was lovely. Welcome back. Anyway, a poly's pancakes that I recommend it in New Hampshire. It's very famous. But we've got a lot to get to today. You called me while I was on vacation because of all the the the speaking of Germany, German, wrong about Biden. It was crazy. We've got a lot to talk about. Before that, the return of Paramount Skydance merger. Threads hitting its one-year mark,
whether it's going to be a social media giant, I don't know. It's becoming increasingly annoying for both you and I. Plus, our friend of pivot is Brian Derrick. He's a political strategist and CEO and founder of Oath, a fundraising platform trying to maximize the impact of political donations. He's had a busy couple of weeks. So, so let's get to Joe Biden because you call the among the things you call me about was this was sort of the anger and I've noticed you're
posting about that calling people cultists of the DNC cultists. I have to agree. I can't you cannot say anything online without getting attacked by saying, oh, I have concerns. And then you're like satanic. It's bizarre. People who are newly minted experts. But let's get to what the actual things are. President Joe Biden says he's firmly committed to staying in the race and newly released letter. He did it dropped at Monday morning as the Congress was coming back to congressional
Democrats. He declined to drop his canister and said it's time for the party drama to end. The Washington Post has a tracker of how many House Democrats have publicly asked him to stand down. The number is currently at nine. Biden told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Friday that interview that only the Lord Almighty could make him drop out, which means nobody because I don't believe
a Lord Almighty is speaking to him. What do you think is happening here? He's decided to like take a page out of Trump's book, which is to shamelessly just say no, just not leaving and use voters as the reason, which is a good, is a good argument, I suppose. I think the campaign is in a doom loop right now. And that is, I mean, first off, Trump is now 49% to 43%. That is the greatest advantage Trump has had at any point against a candidate. And 74% of voters view Biden as
too old to the job. And I have sort of a weird analogy here. When I knew it was over a handful of when we were in real trouble, was in 2008, right before the holidays. The most valuable thing you have is an online retailer is your database. And you can kind of email them sort of once, twice a week and you get $4,6800,000 additional revenue within an hour of that email going out, highlighting a product or a promotion. But if you do more than two or three a week, you start to
get more unsubscribes than your criminal revenue. And when I knew we were in trouble, I remember I was on vacation and I started getting three emails a day from Red envelope. I'm like, oh no. And I saw a call to CEO and I said, what's up? And he said, we're in a, we just got our line of credit pulled. We're in a huge cash crunch. And if we can't find liquidity in the next two or three weeks, we're going to have to declare chapter 11. And I looked back through my emails. I was
getting a letter from Joe or Kamala once every two days for the last several weeks. You know, criticizing Trump and asking for a small dollar donation. In the last 72 hours, I've received 23 emails from them because this is what I think is going on. There's the, I largely, this comes down to money. It's large. You could buck it into three groups. The whales, the people who give millions of dollars or raise millions of dollars like a Coke brothers or the former
of the late shell natal center, Reed Hoffman. Those folks, I think are just standing still. They're not going to come out and criticize them or call for them to step down. But you be clear, these are smart people. And they're not going to write a seven figure check that might end up in an account that only Kamala can use or they don't know where it goes. So they're standing down. And some are critical like Ari and Manuel and some others, but go ahead. The other group of
voters or donors, I call the porpoises. And I don't know if that's the right term, but it's sort of thousands or tens of thousands pretty politically involved. I'm in that group. And this is anecdotal, but I have heard from 20 or 30 of them. And we give tens of thousands probably over the long term six figures very and politically engaged. Not only are they not giving money to Biden, they are openly signing letters asking him to step down. I mean, they're hurting you. That's right.
And they're in full revolt. And already already there are several groups pulling together to pull together cash for the next candidate. And I think what's happening is Biden, the Biden campaign is so desperate to show some form of strength that they're milking as hard as a can or they're squeezing the small donor limit as hard as they can to try to have some success with. Yeah,
because they need to show something. But here's the thing. When the party elders ranging from Clyburn to Pelosi, and I'm curious to view agree with this to Adam Schiff, to David Axelrod to Obama, they've sexually all said some version of what representative Schiff said on Meet the Press. Well, Obama has not, but go ahead. But has an Obama said that Joe needs to know? No, no, no. He hasn't said that. No, Hakeem Jeffries. And he had been Pelosi's been the closest to saying perhaps concerns are
are good, good to have concerns. She's been sort of middle. She's always playing the middle. Well, she said, didn't she say that it's a fair question is whether this is, you know, a bad day or a condition, if you will. That's correct. In my opinion, she's saying voters, we hear you and we hear your concerns. That's what she said. I think that's a generous interpretation.
When Schiff went on Meet the Press, he was, Schiff was very clear. He was very deliberate. He said, I think that the president should talk to some advisors outside of a circle and get advice. In my opinion, that is the gentlest, nicest, most diplomatic way of saying, get the fuck out of the race. If any of these guys thought that he had a shot at beating Trump, they would be, I know the man. He's had a bad night. They would be rallying around them. I see this as I just don't, I'm shocked.
I'm shocked it didn't happen over the weekend. And there, I love scenario planning. I'm sorry, I'll stop there and I'll come back to start. Let me just say he just did a lot of interview in the morning, Joe, which is his favorite place, daring his critics to challenge him at the convention. He wrote that letter immediately in the morning. Like I could see the planning happening. They're saying, I don't think that interview went, I found a merrigate.
It made me less likely to want to support him. I have to say, the issue I have, and I'm more in the middle than you are because I do see the problems of doing this. And everyone's like, don't you understand? And they'll happen. I'm like, yeah, I understand. And I thought, as her client wrote an excellent piece who had been one of the first to talk about the age, just quite a while ago, you wrote a very good piece saying risk is okay. Everybody is okay to
risk this thing. But at this point, the one thing that I do think about a lot is at this point, given the candidate opposing him, and the economy and how things are doing, Joe Biden should be like lapping Trump at the point, not losing it. He should be lapping him. And that really, you know, they all don't point that out. Like how could he be losing to this? Like, remember when Trump said, how can I be losing to this guy? How can he be losing to this guy?
Like that to me. And I think there is a real, and then they're trying to blame the media for creating an age thing. I don't agree. I think I talked to lots of people, and they are outside of the media, by the way. And they're concerned as they should be. I'm concerned that someone that old, you know, a couple of years has their finger on the nuclear button or has to make decisions. I'm concerned. And then they're like, that's what a vice president's for. I'm like,
um, are you fucking kidding me? Like we're relying on the vice president. Like I just don't, I think it's beneath us as a country. Like now, NATO is marking its 75th anniversary. This week, I interviewed the ambassador, our ambassador to NATO, very smart woman, young woman, whose work for Tony Blinken. She, of course, didn't mention and talk about this at all. But I think most people view it as a test for Biden, including the Biden administration. He's got to be
at a lot of events. His last one from now reporting shows that a lot of the Europeans are concerned. And a senior official from a NATO country told the Washington Post that some it was a moment to assess Biden and the flash making plans accordingly. They all seem to think that, um, Trump will win at this point after they encountered him in Europe the last time. Um, I just, you know, why do we keep doing this? Let's see how he does today. Let's see how he does. That's
where we are in the discussion. I don't know. I find it disturbing. There's too much, there's, there's so much anger and so much speculation around how dare you question. We need to rally behind him. And then he'd be fine. And then he'd be, even if he's in a coma, he'd be better than Trump. I agree with all of that, but it's moot because as it stands now, he's losing. He's going to lose. And I'll give you some, I'm not a fan of vice president Harris. I think she would be up six points.
I agree. So the cold hard truth is the following. If you put up vice president Harris as the candidate, or if you were to get really savvy and go three debates, six, four, the two people have Clinton and Romney moderate have a really interesting convention and actually have a convention that's supposed to do what it's supposed to do. That person would come out in my view, six, you would see
the largest swing in the history of presidential politics within about 14 days. Also, one of the arguments is, oh, it's taking, and I would agree with this every minute they're doing this takes the focus off of Trump. But there's been a lot of focus. Everyone's like, oh, you're not focused on Trump. I'm like, are you kidding me? Nobody cares that he's a felon. Like, like, or do his voters don't care that he's I do. I care great deal. He's a felon. But you know, you have this
prosecutor lady against a felon. I kind of like it. Like, you know, it's kind of interesting. And voters have said again and again that they want a choice. You know, Ezra wrote, Ezra Klein wrote in the Times, Biden's Steps aside, Democrats have two options, the coronation or contest. He tended toward the contest because the thing's exciting and creates all kinds of buzz around it. But right now, a post debate, CNN poll has Trump at 47% and a Harris at 45 in a matchup,
Trump beaten by beats Biden 49 to 43% of the same poll. Just, you know, so, so, so, so, so, so, to Trump, Harris is losing to Trump right now, but Biden is losing by more. And so once she gets a bump and she gets put up in stature, you put, you know, someone told me very smartly that nobody likes a woman running, but they like a woman in office, right? Which was interesting. And I, I thought it was true. Hillary Clinton was much more attractive as a senator in a secretary of state
than the minute she was running. She wasn't. No one likes a woman running. It seems like not a thing a woman should do. And the whole argument taken the focus off of Donald Trump. Yeah, that is true. We should be focusing on Donald Trump and talking about his, his policy problems. Now he's trying to run from the 20, whatever that, that plan that they have to put everybody in jail, the 2025 plan. You know, but he's picking his vice president pick by July. I know it's not a big deal,
but he'll make hay of it, of course. And, and it might be, it's either apparently JD Vance, Marco Rubio or Doug Burgham are still in the mix. I think someone said, I thought smartly, if he thinks he's going to win, he'll pick JD Vance. If he thinks he's, he may not win, he'll pick Marco Rubio. And if he's worried about governing in which he is and he'll pick Doug Burgham.
So that was interesting. That means it's not Burgham. But like, vice president Harris is the most seamless because she can immediately take a quarter of a billion dollars and sort of say, thank you. It's mine because there's some questions over if he could even transfer all this funds to another candidate. But I think in terms of a battle test of candidate who would be the most robust, you want a competition. And also folks, this is a political party, not a suicide
pact. England just had an election start to finish in six weeks. France just basically reoriented their entire election in seven days, pushing back the far right. But the notion that the cultists from the Democratic Party are saying, it's too late. You're aiding and abetting the enemy. Give me a break. Sit down. I know. It's not a suicide pact. We need to be Trump. It is so disconcerting. Isn't it? Do you find it disconcerting? It's like, it's folks,
we're on the language. We're on the same side. We're we both wanted to feed Donald Trump. If the cold heart analysis is the following, if you were just ruthless about beating Trump, you would probably have Whitmer Shapiro and deliver two of the three swing states. They're both a very popular governors. Whitmer is fairly well vetted. Unfortunately, she has no name recognition. But here's the bottom line. Anybody else beats him. So stop talking. Stop talking about what a
good man he is. How we need to unite about him. How awful Trump is and Trump's the one that should withdraw. No, this is the whole cold heart analysis. Any candidate we put up now and we have the time to put up a candidate. We also have the time for a competition in my view, not a coordination. You could take all the media oxygen out of the wear. I have almost like a sharp tank for debates in two weeks. Go to the convention. It would be exciting. You produce two really
interesting candidates and they beat this guy like a drum. And then everyone's focused on the Democrats. That's the thing. Everyone's as long as it's not chaotic. What I think is happening now is that I continue to think of say X like a toxic waste dump of angry right wingers just attacking and I never go there anymore. And so I like threats because I like the videos. I know it sounds crazy, but I watch a lot of dumb videos of cooking and we're jumping dogs and things
like that. It's very enjoyable. But the comments, I don't want to post on there. But you know where two thirds of the comments are coming from Kara. Crazy DNC cultists that are just really. I think it's only a third. I think two thirds and I know this sounds paranoid, but does me I'm wrong. I think it's coming from the GRU, the CCP and the Trump campaign. And could they and would you put it past the Trump campaign is sophisticated as they are?
Nobody wants Biden to stand the race more than the Biden family than the Trump family. Yeah. The Trump Trump they've done the polls. Anyone are you kidding? Newsom, Newsom, Whitmer, Newsom on the debate stage with Trump. He he he disarticulates that that fascist felon sexual abuser limb by limb and everyone in every high eye hop on every media show including Fox goes, I'm going to give that tall handsome guy a shot. They say Whitmer, oh, isn't it time?
You give a vice president. Kara is a quarter of a billion dollars beer. She says mother fucker. Yeah. The contrast between and really intelligent woman and her 50s against this guy and is late. I know B. So orange guy and it's late 70s. They also put these people in a situation where they can't speak. That's what the Biden people are doing, right? That they can't these are exciting candidates like they're so the the candidates in the Democratic Party right now. There's a number
in the Republican Party. Same thing with Trump, by the way, FYI, but more so in the Democratic Party. There are there are 10 governors that are fantastic fan fucking. Fantastic. More healing Stucker had up and said just a second Joe and got pilloried and she's right to say so.
So they're the rest of them going to do it. Like how dare they not let these exciting young interesting things saying it's not, you know, just like and I get his the only argument that I tend to agree with him is the voters picked him, but that was because there was no, you know, that's fine. The voters picked him that they have agreed in all these states, but he really, that's it's bullshit. They'll they'll accept his pick then point to someone and annoy someone
if you want to do that point to someone and say that. But if you're not and it also the last thing I'll say and we got to move on is it reminds everybody of an elderly parent this thing, doesn't it? Oh, we've all been there. And by the way, my dad did want to get a better service license. Okay, a couple of things. One, what do you think it does for the down ballot races, which are we're going to talk about that? We're going to talk about that with our
guests. But if they see on the debates that stage, a governor's superior, they're like, Jesus, Christ, that guy's impressive. By the way, yeah, impressive. Jewish captain of his basketball team, not easy, Cara, not easy. I did a great interview with him. He's fantastic. Okay. What do they, what do they think when they hear Senator Clovishar talk about any trust? Wow, the Democrats will stop. What do they think when they see
Raphael Warnock on the state? They go like, Jesus Christ, the Democrats have their shit together. Maybe I'll pull blue a little bit more. Yeah. These debates, if they did eight, six, and four, in two weeks, they could pull it off. No problem. The RSVPs would be 100% yes. It'd be the media events of the year. Everyone would go, Jesus Christ, Democrat. I'm going, I'm going with the team that has the best players. That's Democrats. They pick two young attractive people who have their shit
together. I mean, boom, it's over. It's literally fucking over. And instead, you know who's about to become the most hated person in the world on November the 5th? Jill Biden. Jill Biden. Jill. Yeah. Jill. And the scenario planning is so powerful. What scenario planning is, it's not an attempt to predict the future. It's like, let's talk about possible futures, such that we can outline a series of actions that play best against different possible futures. There's four scenarios
here. He drops out, right? And the other Democrat wins. That means every room President Biden walks into for the rest of his life, he gets a standing ovation. And he might have his face chiseled into Mount Rushmore one day. That is literally the best thing you could hope for for your father, your brother, your husband hands down. He drops out and the Democrat loses. I don't think anyone blames him. They say, Joe, you did the right thing. Not your fault. Okay. He stays in. He stays in
any, he stays in any loses. He's a fucking pariah as his Jill Biden for the rest of his life. He's the fascist. He's Ruth Bader Ginsburg time 100 malignant narcissism ahead of the country. This is the worst thing for him personally. If he stays in any wins. It's going to be he's got to win. He's got to, but, but I personally think for him, that is the worst thing that could happen.
It's going to be a series of, I've lived through this. It's going to be a series of private and very public humiliations and everyone around him trying to manage him, trying to hide him doing their best of problem up to you. Well, I see he's done the fewest media and presser since Reagan. Yeah, it's by a lot. I was looking at those. And by the way, Reagan, when did Reagan start getting to win? I've asked them. It doesn't. I've asked them. It doesn't. So my question is to his family,
why on earth would they do this to this man? Yeah. I agree with you. I mean, winning is his only option. And if he wins, I mean, even if he wins, and I'd be glad for him to win, I'm still worried about someone that old being the president in a very profound way, in a very, very, in a troubled world to have someone like that, as president is disturbing to me. The whole campaign is going to go in two years, like he's he's possibly okay right now, but not really. The whole
campaign would just go listless. There would be so much energy and excitement around the Democratic party with if they they basically said, now here's this is the strongest pension history and we're putting them in. I mean, it would just it would get so much attention. Those would be the most watch debates in history. Yeah. And one of the things that listen, everyone who thinks it's immediate, this is not the media. It really, really isn't as much as you love to blame the media.
It is simply not like someone was like saying how terrible the George Stephanopoulos interview. I was like, it wasn't. It was quite good. How dare he ask him so much about his age. I'm like, okay, we're going to stop talking now. Oh, for fuck's sake. Anyway, for more on elections, how donors are factoring, let's bring in our friend of pivot because that's going to be a big deal. The money is where it counts. Brian Derek is a political strategist and the CEO and founder of Oath, a fun
raising platform that uses data to rate and identify high stake elections. The aim is to direct donors to campaigns where their money will have the maximum impact. Brian, welcome. Thank you for having me on. Glad to be back. You actually talked to us back in September 2021. On that episode, Scott asked you to predict the 2024 presidential candidates. Let's listen to what you said. The most likely scenario seems to be Donald Trump versus Joe Biden, round two.
Really? So you think Biden's going to get there and you think that Trump announces and gets the nomination? Recent. I know people are not happy to hear that. I think that recent tidbits and headlines have pointed to Trump running. I think he will be, I think he will clear the field. I think people will run against him. I think it'll be very difficult to do so. And I think that if he wins the nomination or even before that, Joe Biden will feel compelled for the same reasons he felt
compelled to run in 2020, he will feel compelled to run again. And so that's why I say that seems like the most likely scenario. Brian, you're a genius. It's not too late for me to be wrong. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I want you to start by giving us another 2024 prediction.
As of this moment, and it does feel like it changes hour by hour, I do think that Biden will likely step aside before the Democratic National Convention, given the momentum of members of Congress in the Senate and sort of the donors as well coming out of the woodwork to encourage him to seal his legacy as a successful one term president. So let me ask you about that because he this morning he dropped that letter, which he's like, I'm not going anywhere, his I don't know how to go in
anywhere letter. And then which he didn't have to do. And then he went on morning, Joe, his favorite program and said, I'm not leaving. So what is that about? And then I want to talk about the money mostly. I think that our leaders are never doing something until they're doing it. And that's not uncommon in the political space, right? When someone's in an office and they're looking at a higher office, for example, they'll say, Oh, I'm going to finish my term. I'm going to finish my term.
And then there's the campaign launch video. It's just how things are done. I will agree. I think that he's been maybe more aggressive on the I'm not going anywhere push campaign. Then I anticipated for this week, but the conversations that I'm having with sort of political operatives behind the scenes inside of Biden world, outside of Biden world, don't see how the path that we're
on right now can be sustained through the convention. And so some things got to give. And either a lot of people need to start falling in line enthusiastically or Biden will have to go back on on what he's saying right now. Okay. So let's talk about Oh, talk about how it works in terms of taking donations and directing the money. Because as Scott just said a second ago before you came on, money is where it's at. And he calls himself a purpose. He will explain it to you of a donation.
But you said the problem. Oh, this trying to solve his tendency for donors to rage donate into the abyss. There are a lot of villains in the political ecosystem that get people very angry and that generate this emotional response, whether it's Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or somebody else. And in the last eight years, that has really turbocharged this grassroots donor environment where people see something happen on the news or hear about it on a podcast on Twitter.
And then immediately run and donate to try and get that person out of office when really those funds could be much better used somewhere else, maybe just to keep that person out of power. And so what we set up with oath is a free platform where people can go see what their donations are actually going to accomplish. What we do objective analysis to say where our dollars needed the most to advance the thing that you care about right now, whether that's repo rights or protecting
democracy. And how can you direct it as strategically as possible without getting sort of the blowback of a thousand text messages and phone calls asking for more money? All right, Scott. So before you came on, I try forcated donors into three buckets. And my sense is the thing that gets them out probably the most quickly. It lets us assume that he's totally defined and doesn't cease Nancy speaker Pelosi at his door and just says, sorry Nancy, I'm not interested in talking
to anybody and says, you know, it's Obama online one and he says, I'm not interested. He just goes totally defined. If the money tap gets shut off, it gets very hard for him to stay in the race and loosely speaking three buckets. And by the way, tell me these are the wrong buckets. Big donors, medium size, small donor. My sense of the big donors is they're just taking a wait and see attitude. They're not going to throw millions of dollars into an abyss and not understand if and who it's
going to my sense of the medium size bump donors. And this is anecdotal evidence. And I'm one of them is that we are an open revolt. We are not only signing letters and have stopped giving money to the Biden campaign, but are starting to give money and are ready and prepping to give money to other candidates. And then the small don't money donors are just getting inundated with
desperate emails from the Biden campaign as a attempt to show some signs of life. Tell me where I got that wrong and what it means in terms of is the tap going to get has it been shut off. I think that it has turned into a trickle for sure. A lot of donors are pulling back at least at the presidential level. We've seen a increase in traffic to oath tens of thousands of donors
looking to give, but they're not looking to give to the Biden campaign or similar. They're looking to give the down ballot races in these competitive states where maybe a progressive or exciting younger candidate could turn out people who might ultimately vote for the Democratic nominee for president regardless of who that is. It's called a reverse co-tails strategy. We're seeing a lot
of enthusiasm there at the grassroots level. But I think that you're right, particularly in this mid-level tier, that people are looking for other options and they're looking to exert influence to try to pressure Biden to exit the race and have a more viable candidate, somebody with a wider path to victory take his place. There's also a partner that oath is working with called Pass the Torch, which has set up a fund where you can give to whoever the nominee might be so long as
that person is a new candidate. It's literally just launching today actually, but I think that all of these are examples of how people are still looking to advance their values. People are really concerned about the stakes of the election, but they want to do it in the strategic way. Right, but how concerned are you will happen to down ballot candidates if he stays in the race? Staying away from that. Even if you're directing him in the right places, how concerned are you?
I know reverse co-tails, but there is such a thing as co-tails. Definitely, very concerned. I want to be clear. Extremely concerned, I had my staff, which are mostly engineers and data analysts prepare a memo last week that said the worst case scenario. If Biden loses in a landslide, we can imagine a debate performance similar to what
happened a few weeks ago, another moment like that right before the election. If he loses in a landslide, what does that do to the US Senate, the US House, state legislative races, state supreme courts, and it's devastating to look at. The stakes are incredibly high, of course, for the White House, but they're incredibly high up and down ballot when you have election deniers and far right extremists running to take over very important parts of our government all across
the country. We can't afford to have a year like 2010 when Democrats fell asleep at the wheel in the midterms with Obama in office. Truly, we cannot sustain or our democracy may not be able to survive a result like that. That is why we're trying to focus people's attention on these races that it's true that there's a down ballot effect, but even if we underperform at the top of the ticket for whatever reason, we can save some of these supreme court seats, we can save state
legislative seats and a vote over case scenario. One of the things that Biden and people are saying is they raise all that money after the debate, the $28 million, whatever, on small donations. But who matters more? We've already seen some major donors, including Barry Diller and Netflix Reed Hastings, Area Manual, Public Ehaulting, their support Rick Caruso, until there's a new
Democratic nominee. Other big donors are going to support. There was one particular one that's supporting one supporting him, and some say they're shifting their funding to House and Senate races. A lot of people are saying that to me. Who's more important in these big whales or porphuses like Scott or what matters with the money here? You can't make it work entirely without both. You need both in order to put together the scale of campaign that is required to
win in 2024. But I will say at the presidential level, where Biden in hard-side dollars is expected to spend over a billion dollars, a significant portion of that is coming in six-figure checks to the Biden Victory Fund. The grassroots support is critical and also builds momentum, and all
of these signifiers of party strength and unity, very important. But when it comes to how many offices you can open in the battleground states, how much time you can be up refuting attack ads and those kinds of things, a big chunk of that money does come from this middle tier that Scott's referring to and high dollar donors as well. Scott? What do you think? So what is the next, if you will, litmus test that publicly and privately sends a very strong
signal around fundraising? Do they get daily reports, weekly reports? What publicly says, all right, this is now his donations have dried up. When do we see that? We will not see those figures until early August unless they choose to release some data beforehand. There's a quarterly report that we'll get on July 16th, but it will mostly have the same information that we just got from the monthly report that we get about the national committees.
It will be, I will say, as someone who's worked in campaign finance for most of my career, you can weave a lot of different narratives out of finance data about the strength of your campaign or how much you have versus your opponent. Biden has raised so much money to date, a historic amount of funds that he's not going to be shutting down campaign offices or laying people off. That is not in the realm of possibility in the next six weeks. He will not face a cash
crunch before the convention. If he leaves the convention as the nominee, the money taps. Many of which I think they're making the calculation will turn on again because people will have nowhere else to go. But what do you say? You're in this community. Across your buddies that you talk to or me with over a beer, I don't know where you live or cough or I'm worried that saying someone drinks beer is somehow a hate crime now. But anyway, what are you hearing in terms of,
is it off 90%? Is it off 10%? Am I being alarmist? I would imagine it's literally to stop. What are you hearing in terms of donations to Biden and to Democrats in general? What's going on out there? I'm hearing, I'm part of multiple different donor collectives or donor groups that I either advise or I'm a member of that are having parallel conversations around how can we make a change
here to match the crisis of the moment that we're in. And so either people are making the choice to withhold money entirely, which would allude to the sort of change that you're referring to. But I think that it's more common that they're changing the targeting that as you mentioned, Cara, that they're looking at Senate races and House races that they're setting up new super PACs to support alternate candidates. And so there's still a lot of money moving. There's no real way for
us to assess the damage being done directly to Biden's accounts and how much that has slowed. I can't estimate that. So in that vein, aside from what's going on at the top, that was the most important race. No one's talking about where have you been pushed? Give us two examples or one or example. There's many. I would say state supreme court races in Michigan and
North Carolina incredibly important this cycle. People often overlook state supreme courts, but they influence how maps are drawn, what voting rights we have, reproductive rights, gun legislation, all kinds of things are decided at that level. So I think that both of those will be really critical.
And then I would also point to the state ledger races happening in Arizona. Both chambers are currently controlled by Republicans, but could flip to Democrats with a strong robust turnout campaign in Arizona, even if we lose at the presidential level, the way that the districts are drawn, it's still possible that we could flip those chambers and reverse Arizona's abortion ban, which would be vitally important to, of course, millions of people living there. And then the
last one, I'll sneak in are the ballot measures. Big year for ballot measures. Does in states putting reproductive rights on the ballot? Also anti-Jerrymandering ballot measure in Ohio, in Missouri, there's one for living wage. Lots of really great opportunities for direct democracy. When you think about what's happening now, I realize it's unprecedented, but everyone's like, you can't go into chaos, we have to stick with Joe. As a climate, a very good argument, risk
taking is okay. Do you think it's a good time to take a risk? And I assume the money will flow to whoever they decide if they take a risk and do it in a non-chaotic way, not ridiculously chaotic, is what I'm talking about. But is that the worst thing to create chaos for the Democratic party? Can you answer those critics that say that you can't do it now? It's too late.
I think that the damage has been done in terms of chaos, and unfortunately, while I support him and have spent a lot of time talking about his successes, it was done by President Biden. He entered this chaos into the conversation with his debate performance. And so now all we can do is respond to it. I said right after the debate, it's going to be a very
uncomfortable six weeks until the convention. And then after that, it will be settled. One way or the other, whether it goes the way I hope it does or not, we only have a few weeks left of this potential chaos. But Joe Biden coming out every single day and saying he's staying in the race is not going to quiet it either. So I think that you can take the desire for a neutral piece
out of the equation and just decide what you want to come out of the chaos. Do you want a new candidate to come out on the other side and the energy and sort of the historic nature that might come with that? Or do we want to stick to Biden and cross our fingers that we make it across the finish line in November? But either way, now through the convention is going to be a rocky couple of weeks with a lot of uncertainty and unanswered questions.
Scott, last question. So we've been talking a lot about Biden. Do you have a sense for where Trump's fundraising is in contrast or compared to July of 2020? In a much stronger position than 2020. I'd have to pull the exact numbers, but he has spent the last three months in back rooms with billionaires. And they have really stepped up. We saw Tim Mellon, who also is supporting RFK Jr. One of his largest donors just write a $50 million check to a Trump super back. Absolutely
huge amounts of money. He also met, as I'm sure you've talked about, with oil execs and asked them to raise him a billion dollars and said that he would make some policy changes to his platform in exchange. And so he really has leaned in to the billionaire club is amending his platform actively, good things like flip flopping on TikTok in order to appease them. And it is paying dividends. And we're seeing that in his dramatically accelerated fundraising post conviction.
But you brought up something you mentioned RFK Jr. Just quickly, we'd be remiss not to ask, fundraising for RFK Jr. What that says about the race.
I think the RFK Jr. campaign has always been propped up by just a handful of people who have other interests in his candidacy continuing, whether that's his running mate, who's written millions at this point, maybe over 10 million in checks to his campaign or whether it's billionaires who have their own interests in who they think he will take votes away from. But there certainly no grassroots energy or grassroots donation campaign in order to fund
and scale an RFK Jr. ticket. He would not even have the funds to make it on the ballot in many states without these million plus dollar checks that people have been writing to help him. Interesting. All right, Brian, this is really helpful. I think people should just calm the fuck down. That's our feeling. Just like, just think, think logically about where the money should
go, including these down ballot races you mentioned. But people can go to oath.vote to learn more and figure out what you were interested in voting for and that you can put money to use in ways that are probably more helpful going forward. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. Scott, that was helpful, don't you think? It's always good to have logical people on. Yeah, logical calm people. Calm people. Unlike us. When we come back, Paramount's merger with
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think is not important, but still is interesting. The deal is back on. A special committee of Paramount's boards signed off on the Skydance Merge Ron Sunday night with a full board later endorsing it, according to Bloomberg. Paramount controlling shareholder Sherry Redstone has blessed the deal, saying it will quote, fortify Paramount for the future while ensuring that content remains king. Oh, Sherry, maybe a archduke perhaps. Under the latest agreement, Redstone will sell
national muses. The Skydance for $2.4 billion. Skydance will then merge with Paramount, investing $8 billion. Skydance founder David Ellison becomes the chairman and CEO, former NBC University CEO Jeff Schell will be president. The merger is subject to regulatory approval and also includes a go-shop period that gives Paramount 45 days to find a better offer.
Oh, good God. So what, what thinks you very briefly? It's like when I go to a jazz bar, I pretend to be interested and just think when is this going to end? I have the same feeling. Let's not go to a jazz bar together. Oh, my God. Same feeling. Oh, of course I love jazz. Yeah, no. And by the way, I loved Hamilton. I thought that was fantastic. I did like Hamilton. We're good. Oh, we all did care. No, I did. I
actually know. Yeah, of course. Of course, we all did. All right. Come on. Any thoughts? Look, the Skydance and Partners, they'll invest eight, just to give you a sense of $8 billion in Paramount and acquire it to acquire national musaments. In video, gained almost 13 times that in market cap over the weekend, the media is obsessed with itself. It's got some iconic assets. But this is, Paramount stock has declined, was off 4% today and is down 21% year to date. They, I don't even
think unfortunately, I think the fucking water torture continues here. They have a 45 day go shop, which good boards are supposed to do to see if there's an bigger, better. I wouldn't be surprised at this like yard sale price. If someone that we haven't even mentioned pops up, you see Barry Diller was wandering around for a little bit and then another rich guy. Yeah, another rich guy.
I just wonder. They're like, okay, if Sherry has finally stopped hallucinating and is willing to do a deal for X price, I got to think there's a number of people saying, getting out the pencil and go, would we like to have these assets for 10% more? I want you to make the very brief case of why you should have these, why these are good assets to have even if they're meaningless compared
to Nvidia. Let's not make the Nvidia comparison. Because they still produce iconic films to make money and despite what everyone says about cable being a melting ice cube, it's a melting ice cube that still spins off a ton of free cash. These are still very good businesses. Everybody wants to be wants them to be young again and somebody with discipline is going to come in and consolidate these with the other cable channels and cost faster than the business to clients. The business
isn't declined but it won't go away as fast as people think. If we take a private equity approach to managing this company, it's going to spin off a shit ton of cash and at these prices, it's probably a good buy. It can do rather well. That's a very good thank you for that. Moving to other big headlines, Boeing is going to plead guilty to a single criminal fraud charge tied to the deadly 737 max jet crashes that killed over 300 people. Under the pending deal with the DOJ, the company will
pay a fine of $243 million. Agreed a third party compliance monitoring. It will avoid a high profile trial. Relatives of the victims in the 2018 and 2019 crashes are calling it a sweetheart deal. I would agree with them, particularly in light of the Alaska Airlines mid-air incident earlier this year. The deal is accepted. The felony charge could complicate Boeing's many defense and space contracts with the US government. It's usually rare for them to plead guilty.
I think it should have gone to trial. I don't know. It seems troubling for Boeing and for everybody else. This is I was thinking about. I was in Greece and then Turkey this weekend and I made the trip plans a while ago. I was sort of bummed out because when I was in Bojrom, Turkey, I thought the world really is bifurcating. I saw very few Americans in Western Europeans there and I thought
we're polarizing. We're pulling apart from each other and it's sad. I think one of the things that brought more people together than probably possibly any technology other than the printing press or maybe the internet is commercial jet technology. My parents came to Europe on a steamship and now their son is flying all over the world and meeting new people and doing business all over the world. I really do think that the commercial jet transportation brings people together
as a huge boost for the economy. It has to be something that is seen as bulletproof because the reality is our brain camp process that we're in a steel tube skirting along the surface of the atmosphere at 810th to speed of sound. It's fucking terrifying. Unless you know that the drive to the airport was about 40 times more dangerous. This has global implications. People have to feel a really solid sense of security globally when they get in a plane. I love Boeing. I think it's a great
plane. I'm sorry. I think it's a great company. It's done a lot for America. It's benefited from obviously huge defense spending but it's kind of it really is a quintessential American company. But commercial jet transportation has to have the most stringent standards across regulation and across our legal system and technology. I'm pulling for Boeing but these companies in no uncertain terms have to be hit hard if and whenever they cut corners because this is key to our
I would agree. I don't think the government is real about me. The government fail of monitoring is really quite significant here. This is their job to keep. This is the one thing they absolutely have to keep safe. Another thing we're going to do have a little grab back here. Apple is reportedly picking up an open AI board seat as part of its deal to put chat GPT on the devices. They're getting a lot ahead of the apps or Phil Schiller will get an observer seat for free. According to
Bloomberg, it means a non-boding role but still influential. Microsoft got its non-boding board seat back in November following Sam Alton's house during return to CEO. Well, just like we said, they're getting what they want without having to because of their distribution. So just a general thing about governance. They say it's a non-voting. There's not such thing as a non-voting board seat because just a quick, it never comes. That's seen in succession where they
went around the table and voted and they barely won. That never happens. I have never seen, I've been on a lot of boards. I've never seen anything come down to a vote where if it's clear you don't have unanimity, they'll go to a proxified or there's a lot of meetings in the parking lot and never comes down to a vote. And the reality is whoever has the Phil Schiller other than Sachin Adela who is also not in the room and Sam, he will have the biggest voice in the room.
So this notion that it's just an observer seat, it's bullshit. They're in the room and all of that. I don't like it quite frankly because I think Apple has too much sway and influence over the economics of the app ecosystem and as a result a lot of companies can't get out of the crib or can never get very far. And I just hate the idea of Apple being at the table of open AI and Spotify isn't. I mean, I just, yeah, I agree. I don't think Microsoft or Apple should be on this
boy. I get that Microsoft is because of the investment. But boy, that's just not so much. I would agree with you. I would agree with you. Moving on from giant companies, one year anniversary of threads, the social media app launch on July 5th, the last year as an alternative to X. Mark Zuckerberg announced that threads is now more than 175 million active monthly active users from perspective. The first
100 million jumped on in the first three months. The app does benefit from promotion within Instagram. Zuckerberg thinks threads could be met as next billion dollar app according to the verge even though it's still a lost leader. What I don't think it's that we can deal for them too. Well, you go on this car. I like it. I just, I have to say it's becoming really unpleasant right now. But I like it for a lot of reasons. It's a very, it's a text version of Instagram. And I like text
better than, and there's a lot of videos. It's very pleasant. I, I keep thinking I'm going to get away from all of social media more and more because it's just, it's just not useful in any way, except for me watching how to grow succulents or cook a really interesting, you know, loud dish from Laos. Like that's the kind of stuff I'm interested in now. But it's a waste of my time at this point, I think. So I don't know. I don't, I don't, I think they need to put ads on it,
I guess, if they want to make money. They, they said they deeper or try his politics, but it seems to be all politics right now. So I don't know. It's a hugely successful product launch. I mean, I was an investor in post. There was massed on. There was immediately a bunch of competitors, because they saw an opening around Twitter self-inflicted injury. Zuckerberg came along and kind of owned now firmly owns the number two micro blogging platform. The thing that I think is kind of a shame
is it feels is bigger, but go ahead. Is that considered micro blogging? Yeah, I mean, anyways. So look, the thing that sort of saddens me about it is it seems to be coming as angry and as vile. Yes. Yeah. The reason I left Twitter was I don't mind. If someone pushes back and says, you're wrong, and this is why you're wrong. And here's my evidence and argument, what do you think?
And wants to engage in a dialogue? Fine. I'm all over it. But, but a bunch of bots or people who feel that they can say things they would never say in person because they're on a digital platform. And it just creating putting putting more flame on the fuels of divisiveness and polarization when the reality is the majority of the people, it's like we agree. Threads for first off, threads is very, very, at least my following. It is very, very left. Yeah, very. And okay,
that's fine. But what I would say to these people is I'm next to firing at the enemy of fascism in gender apartheid and denying women bottle it. We're allies. Yeah. And you fucking hate me and are screaming in my ear and cursing because you think I'm holding the rifle wrong. We're allies for God's sake. Stopping. I agree. And threads started out, I think. And I sense a sea change. I don't know. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic or sensitive here. But it started out by saying we're
going to be just a little nicer to each other. Yeah. This isn't Twitter. And it feels like it's becoming more Twitter. It makes me love LinkedIn even more. I'm not sure if I'm on LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. I love LinkedIn. All right, Scott. Well, good luck, Mark Zuckerberg. And I really liked your video view way forwarding. It was stupid. But yeah, depressed, depressed our teens, weaponized democracy and teen harm. Bitch, you should never hold a flag. Oh, no, the whole thing.
All right, Scott, we're, we're sounding so grumpy today. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Fox created. This is advertiser content from PBS. Jason Scott practically grew up at the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. His mom was a fish monger. And now he's one too. He sees firsthand the toll that irresponsible fishing can take on our oceans. I grew up here. I'm only 51. I know stuff that we can't even get locally anymore because
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world you operate in. Make B2B marketing everything it can be and get a $100 credit on your next campaign. Put a LinkedIn dot com slash pivot pod to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn dot com slash pivot pod terms and conditions apply. Okay Scott we're back let's hear some wins and fails you go first today. What we've talked about our fail, don't mistake your ally for your enemies and this is a political party not a suicide pact and we all want the same thing at least those of
us who consider themselves proud progressives. We this really is an existential moment. We can't have we can't have one in five women who want to terminate a pregnancy have to leave their state. You know we can't have essentially a mob boss running the country. We can't have someone who stirs our emotions against immigrants and demonizes people. We can't have someone that foreign leaders think is an idiot and are willing to take advantage of them because he can't stay focused
on anything. We can't have this slow kind of burn into into fascism and we're all united around that and we all want that. So the notion that this shouldn't be open for debate and that somehow you are the enemy that if you even raise the prospect of an open primary or an open convention
excuse me. I mean you're you're the we're people have accused me of playing into their hands. No we are playing into their hands when we start insulting each other and just liking each other despite the fact we're each others allies and that is a larger amount of for what is happening in America.
Your your Republican neighbor is not your enemy. You can have a civil conversation with them and you're going to find out you share more than you think and it's happening what is happening to America is now happening on social media, social media absolutely fuels it and I have seen it
in spades over the last eight days where where people people I know and I like and I trust and I think are good people are just enraged that you bring this shit up and it's like come on we're on the same side here we're talking anyways we need to don't mistake your allies your enemies
that's my fail my my win is I had Admiral Stubberitas on the property pod and he said something I thought was really moving he said in the last two years or last year and a half two billion people have voted in elections and he said that's just such an incredible victory for democracy
and it's really interesting what has happened and he's pointed out some interesting things the kind of the incumbent parties in India and South Africa have both had their power severely checked in France they said the Democrats or the progressives there got their shit together and said okay
hey far left why don't you get rid of your weaker candidates consolidate around stronger candidates such that we can ensure that we don't have a hard move to the right and they change the complexion of everything in the UK they've really they have one from the center the new the labor party I think
the victory reflects that they rejected the far far left and the far far right so yeah there's this nice left word moderate breeze coming over the Atlantic I'm hoping from Europe it's very in Mexico would they elected a woman a Jew who's a climate scientist and I get a ton of hate people
saying there's a lot people have a lot of issues with her for a lot of different reasons but still it is it is a seminal moment for Mexico and all of this is because people's voices around the world have been heard and there's actually some very encouraging signs so in some my my win is two
billion people voting yeah I would agree I think my win is is we were just talking about donors and putting their money to use in smart ways read Hoffman just made a multi-million dollar investment in the voting tech company smartmatic which is still in a lawsuit with with Fox News at 2.7 billion
dollar defamation suit and also soon newsmax at the same time I think I think read investing in Eugene Carroll's case he he backed that he's funding places that make sense this will this will hurt Fox News quite badly I think he's a very deft investor in in smart ways and he's very he's
he's a very emotional about it he doesn't call anyone a bed wetter he doesn't like he just goes to work and does investments like this I thought that was a really smart one when I saw it I was like oh isn't he clever and he'll probably get money back because I think they'll lose just the way
dominion won their case I think Fox News will lose and and he will do well with this investment but he noted let me say there's been a this is what he said in a statement he told the Washington Post smartmatic is built globe business by using technology to better engage
citizens regardless of part party ideology by making voting simple and trustworthy after dollar drop loss in 2020 however smartmatic being the target of the defamatory campaign to overturn his defeat I just think it's smart I just I just really appreciate that quite a bit and I just
think it's the right thing to do and I I just appreciate it it's just and of course the negative I think I share with Scott is oh the other positive is New York Times has a new game called strands that I really like once again Meredith Levy and go for it it's a really fun game it's
just go play it try it see if you like it I love that they keep me engaged on that platform and lots of interesting unusual ways in any case I I the negative is the same thing that Scott says is you can you can have differences of opinion about the strategy of how to move forward and still be
on the same team but to call people bedwaters and and try to shame them into not having concerns is and lecture them on that they don't understand the stakes is really insulting and it takes people away from you it makes them unenthusiastic to to to support something and it just it makes people
turn things off rather than turn things on you want people to be very excited and the fact the matter is Biden should be sweeping the floor with this guy because he's such a terrible person and by the way he's already moderating he's already pushing for quieter expressions on abortion
and gay rights a gay same same sex marriage on the platforms he knows that he has to moderate to the center and so don't count Donald Trump out in his ability to seem calmer than he is he's a terrible person we do understand the threat he has and to you know you're literally shooting
your own troops and I don't know why that you think that's helpful and and shutting up is not going to make it go away anyway I think that's it Scott that's the that's the that's the show Scott and I agree on this we're going to go Spain go Spain versus Spain versus
fans morale big game allions we want to hear from you send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind go to ny mag dot com slash pivot submit a question for the show we're called 85551 pivot that's the show we'll be back Friday for more Scott meet us out
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if you've been enjoying this podcast here's a look into what else is happening at New York magazine i'm kori seka and i'm here with reaves wideamon who has written about the American obsession with and the a's where did they come from why are they everywhere and are they good for anything besides covering up for abusers after you poked around the and the a's for a while do you see and he is used mostly as tools of abuse and coercion you see positive results like where where did
you land on and the a's i think in most situations it is used as a way to sort of claim power but not even necessarily to like to do a bad thing it's just kind of it is this now this sort of boring standard tool in the toolbox of corporations or powerful people but now it's being used on the people at the bottom it's the warehouse workers at amazon being made to sign them or like i was just trawling job listings while doing the story and there were n d a's for forklift drivers and like people
working in butcher shops and i think on the one hand it's just kind of like well i might as well there's no downside for me to do this but it is also just another way that you sort of keep your employees or people you get into a relationship with and that you sort of keep your your thumb on
them so i do think it is at the end of the day the people who are giving them out by and large are trying to control someone do you think that they're going to become standard for like literally every interaction and job interview and possibly relationship as well or do you think they're just
finally going to die or become outlawed like where do we go from here you know it was corporations first then it was celebrities then it was just rich people who aren't famous but they also want to protect their privacy the next frontier is people like you and me and and are we going to start
giving them to their partners you know i think some people are going to start start experimenting with it it doesn't take much to go online download a free n d a and without even consulting a lawyer and hand it over to someone i did as a joke send one to my girlfriend uh she hasn't signed it yet
but uh but i i i i i i i at least sent it so that's Reeves widement who may or may not be single soon you can read his work on n d a's in our beautiful print magazine in your own home or on n y mag dot com slash line up