On the latest episode of Net Worth and Chill, we're uncovering the bourbon boardroom brilliance of Fawn Weaver. I prove that the end result has nothing to do with where you begin. You can make a decision at any point in your life to move forward differently. She transformed Uncle Nearest Whiskey from a forgotten history to a $1 billion empire, rewriting both bourbon and Black entrepreneurship narratives.
This week, we're diving into her strategic playbook of reclaiming legends and building generational wealth. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on the Your Rich BFF YouTube channel. It came with a card, a lovely card that said, love your private dancer, Scott. I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money.
Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I turn on the camera and I think, oh, my God, she's finally done it. She's gone through transition. I'm like, it's 62, you be you. But it was your brother. It was Jeffrey Swisher. It was my brother. Yes, Jeff. Jeff claimed the thing. Yeah, I would look good as a man. I'd be a handsome man, I would say.
Yeah, I would. It's true. I'd be adorable. There's almost nothing I can say that works. Yes, exactly. Let me just say something happened to me last night. I'm here in my new studio, which I'm working on getting nice and fixing up like yours.
And I get a present. A FedEx guy comes and brings something. And I had been contacted by your assistant, MJ, about sending me something. And I said, as long as it's not a stripper, you were going to send me a gift. I would never do that. And I said, as long as it's not a stripper. So what to my wondering eyes should appear than this? Let me explain the picture for people who can't see. People who watch it on YouTube and see. It's a picture of Scott about to lift his shirt to show off his tummy.
to the crowd at South by Southwest. And my face was like, oh my fucking God, how did I end up here? Sit down. What series of bad decisions led me to this? I love that photo. I saw that and I immediately said, by the way, that cost real money because some fucking Getty photographer took it. So I had to pay some, I don't know, Joey Bagadona tech company, 350 bucks to get that image.
Yeah, and the frame is lovely. I think that perfectly summarizes our relationship. I love that photo. And it's going on the shelf behind me so people can enjoy it. And then it came with a card, a lovely card, that said, love your private dancer, Scott. Huh? That's right. I'm keeping this forever. There you go. I'm going to be buried with this. Forever is not long at your age. Boom! Oh, thank you for your lovely gift. You're very welcome. It was so thoughtful, a picture of you. I love that photo.
So speaking of things about you, you just announced your new book. I love the cover. I love the cover. You were the thing that tipped us over. I had all these pictures of me and I'm like, it's like the book is called Notes on Being a Man. And I'm like. I'm not comfortable presenting myself as the aspirational man because it's just not true.
But I like the more feminine writing, like notes and everything. Yeah, it's got a feminine tone to it. It looks lovely. It's elegant. I like the ones with your pictures on them, one with you as a kid and as an adult. I like that. But that could be on the back, right? or inside or something like that. Yeah, but this book isn't about me being the hero. It's mostly about my shortcomings. And it really is kind of, it's a lot of data and it's sort of like...
where I screwed up and what I learned about trying to lean into this more aspirational vision of masculinity. But I was much more comfortable not having my... Picture on the front, because I've decided that publishers pretty much do nothing but argue over the title and the cover. That's their job.
But they came up with this, so I got to give it to them. It was their idea, so I was real happy with it. It's handsome. I think it's going to be a bestseller. Explain what's happening. It's coming out early. It's coming out in November. Yeah, I feel like I said to the publisher, we need to get this out sooner rather than later. And I got done early with it because I think the window of opportunity is closing. I think this notion of
masculinity and what it means to be a man and leaning in and trying to create or shape a positive image of masculinity. I'm like, the window's closing. This is the moment. We need to get this out. This is perishable. Everyone from Josh Hawley to...
Tucker Carlson or, you know, writing books are talking about masculinity. Yeah. So I said, let's. Manly tariffs. There we go. Let's get this out. As a matter of fact, speaking of which, you didn't ask why I'm in a suit and a tie. Why are you in a suit? I'm going on. You look very nice. Thank you. I appreciate that. I like when you dress up. It looks handsome. I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm going on The View to talk about my two topics are masculinity and tariffs.
How do you dress to talk about masculinity? Do you look like a professor or do I wear a Tarzan outfit? Like, what do I... How do you dress for that? So I just put on a suit. Well, how was it? Did you go already? No, no, no. I'm literally rocketing out of here. Okay, good. Let's get to it then. Anyway, you look great. Say hi to the ladies. I love them. Say hi to Whoopi and everything. They're really great. So it's another busy news day. Scott, Jesus, nothing stops. It's nutty.
So we're going to get right to it. Obviously, the big story is President Trump pressing pause on his quote unquote reciprocal tariffs for 90 days. I just don't want to use that word. It's just nonsense. Bringing tariffs down to universal 10 percent for most countries. He is hiking tariffs on China even higher to 125% in response to China's latest retaliation move, raising tariffs on the U.S. to 84%. The markets skyrocket on this pause news, although...
The Dow surged nearly 8%, but it had been down rather significantly. It's not quite back where it was, but the S&P 500 added 9.5%. The NASDAQ was up 12% its best day in 20 years, except that he had caused the decline, of course. He initially told American people to be cool about the tariff turmoil, later explained his reasoning for reversing course, which is, I'm sorry, just not true, but let's listen anyway.
Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know? They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid. I'll tell you who was yippy. Donald Trump. That's what happened there. 100%. 100 friggin percent. It's such a shift and they're trying to spin it as a victory. They created it. It's like an arsonist explaining how they put out the fire. The White House is spinning as the art of the deal victory, but...
You know, honestly, he made a mess and now he's trying to recover it. But he was very spooked by after a major treasury bond sell-off with 10-year yields, relating 4.5%, which is insane because it means we have to pay more. for bonds, and then we'd have all this debt. And he acknowledged he was watching the bond markets, saying people were getting a little queasy again. He was queasy.
He told people not to become a panican, like a Republican, but a panicked Republican, a word he coined apparently, a new party based on weak and stupid people. But honestly, he's the panican here. He panicked, and smartly so. It was a good reason to panic. He's also been accused of market manipulation by some Democrats, including Senator Adam Schiff, who's calling for an investigation.
hours for announcing the pause that sent markets surging. Trump posted on True Social, this is a great time to buy. He put DJT at the end of his post as initials, but also the stock ticker for Trump media. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was asked by CNBC's Melissa Lee about Trump's actions in so many words. Let's listen to this clown. Earlier this morning before the pause, he put out a message saying it's a great time to buy and here we are.
Here we are, much higher. I'd always bet on Donald Trump. Every time I'd always bet on Donald Trump. He also wrote DJT, which is a ticker for... for his media company no no no every every text he does every text he sends to me that's his name but that was a great time to buy the market right i mean
Uncanny. Look, Donald Trump understands that America is the greatest country. We are the greatest country, and we have the capacity for incredible greatness, but someone needs to take the shackles off. I mean, he's such an idiot. I mean, every time he speaks, I want to cringe. The White House is rejected and he claims a wrongdoing, saying Trump just reassuring the market.
And Americans about economic security, but it just feels like a grift. So first, let's talk about what's happened and then we'll talk about what's next. So, Scott, your take. A decent term for this president would be President Blank. He blinked on TikTok. He blinked on this. And a friend of mine, Justin, who's the chief investment officer of Millennium, which is one of the most successful funds in history.
I had dinner with him Thursday night, and I asked him about this, and he said, oh, yeah, no, he's going to blank. The adult in the room here is the tenure, and the adult said, get your head out of your ass. And he was thinking that all of these nations. would acquiesce to the biggest customer in the world. And of course they didn't. They all imposed reciprocal tariffs. So you think, oh, this is going to hurt Mexico. Sure, it'll hurt Mexico. They implement reciprocal tariffs.
and which makes goods brought in, imported from America, more expensive. What Donald Trump decided to do or tried to do was declare war on everyone all at once, meaning our entire... entire import economy goes up in price for Americans. The markets responded. I mean, quite frankly, that interview on CNBC just did not do her job.
She was like, isn't this great? The markets are up. No, even after the rip up yesterday, the markets gave up seven months of incredible gains. In three days, Apple lost the value of Walmart. And unfortunately, the market doesn't appear to have knee pads and just want to blow this guy. We are in. At some point, people are going to realize. We are in a car with a guy who's got his hands on the wheel, who is blackout fucking drunk.
And the only person in the car saying, hey, maybe you should pull over or let someone else drive. is the 10-year bond in the markets. Can you explain for people who don't understand what happens? If the bonds yields go up, that means we pay more for the money we borrow, and so does everybody else, mortgages, everyone else. Credit cards.
student loan debt payments, mortgages, the cost to borrow money and build another plant or hire more people. So you build fewer plants and hire fewer people. The cost of everything goes up. And when yields go up, People say, well, why wouldn't I just invest in the credit markets instead of the stock markets? And the stock market also goes down.
So one of the many reasons for our incredible prosperity is America as a whole has access to cheaper credit. We can borrow money less to make forward-leaning investments in any country in the world. And when it spikes, it's basically saying, people are saying, you need to give us more because you've become a riskier bet. And unfortunately, we talk a lot about toxic masculinity. The thing that's hurting America most right now is toxic uncertainty.
And that is while he pulled the knife out of the back halfway yesterday by saying there was a pause because he blinked. Let's be clear. The wound is going to take years to heal because what's happening right now is the entire world is reconfiguring the supply chain.
around America. They don't want to use our services. They don't want to use our manufacturing. And initially he thought, okay, I'm going to accomplish a few things. I'm going to bring jobs back to the U.S. I'm going to reshape global trade. I'm going to raise a bunch of revenues. None of that has happened. None of that has happened. None of that is going to happen. And by the way, he's blinked. And he said, no, just kidding.
In addition, just to go to the comment about the rip-up here, and you sent me a text on this, and I literally had just threaded something. Yesterday, April 9th, we'll go down in history. is the day where more insider trading took place than any day in history. I've been trying to figure out how to play this market, and the only thing I can figure out is the volatility.
is quite frankly, and I don't do this at home. I have the money to do this. Most people don't. And I do it at a small extent. And I imagine a worst case scenario. because it is a risky strategy. But the way I've been playing it is I sell options because the VIX has gone way up. So the price... People have to pay you to write them an option. A call or a put goes up. So I've been writing calls. Now, yesterday, I follow Apple.
The calls at 200, right? We're trading at 40 cents because the stock was at like 170. The options in Apple went fucking crazy. about 10 minutes before its announcement. So somebody knew. And if you were like me and you were writing a call, I didn't do this, but if you wrote a call, someone had to pay you 40 cents. because you sold it cheaply because it was way out of the money. Five minutes later, that call was worth $4. Just that one strip of options someone made and lost.
And how did all of these people know about this before? So is it fair to speculate? I'm not accusing, I'm speculating. Well, when you have a guy that sets up a Swiss banking account in the form of a meme coin where anyone can put money in. I mean, this administration has just shown such a lack of care. They might have just been on his signal group. I mean, who knows?
But word got out. They could have just, word got out for sure. This is the sloppiest, most poorest White House going. And who knows who's nearby, who called people. Suddenly Bill Ackman turns from critic to what a great job deal. I'm sure he made money in this. Or he just calls his biggest donors and goes, wink, wink, by the way. I just get the sense the market's going to go up today.
I just get the sense. I'm reconsidering tariffs, and it's not hard to realize the market's going to rip up. And also, I will say, I interviewed Bill, I had a tariff panel yesterday, which is probably, actually, it still holds up. Bill was talking about these bonds. He said, the Japanese and especially the Chinese can wreck our economy in two seconds. Not buy them, not do, you know, all kinds. They are our biggest.
creditors and they can just push put us down just like by either not buying flooding the markets with treasuries making the yields go up. The fact that he didn't know this or didn't realize what a situation we're in because of the treasury bonds is just, and to say like, it got the yip.
He got the yips. And by the way, he should have gotten the fucking yips. Because if that happened, it would have been a disastrous economic meltdown, the likes of which we would never have recovered from for decades. Like that's the thing. He was this close to like taking us all over the edge. And the fact that he didn't does not deserve any credit. It does not deserve any good job, sir. Bullshit. Like the Ackmans, who's such an oily factotum to Trump.
But anyway, this is just temporary relief, though. We're now 90 days of uncertainty. What should companies be doing in the meantime? And these massive Chinese terrorists, the back and forth has been likened to a game of chicken. I think Trump blinks again. Mr. Yip blinks before she, because they have the treasuries. They've got a lot of... Again, we're doing favors for China over and over by this behavior. So what would you do if you're a company in China?
Talk about the China thing, because they were also touting we're now really focused on China, which, by the way, we should have been focused in on the first place and not this fucking nonsense, this other tariff. But it's only 90 days. So thought? Well, I can tell you what companies, non-U.S. companies are doing. They're rerouting their business plans and their supply chain and excising American vendors, manufacturers out of their supply chain.
No more discounts, by the way, from China, too, to Americans. That will take years to repair. To give you a sense. The two stories that illuminate just how what a clown car our economic policymakers are right now.
is that one, it appears these strange tariffs that he initially thought he would impose on every country in the world, he declared, were on everyone but once. So it goes back to the Winston Churchill quote, and he's credited with this, but supposedly it was Victor Hugo that said it first. There's only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them. He's decided to fight the world without his allies.
is that all those ridiculous numbers around tariffs that we couldn't figure it out, it ends up that somebody fed it into ChatGPT. And the exact number is FedEx. So they're using ChatGPT to figure out economic policy. And then my favorite is the guy who has been the whisperer, the tariff whisperer, is Peter Navarro, a senior policy and economic advisor.
And it ends up that the book that Jared Kushner found, Death by China, by Peter Navarro, that supposedly is the Bible for this tariff strategy, cites this economist. and all his policies. And it ends up The Economist is fake. This person doesn't exist. It's an anagram of his name. So this is what we have. We have ChatGPT and a fake economist in a book that didn't sell dictating the economic policies.
of the largest economy in America. So who is going to win in this China? So if you're an American company, what should you do? Because it's 90 days of uncertainty. He hasn't removed the uncertainty. My view is the following, is that... If someone is screaming nonsense at you and threatening you all the time, it is impossible to predict.
what is going to happen tomorrow with this guy. So quite frankly, what do you do? I think you just, you keep calm and carry on. And that is you don't change your plans. You know, you may be, quite frankly, diversify a little bit from... This is so... hard to predict. And my feeling is when you don't know who you're waking up next to the next morning, you just carry on with your life.
Yeah. No gold in the yard, in a hole or anything like that? Oh, no. Well, from an investor standpoint, we talked about this last week. I won't give it financial advice. I'll just tell you what I've been doing for the last five months. Not because I have insight into Donald Trump's mind, but the trade that has paid off for the last 15 years is just put more money into U.S. growth stock. Everything is cyclical. I think that run is coming to an end.
When Apple trades at a PE of 36 and it's not growing. And you can buy good companies for 12, a P of 12. I'm diversifying into non-US markets. So that's what I would do as an investor. I would say, okay, if you're in the S&P and you think you're diversified, you're not. You need to diversify geographically. And if you're a company head, what do you do? A U.S. company. Jesus Christ. Well, okay. So this goes to moral. I have been so disappointed.
All of these Fortune 500 CEOs who wake up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror and say, hello, Mr. President, I bet two to three hundred CEOs of Fortune 500 companies think in the back of their mind they could be president. Definitely Jamie Dimon. Jamie Dimon's so thirsty for presidency. Well, I think most of them.
think there's an outside shot. He's particularly thirsty, but go ahead. You tell a 58-year-old man who is very talented and has been successful his whole life, would you have to be to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company? that you should be president, he's inclined to believe you. Right. Anyway, so if you want to be president, the key quality is leadership, and that is doing the right thing, even when it hurts. None of them are doing the right thing, which is calling this shit out.
for fear that it's going to take their stock price down. They're softly calling it out. This guy out of the Autocrat Houndbook is basically saying, if you go against me... I'm going to target your company specifically, which is straight out of the autocratic handbook.
And so what the CEOs who are just focused on short-term shareholder value are doing are like saying, oh, you're a great guy. You want to see who's going to get exemptions from the tariffs with companies? Just look at his lunch calendar. Yeah, we'll get to that. We're going to get to that in a minute. Yeah, that's who's going to get it, who kisses up.
I think G is going to run right over him. And also, the next thing, I don't think, I think they have gotten the upper hand again. They didn't have it. Now they do. China? China? China. The definition of stupidest things that hurt other people while hurting yourself. There aren't a lot of winners here. If there is a long-term, a medium and a long-term winner, simply put, it's China. By the way, everyone acts, they say we could wreck China's economy. To be fair.
China's economy is vulnerable right now. It will definitely hurt them. And by the way, the percentage of trade of exports coming into America. As a percentage of their total, it's gone down seven percentage points since the first Trump administration.
And our exports into them have gone down four. So we're both less reliant on each other because we're not getting along. But be clear, they've diversified away from us more. In addition, there's a couple of things that put them in a power position. And we don't like to admit this. Americans are wimps when it comes to enduring pain. are a little bit more resilient.
They're willing to take pain. If all of a sudden, if 77% of toys under the Christmas tree are from China, if these tariffs go through, which they won't, he will blink yet again. But if they were to go through, 90% of Americans on our fixed budget. If the price of toys doubles, that means instead of 10 gifts under the Christmas tree, you're going to have six.
That means your iPhone is going to go from a thousand. We're going to get to that specifically in a second. OK, I'm sorry. I keep jumping ahead. But the bottom line is Americans, quite frankly, just aren't willing to endure. Women are born with an instinct to endure more pain because they have to go through childbirth. We're the man in this relationship. America, quite frankly, has a lower tolerance for pain than China. And in addition, they aren't nearly as dependent.
I believe we're just more dependent upon them than they are on us. Correct. Especially around the treasuries. They could wreck us. Like, I don't think. Anyone realizes how China could wreck us if it fell. Also, by the way, it's in our infrastructure from a cyber point of view. They are everywhere in this country. And believe me, I believe them to be an adversary, but handling them this way is just...
He is so stupid. They now know what his pain point is. He blinked on TikTok. He blinked on this. By the way, these tariffs... These tariffs are not going to go through. There's no fucking way Americans are going to pay $2,300 for their iPhone. And they are indeed our adversary, FYI. So that's why it's so ridiculous. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, how Trump's latest tariff moves are helping or hurting Apple.
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Learn more at chevy.com forward slash Equinox EV. Based on latest competitive data, the manufacturer's suggested retail price excludes tax, title license, dealer fees, and optional equipment. Dealer set. final price. 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 looks. Just eat a spoonful of peanut butter. Think of a green rabbit. I taught myself to burp on commands. And I discovered that when I make myself burp, it stops my hiccups.
Unexplainable is taking on hiccups. What causes them? And is there any kind of scientific cure? Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Wednesday. Scott, we're back. Trump's tariff pause brought some much-needed good news for Apple on Wednesday after its worst four-day trading stretch since 2000, if you can believe that. It was like a million years ago. Apple stocks soared 15%, its best day.
since January 1998. But the ongoing and increasing China tariffs are still a major problem for the company as Apple makes about 90% of its phones there. Apple is reportedly now planning to source more phones from India to Austin. Some of these costs. A couple of things. Apple, if you're Tim Cook, this is the biggest test of your metal, I think, ever in your tenure. You've done a very good job, but this is really tough.
Apple is exempt from broad tariffs in Trump's first term, but that's not happening now, despite Tim Cook's $1 million donation to Trump's inauguration. It also announced a commitment to invest over $500 billion in the US over the next four years back in February. You know what? It had done that in the previous administration and it was stuff they were going to do anyway. So that was kind of a nothing burger.
So one thing Trump could do is throw Apple a lifeline with an exemption, another exemption. One thing they're saying, which is nonsense, is that the White House says the solution is to move iPhone manufacturing to the United States. Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt, who is 27, everybody, let me be clear, she does not know what she's talking about, said in her briefing this week that Trump believes we have the labor, the workforce, the resources. Carolyn, you're an idiot.
Even if that were to happen, it would cost $30 billion in three years for Apple to move just 10% of their supply chain to the U.S., according to one analyst. And the price for the iPhone would soar from $1,000 to $3,500. which is a non-starter. So there's no plans to move iPhones to the U.S. at all. The short-term benefit for Apple is that people have been flooding into their store to buy iPhones. Everyone's like, get one now.
you know, there's a tariff panic happening and how much these are going to cost. I mean, they're really squeezed. So what's their best thing? An exemption? Which Tim Cook do? Because sucking up didn't work. which you might, I guess, more sucking up. I'm fairly confident there will be no tariff on Apple products. One, I think he's going to blink around these tariffs to begin with with China when...
When the market tells him what you've just outlined, that we're not as strong as we think relative to China, too, Tim Cook is the business person that Donald Trump thinks he is. And that is Tim will be smart. He'll go there. He'll kiss his ass. And also, if you want to talk about a cult, the cult of iOS. I mean, first off, the insane notion that we want to bring these jobs back
Dave Chappelle summarized it perfectly. We want to wear Nikes, we don't want to make them. The average assembly wage of an assembly line worker entry level in China in an Apple factory is $500 a month. We want to bring those jobs back to America. You think you want to you want to you want to enrage a cult. Take iPhones to thirty five hundred bucks. 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 take pushback 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 to $3,500.
Apple is not going to have any tariffs here. Having said that, what is Apple doing? And they've been doing it for a while. They're trying to diversify their supply chain out of China for a number of reasons. And by the way, you're talking about analyst Ann Ives. Just to get 10% out of China takes three years and costs $40 billion. By that time, Trump will be gone. So this notion that...
Folks, you're going to be able to have your iPhone at the same price as now because, one, I think these China tariffs will not last because... This is what she this is how she thinks of Trump right now. The same way Logan Roy feels about his children in succession. You are not serious people.
She looks at Trump and he's like, you are not serious people. We are not backing down. We didn't back down on TikTok. All these extensions are serious now. We're going to we're going to ban you unless you sell to Larry Ellison and Elon Musk. They're like, OK, hold my fucking beer. That's what they're saying now. Okay, you want a tariff as this? We'll respond with the same tariffs. It'll hurt us both.
It will they will back down. He will blink yet again on China. And even if there are tariffs on China, he will come up with a reason not to inflame a cult that is even stronger than the MAGA cult. And that's the iOS cult. And Tim Cook will go back. go down to Mar-a-Lago, tell him he's a genius, show him a new iPhone with his picture on it with golden crusted leaf.
picture, silhouette of Donald Trump, and he will find an exemption for Apple. I just, the idea that Apple, the iPhones are going to go to $2,200, much less $3,500 or that we're going to bring back those millions of jobs of people. screwing in little things like every time they open their mouth i'm like what are you talking about like where where are you going to put these factories and who's going to oh
Oh, God, we will automate them before. And by the way, there are, then they always drag out advanced, we're going to do advanced manufacturing. It's already being done here, Carolyn Levitt, you dumbass. We have Gorilla Glass. They're already doing what they, the high level stuff here. creating jobs. And they think you're so stupid. I just I've got so many calls from tech people like how stupid.
Are they? And I was like, seems like extremely so because they don't understand that. Why would you build a factory? here with this lunatic in charge. You never know what he's going to do. If he's going to arrest you, he's going to do, you know, I mean, or make your life hell. I don't know if any of this stuff is going to last, but it's so chaotic. It's like a monkey flinging feces.
at all of us. So we're just going to duck until he goes away. Apple is the most valuable company in the world, or was. It briefly went to number two. I think it's back to number one. We have hundreds or they have hundreds of thousands of people working in their supply chain and factories in Foxconn and in China. Those people make between 500.
between kind of $20,000 and $40,000 a year. We've outsourced those jobs to China. Probably the most robust supply chain ever on a consumer level in history, maybe with the exception of... supply chain of the Manhattan Project that was kind of invented overnight and coordinated to create the bomb and save the world. Anyways. Apple has hundreds of thousands of employees across the West, and here's what they're in design.
Product management, strategy. Exactly, the higher end stuff. Yeah, that average about $210,000 a year. Better jobs, smarter information technology, services. So we have outsourced. $500 a month, $20,000 a year jobs such that we would have more money to invest and grow our top line revenues such that we could pay more Americans. $200,000 a year. Nike, Nike doesn't want people making two bucks an hour, putting together Air Jordans. They want people who understand branding and sports sponsorship.
And great retail that, again, make about, I think, $150,000 to $180,000 a year. And if you want to bring back those jobs and pay people minimum wage at some plant in Lansing, Michigan. They'd rather work at McDonald's. Everyone else. All those other jobs are going to go down and pay. They would do better at McDonald's. They would do better at Amazon. It's just.
Oh, God, they're so dumb. Speaking of dumb, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Elon Musk's escalating feud with Peter Navarro. In this case, Team Elon. 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. The regular season is in the rear view, and now it's time for the games that matter the most. This is Kenny Beecham, and playoff basketball is finally here.
On Small Ball, we're diving deep into every series, every crunch time finish, every coaching adjustment that can make or break a championship run. Who's building for a 16-win marathon? Which superstar was... will submit their legacy and which role player is about to become a household name. With so many fascinating first round matchups,
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through the playoffs available on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Scott, we're back with more headlines. The feud between Elon Musk and Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro is heating up, and Scott and I are on Team Elon this time. Musk called Navarro, quote, dumber than a sack of bricks. In an ex-post on Tuesday, that was in response to Navarro saying on CNBC that Elon was a car assembler, not a car manufacturer because...
Tesla relies on parts around the world. Again, Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt, who I like to call Tracy Flick, had this to say about it when asked about the feud. Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs. Boys will be boys and we will let their public sparring continue. And you guys should all be very grateful that we have the most transparent administration in history. Oh my God, boys will be boys. Oh God, give me a break. This is...
Boys don't talk like this. Listen, I agree with Elon. I wouldn't have used some of the words he used. I like dumber than a brick and moron. The other ones I'm not so thrilled with.
Look, you can hate on Elon Musk as much as you want. He's made an astonishing company here in the United States and really does know about this stuff, right? And have this faux economist tell him how things work is just... an astonishing thing and in this case but of course it's all in Elon's self-interest to get because he needs to you know eat at the trough on the other stuff
But, but this is just, it's just like, I'm so glad Elon called him dumber than a stack of bricks or whatever he called them. I don't know. What are your thoughts? Yeah, it's weird to agree with Elon, but look, I thought, and I still think the fall guy for SignalGate is going to be well. So I think the fall guy here, when this just becomes stupider and stupider and stupider as the president continues to...
to wake up next to an adult called the 10-year and blinks over and over and over. The fall guy will be Navarro, who, by the way, folks, spent four months in prison. and has been, quote unquote, the architect or the whisperer here around the tariffs. And, you know, I got to be honest, if it's a war between Navarro and Musk, I'm rooting for the bullets. I'm enjoying this.
They both, you know, when you insult people like this in public, you make them look bad and you also look bad. But look, he's right. And by the way, just not again, I hate agreeing with. But when Navarro calls Tesla an assembler, Tesla is the most American-made company in America. The greatest percentage... of parts actually manufactured and assembled in the U.S. The winner of the top four or five cars. The design, the ideas behind it.
Look, it hasn't been keeping up in innovation, but what an accomplishment. But there's a ranking done of who makes the most American car based on... How many parts are actually that go into the car actually are made in America? And the top four or five most American-made cars are all Tesla models. So the notion somehow, Tesla is the least assembled car from foreign products of any automobile manufacturer. Fords are less American than Tesla.
Peter Navarro, I mean, my God, sit down. This guy, this is the last person you would want. advising the president on economic policies and Trump. is going to get angry pretty fast when he has to blink over and over and over. Because of these guys. I mean, it's interesting that he's in the sway of him. You know, Trump, as you and I know, has been talking about this terror thing since the 80s. It's real, as we talked about last week.
So this guy was playing into already interests that Trump has, right? But the fact that he's listening to him like this, I don't think he's going to suffer. I don't think he's going to get rid of him. I don't think he is. I think he keeps him. They can fuck up as much as they want, which to me... this is the guy who has the reputation for firing people, but he actually doesn't, right? He sort of does. It's still pretty early. I mean, we're only 10 weeks. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. I don't know. Yeah, Navarro's been sidelined. And then he was trying very desperately to pretend this was the plan. It might not be a press release or announcement on the West Lawn. It'll be a Vivek. Vivek Ramaswamy was fired. He just did it quietly and pretended that he wanted to go run for governor two years before the actual race.
I think he's going to, it's like, you know, by the way, I think Elon's going to leave. What do they say about old soldiers? They never die. They just fade away. That's what's going to happen here. There's going to be a lot of people here who just fade away. I mean, I feel like probably somewhere in Elon's adult brain is like, what in the actual fuck? Right. Like he's not he's he may be heinous, but he's not stupid. Right. He can't like. Can you imagine sitting there and then, oh God, the
pretending that this is one particular one was David Sachs was like pretending this is a victory. It's not a victory. I read that tweet. I couldn't even understand it. He was right about everything again. What was he right about? It was planned. I wrecked it. And then he fixed it. Isn't he brilliant? Like, what? Honestly, even Elon couldn't tolerate that. Anyway, Navarro, goodbye. Good night. Go to sleep. You're done. Go home.
Or go back to prison, wherever, wherever you want to go. Anyway, a couple of quick things. SCOTUS is cutting red tape for President Trump the past week. The court has said the administration does not have to comply with an order of directing to rehire thousands of federal employees, lift in an order.
Stopping the Use of Alien Enemies Act for deportations allowed the plan to freeze funding for teachers. And Chief Justice Roberts allowed the Justice Department more time to litigate whether administration must return a man who was deported. A lot of these rulings are temporary. They haven't made the ruling, but they've left things in place.
which is just the same as making the ruling to many people, they're not doing anything. They must be like, they're inundated. The Trump administration, just the way they're inundating law firms or media with all kinds of nonsense is inundating the Supreme Court with all kinds of requests.
all of which take time. So these old people are working overtime in this case. I think they will put everything into stasis, which is exactly what Trump wants, meaning he can run roughshod. It doesn't stop anything. So thoughts? I think the darkest moments in Western progressive society have been something around camps, obviously Germany and concentration camps. I think one of the darkest moments in American history that we. try to airbrush over is the fact that we took
law-abiding Japanese families, some of whom had boys serving the European theater and put them in internment camps. I think that... some of the black sides to avoid Geneva Convention's laws that we spun up to basically torture.
combatants during the war on terrorism. I think that over time, we will realize just how ugly that was. And I've said for a while that I thought similar to Germany, we were one economic shock away from doing something similar in the U.S. but it always takes on a different complexion.
But when you start rounding people up and many of them don't have a criminal record and some of them just have the wrong tattoo and you essentially send them, I'm not going to call them concentration camps because I think there are different levels of depravity and that concentration camps took.
took the crown for a level of depravity we haven't seen since then, fortunately. But when you send people to overcrowded prisons with no due process in another country, and then you refuse to acknowledge your mistake and bring them back, which you could do with one call.
That is a form. That is going to be something we're going to look back on and think, you know, we really should have spoke up. We really should have spoken up. And also, I just want to do a shout out. Tim Miller from The Bulwark has been really good on this.
He's been highlighting this and he's been a steadfast voice on this. Folks, just be clear. This stuff always takes on a different complexion. And when you allow this to happen without due process, just be careful when you get that knock on the door. So this is one of the reasons. Let me take it to economics, because it seems to be the only fucking thing Americans care about is when their 401k goes up or down.
One of the reasons our stocks trade at a higher multiple, one of the reasons we attract the most human capital and the most financial capital in the world, is due process and rule of law, and it's tempting to bypass it. If we did away with search and seizure laws, crime would go down. It comes at a cough. right? But it's worth it. And over time, it creates the greatest economy, the greatest society. Think of America as a product.
We offer more prosperity and more rights at the lowest cost in terms of taxes in the history. This is the best product ever. And a key component of that value is there is expensive, sometimes awkward, sometimes inefficient due process. So be clear when you turn a blind eye. to some gay hairdresser who has done nothing wrong, who ends up in a hellscape prison in El Salvador, and no one is willing to make a call and get him out and acknowledge the mistake?
At some point, that knock on the door might come for you. Correct. I mean, it's interesting, even in small ways. I have several friends who are on green cards here. They've, every one of, two of them in the last week have had real problems at coming back into the country. Like they wanted to look at one of my friends.
messages and she refused. She said, no, you can't look at my phone, get a subpoena. And they're like, well, it would be easier on you if you let us see it. And she's like, do I have to? And they said, no. And she goes, I shall not then. I mean, they're a lovely guy. He's from Switzerland. slow down at the border, hour and a half, two hours, just pressuring them to
say things. It's just even at the smallest level, it's everywhere and they will come for you. They're 100% come for you. Let's finish up on one more thing. I want to talk about Chris Krebs. who is head of CISA, who was fired by Trump for saying the election, the 2020 election was legal and Trump fired him or everything was fine.
He is now going after the executive order Chris and removing security clearances from the company he works for, meaning Chris will probably, he's going to hurt the company itself. in order to get rid of Chris, and also Miles Taylor, who was the one who was deep-throwed, essentially, the first administration. And they're going after them personally, trying to ruin and wreck their lives. I don't know what you think about this. I have great regard for Chris and Miles.
What they're doing here is specifically targeting specific people via executive order because both of them told the truth. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but I will do anything to help Chris, whether it's raising a legal defense fund. anything else but the fact that he's specifically targeting people now is American citizens who just did their job and told the truth is chilling as far as I'm I couldn't be more outraged
by this. I'm outraged by all of them, but this is an astonishing attack on people who just were doing their job. Yeah, like this is, again, along the lines of depravity in An Autocrat's Handbook, where he's trying to create an incentive program where if you...
say nice things about me. I might call you and say, oh, by the way, I get the sense the markets are going to go up tomorrow and you get rich. Or if you come to have lunch with me in Mar-a-Lago, I'll exempt your company from these tariffs. And if you do your job and say, I see no election interference. I might come after you with the full weight of the Department of Justice.
I'd like to think that our justice system will vomit on this. And the only observation I would have here other than what you said, which is exactly right. And I think it's important that we keep raising these issues. is the timing of this was not accidental. He did it yesterday because he wants to misdirect from people to look away from the fact that he blinked and that he is literally fucking with the global economy like a drunk driver right now.
So what do you know? Hey, folks. I mean, this is how weird it is. Let's pull this one out of my pocket. I want to outrage the libtards in the media and get them to look over here at what is a blatant violation of the law. and the autocrat such that they stop staring at the fact that I am unilaterally taking the global economy down for no fucking good reason.
So I agree with you. I think it's terrible. I appreciate you bringing it up. But quite frankly, I think it is a purposeful misdirect from the fact that he's taken the global economy down. Absolutely. Except I think it's more systematic. This is removing clearances from this company is going to. He's going to have to quit because he's hurting this company, right?
The second thing is he's reversing clearances, revoking clearances to law firms that don't cooperate. They can't do business, which is why they're being so acquiescent. is they're losing clients. They're losing everything. If you have federal business and you can't do federal business because you don't have security clearances or the government won't work with you, you're fucked. It is part of a bigger picture. of fucking with people's economics, right?
This is the goal here with Chris and Miles is to fuck with their economics and to fuck with the economics people they work and affiliate with. Not a, you know, finding a lawyer is going to be hard because they fuck with the lawyers. The media is nervous. And then illegally reward your allies. This is part of the same thing. Even if it's a distraction, it's also...
trying to kneecap everybody so they can't come after you in some fashion, whether it's the media, the lawyers. Obviously, the Justice Department has lost every bit of ethical boundaries is over because of that. another oily factotum, Pam Bondi. You know, it's just, I think it is a distraction and yet it's also part of the same.
When he does stupid stuff like this with the economy, not just stupid, but dangerous and devastating, he can then threaten people at the same time. It's a similar thing. Anyway, all right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. What's your prediction? I have three, but they're all related. One, blink. This guy will blink again. The tariffs.
Okay, 90-day pause. More uncertainty, more reduction in the multiple awarded by global investors on every company in the U.S. because we are now... Brand America is toxic uncertainty. And so this 90-day pause is ridiculous. He will, and then the 100, I think we're at 125% tariff on China. He will blink again. The tariffs will come dramatically down because, quite frankly, she looks at Trump and says, you are not serious people. Folks.
This isn't going to happen. The tariffs are going to come way down. Trump will blink again. Even more confident, there will be no tariffs, incremental tariffs on Apple products. Tim Cook will play Trump like a fiddle. Trump will be scared to piss off the cult of iOS, which is huge in the United States.
And he will not want to kneecap our shiniest, brightest, most handsome thoroughbred, and that is Apple. That's not going to happen. In addition, we're going to find out in... somewhere between, you know, three years and nine months or sooner that the greatest Criminal insider trading took place yesterday. There's just no way this administration who has won.
Telling the DOJ to drop all cases against a mayor accused of conspiring with a foreign agent because he supports the administration, too, that creates a Swiss banking account that you can put money into with no... No record. Three tells all, after getting a quarter of a billion dollars from the crypto community, tells everyone investigating platforms in the crypto community for good reason to stop all investigations, to believe that this administration did not leak.
insider information or engage in massive market manipulation yesterday, we're going to find out. that April 9th was literally the biggest griff day in history. But will they do anything about it? Will the SEC do something? He was pretty silent, this new acting SEC. Nothing will happen until January. of 2029 if a Democrat is elected, only if, only if. But in this economy, in this digital age, there'll be digital records everywhere. They can just go through, they can use AI to go through.
Who was buying and selling all of these options 10 minutes before? There's phone records and digital servers everywhere. And they're just, I think, going to find dozens, if not hundreds of people who have a connection to the White House. who were given a wink and a nod and made millions of dollars. engaging in market manipulation or trading on non-material, non-public material information. This will go down as the biggest grift day.
in history, Wednesday, April 9th. All right. That's a good one. Those are good ones, and they're all related, and they're all really... depressing in so many ways. Do you have anything happy? Anything? Anything? I don't know. I'm excited about... The new Mission Impossible is coming. You want to go with me? You keep talking about taking me to a movie. I don't really go to many movies anymore. You love Mission Impossible.
Now that you sent me an intimate picture of this, I think it's time. I did. I'm your private dancer. A dancer for money. I'm your private dancer. Oh my God. A dancer for money. I love that album. That whole album. I'm going to, let me just. That was a great album. Go listen to that album. I listened to it when I was in my early 20s. I love that fucking album.
Yeah. Did you like it? Yeah. Remember, she made her way back. Yeah, whenever I think of that, I think of Marissa Tomei from the movie The Wrestler. I think I could have ended up with Marissa Tomei. She's a beauty. I love her. She's beautiful. I love her. She's so hot. And she's age appropriate for me. Anyway, so. Okay. All right. You're married. All right. Oh, her. Anyway. Anyways. Oh, wait. You want to go back to my college tour? Someone asked me to personify Duke.
Okay. By the way, did I tell you in the middle, you're on these tours. And in the middle of the UChicago and Duke tours, I did the same thing with my son. Totally inappropriate. Now, he mentions the person giving the tour said, we want to know the real U, DMP word. And someone asked, what's the admissions rate? Okay, 4% at Duke in the University of Chicago, which means that...
So everyone is there with their two overprotective parents. Looking around. So if there's 25 people or 75 people on the tour, which is the average size of the tour, one of those people, one of those kids is getting in. So I said to my son, as soon as they said 4%, I said, let's leave the tour. And he said, why? And I said, let's break up with this bitch before she breaks up with us. And he looked at me.
And he knew exactly what I meant. And we peaced out and we went and checked out the stadiums and went and got food. But I'm like, it is so insane. Anyways, back to Duke. They're down to 4%. Duke is the new Harvard. Duke will produce more presidents in the next 50 years than Harvard because presidents are one of two things. They're either really fucking impressive or ridiculously rich. Clinton, the former, Trump, W, although I think W was actually a decent man. They're really rich. And Duke.
has more really freakishly impressive and really rich people than any university right now. All right. Duke is the new Harvard. Okay. All right. But you're peaced out because you broke up with that bitch. Four percent. Why do we want to put... Why would you want to do it? That's like me. It's like the Hunger Games. That's like me at a bar with hot people. It's just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. I mean, have at it. If there was Common App in a bar, I'd be all over it.
You know, not going to happen. All right. You know, I'm not going to go into it because we've got to go. But I taught at Duke for a semester. Of course you did. Anyway, it's lovely. Journalism? Yes. Beautiful campus. Anyway, thank you, Scott. It was very thoughtful. It gave me a good laugh last night. I'm glad. Anyway, it was very touching. Walt never sent me a picture of him nearly naked.
If you've got a question of your own that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week in Prof G Conversations, Scott spoke with Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, one of our favorites. Let's listen to a clip.
Longer term, there are some winners. And China long term will also benefit because the United States will have given up so much reputational capital and China will be able to take advantage of that, particularly in the global south. but also to a degree in Asia, the Japanese, the South Koreans to a degree in Europe, but in the near term.
China gets hit really badly. In the near term, Mexico and Canada get hit really badly. In the near term, the United States is the comparative winner and I expect that to be reflected in the markets. so it's a little different from what you were saying but in the long term yeah by the way on anything geopolitics you know He's very bright. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe. to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week.
Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Larry Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Neiman engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Saveria, and Dan Shalon. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe 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.
We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Cara, the market is down 1,100 points. Toxic uncertainty. Welcome to the Trump administration.