Skydance-Paramount Merger, Ghislaine Pardon Talk, and South Park Skewers Trump

Summary

Podcast Summary: Pivot – "Skydance-Paramount Merger, Ghislaine Pardon Talk, and South Park Skewers Trump"

Release Date: July 29, 2025

Hosts: Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway

In this episode of "Pivot," hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway delve into the latest developments in the tech, business, and political landscapes. The discussion ranges from high-profile mergers and presidential actions to the cultural impact of popular media. Below is a detailed summary of the key topics covered, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

---

1. Astronomer’s Crisis and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Interim Spokesperson

[10:00 - 13:30]

The episode kicks off with a discussion about the tech firm Astronomer, which is embroiled in controversy. In a strategic move to manage public relations amidst turmoil, Astronomer has appointed Gwyneth Paltrow as a temporary spokesperson.

• Gwyneth Paltrow's Statement:

  "Hello, I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. I've been hired on a temporary basis to address the concerns surrounding Astronomer." [09:50]

• Scott's Take:

  "I think it's genius. Absolute genius. This is probably the best marketing move of 2025." [11:01]

Kara and Scott analyze the effectiveness of leveraging a celebrity in crisis management, debating whether this approach genuinely mitigates the company’s issues or merely diverts attention.

• Kara Swisher on the Move:

  "Sense of humor shows a sense of humor, sense of self-awareness, and brilliant casting." [12:19]

Scott counters by highlighting the importance of awareness and how crises can sometimes increase a company's visibility:

• Scott Galloway on Awareness:

  "They've gone from zero to 20-30% awareness. One in three Americans have heard of Astronomer now." [11:56]

Insight: The hosts explore the fine line between effective crisis marketing and superficial damage control, emphasizing the need for authenticity and strategic communication.

---

2. EU-US Trade Deal and President Trump's Trade Policies

[15:00 - 20:49]

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the recent EU-US trade deal approved by the FCC, amidst President Trump's dynamic trade policies.

• Trump's Statement on the Deal:

  "This is the biggest deal ever made and satisfactory to both sides." [15:31]

Kara and Scott dissect the implications of the deal, examining tariff adjustments and the expected economic impact.

• Scott Galloway on the Tariff Reduction:

  "Tariff on EU cars dropped from 27.5% to 15%, and on US cars from 10% to 2.5%." [17:23]

• Scott's Positive Outlook:

  "Comparative advantage is the reason we have talented people around us. This settled deal allows businesses to plan without uncertainty." [19:02]

Kara expresses reservations about the process and the necessity of such high-profile press dealings:

• Kara Swisher's Critique:

  "It felt like a press release. These things should take time and be well thought out." [18:09]

Insight: The discussion highlights the complexities of international trade agreements, the benefits of reduced tariffs, and the critique of President Trump's approach to diplomacy and negotiation.

---

3. South Park’s Satire of Trump and the Skydance-Paramount Merger

[25:27 - 34:44]

The hosts transition to cultural commentary, focusing on South Park’s latest episode that satirizes President Trump and Paramount.

• Episode Highlights:

  "They had a naked Trump with his penis having eyes." [25:50]

Kara praises the boldness of the satire, while Scott reflects on its significance in maintaining free speech and creative irreverence.

• Scott on South Park’s Role:

  "The truth in humor and satire, it finds a way. It’s encouraging that they stick it to the President despite pressures." [26:24]

Kara adds her perspective on the balance between humor and the serious nature of the subjects South Park touches upon, noting the show's impact on public discourse.

• Kara on Satire and Free Speech:

  "It's important to give huge leeway to comics and satirists. They play a critical role in society." [30:29]

Insight: The conversation underscores the importance of satire in political discourse, the resilience of creative freedom, and the role of media in challenging powerful figures.

---

4. AI Legislation and Tony Robbins’ Lawsuit

[37:00 - 45:07]

Moving into the realm of technology and intellectual property, the hosts discuss the increasing legal challenges surrounding AI, exemplified by Tony Robbins suing AI tool creators for misuse of his persona.

• Details of the Lawsuit:

  "Robin says the bots ingested his seminars and copyrighted material and are reselling it under his name." [39:15]

Scott elaborates on the broader implications for digital rights and the necessity for legislation to protect individuals’ digital identities.

• Scott on Digital Twins:

  "Everyone should have rights to their digital twin. There needs to be serious legislation." [40:03]

Kara raises concerns about the practical enforcement of such protections and the challenges in combating unauthorized use of personal data.

• Kara on Enforcement Issues:

  "They’ve made those porny, weird versions of me and books of me. They haven't been able to take a lot of them down." [44:03]

Insight: The segment explores the burgeoning conflict between AI advancements and intellectual property rights, emphasizing the need for robust legal frameworks to protect individuals from digital exploitation.

---

5. President Trump’s Political Maneuvers and Relations with Elon Musk

[46:21 - 53:07]

The hosts analyze President Trump's recent moves against media companies and his interactions with prominent figures like Elon Musk.

• Trump’s Actions Against Media:

  "He’s trying to destroy Musk’s company by taking away subsidies, but he's not trying to destroy it." [46:21]

Scott discusses the strategic implications of Trump's policies on influential tech leaders and the potential long-term effects on the tech industry.

• Scott on Musk’s Influence:

  "SpaceX right now is bigger than our government. Trump’s actions could severely diminish his power or distract him." [47:00]

Kara reflects on the shifting power dynamics between political leadership and major tech entrepreneurs, questioning the sustainability of such relationships.

• Kara on Power Dynamics:

  "Elon Musk is becoming critical to our infrastructure, possibly more so than the Defense Department." [48:55]

Insight: This discussion highlights the intricate balance of power between governmental authorities and private tech giants, questioning the future trajectory of U.S. leadership in the tech sector.

---

6. RFK Jr.'s Impact on Healthcare and Scientific Research

[54:43 - 60:08]

Kara and Scott address Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s controversial actions affecting healthcare policies and scientific research.

• Kara on RFK Jr.'s Policies:

  "He’s quietly wrecking everything. Planning to remove key members from Cancer Screening and HIV Medication Trust Fund because he believes they’re too woke." [57:00]

Scott emphasizes the detrimental effects of undermining scientific integrity and the potential setbacks for critical research.

• Scott on Healthcare Impact:

  "RFK Jr. is killing people and setting back important research for even five years is too much to handle." [59:00]

Insight: The hosts condemn RFK Jr.'s policies as harmful to public health and scientific advancement, advocating for evidence-based approaches over politicized interventions.

---

7. Wins and Fails Segment

[60:08 - 63:07]

In a lighter interlude, Kara and Scott share personal “wins” and “fails.”

• Scott’s Wins:

  • Chicago’s Resurgence: Praises Chicago’s vibrant economy and cultural scene.

    "Chicago is the number one big city in the US by Connoisseur Traveler." [60:08]

  • Astronomer’s Marketing Move: Commends Astronomer’s strategic handling of their PR crisis.

    "The marketing move of the year." [62:11]

• Kara’s Fail:

  • RFK Jr.'s Policies: Criticizes his impact on healthcare and science.

Insight: This segment provides a balanced view, allowing the hosts to highlight positive developments amidst their critical discussions.

---

8. Concluding Thoughts and Final Discussions

[63:07 - 64:23]

The episode wraps up with brief mentions of upcoming topics and final remarks on ongoing political and social issues.

• Kara on Victims and Epstein Case:

  "The victims are retraumatized, and it has nothing to do with stopping pedophiles but helping someone on the Epstein list." [64:23]

Conclusion: Kara emphasizes the importance of focusing on victim support rather than political agendas that undermine justice and accountability.

---

Overall Insights:

• Crisis Management: Leveraging celebrity influence in corporate crises can boost visibility but risks perceived insincerity.
• Trade Policies: Reducing tariffs fosters economic stability, but the negotiation style impacts international relations.
• Cultural Satire: Satirical media like South Park play a vital role in political discourse and maintaining creative freedom.
• AI and IP Rights: The rise of AI necessitates robust legal protections for individuals’ digital identities and intellectual property.
• Power Dynamics: The growing influence of tech magnates like Elon Musk challenges traditional governmental power structures.
• Healthcare Integrity: Politicization of healthcare and scientific research poses significant risks to public health advancements.

This episode of "Pivot" offers a comprehensive analysis of pivotal events shaping today's socio-political and technological landscapes, providing listeners with in-depth insights and thought-provoking discussions.

Transcript

[Kara Swisher]

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[Scott Galloway]

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[Unknown]

Can I sell my ball sweat and call it detox for 75 bucks?

[Kara Swisher]

No, you can't because nobody would buy it. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

[Unknown]

And I'm Scott Galloway.

[Kara Swisher]

So you're in New York?

[Unknown]

Yeah, I am. And it's kind of shocking. Every time I walk in, I half expect to see you roaming around, like, wearing my clothes.

[Kara Swisher]

No, but I'm happy to stay there this week when I come to tape with you.

[Unknown]

Oh, that's right. You're excited about that. You're big. Your big Live Forever thing on cnn.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, you wanted something? I saw you on The Semaphore podcast. Talking fondly of me. So don't pretend you're excited.

[Unknown]

Oh, yeah. The dozens and dozens of people that listen to the Semaphore podcast. I like Ben. I like Semaphore, too.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're good. That was a very sweet podcast, actually. Very informative. I can't believe I listened to the whole thing. Like, I have enough of you, but it actually was nice to listen to. You're very smart, apparently.

[Unknown]

Apparently.

[Kara Swisher]

Allegedly. So how's New York? How do you like being back?

[Unknown]

Look, I love it here. I think new is, hands down, the best city in the world. I think it's going through a renaissance right now. Shedding skin, new restaurants. I love the summer. Flip flops, tank tops, a certain desperation that we're the ones who don't have.

[Kara Swisher]

A Perry song, by the way. Flip flops and tank tops. But go ahead.

[Unknown]

Oh, God, that hurts. That hurts. That is really mean. Right out of the gate. Jesus, Cara. That is really mean. But I like it. I love hanging out with other people that aren't very hot or don't have the opportunities to be somewhere else. It's like we're all in this together. If you're in New York in the summer, in July, it's like, okay, Things have not worked out the way.

[Kara Swisher]

Although I kind of like it. It has kind of a nice feel to it when nobody's there, don't you think? I kind of always liked that when I lived in New York.

[Unknown]

You literally could bump into anyone who's in New York on a weekend and say, how did your life not work out? Like, why are you here?

[Kara Swisher]

Well, you're just special. You're special.

[Unknown]

Oh, yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

The city is looking good.

[Unknown]

I have to say. You're not hot enough to be invited out to some house in Montauk or you're not rich enough to get the fuck out of here. But we're all in this together.

[Kara Swisher]

All in this together.

[Unknown]

We're all in this together.

[Kara Swisher]

All in this together.

[Unknown]

Oh, and I just came from. I'm sorry. Back to me. I just came from. I had the best two days with my youngest in Chicago. We gotta move to Chicago. Oh, that's a great city.

[Kara Swisher]

It's a great city.

[Unknown]

It's a fantastic. We went. We got.

[Kara Swisher]

Is he applying to University of.

[Unknown]

This is a 14 year old. He's applying to high school.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay. All right. Okay.

[Unknown]

He's more. He's like. Instead of taking the act, he's like dyeing his hair every other week.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, he looked Good. Though I have to say in those photographs.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it looks like the real Slim Shady.

[Kara Swisher]

He does.

[Unknown]

Oh my God, what a great city. We were gonna do deep dish and then he read somewhere that deep dish is for amateurs. So we went and had great thin crust pizza. We went to Gibson Steakhouse. We went to the Sky Deck, tallest building in America. We went to this great. Best ice cream I've ever had. This place called Jenny's.

[Kara Swisher]

Jenny's. Yes, of course. Yes.

[Unknown]

Oh, you did you know it? I didn't know it.

[Kara Swisher]

Yes, it's all over the country.

[Unknown]

Oh. Oh, is it really? I thought it was a Chicago thing.

[Kara Swisher]

No, no, but it's good. Jenny's is. You know, the Jenny's thing. It's Nancy Pelosi's favorite ice cream. And they were giving her a hard time cause it's expensive. And I was like, that means she has good, good taste, my friend.

[Unknown]

Really good. Wow. I. I thought that. So funny. I assume everything is a Chicago thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah.

[Unknown]

And then we did that tour, the bike tour, the river that, that you talk about. And then we went and played. This is the best. We went and played ping pong and pool in the middle of the day.

[Kara Swisher]

I love ping pong.

[Unknown]

Yeah, it was a ton of fun. We had such an. Everyone's friendly.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, Chicago's a great city and it's really fun in the summer. Did you go down to the lake? Because everyone's at the lake. That's kind of cool down there.

[Unknown]

Yeah. They said go down to the lake and the beach. I'm like, I see a lot of beach. I'm surrounded by beach all the time.

[Kara Swisher]

But we had massive and beautiful.

[Unknown]

Oh, and then we went and saw F1.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown]

Christ. And it's just good to know a guy older than me that can be that hot. It's a great movie.

[Kara Swisher]

Isn't it cute?

[Unknown]

He owns the movie. I think he made the movie.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. Did he win the race, Scott? Did he win it? Did you have any questions?

[Unknown]

I'm not gonna let that cat out of the bag. I mean, that's a real twist there. But by the way, so on this Netflix show, I'm basically there to make it feel more real. The thing about Big Tech, they clearly didn't have that person. Because a 62 year old, they'd be taking his driver's license away, not putting him in F1. I hung out with some F1 drivers that can't. They're like 22 year old Brazilians that don't drink, that have like these cat like reflexes that degrade by the time you're 27. The idea of a 62 year old being an F1 driver is so insane.

[Kara Swisher]

Scott. He's on the edge. He's on the edge. He's always pushing the limit. Yeah. He's making the risks.

[Unknown]

Oh, my God, he's so. I think that guy's amazing.

[Kara Swisher]

He is. I think he is so good. I think the whole cast was great. I think. Have you. Now you've seen Superman? Now you're working with.

[Unknown]

I didn't see Superman.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, you got to see Superman with the movie.

[Unknown]

I went and saw Fantastic Four because I like Vanessa Kirby and Pedro Pascal. My son liked it. I just can't handle the Marvel DC shit. I think it's literally an attack on our. I think it's an attack on everything good about the creative world. I just. You like those things. Have you seen the Fantastic Four?

[Kara Swisher]

I do, but I don't like Fantastic Four. I've never seen a Fantastic Four. I've liked. That's what I have to say. Maybe I just don't like the Fantastic Four.

[Unknown]

This one's pretty good.

[Kara Swisher]

He's a handsome man.

[Unknown]

Pedro. Yeah, Pedro. Pedro is a handsome man.

[Kara Swisher]

She's a beautiful woman. So.

[Unknown]

Yeah, she's beautiful. And a great actress, too. And she's engaged to my good friend Paul Rabel. Oh, and she's expecting Paul. Yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, my God. I'll write him a note. Oh, he's lovely. For people who don't know, he's a great lacrosse player. And he is just a wonderful guy.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Just a footnote on that. They're gonna have 30 kids. I'm gonna weaponize them and take over Australia. Can you imagine? He's literally the greatest lacrosse player to ever play the sport. She is spectacular. Can you imagine what their kids are gonna be like?

[Kara Swisher]

I know. And he's a good man. He's like, you know, it was really interesting. He. I told you. He took a minute for my sons who loved him, like. And I did a video. They were beside themselves when they were whatever, 13, 14 years old, they were beside themselves.

[Unknown]

I met him five or six years ago. We had a podcast and he showed up to my office. The guy looks like an Adonis. I mean, he literally is the most. He's this insane specimen. And he walks in. I'm like, Jesus Christ. Who's the tall drink of water? The Dwayne Johnson with a lacrosse thing. And he sat down and he's like. And he looks at me in mind. He's like. He's like, I really struggle with my relationship with my father. And he's like, I'm trying to figure out how it's manifesting in my insecurity. I'm like, what the fuck? He's so groovy.

[Kara Swisher]

He's so groovy.

[Unknown]

He's so literally kind of in touch with, you know, him.

[Kara Swisher]

Good hair. Good hair.

[Unknown]

Yeah. But anyways, I don't know how I got here. Fantastic Four.

[Kara Swisher]

Fantastic Four.

[Unknown]

Good to see you.

[Kara Swisher]

And Fantastic Four. Well, good. I'm glad.

[Unknown]

How was your weekend, Kim?

[Kara Swisher]

Good. I had a great weekend, actually. We did a lot of. We did a. I did it. We're doing these dinner parties on Sunday and we had our neighbors who are also very handsome people and friends of ours, who. One friend of ours, they got married, this lesbian couple, and she graduated law school. So we celebrated her law school graduation. And my neighbor got a great new job doing a really cool thing that's related to Art Basel. And I have to tell you, speaking of New York being beautiful, I have to say, in San Francisco, it is so cleaned up. It's really quite amazing. I'm gonna hopefully be doing an event there last week. I agree, it looks great. It looks really great. And it was. Went to some great places to eat, went out with Dr. Swisher. We had a great time and so it was good. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the FCC greenlighting, the Skydance Paramount merger. No surprise. And what Trump is saying about a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the sexual abuser. I'm going to say that with everything. It's incredible that they're. We'll get to it. But first, the Coldplay Kiss Camps is not over. Astronomer, the tech firm at the center of all the drama, has a new temporary spokesperson. Let's hear from her. Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. Hi, I'm Gwyneth Paltrow. I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300 plus employees at Astronomer. Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones. Yes, that's Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar winner, entrepreneur, and ex wife of Coldplay's lead singer, Chris Martin. The Tongue in Cheek video. She pivots from Kiss Cam questions to highlighting the company's AI tools in its upcoming conference. Forbes said the video offers a Crisis playbook for CEOs. I was really curious, just, just for people know that, why not take advantage of a terrible situation for one, Coldplay is also benefiting. Streams of their songs are up 25%. I just, I was sitting there, I'm like, I wonder what Scott thinks. I liked it. My friend Brooke says straight women don't like it. Gay people and straight men like it. I don't know if that's true. How do you. How do you. What do you think about it as a marketer?

[Unknown]

Well, first, unfairly, I don't. For some reason, I don't love Gwyneth Paltrow. I wish she'd run into a snowplow in that accident. Or she calls herself her thought leader, but I think her only thought should be, I should have finished college.

[Kara Swisher]

But anyways, okay, all right, move along.

[Unknown]

I think it's Genius. Absolute genius. I think it's cmo. I think that is probably the best marketing move so far of 2025. Just to lean into it, just to own it. She's been perfectly cast. I think she is a great actress. And the connection with Chris Marr, genius. And we live in an age where it is so crowded out there, everyone's trying to grab. If you think of the marketing funnel, we always talk about the marketing funnel, but it kind of distills down to awareness, intent, purchase and loyalty. And one of the hardest things that both Trump and Musk have weaponized. And I think the reason that they're president and the wealthiest man in the world is they really understand the power of awareness. Even if it goes against traditional instinct of making you look bad. You'd rather be known for something not great than not known at all. The worst thing you can say about someone after you meet them, what's the worst thing you can say about them?

[Kara Swisher]

I forgot them.

[Unknown]

I don't remember them. I don't know who they are. What? Who? And them leaning into this. I bet the company Astronomer has gone from zero, literally zero percent awareness. It wouldn't have even registered statistically if you did an awareness from Q or something to probably 20 or 30% right now. I bet one in three Americans have heard of this company called Astronomer.

[Kara Swisher]

Will it translate or is it just a one off? Clever, good handling of a bad situation.

[Unknown]

If they had spent $200 million on an awareness campaign, they couldn't have got this type of awareness. And I don't think people hold the company. I don't think people hold the company liable. They think, oh, an old, A rich white dude thinks he can start banging his head of HR and get away with it. Okay, that's not a shocker. That's not like that doesn't mean they're AI. Platform isn't good, right? People aren't saying, oh, that's it, I'm not. I'm going to, you know, whatever. Dystopia. AI now. So all of a sudden everyone's heard about it. I doubt their existing customers are leaving. And when they hear from one of their 40 inside sales reps pinging people on LinkedIn to try and get a meeting, people are like, oh wait, is it that Astronomer? It's a conversation starter. People have heard of the company.

[Kara Swisher]

Sense of humor shows a sense of humor, sense of self awareness and brilliant casting. And she did a good job. She's excellent in it. She's very good tailor made for her. So they handled it really well, I think. Good job, Astronomer. Although we're not gonna buy any of your products. She was at Code. We had a problematic appearance at Code with our.

[Unknown]

Really? Say more. Spill the tea, come on.

[Kara Swisher]

You know, she did a really great essay on. She got very badly attacked online in the early days of Twitter and everything else, like crazy bad. And it was incredibly sexist. And you can like her or not, but it was over the frigging top with her. And so she wrote this essay saying, look, I'm getting attacked a lot. Can you imagine if you're a teen girl? And you know, I can handle it. She was like, I can handle it, but what the fuck is happening here? 100%. It was very prescient, very early. She was making this point. So I invited her to Code to talk about this essay and to do one of those five minute talks, you know, in front. And she came and I just was like, just wear jeans. Like how she appeared in this thing and she was overdressed and she got nervous and wasn't able to really articulate it and was reading from a script. And I think she just got nervous because she was very lovely. I mean she handled it really, but it just didn't. The essay was so good and her presentation there was not. And I was sorry because I think she had an excellent point. Using her celebrity to make a point about teen girls very early on in what you talk about now, you know, about teenagers and self esteem. She was one of the earlier people to do that in Facebook and Twitter and stuff like that. So it was unfortunate cause she was great. And I was thinking, oh, she's really good with scripts is what I should have done is just talk to her about it and not let her give a speech. So it rambled. It didn't. And then all the men were acting like assholes. Because she's very pretty.

[Unknown]

I don't know. I think she's what happens when a Birkin bag gains sentience and overdoses in ayahuasca.

[Kara Swisher]

No, she's very pretty.

[Unknown]

It is such late stage capitalism. It's like put the term detox in front of everything and charge 75 bucks on it.

[Kara Swisher]

Let's not beat up on a woman anymore.

[Unknown]

Can I sell my ball sweat and call it detox or something?

[Kara Swisher]

No, you can't because nobody would buy it but hers.

[Unknown]

Perhaps ball sweat candle.

[Kara Swisher]

I do have a vagina. I do have these dog aroma. I bought it for dog aroma for my son. I think I bought vagina candle for my son.

[Unknown]

Oh, God.

[Kara Swisher]

Anyway, we're gonna move on. Speaking of vagina candles, President Trump announced that the U.S. reached a trade deal with the EU on Sunday. Shortly before the Aug. 1 deadline, he made a deal. The deal imposes a 15% tariff on most European goods to the U.S. which is higher than the 10% baseline tariffs the EU was hoping for. President Trump called the agreement, quote, the biggest deal ever made and, quote, satisfactory to both side. Although the EU will not be imposing a tariff on American imports. Trump said the EU also agreed to purchase $750 billion worth of US energy, an additional 600 billion worth of investments in the US and hundreds of billions in military equipment. 50% tariff on steel from Europe remains in place, though. Meanwhile, Trump also filled his weekend with something else. Golfing at his golf resorts in Scotland. It's estimated the golfing trip will cost American taxpayers over $10 million to talk his golf club. That brings the total golf cost of his second term to at least 52 million. He spent 152 million golfing in his first term. But those fed renovations, right, Scott. So, anyway, talk about the EU deal. The golfing thing is just grotesque the way he does this, but it's part. We're sort of used to it, unfortunately.

[Unknown]

Well, just. I don't like to give Trump any wins, but just trying to call Boston strikes. Look, the guy plays too much golf, in my opinion. He's not focused on the wrong. He's either thinking about a comp strategy around avoiding Epstein or making big, bold, declarative statements, not putting in the real work that a president, in my opinion, is supposed to do, as evidenced by the fact that he's golfed whatever, 50 times. Having said that, presidents need to take time off, and when they take time off, it's going to cost a lot of money because there's an infrastructure around protecting the President. So I don't fault him for that. The EU deal so far I need to dig in, but I actually think the EU deal is a pretty good deal. I mean, I'm not sure we needed to start this nonsense to begin with.

[Kara Swisher]

Right, right.

[Unknown]

But it so far looks like a pretty reasonable deal. What's interesting is that in some instances it actually lowers tariffs. So it's like, okay, so Trump is actually a free trader now, which I like. I think that I would like to see zero tariff zones. And I think free trade is absolutely inextricably linked to our prosperity. Comparative advantage is just at the end of the day, the reason why we have all these talented people around us is there are some people who are better at things than we are and we exchange what we're good at and we all end up better off. And so I kind of like this deal. The number one or number two exports from the US into the EU are oil or energy. And I think we sell them a lot of jet planes, they sell a lot of pharmaceuticals into us.

[Kara Swisher]

Here's the thing. It felt like a press release because now the Vietnamese and the Japan one don't seem to be as full as, you know, I mean, like, he's so into the press release of everything. It seems like a lot of wasted time when this could have been done quietly and behind the scenes.

[Unknown]

Agreed, you know, 100%.

[Kara Swisher]

And I don't even know, like a lot of the stuff he signed is not clear if it's signed. Right. And again, our own American companies are complaining about the alleged Japanese deal, although that's not clear where that is. And so I just feel like this is a lot of just, just press releases. Maybe that's what all the presidency is, but I don't think it is. I think they're, you know, these things should take time. They should be well thought out. It shouldn't. You know, poor Ursula von Leiden, you saw her, the head of the EU had to sit there like internal. The internal stuff in her head would have been fantastic.

[Unknown]

Yeah, there's some good memes on that. It just went off. So look, we import nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, mechanical appliance, 15% of, of cars and other non railway vehicles, 10% of imports. What's interesting is the tariff on EU cars dropped from 27.5% said in May to 15%. And the tariff on US cars imported to the EU dropped from 10% to 2.5%. But here's the problem, folks. People don't love our cars. We don't have a tariff problem. We have a product market fit problem. But look, I hate to give it to them, but I actually think this deal is better than I would have thought it would be. I'm glad it's taken insecurity off the table. The EU is, people think China's our largest trading partner. Our largest trading partner by nation is Mexico, and our largest by region is actually the eu. So having this kind of settled such that we can get back to work, people can start planning their businesses and stop spending time trying to guess what is going to come out of his office next. I think this is a good thing.

[Kara Swisher]

Well, Wall street had called this right. Wall street had sort of been like just been no yips from Wall street whatsoever this whole couple of weeks.

[Unknown]

My bias is always to look for what's wrong here. I actually think that there's a lot that's right here now, whether we needed to do this at all, whether it should be done by the Secretary of Commerce, a really talented Gia Raimondo type figure. I think that there's a lot of merit to that, that this is more about performance than it is about actual economic growth. But I like the, the way I see this is that it's essentially gone the other way. That it's reducing tariffs and increasing free trade, which I like. So, you know, like, I give this, I hate to do it. I give this a thumbs up.

[Kara Swisher]

I give it a medium thumbs up only. Cause it didn't have to happen. It's just like a lot. And it's like grandpa knocked over all the chairs and then set them up slightly better. Okay, great. Thanks, Gramps. Like, could have been done in so many other ways. And I know it is. And here I just said it. I just said it. Grandpa knocks over a lot of fucking chairs and he needs to stop. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back as Sky Dance's Paramount deal clears another hurdle. South park takes aim at Trump and its parent company. Support for this show comes from upwork. Navigating today's economy is a lot. Tariffs, tight budgets, hiring freezes, and we haven't even touched on interest rates yet. But if you're building a business in the current economic climate, there's one move that can actually help stretch your budget. Upwork. It's a hiring platform designed for the modern playbook. You can find, hire and pay expert freelancers on upwork. And they can deliver results from day one. Perfect for businesses on tight budgets, fast timelines, and zero room for error. No subscriptions no upfront fees. You only pay when you hire. Posting a job is fast, free and simple. If you've Never tried Upwork, now's the perfect time. It's giving our listeners a $200 credit. After spending a thousand dollars in your first 30 days, that's $200 you can put towards your next freelancer. Design help, AI automation, admin, support, marketing, whatever your business needs. Visit Upwork.comSave right now for this offer. That's Upwork.comSave to get a 200 credit to put towards your next freelancer to help grow your business. That's up w o r-k.com s a v e upwork.com save don't wait. This offer is valid only June 24 through August 5, 2025.

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[Kara Swisher]

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[Unknown]

I'm not in the mood right now. Another random bitch commented on my Instagram that you're on the Epstein list.

[Kara Swisher]

The Epstein list? Are we still talking about that?

[Unknown]

Well, are you on the list or not? It's weird that whenever it comes up, you just tell everyone to relax.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm not telling everyone to relax. Relax guy. It was worse than that. They also had a naked Trump. They had his.

[Unknown]

They had a penis with eyes.

[Kara Swisher]

Eye on it. I. And they talked about how they.

[Unknown]

These guys do a lot of edibles.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. The South Parks creators just signed a new $1.5 billion streaming deal with Paramount.

[Unknown]

They should have got 1.6.

[Kara Swisher]

I know these guys are genius. I just. Please, let's just. We'll get to Epstein, the bigger Epstein issue in an instant. But talk about this. I thought this was hysterical. This is 27 seasons and these guys are still. You know, a lot of people don't like them because they're so politically incorrect, but I don't. I love my kids, love them. I think they're amazing. Your thoughts?

[Unknown]

I think it's heartening not only because, well, I enjoy great comedy, but it's heartening that. But something that's built into our society, I think, is a certain level and I think this is really encouraging a certain level of irreverence and commercial opportunity and irreverence and Just as the President has convinced Bob Iger to bend a knee and certain law firms to bend a knee and said, okay, Sherry, if you want to maintain your status as a billionaire, I'm going to get you to bend a knee, fine. But the moment, the wonderful thing about America is that people are pretty fearless, creatives are pretty fearless, and they come out with something like this. And also all of the 60 something late night talk show hosts that are making 100 times more than their folks behind the camera who see any threat against Colbert, I mean, they're just so fucking precious. And I realize how cynical that is. But people love these people. But you guess what? But they're not gonna be silenced. They're gonna do podcasts. And I'm not saying we shouldn't take this kind of move towards fascism in this attempt to intimidate journalists, that we shouldn't take it seriously. But what I find is examples like this, and there's examples everywhere, are basically the American culture, the creative community kind of say fuck you and find. It's like, remember in Jurassic park it said that life finds a way. Well, guess what? The truth. And the truth in humor and satire, it finds a way. And it made me feel good that as much as they're going to attempt to silence critics, it's not going to work. Or I don't think it's going to work because same station or same broadcast network that agreed to basically pay off the President was intimidated, bent a knee. And then as soon as these guys sign a deal, they put out something like that. I just found it very encouraging.

[Kara Swisher]

Weren't you like, oh my God. I was like, wow.

[Unknown]

Like, oh, these guys went for it.

[Kara Swisher]

Went for it. They just went and they came out 0fox given talked about and that they approved it. One of the things that I liked about it, you know, a lot of people when I say I like South Parker, it's like, oh, they're anti. You know what? If you liked this one, you have to like being offended all the time by these guys. They are, they do do like really heinous stuff, but it's funny. Or just laugh about it. They're comedy. And again, actually, when Babylon Bee happened, when, what was it anti trans thing, it was just not funny. What it was. That's my issue with it, whenever it's not funny. But I think we have to give huge leeway to comics and satirists and all that stuff. The stuff that does make me nervous, I'll tell you, is like, I know this is a distraction and you Talk about Trump like this. But accusing Oprah and Beyonce of taking millions for their 2024 Kamala endorsements and saying they should be prosecuted. The continuing Obama videos, which are, are really disturbing and not funny. And I get the idea of he can do whatever he wants. And Trump's legal team asked a judge to order Rupert Murdoch to sit for an expedited deposition. And that lawsuit, or that $10 billion lawsuit citing his age as the reason to do this sooner rather than later. Although I think Rupert will outlast Trump via the long stretch. But that stuff really is disturbing. The idea that he's getting free ads or that he's. I love these guys, but not everyone can be these guys. And a lot, some of it is serious and some of it is just funny, like that they stick it in his eye kind of thing, or the eye of his penis, I guess.

[Unknown]

I think satire plays an important role. I think the left has shot itself in the foot by becoming so sensitive that we have ceded irreverent comedy to the right. And people love irreverent comedy and we used to own it. If you think about the real comedians and social commentators, yeah, they came from the Lenny Bruce. These were offensive people and they said really off color things. And then we decided, oh, you can't say that. And the kind of the right sort of usurped, you know, comedy, comedy is legal again. So I like when Camino. That's why I love Ricky Gervais.

[Kara Swisher]

I do think that's changing, though. I do think, I think there's more of a sense of humor coming through. When you see, when I'm starting to interview congresspeople, they're more like whatever. Like they seem to feel a little looser in that regard. And these guys, I wouldn't know what these guys, these guys aren't left or right. I don't know, they're just funny. They're just funny. And so I think that's critically important. But the other ones where he's attacking like law firms or, you know, putting those Obama things up, those are just incredibly deleterious to our society, I think. And they're weird and they're threatening and they're creepy. And speaking of creepy, President Trump says he's allowed to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. We know this President Trump, but nobody's approached him about it. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell for nine hours across two days last week at a Florida prison where she's serving her 20 year sentence. It should be 100 years. Maxwell was acting. Asked about A hundred different people, according to her lawyer. And she reportedly granted limited immunity for the interviews, essentially immunity that applies only if she doesn't lie. Let's listen to what else Maxwell's lawyer said about the meeting.

[Unknown]

This was the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions about what happened. And so the truth will come out about what happened with Mr. Epstein. And she's the person who.

[Kara Swisher]

Answering those, dear lawyer, is not the first opportunity she's ever been given to answer questions. She just refused to do so. And she almost went up for perjury because she's a liar, she's a sexual harasser, she's convicted sex trafficker. You know, just stop it. This is a person who deserves. No, I know we do immunity deals with these people to get stuff. But this cynical, horrible monster, as I said last week, is the fact that they're focused on her and not the victims continues to astonish me. And the idea that the Republican, they're suddenly like, oh, she's our hero, or a version of our hero. If she tells the truth, then it's good. She could have told the truth a million times and saved all these women untold trauma, but she isn't, because she's a monster and deserves to stay in jail the rest of her life. I mean, the 20 years to me is not at all long enough. I don't know what you think, but I'm just like, are you kidding me with this lady?

[Unknown]

So before we get back to that, you know my favorite. Cartman. Linus.

[Kara Swisher]

Okay, go ahead. Okay. I just had a raging.

[Unknown]

I say this all the time. And then I have to say it's carbon. Because people look at me like, what the fuck? I'll say, I'm not just sure I'm HIV positive and people are like, what? He also says, you know, you can actually die from secondhand smug. Anyways, love, Cartman. Look, when something becomes a really big problem, it can shut down the government. The deficit has gotten so big that Republicans who claim to be fiscally conservative or get mad at social spending, and in my opinion, the Democrats should have done it the last time around. They will threaten to shut down the government. And the world and the markets freak out temporarily at the idea that the deficit or our fiscal irresponsibility might result in second order effect of the government being shut down. Okay, a pedophile, a convicted pedophile, just shut down the government, Epstein. And specifically the Attorney general. And Trump's efforts to shut down the release or inhibit the release of these files resulted in Speaker Johnson excusing Congress early. Epstein shut. A dead pedophile shut down the U.S. government. So this is having all sorts of second order effects here. And your point is exactly. It's ridiculous to think that someone accused, tried, convicted, incarcerated of one of the highest profile crimes of the last decade, that there weren't people all over her, asking her questions, offering deals, but now they said, no, we don't like what she said. So we're taking a moment to give her a chance to be part of our political fodder for the protection of the President. So this is hugely political, it's unprecedented, it's unethical and it raises. Whatever comes out of this will just.

[Kara Swisher]

Be poisoned fruit, I think.

[Unknown]

Not valid. It just won't. Even if they did it by the book and they found no information or whatever, it's just not. The whole thing is tainted. We talked about this at the last show. The fix is in. But I'm just very curious what happens. I think it's gonna be a very long and hot summer at these town hall meetings for Republicans who show up and say, okay. And you know who's been really on point here is Representative Ro Khanna. He's been very pointed.

[Kara Swisher]

I just was texting at the mosque.

[Unknown]

And very, very accurate and really, really puncturing around this stuff with Tom Massey.

[Kara Swisher]

She's trying to get like some. Here's the thing. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files and should not be conducting. She should remove himself from an. From every point of view because everything he does is going to taint this entire thing. Plus he's using it as a political cudgel. He'll only name Democrats, not maybe a few Republicans. He doesn't like. This is just so grotesque. And what's more grotesque is watching that little nebbish like Johnson shift. He doesn't care about pedophiles, he doesn't care about the women. What he cares persecuting pedophiles, he cares about protecting President Trump over anything else. And that's like creepy. It puts you right adjacent to pedophiles is what it does. A pedophile enabler is what it reminds me of. And I couldn't say it any stronger. This woman is a criminal and she belongs in jail. And whatever she says is very tainted at this point because she had every opportunity to make people's lives better by coming through, even if it meant her being put in jail longer. She did things that deserve that. And therefore I think help getting her doesn't settle any. And by the way, the victims who've talked up and the ones that are being interviewed. I did an interview with Julie K. Brown this week. They are beside themselves. They're retraumatized. And it has nothing to do with stopping pedophiles or helping women. It has everything to do with helping someone on the Epstein list, and that would be President Trump. All right. We'll see what happens. But it's going to be, you're right, it's going to be an ugly summer for a lot of people and some people. It deserves to be an ugly summer. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, another AI lawsuit.

[Unknown]

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[Kara Swisher]

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

[Unknown]

Now I was looking for fun ways.

[Kara Swisher]

To tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun.

[Unknown]

If we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.

[Kara Swisher]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com Scott we're back with more news. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins has sued the makers of an AI tool, accusing them of using his name and reputation for a series of chatbots. Robin says the bots ingested his seminars and copyrighted material and are reselling it under his name, which he has trademarked. Yes, Chad has several paid subscription tiers and offers bots such as Talk to Tony Robbins and Tony Robbins GPT. Robbins has his own authorized AI clone available on by subscription on his website, as he should. The suit is seeking $10 million in damages for unfair competition, $2 million for each trademark violation, of which there could be a number, and punitive damages for willful and malicious. Malicious misconduct. These are going to be more and more. It's interesting that Sonny Robinson, it makes sense. He has so much material out there. It's so easily AIed. He sometimes sounds like AI. Honestly, do you talk a little bit about this? They could ingest a lot of your stuff. My stuff, I don't know. But you do a lot of prescriptive stuff like that. How do you look at these kind of things?

[Unknown]

I've been thinking a lot about this. I believe what Jensen Huang said, that everyone should have rights to their digital twin. And, and first off, only in America could you have a guy who's six' seven in pure alpha energy screaming at traumatized accountants. I think Tony Robbins is a phenomena there needs to be pretty serious, in my opinion, legislation. And one of the problems about having a really old electorate is I just don't think they understand these technologies. I think you really need immediately some IP protection that, as Jensen Huang said, you own your digital twin. And so I'm working with a large company that has a very big search engine and they're creating this thing called portraits. Portraits or profiles, where you give them permission to scan everything. I get a lot of questions, a lot of emails, as I'm sure you do, and a lot of them are really thoughtful emails from people asking about their sons or looking for advice.

[Kara Swisher]

And you don't want to answer everyone.

[Unknown]

I just can't. I want to and I can't. And so I'm working with this company and I'm giving them permission to scan absolutely everything I've done, such that they get an automatic response. And if they want, they can ask this AI to give them an answer in my voice. And that's coming.

[Kara Swisher]

Do you vet it? How do you. What if it Says like bad things.

[Unknown]

Well, first off, I mean, I think people have to recognize, all right, it is AI and there'll be problems, but they do. I'm hoping we do a pretty good job job of qa. And we spent a lot of time asking questions and we've been tweaking this. You know, I would never say this, what happened or, you know, it's okay to say, I don't know what have you. But the bottom line is I've given them permission and I want to, so that's fine. But people, if they don't give permission, I don't think should have anything crawled or anything mimicked about them. In addition, I think it's really. I think there's a big opportunity for the creative community to kind of extract. I don't want to say they're pound of flesh, but the royalty they're entitled to. There's just no reason. One of my favorite songs, someone that I used to know, the singer wanted to use a lot of samples, so he preemptively paid out royalties to avoid copyright disputes. That's the way it should be. And this has been a big deal in the specialty retail community where. Where companies ranging from Pottery Barn to whoever Restoration Hardware going essentially go to artisans and quote, unquote, say their work was inspired by them. What is the line between copying something when you owe people money? Because the best economic. Look, the two best economic business models in history are one, tapping into people to flaw in their instincts. I couldn't find sugary food, so we can mass produce a sugar bomb in the form of cereal. Give it to people. They don't know when to stop. Oh, only 40% of men have reproduced. Lack of mating opportunities to create porn. Oh, okay, great. People are dying for social connection. Are so freaked out about being shamed, create algorithms that make them feel bad about themselves so they have to come back every two minutes to see what someone commented on. Okay, Instagram. And then the other second best business model, hands down, first is tapping into an instinctual flaw. The second best business model is IP theft. The Americans in the 18th and 19th century stole British and European textile manufacturing technology and built manufacturing plants up and down the eastern seaboard based on European ip. Even stole some artisans, kidnapped some artisans and the most ascended economy over the last 30 years. Their core competence is really elegant IP theft. Whether it's letting Tesla come in and manufacture and then propping up byd, whether it's letting a Google long enough to figure out their algorithm and then propping up Baidu so IP theft is the ultimate business model. And what do you have with meta and AI? You have one, one, companies that are able to tap into the flaws in our instincts. And two, massive. And Trump just signaled we're going to let them engage in massive IP theft.

[Kara Swisher]

Right. He said it wasn't a big deal. Now your book is coming out. You remember they did my book and they made those porny, weird versions of me and books of my. They're still there. They haven't been able to take a lot of them down. Your book is coming out. They're going to try to rip it off. There'll probably be a workbook for your book. You know, the men, you know, know a man workbook or something that isn't yours. Do you have any? I mean, you'll spend your time playing whack a mole with these people. That's my feeling, is that they don't. There's no protect. You have copyright protection. But in order to enforce it is another story.

[Unknown]

I'm not so worried about that stuff. There's, there's purposeful leakage. Right. You want a certain amount of, you know, Netflix wants you to share a certain number of the passwords. Right. And you want a certain amount of mimicry or IP theft or what have you. But what I'm more worried about is that at some point AI can say, take my book notes on being a man and give it to me in 60 pages, not 400. And they give it to you in 60 pages and you don't get compensated. Neither me nor my agent nor my.

[Kara Swisher]

You should put that one out, though. You should put out a 60 page first.

[Unknown]

Well, I mean, it's an interesting idea, but I think there's something to forcing people to do the work.

[Kara Swisher]

I always thought, I always was like, I wish I could do a twenty page, sixty page, hundred page version of my books. I used to say that. And publishers used to like vomit on the floor whenever I'd say that many years ago. Anyway, we'll see what goes with this. Good for you, Tony Robbins. But everyone's gonna face this issue. Everyone who has enough material out there. People like me and Scott, Tony Robbins. There's a lot of people with lots and lots of material. Anyway, lastly, President Trump doesn federal government agencies to contract with Elon Musk's X AI. What a surprise. According to White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt, however, Trump took to social media, saying he's not trying to destroy Musk's company, saying everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon's companies. By taking away some, if not all of the large scale subsidies he receives from the US Government. This is not so. I want Elon, all of our businesses within our country to thrive, in fact, thrive like never before. Elon was not comforted and he responded like, these aren't subsidies. I'm providing them with, with good products for cheap prices. You know, he's going to continue to do this and Elon's going to continue to whack at him, I assume throughout the rest of the term. Any thoughts?

[Unknown]

I'm curious what you think here, Kara. I mean, if you really, if you look back, did Musk start this whole Epstein thing? He's the first one that said yes. Remember, Trump's in the Epstein fund.

[Kara Swisher]

Remember when I said he's going to keep at it because he's obsessed with this topic? When he took it down first, he said it, I think, yes, no, Elon started, started this. Absolutely started it. And then insinuated Bannon, if you remember, and he took down the Trump one. And I remember at the time, I said, no, no, he's going to put it back up because this sticks in his craw, this Epstein stuff. Yeah, he did, he did start it.

[Unknown]

And what's interesting is that it feels like SpaceX right now is bigger than our government. And that is, I think he would love, I think, trust Trump and I wouldn't put him past him. He's willing to go after companies asymmetrically, would cancel contracts. And I think the Defense Department has come back and said SpaceX is our program. I mean, the media is so obsessed with itself, it can't stop covering Paramount, whatever it is, Yellowstone. It's relatively. Colbert. I'm sorry, folks, it's relatively unimportant. The fact that we have one company that controls almost all of the low orbit satellites, that is much more important. That is where the FTC should be focused. So this stuff is, I find we're focused on the wrong things. And the fact that Musk, I mean, think about this. Musk got the President, you could argue, played a big role in his election. Musk is now playing a big role in, and what may be the dethroning of the President. Musk is now critical to our infrastructure and in some ways bigger than the Defense Department or the Defense Department. If the Defense Department wants to bring home astronauts from the International Space Station, they have to call Elon. Right? If they want communications, battlefield technology to work really well, they have to call Elon. I mean, this is, we are. There are certain individuals who are becoming Thomas Friedman said this, this probably 25 years ago, and it was insightful or appreciate at the time. And he said that you have the rise of the supra nation state, individual. And he was using the example of Bill Gates is now more powerful than most nations. And I wonder if in many ways this is kind of showing that. Elon Musk. At first I thought Trump's much more powerful than Elon, but basically, I think Elon, if he keeps at it, I don't know if he's going to take the President down, but he's going to severely diminish his, his power or distract him.

[Kara Swisher]

I mean, it's not a good enemy to have. Remember when I said it's not like, you know, fighting with Omarosa or Michael Cohen. This guy has a set.

[Unknown]

He's not Michael Avenatti.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. You know, he has a set and he has money, he's got means. He also, when he apologized and everyone's like, it's over. I'm like, not this guy, not this guy. And what'll be interesting to see is if he can strike a side deal because a lot of his acolytes have stayed in Washington and are trying to make deals with the Trump administration. I suspect he will reach out to someone. I mean, he was, I think, close to J.D. vance. And even though J.D. vance is such a, like a suck up to Trump, he's got a. I've got a. I'm really interested in what's actually going behind the scenes with Vance and the rest of them because they're all preparing for a post Trump world right at this point. And so they've got to figure out they cannot make an enemy of Elon, for example, going forward, even if it angers Trump, they've got to do it in this sort of subtle, quiet way. So the jockeying behind the scenes has got to be fascinating. Like, this is just my guess. I'm not, I'm completely making it up. But if I were Vance or any Republican, I would start to figure out what the world post Trump looks like because he's obviously decaying in real time. Some of these pictures of him, he looks like really unhealthy, but that's okay. He can go on forever like that. I think he's been unhealthy his whole life. But I'm really interested in. And what, I'd love to know what Vance is actually thinking versus what he says in public, which is obsequious to Trump because he's got more ties with these guys than Trump. Certainly did. And he was sort of the person who introduced them to Trump, you know what I mean? That was their link. So it'd be interesting to be with Thiel and Vance and Musk and those people figure out what they're up to.

[Unknown]

I think they're all trying to cosplay the president. And that is, Americans got so sick of this politically correct, starched, whitewashed vanilla speak that then this guy came along and started mocking the disabled or calling people horse face. And as offensive as it was, a lot of America found it refreshing. And they thought, oh, my God, for the first time someone's speaking honestly, that's them. They're actually speaking who they are. But that cruelty and that coarseness. I think all of these guys, Ted Cruz or JD Vance, they never used to say the kind of shit they're saying now because they're all cosplaying him. And what I think they fail to realize is that the cadence of presidential cycles is we always go for someone different. We go way different. We're like, okay, we tried that for four, eight years. Now we are ready for something. I mean, Trump just couldn't have been more different than Obama, and Obama couldn't have been much more different than Bush. And I think the future. Sure. And we've been talking about this with various Democrats. I think a guy like James Talarico. Or was it Talarico, the guy out of Texas? Texas. And then Mayor Pete, who talks about family.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah. And has a cool beard. Do you like his rocking beard?

[Unknown]

Yeah, but I think Mayor Pete's. I had Ezra Klein on today and he made a great point. I think Mayor Pete, to a certain extent. Extent. Kind of is this great ad for why America Works. Right. Here's a guy who couldn't have been public about his family and instead talks about how wonderful and meaningful it is to have a healthy relationship and kids. And it's sort of like you hear Mayor Pete talk about it and you're like, wow, progressive America works. It means something for people. And he can talk about it. When James Talarico talks about his faith and loving thy neighbor, I mean, he's to going, I think the next president is literally going to be the 180 of Trump. I think he's going to be kind. Kind or she. Kind, thoughtful.

[Kara Swisher]

Oh, Scott, you're sick.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I know. It's so weird, right?

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to bring you some balm.

[Unknown]

There you go.

[Kara Swisher]

I just want to rub it lovingly on your chest.

[Unknown]

I just want a big, like a big Filipino nurse. With well, moisturized hands that calls me King. I want a nurse that calls me King, and I want to buy.

[Kara Swisher]

I'll call you King.

[Unknown]

All right. Anyways, I'm thinking about having more plastic surgery. I'm going to need a nurse. We'll discuss anyways, but these guys. I think the next one's going to be, if you will. I think the strategy for Democrats is to not even mention the president. I think people are so sick of hearing the rest of the media world would do a job of bringing down after the midterms.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, he's dead. I mean, for. To them and he should be as it. This is something Rahm Emanuel said. He's like, until the midterms. Midterms, you say what you're going to do and even if it's not for reals and after the midterms, he doesn't exist.

[Unknown]

I think that's right. But I think the. I think America is so desperate at this point for kindness, for decency, for family, traditional value, you know, traditional but like values.

[Kara Swisher]

I'm going to run.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I can see that. No, but you. Let's use an example. You're an example of why progressive politics work. The fact that you can be married, have a great career, have children, have a healthy family. You're sort of the American success story. These progressive ideals work and you can speak to with credibility the importance of family and what it means to have a traditional family means people you otherwise wouldn't hang out with and care with. And when you can get it, when you pull down barriers to people loving each other, they're less likely to be attacks on social society. They're more likely to pay their taxes. They're more likely to develop good humans who turn into good citizens who can be great military, nonprofit and business leaders. This shit works.

[Kara Swisher]

Yeah, I agree. I mean, one of the things. I think it'll be hard to elect a gay person, even a man who's as pleasant as Pete Buttigieg. But one of the things that a lot of people say about him and some of the other Democrats I've been interviewing lately, like, you know, even if you disagree with them or you have different problems, it's like sort of, I like the cut of your jib. Like, you know what I mean? I like how you're living your life kind of thing. And I think that's the appeal for a lot of progressives. And there's a lot of them now. There's a lot of them now increasingly who are very appealing. And I think you're Right. Being appealing and feeling genuine is going to be important. You got to, like, watch out the Schumers and the rest of them, they got to go.

[Unknown]

And not being afraid, also not being afraid to be offensive.

[Kara Swisher]

Yep, exactly.

[Unknown]

Yeah. I don't think trans athletes should be able to play sports. Or I think that this guy, I think this guy is a pedophile and that he's clearly covering up things that might be wrong. It's okay. You might be wrong. You might offend 20% of the audience in front of you. That's okay. I think people are ready for it.

[Kara Swisher]

That's all right. I agree. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

[Unknown]

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[Kara Swisher]

And subject to availability.

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[Kara Swisher]

Hunter Biden's three hour interview with Andrew Cowperwood. Callahan started out normally enough lore.

[Unknown]

So you're born here in Delaware or born here in Pennsylvania? In Delaware. Okay. In Delaware. Yeah. Wilmington.

[Kara Swisher]

Small talk.

[Unknown]

What are your thoughts on Wilmington, Delaware? Nice place. Oh, yeah.

[Kara Swisher]

Work, Family. Addiction.

[Unknown]

Anyway, I don't want to tell people how to make crack cocaine.

[Kara Swisher]

He did. Then came the crash out. I hear Rahm Emanuel is gonna run for president.

[Unknown]

Like, oh, boy, there's the amazing answer. There's the answer.

[Kara Swisher]

You have the pod, save America saying, you know, I don't think South Carolina.

[Unknown]

That's only we only.

[Kara Swisher]

What the. I mean, are they out of their minds? Not to be nice.

[Unknown]

Number one, I agree with Quentin Tarantino.

[Kara Swisher]

George Clooney is not, I don't know what it is. He, he, he's a brand. And by the way, and God bless him, we're not picking on him. Keep coming back, Hunter. No, in fact, everybody has been crashing out lately. And today on Today explained from, from Vox, we're gonna ask what's up. Okay, Scott, we're gonna do some wins and fails. I guess I'll go first. Okay, fail. RFK Jr. Again. He's quietly like wrecking everything. He's planning to remove all 16 members of a Cancer Screening and HIV Medication Tax Force because he believes they're too woke. He is. I say this again and again. He's killing people. He's going to kill people. I get the need for change in the healthcare area. I'm doing a whole docu series on it. But the way he's going about it is so political and so nothing to do with science. And because Trump is so loud with all this Epstein stuff, you're not paying attention to this guy. And I just think we need to really focus in on the stuff he's doing to rec science. I have talked to so many scientists, I've gone to so many great places and they're all like doing amazing work and are in fear of getting cut. It's ridiculous. I was in one lab this weekend in Stanford and it's this incredible breakthrough and I'm not gonna go into it, but it's this incredible breakthrough and this lab was run by. It was so full of really amazing people here from other countries. It was also Americans, native born Americans. It was so important that this group of people were here and it's somewhere like Stanford getting funded to do something amazing. And so what RFK Jr is doing is killing people and, and setting back important research for even five years is too much at all. And for win, I do feel that there is a pushback and I loved what the south park guys did and not just because I liked it. It was funny. It was actually funny. It had a lot of resonance. I think they appropriately push back and you have to like them even if you don't agree with them on stuff. And I thought that was just one of the biggest baller moves of all time to do that. I just thought it was like good for you. And it had to have been approved by, I'm assuming Skydance knew of it or at least had some knowledge of it and the executives who let it through, who want to stay there, I think at Paramount, whether they get let go because of that, I don't think they will. I think they hit the target perfectly and Trump richly deserved and so did Paramount, all the attacks they did. So kudos to them. It's kind of a basic one, but kudos to them.

[Unknown]

I like it. I don't have a fail. I'd have two wins. My first win is The. I just didn't. I was not on my radar screen. My win is the great city of Chicago, about 3 million people, third largest in the U.S. i hadn't been there in a while. GDP over almost 800 billion. Headquarters to United Airlines, McDonald's, Walgreens, great universities, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, UIC, DePauw, Loyola, all nationally ranked. Doing a really. I spoke at this Quantum event. I don't know why they're going all in on Quantum, but they are obviously tremendous center for architecture and culture, music and the arts, parks, nature, great food scene, obviously love the sports. I just really, in terms of recognition, it was ranked the number one big city in the US by Connoisseur Traveler and frequently ranked among the top 20 global. I just hadn't thought about going to Chicago. My son said he wanted to go to Chong Choi or Chicago. So I said, okay, we're going to Chicago. But I really enjoyed it and I don't think it gets the attention it deserves. And also the governance there is clearly pretty good because it feels like the quality of life. I have a close friend, my closest friend since the fourth grade, my friend Adam Markman. And he could live anywhere and chooses to live in Chicago. And he says it's basically New York for a lot less money. And my quality of life is really nice here.

[Kara Swisher]

Cold. That's the only thing.

[Unknown]

I like the people, I like the food. So anyways, I was just very. I kind of came over to Chicago.

[Kara Swisher]

Why did you like Chi Town? I love Chicago so much.

[Unknown]

Anyways, and then my other win is I just think the. Whoever the CMO or the marketing or the ad agency for Astronomer is, that was the marketing move move, literally of the year. And it's also launched Gwyneth Paltrow's run for Congress where she's gonna outlaw taxes and pantsuits. So I think this is.

[Kara Swisher]

Step off of her.

[Unknown]

Come on. It's such late stage capitalism. It's literally like, you know what?

[Kara Swisher]

Like you have all kinds of friends that sell supplements and all kinds of nonsense and you don't like, attack them in similar ways.

[Unknown]

Yeah. Anyways, it's. It's. She's like a Bond villain who runs a yoga studio.

[Kara Swisher]

All right, we're okay. Sorry, Gwyneth. Sorry. I don't know what to say. Nice job, Gwyneth.

[Unknown]

Yeah, no, the Gwyneth Paltz version of self care is firing your nanny because she made eye contact during a Mercury retrograde dog right now. Right now. Anyways. But I gotta give it to Astronomer, whoever you are. I don't know if it was the agency. I don't know if it was the cmo. That was. You want to talk about turning chicken shit into chicken sow? That was genius. Chicago and Astronomer are my wins. I don't want to fail.

[Kara Swisher]

Good God.

[Unknown]

I was so off today. I'm sorry, Kara. Sorry, listeners. I was so off.

[Kara Swisher]

No, you're not. You're fantastic. What are you talking about? I'll come and rub some balm on your chest. All right, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com pivot submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe. This week on on with Kara Swisher, I spoke with Julie K. Brown, an investigative reporter with the MIAM whose 2018 series on Epstein led to his second arrest. A really kick ass reporter. Let's listen to what she said about how Epstein's victims are responding to the increased attention surrounding the case. Something I've talked about and why they won't be coming forward. It's sad, but they've been through so much that they're now at this point thinking, well, if the President of the United States is. This is their thinking is covering up for Epstein. I'm not going out there on a limb and trying to say what happened to people me. Because that's big. In fact, one of the. That's exactly what one of the victims told me. This is big. The President of the United States is essentially putting the lid on this case. Shameful. Shameful. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, Gwyneth is going to be sending you a candle to make you feel better. Okay, read us out.

[Unknown]

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Mia Silvero and Dan Shalon. Nishak Kurua is Vox Media's executive producer. Podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] pod we'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Are you having problems? Do what Gwyneth would do. Just look into a mirror and ask yourself, yourself. Are you microdosing your shame.