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- [00:00]
Chris Cuomo
What's happening all over the country with these protests or riots and all of the back and forth. Wrong question. Why is it happening? I know the answer and I'm talking to someone who's going to blow you away about it. Chris Cuomo here. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. We are desperate not for an understanding of what's wrong. We see it all over and you're probably starting to disengage from it again. But why it's happening and how to make it better. Now we're talking about something that's worthwhile. Scott Galloway, entrepreneur, philosopher, social commentator. He's watching and he sees what's going on and he knows what should be done about it. But it seems that he is one of the few, not the many. And so I wanted to sit down with my friend, with my influence, with my compadre, and talk to Scott Galloway about what's happening in la, who's winning, why they're winning, what to do about it, what's behind it, but most importantly for me, what we're not talking about while we're obsessed with this division in the moment, and I'm telling you, it is all manufactured. So what do you say, Scott Galloway? Stuff you haven't thought of. Let's get after it. Scott Galloway, I love you, I appreciate you, I respect you and we need you. And thank you for putting out what you've been putting out.
- [01:41]
Scott Galloway
Thanks, brother. That means a lot coming from you. I feel the same way about you. You're the only, you're the only. You're one of the few newscasters that I retweet pretty consistently. I like your. If I had to identify, is this true? People ask me who, what media companies are straight down the middle and I say the Wall Street Journal. I actually think NPR is actually, they're liberal, but they're self hating liberals. So they always try and give a, do a good job of giving the conservative side. But I think you're as close to kind of straight down the middle as a person I could identify right now in the, in the podcast world. Would you agree with that? People accused you of that before?
- [02:17]
Chris Cuomo
People have certainly acc. Accused me of many things of, of that. Probably not, but it is not a good brand strategy to not be picking a side.
- [02:28]
Scott Galloway
Everybody hates you right now and that's.
- [02:31]
Chris Cuomo
That'S fine because I can't adjust and move fast enough to play that game even if I wanted to. And you know, over time that part of me has just kind of died in terms of being responsive to what People say so much of what is said n and not nice is fake that, you know, I just don't care anymore. Like for instance and a lens on the now in assessing what's happening in Los Angeles specifically. But you know, you see it in Philly, you're seeing it in New York. And when Trump has his parade, that's for the military but for him we're going to see another wave of is incredible. It's not incredible, but it is, it is ridiculous to me how everybody is viewing what's happening through the lens of their own advantage. Luckily you got the majority who are sitting back and saying I don't understand why I don't appreciate what's happening the way these people seem to want me to. And that's the best thing we have going for ourselves, Scott, because it means that they're still reasonable, they're still critical thinkers and they know it doesn't make sense how people are obviously trying to foment situations for their own advantage. Do you see that? Do you perceive that?
- [03:52]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, well, I find that the if we want to talk about what's going on in la, it feels like both sides are looking for a TikTok moment that makes the other side look like either fascists or that they're out of control insurrectionists sowing civil distress that don't have or ignoring federal immigration laws, whatever it might be. Everyone doesn't seem like anyone's actually interested in coming together and solving a problem. They're there to try and deposition the other and I, you know, you know my politics. I'm center left. I find that what's going on in LA is, is basically showing up and trying to fix a, I don't know, a smoke alarm with a flamethrower. I just don't see why we would want to escalate or why the president and, and Hagseth in 1992 I came home from graduate school and during the Rodney King riots and to visit my mom and there was servicemen and service women and they look like high schoolers, but they were in military fatigues with M15s, whatever they used to carry back then on my street corner in a suburb. And I remember thinking that it sort of, it basically feels like when a nation is failing and you have to put tanks on civilian road so you have to put our men and women in uniform. And so I don't, I, I think it's trying to rebrand patriotism with authoritarianism. So I see more fault from the coming from the president here. I think what's interesting. And I'll be curious your take. I think it sort of positions Governor Newsom as a more viable nominee for the Democratic ticket because I think it's shaping up that this is sort of two political philosophies hitting head on. And I think it's very unproductive. I think it's trying to tempt fate. And when I think of the job of the president and the governor, especially the president you have or a grown man or when you get to a certain level of professional success, the, the biggest compliment I get I'm on I serve on several public and private company boards is occasionally I serve as the intermediary between the board and the CEO when they're not getting along. And that's a really, that's a wonderful role to serve because it's saying that both parties will listen to you. The president of the United States is often called on to de escalate skirmishes between Pakistan and India or Iran and Iraq or the Middle east to just try and calm, take the temperature down. And that's what real men do in bars when there's a fight. They take the temperature down. They break up fights. And here we have what feels to me, and I hold the president more culpable here he's trying to start a fight where there doesn't need to be one. I don't see and I'd love to hear the Steelman argument from you, but do we really need the National Guard and threats of deploying Marines right now in Los Angeles? I don't get the sense that there's really a need for this.
- [06:44]
Chris Cuomo
It is absolutely not a need. It is a want and he wants it. This is a wet dream for him what's happening right now. This is a perfect, legitimate, justifiable distraction from economic uncertainty and downturn that is not only on his watch. It is his fault. Nothing that he needs to focus on is going well. This is such a great proxy for maga. Look at these crazy lefties with their pro Palestine. They're protesting against ICE nominally, which I think there are totally righteous and legal reasons to protest what the administration is forcing ICE to do right now. I don't blame the agents, but the mandate is way too broad and too accelerated. But this is a great look for Trump. It is shallow aggression and Macho and Maga people and then probably plus 25% on top of them are pissed off by riots that pose as protests. And the left burning up cities and burning up cop cars like they did during George Floyd. And the left is giving Trump what he needs in terms of the want of his distraction campaign.
- [08:23]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, So a lot there. So I would agree with you, the Democrats, I would argue our hearts in the right place. We go too far and we kind of invite. We stick our chin out and invite an overreaction and.
- [08:33]
Chris Cuomo
And you invite the wrong people to the party. You invite the wrong people to the party. That's the problem with these protests, is that these Guy Fawkes masks show up, the antifa show up, the pro pal, pro Hamas show up, people with their own country flags show up, and it winds up diluting a righteous and rightful pushback against what ICE is doing in a lot of communities, which I do think is worthy of scrutiny. And they blow it, in my opinion.
- [09:07]
Scott Galloway
But I always go back to, you know, I'm one of these old men now. I'll watch anything starring Hitler. I stay up all night watching documentaries on World War II. And I have said, and I've gotten a lot of pushback. That I'm being hysterical is that I think America has a lot of similarities with 30s Germany right now. And if you look at early Nazi propaganda, it was very much emphasized that the real problems were internal, that it was saboteurs, Communists, Jews, immigrants who were the problem. And when we have real, I think, issues with Russian troops and a murderous autocrat invading Europe, China stealing ip, I think some of Trump's instincts were right around an asymmetric trade relationship, Iran spinning up its nuclear capabilities. I think we have real issues overseas. But instead of dealing with those hard problems that are distracting from this tax bill, which I just see as the biggest transfer of wealth from rich to poor, young to old, from the future to the past, you know, it seems like he's taken, and you don't have to be Hitler, to take notes from the playbook of the 30s that were very successful in that he's blaming immigrants, protesters, journalists, academics. It mirrors sort of the same playbook. And it takes me to a very dark place. I worry that, you know, everyone thinks of America as just being so big and bold that America, you know, America ends with a civil war and it goes out with a bang. I think America could very easily kind of go out of business with a whimper. And it goes something like this. And that is. And I think this is a step towards it or potential. A potential piece on the chessboard, and that is Governor Newsom says, Look, fuck it, I'm sick of sending $80 billion for you to deploy national troops against peaceful protests. We're no longer going to. They're a net creditor to the US government. They send $80 billion more than they take and Texas takes 70 billion more than it sounds. And Governor Newsom, we're sick of this. And then, or Texas, if say Governor Newsom or a mayor Pete are elected in the president in 2028, say we aren't certifying the election. We're not, we're not. We don't sign up for this president. And then slowly but surely you have California, which is the fourth largest economy in the world. Tech based economy does a lot of trade with Asia. The South Texas leads an oil based economy that does a lot of trade with the Middle east and Latin America. The east coast becomes very Europe centric. A lot of trade, a lot of financial services, a lot of tech. Midwest becomes a manufacturing economy. Its strongest trading partners become Mexico and Canada and then they develop their own currencies. They do what DeSantis did in 2022, weaponize or deputize civilians and we essentially become the European Union. And that is a kind of a series of member states. And America kind of breaks apart with sort of hush tones without like a lot of sirens, but sort of just, you know, very kind of background, you know, white noise. So I, I look at this stuff, I look at 30s Germany and I look at how America ends and I find this stuff really, really frightening. I think the winner here is probably Governor Newsom because the little, that's what I have seen of him is he's been fairly forceful yet dignified and. But I don't, you know, I just hope at all the temperature gets taken down because when I talk to my friends, I grew up in la, when I talk to my friends, they're like I. And maybe it's because they're privileged and they live in good neighborhoods. Like, I don't see any real problem here. The protests I've seen have been pretty, pretty peaceful.
- [12:40]
Chris Cuomo
Well, look, there's plenty of bad going on. It's always like that. And it is what you want to see. If you want to see protests, you see protests. You want to see people who are harming people and property and going after cop cars and everything else that's there too. Is it by percentage? It doesn't matter. Once, once there's any of it, you can see whatever you want to see. So are they protest? Yes. Are they largely protest? Yes. Are they only protest? No. Does Newsom win? Depends on the lens. His party, what the people in the streets want. He is not their guy. And for him this could go two ways. One his state's on fire again, Scott. And he doesn't seem to be in control of it. And that is fair. He doesn't seem to be in control. Him vs. Homan is a decent look for him. We'll see how he handles it. I think Newsom does way too much lefty media. He's got to expose himself to less safe harbors. Can't just be talking to every little bookish ms, you know, correspondent they send out there. But his party isn't where he is. That's why he's been trying to distance himself from the party. I get it. My review of it is on a macro level that you look at it. I see why you see what you see. Although it's interesting because the founding fathers, many of them wanted exactly what you're describing. I mean, even Jefferson, you know, a lot of them wanted this loose association of member states. But I think federalism has a lot of pluses for us. But let's put that to the side. America is unique in one way that really matters right now. Versus the EU versus the Middle East, South America, pretty much any other conglomerate you can look at. We make up our own problems here. Nobody else does it to the degree that we do. Everybody else, that's dealing with real shit, even Russia, okay, they have real problems that are a threat to them. We have made ours up. Our culture wars. What's going on in Los Angeles? This is completely contrived, Scott. We don't have a murderous hoard of illegal entrants in this country right now that are creating tension for our own safety, transports, reproductive rights, the legitimacy of our elections. These are all manufacturing factored things. Lake and Riley. You should see how MAGA goes crazy when I say the following thing and I'll do it again, cuz I love dumb and crazy. It's my favorite combination when I'm sparring someone who's really angry and I know hasn't studied what we're about to do. This is going to be great because it's all emotion and no technique. And I'm going to take them right down. Lake and Riley mattered. Her family's pain matters. But if you care about who's killing Lake and Rileys in this country, you'll never arrive at a legal entrance. And they say one is too many. And I'm so mad at you for not seeing that one is too many. That is not a standard that we apply anywhere. And they'll grandstand and say but it matters. They shouldn't be here. It's always been that way we've always had people in this country who didn't come in legally. Should you limit it? Of course. But the idea that that's the boogeyman to focus on is propaganda. But we make it up, Scott. That's what makes us different. We make it up here.
- [16:20]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, we're, we're definitely. If this is a horror film, the call is coming from inside of the house. We're energy dependent, we're food independent. We have unparalleled natural resources. We're the largest oil producer in the world and the largest producer of chips for AI. So we cover the whole stack. From a blessing and unearned blessing of commodities to being able to create, you know, the best IP in the world through our universities that result in exports that get 95 points of gross margin. Our stock market has been absolutely unparalleled. We used to be 10% of the world CDP. Now we're, you know, a quarter of it. Demographically we're actually look pretty good versus other western nations. Friendly Canada to the north, harmless Mexico to the south. Our problems are of our own. Absolutely. Of our own. Manufacturing.
- [17:11]
Chris Cuomo
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- [20:10]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, the parade, what's going on in la, the, even the Elon stuff, it's all what I call weapons of mass distraction. Because I think he recognizes that the most politically unsavory thing he's doing for his voter base is if they wake up and realize that we're about to register. Just, I mean, I uploaded the tax plan into ChatGPT yesterday and I asked it to summarize it. I did two things and it came back with a summary. It said this is authoritarianism wrapped in bureaucratic language. It focused on the transfer of power from civil servants who are career appointees to Trump appointees. That was the first thing ChatGPT zeroed in on. And it also told me that I'm going to save about $1.2 million. And I figured out, meanwhile, the reason I'm in a position to make this much money is because I got the chance to go to college because of something called Pell Grants, because I came from a home that had, that was in the lowest quartile of income earning homes. And, and this bill, in this bill, a third appel grant recipients are going to have their grant amount reduced or eliminated. And I think you're just going to see, I mean, I've heard anywhere from 7 to 14 million people being thrown off of Medicaid rolls. I mean, this really is a bill. And I said, what? What percentage of the population is going to get a tax cut? And it said between 5 and 12% of the top will get a tax cut. Depending on your situation, state and local taxes, the middle will either be kind of even or negative, but the bottom half is definitely going to see most likely a tax increase. And then the biggest tax increase is going to happen on future generations who will have to manage an unsustainable debt load. I mean, deficits, The Democrats don't do a good job of labeling what deficits are. They're just taxes on your kids. Kids are going to have to pay them back. So I think I agree with you. I think that immigration is still his most popular subject matter. And he absolutely wants to get people to look from this tax bill, which is really, really going after his core constituents. It's when you look at the people this is going to hurt the most. It's very much people in red states. So I think he doesn't want people to focus on the GOP tax bill and as you said, manufacturing kind of these distractions.
- [22:22]
Chris Cuomo
And he's getting exactly what he wants and the left is handing it to them. And again, like you said it very well, your heart's in the right place. ICE is doing what it's told to do. Trump is trying to get rid of too many people too easily, too quickly. Now, is that a legitimate criticism? Yes. Is it a politically saleable one? Maybe. You'd have to go heavy on the due process side, and you would have to create an appeal for a group of people that are easy to fear and hate. Illegal entrance. And on the gross political level, Trump wins this current fight. Why? So you're protesting against ICE that is trying to enforce the law and get rid of people who aren't here legally, many of whom have done shady shit. Yes, I'm protesting it. So you're against enforcing the law? Yeah, I'm against it with some of these people. Yeah, I'm against it. Okay, so then you're scofflaw and you're not a real patriot, and I am. Trump wins if you can get to the next level of it. Well, you said it was just bad hombres, and you're not just sweeping up bad hombres. You're screwing with the connective tissue in a lot of communities. One, a lot of white Americans and Trump voters don't see it that way or don't realize that. And Two, it's not as politically powerful as being law and order. So there are legitimate reasons to be going at ice and how they're being used 100%. I'm going to do it tonight on the show. I'm going to do it with Tom Holman on the show. That's not what these look like. These look like pro. I don't know why they let the pro Palestinian people be at the head of this. Why would they do that? Why would they make it so easy?
- [24:19]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, the messaging to create resistance. They should have American flags, not Mexican flags. But we don't really want to have an honest conversation around this. And it, and I mean, we constantly say we're a nation of immigrants. Right. But what people don't want to have a nice conversation around is one, the most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration. Because they come in, Yep. They pay Social Security taxes, but they typically don't stick around for Social Security because they're worried about being rounded up in aggregate. They commit crimes and have a, they, they tax to a lesser extent, our social services. They don't like to go to the emergency room. They don't like to call the, they don't, they pay taxes, but they don't use social services. And they are a flexible workforce the likes of which they come in, pick our crops, take care of grandma, and when the jobs drive up or the recession or the economy goes down, at which point a lot of Americans start to become socially expensive through welfare or other benefits, they oftentimes melt back into their own country. And if we were serious about illegal immigration, we would go after the demand side. And if you show up, 25% of fast food workers in a lot of regions in our country are undocumented workers. Showed up, if you showed up to McDonald's or chick fil A and said, we're going to do random spot checks and if you have over 3% of your workforce is illegal immigrants, we're going to find you a million bucks a day. They would stop, they would figure out biometric ways to, to screen for undocumented workers. And once the jobs weren't here, they would leave. That would be the most efficient means of self deportation. But the thing is we don't want to go after those nice business owners. Right. And also the reality is we didn't wake up and have whatever it is, 20 or 30 million, whatever number you want to buy of undocumented workers. This has been profitable for us. They're this flexible, low cost, low wage workforce that is actually quite skilled relative to what they charge. But we don't want to have an honest conversation. And Democrats appear to be. Democrats screwed up that terrible imagery of handing out phone cards and Harris walls hats and getting them hotel rooms when Americans can't afford their own housing. We invited this, we stuck out a chin and this fists of stone of this overreaction where they started demonizing immigrants came in. But it just feels like no one really wants to have an honest conversation.
- [26:41]
Chris Cuomo
No, they want to win. They want to win, Scott. They want advantage over the other side. I am obsessed with this and of all of my frustrations about my professional self, this is at the top of the list. I know I am right. Not just in a simple way, in a profound way, that the party system, the two party system, the binary system and its zero sum nature is killing us. I know I am right. Every different mode of analysis, whether you look at it through the historic lens, Washington took almost a quarter of his farewell address that was written with Madison first and then Hamilton to deliver that message. Hungarian will kill you. Parties will kill you. We saw it again and again with Monroe and Teddy Roosevelt and presidents and great thinkers. So we've feared this and we understand why they feared it. You now look at the state of play of politics. Everything gets passed through the same filter. Who's this worse for? Who's this worse for? Why do you go all in on Musk versus Trump? That's, it's a little interesting. The richest man, the most powerful man. Okay, but why? Because it's bad for Trump. Although I actually believe that Elon is one of the few people that made Trump look more dignified in conflict. I've never, never seen that before. But the left and the media go all in on it because of that. It's bad for one side. The guy Garcia they're bringing back from else from El Salvador, the Democrats go down there when they didn't go to East Palestine, Ohio. And this is the guy you're fighting for? This is the guy that you want to make it about? An MS.13 gang member who hit his own fucking wife. This is the guy that you want to say we're going to go down there, we're going to die on this hill. Really? That is what it's all about, our politics now, gross advantage. How do I make it seem that the other side is crazy? So you got to be with me, even though that's all I'm offering you, is that they're worse. That's what it all is. That's the way this current situation is being processed and I don't know how to communicate this. If you could get people to leave the parties and then you have this really tricky systemic thing because we've allowed the parties to dominate our process in such fulsome fashion. You have to have your primaries opened up like in New York State. It's fucking crazy. The party deadline to switch parties was February and all the primaries are closed. So you have to change that on the state level, otherwise you gotta be in a party in too many places. But if you could get people to get away from the parties and just judge what's in the value proposition and get them away from being trained of why they gotta value their side, I know we'd wind up at a better place. I know it, I know it's our salvation. But I don't know how to communicate it. And I don't know how to break the grip of advantage with all these podcasters and people in the media who play to one side and win. Like this jackass Benny Johnson who said I'm deploying to LA like he's going to war and that he's showing everything on the ground from the perspective of how crazy the left is. And he's killing it. He's killing it with clicks. Killing it. And he is feeding what's killing us.
- [30:12]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, a lot there, like always is, brother.
- [30:15]
Chris Cuomo
I speak in bundles.
- [30:17]
Scott Galloway
Well, look, the, the algorithms, the social media algorithms will always. They're like a Tyrannosaurus rex. They like movement and they like violence. So if someone says they're putting on their, their vest and getting their zip ties and deploying to la, that gets a lot of clicks. And the conservative part of our country has been underserved from media that was largely dominated by college educated progressives. And so the podcasters, NAM Radio and Fox just drove a truck through that underserved community. But we now see, now the algorithms basically try and identify as left or right and basically gerrymander you and say, okay, we're going to try and take you as far left or as far right as possible. And the right has really kind of conflated leadership with coarseness and cruelty, which I think is bad for America. And the far left has said we're more interested in grabbing social virtue than actually addressing the material or the psychological well being of Americans. And until, until we figure out a way to create economic incentives for more nuanced, thoughtful discussion online, which I don't see happening. And until you can do away with Citizens United or gerrymandering such that every Political race isn't really the, the primary and isn't a contest to say who can we elect that's crazier from the left and crazier from the right also. Long winded way of saying just moving to solutions. I really am now a big believer. I'm spending more time in D.C. i do think one potential solution is mandatory national service. And when I look at the great legislation of the 60s and 70s, and while it was really robust, rigorous debate, we got a lot accomplished. It was because most of our elected leaders had served in the same uniform and they did see themselves as Americans before they saw themselves as Democrats or Republicans. I think we would very much benefit from mandatory national service. It wouldn't have to be military. It could be a smoke jumper, it could be senior care, it could be helping in dog shelters, whatever it is. But I think young people, we need a future. We need the next generations to see themselves as Americans first, not Republicans or Democrats. Because to your point, supposedly a third of people no longer speak to their neighbors because of their political affiliation. Young men and women aren't hooking up because they get turned off by the fact that women have gone slightly more progressive, but young men have gone a lot more conservative. Can you. Do you remember when we were dating in our 20s and 30s, Chris? Do you remember anyone's politics? I had no idea what their politics were. We just didn't talk about it. And now it's another reason why people aren't connecting and forming relationships. So I'm very much a believer. And we need. To your point, Americans have to recognize that we're still each other's greatest allies and we need to start acting like it and restoring that sense of Americanism. My last thought around national services. Some of the lowest levels of young adult and teen depression in a democracy are in Israel. And they think a lot of it is because of mandatory national service. One, they're outside, they're fit. They're doing something in the agency, something bigger than themselves. They're meeting friends, mentors and mates. I'm on the board of two Israeli companies. All the co founders met each other on the idf. I think we would really benefit from. From national service.
- [33:33]
Chris Cuomo
I do too. I get what the pushback would be. I get what the fear is. I remember growing up with all the ads on TV for selective service and the people with their satin jackets that said selective service on the back. And I remember thinking about it and my family wound up shuffling me off to a military school that was a feeder to the academies and Thinking through it there as well, I would definitely be in favor of it. I would definitely put my kids into it. I think it would be good for us. But I have not seen the will in America to do anything that causes any kind of pain. And the only time I've seen us come together and beat back the exigency of advantage, which now is really just profiteering and selective outrage as a form of branding in digital media. 9, 11. And that is one reason, although I'm not doing it out of contrivance, I talk a lot about extremism in America as the number one national security threat. The number one domestic national security threat is fundamentalism. And whether it's, you know, white dudes with bad attitudes who look like you or the jihadis or the guy who shot the healthcare CEO or the guy who went to the Israeli embassy or the guy who bombed the IVF clinic, they're all fundamentalists. And they've all arrived at the same conclusion, which is the west, our democracy, our culture, has to be destroyed. And I am seeing for the first time that our mainstream politics seems more like the extremism than it does like a moderating force. So I don't know who's in the business of fixing it. I just know that everybody is in the business of taking advantage of the dynamic and of the tension, and we're seeing it right now. Who is saying, what's happening in LA needs to stop, and you need to have a conversation about what ICE is doing and how they're doing it and what the real goals are. Nobody, nobody is saying that. Why? Who the fuck wants to hear that? I'm not tuning in for that. I'm not clicking on that. I want to see Chris Cuomo in the million of the middle of that thing, punching somebody with a pro Palestine flag, you know, who comes up and waves it during his shot, or him getting grabbed by some National Guard guy who doesn't want the media to be reporting on what they're doing. And he gets into it with, that's what I want to see. And we're killing ourselves. I know we're killing ourselves. Support comes from select quote. Okay, now here's the deal, all right? If you're the head of the household, if you have responsibilities, you've got to think about what happens if there's a God forbid, involving you, okay? And insurance is part of that. Now here's the problem. Insurance reeks of being scammed, okay? Because everyone's trying to get over on you. It gets really complicated and really Expensive really fast. And that's why I'm pitching you. Select Quote. Select Quote is one of America's leading insurance brokers. They've got 40 years of experience, the opposite of fly by night, and they've helped over 2 million of us to find over 700 billion in coverage since way back in 1985. Now, again, other life insurance brokers offer these impersonal one size fits all policies that may cost you more and actually cover you less. See Select Quotes, Licensed insurance agents. They work for you and they're there to tailor a life insurance policy for your individual needs. And then they can do it really fast. It's in as little as 15 minutes. Get the right life life insurance for you for less@SelectQuote.com Chris C. Go to SelectQuote.com Chris C today and get started. That's SelectQuote.com Chris C. So crystallizing moment for me. Positive one and a negative one. I'll do the positive first. Scott Galloway, I love the attention you're getting. I love the message that you're delivering. I love how confusing it is in terms of type. Wealthy guy made it as an entrepreneur talks about how entrepreneurs and capitalism, that wealth without responsibility is nothing but greed. We're not used to hearing that, about how the marginal utility of making more than $10 million a year isn't worth what it takes away from everything else. You never hear that. And you know then about your social politics and everybody wants to hear you. Everybody wants you around my kids. You have three generations of admirers in my family. Three generations. You are the positive. The negative is I'm watching Rogan and he has a hack comedian on who's a clever guy who has decided to make a market and being a libertarian, which just means I'm smarter than you. But a libertarian does nothing. Libertarians do nothing. They've run nothing. They've controlled nothing. They've won nothing ever. So it's just a brand. And he's talking about Gaza and Israel like he fucking knows something. And Douglas Murray is there and he is dismantling the arguments of this guy with Rogan, with his mouth slightly ajar, going, yeah, yeah.
- [39:18]
Scott Galloway
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [39:20]
Chris Cuomo
I don't know, I don't know. And I'm looking at it and I was like, here's the problem. Here it is. Here it is. Rogan, mouth breather, seen as a proxy for most males who want it to be okay, to be simple and aggressive. And that's all Smith. Clever, patronizing, twisting, misinforming, playing to break it all, disrupt the norms. That makes me better because I want to attack the democracy and Douglas Murray mocking them. British accent, so effete. A lefty you love to hate, but completely right about everything he's saying. And in a metaphor, this was America. Who won that debate? Totally depends what you want to see. And it wasn't even close. Scott, Dave Smith has never even been to the Middle east, okay? He has no idea what the reality is the way I do, or so many people who do what I do, who've been in the west bank, who've been there, who've been in Israel, who understand the dynamic from watching it and living it and seeing the people and who they love and who they hate and how he doesn't get any of it. But all of MAGA thinks he won. All of Rogan's guys think he won. And all they care about is who won. Nobody took away anything from it. That's our dynamic. And I don't know how to fix it, except ridiculously severe crisis. That's the only thing I know that can lock us out of a gratuitous manufactured division is where someone's coming to kill all of us. The pandemic wasn't enough. You needed to have like 50 million people die for that. To make people look past inconvenience and to galvanize. So I don't know what it is, but it's going to have to be terrible. Otherwise we're going to stay locked in this. What do I have wrong?
- [41:18]
Scott Galloway
Like, I, you're. I go to, I, I think beyond, obviously this, this manufactured crises because we're angry at each other because we don't have real problems. You know, often sometimes when I get into argument with my partner, I'm like, God help you when we have a real problem. You know, I've been reading a lot of Buddhism lately and I love that statement that the healthy man has thousands of problems. The one with bad health has one problem.
- [41:44]
Chris Cuomo
Yes.
- [41:45]
Scott Galloway
And you're right. The last time. I think you're right. I think the last time we came together was around 9, 11. I think if there's, if you were to reverse engineer all of this though, to something that creates the underlying incendiary. I do think it's income inequality. I think that while if you actually look at the numbers, the poor and the middle class have actually kind of held their own, they're not doing as poorly as people think. Their consumption taxes have gone up, their prosperity or purchasing power has probably gone down in terms of housing and Education, but they still have remarkable entertainment, fairly cheap calories, cheap clothing. But the problem is what's shoved in their face is what has happened in America similar to what William Gibson predicted about the future. And that is prosperity is here. We have recognized more prosperity in the last 10 years than all of Europe since World War II in terms of an increase in market capitalization of our companies. There's more prosperity than in history in this country. The problem is it's not evenly distributed. And even if you're doing okay, maybe even a little bit better, 210 times a day on your phone you get wealth porn that basically highlights how someone you know is on a Gulf stream or partying in St. Barts and the human brain is okay, I know someone that got into mit. I know someone who bought the Trump coin the Friday before and is up tenfold. And it feels as if everyone around me is succeeding except for my son, except for me. And I woke up one day and realized, wow, I have $20,000 in one of the 40% of House American households that has medical or dental debt. And for the first time in our nation's history, our 30 year old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30. And that creates rage and shame. That's a breakdown of the fundamental compact when for the first time in our 275 year history, your kids aren't doing as well as you were. And I think it creates rage and shame. And then that rage and shame is speedballed by algorithms that want to pit us against one, want to pit us against one another. And then you know, the topic I'm really focused on and every kind of nail, you know, every, every, I'm a hammer. So everything I see as a nail is that young men especially are really, are really struggling.
- [43:56]
Chris Cuomo
And nobody wants to hear that. It's one of my favorite pieces of what you're putting out right now. And everybody's like, oh, poor white privileged males or any males you can't rape and take over all the places of business and all the opportunities anymore. Poor you. You have to compete with other people called women for school places.
- [44:19]
Scott Galloway
Poor you. Yeah, and I'm so first off, I'm sensitive to the gag reflex and that is, we've had a 3,000 year head start. People of our age, if you look at being born a white heterosexual male, which I was in the 60s, I think you were born in the early 70s.
- [44:37]
Chris Cuomo
70.
- [44:38]
Scott Galloway
The 70, there you go. The amount of prosperity that has been crammed into America, I bet we're 60% of the global GDP growth and not only are we only 25% of the population, but all of that immense prosperity was crammed into a third of the population. And that's specifically white heterosexual males. So I had an unnatural wind in my sales. I acknowledge that I can understand why someone would be very reticent or find it somewhat repulsive if I'm complaining about anything resembling my plight. I deserve that pushback. But what people don't understand is they're holding a 19 year old's problems or they're discounting them because of the unfair advantage I earned. And the reality is in our country today, and this is a wonderful thing, you'd rather be born gay or non white than poor. And if you're a poor young man or come from the lower, lower, say median, it doesn't matter if you're white or non white, your prospects are really dim right now. Women under the age of 30 are making more money than men in urban centers, which is a great thing. Men are four times more likely to kill themselves, three times more likely to be addicted. We don't have a homeless crisis or an opiate crisis. We have a male homeless and a male opioid crisis and they're 12 times more likely to be incarcerated. And also what it ends up is that if you look at where boys come off the tracks and really become more likely to engage in self harm or be incarcerated, it's when they lose a male role model. And we have the most single parent homes in America. And even saying that boys need men involved in their lives triggers people on the far left. And what it ends up, if you look at the majority of the research, is that that while boys are physically stronger, they're mentally and emotionally weaker. And we don't want to acknowledge that. Empathy is not a zero sum game. You know, gay marriage didn't hurt heteronormative marriage, civil rights didn't hurt white people. But you have a situation in America where young men are really struggling, they're struggling to attach to work, to attach to school, to attach to a relationship. And what it ends up is that while there's this myth of the young woman who can't find a husband, oh, that's the big tragedy. It ends up that actually men need relationships more than women. Widows are happier after their husband dies, when they're married, widowers are less happy. And if a young man isn't in a relationship or cohabitated with someone, isn't married or cohabitated with someone, by the time he's 30. There's a 1 in 3 chance he ends up being a substance abuser. So the war between the genders, for me, I've been coaching some people who are thinking about running for president. I'm like, it's all about restoring alliances. Restoring alliances with our great Western Democratic trading partners have incredible prosperity through mutual trade. It's not a zero sum game. But also, I think we need to restore the alliance between the greatest amongst the greatest alliance in history. And that is an alliance between men and women. And the genders in America have figured out a way to hold the other responsible. Men believe that the rise of women has come at their cost. Young men, that's not true at all. That hasn't hurt men. Women rising, it hasn't hurt them at all. And women, rather than saying, okay, men have problems, want to say, men are the problem problem. And if you go on TikTok, you see a big theme of how women are taking their life into their hands when they go on a date with a man, that they could be unalived by that man, and they're just not looking at the data. Like, 2500 women are murdered each each year by men. That is unacceptable. And 70% of those women are murdered by someone who knows them. But 40,000 men each year kill themselves. So the guy you're on a date with is 16 times more likely to go home and hurt himself than hurt you. You're four times as likely to die in a car ride to your date. You're more likely to die of choking on the date or drown if you're near a body of water. So this notion somehow that we tend to pathologize all young men, you know, label them as predators or evil, it's not helping. And I say this to, you know, I coach a lot of young men. My basic message to them is, you need to level up. It's not up to women to lower their standards. They shouldn't have to, nor are they going to. You have to increase your standards in your game yourself. You have to start making some money. You have to start working out. You have to develop a rap. You have to develop some persistence. You have to learn the skills of making a woman expressing romantic interest while making a woman feel safe. But also women on the left who feed into these algorithms of talking about basically pathologizing men and having absolutely no empathy for the real issues that young men are facing right now, that's not helping either. So I would like to see not only a reconnection or a Restoration of our great economic alliances with our great democracies overseas. But for me, step one is men need to celebrate the progress of women. They need to start protecting women. If a woman who's 14, who is raped, who is non white, we need to figure out a way such that woman feels safe and has access to family planning. Women on the street, men need to move to protection. It should be, be. It should be an age where women feel safe on the subway because there's men on the subway. Not in spite of that. We need to do a better job of leaning into our masculinity and giving, making women feel really safe. And at the same time, I think that we need to stop this demonization and this pathology, you know, pathologizing young men. They are really struggling. And this. You want to look at how we, we reelected an insurrectionist as president. The three groups that went hardest, from blue to red 2020-24 were 1. Latinos who don't want to be identified as a group. The Mexican Americans in Southern California are much different than Cuban Americans in Southern Florida. Number two is people under the age of 30 who are 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago, whereas 70 year olds are 72% wealthier. And then they. The number three group was the most interesting and that is women between the ages of 45 and 64. And my thesis, Chris, is that that's young men's mothers because there's still a lot of women in America who will vote for who they perceive have the best interests of their husbands or their sons. We were expecting this election to be a referendum on women's rights. Women's rights did not show up. What this was was a referendum on struggling young men and the people who are worried about them. And Donald Trump, to his credit, flew into the manosphere crypto rockets Joe Rogan, whereas all Democrats were clutching our pearls and say the assault on women is going to turn out people. It didn't. What turned out people was their concern over their son and trying to recast a more aspirational vision of masculinity, which Trump was able to do.
- [51:27]
Chris Cuomo
Listen, you know that things are off. The economy is all about uncertainty. You got wars overseas, you got inflation, you got borrowing costs, you got consumer issues, you got food issues. Every time you turn on the news, another bank has problems. So question, what are you doing to deal with the uncertainty to protect what you've built for your family? That's why people are turning to gold and silver. What is old and trusted is new again, not because it's trendy, but because it works. When the system shakes, real assets matter. This is something you can hold, that you can trade, that you can count on. It's not a maybe, it's a hedge, but there's a trap. And this. This is what no one tells you. But I will. It's not just about buying gold. You got to buy the right kind. Now, what does that mean? Well, you know these flashy ads, special edition coins, celebrity endorsements, Those are about taking your money, not protecting it. Big commissions. They don't tell you about bad deals. Look, I know about people who have gotten burned, and sometimes you can't bounce back. That's why I am partnering with Dr. Kirk Elliot, double PhD, 20 years in the game, and let me tell you something, one of the few guys, when he says he puts people before profits, he can back it up. No pressure, no gimmicks, just real bullion. Gold and silver that you can use, sell and trust anywhere in the world. No matter what's going Right now, Dr. Kirk and his team are right and ready at Kepm and offering free consultations. We all got questions. Guess what? They've got answers. Go to kepm.com cuomo k-e p m Kirk Elliot@precious metals.com cuomo and you'll get straight talk. This is about finding certainty in uncertain times. Get smart, get moving, before the next shock hits. So somebody looks at what's happening in the country, specifically la, and says, good for Trump. Go in there, calm that place down. Fucking crazy. People who hate law and order hate the country. What do you say to them?
- [54:21]
Scott Galloway
Well, what's the end game here? What, What?
- [54:26]
Chris Cuomo
I mean, law and order, gen. Obey the law. Stop destroying your own community. Let ICE agents do their job, which is getting people who aren't supposed to be here out of the country.
- [54:38]
Scott Galloway
And I think there are less destructive ways that don't risk this type of fissure in our society, don't threaten people's way of living. Don't. I mean, I see a tank on the street, I see people, I see the reserve on the street. And it makes me feel like as a country, we're failing. And I wonder what I would ask them is, do you really think. Do you have friends in la? Call them. Do they feel unsafe? Is. I mean, there's been some mayors who've refused orders from Homan. I think that was a mistake. But do you really think this warrants this type of. What I would argue is an overreaction? And do you feel as if the Federal government should be in the business of de escalating versus escalating. I get the narrative, but what's the net end here? And also I don't see the President threatening to send in the National Guard into any states that are governed by Republicans. This feels very politically motivated to your point. I mean, it feels like a distraction. You know, a lot of people call me and say, what do I do? And I'm like, well, one, you can't respond to everything. You don't need to tweet about Musk and Trump. What are you passionate about? What are you knowledgeable about? Focus in on one or two things. I'm focused on the war in Ukraine and income inequality and you know, how that's impacting struggling young men. And I talk about that on my social media platforms. I don't spend a lot of time talking about the Trump must feud. Focus on the things you know, talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors, put out data driven, kind of non emotional data points. If you're willing to engage in peaceful protests, God love you, I think that's really important. And then try and rally your friends and take your time, treasure and talent and vote for people you think have a better vision for America in 26. But I don't, I don't think what's happening in LA is especially productive. I think that's a pretty, I don't, I don't know, you probably know better than me how it's playing in the polls, but I don't like seeing tanks on the street. I don't, I think this again strikes me as massive over correction, overcorrection.
- [56:36]
Chris Cuomo
It's all red, blue filter. If you, if you are red, you see one thing, if you're blue, you see another. So the reciprocal question is somebody says Trump is the next coming of Hitler. He's a despot, he wants authoritarianism. He just is too stupid to figure out how to make it happen. And you see what he's doing with ice. He's using them as a gestapo. They are right to protest in the streets and to get angry, we have to get angry. That's the only way we get back in power and beat him. We're too soft. What do you say?
- [57:10]
Scott Galloway
Well, I agree with most of that. So I think echoes. I think when you're attacking academic institutions, when you're trying to normalize violence by saying you're going to pardon the people who were found guilty of organizing a kidnapping plot against a Democratic governor, I think when you're threatening media outlets and saying I won't let you merge unless you pay me $25 million. I think that cutting off research, I think a lot of these things feel. And threatening your latest enemy, Trump, with deporting him. I think a lot of this feels very authoritarian and picking winners and losers, even like US Steel saying we need a golden share so the government can control this company. That's socialism. I don't. What the hell are they doing getting involved in US Steel? Deciding which mergers should go through. Also, the demonization. If you look at the actual definition of fascism, people are very prone to throw out that word and not understand what it means. It means extreme nationalism. We're getting taken advantage of the notion. We've been getting taken advantage of by global trading partners for the last 40 or 50 years. You could make the argument meet with China. But on the whole, as global trade has increased, we have disproportionately sequestered a disproportionate amount of those spoils from global trade. Now, have we left people behind in manufacturing states? Have some people been on the wrong end of it? Yes. But as global trade has increased, so has our material wealth disproportionately. We import in a Mercedes that has eight points of gross margin. We export an Nvidia chip that has 95 points of gross margin. I mean our. Every time we trade back and forth, whoever owns the bananas that are bringing in, they're adding 10 cents on the doll shareholder value. When we export our services or our social media or our media, we get three or four bucks for every dollar that they pay us in market capitalization. So it is. It has been wildly accretive to us. So this national, extreme nationalization that we've been taking been taken advantage of makes no sense. This whole America for first, if you want prosperity, you want other countries to be prosperous such that they can buy more of our Big Bank Theory reruns and our Nvidia microprocessors. Two, it's the demonization of immigrants. I think we've seen this. And three, it's refusal to condemn violence against your political enemies. And I think we're seeing this now. And so I'm very sensitive to the fact that a lot of this has echoes back to 30s Germany. And what people don't recognize is if you were to pick one nation that over the last 200 years is the most progressive, enlightened, great economic growth, an appreciation for the arts, music, education, appreciation for trying to be like more human, better humanity. I think most people or most scholars would pick Germany but it had this 11 year descent into darkness. And a lot of the things that led up to that nationalism and economic shock, or that's not, we don't have that yet. An economic shock, youth, young men who have more time than prospects, a lack of economic romantic prospects of feeling in a, you know, we're sort of one economic shock away from what feels to me like 1935 or 1936 Germany. So I'm very sensitive to the fact that basically and in this bill, this big beautiful tax bill, they want to transfer power from career civil servants to appointed agencies. They want to make it impossible to hold anyone in the Trump administration in contempt of court, meaning they can, can refuse all requests to come testify or appear before Congress. So if you upload, if you upload ChatGPT, like I said into, or if you upload the big beautiful bill into ChatGPT and say, summarize this into one sentence, the sense isn't about economic transfer, it's not about taxation or deficits. It comes back and says this is authoritarianism wrapped in bureaucratic language. AI looks at this 812 tax bill, page tax bill and goes, this isn't a tax bill. This is an attempt to transfer power to the White House. And that frightens me. And when congressional Republicans are willing to acquiesce congressional power, power of the purse to Trump and his, his appointee, and we seem to have decided that your rights are perfectly correlated to your money, I'm not worried. What I see is people on the right are willing to have an autocrat and by the way of Democrats and a third of Republicans are in favor of an autocrat as long as that person shares their views. So the right got their autocrat. And Republicans seem to be comfortable with coarseness and cruelty being conflated with leadership. These are hard decisions, but we need to make these decisions. And then on the far left, the most powerful among us, the 1 percenters, clutch our pearls in private but don't actually do anything about it because we're about to get richer. And that's the conspiracy here, the conspiracy in America between the most powerful and Trump. Even those who don't like what he's doing is that we are going to make more money. And also our rights have become totally correlated to your economic well being. The 1% is now protected by the law, but they're not bound by it, Whereas the bottom 99 are bound by the law, but they're not protected by it. And as a Jew, I can see an environment where they start rounding up Immigrants or Jews, they're rounding up people right now and they're sending them to concentration camps. And people get triggered when I say that term. The definition of a concentration camp is an off site detention center where the people sent there are no longer protected by the laws of their native country. There was a reason that Auschwitz was in Poland. We are rounding up people, many of them incorrectly, and sending them to concentration camps. But if they start doing that to Jews, I can shove a, you know, a cold storage wallet full of 10, 20, $30 million in Bitcoin up my ass and peace out to Milan. I'm fine. If someone in my life gets pregnant, I will have no pro. I could be in deepest, darkest red Mississippi. And if someone in my life has an unwanted pregnancy, I can figure it out in 24 hours because I have money. If Steve Bannon, who has said I should be sued by the Trump administration, comes after me, or even the administration comes after me, I can fucking lawyer up like no tomorrow. So my rights in America and rights in America have become a function of how much money you have, which has created an incentive system where the wealthy and the most powerful amongst us, we speak out. But do we really mean it? Are we really going to try and change things? Because the 1%, the global, the kind of what I'll call the transnational oligarchs, have rights that permeate borders. We can find a place where we're safe. We can find a place where our daughters aren't under threat for an unwanted pregnancy. We can find a place where we have all sorts of First Amendment or protective rights. But my sense is America, or at least the American vision I have, is that it's about ensuring the rights of kind of the bottom half more than anyone. And I think most of those rights have leaked to people with money. And I think Trump is trying to create an incentive system where he says, if you just either on board with me or if you're not on board with me, you just keep quiet. Hey, Bob Iger, just pay off that 10 million dol settlement and pay and establish a terrible precedent because it'll help your shareholder value and you'll make 70 million this year instead of 30 million. Hey, Sherry Redstone, you need that two and a half billion dollars? Go ahead and have 60 Minutes, pay me $25 million and show legally that you were wrong and put a chill across all of our great media organization. Hey, Paul Weiss. Agree to give me pro bono services and bend a knee and undermine our entire judicial system because the incentives are so Great. And just as I wrap up this word salad, the reason an autocrat is successful is one, he punishes his enemies and two, he makes billionaires of his allies. And this is what I believe is happening with this tariff nonsense. And that is, I think Trump probably realizes this shit just doesn't work. He's taken tariffs up 50 times and down, up or down 50 times, he's created more market volatility than almost any non war action in history. I believe he's doing it on purpose and that he and the people close to him are making billions trading against that volatility. And when his top cop, the Attorney General, sells her shares in Donald Trump Media, the morning he announces tariffs, which take the market way down, she knew something. And if you look at the volume of zero day options the day, the hours before, the minutes before he announces these tariffs, somebody, Chris knows something. And so if I'm a powerful hedge funder, maybe I don't like what he's doing, but the closer I get to him or the more I just stay the fuck out of his crosshairs, the more money I make. So I think a lot of Americans are not nodding to the fidelity and the underlying pillars of democracy and capitalism that made them rich in the first place because they want to get even richer. And I think he has mastered creating a lens of incentives through which Democrats, powerful Democrats, stay quiet and powerful and rich Republicans want to talk a minute night and find out if he's issuing a tariff tomorrow night, because if he is, he can trade against it and make billions of dollars.
- [66:29]
Chris Cuomo
What worries you most over the next 18 months to a couple of years, and what do you believe gives you the greatest sense of optimism in that same period?
- [66:42]
Scott Galloway
I worry that, I think there's a lot of people abroad who would like to come for us and take our Netflix and an espresso way and would kill us. They will absolutely take advantage of us the moment they think they can. I think we have a lot of adversaries overseas who think of us. We have a disproportionate amount of the world spoils. And the moment someone thinks they can grab much or most of that back, they will. And I worry that creating these manufactured enemies and problems internally is going to give confidence and rise to, you know, does China decide to invade Taiwan? I think the, the thing keeping China out of Taiwan right now is the fact that the Ukrainian army, backed by Europe and the US with the right technology really gives pause to any military power looking in, looking to invade a highly motivated, technically sophisticated workforce or a military force. But I worry that if someone were going to get aggressive right now, they would see us as pretty distracted, pretty disunited. So I think we're left less safe because we're not seen as unified. Now, maybe that might rally us together. And some people would argue that we're safer under Trump because he's seen as such a wild card. So people are afraid to front. But I worry about, I worry about a foreign adversary deciding this is the time to strike because we seem so united. The thing that gives me hope is I think young people are more engaged, more intelligent and are, are, are, are more informed. Is that correct? And I also, I think there's a lot of civil. I get very, very heartened when I see people engaging in civil and peaceful protests. It makes it. I think that's a wonderful thing about America. I think people are, are, are spending more time trying to, trying to really understand what they think of the future of America is going to be. And I think we're going to see a great voter turnout in 26. I think it'll be a record turnout for a midterm term. But I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. I see the problems, Chris. You know, I struggle with anger and depression that manifests itself in my predictions. So I, I think things are pretty bad right now. And I worry that we're slowly kind of. There's just a slow burn into this mix between authoritarianism and fascism, which I think is really dangerous. And unfortunately, I think most Democratic leaders brighten up a room by leaving it. I think the Democratic Party, their strategy of pushback on this slow burn to fascism is a strongly worded letter. I'm just so disgusted with our leadership. I think the Democratic Party, I just addressed the Young Democratic Caucus, the representatives there, and they said, what's your advice for us? I'm like, we need to be the party and not around. Why wouldn't you announce. Why wouldn't one of you announce for president? I mean, there's like 15 of you running that I know of already, but you just don't admit it. Announce the executive orders you're going to issue on day one 1. Announce a bill that will dissolve or puncture pardon immunity for people who have engaged in fraud or taken money from foreign governments illegally or who have incorrectly or illegally incarcerated people. I mean, but we're sending them strongly worded letters. So I'm, I'm scared and dis, you know, scared and the term is horrified by what's going on on the right But I'm just so disappointed in the left. I just think we totally. Who's the leader of the Democratic Party right now, Chris? Who is it? Who's pushing back? Who's standing up in any way, really push back.
- [70:11]
Chris Cuomo
But they're not pushing back by being about anything better. I keep saying that Democrats and I know that there's something frustrating about this. When somebody is doing something you don't want, you want to tell them to go fuck themselves and punch them in the face. I understand that. But unfortunately, in terms of moving the needle with the American majority, it's about being in the business of better. And aoc, even Bernie or any of these other people where they get off some one liners on Trump, they embarrass Trump, they shame Trump. It doesn't, doesn't move the needle with the majority. The majority wants better. And if you want to be a righteous warrior, then you got to be fighting for things that you're for. And you know, you've got some guys in the Democratic Party I think could make a difference. I think Governor West Moore could make a difference. I think Josh Shapiro, Governor Josh Shapiro could make a difference. They've got the charisma Wes Moore's got.
- [71:12]
Scott Galloway
Where are they? We've got a good bench, but where are they? Why doesn't one of them announce the running for president?
- [71:16]
Chris Cuomo
Well, because you listen, I got to tell you. I know, I know why. Because you do not need a minute. A second longer under the scope than is absolutely necessary because I am coming for you. The media is coming for you. I'm going to find something on you. You're not going to handle it right. And I'm going to just sink my teeth into you. And then everybody who's against you is going to echo it. So why put yourself in that position before you absolutely have to?
- [71:48]
Scott Galloway
Yeah. Although I think of one of these, so it's obvious they're running. I'm sure you hear from them. I hear from them. They call me and want to know my views, which is their way of saying they want to come on my podcast or they want my money. And that's because they're running for president. My attitude is somebody needs to, through an organic means, identify themselves as the spokesperson for the Democratic Party. Right now I couldn't even identify who our leader is. Is it.
- [72:12]
Chris Cuomo
That's what Cory Booker tried to do with his filibuster. But there's something so. I don't know, man. There's something so cloying about what he does. I'm not saying he's not authentic. I know a lot of people who love him, but there's something about it that just seems performative.
- [72:27]
Scott Galloway
Well, I think people want someone who feels as if they're the reluctant bride running for president, not someone who's been running for president since they were 18. And you know, it's, it's. I think there, I do think there's a big opportunity though. And we hadn't heard of a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama at this point the election cycle. But I do think someone, there's an opportunity for someone to step in. And I think the biggest opportunity and what's the weakest part of the Democratic Party is we've become way too focused on grabbing and establishing social virtue as opposed to proposing plans that impact positively the material and psychological well being of, of Americans. We want to be virtuous, we want to be righteous, we want to be politically correct as opposed to saying, okay, the deficit's out of control. Withdrawal. This is a tax plan. We need an alternative minimum tax on corporations of say 28%. We need an alternative minimum tax of 50%. If you make more than 10 million bucks as an individual a year, which by the way, only takes us back to the 70s or 80s, we're going to have to means test and increase the age on Social Security. I'm sorry folks, it sucks to be a grown up. And we're going to take interest rates down, we're going to take the deficit down and that will take the cost of your student loans, your car in your mortgage down 50, 60, 100, 200 basis points. And our markets will continue to go up because if we aren't seen as physically conservative or fiscally sane, the markets are going to crash. I think the, I think the world or Democrats are ready for an adult conversation as opposed to spending all their time talking about a high school high jumper and how it's important that, that she be able to compete. It's like, what the. Look, okay, there are laws. Don't demonize this person. I get it. But that's where we're gonna, that's the wood we're gonna put our energy behind. Why aren't they focused on the fact that, you know, they gotta be more focused on 13 million people are gonna lose their Medicaid. All right, now what's the solution? We know the GOP tax bills is, is bad. Well, here's an idea. We lower the qualification for Medicare from 65. We lower it by 24 months every year for 30 years. And we have nationalized medicine. The G7 nations, six of them, spend $6,500 a year for healthcare. We spend 13, 350 million Americans. If in 30 to 40 years you could bring the cost in line with the G7, you literally solve the deficit. And if you paint a vision for it and do it incrementally such that the lobbyists and the existing healthcare industrial complex had a chance to adjust, you would essentially solve the deficit. It but it's boring and it's not that exciting, so no one wants to talk about it.
- [75:05]
Chris Cuomo
It's not just boring, it is boring. Although I thought that that was actually pretty articulate and pretty good. It's not immediate. The, the problem with Social Security. You know, I started in advocacy work with a think tank that was formed called the 2030 center for When my generation, the meat of generation, Generation X, turned 65 and what was going to happen with Social Security and what I learned in that process, I actually helped start the think tank with Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, who's now Kellyanne Conway and now no longer Kellyanne Conway, now Kellyanne Fitzpatrick again. But that's where I know her from that long ago. It's not now. And if it's not now, it's not going to matter in the election. The deficit and the debt are real, real, they are real concerns. They will never change an election as more than a talking point because screwing your kids doesn't have enough teeth. And it's not a crisis right now. And none of these people in office will be there to see the fruits of whatever change they make. So it's about now. So you have to figure out a campaign that is about now. And it will affect us now. And I know that's not how corporations plan, it's not how intelligent people think. I know failing to plan is planning to fail. But in elective politics, the midterm is gonna be about gas and groceries and whatever major social issue Trump can come up with for that moment. That's what's gonna decide the midterms.
- [76:38]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, but I think you can make the argument that long term thinking will impact all of us right now. So the reason Nvidia Trades is the most valuable company in the world is people think they're going to make more money in five or 10 years. And I think if you outline a series of policies that say within 10 to 20 years, we're going to bring health care costs in line with the rest of the G6 and we're going to bring our deficit to neutral within 8 to 12 years, that the markets will soar and the interest rates and the payments on your house, your car and your student loan will go down. And also the free gift with purchase is that you'll be able to look your kids in the eyes and saying, okay, okay, I'm trying to do something about this. So I think the key to prosperity in the moment is what I'll call fiscal sanity of long term thinking. The whole point of an elected populace in a democratic nation is they're supposed to prevent a tragedy of the commons. And one of the things that ails us is we have the oldest, oldest electorate in any democracy. Our Washington has become a cross between the golden girls and the land of the dead. You know, and one of the problems with that is that in 30 years, three quarters of them are going to be dead. So they don't think about the deficit, they don't think about climate change. And if you look at what I believe a sane approach to the deficit and not adding two and three quarter trillion to it, I think our stocks go up, I think our interest rates go down, I think our ability to borrow money, the depth of the pools of capital such that we can borrow money, I think all of these things, our national security party get more secure and more prosperous now. And I also think that there's an opportunity to have an honest conversation around young people and struggling young men and mating. For me, the unifying theory of everything. I was talking to the I get involved in Democratic messaging. I'm like, you have to have a unifying message of everything. To your point, Chris, it can't just be he sucks. The message has to be more than he sucks. I'm like, I wouldn't even talk about him right now. And for me, the unifying theory of everything is that America should be a platform such that any young person under the age of 40 has a reasonable shot at finding someone falling in love and having the economic wherewithal to have a kid and know they're not going to have medical or dental debt, know that they're going to have clean, safe water, know that they're going to have a decent job. I believe minimum wage should be raised at 25 bucks an hour. I'm anti union. I think unions are corrupt and inefficient. And I think there should be one union in the federal government that pays people $25 an hour. And the state, states that have raised their minimum wage have seen an increase in economy because the wonderful thing about poor middle class households is they spend all of their money which has a More stimulative multiplier effect. But everyone, every young person, tax credits for third places. I'd like to see more bars. I think this anti alcohol movement is terrible for young people. More, more religious institutions. And I say that as an atheist. National service, decent jobs, vocational training. So we get some of our young men more, more emotionally and financially viable. But every young person in America, given the prosperity we should have, should not worry about medical debt. Should have a shot at housing 6 million houses in 10 years. Manufactured houses which cost 30 to 50% less than other houses. A massive increase in permitting. Stop this NIMBYism. I do. The one thing I do like in this bill is that it says it's going to raise taxes on colleges who don't spend their endowment. Dramatically expand freshman classes. Dartmouth has an $8 billion endowment and lets in 500 kids. That's fucking ridiculous. They should be letting in 1500 or 5000 kids. But paints a future that says your kids are going to have much better prospects because you have kids. Chris, you know this. If your kids aren't doing well, you got your world of work, you got your world of friends, you got your role to kids. When your kids aren't doing well, your whole world shrinks to that kid. So I think that America would be very open to what I call a forward leaning thing that says my job's to think long term term. And if we present to the world a vision of why we are more fiscally responsible than we have been, it's going to reverse engineer to cheaper capital and stronger markets which will benefit you on day one.
- [80:35]
Chris Cuomo
Listen, I love all of it. That's why I keep putting you out there every chance I get. And when I hear you somewhere else, I listen very carefully and then footnote you when I'm trying to argue things to people. I believe that as is true with many things in America, there's a blessing and a curse and there's a ratio and it's really close to net to neutral if we're lucky. And as much as I believe that what happens on social media and digital media is part of the problem and fomenting the tensions, there are guys like you who I think are counteracting it and using the platform. That is well deserved. So thank you for helping me, Scott, explain the world around us. And more importantly, to talk about how it can get better. Better and not just for us and the advantage of what we're pushing in the moment, but the advancement of the many as opposed to just the benefit of the few. I Appreciate you for that.
- [81:28]
Scott Galloway
You're being generous, Chris, but as, as a other person who considers himself a moderate, I'm stuck in the middle of you. And you know, how we're doing our job is, is we get from the left and the right, so I think we're doing our job well.
- [81:40]
Chris Cuomo
You know, it ain't easy, and I don't have really good answers, certainly not as good as you do. And I just see the problems. I see the game, I see how things are architected to get over on people, and it just keeps working. And yeah, I see Trump as a huge player in that, but he's not the only one. And there's an intolerance on the left right now where I'm not allowed to say that last part. No, no, no, he's the worst. Nothing else matters. You must attack him. You must end him. And in favor of what? Oh, anything's better. Well, I don't know. If that were true, then we wouldn't have wound up here. But I appreciate you and I look forward to seeing you when you're back this way.
- [82:22]
Scott Galloway
Likewise, Chris. Thanks for having me on.
- [82:29]
Chris Cuomo
I told you, sometimes it's worth a listen just to hear how someone else processes what's going on. And then. And once you see things differently, you see everything differently. It's literally like putting a different kind of lens in front of the scope of your camera. And that's what Scott Galloway is for me. Hopefully that's what he is for you as well, to understand what's happening around us, why it's happening, who's doing what to us and why, and what can we do about it, and what would be better? Great questions, answers are hard, but it doesn't mean you stop asking, asking. My brothers and sisters, let's get after it. Thank you for subscribing and following. I'll see you on News Nation, 8p and 11p every weekday night. Thank you for being there and giving me a chance. Thank you for checking out the substack and subscribing. If you want your comments to be replied to by me and my guests, and if you want to wear your independence, get the free agent gear. My brothers and sisters, that's how I raise money to crowdsource some contributions that we can all feel good about. I'll see you soon.