Hi, everybody. Megan Rapinoe here. It's been a big week for UConn women's basketball and college basketball in general. This week on A Touch More, we're bringing you our live show from the Final Four in Tampa with UConn legend and WNBA champion Diana Taurasi. We'll talk about UConn's legacy, our favorite Coach Oriyama stories, and play a very special game involving never-before-seen photos of Diana. Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
Support for this show comes from ServiceNow, who are enabling people to do more fulfilling work, the work they actually want to do. You know what people don't want to do? Boring, busy work. But now with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of the business, IT, HR, customer service, and more.
And that means your people can focus on the work they want to do. That's putting AI agents to work for people. It's your turn. Get started at servicenow.com slash AI dash agents. Support for today's show comes from Chevrolet. Whether it's just a quick jaunt or a long journey, Chevy's all electric Equinox EV has you covered with a massive
17.7 inch diagonal touchscreen and starting at around $34,995. You can hit the road and still afford snacks. Equidox EV, a vehicle you know, a value to expect and a dealer right down the street. You can go EV without changing. Learn more at chevy.com forward slash Equinox EV. The manufacturer's suggested retail price excludes tax, title, license, dealer fees, and optional equipment. Dealer sets final price.
No one has ever described me as openly heterosexual. No one has ever said openly heterosexual podcaster. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Where are you, Scott? You're somewhere strange with the wallpaper situation going on. I am at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, where I just returned from getting
From the Department of Motor Vehicles at Palm Beach Gardens, where my son is now a licensed driver. How exciting. That's great. I thought you were at Mar-a-Lago or something like that. No, I ran into my friend Mehmet Oz yesterday, and he came over and he introduced me to RFK Jr. They're hanging out. Oh, no. And he gave me the cold shoulder. I think it's because I refuse to have him on my pod. I don't know. He was definitely like cold to me. Who? RFK?
RFK, no, Memon and I are friends. RFK, yeah, was noticeably cold to me. He's very handsome, though. I did notice that. Because he's a crank. Did you see the latest? I don't even want to go into it. Four months until autism is solved. Not just that, all his stuff. He's taking information off. He's saying vaccines aren't necessarily a good thing. He's such a fucking disaster. These people are... setting themselves up for a lot of pain years from now.
just the murders he is committing right now, as far as I'm concerned. Well, in addition to the additional death, disease, and disability across our populace, it's made traffic much worse for me. That's what I'm really upset about. Okay, all right, okay, all right. The traffic is awful down here. But anyways, I'm at the Colony Hood. which i affectionately call i think there's a
whole cadre or cohort of what I call 64 hotels and service establishments. And that is because of the unprecedented prosperity that we've started to believe is a normal operating system in America. And a series of fiscal and monetary policies that literally are in tax policies cram all this prosperity in the top 1%. And the fact there's a lag time. You can't build a four- or five-star hotel in a year. It takes 10 years.
These places are overcapacity, and so I describe them as 64s, and that is six-star prices with four-star service. And these places are so expensive. And I don't mind paying a lot of money if you get great service. And you do great service at the Beverly Hills Hotel or... I don't know, at the Langham in London. I mean, there's just a ton of great hotels with great service.
All right, Colony Hotel with RFK there. That's all I need to know. I'm not going there. No, RFK is not here. I don't want to disparate. It's a beautiful hotel in Palm Beach, by the way. It's 74 and sunny. God, it's so nice here. Good for you. It's very nice here in Washington, too. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. There's also a lot of tech stuff going on, including metas. big antitrust trial. And of course, women in space, we'll get to that.
But first, let's get to tariffs, because first, President Trump now says nobody is getting off the hook on tariffs, despite granting exemptions for smartphones, computers and other electronics late Friday, which is a lie, apparently. Trump posted on True Social on Sunday that products are just moving to a different tariff bucket. He also says,
that semiconductor tariffs are coming, but tariff exemptions, or whatever Trump wants to call them, are good news for Apple, NVIDIA, and Dell, at least for the time being. Of course, Scott predicted Apple's reprieve on our Friday episode. Let's listen. You want to enrage a cult? Take iPhones for $3,500. And then you're going to see the largest, the most valuable company in history, an American company, lose the value of the German GDP.
over the course of a year. You're going to push back people's retirements. Apple's going to have to withdraw all sorts of growth plans. And you want to piss off every... Every millennial and Gen X in the world take their iPhones for $3,500. Apple is not going to have any tariffs here.
So in the interim for that, you were absolutely correct. Very good. But what was... And then I was not correct, right? Yes, I know. So what is the deal? Because Letnick started, everyone thought Letnick was off script, but then Trump... underscored it and added more confusion to something that was already confusing and seems very oligarchic and sudden and shifting.
Apple was trying very hard to deal with this. They're airlifting 600 tons of iPhones from India last week to reportedly beat the tariffs. This flip-flopping is really bad. Carolyn Levitt, of course, it goes against what they were saying, we're going to make things in the US, Carolyn Levitt, Tracy Flick said over the weekend.
that Trump is still committed to seeing more products and components made in the U.S. She noted Trump's direction. Tech companies are hustling to onshore their manufacturing in the United States as soon as possible. Carolyn, sit down, you 27-year-old ignoramus. But what do you think about this flippity-floppity-flippity-flop? The brand U.S. has become toxic uncertainty. There are several organizations that track an uncertainty index.
And that index has reached its highest level since the 80s. The level of uncertainty in the U.S. right now... is greater than COVID. Think about that. And by the way, I'm going to give you some anecdotes. I'm not going to name the people because they didn't want to be named. But what I would tell our listeners is that unlike the Trump administration, my anecdotes are true. I'm not lying. Over the weekend, I talked to several CEOs.
One is the CEO of a huge catalog and retail company that does a lot of housewares. This person has, he thinks, about $60 million in outdoor furniture waiting to hit the stores for summer. that are on ships en route from China. All of a sudden, he has to figure out a way. to get to the port of Long Beach when they arrive and write a check for $85 million that he wasn't expecting to write.
And he has to call a CFO. And this is a publicly traded, multi-million dollar company. He's like, I can't just like... find 85 million bucks. The 85 is for what? To pay for the things now? Or what is the 85 for? That's the correct question, because the way tariffs work... Is the importer, the catalog, the retailer company taking delivery of outdoor furniture from China, if these products, quote unquote, cost $60 million?
You have to, with 145% tariff, you have to, the person receiving the items, the retailer in the U.S., has to pay $85 million to the U.S. government in the form of a tariff payment. So this individual has to come up with $85 million. In addition. Unless they're given a reprieve. But he can't just let shit sit on a boat. Right. And right now, he has to plan for what the government is saying. In addition, he's got to find hundreds, if not thousands of people.
to go down to the port. And when the stuff comes off the boat, re-tag and reprice everything, because now the majority of retailers that order their stuff out of China have it tagged and priced and attached to the actual physical item in China. And wrapped, right? Whatever, if there happened to be clothing or something like that. Whatever it is. And so in addition, he's like, OK, so I have stopped all shipments from China. I've told them stop producing.
which is going to take my inventory levels way down. And the only way I'm going to get anywhere back even is if I raise prices, which I'm going to have to do, in addition to more expensive prices, i.e. inflation. My earnings call is going to be a shit show when I have to explain that, oh yeah, I wasn't expecting to pay an $85 million unexpected.
straight from the bottom line, payment for tariffs that didn't exist seven days before. And he has to go into his office and the CFO goes, all right, if we've got to go borrow $85 million against the line, we can do it. But if every retailer is hitting their line, the interest costs are going to go up. And this is what played out last week and why this guy blinked yet again. The President has access to more information than any individual in history.
Between our security apparatus, the brightest people in the world, a ton of data that's digested, distilled for him. He is the helm of the bobsled. He technically has more insight into what is going on in the world than any individual. And I'm sure two pieces of data were presented to him in fairly stark terms. Consumer confidence is plummeting, uncertainty is skyrocketing, which all adds up to a decline in spending and hiring.
and insecurity, which has taken the economy down. Now, traditionally, when an economy goes down, people don't want to borrow money, people don't want to invest, so interest rates come down. And that makes people more confident. It's sort of a self-healing mechanism in this instance. We have a reduction in consumer spending, the economy slowing down. But the 10-year...
spiked 50 points. So you have everything getting more expensive as the economy slows down. That's called stagflation, which is a bridge. to a depression. The 10-year went up 50 bips in five days. And let's bring that down to a number. We have a $34 trillion deficit.
Basis point increase in the cost of the tenure. If it goes from 4% to 4.1%, it's another $3.5 billion in interest payments we have to make on our national debt. I'm not even talking about the incremental cost to consumers of their student loans, their mortgages. and their credit cards. I'm just talking about the interest on the debt we have to pay. So when it's spiked, 50 basis points, right, on $3.5 billion per basis point in incremental interest expense, all of a sudden, in a few days,
America has to come up with another $175 billion in interest payments to foreign creditors. Our entire Veterans Affairs budget is $300 billion. So they have figured out a way to reduce the economy, to send the economy into what looks like a low-grade coma. while interest rates are going up. This is
the worst of all worlds. Right, right. And they're not getting, and the $85 million this guy has to pay is going to the government, but it's now going to be sucked up in interest rate payments. It's just like, so we're going to lose so much money every which way you lose. How companies proceed is impossible at this point. What do you do? What do you just stop payments? That's what you stop doing. And then you lay people off.
And then you hunker down until this lunatic is either, he loses at the midterm and he gets investigated out the yin yang, which he should be, honestly. or it's rendered impossible for him to do anything. That's saying his lawlessness continues. He's defying the Supreme Court on immigration. He's defying the... He's defying everybody on every single thing. And also, by the way, he doesn't weigh 224 pounds. He weighs like at least 250 pounds. Anyway, that was just his thing.
Let's talk China then, because this is an opportunity, as we've talked about with President Xi. He currently is visiting Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia, presenting China as a reliable ally and trading partner. China also suspended exports on a wide range of critical minerals and magnets. China is holding steady here and they are willing to endure pain, but they're also doing the correct thing, which is
to visit partners and show themselves to be reliable partners. What will Trump do next? Because I see him more in this press conference in the Oval Office. He's defying the Supreme Court. He's defying the Fed. He's defying... Anyone he can defy, and when he makes a good decision, he defies his good decisions. So what do companies do and how do you look at China's role here? Because I think they're benefiting enormously from his. Idiocy. I don't know what else to call it. Stupidity.
So I never miss a chance to boast. The CEO of one of the most iconic German automobile manufacturers... reached out and said, we'd love to host you and come have you speak to the management team of the board. And I was trying to arrange dates. And then he called me and he said, can I ask you something? I said, of course. He goes, what would you do if you were us, given what's going on in the U.S.?
And Kara, as a guy who is always willing to run other people's lives and tell them what they should do, I'm like, I have no fucking idea. I have no idea. No idea. what to do here other than, and I hate to say this because I love America, other than figure out a series of partners that are more reliable. I said, oh, we're doing that. And going to that notion around, let's talk about China now.
China, since COVID, or since 2019, has reduced its percentage of its total exports to the U.S. from 24 to 17 percent. We have reduced ours by 4%. So we're both diversifying away from each other. They have diversified at nearly double the clip we have. The basic premise is that we can hurt them more than they can hurt us, so they will cry uncle.
Let's assume we could hurt them more than they could hurt us. That is a pretty shaky thesis because Well, the administration wants you to believe that we're the only customer at the country club and they have to be nice to us. The number one trading partner with China... is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, at one trillion. Who's number two? The EU at 900 billion. We're number three. So, yeah, we have a lot of power.
But if they wanted to, and you want to talk about restraint, If they wanted to go into the market and take the tenure from $450 to $550, and create inflation while the economy is going down, they could do that. But what they realize is that If they really hurt and kneecap their third biggest customer, it would be bad for them as well. They are not stupid. In addition, let's discount all of that. And let's take the administration at its word that.
Howard Lutnick, that we're the biggest consumer and they would be fucked without us. China has its own troubles. Here's the issue or the piece of calculus they are missing. When Americans find, when they're watching the Logan Paul, Mike Tyson fight, And it starts, the bandwidth slows down. They go fucking apeshit. And they call their cable company. I just did that today. When you talk about...
Women are born with a much higher tolerance for pain because they have to endure childbirth. Men have much lower tolerance of pain. We're the man in this relationship. China starves tens of millions of people when they think it's good long term for the country. Do you realize the pain threshold of America relative to China?
Zero. And we think we're going to strong arm them into doing a decision they don't want to do. It's nuts. This is just absolutely nuts. Bo and Yang did a very funny thing on SNL, this idea. They are made for pain. But wait, I'm just wondering which side is more willing to endure hardship for the glory of their nation? The one that's been around for thousands of years or the one that's sending Katy Perry to space? Look at us in the 70s when we had a much higher tolerance.
for pain when we didn't have Netflix and shows on demand and couldn't get a pack of gum delivered to us within 15 minutes. We left Vietnam after we had decided we can't take anymore when we had lost 58,000. servicemen. At that point, at the Viet Cong in North Vietnam, they had lost a million people, and we cried uncle. To think that, I mean, the calculus here is just so...
incredibly ignorant. The performative defiance on everything, like there's not anywhere, they're not losing and being performatively defiant and then dragging. people who were not like this, like Marco Rubio, into this performative defiance. That's what I would call it. And it's just... It's like Saul, my son, this, you know, I'm not going to, you know, he does this thing where he does his arms. You know, when you see a toddler.
Like, I'm not going to do anything. And that's what it feels like. I feel like I'm dealing with like a three-year-old or something like that. First off, it's corruption all over the place because, okay, you give me a million bucks. You're the cult of iOS. Just kidding. The tariffs are way back. They're not. 98% of the companies in America who are dependent upon exports for their well-being.
Our small and medium-sized business, another CEO I spoke to this weekend, a friend of mine from my fraternity at college. He has a specialty products company. You know when you go to a conference and all the cups, the fleeces, the banners, the signage? I have a lot. I'm wearing one right now. There you go. Okay.
That's a big business. He has a family-run business that he's worked at for 30 years since we got out of college. He's built probably a $10 or $12 million business, 130 employees, has put three kids through college, lived a really nice life, right? Slowly but surely over the last 30 years, everything's gone to China. About 80% of his products are produced out of China.
He also has to go down to the port and sign a check for a couple million bucks, which he doesn't have to get the shit off the boat. He's told China to stop shipping everything. And he doesn't have time to figure out new rooting relationships. He's basically said, Scott, this is COVID times 10. I'm not going to get any relief. I don't know when this is coming to an end. And literally, my business has come to a halt.
At campuses, and I know this firsthand, some of the biggest organizations, companies, recruiters have said the following. We're putting a pause on interviews and hiring. And a pause sounds benign, but when you pause hiring for three months for new grads at a college, In three months when they resume, they don't double the pace. They basically reduce hiring for 25 or 50 percent for that year. It's not as if they decide now we're going to go crazy with hiring when we start again.
So you have a reduction in the number of jobs for kids coming out of college. You have stocks that are going to get the shit kicked out of them. You have small and medium-sized businesses that don't know what to do. You have earnings calls, which are going to be an absolute shit show. And you have the threat of stagflation. And all of this is the chickens coming to roost because countries don't go out of business because they're invaded.
They go out of business because they go broke. And we have borrowed so much. fucking money. We are so debt laden that we no longer have that bullet to fire. I mean, one of the things that's very astonishing here is that we think we have choices and that's the problem. with this entire thing is we do not have the choices. And this is not being an America like is a bunch of losers. This is self-inflicted. damage that we're doing to ourselves. Definition of on goal. Exactly.
Right. We should be running like just three months ago. You're talking about how the U.S. is dominating everything. Right. When the transition was happening three or four months ago. Now we are just. doing it to ourselves. And I think most people understand that, but we have to move on. But this is just, what is a fucking disaster? Now, Apple stock and the video stock is up today because they're hoping that
these things stay in place, but they might not. And so you might see an impact. Lots of shares are down right now. Apple and NVIDIA are up because they've gotten this break, but who knows what's coming? This is this idea that he wants to continue to hold over people's head that he could grab these anytime. Anyone who can't get in on this gravy train, you use the Vietnam thing. I used it yesterday on one of our socials.
This is like if you're not on the helicopter out of Saigon, you are fucked. Everyone else is fucked. We'll see what political implications that has. We'll see where it goes. Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, the antitrust trial that Mark Zuckerberg tried so hard to shut down. And he looked so nice at the inauguration. We'll get to that.
Support for Pivot comes from LinkedIn. You know that feeling when things are just out of place, like ordering a steak dinner at a seafood restaurant or wearing shorts to an ice hockey game. On their own, they're fine, but there's a time and place for everything. It's kind of like that for B2B marketers. It's all about selling the right product to the right audience. And if you're looking to reach the right professionals, you might want to try LinkedIn ads.
to a network of over 1 billion professionals making it stand apart from other ad buys. So you can target buyers by job title, industry, company roles, seniority skills, and company revenue, all the professionals you need to reach in one place. Plus LinkedIn ads are easy to use so you don't need to worry about
learning a whole new skill in order to use it. You can stop wasting your budget on the wrong audience and start targeting the right professionals only on LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn will even give you $100 credit on your next campaign so you can just try it for yourself. Just go to linkedin.com slash pivot pod. That's linkedin.com slash pivot pod. Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads.
Support for Pivot comes from Intuit QuickBooks. Are you a business owner looking to grow? You already did what most dream of doing, starting your own business. Now you're faced with the reality of making that small business run smoothly. Intuit QuickBooks can help. QuickBooks is a powerful AI-driven all-in-one business platform that means those day-to-day tasks, things like invoicing expenses and taxes can be done effortlessly.
QuickBooks can help with cashflow optimization and profit and loss analysis. It helps you see how your business is doing and uncover new ways to be more profitable. Bye. Bye.
Support for Pivot comes from Kinsta. If you run a small business, you've got a million and one things on your mind. And the last thing you want to do is to take a class on Java so you can keep your website up to date and secure. But you can't just let it sit there. In this day and age, having a standout web presence is amazing. That means you can wow your visitors.
that never sleeps and a dashboard that's incredibly intuitive. And when you hit a snag, you'll have access to a real human 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In short, Kinsta is perfect for those who want professional results without needing a technical background. And don't worry about the move. They'll handle the whole transition for you. No tech expertise required. Just visit kinsta.com slash pivot to get started. That's K-I-N-S-T-A.
Scott, we're back. Apparently putting on a tie and kissing up to Trump didn't do the job. The FTC is facing off against Meta in a blockbuster antitrust trial getting underway this week. The case goes back to Trump's first term in 2020, if you can believe it, with the government. alleging Meta violated competition laws by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. For its part, Meta says regulators should be supporting innovation and also faces fierce competition from TikTok, Snap, and other platforms.
I find this to be a little bit of a weak trial, to be honest with you. I think there's others that are stronger, but the trial is expected to last about seven to eight weeks. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were called to stand, among others. This is the case that Mark Zuckerberg has been trying to stop.
It's interesting that Trump has not intervened. Zuckerberg has visited the White House three times since Trump took office. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund and settled a lawsuit with Trump for $25 million. back in January, which they did nothing. It also just named former Trump advisor Dina Powell McCormick to Meta's board. She's also the wife of Senator David McCormick from Pennsylvania.
FTC head Andrew Ferguson has been vocal about reigning in tech, but also said he'd obey lawful orders if Trump asked him to drop the suit. I think he would. He's been wearing the Trump. Have you seen the gold-headed Trump that people are wearing? I think it was him. Yeah, I think it was Ferguson that was wearing it.
Anyway, oh, Brendan Carr was wearing it, excuse me, the head of the FCC. So he said he would follow what Trump says. And thoughts on this? If metal loses, the remedy could be divesting Instagram and WhatsApp. The judge who will decide the case for the remedy is James Bosberg, who's been clashing with Trump over deportations and many other issues. Talk about this case a little bit and what you think will happen here. It's going on, so it's not been stopped by any means.
Well, Zuck is the most disliked person in America under the age of 30. He's got a two-thirds unfavorable rating. Yeah, it is kind of crazy. He's even less popular than Musk. And think about when you're the most... Disliked person amongst a group of people who is literally ground zero for your product and two-thirds of those people use your product and yet you are the most disliked person. I'm hopeful. I had Jonathan Cantor on Prop G, and Jonathan said... Explain who he is.
He was the former head of antitrust at the, was he at the DOJ? Justice. Justice, right? I said, I'm really sad that you and Lena are gone. I just don't see anything happening. And he said, he actually said, you know, you underestimate some of the people that are still there. There's still some people there. pretty committed and quite frankly, sort of, you know, antitrust badasses that are going to make a very powerful argument.
I've become so cynical, Kara. I know what I want to happen. I think that they're going to play slow ball. I mean, look at how strategic Zuckerberg is. He put Dana White on the board. He's put this basically this Trumpite on the board. He's figured out the existential threat to my business. isn't distribution, isn't innovation, it's political. And so I am absolutely muscling up with all sorts of contacts into the White House. And the reality is this White House can be bought.
And not only can the White House be bought, so can the Democratic caucus with enough money. So I believe they have become masters at slowing these things down and letting them die a slow death. I hope I'm wrong. These companies have figured out a way to avoid all regulation. I don't see why this would be any different. I think they're surprised the trial is going forward. Let me just read from the opening statements by the two lawyers.
This is Daniel Matheson, the FTC's lead litigator. For more than 100 years, American public policy has insisted firms must compete if they want to succeed. The reason we are here is Meta broke the deal. They decided that competition was too hard to be easier to buy out their rivals than compete with them. This is the buy or bury argument. Now, met as lawyers. This is a guy named Mark Hansen from a big law firm, Kellogg Hansen.
This case is a grab bag of FTC theories at war with fact and at war with law. The facts are going to prove the FTC's theories are all wrong. You know, it is a difficult trial. I've talked to a lot of lawyers. The FTC would like it to divest these companies. Legal experts say it might be hard to win. I'll read directly from the New York Times. That's because the government must prove something unknowable that Meta, formerly known as Facebook,
wouldn't have achieved the same success without the acquisition. It's also extremely rare to try to unwind mergers approved years before. So that's one of the difficult ones, even though this is somewhat of a bipartisan effort. Just for people to know, there's three going around to go to trial. The DOJ won its case against Google. A federal judge is hearing.
arguments about remedies and a potential breakup, and there's a separate trial with the DOJ for monopolizing ad technology by Google that's still going on. Justice Department has also sued Apple, and the FTC has sued Amazon, accusing companies of... anti-trust violations. Those trials are coming up later just for people to get a background. But if they do spit it off, it would be unprecedented. Well, I mean, the baby bills are broken up. The aluminum.
The sisters, the seven sisters or whatever. It does happen. And generally speaking, when we look back in economic history, there's never been a breakup that hasn't turned out well for everybody. So it's one of the few things that kind of always works are breakups. The problem is, to your point, we should have a much higher bar for approving mergers because, quite frankly, the job of the government is to prevent a tragedy of the commons. And the easiest way to do that is prevent it.
And that is not let these companies be acquired to begin with. I mean, even there's been a lot of officials in the government say we screwed up letting Meta acquire Instagram. They probably should have never let Google acquire, what was it, DoubleClick and or YouTube. That was Google, yeah, Google, yeah. But so there probably needs what this says is it is very difficult to unwind a merger and force a spend. What is easier is to block.
an acquisition. And I think the bar should be pretty low to block an acquisition for a company once it gets above a certain dominance in its own category. I think that's what... The argument they make so effectively that resonates with the public is that capitalism means making more money and they should let just be capitalists and the market do its thing. What they don't realize is that.
The concentration of industry has led to massively higher prices, whether it's chicken, whether it's pharma, whether it's health care. Right. This is harder. And think about the way I look at it is the hard part is some of these costs are non-economic, but for God's sakes, look at the rents.
the increase in emotional prices that Meta has levied on every parent globally. Yeah, and add businesses that have been destroyed because they've dominated and stuff like that. There's those, these are just harder to do. For people, just a little more, we're going to talk about it. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for a billion dollars. I covered this. And then 2014, it paid $19 billion for WhatsApp. Both were crazy prices at the time, although Instagram certainly has yielded a lot.
There is a paper trail of emails between executives talking about the startups because they were threats. I wrote about that at the time. The lawyers mentioned the documents. Zuckerberg was so paranoid and he talked about in emails neutralizing a potential competitor. And then Zuckerberg wrote to Sandberg, Messenger isn't beating WhatsApp. Instagram was growing so much faster than us. We had to buy them for a billion.
So because they're such bad product people at Facebook, and I cannot underscore this enough, they had to buy or bury. It's a very famous phrase in tech, buy or bury. And so that's what the government is alleging here. And also keeping it out of other competitors' hands is another one to build a moat around. the monopoly. And so WhatsApp was that for them. So it should be really, really interesting, I think. We'll see what happens in this trial.
So far, the Trump administration is not doing pay or play here. They're just letting it go, which is, to me, interesting. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Well, yeah, he doesn't like these guys. One, it looks as if Instagram would be worth about $100 to $200 billion right now. Now granted, it might not have had the same level of success had it not been able to cooperate and share data.
But what's interesting is within about 40 days of one another was the best and likely the worst acquisition in tech history. And they looked remarkably similar at the time. And the best, you would argue, maybe other than the acquisition of... YouTube. But Mark Zuckerberg bought Instagram for a billion dollars. It's worth 100 to 200, if not more now. And within a month or 45 days, The worst acquisition in tech, do you remember what it is? I'm thinking it's Yahoo.
I broke that story, Mr. Scott Galloway. I know you did. So Facebook acquires Instagram for a billion. It's worth 100 to 200 billion. Yahoo slash Marissa Mayer acquires Tumblr for $1.2 billion. And I believe about seven years later, they sold it for $3 million. Yeah, it's worth nothing now. I just ran into some Tumblr people. What a great site that was, though. You know what I mean? It really was. I like Tumblr a lot.
It was a very innovative site, but you're right. It's just, this is just, come on. This is what Mark Zuckerberg played from the Bill Gates, Byerberry. Playbook. Sorry. This is what this is. We'll see if they can decide if Facebook will make the argument, Meta will make the argument that there's plenty of competition and that there's lots and lots. There's, you know, whatever, blue sky, whatever. But the fact of the matter is. Two things, both for Google and for Facebook.
When have you seen a new, fresh social network get built, if not buried? Like, you know, Snapchat is doing its level best, but Mark keeps stealing his things. because he can't buy it. He couldn't buy it, and so he decided to bury it. That's what they did with Snapchat. And when have you last seen a new search engine that really had any kind of traction? And you were close with the guy who did the one who left Google and tried to do it. It's impossible.
Nobody's going to be, nobody can switch. The switch costs are too high. And then when Apple does a deal with these companies and makes them the de facto map or. or whatever, map or search engine, it sort of puts the nail in the coffin for every other competitor. And the similar thing we just talked about with the tariffs, if you can get an out like Apple did, you're great. If you can't like your furniture guy, you're fucked.
It's corruption. It's corruption everywhere. It's an autocrat. It's not systemic. And also, just to put a fine point on the concentration of industry. This is happening up and down industries. Yeah. U.S. higher education is a cartel. There's two great universities in every city, and the people who give you accreditation such that you have access to student loans are run by the incumbent. My old company, L2, got acquired by a large research company that everybody hates and everybody uses.
And I couldn't figure out after they acquired us the series of decisions they made. I felt like it was George Costanza where everything I thought they should do, they did the exact opposite. I just didn't understand the decisions they were making. And it finally dawned on me about 18 months later, and I'm just speculating. I'm like... I think they thought, okay, we'll pay 3% of our market cap for this company because they're nipping at our heels around CMOs.
And if they will squeeze them for cash flow and then we'll put them out of business. I think I'm like, I think I've just been aqua-killed. Yep, yep, aqua-killed. That's what it is. Yeah, buy or bear. And it's like, okay, a competitor goes away. They get some cash flow back. And quite frankly, for... 2% or 3% dilution, just not having someone running around, nipping at your heels, establishing a wedge in your business.
And I remember thinking, why on earth are they doing nothing with us? Why are they not? driving the business. Why do not they understand me? I'm a genius. I've been there. They've domesticated me. And then you left. And then you left. Poor me with my big fucking bag of money. You did get a bag of money. But this is what happens. That's what they have. They have bags and bags of money, everybody. That's right.
They show up to an entrepreneur and they say, tell you what, we're going to make you rich. Just stop bothering and competing against us. Stop bothering us and stop competing. In this case, Trump ain't playing. So we'll see where it goes. from here. One of the things that Meta is doing, I got texted by a Meta person today. They're like, can you believe this? And I'm like, yes. Yes, I can.
Sure we can. And by the way, you know what, if they take off Instagram, good for capitalism if they do, if they take off WhatsApp. Good for capitalism. If they spin off YouTube, good for capital. We're capitalists, Scott and Kara, because we think that's good for this country.
It's good for competition, and maybe you'll do a little better in your other things if you have to not just buy. It's good for the stock price. Yeah, if you can't just buy your wife or husband or whatever, it's good for everybody. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Blue Origin sends an all-female crew into space. We must be very careful here. But nonetheless, we'll find out what God has to say. Oh, I can't wait to see what you have to say.
Support for Pivot comes from a select quote. From personal finances to the global economy, from turmoil abroad to turmoil between siblings in the back of the minivan, there's no shortage of things to stress out about. And while a lot of those things might be out of your control, there is one thing you can... take control of and mark off your to-do list. Thank you. We'll see you next time.
Get the right life insurance for you for less at selectquote.com slash pivot. Go to selectquote.com slash pivot today to get started. That's selectquote.com slash pivot. Support for Pivot comes from Brex. This goes out to all you finance folks. There's a lot of pressure these days to save money, and that's important. But the best finance leaders And that's exactly what Brex can help you do.
your peak performance at every stage of growth. Startups love that Brex's high card limits and high yield banking extend their runway. And large companies love that Brex allows them to control spending before it happens, get every dollar in the right place, and automate finance busywork. More than 30,000 companies use Brex. Get the modern finance platform that works as hard as you do
Vanta. If you could automate 90% of one part of your life, you might choose cleaning your house or writing thank you notes or working out. But if you're a startup founder or a security professional, And HIPAA. Vanta also saves businesses time by centralizing security processes and helping them complete security questionnaires up to five times faster with AI. And Vanta saves you money. A recent IDC white paper found that Vanta customers achieved $535,000.
per year in benefits. Making sure your company is meeting its security compliance standards isn't optional But with Vanta, the amount of time you need to spend on it is. Go to vanta.com slash pivot to meet with a Vanta expert about your business needs. That's vanta.com slash pivot. Scott, we're back. El Salvador's president says he won't order the return of a Maryland man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported. They've admitted he is mistakenly deported.
deported. President Bukele, who I'm just going to call sleazy club owner, appeared with President Trump at the White House. By the way, he wasn't wearing a tie. I think it was very... It wasn't very stately of him to appear looking like he's about to, you know, do an ecstasy dance or something. The two appeared as Trump administration was digging into its heels, refusing to bring Garcia back to the U.S.
At one point, Salvador president Bukele called him a terrorist. There's no proof of how could I bring, how can I smuggle a terrorist back into the country? Stop it, you unctuous piece of shit. A Supreme Court ruling is directing the government to, quote, facilitate the return. That's a weird word. Now Trump administration is arguing that what facilitate means saying they just need to remove any obstacles to return and not actually bring him back.
Also, the agenda for today's White House meeting, political reports, a team of defense contractors is pitching the White House on a plan to expand deportations to El Salvador. I'm not sure what's more frightening, the legal implications, the administration cozying up to another unsavory leader, which this guy is. This one calls himself the world's coolest dictator. He's certainly the world's most oily dictator I've seen of late.
He just seems just completely just in it for the money. He's very popular, let me say, in El Salvador. I know a lot of people from Salvador and they like him because he cleaned up a lot of the gang violence there by just arresting everybody. Very similar to the Philippines with Duterte. But of course, he's gone overboard, as they all do, with unlimited power. And so they're just pretending this guy's a terrorist.
When reporters were justifiably asking about this, Trump mocked them. Then Rubio jumped in about that the Supreme Court has no purchase over Trump. The way the government decides to do foreign policy, only the president does. What a waste of breath that guy has become. So anyway, thoughts, legal implications, world's coolest dictator? Look, El Salvador. was with the murder capital of the world. And so this guy's very popular, but basically... Very.
Basically, you just started rounding up people who had, you know, a tattoo that said they had a gang affiliation. So there's tremendous collateral damage there. And you have to decide, do you opt for rights? And with some crime and inconvenience and cost, or do you go full autocrat? We said this on the last show. When you round up people, it takes a different complexion. This is a form of rounding up people. There are just some innocent people being rounded up. And what is just insane...
is these people supposedly, you know, are Christians, right? They're all very fond of holding the Bible. If you know that you have taken an innocent person and sent them to a hellscape... And Bill Maher summarized it perfectly. We can bring a man back from space, but we can't get someone back from El Salvador. Of course we could get them back. Of course we could get them back. And then the weirdest moment was this weirdo Christy Noem posing with guns.
After having a Sephora explode all over her face, it felt like a fucking Cinemax film where she was going to start having sex with all the prisoners. Yeah, I agree. It's like, this is just a snuff film. weird people. And also, don't hold Bibles when you start taking people and sending them. incorrectly, unjustifiably. It's like...
For God's sakes, have you no sense of decency? And why wouldn't Bukele take our money and create Guantanamo there? That's what he's doing. Why wouldn't he take our money? It's good for him. And he doesn't care who is innocent. By the way, it's not his business to care who's innocent or not.
But if we send someone who's innocent there, and it looks like many of them were or had no criminal background that were sent to these prisons, the Venezuelans in particular, because Venezuela won't take these. You can't send them to prison. You just can't. Put them in another country and let them go, I guess, if you have to do with this heinous stuff you're doing. But to put them in a prison and they're guilty. I mean, was it 60 Minutes showed up? They had...
75% of them had no criminal background whatsoever. They just had a tattoo to their mother with a crown on it. Just really, it's just, I mean, I'm sorry if that was the case. Pete Hegseth would be in a Salvadoran prison. He's got a lot of tattoos. The worst thing is them trying to parse after Trump promised he would follow. What the Supreme Court said, he's not following what the Supreme Court said. The same thing they're doing, they were supposed to let back in.
AP into the press cycle. They're not letting, they're barring AP even though they were ruled against. They just don't do it. They're lawless as a government. I think you summarized it perfectly. I don't understand. We said, that's the last show. Just be careful. When you tolerate this, just wait for the knock on your door.
The other theme this goes to is the following. The only thing I know about these people is who's not being deported, and that is rich people. Yeah, I can think of a lot of criminals, rich criminals. Well, you're, again, in America. The whole idea of a constitution and laws is to protect the most vulnerable. The rich are protected by the law. They're not bound by it. I love that line. And the poor are bound by the law, but not protected by it.
And I can't name a person. Nobody in the top quintile of income-earning Americans or who is here illegal who has money. has been taken. This is what is so mendacious, so unchristian, so un-American, such a violation of our Constitution. is that the basis of your quality as a government is how the poorest and most vulnerable are treated. Whether it's a 14-year-old who's a victim of incest, or an undocumented worker. And by the way, folks,
I mean, let's just go to undocumented workers as we demonize people for a bump in our Q rating. A third of fast food workers are undocumented. You could take the top 10 fast food companies to a statistically significant sample of rates and say 22 percent. 25% of McDonald's or Jack-in-the-box workers are undocumented. We're fining you $100,000 a day per percentage. And guess what? You'd end it. Here's the dirty secret.
Immigration is the secret sauce of America, but the most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration because they pay social security taxes, but they don't. but they don't collect Social Security. They pay taxes for our cops and firemen, but they don't call cops because they're worried about being deported. So we have turned a blind eye. If we wanted to stop this problem, we would find the employer.
But we're not interested in doing that. We want to pretend that this is a runaway problem. And to be clear, it did get runaway. It got out of hand, 250,000 people crossing the border in December of 23. But folks, we have purposely ignored this problem because illegal immigrants are super fucking profitable. That's right. Except, you know what, Scott? They're profitable in terms of creating prison.
and putting them in it. It's profitable for a very different group of people is that we round them up and we put them in these camps. which is what we did with the Japanese and a shameful part of our history. You know, a lot of these people are also like, let's figure out who, like the woman who got grabbed off the street, remember that video with all the people in the masks coming up to her?
She has not done, they've found out she's done nothing wrong. She's done nothing wrong except write an op-ed that was vaguely and politely against what was happening. Like she just, and now foreign students here in this country are so scared. And I've heard from many are scared of saying anything or doing anything. And if you have even a minor.
like weed violation, you're getting taken. Like whatever excuse they can have, something you wrote or something else, you can get taken and you should have to appear. It's called habeas corpus, everyone. requires a person in custody to appear before a judge. It's one of the core fundamental rights that protects against arbitrary state action. And he is trying to suspend habeas corpus fru. for ridiculous reasons, for ridiculous and nonsensical reasons. We're all in danger and we're not.
So anyway, world's coolest dictator, you're not cool. You're uncool. If you have to call yourself the world's coolest dictator, you're not cool. And speaking of not cool, let's move on to some lighter news, other wastes of time and money. In a giant publicity stunt for Jeff Bezos, six women are launched into space aboard a giant penis. Lauren Sanchez, Katy Perry, Gayle King, and three others made a 10-minute trip on Blue Origin's new Shepard rocket and returned safely to Earth. Thank goodness.
noted science aficionados Oprah Winfrey, Kris Jenner, and Khloe Kardashian watch from the launch site in West Texas. It's the first time an all-female crew has been in space since 1963. And yes, Scott, they did fly above the Kármán line, just so you know. So, reaction, Scott? Their outfits? I don't know if you heard, but they called Houston and they said, Houston, we have a problem. And Houston said, what is it? And he said, well, you should know what it is.
Actually, Cara, I was hoping that we'd get to see them masturbate because I'd like to see them defile gravity. I could keep going. I could keep going. Hey, look, at the end of the day, fine. Good for them. I'm fine. They can fly up there with their outfits or their slinky outfits, whatever they want to do.
Here's what I don't like. Pretending it's a feminist movement. It's just not. It's just a bunch of ladies. And their interviews show that because they're talking about their eye shadow and their eyeliner and et cetera. They're going up there. It's a total PR stunt. You are not here to save women. I'm sorry. If you wanted to save women, you'd be saving the woman who was grabbed off the street. You'd be saving...
all kinds of things. Or you'd be pushing up against Facebook and saying, really shouldn't be doing things to young girls that make them feel bad. Like this is not, of all the things you could do to help women, this is not one of them. And that's how I feel about it. But have fun. You know who a real female astronaut is? Sally Ride. A PhD in physics. PhD in physics. Learned how to operate that crazy robotic arm. And as Megyn Kelly would say, openly lesbian.
and spent a ton of time in space, didn't make a lot of money. I mean, Sally Ride is our astronaut. There were some science people on board. Science people. Whatever there were. But still, it's just a stunt. It's a stunt. It's not feminist. It's just a stunt. how much fun Oprah and all the rest of you have, but there's some serious shit happening, so maybe.
Stop pretending you're doing something you're not. Have at it. I don't resent them for it. Have at it. Have fun. Go up. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't like the feminist thing. Okay. Okay, last thing. Sally wasn't openly lesbian, just so you know. No, she wasn't. Well, I meant I was a play on. Notice how no one has ever described me as openly heterosexual. No one has ever said openly heterosexual podcaster. That was my favorite part about her attack on you as if.
As if you're not allowed to be openly lesbian. I am openly a lesbian. She's openly lesbian. At least she'd have to. Openly. That's a real old thing. At least, good madam, you'd have the dignity to be a closeted lesbian. Closeted lesbian. I was never really in a closet. I was in a closet. That's not true. I was not openly lesbian at the beginning of my journey of lesbianity.
which started at age four, but we're not going into it with Megyn Kelly. What a she-devil she is. Anyway, last thing, Bill Maher says he wasn't high at his White House dinner with President Trump, even though he also claims that Trump was, quote, gracious and measure. The comedian described his... March 31st visit with the president during a monologue at the top of his Friday show. People felt it was controversial. The dinner was organized by illustrious statesman Kid Rock.
Bill said that he and musician, quote, share a belief that there's got to be something better than hurling insults from 3,000 miles away, although Bill's pretty fucking good at that. Here's what he had to say about his interaction with Trump. He's much more self-aware than he lets on in public. It doesn't matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I'm just taking as a positive that this person exists.
Because everything I've ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent, at least on this night with this guy. I'm going to be on Bill Maher's show in a couple of weeks. I think you are too, are you? No, I was supposed to be on Friday, and I had a tough time trying to figure out a way to be on with Steve Bannon. Something about the idea, in a little way, normalizing Nazi salutes.
I don't know. Good for you. I didn't know how to thread the needle there. That's right. We talked about it. I'm glad you did that. I called you and I asked your advice. I said don't go. And asked your advice. Yeah, you're a great panelist there. Go ahead. You start. You start. I have some thoughts, too. Look, I think Bill Maher did and Joan Mika did the right thing. I think when the president calls you and says, come to the Oval Office, I think you go. And I think that.
Him trying to show him not immediately going to the... To the kind of polarized, this guy's a fucking idiot and acknowledging that he's a charming guy or that maybe trying to provide some comfort that he's not. He's not as crazy as we think, and he's self-aware and he listens. I think that's important. The only thing, and this might be my bias, is that someone who...
you know, is so angry and aggressive, and I'm talking about the president now, against people. I've heard this about President Trump, that when he meets you, he's nice and he's charming. And then a few minutes later, he'll basically say vile things about you to his 200 million followers. I think someone who's nice to you to your face and then shitposts you behind your back in a way that really hurts your reputation, I think there's a word for that. Asshole.
I much prefer someone, and I think you're like this, I think you're more likely. Who do you want? It's like if you're going to be critical of someone... trying to do it in a constructive way to them personally and then speak well of them or at least gently behind their back. I think that is the worst role model for our young people. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But I'm glad.
I'm glad he did it. I think he was smart to do it. I think it's a dignified thing to do. I thought it's an impossible needle to thread because people who hate Trump are angry at him for going. They're angry at him for acknowledging the president has some positive qualities. It's kind of an impossible position or needle to thread for Bill. Well, here's what I think happened. He was getting very sharp on Trump, very sharp, very tough. And they decided to neuter him a little bit by being charming.
I think he has been doing some really, you know, he has been, he tries to do the down the middle contrarian thing a lot of the time, but he has been doing some of the sharpest attacks on Trump among comics, which there are many, by the way. So I thought they were trying to neuter him and it worked in that regard. Now, look, I think it's right to go to the dinner that would be really interesting.
But to say, oh, look, he's charming in person. Like, I'm sure Goebbels was thrilling at a cocktail party, my friend. Like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, sure. Yeah, lots of people, by the way. Mussolini was great to party with. Mussolini was so much fucking fun. He'd put a lampshade on his head and we'd dance all night. you know, the Tarantella. I like, I don't know what to say. Like, I just am like, so Bill, I won't bring this up with Bill if he lets me on now, but was he lying to you?
At dinner or to the world? Which one? Because he is a terrible person publicly. Terrible. The stuff he did today, terrible. And there's nothing charming about keeping a person who is unjustly jailed in jail and then laughing about it and then haranguing reporters about it. There's nothing charming about ruining your friend's business. There's nothing charming about it.
So I just, honestly, that's what I kept thinking of. Like, I'm sure like any nasty piece of shit is charming in person. And there are a lot of them that I have dealt with. But you should have gone, but you don't give me this. He's charming because he's not. He's just not charming. And he's he'll probably the minute you go after him again, which I hope and pray you will. And I know you will, actually, because because.
He doesn't pull punches a lot. Sometimes he does, but he doesn't really as a comic. So the minute you go after him again, he's like, I was so nice to him. I made him dinner. I showed him off the White House. I showed him my bedroom, whatever. He's going to come after you. So that's, I don't know, whatever. Anyway. But I probably, would you go to dinner if he asked us? Do you think you'd ever ask us? You just give a fuck about us. Well, I agree, we're not on his greatest train.
I said this about Joe Mika. I believe it's about Bill Maher. I think if the president calls you and asks you to come to the White House, you go. I just think you go. I just wouldn't be as polite in person. I wouldn't be like, oh, hey, can I have a role? That's the kind of thing. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see what happens. I'll tell this to Jill's face when I see him. Anyway.
Scott, one more quick, because I do that, Bill. I say things to your face that I say in front of your back, behind your back, anywhere near your back. He's my hero. I know. That guy's my hero. I know. I'm glad you didn't go, Scott Galloway. Now I like you even more. Ugh. Go on. Is it possible?
Is that possible? Good for you, Scott Galloway. Good for you. I know you like being on that show, too. I do. I love it. I know. We'll have him back, Bill. Don't be a douche-nozzle. We'll have him back. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for Wins and Fails. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Poly AI.
My name is Lorenzo Infante. I'm the director of customer experience with Viking Pest Control. Getting into spring, we're getting a lot of calls for stinging insects, ants, of course. Poly AI creates the world's most lifelike AI agents. With their help, your business can automate over 50% of customer phone calls while consistently delivering your best brand experience. The main reason customers call us. typically to schedule a service or reschedule a service.
And Viking Pest Control, this is Veronica speaking. Veronica's handling that. How can I help you today? This is Veronica, Viking's AI-powered virtual assistant. Call volumes vary throughout the day, so we wanted to make sure... our customers' needs are met. And we stumbled across Poly AI. Poly AI agents are designed to listen. When would you like me to reschedule? Give me one moment, please. And resolve. Okay.
You can expect someone to come between 8 and 11. Is there anything else I can do for you today? With Poly AI, you can ensure phone support worthy of your customers. Veronica, what's your favorite food? I don't eat, but I hear that pest control technicians love a good pizza after a long day. How can I assist you further? That's all, Veronica. Thank you. Have a good day. Have a great rest of your day. Goodbye. Visit poly.ai slash pivot to request a demo.
For as long as I can remember, Red has given me hiccups. I always get the hiccups when I eat baby carrots. Sometimes when I am washing my left ear, just my left ear, I hiccup. And my tried and true hiccup here is for a glass of water. Light a match. Put the match out in the water. Drink the water. Throw away the match. Put your elbows out. Point two fingers together and sort of stare at the point between the fingers. It doesn't work if you bring your elbows down.
It works. Just eat a spoonful of peanut butter. Think of a green rabbit. I taught myself to burp on commands. Excuse me. And I discovered that when I make myself burp, it stops my hiccups. ... ... ... ... ... President Trump on Truth Social has been suggesting that he's open to deals to end the trade war that he started by levying tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
The administration says these Liberation Day tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back to America. Why is that so important? There are some really dumb ways to answer that question. When you sit behind a screen all day, it makes you a woman. Studies have shown this. Studies have shown this. And some much smarter ones. This is a policy at the end of the day that's oriented toward
helping some of the folks who have really been the losers in the economy and have been left behind for a long time. Coming up on Today Explained, the best minds. The White House advisor who's gone ham on tariffs defends his position. Weekday Afternoons Today Explained helps you make sense of the mess. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. May I start? Yeah, you should go ahead. Let me just say two things.
Television is so happy place for me these days, watching different things. And this weekend, there's two shows, G20. with Viola Davis where she plays a kick-ass woman president who, like, kicks ass. They go to the Jesus Summit. There's a South African guy who takes over all the G20. It's called G20, excuse me. And she kicks ass and wins out. It's like Harrison Ford's Air Force One.
And let me just say, I love Viola Davis. I love her kicking ass and killing South African terrorists. And maybe they're from Australia. I don't know. They have that accent. so good. It was so bad and so good at the same time. It was Air Force One, but Viola Davis. So there was some good acting in there too. Fan-fucking-tastic. Second one, Hacks, the season premiere. Again, two women, Hannah Einbender and Jean Smart.
Oh my God, it has risen a level of court. It was already one of my favorite shows. I've heard it's great. This season, the two of them, at some point I'm like, just kiss you two. Because they're insults of each other and the going back and forth. And then there's a poignant moment in the first two episodes about heartbreak. And I just love this show so much. Win, win, win, win, win with these badass women, I have to say. And they're just wonderful. The fail is.
Obviously, Doge falling short of its goal, it was supposed to save $2 trillion and it went to $1 trillion. Now he said, Elon said in a meeting. That it's $150 billion. Dave Fahrenheit, as always, he's now at the New York Times. showed the math to be wrong. Again, that is probably even less money that he's saving. But we don't even know how much he's costing for the savings. That's not in this. So he's not saving any money and he's causing incredible harm.
and cutting things without thinking about it and doing it surgically. So we're not benefited as a people on stuff. We should reform government as everybody thinks. So what an incredible... waste of our time and energy to have this ridiculous person prance all over the place saying he's saving money. And then, of course,
He's not delivering. It's the same thing that this is a theme of his life right now is over promising and under delivering, whether it's the cyber truck, whether it's autonomous cars. This is just such a ridiculous thing, this doge thing, given how much energy and time and pain it has caused people unnecessarily. That is my fail.
I like it. And I was going to do a prediction, but I'll try and reshape it as a win and a fail. The fail is what you, I'll just piggyback off what you said. Essentially, If this audit proved anything, it said there's a lot less inefficiency and waste and fraud than we thought. I mean, this is about as clean a bill of health as anyway, because they were dying to find.
fraud, and they just didn't find very much. And most of their claims of fraud and savings ended up to be fraudulent themselves in that they were lies. And we predicted he would exit. He's gone. I think he's already gone. I think he's already figured out. He was with Trump the other night at that. stupid w yeah but that's proximity to power i think doge i think doge is basically the curtain is closing on doge it just didn't work it was a distraction fine but it's not
It's not working. The reality is Americans, again, see above not willing to endure pain. They have to face a hard decision here. You know, it's the hard thing about the hard things. And that is if we're serious about. Being a country that doesn't spend $7 trillion and take in $5 trillion in tax receipts, There's only two things you can do, folks. You either have to cut entitlements or raise taxes, and the answer is yes. And at some point, we're going to have to figure out a way to do that.
Or just wait till we get, you know, shoved in a corner and the people who own our debt can basically start calling the shots, which they're doing now. In a company that gets so highly levered, basically the bank owes you. And this is what's happening to us. Our creditors are beginning to owe us. This is Doge. Doge was a was jazz hands. It didn't a clean bill of health.
When we decide to elect a grown-up, we're going to have to make some very hard decisions here. My win, and it's sort of a win, but this really was my prediction, you're going to see a flurry. of deals. The art of the deal, the basic premise was, okay,
He's a negotiator. He's bringing these people to the table. First off, we just need to dispel the notion this guy's a good business person. He's a rich kid that would have made more money if he'd taken all of his massive inheritance and put it into ETF. His business career is basically a series of bankrupted companies and unpaid subcontractors. So let's just stop this nonsense that he has any fucking clue what he's doing in terms of business.
He has unwittingly inspired unbelievable, an unbelievable torrent tsunami of deals, cross-border trade deals. But it won't be with us. The EU is talking to Latin America. Japan, South Korea, and China are talking. This has set off incredible incentive. For a ton of nations around the world to start thinking about free trade zones, to become more dependent upon each other,
The cost of reconfiguring their supply chain and excising America from the supply chain, they're thinking, how can we make up for some of that lost economic growth that this is going to cost us? I know. Let's lower each other's trade barriers. The unwitting, unintended consequence of this. is that the U.S. is about to trade off a lot of its own prosperity and it's going to leak to other Western nations who are talking to each other.
and cooperating and coordinating now. You're going to see trade deals between Mexico and Canada. You're going to see trade deals between the EU and China. This is going to, the intended, what they claim they were going to accomplish for America, they have accomplished for everyone else. But America. Yes, it's true. They're going to get all the avocados in Canada and Mexicans are going to get all the good maple syrup. Do you hear that, people? finished. Avocado toast and pancakes are done for us.
As Americans. Much less lumber or gypsum drywall. You want to talk about the cost of building right now, gypsum drywall for Mexico or lumber? I just renovated my house. I'm so pleased that I did it last year. My contractor said it would have been double. I'm interviewing Mark Carney this afternoon. What would you ask him?
Yeah. Guy Galloway. He reached out. For what? Which show? Which show? I wanted to do it for Pivot of Raging Moderates. He said he wanted to do it for Profity Conversations. I think he wants to talk about young men. Yeah, good. Well, I heard you have, by the way, you have another podcast you didn't tell me about? Which one's this? The man, the men thing with Scaramucci and Smirconish. Oh, that's a limited series. He called me and said, let's do four pods.
Good. I'm very excited. You cat around on me quite a bit. That's okay. I don't mind. I just want to know about it. It's alcohol. I hope it has nothing to do with our relationship. I just like to wake up with a strange man's lipstick all over my day. Okay. I know you did. I'm ignoring it completely.
I would like to make your book, like, bestseller. Defile gravity. Defile gravity, Katy Perry. I want to make your book a tonic habit. Let me hear you roar. I can't believe I am. You 90s pop star wanton bitch. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. She defied gravity. Anyway, let me just say for one thing Scott said, there's a lot of reporting from Rolling Stone and Puck.
that he's annoying people at the White House, they question if he's high, and Republicans on Capitol Hill are no longer terrified of him either. That said, Scott, only thing is he's leaving the Washington Post reported today incorrectly that he's leaving those staffers in high power jobs at multiple federal agencies.
He's not out of there. He's like mold. He's putting all kinds of stuff in that the security implications and other people you don't know about that don't look like Elon Musk will still remain problematic for our country in those positions. So just remember that.
All right. OK, there you have it. Those are good. But please, for the love of God, watch Viola Davis kick some ass. It's so good. It's so good. I think that's just an attempt to address your PTSD and pretend that Vice President Harris won the election. No, no, no. She couldn't have done this. Trust me, watch it, and then call me back. I'm just telling you. You'll love it. It's so much fun. She's won an Oscar.
Isn't she? She won an Oscar, whatever. She deserves an Oscar. She won an Emmy, an Oscar, whatever. This woman is like top actor. Just chewing up the scenery. It's so enjoyable. She did one, a TV show years ago called How to Get Away with Murder, which you should watch again, where she also chewed up the scenery with her Oscar winning.
acting abilities. Anyway, she's so talented, but I love that she's doing this and just punching people in the face with the machine, the whole thing. It's fantastic. 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 to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Also, PIVOT is up for a Webby Award for Best Business Podcast, and we are asking for your vote.
And some of other, your other podcasts are also up. So vote for Prof. G. I don't know if on is, but in any case, vote for us. Go to vote.webyawards.com to cast your ballot. We won last year and we're hoping for a twofer. Elsewhere in the Scott and Kara universe, I just did a whole panel on tariffs with trade law expert Raj Bala, Pucks, Bill Cohen, and Catherine Rampell from the Washington Post.
Let's listen to a quick clip. The only way I can explain it is that we're dealing with the madness of King George type moment. Maybe Trump is trading on the volatility and... Certainly there's a lot of money to be made if you know what he's going to do from one minute to the next, which only he seems to know. All of his explanations for what he is trying to do are completely incoherent and self-contradictory. and come back to, well, he's just liked tariffs for a really long time.
Anyway, it was a great interview. All of them had different things to add. Just FYI, I think Catherine Rampell is a total commer. I think she's going to be... Really? I think you're going to hear her name a lot. I think she is a... She's exceptionally talented. She's great. She had an outstanding moment on that show, I think it's a fucking food fight, whatever it's called. CNN on Abbey Film Show, yeah.
And whoever the Republican is was trying to defend. Scott Jannings. Whoever the Republican is was trying to defend. I call him bad Scott. He's bad Scott. You're good Scott. He's trying to defend Bannon. It was a wave. And Catherine Rampell goes, give us that wave. Give us that wave. And he just sat there like someone had just been called masturbating or defiling gravity. Yeah, defiling gravity. Yeah. Anyway, we love her. All right, Scott, that's another show. Thanks for listening to Pivot.
Be sure to like and subscribe our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Erin Ruff, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Jem Mackel edited the video.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mr. Vario, and Dan Shalon. Nishat Khurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and 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 care. Have a great rest of the week.