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When threats arise or issues occur, their team of seasoned cyber experts is ready 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for support. Visit Huntress.com slash Pivot to start a free trial or learn more. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Well, there's been a lot of news, Scott Galloway. My goodness. My goodness.
What happened the way we said as many people thought it would, that Biden would step down eventually after a lot of grumbling. We'll obviously talk about the Democratic Party's path forward with Joe Biden stepping down and daughter Singh Kamala Harris, the vice president. And in just a bit, we'll bring in New York Times opinion columnist Lydia Polarine to talk about what Harris needs to do to win. Lydia was one of the first to signal this man in the New York Times, which was kind of an outlier.
But now, of course, she's an inlier, I guess. How do you, how are you feeling? What are your feels, Scott Galloway? That's nice of you to ask. I felt a mix of relief excitement and sadness and I was actually quite stressed over the way. You know, in general, I don't know if it's I'm getting older or the world is really a shittier, more unstable place between October 7th, Donald Trump, Biden. I find this all quite actually quite stressful. What do you, how are you feeling?
You know, I'm not one to like, it was interesting. Amanda came home. She was in Boston for the United kids all weekend. And Louis came home, by the way. He was amazing, helped and cooked for us all weekend. And I was like, I am like, let's just get this is the oxygen. Let's fucking deal with whatever it is. I'm one of those people. Yeah. Like, I don't like, I don't have time to like mourn anything essentially. And she has been like, oh, what are we going to do? Just like you.
Like, what are we going to do? And she came home. She goes, I just want you to know I'm thrilled today. And she goes, I'm like, oh, and I was like, good. Because like, this is what we got. This is what we got. And let's like make the best of it. Let's, let's get to work. And I'm that kind of person. That's how I feel like this is, this has got a lot of interesting possibilities. Obviously, the Republicans are very nervous, I think. And they are. Because it's exciting.
And the fundraising is just indicative of that. And so speaking of fundraising, how many texts did you get from Democrats yesterday? They got, they, more than $50 million online on Sunday making at the single biggest day for online democratic contributions since the 2020 election. People, there was a, everybody was waiting. They didn't want to give it to Biden, because they felt sad. And like, they're going to lose, they're going to throw the money away. How many did you get?
Oh, it's, it's, it's everywhere, but it's exciting. It's, I do, I empathize. I, I felt like when he first announced, I was just like, this, I have this cathartic release of a mix of sadness and relief. And then as we came into this morning, I just, there's a poppable sense of hope and optimism and excitement. And one of the stats I love is that Trump immediately boasted that post is conviction. Many rates, 53 million dollars. And what it ends up is at 50 million of that came from one person.
Right, right, right. And the, the biggest hall I believe in this election cycle so far has happened in the last 24 hours for, for, for Vice President Harris. So that's very exciting. And not only that, it's small, it's mostly small donors, which, which I think people are just really excited to get behind, fresh, you know, to get behind, to get behind someone other than Biden, and specifically someone other than Trump.
That's right, it's given them an alternative, especially if she makes a rough choices. Now you've been lukewarm on her in the past. Have you changed your, I have not. I know her very well. And I really think she's still, it's not unsung. It's just she's had a lot of accomplishments that are like JDM has has no accomplishments. And he gets touted. And she has real, like real, up and down, by the way, I don't want to agree with everything she's done. But certainly an accomplished person.
I really like her husband quite a bit. I think he's fantastic. And she's not what people think she is. Like, you know, she's much more conservative. She's much more, she's certainly open-minded. But she's not the left wing. There's, she's conservative. For California, she's conservative. I'll tell you that. But anyway, what is, is it change your mind at all? Or is she just her being vaunted there makes her more substantive to you? I'll give you what I see the pluses and minuses.
And also, I just want to acknowledge, I think you're a great judge of character and it's hardening for me that she would admire her and think a lot of her. So here are the pluses. The reality is we are where we are and she starts at letter E or F if she just, they just pivot the infrastructure, the field offices, the money, the staff. I mean, she doesn't, she starts at a, not a sprint, but or not a gallop, but a canter, right? It's just the momentum is maintained if she's the pick.
I do think that while Secretary Clinton didn't, didn't break the glass ceiling, I think she shattered it. And I think that America looks back on that election and says, you know, we're, we were ready for a woman president then and we're definitely ready for one now. I really do think people America is ready for its first female president in terms of a race in a competition. I think in terms of brand, it's about offering distinct lines of differentiation.
And she gets on stage with him at a debate, she's going to make him look as old as he made Biden look. The having a woman of color who's attractive, he's just going to, I mean, the first sweet I put out this morning was that every presidential candidate in history at this age has dropped out. Donald Trump is too old to be president. I saw that. Yeah. I like the community of the all of a sudden. He's, there's going to be stark relief.
And what's interesting is that just as age was the primary consideration in Trump versus Biden, I actually think it's going to be the primary consideration here, but it's going to be our asset, not our liability. The brand position I would absolutely go after if I were her is I'm a prosecutor. He's a felon. There is an ad at what she's doing that I prosecuted sex crimes. I fraud. I would just be like, this is what I did to people who ripped off people.
He put a bunch of degree mill universities out of business and say, this is what Trump did. He was the degree mill guy. I would absolutely macho myself up around the AG stuff. I'm the prosecutor. He's the felon now the downside. She has not been a successful presidential candidate. She has not battle tested. She dropped out before she ever won a single delegate. She has not resonated with the American people in a role as vice president.
Some people will say that she hasn't been given a fair shot. There's probably some truth to that. I think the most negative thing you could say about her is that I find her staff has done a really bad job of messaging because what they talk about or what I hear is that she hasn't been given a fair shake as opposed to saying she's outstanding. I think there's nothing's perfect, but I'm sort of at a point where I got to be honest here. I just want someone who can be Trump.
I'm not going to get perfect is not on the menu for me right now. I think if they wrap her with talented people, they'll they there's not. They already have that. By the way, there's not enough time for her to fuck up that much. That's the one thing is the time frame is squeeze, right? And she's the best known person. She makes the right two things. She makes the right choice on vice president. She'll get a lot of credit.
And and there's just it's just not enough time, but you know her pretty well. And like one of the things I've noticed is on online. He's popular on crazy Twitter. He's popular on TikTok. She's they do the coconut thing. Everything is in context. My mother used to she would give us a hard time sometimes and she would say to us, I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.
And instead of making fun of her, it's people love it. Someone was telling me that there was a meeting of women of color last night and it started off at 7,000 and then it was 17,000 people like all excited. Someone else was telling who's Indian that the anti-desi network, the Indian network is gone crazy. Like these these are motivated women that are going to like do things. So what should first of all, what should Democrats do in the next week from your perspective?
Well, I want I'm going to put you back to you. It sounds like you're advocating for what I loosely call a coronation versus a competition. You think we should all know? Why is the word coronation? She's the obvious choice. She's the vice president. She's been speaking of those 14 million votes. They were voting for Biden, but she was on the tip.
There are no no presidential candidate with the exception of Gerald Ford has not been forced or asked to run something resembling a campaign with competition. I just I don't think there's time for it. Unfortunately, I think that's a good argument, but let's be honest. It's a coronation on a competition. Well, except that they the people that are picking are the Democratic party. It's not just the poof us. Which by the way, there's some problems.
There should be should it be the party elders making the business. Well, I heard the Dean Phillips argument. I heard the Dean Phillips argument that he made yesterday. I'm kind of quite frankly. I think I at the end of the day, I think I'm on board with you. I think I'm just sort of we've gone through. I feel like we're like a like an abuse family at this point. We've like got some reasonable sense of function back in our household and we just need to go with it. You know what I mean? I'm not.
Well, also, by the way, I don't think we're just functional. I think the Republicans are just like they there's so many Republicans who don't want Trump and they can't say anything. They're in a cult that look at JD Vance. He said to literally castrate himself for Trump in terms of he's a unique. He used to be an anti Trump that he had to do things. These people are this is healthy to argue in public. But you're okay. I want you to sort of coronation.
Do you think we should rally around vice president? You don't want you don't want to series of debates to try and battle. I'd be happy. I'd be happy to have her do that. Although I think she's quite good on the stump already. I think she's done a ton of stuff that you don't see that never gets covered. Yep. But I do think that sure, but none of the ones the only person she's going to be debating is Dean Phillips at this point and maybe Joe Manchin, right? Because all the others are backing her.
Newsom, Whitmer, Buttigieg, they've all like all the ones that would be her competition have had had had pieced out. And let me ask you a question. Do you think that was part of the deal? I don't think they could organize it that fast, but maybe they certainly in touch with each other. I would guess. Right.
I wonder if if part of the deal was Biden saying, look, this needs to be part of my legacy is handing it off to my vice president and he called all these folks and said, I'm going to drop out and you're going to endorse her within 12 hours because it all happened pretty fast. They didn't quite well. Obama didn't immediately. He hasn't immediately done it. I think all the candidates were smart from a political perspective. There's no reason for more chaos at this point, right?
I think it's a good argument. How is the market going to react to this? I don't. If the market's been such a unique animal, I don't think it's, I don't see like a ton of what I call good or bad in the market. I think the market is going to wait and see. I don't think she's seen as a Bernie Sanders like raised taxes kind of candidate. At the same time, the markets don't seem to be scared of Donald Trump. They like the fact that they see him as being quote unquote pro business.
I'd quite frankly, I think the markets are just kind of saying, yawn right now. I don't think there's a clear consensus candidate from the market standpoint. I'm not, I don't think they're worried about her comparatively. I don't think so. She's friends with a rich people. We just have to remember one thing. Record job growth. Market's touching new highs. Lowest inflation and then G7, well, the best economic growth. The economy has been a master class the last three and a half years.
If you were to try and find someone to inherit that economy or that approach to the economy, it would likely be the vice president. I don't see the market getting off freaked out about the vice president. They're not. She's not as leftist as you think it. I'm curious what you think vice president will mean for the big tech community. She's been a big spag. She's not been totally a sequest to them and at the same time she hasn't been that hostile.
Especially she did a bunch of things around privacy when she was senator at attorney general. She did a lot of stuff around privacy. At the same time, she's quite close. Everyone's like, oh, Trump has Elon Musk and that sad little bag of bones, David Sacks or whatever. She has Lorraine Powell jobs. She's got Cheryl Samberg. She's got Melinda Gates, would be my guess. She's now has a read Hoffman. She has strong relationships. She is repeatedly assured, Dona. She's a capitalist.
She's a chief legal officer of Uber. I know him very well. She and I talked a lot about AI. Last May, she told such an Adela Samultman, sooner or more, they had a more obligation to safeguard against AI as possible dangers. I don't think they thought she was out of left field saying that. She was very, you know, she contacts a lot of people. Let me say to get opinions about lots of things. And so, you know, she sort of approaches it like a prosecutor, right? And so it's the case.
But she's not anti-tech by any stretch of the imagination. And she has, she has just as many rich friends as Donald Trump has. And in fact, more so because I don't think they had any relationship with Biden. And they definitely had a relationship with her. And then secondly, and I think more importantly is her high-savent is a media lawyer in Los Angeles and very well liked. She lives in Los Angeles. She has lots of friends. I've seen her in innumerable events with big media people.
She has very good relationships there. So I think she's, I think she's very well, well situate. She has her billionaires. Let me just say. And I think they're the better class of billionaires. That's what I would say. And there are more women in that group, but she's got a lot of women, especially in Melinda Gates. I would suspect the Wigiskeys, Cheryl Sandberg, and definitely Lorraine Powell jobs. So if Harris clinches the nomination speaking of which, who do you think she gets for the BP slot?
Who do you think she's excited about? Newsom is not going to be that person. According to the 12th Amendment, a ticket of two California residents would essentially void the state's 54 electoral votes according to legal experts. So who do you, who's your pick? I love Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania, swing state, fresh face. I think he's incredibly articulate. Is America ready for a non-white woman and a Jew? I don't know. I would, I would love, I absolutely adore Mayor Pete.
I just think he's so, I think he's so good. Now having said that, if we're going to be Mac Avalian here, I mean, my literal objective here, 99% of this entire race for me right now is that it's anyone but Trump. I'm one of those people. If we were truly fucking strategic, the VP would be Mitt Romney. Oh, that's kind of nuts, but okay, that would drive Democrats crazy. That will make people unexcited on the Democratic side. There's who, okay, so they're going to vote for Trump?
No, but still, it doesn't like create excitement. Well, we have plenty of Democrats on the bench. Come on. I would. I'm okay. I'm just very in a very cold sober analysis. You need to get the people going to decide this race. Okay, you want enthusiasm? You want donor money. You don't want to compete against the couch, but the race is one by people in the middle. And I would love to see seven or eight percent of Republicans sucked away from Trump. All right.
I'm going to go with someone who I think would do that, Mark Kelly from Arizona. He'd be very good. Very good. He'd be very good. He's a hero. He's an astronaut. That's a great pick. He's a great pick. So, victim of gun violence. Victim of gun violence. Gabby is fantastic. He has a twin, so he can double campaign. His brother is so I just was with him and his brother. Where was it? I just literally spent some time with him. His steracle, his brother is hysterical.
He's less hysterical in his brother, but he's also really adorable. He's just a stand up guy. He also Katie Hobbs can, he can stay Senator. And if he wins, Katie Hobbs appoints the Senator. What about Whitmer? Whitmer is, that would be, if we didn't have a risk, if it wasn't Trump, go for it. But two women, I don't know if America can take it, but I love, you know, I love Grudge. So, she's, you know, she's, she's genuine. You want to have a beer with her? She's hysterical.
She's a great campaigner. They love her in Michigan. Even people don't like her. I've asked everyone. It's like, I don't like her, but I like her. That's, that's the worst you get for her, except for the people who wanted to kill her. And you set off Mike that you didn't think it would be new. So why is that? First of all, the 12th Amendment. So they lose the California electoral votes, which would end the election. And it's two, it's, it's, it's too much California.
The other person, you know, people have joked Mark Cuban would be hysterical. I just don't think he brings any electoral heft to this situation, although people would love it. I think probably, I would say it's either Kelly or Cooper or Shapiro. He's really well liked in that state. But I think on a national level, or, you know, the Trump people are some of them are anti-Semitic, some of them are. I just, is it any of these picks are exciting? I love Jared Paulus from Colorado.
And that's not a state in contention. I think Michael Bennett would be great. Gosh, there's so many people. There's so many, you know, I love more Healey, but, but I don't, I think that's too massive, too much, too liberal. What about Senator Clobuchar? Oh, that is what I was just thinking this morning, Amy Clobuchar, if you wanted, but why not pick Gretchen then if you're going that direction? I mean, Gretchen is a firecracker of a campaigner. Well, she's also a swing state, right?
She's in a swing state. She's firecracker. I'm more about just the, how do we get elected? So I really liked the idea of Pennsylvania or Michigan involved here. And even, you know, Arizona, yeah, that's right. Arizona, it never used to be a swing state. He's really well liked in Arizona. It actually didn't used to be a Republican state. And so I think he has a backing of a lot of people. Anyway, that's where that's where we think that's what I'm going with Mark Kelly. And I really like him.
And again, the twin thing is not a small thing to me. Anyway, let's bring in our friend of pivot to talk about this. Leah Pogren is an opinion columnist at the New York Times and a co-host of the Matter of Opinion podcast. A few short weeks ago, she wrote an opinion piece titled, Kamala Harris could win this election, let her welcome Lydia. Thank you. Great to be back. So tell me writing that piece, Kamala Harris could win this election, let her. This was before a lot of this started.
Explain why you did that and give us a short version of your argument and what they weren't giving her credit for. Yeah. I mean, look, I am sort of allergic to political ponditry. I've never really covered national politics. And so I'm always hesitant to go out on a limb on these things. But I just remember watching her that night of the debate and this column came out the day after the debate.
And thinking as she was interviewed by Anderson Cooper, just what an incredibly polished case for the Biden-Harris administration she was making and how crisp and clear she was, how strong she was on the core issues. She was even good at defending Joe Biden in a way that didn't seem completely unintelligible. And I think it was a really useful reminder that she has real skills as a politician and she's someone who, and the question is not, she was good that night. I think everyone noticed.
She was really good that night. And I think everyone sort of thought, well, but she was terrible in the primary and she, she didn't, she wasn't able to distinguish herself the first, her first, you know, year and a half as vice president wasn't so good. So I think there was this really strong underrating of her talents.
But what I saw that night was this is a person who in a moment, you know, where it's very clear what the job is to be done can just immediately and in a very disciplined way rise to the occasion. And I think that we have this fantasy about politics that it's about the ideal person coming along at the ideal time, et cetera, et cetera. When in fact, history is completely contingent.
And, you know, seeing the way that she performed that night, I just thought, oh, this is a person that could actually be the right person to do this very particular job. That doesn't mean she's the greatest politician since sliced bread, but she doesn't have to be. She just has to be the right person to take on Donald Trump. So what was the reaction at the time? And now, I mean, at the time, I think the reaction was pretty muted.
I mean, there were, you know, there were a lot of people who just kind of scoffed. They're like, oh, you know, America's too racist and too sexist to have a woman president. And there were a lot of, there were a lot of responses that felt to me very kind of knee jerk and also people just kind of telling on themselves.
But I think that what's happened subsequently is that, you know, she's had to go out and make the case for herself without actively making the case for herself, which is a very high degree of difficulty thing to do. And I think she's been really effective. I mean, my colleague has reclined, tweeted the other day that she really has not put a foot wrong since this whole debacle began with Biden's debate performance.
Yeah. And I think that that's given people a lot of confidence in her ability to prosecute the case against Donald Trump. Will she make a great president? Who knows? But I think could she win the election? I think quite possibly yes. I get to see Lydia. I would actually argue it's the opposite. I think she has better prospects of being a good president than she has a good candidate. I just, despite all the excitement, I would argue she just didn't resonate with the American people.
And I guess my question would be, what do you think she needs to do? And I do think she has momentum. I would agree that over the last three weeks, she's kind of sort of found her footing in her voice a bit. But if you were to give her advice on how to get more of that resonance with the American public, which in my view, she failed to achieve his vice president. Do you have any advice for? Well, she failed to achieve it as vice president, perhaps, right?
But I would say that I've been out on the campaign trail with her. I've seen how voters are responding to her. I'm also seeing how people like us, the journalists are seeing how she's doing. And are responding to her. It remains to be seen how she performs in polling. It's very early, the switches just happened. But I mean, I think that people who underrated her as a primary contender, and by the way, I was not a supporter.
I was supporting Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 primary, that was who my candidate was. But I think it's a very, very different thing to distinguish yourself on a stage with a bunch of other Democrats. And I think there are reasons of gender and race that make it actually quite hard to do that. It's worth remembering that the only female presidential candidate ever to emerge came out of more of a coronation than a truly competitive primary process.
And that's Hillary Clinton, who was essentially tapped on the shoulder by Barack Obama. So I do think that there are very particular challenges for women in the context of a primary. And I think the office of vice president, it's very hard to distinguish yourself. She got a thankless portfolio and working on things that are very, very hard to solve. Now I think she's done as good a job as any sort of great job actually. She's done a great job on abortion.
I think that she's got a good message on law and order, which it was her very bad luck to be running the one cycle that being a former prosecutor was a bad rather than a good thing. And she is a, I would say a pretty generic, relatively moderate Democrat. I mean, you don't get to be a successful black politician of her age without being fairly moderate. And the cop, and I'm doing air quotes, the cop route is how many black women came into political power and they had to be tough on crime.
They had to be, and so I think she's been beaten up much more from the left than from the right. That is absolutely true. What would you, if you say her greatest strength and weakness right now is, I think people are excited. There's a jolt of energy. You can feel it. Obviously the fundraising, people are reconsidering her, I think. And I was noting to Scott before, like she's very popular on TikTok, which is smart for her versus a Twitter where they attack her relentlessly. Who cares?
Because that's now a Nazi porn bar. But she's very, and they're even taking the coconut thing, which seemed kind of wacky and making fun of with it. She seems more fun, I guess. Talk about the, from your perspective, her biggest strength right now, and you mentioned the word coronation, Scott has used it just before this. Is that her biggest weakness? Is that it feels like a coronation or give me a strength and a weakness?
Yeah, I mean, I think her strength is definitely that she can lean into what is already her strength, right? I mean, which is this persona as a prosecutor, as a person who can take on a very specific, almost crusading task. And I think that is a tremendous strength for her that there is, she's running against a very particular opponent. She's not running against a generic person. And I would argue that Donald Trump is, in fact, a very, very weak candidate.
He's a person who's never won the popular vote. He is, his policies are not popular. There's just lots and lots of things that, that I think make him a weak candidate. I think that her greatest weakness is that, and this is the place where I think she really fell down in the 2020 primary, is that she has not done a good job of articulating or showing what her vision is for the country that is not just, I'm going to, I'm going to defeat Donald Trump. And I think that that's necessary.
I think you have to articulate a vision. Now it could be as simple as, you know, I am actually going to be a bridge, you know, we need to turn the page on this era of American history and I'm going to help get us to where we're going. I don't think it necessarily needs to be much, much more than that. But I think there has to be a rationale for her candidacy beyond the, I'm the most skilled person in the right place to take on this particular candidate. It's got to be more than that.
So the Trump campaign is obviously going to attack her, including mispronouncing her name. I think she's ready for that. I think she's tough as nails in that regard. Obviously, Elon is already having a meltdown. He tweeted, I just like to thank Alexander Soros for keeping everyone in suspense about who the next puppet would be speaking of puppets, Elon. You know a lot about that. Everything he writes is about himself.
He was also mocking her for interesting herself with her pronouns, which, she does these things. Fine. She's from San Francisco. She does that big deal. Where do you think the big line of attack is? Because in this weekend, in your piece, you wrote, if Kamala Harris is a DEI candidate, so is JD Vance. So talk a little bit about the attacks. Yeah. I think people are going to try and argue that she only got into her positions of power because of race. And I think that's something that will happen.
I think race is going to be very touchy for the Republicans to deal with. You know, I think that Americans might be skeptical about the talents and abilities of black people. But I think there's also a discomfort with just kind of out and out racism. And so I think that they're going to have to be really careful. And it'll be harder to attack her in the way that they attack Hillary Clinton on gender because of the combination of these things.
I don't think that anyone should assume that her being black helps her with black voters or particularly helps her with black men. In fact, I think that it could hurt her. I think there's a strong strain of anti-black woman misogyny among younger black men that I think should not be ignored. And is a serious thing to think about an issue that she's going to have to confront. You know, look, I don't think that this is going to be a cake walk by any stretch of the imagination.
This is going to be a hard race. It was going to be a close race no matter what. I think she's got a fighting chance. I think she's got some real talents, but I think she's got some real challenges too. Lady, who would you like to see as the VP pick? You know, I have a, I think I think, you know, all of the jokes and memes on Twitter have been, you know, sort of from the wine store, interesting whites or generic whites.
And, you know, it seems, it seems like the conventional system is that there's going to be a kind of generic white man from a swing state. And I think that a lot of this is probably going to come down to who's compatible and who brings the most to the table in terms of, quote unquote, diversifying the ticket, right? And remember diversity is a diversity. Well, we do. And people think diversity is just about race, but diversity is about geography, diversity is about, is about religious belief.
I mean, every single vice presidential choice is a diversity pick, right? I mean, you, is a two person ticket. You know, one person can only represent so much. And so, I think that's obviously. I think that's obviously. Well, JD Vance is a diversity pick. He's an age diversity class diversity, right? I mean, I think these are, you know, I agree that there's ideological alignment.
And it was definitely a pick that betrayed a kind of, you know, I think misplaced confidence that Trump was going to, going to, going to walk to victory. But he certainly does, does represent diversity in some very important ways for, for Trump just in the same way that my pen's dead. So who do I think should get the nod? I actually don't think it makes that much of a difference.
I think that the range of options are probably, you know, Josh Shapiro, you know, Andy Bishir, Roy Cooper, all the names that you've been hearing. I think that there are pluses and minuses to all of them, you know, but I think, I think that someone in that, in that vein is, is probably who we're going to end up with. Just so you know, Scott. Who do you think Scott? Go teller, Scott. Teller, see how she reacts. Well, I'd like, I would like it to be governor Shapiro.
I think if we were totally focused on winning, they would nominate, they would pick Mitt Romney. Yeah. Kara had the same reaction. Well, I mean, I, I, I, listen, I was, I was, I thought if Donald Trump was really focused on winning, he would have picked Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley, of course, because I think he would have been unstoppable if he had. Agreed. And so I, I don't, I understand your, your theory. Some people have bounced around the idea of Joe Manchin as a running mate.
Yeah, he's unlikable. I know he's unlikable. I mean, is Mitt Romney that likable? I don't know. But you remember, he, he, he lost his presidential race. And that's the other last thing that I would say about Kamala Harris. I mean, think about how many people who've won their primaries, who've lost the presidential race, winning a primaries by no means an assurance of victory. Lydia, no one's ever won president without, without competing competently in a primary, which she hasn't done.
I wouldn't say that's true. Would you say the Joe Biden competed competently in a, in a, in a primary? I think he was carried across the finish line by Jim Clyburn. Oh, but he competed. Oh, no, he won the, he won that race. You don't think after, after, after democratic elites, uh, all came together to, to, to, to, to, to, to engineer an outcome. I, I think there's a difference.
So you're saying, did Hillary, did Hillary, I mean, I, I guess like I'm, I'm, I'm just, you know, she was on the debate stage with a bunch of Democrats and, I, I think there, there, there should be a debate. We think there is her and Dean Phillips and Joe Manchin. That's because the others have, have, um, have bowed out the congressional, by the way, the commercial black caucuses endorsed Harris. Um, you, can I ask you a question?
You did, let me read a tweet from comedian and podcaster, Akila Hughes. Um, so now it's Kamala. I think again, every white person who wanted, uh, him to drop out needs to figure out how to defend a black woman person and online for the first time in their lives. That's the job now. I'd like to see it, but I never have, but can you talk about that skepticism for white people to do that and also skepticism?
As you said, from men, how, because I think women are the black women are the real driver of voting from, as I recall, in almost many, many elections. Um, and, and in this case, I, there was, I think it was a Neil Dash was saying the, the anti-desi network is now in overdrive, which is Kamala Harris is also, uh, her mom is a Indian, um, can you talk a little bit about that? Like what it, how do you, how do you thread that very difficult racial needle in this country?
I think this is going to be one of the big challenges. Um, but I also think that people make assumptions about other people's racism that may have to do with their own beliefs. Um, if you think other people are racist, um, maybe it's worth looking at what your own beliefs are. Yeah, race and about people's competence. Right. Um, same, same I would say about sexism. Um, you know, I, I think that this is a country that has a capacity to surprise people.
Um, I would also say that, um, again, Donald Trump is a particularly weak candidate who is particularly ill suited to attacking, uh, this particular opponent on matters of race and on matters of gender, you know, I mean, this is a person she has prosecuted, you know, sex offenders, um, and, and rapists and people who've committed sexual assault. Um, you know, we have many photos of Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, um, you know, he has been found legally liable for sexual assault.
Prosecutive versus felon. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not, I don't have any illusions, guys. I mean, I'm making the case here and is in, in, in a, in a way that, that I think is, is, is, is absolutely defensible. But I also know that all historical events are contingent and, you know, uh, there is a, there is a very real possibility that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that Kamala Harris becomes the, the nominee in that, and that she loses that would be extremely unfortunate for the country.
It is possible. It feels less likely to me than, than, than Joe Biden, um, winning the campaign and that seems to be where we are now. Yeah. Absolutely. She'll bring back the donors, which we'll be talking about also at donors. Lovers, love, comel hairs. Love, comel hairs. That's what I was telling him. I was like, she's no lefty. They love her. She is not a lefty. She shows up at their parties. I've seen her there because I've been there and they love comel hairs. Also, she enjoys it too.
She enjoys that whole. Yeah. So anyway, anyway, Lydia, thank you. That was really when you wrote it. As you know, I wrote you, I was like, well done because everyone was going in a different direction than that. And I thought you did, you made a good case for it. And I was like, I'm hanging up my spurs and no more fun to do for me. Hang up your spurs. Good job. Excellent job. Well, that's, you did a good job in your first outing and I appreciate it.
All I ever want is to stun Scott all the way into silence. The two of you, the two of us being up on him. That happens all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The massacres, like being beaten up by powerful women, I know it. Nizami! Can we do it again together? Say Mitt Romney, Scott. What do you guys, I think it should be Mitt Romney. Oh, no! You did it. Literally, you guys, you got, you ignorant slut. You're the personification of the comments and every social media platform of mom.
Basically, it's like a different dimensions of Jesus, you're a fucking idiot. Yeah, yeah. Well, we're not saying idiot. That's a little far, which is definitely not. Definitely not. Anyway, thank you, Lydia. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Take care, guys. Take care, Lydia. All right, Scott. Let's go on a quick break. We come back. A look at the fallout from the massive crowd strike outage. Support for Peppa comes from Vanta.
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The world is still crawling its way back to normal operations after a crowd strike update caused 8.5 million devices to crash on Friday. The Cybersecurity firm software update wiped out devices using Microsoft Windows operating systems, impacting airlines, healthcare facilities, emergency services, retail locations, and millions of PCs. Still on Monday, over 700 flights have been canceled by 7.30 AM.
At the time of this taping crowd straight stock is down more than 30 percent in the last five days. Talk a little bit about your perspective on this. Well, it's interesting. We had Y2K. We had it in 2024. This was exactly what they were predicting would happen on the turn of New Year's in 2000. I think this is, I think the larger learning here is the following. That is, I love the idea of what is a robust versus an anti-fragile industry.
That is, if McDonald's goes out of business, the fast food industry or ability to get fast food doesn't miss a beat. There's Panera, there's Chipotle, there's five guys in and out burger, best of them all. It's fine. If Jamie Diamond called, you know, Powell or Janet Yellen and said, look, I had some rogue trader in Singapore and we accidentally missed a compliance. He levered up a million times and unless you give me a hundred billion dollar credit line, I'm out of business.
They have to say, yes, we'll send the money because if JP Morgan goes under, it might take the global economy with it. So I would argue the banking system is not robust and that's one of the reasons they have such tight or increased stress testing because they recognize that it's not a robust industry.
What this reflects is that technology because of the solidation and concentration is not robust and if one essentially cyber security firm can take down an airline in the economy for a day, that means it's too concentrated. So I think what this reflects is yet another example. I mean, it'll be really interesting how much this comes up in the FDC or DOJ review of Alphabet's pending acquisition or proposed potential acquisition of WIS because if, you know, I mean, it's interesting.
Southwest flights were fine because they had an updated their software to the latest operating system. Right. Right. Yeah. And also Apple was fine, obviously. Yeah. So I think it's just another indication that this, that we need more antitrust, it's just too concentrated. So costs could, for the soundage, is could top one billion dollars according to Anderson and economic group, which specialized in economic cost of business interruption.
Many companies plan to file insurance claims to cover the cost and Microsoft is released a recovery tool. But here we are relying on limited tech companies. You were talking a little bit about the antitrust thing is that how do you solve the problem because you do need a commonality of some of these systems. Now, of course, everyone was like, is this really a secret attack? You know, that was raised. Is it China flexing whatever it shoved into our systems during solar winds?
But you know, it's here we are getting, but whether it's being attacked by other countries in the various hacks or relying on limited companies, we really are, you know, we are kind of stuck in that regard that everything is knitted together in this way. And they don't care enough about security, I guess, on that. 298 of the Fortune 500 companies used CrowdStrike. And this is, I don't know, it just brings home for me.
It's just a concentration of power that is, that is, you need diversity in the ecosystem. And this is an example of it. And what happens? I mean, this is sort of a preview. It could be much worse than this. What if all of a sudden every hospital network goes down or power generators? I mean, this was, we got off pretty easy here. This was FlightSman cancelled. So I, I, again, I'm, you know, me, I'm the same, I'm the breakup person.
I just think there's two, two few companies that have too much critical infrastructure. But then how do you do that if you want to knit together a system? See, the fact, you know, these are, this of course is the, is the discussions around every sci-fi movie. There's one system, you know, remember the Sandra Bullock one, whatever was using that one thing in the little sign showed up and then it stole everyone's information.
It's really difficult not to have a singular system or one that's knitted together well, you know. But what you're making the argument for is, is that the scale and common standards are really important. And I get that. Now, the name of that type of firm that you grant the capacity to do is a utility. And utilities are highly regulated.
So if you make the argument that it makes sense to have one cybersecurity firm and operating system running 400 of the 500 biggest hospital systems in America, then you are going to need to have pretty serious government oversight and a lot of stress testing and scenario planning that what happens when X, Y, or Z takes place because these companies aren't, I mean, granted, there's an economic incentive in not letting this should happen. But you mentioned that CrowdStrike stock is down 14%.
But it's still up 24% year to date. So this is the bottom line that market is telling us and this is the scary thing here, Kara.
And a potential catastrophe like this that literally ruins millions of people's vacation plans for the weekend or summer vacation plans, that is worth it because the concentration of power that sends your stock up 24%, maybe you have to give up, give half of it back, but you're still up the concentration of power without the very expensive stress testing and go slow mentality that you would have in utility.
It's worth it to take the risks and that is not a good risk complexion for corporate America. Yeah. But so you think of the stock will recover 100% they own, they're working with 300 to the 500, 400, 500 and it might be an opportunity for someone to come in, but the market has already said, okay, the stocks up 24%, it gave back half its gains for the year. It's not like the thing has crashed. Right. Right. That's true.
It's not like the money else that happened or the insurance claims and things like that, but again, you're right. It requires it to become a utility, which is something you and I have both argued many times. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Do you want me to go first?
You go first, Kara. Okay. I love one of the things that I like about news events is how the internet reacts, the special social, this is the part I like about social media besides looking at cooking and Japanese woodworking videos that I look at to please myself. But there's a lot of really good ones that were on immediately and it's highly entertaining. I loved everything that Daily Show does and on threads they were going crazy, but of course they had a picture.
Remember when they won the election and there was a picture of Kamala jogging looking very fit? She's on the phone. She was talking about it at the time and it had, hello, is this the Midwest white guy Emporium, which I think was cute. I thought Hunter Walk did a great one on threads. Lights must be flickering in Brooklyn from equipment, Howard search for all the emergency pods, which is so true.
And I really enjoyed it back and forth between Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Zuckerberg on threads put up serene row before a big week and then Casey Newton wrote back, Mark, you will not believe what happened while you were rowing. Mark's like best to check the news before I, I, I, I thread. And then what I really liked is Elon Musk is really truly losing his mind over on, on X and there's two of them and I thought were very funny.
He said, my smartest friends, including those living in San Francisco Bay area have been lifelong dams are excited about Trump dance and Jan LeCoon, who's head of AI at Facebook wrote and he's been just trolling Musk relentlessly. Your smartest friends aren't very smart, which I really liked.
And then I think my single favorite one was from was was one on X where Jordan Schneider, he's, I don't know who he is, he wrote what a classic VC move to buy Trump at the peak, which I thought was really funny. And then one more, one more, redructors wrote the nation with increasingly limited access to birth control. Thanks man for pulling out. And then the other last meme actually I'll do one more last.
But me there's one picture of Kamala Harris coming out from behind a blue curtain with a thing and it said, did somebody say black job, which I that's funny. Anyway, those are all my things. The fail is a similar thing is I don't know why finance reporters are not writing about this, but Bill Ackman is sharing a lot of conspiracy theories this week.
Really crazy ones, including one that Joe Biden did not make, did not make this decision and that his signature wasn't actually his, he said, this were hostage situation, that letter would not qualify as proof of life. He also had this whole like these videos show that there were two shooters in the Trump shooting. Yeah, he deleted that. I know. I know what is the fucking why don't look, why don't they hold him accountable for this stuff? You know, he just gets to do this stuff.
What a this is he's like I find him irritating on every level on the DEI stuff and his thoughts on Ukraine and everything else, which he's manifestly unqualified to do, but now he's moved way down the stack to stuff that he should not be. And he's raising money for this new investment fund. I would worry about this guy very, very much so because he literally spends all his time now trafficking and really conspiracy theories. I don't know what else to say, really weird ones too. Anyway.
All right. So my win is going to be, you know, the millionth pile on of people recognizing the tenure in presidency, President Biden, I think economically, you know, created more jobs in three and a half years and have been created in any eight year tenure, brought inflation down to the lowest level of any advanced economy while maintaining growth, markets touching all time highs, legislatively one of the most productive sessions. I think he's been very strong on Ukraine.
I think he's been, I don't think he gets nearly the credit he deserves because he has been a little bit unfortunately, wish you watched on the communications trying to placate the far left while on the ground, he immediately deployed to Kyrgyz Strait Force forces to the Mediterranean in solidarity with our ally Israel. I think he's been a decent man. I think he's been really good on LGBTQ. He's been very, if not effective, but forceful around bodily autonomy.
I think he set a good tone of decency. You know, he will be remembered as, and not like that, I think this was probably an incredibly difficult decision for him and his family. And I think, you know, did he probably take too long to make that decision? Yes, but people will remember him for the decision that he made for the country. And you know, life, I think President Biden is going to go down as one of the great presidents.
I think that it's going to give him, him and his family tremendous comfort to know that he had an outstanding presidency. I think he should go nuts now, just like do whatever he feels like. Just go off. You know what? I have executive order that everybody wears pants. Like, I don't know. Yeah. He's like, um, something like I would pardon Hunter. I would just be like, you know, well, that would hurt her. That would hurt her if he did so. Pardon that. Or something. I don't know.
For anything he's going to do too. Um, you know, I think he could do a lot of stuff now. He's sort of free, right? He's kind of free to do what he wants. The other thing is, uh, he could make some money. You know what I mean? Like, he deserves it. He's been a lifelong public servant. I know everyone thinks he's corrupt Joe Biden, but honestly, it doesn't look like he has that much of a lifestyle. Um, and I certainly, the llamas have cashed in. That's for sure.
Um, I think that, uh, he, I have to tell you when you're talking about this, you're right. I'm not going to do it, but he, he, to give up the presidency, just think about that. Think about that. Wow. After he spent his life trying to get there. Absolutely. Um, yeah, and not like that, I think, look, I think what I'm thinking is if Biden can quit his job, maybe I should quit mine. You know, oh no, are you doing that again? No, no. It's August. You'll be going on vacation for a little while soon.
Yeah. It's close to August. Scott. Yeah. And then start Joe Biden is announced who no longer be running for president. Um, yeah. It's like he's broken up with all of us. He left a post that said, sorry, I can't. Don't hate me. All right. So, but also just, you know, young people, you should never quit your job on a Sunday. That's just bad. It's crazy. That is crazy. All right. What do you think is your fail? I don't have a fail.
I'm feeling, I'm starting to recover from the shock and weird feeling of Sunday. Um, I'm trying to just feel better and better about American Democrats and be hopeful. I'm going to rally. I want to be one of these people that, that whose actions sort of foot to all the bullshit that comes expectorating out of their mouth all day. I'm going to try and get involved in the, the campaign ultimately, which looks like it's going to be Harris.
So it unlocked it for you because you were like pulling back, right? It unlocked the idea of giving money. The idea. Oh, no, no, no. I, you were a part of that letter. No, no, no, no, no. I will, I will donate, I will try and, uh, in this would be impossible, but I'm going to hope that I'm going to hold myself to allocating or footing my time, treasure and talent to all the, all the constant yammering I do about this.
It's time for all of, I mean, look, it's time for all of us to either canvas, start talking to people, even on social media, be supportive, break out your, break out your wallet, whatever you can give, give. You're a dolphin, right? I'm a dolphin. I'm not a whale. I'm, but I'm already talking to people about trying to do a fundraiser and doing fun matching programs. I'm going to go do some canvassing in one of the swing states, maybe even do, I'm talking to someone about it.
Anyways, I'm excited about this and I want to, look, you want to look back on this regardless of what happens. If you do believe that I hate that I don't like them positioning Donald Trump is the end of America. I think it might be, uh, I would argue a serious degradation in our democracy. I don't think it's going to be the end of America and I don't think that's useful.
But if you do think this is an existential threat and an important election, you should make plans for the next, have a war plan for the next 10 or 11 weeks. I sat down with my boys and they were kind of like, what are we doing? I'm like, I want to plan out the next kind of 11 weeks as has to how we can be effective here. But I think everyone, if they're really serious about it, it's, you know, just posting shit on Twitter isn't enough like get them ball.
I think LFG is what you're talking about, right? Let's fucking go. That's so. Let's get on it. Let's get on. That's what I said. I had someone who was like, you know, also like, uh, I was like, you know, that's fucking enough. That's enough. Look, you got a chance now. You got a shot. And this is the oxygen we have. And let's stop saying what's wrong with her. Let's say what's right with her. Like, let's not even like sure. There's plenty of said there's plenty wrong with her.
I don't think I've ever seen a candidate that is more, that is more superior than her opponent. Yep. Absolutely. I'm not far from going to focus on. Do you think there's going to be a debate? He's not going to do it a bit in a way. That's an interesting question. He's there. She know where he's getting on stage with her. First of all, he doesn't like women. I think he's too arrogant to refuse. I think he's black with this. You think he won't go on stage or I don't think he can.
He'll talk about cognitive decline. He will. It will be the same thing. He can't help. If you think Hillary Clinton drove her in crazy, remember, he called that nasty woman. Oh, man. He'll, he can't do that. And he can't help himself. Look what happened at the speech where everyone was hugging him. He fucked that up. I'll take the other side of that because what you just said, I think it's true. I don't think he can help himself. The smart thing might, might be to not debate.
I don't think he's going to be able to resist. And when people start calling him a chicken and insulting his manhood, it's just going to be, he's going to be like, I'll show her. Yeah. We'll see. I think he's going to be really bothered by her quite a bit. He's going to set him off in a ways that he doesn't even understand about himself. Anyway, we'll see, which is a good thing. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business. Tech or whatever's on your mind.
Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Just a minute question for the show. We're called 85551 Pivot. Okay, Scott, we'll be back on Friday with more. As always, Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Larry Neiman, doing markets and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineer at this episode, thanks also to Drew Burrow's Melissa Vario. Nishat Kura is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show where every listener podcasts.
Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine in Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things, tech and business. Let's get on it. If you've been enjoying this podcast, here's a look into what else is happening at New York Magazine. I'm Corey Seeker, and I'm here with Reeves Wideman, who has written about the American obsession with NDAs. Where did they come from? Why are they everywhere?
Are they good for anything besides covering up for abusers? After you poked around NDAs for a while, do you see NDAs used mostly as tools of abuse and coercion? You see positive results like, where did you land on NDAs? I think in most situations, it is used as a way to sort of claim power, but not even necessarily to do a bad thing. It's just kind of, it is this now the 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 I was just trawling job listings while doing this story, and there were NDAs for fork lift drivers and people working in butcher shops. 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 that you sort of keep 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 in 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 are we going to start giving them to their partners? You know, I think some people are going to start experimenting with it. It doesn't take much to go online, download a free NDA and without even consulting a lawyer and hand it over to someone.
I did as a joke, send one to my girlfriend. She hasn't signed it yet, but I, I, I, I, I, I, at least sent it. So that's Reeves Widermint, who may or may not be single soon. You could read his work on NDAs in our beautiful print magazine in your own home or on NY Mag.com down the line.