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Kara Swisher · 1:00:04
Okay, Scott. Let's hear some wins and fails. May I start?
Scott Galloway · 1:00:09
Yeah. You just go ahead.
Kara Swisher · 1:00:10
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, g 20 with Viola Davis, where she plays a kick ass woman president who, like, kicks ass. She acts... They go to the Jisoo summit. There is a South African guy who takes over all the g twenty. It's called g twenty. Excuse me. And 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 it... Or maybe they were from Australia. I don't know. They had 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, oh god, I'm blanking.
Scott Galloway · 1:01:08
Gene Smart.
Kara Swisher · 1:01:09
Gene Smart. Oh my god. It it has risen a level of... Like, it was already one of my favorite shows.
Scott Galloway · 1:01:15
I've heard it's great.
— Predictions segment begins —
Kara Swisher · 1:01:16
This season, the two of them go... At some point, I'm like, just kiss you two because they're going... 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. So win win win win win with these badass women, I have to say, and they're just they're they're just wonderful. The fail is obviously Doge falling short of its goal. It was supposed to save $2,000,000,000,000, then it went to 1,000,000,000,000. Now he said... Elon said in a meeting that it's a 150,000,000,000. Dave Ferenhold, 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 is... That he's saving, but we don't even know how much he's costing for for the savings. That's not in 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 overpromising and under delivering, whether it's the Cybertruck, whether it's autonomous cars. This is just such a such a ridiculous thing, this Doge thing, given how much energy and time and pain it has caused people unnecessarily. That is my fail.
Scott Galloway · 1:02:49
I like it. And I'm... I was gonna do a prediction, but I'll try and reshape it as a win and a fail. The fail is where you... I'll just piggyback off what you said. Essentially, if this audit proved anything, it's that there's a lot less inefficiency in 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 and 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 this
Kara Swisher · 1:03:26
He was he was with Trump the other night at that stupid WPB
Scott Galloway · 1:03:29
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 they... It's not it's not working. The the reality is Americans, again, see above, not willing to endure pain. They have to face a hard decision here. It's the hard thing about the hard things. And that is if we're serious about being a country that doesn't spend $7,000,000,000,000 and take in $5,000,000,000,000 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 gonna have to figure out a way to do that. And... Or 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 where they get 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 gonna have to make some very hard decisions here. My win, and it sort of win, but this really was my prediction, you're going to see a flurry of deals. You know, the art of the deal, the basic premise was, okay, we're we're 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 given... Taken all of his massive inheritance and put it into ETFs. 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, to take 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 gonna cost us? I know. Let's lower each other's trade barriers. The unwitting, unintended consequence of this is that The US is about to trade off a lot of its own prosperity, and it's gonna leak to other Western nations who are talking to each other and cooperating and coordinating now. You're gonna see trade deals between Mexico and Canada. You're gonna see trade deals between the EU and China. This is going to... The the intended... What they what they claim they were gonna accomplish for America, they've accomplished for everyone else but America. True.
Kara Swisher · 1:06:28
Where they're gonna get all the avocados in Canada, and and Mexicans are gonna get all the good maple syrup. Do you hear that, people? It's finished. Avocado toast and pancakes are done for us as Americans.
Scott Galloway · 1:06:39
Much less lumber or or gypsum drywall. You wanna talk about the cost of building right now, gypsum drywall for Mexico or lumber?
Kara Swisher · 1:06:47
I just renovated my house. I'm so pleased that I did it last year. My contractor said it would have been doubled.
Scott Galloway · 1:06:53
I'm interviewing Mark Carney this afternoon. What would you ask him?
Kara Swisher · 1:06:55
Oh, what? What? Yeah. Scott Galloway.
Scott Galloway · 1:06:59
He reached out.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:00
For what? Which show? Which show?
Scott Galloway · 1:07:01
It's... I wanted to do it for Pivot of Raging Moderates. He said he wanted to do it for Prophecy Conversations. I think he wants to talk about young men.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:08
Yeah. Good. Well, that's... I heard you have... By the way, you have another podcast you didn't tell me about?
Scott Galloway · 1:07:12
Which one's this?
Kara Swisher · 1:07:14
The what... The man, the men thing with Scaramucci and Smerconi.
Scott Galloway · 1:07:17
Oh, that's a limited series. He called me and said, let's do four pods.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:20
Yeah. That's good to hear your book coming out. Good. I'm very excited. You you cat around on me quite a bit. That's okay. I don't like.
Scott Galloway · 1:07:26
I do.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:26
I just wanna know about it. I just don't
Scott Galloway · 1:07:28
like that. 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.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:34
I want... Okay. Want... I know you did. I'm ignoring it completely. I would like to make your book, like, bestseller.
Scott Galloway · 1:07:40
Defile gravity. Defile gravity, Katy Perry.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:44
I wanna make your book a time
Scott Galloway · 1:07:45
Let me hear you roar.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:47
I can't believe I
Scott Galloway · 1:07:47
You nineties pop star wonton bitch. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Kara Swisher · 1:07:52
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 either. That said, Scott, only thing is he's leaving... The Washington Post reported today incorrectly that he's leaving Doge staffers in high power jobs at multiple federal agencies. So he's not out of there. He's like mold. He's putting all kinds of stuff, and the 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. Alright. Okay. 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.
Scott Galloway · 1:08:37
I think that's just an attempt to address your PTSD and pretend that vice president Harris won the election.
— Predictions segment ends —
Kara Swisher · 1:08:43
No. No. No. She could... Vice president Harris couldn't have done this. This was... Just trust me. Watch it, and then call me back. Just... I'm just telling you. I'm just telling you. You'll love it. It's so much fun. Like, because she's won the... 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 a 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 talented. She's so talented, but I love that she's doing this and and just punching people in the face with a machine, the whole thing. It's fantastic. Anyway, we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 85551 Also, pivot is up for a Webby Award for best business podcast, and we asking for your vote. And some of other... Yours... Your other podcasts are also up, so vote for professor g. I don't know if on is, but in any case, vote for us. Go to vote.webbyawards.com to cast your ballot. We won last year, and we're hoping for a twofer. Elsewhere in the Scott and Cara universe, I just did a whole panel on tariffs with trade law expert Raj Bala, pucks Bill Cohen, and Katherine Rampell from the Washington Post. Let's listen to a quick clip.
Speaker · 1:10:05
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 gonna do from one minute to the next, which only he seems to know. But 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 like Tariffs for a really long time.
Kara Swisher · 1:10:35
Anyway, it was a great interview. All of them had different things to add.
Scott Galloway · 1:10:39
Just FYI, just... I think Katherine Rampell is a total calmer. I think she's gonna be Really? Agree. I think you're gonna hear her name a lot. I think she is exceptionally talented.
Kara Swisher · 1:10:47
She's great.
Scott Galloway · 1:10:48
She had an outstanding moment on that show, I think, of the fucking food fight, whatever it's
Kara Swisher · 1:10:53
on Abby's film show. Yep.
Scott Galloway · 1:10:55
Mhmm. One... Whoever the Republican is was trying to defend
Kara Swisher · 1:10:58
Scott Jennings.
Scott Galloway · 1:10:59
Whoever the Republican is was trying to defend.
Kara Swisher · 1:11:01
The bad... I call him bad Scott. He's bad Scott.
Scott Galloway · 1:11:04
Very good. He's trying to defend Bannon. Was like, 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 caught masturbating or defiling gravity.
Kara Swisher · 1:11:14
Yeah. Defiling gravity. Yeah. Anyway, we love her. Alright, 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.
Scott Galloway · 1:11:28
Today's show was produced by Lara Niemann, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Corinne Ruff, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie Intertodd engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Severio, and Dan Chelan. Nishat Kerouwah is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. 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/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.
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